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Ten Years

by Joodiff

Tremayne House
St Mawes
Cornwall

11th April 2021

Dear Eve,

I know you will roll your eyes when you get this, and yes, I'm still very well-aware that email is much quicker and easier, but the older I get the more I enjoy returning to good old-fashioned letter-writing using pen and paper. It feels more personal, and I like the feeling of achievement and calm it brings me, so please just grit your teeth and indulge me!

I'm glad that despite everything you're still enjoying life in California, and that Mike has settled well into his new post at the university. The last year has been so very strange for all of us, and I really can't say that I'm sorry to be retired and not having to adjust to all the new ways of working. Saying that, for the last six months I have been running a series of free online group counselling and support sessions for people in the local area. So many of them are struggling to cope with all the restrictions and the social isolation, even with a faint light beginning to be visible at the end of the tunnel. The repeated lockdowns and all the changes to everyday life have been difficult for everyone.

It seems impossible that only just over a year ago life was completely normal, and even more impossible that it's been ten years since we were all working together in London. Ten years! Sometimes it feels like an entire lifetime ago, sometimes it feels like only yesterday, though perhaps it's only me who thinks so. We still hear from Spencer occasionally; he's now a DCI investigating serious fraud and is so busy that he has yet to visit us down here as he promised to. Boyd is still involved with the local marine archaeological society, though a lot of their activities have been severely curtailed since the pandemic started. They are investigating a Tudor wreck just off the coast here, but sadly diving has been halted for now. He has recently taken up sea kayaking instead – can you imagine?! He suggested I should try it, too, but I'm perfectly happy to confine my permitted exercise to long solitary walks along the coast – much warmer and drier. Still, it gets him out of the house for while a few times a week.

My (perhaps I should say "our") new book will be published here in a couple of weeks. I'm a little nervous about it, since it's really not the sort of thing I'm used to writing, but Gareth (my new agent) is convinced it will do well. Apparently, the market for true crime and the like just keeps on expanding. I wonder what that says about us as a society?

Anyway, that brings me to the main purpose of this short letter. I enclose a clipping from a magazine that I thought would amuse you. You could probably find it online, but there's something much more satisfying about holding an actual piece of paper in your hand, don't you think?

I always look forward so much to your emails. Don't forget to tell us when your next lecture tour over here is finally able to go ahead. Assuming the world has halfway returned to normal by then, we'd love to see you (and Mike, of course, if he accompanies you). Boyd sends his regards.

Love,

Grace

New Horizons Magazine – 26th March 2021

Looking Into the Abyss – The Autobiography of a Leading Forensic Psychologist

Julia Frampton

Meeting Doctor Grace Foley for the first time is a bit of a surprise. A petite, sparky woman with a glint in her eye that belies her age, she is friendly and charming, and has a dry, robust sense of humour that doesn't stay hidden for long. We meet in the large garden of her substantial granite house in St Mawes, and I quickly discover that she is much more approachable and down-to-earth than her stellar reputation as one of the country's most successful criminal profilers might suggest. At first, I struggle to picture her as an academic, but she is quick to remind me that she was an undergraduate back in the 1960s. Within minutes of meeting her, I can easily picture her thoroughly enjoying every aspect of the infamous '60s counter-culture.

She shares the coastal house looming behind us with her long-term partner, Peter Boyd, a retired Metropolitan Police detective and the formidable former head of London's infamous disbanded Cold Case Unit. They met through work, but Foley is quick to earnestly inform me that they were just friends and colleagues for many, many years before becoming a couple. I immediately suspect there is rather more to the story of their relationship, but if there is, it's quite clear she's not prepared to share the details with me. They are not married, and, she assures me, have absolutely no plans to change that. "If it's not broken," she tells me, "why fix it?". It's the first of several cliches that she deploys defensively, and, I'm quite certain, ironically.

Boyd joins us several minutes into our conversation. An imposing man who is younger than Foley by several years, it's soon clear that he does not suffer fools gladly. He is gruffly polite, but cool and reserved, unwilling to talk about himself. Superficially, they seem an odd, mis-matched couple, but watching the way they interact with each other it's soon obvious that their obvious differences don't matter. Foley is quick to credit her taciturn partner with the enormous amount of help he has given her writing her latest book – an autobiography that takes the reader on a fascinating journey through a life spent interacting with some of Britain's most dangerous criminals.

"So many people have asked me about my job over the years," Foley says, "that when my agent suggested that I write my autobiography, I eventually decided to give it a go."

She doesn't say much about her early life in the memoir, I note. Was there a particular reason for that?

She shrugs. "Not really. I had a very ordinary childhood, growing up with my brother and sister in a working-class family in Lancashire. There wasn't much to say about it."

She was the very first person in her family to go to university, though, wasn't she? "I was, but who's interested in that?"

