A Fork in the Road

For the next few weeks, Sarah followed up and chased down various leads that came and went.

On good days one of her colleagues would reply with something that seemed credible and she would follow it up, but more often than not it would only leave her with more questions than before.

Four months after she received the email that prompted her to begin her investigation, Sarah who had just finished helping one of her colleagues on their story, received a text message. She looked at the unknown number with a little wariness but chose to open the message anyway, only to find that it contained a single picture.

Sarah's eyes widened a little when she recognised the man in the photo. It was none other than the Police Minister she was currently investigating. He was in the middle of fellatio with what appeared to be a young Asian woman. Like the previous photo in the email, this one was also taken from the side and she once again recognised the Minister through his trademark hook-shaped mole just below his left eye. Sarah inferred from the tears coming out of the one eye shown in the photograph, that the young nude woman was in distress and had perhaps been coerced somehow.

Left speechless by the contents of this explosive photo, Sarah suddenly felt lost and did not know how to proceed. On the one hand, she was a journalist who had a duty to disclose information in the public's interest and on the other hand, she felt that this was the private affairs of a man and that perhaps amounted to no more than a salacious affair and possibly a breach of privacy. Perhaps it would be better to hand it over to the relevant authorities.

She felt that she should ask for another opinion and decided to contact her boss Leigh.

"Hello, Sarah to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hey, Leigh I have a bit of a problem here in my story I have been investigating, do you think you have time to discuss this with me? I need some help."

"Ah, yeah sure, are you in the office?"

"No, I went out to help Yvonne with her story, but I am on my way back now. I am about five minutes out, can I meet you in your office then?"

"Sure, I will wait for you then."

Sarah rushed back to the office and took the lift up to the seventh floor where the Department heads had their offices and was met by Leigh's assistant who took her inside and guided her towards her office.

"She's in the middle of a call right now but she should be finished soon. Just take a seat over there and I will call you when she's free. Thanks Sarah."

"Oh, thanks Sophie, by the way how has your mother been? Has she recovered from the fall?"

"Ah yeah she has, thanks for asking. She keeps bugging me to invite you over, so she has some company. You really left an impression on her last time, she asks about you so often that sometimes I wonder if you aren't her real daughter. Haha"

The two of them laughed and continued to exchange meaningless banter until they suddenly heard a loud cough coming from Leigh's office. They stopped talking and looked embarrassed as they simultaneously realised, they had made Leigh wait for them.

Sophie quickly got up and apologised to Leigh and opened the door to the office. Sarah then promptly stood up and walked into Leigh's office.

"Uh, sorry Leigh I asked for the meeting, but we got caught up in our own conversation."

Leigh heard the apologies form Sophie and Sarah gestured for Sarah to take a seat, Sophie let out a sigh of relief and closed the door before going back to her desk.

"Don't worry I won't hold it against you. So, what did you want to talk about?"

"I think it is better if I just show you this."

Sarah pulled out her phone, opened the text message and slid her phone over to Leigh. Leigh reacted to the image displayed, in almost exactly the same way as Sarah had earlier.

"Oh boy, this is a doozy. Sarah, have you shown this to anyone else?"

"No, you are the first person I have shown this to."

"Good, I need you to delete that immediately and promise me to never reveal what you saw in it."

Sarah thought she had misheard, and her mouth gaped open in shock before she quickly asked

"Wait, delete it, why?"

"There are some things that although we are investigative journalists and we pursue the truth, there are simply some things that are best left hidden. We must weigh up the costs of our actions and behaviours. We cannot go into this naïve and starry eyed, we must take calculated risks. I firmly believe that this will not be worth the pain we will all go through if you break this story."

"But surely we should at least investigate it a little before making this decision. We don't even know where he was when this happened. If this was during a publicly funded trip then surely the people deserve to know what he was up to, especially if he was abusing the public purse."

"Sarah, you have only been doing this job for three years. You have made a lot of progress in these three years, but there are still certain areas that we cannot go into. We would be doing a disservice to our jobs. We aren't tabloids or gossip magazines, we have standards and integrity. We cannot simply bring out anything that sounds remotely scandalous and dress it up as the be all and end all."

"Leigh, there is more to this story than a sex scandal. I feel it. My gut keeps telling me to keep on digging. You know I have been investigating the Minister and his alleged links with certain underworld figures. I think this has to do with it. Perhaps this is blackmail material."

Sarah saw Leigh hesitate a little and chose to compromise a little.

"I promise I will be more discrete with my dealings. If it becomes too much, I will pull the plug. Trust me on this please?"

Leigh, still a little dissatisfied saw Sarah's determined gaze and knew she would be unable to stop her investigating, chose to give in.

"Fine, I will let you keep looking into this. But you need to be extra careful, these people have powerful backers and even I would not be able to help you if they find out. However, if I feel you are in over your head, I will make sure you stop. I get the final say, capiche?"

"Yes, yes thanks boss! But where should I start?"

"Come on Sarah, you aren't the graduate student I hired three years ago anymore. You know what to do. Work the source. If you can find the source and extract the information about where this is and how they got it, then you have cracked the case. Or you can try the labour intensive and time-consuming way of scrutinising every detail of the photo in hopes of identifying any hints for the location. But that is all up to you, after all this is your case. So good luck and hurry along now, but remember to keep me regularly updated, or I will pull the plug."

Knowing that her time with Leigh was over, Sarah picked up her phone, thanked her boss once again and hurried out of the office. She decided to take Leigh's advice and try both avenues, fortunately she believed she knew someone who was always free.