Part One Hundred And Forty Three
When Karen and Ric entered her flat, his expression was undoubtedly appreciative. "Nice place," He said, his eyes sweeping round the extremely spacious lounge with the doors to the balcony at the far end. "A governing governor's salary isn't bad when there's no one else to spend it on," Karen said philosophically. "Coffee, wine, or scotch?" "Scotch always goes down nicely after a hard day's work," He said, watching her as she moved to the sideboard to pour their drinks. "Consultants didn't believe in working at the weekend in my day," She said as she handed him his drink. "That was before they only allowed us one or possibly two per department." "Oh, you poor thing," Karen mocked him playfully. "It makes a nice change for consultants to actually be getting their hands dirty." "I always did more than my fair share when you were working with me," He insisted, taking an appreciative sip of his Scotch. "Ah, but you were a registrar in those days, not a consultant," Karen pointed out. "And from what I can remember," He said, putting his glass down on the coffee table and then laying his hands on her shoulders. "It is the registrars who even now have all the fun." "I'm sure consultants get the odd added bonus," Karen said silkily, her eyes locking with his. It had been years since they'd looked at each other like this, their combined passion just simmering below the surface, waiting to boil over at the merest suggestion.
When their lips met, a whole host of memories rose up in both their minds. They could both remember the furtive moments, the stolen kisses and caresses, the mind-blowing orgasms which had all been wrong because he was married. But his matrimonial commitment hadn't prevented their liaison, possibly making it all the more intense because it was so forbidden, their passion having to be snatched at every given opportunity. His arms had gone around her waist, and hers up around his neck, both of them clinging to the other as the last fifteen years simply melted away. But when they eventually came up for air, Karen's head seemed to emerge from the cloud it had obviously been sitting on. "Ric," She said carefully, wondering how on earth she should phrase this. "Before either of us thinks about furthering this..." She waved her hand to encompass their closeness. "There are a lot of things you should probably know. I'm not quite the woman you used to know so well." "Why, you're not going to tell me that you've had a sex change somewhere along the line, are you?" He asked, making her laugh, and immediately lightening the atmosphere. "No, of course not," She said with a smile. "I just think that I ought to be honest with you. Considering the way I left, both you and the job, the least you deserve is knowing some of what's been happening to me all these years, though I'll warn you that most of it isn't nice." "So tell me," he said, taking her hand and leading her to the sofa where he pulled her down beside him. Taking a swig of her Scotch and lighting a cigarette, something else he'd seen her do a thousand times before, she began to tell him her story.
After taking a long drag of her cigarette, almost to buy her time before she shattered all his allusions about her, she said, "I was raped, nearly four years ago now, by someone who I knew was a total bastard, but who I thought loved me. Jim Fenner, was one of my officers, when I was still a wing governor. I lived with him for a while, even thought I loved him, which proved to be one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made." "Karen, being raped doesn't make you a lesser person," Ric said carefully, trying to mask the shock that her words had given him. Even after all his years in the medical profession, of seeing every kind of violence that one human being could do to another, he would never have expected such a strong, emotionally together woman to have suffered something like this. "No," She said, replying to his earlier statement. "But everything I did in the time leading up to that, does. I was completely under his influence. I wouldn't listen to a word against him, not even when the evidence was stronger than any misguided belief I might have had. I wasn't the only one he assaulted, but I was the only one who could quite easily take some of the blame." "Karen, you can't blame yourself for someone else's actions," Ric tried to tell her. "Oh, believe me, I can try," She said with a mirthless laugh. "But Fenner was only really the start of everything that went wrong. After Fenner... After that night, I picked up the criminally corrupt son of one of my inmates. I needed something normal, to prove I could still enjoy it. That was yet another huge cock up, pun unintended. Ritchie Atkins used me, without my knowledge I might add, to smuggle in a gun to his girlfriend, another of my inmates, who subsequently blew up part of the prison, killing a girl barely older than Jess would have been." "You don't lead a quiet life, do you," Ric said ruefully.
"Oh, it gets far more interesting, I promise you," Karen replied, getting up to pour them another drink. "Because then came Yvonne Atkins, Ritchie Atkins' mother." "Not the Yvonne Atkins?" Ric asked in astonishment. "Do you know her?" Karen asked in surprise. "Know her? I should say so. She used to own my favourite betting shop." "Typical," Karen said with a smile. "Well, after her release, and during the trial of the woman who'd blown up the prison library, I began a very short, but very sweet affair with Yvonne. She was the first woman I'd ever become involved with." "Why wait so long?" Ric asked with interest. "To become involved with a woman, I mean." "I guess you could say that the right one just hadn't turned up," Karen replied with a smile. "But with Yvonne, well, it didn't last. When Ritchie killed himself at the end of his trial, he left a note for his sister, asking her to get rid of Fenner. Ritchie knew about Fenner, I'm not sure how but he did, and it was his way of trying to make up for using me as a gun smuggler. Lauren killed Fenner, barely six weeks after I'd started seeing Yvonne, something which was used as a mitigating circumstance during her trial. If you ever took the time to read more than the racing pages, you'd have learnt most of this at the time. The press had a field day with the finer details of my sex life." "I've been trying to avoid even the racing pages for the last couple of years," Ric said ruefully. "So I don't go near a newspaper if I can help it." After taking and lighting one of her cigarettes, he asked, "Why did you want me to know all this?" "Because it's part of who I am," She told him honestly. "Too much of it has shaped things that have happened since, including friendships I've made and the odd terrible thing that I've done."
