Tracking down the former Mrs. Gossard had proved to be a more difficult task than Claire had expected. In retrospect, she should have expected that the press publicity over the years would have caused her to run for cover. After all, the actions of her one time husband had been put squarely in the public eye. Not surprisingly, she had reverted to her maiden name and had moved town. Eventually, Claire tracked down Miss Marilyn Kemp (formerly Mrs. Marilyn Gossard) to a quiet backstreet of Southend -on-Sea, thirty miles east of London at the mouth of the River Thames. This was where she had come from in the first place and where her family still lived. After a brief phone conversation, she agreed to meet Claire though her guarded tone promised no answers, no cooperation.
Driving down from London took her past nondescript looking fields and clumps of elm trees until the aggressive looking garish looking garages and petrol pumps came in sight. This announced the outskirts of the conglomerate set of towns and, from then on, she followed the written directions and finally turned her car down a quiet side street in an area that was coming up in the world. It was situated a little distance away from the white painted, mock Tudor, mock Georgian seaside houses, built in a bygone era of prewar affluence. The house she sought was placed deliberately in the middle of an identical row of yellow-bricked terraced houses as if for protection. Inside the front door told a very different story altogether than her perfectly ordinary neighbours.
******
A thin woman of medium height greeted her. On the periphery of her vision, did Claire notice her medium length mid brown hair, but she focussed in on her thin, drawn face and her watchful haunted eyes that flickered all around her. They made her look prematurely aged and testified to the nightmares of her past.
"Before you say anything, you ought to know that I've been doing my best to get away from everything and start a new life. I have too many bad memories. No one helped me when I was down. I got away from Larkhall under my own steam. I don't want to think about the past, not if I can help it. You'd better say what you have to say and have done."
"It would be the easiest thing in the world to say that I understand how you feel but that would be futile. I've only got the barest details of what you've been through. I'd guess that it's nothing like the reality. That being said, I have to try and understand for your sake and for the sake of my client."
"And who is your client, just out of interest?"
"Sally Anne Howe, another of your ex- husband's victims."
"You'd better continue."
"The trouble with my job is that I get to see the worst side of life, after the crime has been committed. All I know is that there's a lot of people out there in the world, that try to escape from the past but don't always succeed as they want to," Claire offered gently.
The other woman gazed at Claire in silence for a few minutes with a peculiar mixture of hard-edged contempt and an inner flicker of human interest.
"Every copper at Larkhall Police Station used to come out with that line about what a hard life they have just so they get their meals on the table, their clothes washed and ironed just so and God help the wife if they're less than perfect. Just where do you belong then?"
"Someone who's trying to put things right for someone who's been similarly damaged. I'm trying to give something back to the victim," Claire offered gently without reproach. She could see that this line of apparently random conversation should be allowed to run its course.
'You're not from the press trying to sneak some kind of sob story out of me and make a load of money out of it, are you?"
"Here are my credentials, Marilyn. I'm sorry, I should have shown them from the start."
Marilyn's sudden look of suspicion suddenly evaporated when Claire's gently apologetic manner soothed down her paranoia. She held the identity card between her fingers, closely studying it as if she were trying to extract some meaning from it to make sense of it and also of her own life.
"Just what sort of woman gets stars in her eyes about some right charmer who could only wait to get me into bed, snap the wedding ring on my finger and, hey presto, I become the household drudge to be abused when he sees fit? Just what sort of man acts that way in the first place?"
Claire realized that these questions weren't rhetorical and noticed with alarm the way the other woman suddenly blurted out the reply, how emotions of anger were starting to work loose from under her initial hardened resolve. The conversation was starting to unravel faster than she expected.
"I really don't know that answer. Unfortunately, it lies outside my experience. All I know is that everyone makes choices in their lives and inevitably mistakes are made, especially in your teens when you're young and impressionable. It all depends on the person you meet or the person you should have met but didn't, or the person you just missed out on meeting. I mean both friends and lovers."
"So how did you want to be a solicitor and get so lucky? I can see that you are married and all," said the brown haired woman with intense bitterness.
"I don't know. I got good advice to work out what I wanted to do with my life. I was lucky to meet someone who is compatible with me. I see plenty of women who are not so lucky. I shouldn't apologize for my good fortune but I try to use it to help others."
The other woman suddenly fumbled for a cigarette in her handbag, took a deep drag from a cigarette and forcibly exhaled the smoke without thinking. The words were frank enough. She suddenly stubbed it out in a convenient ashtray and reached her moment of decision.
"You sound OK. All right, I'll trust you. Enough of all this fancy philosophy. Let's get down to business. You tell me what happened to your client and I'll tell you what I know. As it happens, I knew Sally slightly. She was one of those bright, enthusiastic naïve trusting women who my bastard ex spotted a mile away."
"How do you mean?"
"Knowing him, I can guess what happened. He fixed it that they were sharing a car and went on a 'private operation' where he lured her to a nice private room, she walked straight into the trap and he raped her…..Oh yes, he's Mr. Fixit all right."
It shocked Claire how Marilyn's bitter succinct description of Sally's story was so accurate. How could she have known?
