Part Eighty Six
"And how did you get on in one of Her Majesty's Prisons, Jo? Did you find it the sort of institution that the more reactionary members of the judiciary think are too lenient on prisoners?" John started off the conversation.
Jo Mills had been unusually quiet when she came to visit him in chambers. She took a long look at the volumes of reference books that lined a wall of John's chambers. Till her visit to Larkhall, she viewed them only as an accumulated source of learning to be deployed for the purposes of him, as the ultimate repository of knowledge. Some of the more ancient leather bound volumes belonged to the Victorian era having been thumbed and fingered by generations of judges past in search of precedent and case law. Once a particular prominent court case had decided someone's future ,it cast its long shadow through the generations unless the passing of a law stopped it in its tracks and relegated it to history. To Jo, the whole legal process operated like some enormous cat's cradle of interlocking threads woven round innumerable fingers and thumbs yet which conformed to an overall structure, amorphous though it appeared to be. It was a common trait of the judiciary to delight in these structured abstractions as much as a sculptor had for the feel for marble and clay in his hand.
All this appeared to be the structure for the ever changing script outlines for such as her, or George or any other practising barrister to appear on the courtroom stage. The walk on parts were the ever changing cast who appeared in the dock, centre stage, to be found guilty or innocent as the case may be or the witnesses speaking for or against the accused. And like an actor, she had finely honed her array of oratorical techniques to shape the outcome of the play. The difference was that they all shaped the writing and the final outcome of the play.
True, both she and John had more than an interest purely in the techniques of their profession. Ever since she witnessed John help out her own father, many years ago when he was a practising barrister, both had a burning wish to shape their skills in the cause of justice, the righting of wrongs and that the morally guilty should be brought to book. Both their sense of justice had been sharpened, not blunted by the passing of the years when the culture of political expediency had pervaded society more and more. Both defied the hackneyed saying that at twenty, you are an ardent Socialist and at fifty a right wing Conservative. John Deed bucked this trend as he did so much in this corrupt society and Jo followed suit in her feminine intuitive fashion. She was not some mere John Deed acolyte.
What she had never thought of was what happened to the countless women who had been found guilty by the judicial process.
"Like someone had stepped over my grave," Jo shivered. "I've heard many stories of crimes committed by clients that I've prosecuted or occasionally defended. I thought that when I had helped secure a guilty verdict, the accused is spirited away to disappear for so many years to a place called prison. I never thought that the prisoners would have to exist, jammed on top of each other, day in day out. It's a whole different world that's so hard to explain," She finished, struggling to find words to express her thoughts.
"In what way, Jo?" John asked softly.He was alert in a second. It was not like Jo to talk this way. At times, he thought ruefully of some of their more confrontational moments that her facility with words was too good.
"It's a whole different world that swallows you up while you are there. I wonder now just how much it had marked even Yvonne Atkins. I remember looking round the gallery at the Atkins Pilkinton trial and it seemed unreal that any of them had done time." Jo shook her head.
"Start from the beginning. I'm interested and I hope that I can help you."
Jo took a sip from the sherry glass and placed it carefully on one side.
"You go in past the security gate and your personal possessions are searched from top to bottom, they have to as they have to treat all visitors the same. I walked into this stone courtyard where nobody is allowed outside and went through two sets of barred gates and into this huge echoing space that is hemmed in with metal walkways and more bars and bolts.The world is shut in behind you. Right up in the ceiling are a line of curved windows, like in a shopping mall but nothing like you've ever seen before……….At the best of times, Karen must have to have eyes in the back of her head without someone like Fenner who systematically abused the trust not only of the prisoners in his charge but of a Wing Governor who was trying to do some good with the system that they were stuck with, like Karen, like Helen and like we are trying to do with the legal system in our way. It all connects if you look hard enough," Jo said slowly and reflectively.
John had the strong feeling that she was speaking to make sense as much as to herself as to him. He nodded at her but said nothing in order to let her continue uninterrupted.
"I'm struggling to get my head round this. There's a culture of bullying there where the weakest go to the wall. Rachel Hicks did because of being bullied by two other prisoners and being let down by Fenner who used her for what he wanted and let her down when she got into trouble. Yet Shell Dockley was beaten up once by Fenner in her turn before ending up at Ashmore. The more you start asking questions, the more questions you find that need asking." Jo's halting speech, feeling her way, finally petered out.
"What do you want me to do, Jo? You know that I have all the sympathy in the world but that isn't enough," John's gentle voice broke in on her thoughts.