I am, I say, and so we do talk a little about it. A bright child, she went to the local Grammar school on a scholarship – something she has in common with her partner – but her parents were bewildered and unsettled by her determination to continue to follow an academic path. When she finished her degree, her mother suggested it was time for her to think about settling down, getting married, and having children. Foley chose to complete her Masters instead, and then moved to London to work on a PhD. There was a husband later, I discover, but the brief marriage didn't last. She does have two children, however, one of whom is now a psychologist himself, and several grandchildren, but it's obvious that conventional domesticity doesn't really suit her.

Why, I ask, sensing how fond they both are of it, did they leave London and move to Cornwall? Boyd is a Londoner, Foley tells me, but his maternal grandparents were from a little village near Truro. Leaving the city once they were both fully retired was a mutual decision, and Cornwall suited them both. It was that simple. They seem to have settled well, and when I ask if they ever regret their choice, they both instantly shake their heads.

Getting back to the book, I ask about the chapter that deals with Foley's highly-publicised abduction by Linda Cummings, the notorious female serial killer whose escape from a secure hospital and subsequent suicide made national news. Foley's attitude immediately becomes flinty. It was a story that needed telling, she says, but not one that she is happy to dwell on. I ask about the official inquiry into Cummings' death, and meet a stony wall of resistance from both Foley and her partner. Everything they wish to say on the matter is in the book, Boyd tells me. There is steel in the way he says it, and I wisely decide not to pursue the matter. There were always rumours about the unorthodox methods he used and condoned as leader of the Met's Cold Case Unit, and looking into his eyes as he warns me off the subject, I am inclined to believe them.

"Linda," Foley says, before the subject is closed for good, "was a manipulative and highly intelligent killer. Life and death, even her own, were just interesting games of strategy to her."

Staying with that period of her life, I reflect that it's been ten years since all funding was withdrawn from the Cold Case Unit. How do they feel now about the Met's controversial decision to close down what was a highly effective team?

"It was short-sighted," Boyd says. His words are blunt, but the response is considered. "There will always be unsolved crimes requiring reinvestigation, and I firmly believe that having a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team to do that was a pioneering experiment that succeeded on every level."

"It was entirely a political decision," Foley adds with a discernible hint of bitterness. "There was growing opposition in the higher echelons of the Force to the existence of a semi-autonomous team that was almost entirely self-sufficient. It was felt, in some quarters, that we were far too independent."

It's obvious that I've hit a nerve, so I decide to move on. Her career was a resounding success both before and after her tenure with the CCU. Before she retired completely, did she enjoy the renewed freedom to once again choose for herself what cases she consulted on?

She frowns as she answers. "I didn't really view it like that. I've always seen my role as to provide the legal system with whatever expertise is useful to it. My job is – was – to attempt to understand and explain criminal behaviour. To provide insights that may be useful to law enforcement and the penal system. It was never about cherry-picking what interested me personally."

I believe her. It's clear that she's a woman of great integrity, one who has always tried to do what she could to make a difference. People fascinate her, she tells me, and always have done. A career in psychology was an obvious choice.

From all those detailed in her book, is there one case in particular that sticks with her? She smiles thinly. "We've already discussed it."

I consider trying to ask further questions about Cummings, but my tentative forays in that direction are all deflected by one or both of them with an ease that illustrates what a good professional team they were. They do not finish each other's sentences in the manner of some couples, but they don't seem to even need to look at each other to communicate. In some ways, I find it a little eerie.

Changing the subject, I ask if there might be another book, one perhaps written by her partner? He shakes his head vehemently. "Grace is the writer, not me. Besides, retired coppers spewing out their memoirs are two-a-penny. Doesn't interest me one bit."

We talk a little more about Foley's career, chiefly about the time she spent as a psychologist at Broadmoor, and some of the notorious characters she dealt with there. She becomes animated as she discusses some of the breakthroughs she made with patients whose names she asks me not to disclose. I agree to her request, but I am genuinely impressed by her clientele. Boyd says very little, I note, but the way he and Foley exchange glances tells me that he is almost certainly here at her request. I wonder about that, since she is so obviously well-equipped to deal with an interview such as this. The curious dynamics of their relationship interest me, and I say as much. "We get along," Foley tells me, plainly not intending to explain further, "what else matters?"

They are an interesting enigma, this contradictory, complementary couple. The whole time I am talking to them I am certain that there is a lot I'm not being told about who they are and what they have achieved together. Before I leave, Foley shows me some photographs taken of them during their CCU days. I see a striking-looking woman with a shrewd, intelligent gaze, and a tall, well-dressed man whose closed expression is completely unreadable. They are both considerably older now, of course, but after spending an hour or two in their company I really don't think they have changed very much.

"Looking Into the Abyss – The Autobiography of a Leading Forensic Psychologist" is published by Jacard on April 26th.

- the end -

This story was uploaded on 11th April 2021 to mark the ten years since the first
broadcast of "Waterloo" (Part 2), the very last episode of "Waking the Dead".