"……….the only thing I'd add to that is that she's quite so trusting anymore. She's as wary and as scared as any woman can be after experiences like that and being forced out of the police force didn't help any. This is where I come into the picture. She is suing the Met for mental distress. They were also guilty of covering up the rape that was committed against her by her fellow colleague. She was forced to resign and to withdraw the charges she had laid against them. She was on the sick for a while and then unemployed. She managed to get a job eventually but she's on tranquillizers and under a course of therapy. This is all thanks to that man and, above all else, the police force who closed ranks on her."
"So why can't she sue them on what happened to her?"
"She got threatening phone calls, that they'd drive her out of the police force if she carried on so she withdrew the charges. That's why we need some backup evidence."
"So you want me to stand up in a witness box and tell some fancy lawyers all the sordid details of my life with him, if you can call it a life?" snapped Marilyn. She thought she could see how the conversation was heading."We were wondering if you had some letter from the Metropolitan Police after what you suffered from him that would put them in the frame. This shows how he might have been kept within limits if the police force culture had been all that it should have been. Don't forget that your troubles predate what happened later which happened to be in the public eye."
Some composite kaleidoscopic vision of all her late ex husband's colleagues swirled before Marilyn's eyes. Above all, the sounds of their heartless laughter rang in her ears and made her wince. She put her hands to the side of her head, which ached so much. When she looked up, she saw that very kind hearted woman before her who had shown her nothing but compassion. All at once, she knew what she had to do.
"Stay right there. I'm going to find a letter which says everything."
Claire sat back while Marilyn Kemp rummaged through a bureau. Right at the back, she withdrew a large brown official looking envelope and passed it to her.
"Just take a look at this. This says everything, doesn't it?"
Claire carefully removed the letter and it made her stomach heave. It was what she should have expected, every syllable overloaded with moral equivocations which conveniently and nicely blurred the harsh edges. It was a visual atrocity.
"Dear Mrs. GossardIt is with great sadness that it has come to our attention that you and your husband have separated. You will, of course, understand that service in the modern day police force imposes stresses and strains on service policemen and policewomen that are a feature of increasing trends of violence in society. The Human Resource Department of the Metropolitan Police force are especially watchful in monitoring symptoms of such stress to serving members of the police force.
It has come to our attention that allegations have been made of violence towards you by Kevin Gossard, which has given great course for concern. This is at variance from the highest standards of professional behaviour, which his close colleagues have observed in such a dedicated and experienced officer. I have no reason to make a secret of the fact that Kevin has been informally interviewed about the matter and his explanation of events has been accepted.
The Police Federation has long standing strategies in place to provide a counselling service for serving policemen and their wives to enable to patch up their differences or, if marital difficulties have got to the point of no return, advice to both the policeman (or policewoman) and their spouse to effect an amicable separation that minimizes the distress to both parties and their children.
I do hope that you arrange such an approach in conjunction with your partner and this can help you to work through your difficulties with Kevin along the lines outlined above. .
Yours sincerely
Jean Baxter, Head of Personnel"
"This letter would be very helpful to the case," Claire explained in calm tones to Marilyn.
"Take it," the other woman said in an off hand manner." I certainly don't want it for the memories. Mind you that none of those bastards track me down and give me a hard time, that's all I ask."
"In that case, would you have a problem in letting me have a copy of your divorce certificate? I just have the feeling that it will be useful. It will make sure, of course, that you won't be required at the court hearing as it is incontrovertible evidence."
Without hesitation, Marilyn Kemp dived back into the bureau and silently handed her the papers.
"Mind you send me the originals back. I don't want these papers going AWOL," she said firmly.
"You have my word upon the matter," Claire said softly.
"I wouldn't be talking to you this way if I didn't trust you," came the reply in softer tones. Claire sensed just why this woman had had to keep up this hard front just to survive.
"Just one question puzzles me, Marilyn and that is why you stayed with him as long as you did. It's none of my business but I'm just curious," Claire said suddenly, the words positively crowding out of her mouth as her mind had turned over this conundrum that had been running round at the back of her mind and demanded that they be given voice. She had gleaned the details of how long she had been married to Gossard and it didn't add up to her.
"Isn't it bloody obvious," the other woman snapped. "Of course I fell in love with him? I fell under his spell. Why else did I marry him? Why else did I stay with him so long? "
********
Why indeed, Claire asked herself after their conversation petered out and Marilyn indicated that she had jobs to be getting on with. Claire politely said her goodbyes and turned her car away from the accumulated misery that Marilyn Kemp had only half exposed to her. On a scorchingly hot July day, she was compelled to take a short break by the beach before heading back. Behind her spread the length of the promenade that lined the seafront. Turning round and looking further back, she couldn't help be impressed by the variations in gables, square baronial buttresses, all framing leaded windows in imitation of bygone eras and all ideally suited to the new suburbanites. In front of these mansions, neat rose bushes or privet bushes proclaimed the land owned by the confident upper middle classes to be approached by the solid wooden or wrought iron gate. They were all fitting emblems of the proud saying 'An Englishman's home is his castle.' Fine, thought Claire, but where did that leave the Englishwoman? What would her friends think of this entire spectacle? She had a pretty fair idea of the answer she'd get. Turning back to the sea, she sought nature's simplicity. The tide was in and sailing boats were moored in profusion in the slightly choppy waters, all bobbing their heads. She walked slowly along the shingle beach, wind blowing through her long hair as she had done when she was a child and her parents had taken her on traditional family holidays. Yes, compared with others, she had been fortunate in her life but in no way did it invalidate her. It gave her that quiet strength to persevere.