"A civil case against prison service area management for negligence," came Jo's very precise, clearly articulated reply. "There are a series of files festering in their vaults that should have been followed up and, if linked together, would have given cause for a comprehensive enquiry. What do they have Human Resource departments for? Item one, the report into the assault on Shell Dockley where two witnesses senior to Fenner gave evidence that blows Fenner's version of the incident right out of the water. Added to that is the very suspicious retraction by Shell Dockley at a later date which was taken at face value by the Governing Governor and, by implication area. In turn, Shell Dockley's evidence casts light on the relationship between him and Rachel Hicks and, item two, the never resolved enquiry into her suicide. Item three is the escape of Shell Dockley and two other prisoners and the Area investigation who laid the blame on the Governing Governor as formally responsible for the overall running of the prison at a time when a TV film crew had access to the prison. Specific questions as to who did what at the time were never followed up
Item four, while it won't be on any official files, there are allegations that Fenner- the name keeps cropping up, doesn't it- was involved in managing a chain of brothels for the benefit of the owner who was an inmate of Larkhall and receiving a share of the earnings. Item five is the report into the suicide of Maxi Purvis and Fenner's suspiciously lenient treatment in terms of her privileges who had been later found out to be one of the murderers of the brothel owner. Oh yes, and we have Grayling's handling of when Fenner raped Karen. It would be interesting to know if area were aware of the matter and what role they played."
"There is the makings of a case in just the way that you indicate, Jo."
"George has agreed to take this case on. It's more her field. Besides, she has the greater ability to worm out the extra information that would bolster up the case."
"A month or so ago, you would have said that she was just the sort of ruthless and scheming woman with the ability to handle this kind of work and, if the fee wasn't big enough to afford to clear out half the contents of Harrods, she wouldn't dream of taking it on," John smiled as he recalled some of George's more sensational outbursts right up to midway through the Atkins Pilkinton case.
"if George was the same as she was a month ago," Jo grinned, "She would have had that door down for good. " She pointed at the nice shiny new brass hinges on the door which was a permanent memento of life in the cloistered chambers of England's ancient and respectable order of the judiciary.
The moonlight shone through the bedroom window and cast a gentle light on the strongly marked lines that drew Yvonne's face. Her hair, normally so spiky as her personality yet every hair in its place was dishevelled as Karen's long shapely fingers rested gently on the smooth skin of Yvonne's shoulder and her other arm was trapped underneath her yet held onto her. She looked at peace in sleep and there was much more of a feeling of peace since that fateful night when Karen had asked Mark Waddle home to spend the night with her to round off the sharp edges of their fragile relationship. This time, there wasn't that sense of strain. She felt no compulsion to leave her bed and smoke a lonely cigarette in the cold frozen air of her kitchen. That was the last thing she felt like doing as even her restless nicotine craving was at rest. Gently, her lips lightly caressed Yvonne's face.
"Whatsamatter, Karen, you've let me go to sleep when that's the last thing I wanted to do?" her sleepy mumble roused her to wake and her mouth hungrily sought out Karen's.
She's as insatiable as I am and I thought that was impossible, a stray thought crossed Karen's mind as their bodies moulded together naturally with all the heat and passion that came so naturally to them now and mixed sensations overtook her of the taste of Yvonne's skin and the moonlight tinted darkness. It seemed a long time since they were together and the feelings of restraint that they ought to act properly in front of Lauren had taken a little while to dissolve away into the pure physical satisfaction that they both knew now that they needed.
"How did you get let out of Fort Knox, Yvonne?" came the throaty, out of breath voice as they both lay on their backs, sweaty but feeling complete.
"I've had to prove myself bleeding super mum to Lauren just to reassure her," Came the joking reply. "Seriously though, once I've proved to her that having a new partner wasn't going to be a threat to her, then she's gone back to going out clubbing. Mums are boring to watch telly with. She stayed over at Cassie and Roisin's and that changed her but I don't know how or why."
"Don't ask questions, darling. You might not want to know the answer," Came Karen's low laugh and her full kiss on the lips.
Yvonne smiled in the reflection of feeling totally free with the cool air next to her skin and the bedclothes all askew, half off the bed.
"Ross is off somewhere in the great unknown.It was different when he was growing up. Half the time, I was on my own rushing round making sure he was off for school before I set off for the morning shift for work and feeling guilty as hell because I was a working mum and he was with childminders in the school holidays. The other half, he was having to get used to another boyfriend of mine. I missed not seeing more of him than I did and it hurt worse when he first set off for uni," Karen sighed. "but it's up to him to make his own way in life if being a student isn't for him."
"Kids, eh?" came the reflective reply. "but you come to the point when you have to have a life for yourself. Anyway, why are we talking about kids?" her bemused tones asked herself as much as Karen.
"Search me," came the reply.
"Haven't we got better things to be doing?" smiled Yvonne as she moved towards Karen. Part of the sweetness of their lovemaking came from how they had to make the most of their chances and claim their lives for their own. The demands of motherhood were a hard habit for both of them to break, so they realised, even at a moment like this.