"Where does the lovely George fit into all this?" Ric asked with a soft smile. "I crossed swords with her at Ritchie's trial. She was defending him, though not by her own choice, but that's another story. When it was my turn to be cross-examined by her, it was as though there was only the two of us in the courtroom. John described it afterwards as a verbal tennis match, and I've never felt quite so exhilarated. But that little encounter was nothing compared to the day after Fenner's body was found in Epping Forest. You see, I was there when Lauren came home from committing that crime, an afternoon I don't think I'll ever forget. As a result of my relationship with Yvonne, John, Jo and George all guessed that I knew far more about Fenner's death than I ought to. Believe me, they put the Spanish inquisition to shame. John knew I hadn't killed Fenner, Jo wasn't sure either way, but George was absolutely certain that I had. If the situation hadn't been quite so serious, I'd have probably got a sexual high from that argument, because it was so fiery, so intense. Anyway, I didn't see her again until Lauren's trial, which was fifteen months later. George just turned up in the public gallery and sat down next to me. She had been planted there by Jo who was defending Lauren, because I was about to learn precisely how Fenner had died, which I can promise you isn't something you want to know, but George told me that she would have been there anyway, because she couldn't pass up the opportunity of seeing me again." "What about the Judge?" Ric asked, thinking that she'd had it rougher than he could have thought possible. "Oh, it certainly was complicated," Karen said with a rueful smile of remembrance. "I was seeing George, who I knew was also sleeping with John, who was also sleeping with Jo. The weird thing is that it really did work." "Sounds even more complicated than me and Lola," Ric said with a laugh. "And then Jo discovered that women could also be her thing. She and George was almost inevitable, with them both having such a close relationship with John. I knew that George was gradually slipping away from me, and in the end I worked out why. But in the middle of all that, Ross chose the easy way out. Well, easy for him anyway. I couldn't possibly have had more support from George, Jo, and everyone around that time, but it didn't help me to really deal with any of it. I threw myself into work, like I always have done in a crisis, and ended up having to talk one of my favourite inmates down from the hospital wing roof, where she was sitting fifty feet off the ground with a razor blade. I was immediately suspended, because I'd gone up there without any thought for my own safety whatsoever. I was furious with my boss at the time, but it eventually occurred to me that he was probably right. So, I borrowed Yvonne's villa in Spain, and stayed out there for three weeks. Part of me didn't want to come back, but that wasn't something I allowed myself to seriously consider. George and I had finally split up by then, and maybe only you would know what being alone is really like."
There was a thoughtful silence between them after she'd said this, because Ric was forced to agree with her. "Just to fill in the odd piece of the jigsaw," he said eventually. "Have you ever slept with the Judge?" "Twice," She told him after taking a drag of her cigarette. "Why?" "He just strikes me as the type of person you would sleep with," Ric tried to explain. "And do you know why that is?" Karen asked with a smile. "It's because he reminds me of you. Both you and he are one hundred percent dedicated to your profession, and you often break the rules and ignore the politics, so that the people you are trying to help can be given the best of your abilities. You both loathe and despise those who try to run your professional lives, and you will always go that extra mile to achieve either a medical miracle, or plain and simple justice. But when it comes to your private lives, you are both a complete and total disaster. Connie Beauchamp is a magnet for either one of you, and knowing that John certainly couldn't resist her charms, I doubt that you could either." "Apart from my little habit of backing too many horses," Ric said philosophically. "He sounds like a carbon copy." "Oh, he does have an addiction, just not one that involves casinos," Karen told him. "You might be addicted to gambling, but John is addicted to sex, something that can be and certainly has been far more of a problem." "I didn't know that was really possible," Ric said almost in awe. "Sadly, it is," Karen told him regretfully. "It causes those who love him far more heartache than your gambling ever could."
They talked for another couple of hours, drinking far too much Scotch and both smoking too many cigarettes. "I ought to call a cab," Ric said eventually, thinking that his brain would surely implode with all the information it had received this night. "You could always stay," Karen suggested quietly, realising that Ric's strong embrace was what she really needed. "Not for that," She said at his raised eyebrow. "Maybe I just want to remember how incredible the Griffin cuddle always was, and I must be far too drunk to have actually put that into words." "It would be a pleasure," he told her honestly, the thought of not having to spend the night alone, far too tempting for him as well as for her.