"And how did you get on in one of Her Majesty's Prisons, Jo? Did you find it the sort of institution that the more reactionary members of the judiciary think are too lenient on prisoners?" John started off the conversation.
Jo Mills had been unusually quiet when she came to visit him in chambers. She took a long look at the volumes of reference books that lined a wall of John's chambers. Till her visit to Larkhall, she viewed them only as an accumulated source of learning to be deployed for the purposes of him, as the ultimate repository of knowledge. Some of the more ancient leather bound volumes belonged to the Victorian era having been thumbed and fingered by generations of judges past in search of precedent and case law. Once a particular prominent court case had decided someone's future ,it cast its long shadow through the generations unless the passing of a law stopped it in its tracks and relegated it to history. To Jo, the whole legal process operated like some enormous cat's cradle of interlocking threads woven round innumerable fingers and thumbs yet which conformed to an overall structure, amorphous though it appeared to be. It was a common trait of the judiciary to delight in these structured abstractions as much as a sculptor had for the feel for marble and clay in his hand.
All this appeared to be the structure for the ever changing script outlines for such as her, or George or any other practising barrister to appear on the courtroom stage. The walk on parts were the ever changing cast who appeared in the dock, centre stage, to be found guilty or innocent as the case may be or the witnesses speaking for or against the accused. And like an actor, she had finely honed her array of oratorical techniques to shape the outcome of the play. The difference was that they all shaped the writing and the final outcome of the play.
True, both she and John had more than an interest purely in the techniques of their profession. Ever since she witnessed John help out her own father, many years ago when he was a practising barrister, both had a burning wish to shape their skills in the cause of justice, the righting of wrongs and that the morally guilty should be brought to book. Both their sense of justice had been sharpened, not blunted by the passing of the years when the culture of political expediency had pervaded society more and more. Both defied the hackneyed saying that at twenty, you are an ardent Socialist and at fifty a right wing Conservative. John Deed bucked this trend as he did so much in this corrupt society and Jo followed suit in her feminine intuitive fashion. She was not some mere John Deed acolyte.
What she had never thought of was what happened to the countless women who had been found guilty by the judicial process.
"Like someone had stepped over my grave," Jo shivered. "I've heard many stories of crimes committed by clients that I've prosecuted or occasionally defended. I thought that when I had helped secure a guilty verdict, the accused is spirited away to disappear for so many years to a place called prison. I never thought that the prisoners would have to exist, jammed on top of each other, day in day out. It's a whole different world that's so hard to explain," She finished, struggling to find words to express her thoughts.
"In what way, Jo?" John asked softly.He was alert in a second. It was not like Jo to talk this way. At times, he thought ruefully of some of their more confrontational moments that her facility with words was too good.
"It's a whole different world that swallows you up while you are there. I wonder now just how much it had marked even Yvonne Atkins. I remember looking round the gallery at the Atkins Pilkinton trial and it seemed unreal that any of them had done time." Jo shook her head.
"Start from the beginning. I'm interested and I hope that I can help you."
Jo took a sip from the sherry glass and placed it carefully on one side.
"You go in past the security gate and your personal possessions are searched from top to bottom, they have to as they have to treat all visitors the same. I walked into this stone courtyard where nobody is allowed outside and went through two sets of barred gates and into this huge echoing space that is hemmed in with metal walkways and more bars and bolts.The world is shut in behind you. Right up in the ceiling are a line of curved windows, like in a shopping mall but nothing like you've ever seen before……….At the best of times, Karen must have to have eyes in the back of her head without someone like Fenner who systematically abused the trust not only of the prisoners in his charge but of a Wing Governor who was trying to do some good with the system that they were stuck with, like Karen, like Helen and like we are trying to do with the legal system in our way. It all connects if you look hard enough," Jo said slowly and reflectively.
John had the strong feeling that she was speaking to make sense as much as to herself as to him. He nodded at her but said nothing in order to let her continue uninterrupted.
"I'm struggling to get my head round this. There's a culture of bullying there where the weakest go to the wall. Rachel Hicks did because of being bullied by two other prisoners and being let down by Fenner who used her for what he wanted and let her down when she got into trouble. Yet Shell Dockley was beaten up once by Fenner in her turn before ending up at Ashmore. The more you start asking questions, the more questions you find that need asking." Jo's halting speech, feeling her way, finally petered out.
"What do you want me to do, Jo? You know that I have all the sympathy in the world but that isn't enough," John's gentle voice broke in on her thoughts.
"A civil case against prison service area management for negligence," came Jo's very precise, clearly articulated reply. "There are a series of files festering in their vaults that should have been followed up and, if linked together, would have given cause for a comprehensive enquiry. What do they have Human Resource departments for? Item one, the report into the assault on Shell Dockley where two witnesses senior to Fenner gave evidence that blows Fenner's version of the incident right out of the water. Added to that is the very suspicious retraction by Shell Dockley at a later date which was taken at face value by the Governing Governor and, by implication area. In turn, Shell Dockley's evidence casts light on the relationship between him and Rachel Hicks and, item two, the never resolved enquiry into her suicide. Item three is the escape of Shell Dockley and two other prisoners and the Area investigation who laid the blame on the Governing Governor as formally responsible for the overall running of the prison at a time when a TV film crew had access to the prison. Specific questions as to who did what at the time were never followed up
Item four, while it won't be on any official files, there are allegations that Fenner- the name keeps cropping up, doesn't it- was involved in managing a chain of brothels for the benefit of the owner who was an inmate of Larkhall and receiving a share of the earnings. Item five is the report into the suicide of Maxi Purvis and Fenner's suspiciously lenient treatment in terms of her privileges who had been later found out to be one of the murderers of the brothel owner. Oh yes, and we have Grayling's handling of when Fenner raped Karen. It would be interesting to know if area were aware of the matter and what role they played."
"There is the makings of a case in just the way that you indicate, Jo."
"George has agreed to take this case on. It's more her field. Besides, she has the greater ability to worm out the extra information that would bolster up the case."
"A month or so ago, you would have said that she was just the sort of ruthless and scheming woman with the ability to handle this kind of work and, if the fee wasn't big enough to afford to clear out half the contents of Harrods, she wouldn't dream of taking it on," John smiled as he recalled some of George's more sensational outbursts right up to midway through the Atkins Pilkinton case.
"if George was the same as she was a month ago," Jo grinned, "She would have had that door down for good. " She pointed at the nice shiny new brass hinges on the door which was a permanent memento of life in the cloistered chambers of England's ancient and respectable order of the judiciary.
The moonlight shone through the bedroom window and cast a gentle light on the strongly marked lines that drew Yvonne's face. Her hair, normally so spiky as her personality yet every hair in its place was dishevelled as Karen's long shapely fingers rested gently on the smooth skin of Yvonne's shoulder and her other arm was trapped underneath her yet held onto her. She looked at peace in sleep and there was much more of a feeling of peace since that fateful night when Karen had asked Mark Waddle home to spend the night with her to round off the sharp edges of their fragile relationship. This time, there wasn't that sense of strain. She felt no compulsion to leave her bed and smoke a lonely cigarette in the cold frozen air of her kitchen. That was the last thing she felt like doing as even her restless nicotine craving was at rest. Gently, her lips lightly caressed Yvonne's face.
"Whatsamatter, Karen, you've let me go to sleep when that's the last thing I wanted to do?" her sleepy mumble roused her to wake and her mouth hungrily sought out Karen's.
She's as insatiable as I am and I thought that was impossible, a stray thought crossed Karen's mind as their bodies moulded together naturally with all the heat and passion that came so naturally to them now and mixed sensations overtook her of the taste of Yvonne's skin and the moonlight tinted darkness. It seemed a long time since they were together and the feelings of restraint that they ought to act properly in front of Lauren had taken a little while to dissolve away into the pure physical satisfaction that they both knew now that they needed.
"How did you get let out of Fort Knox, Yvonne?" came the throaty, out of breath voice as they both lay on their backs, sweaty but feeling complete.
"I've had to prove myself bleeding super mum to Lauren just to reassure her," Came the joking reply. "Seriously though, once I've proved to her that having a new partner wasn't going to be a threat to her, then she's gone back to going out clubbing. Mums are boring to watch telly with. She stayed over at Cassie and Roisin's and that changed her but I don't know how or why."
"Don't ask questions, darling. You might not want to know the answer," Came Karen's low laugh and her full kiss on the lips.
Yvonne smiled in the reflection of feeling totally free with the cool air next to her skin and the bedclothes all askew, half off the bed.
"Ross is off somewhere in the great unknown.It was different when he was growing up. Half the time, I was on my own rushing round making sure he was off for school before I set off for the morning shift for work and feeling guilty as hell because I was a working mum and he was with childminders in the school holidays. The other half, he was having to get used to another boyfriend of mine. I missed not seeing more of him than I did and it hurt worse when he first set off for uni," Karen sighed. "but it's up to him to make his own way in life if being a student isn't for him."
"Kids, eh?" came the reflective reply. "but you come to the point when you have to have a life for yourself. Anyway, why are we talking about kids?" her bemused tones asked herself as much as Karen.
"Search me," came the reply.
"Haven't we got better things to be doing?" smiled Yvonne as she moved towards Karen. Part of the sweetness of their lovemaking came from how they had to make the most of their chances and claim their lives for their own. The demands of motherhood were a hard habit for both of them to break, so they realised, even at a moment like this.