In Any Event. 12
"I really can handle this on my own, I'm not scared of him." Caroline asserted honestly.
"I know you can, but you don't have to." Kate shrugged as she unclipped her seat belt, which earned her that dazzling smile.
Caroline sighed heavily as she looked out of the windscreen at the almost empty campsite, a small wooden hut in one corner of the land that looked securely locked up and darkly vacant and only two small static caravans and a tourer on it's own in the opposite corner. Caroline couldn't imagine that even in the height of summer, this site was ever very busy. These days even campsites in the furthest flung parts of Britain were likely to have a shower block and access to WIFI, but then maybe that was the appeal of this place.
Caroline had gone in search of Robbie at his home but she supposed she should have expected him to have gone into hiding, he hadn't been at work and finally Raff had suggested he may have taken the bike out, on a road trip, taken the tourer out to the coast. Raff gave her a couple of names or descriptions of the sites he regularly used, having stayed with his uncle plenty of times during summer holidays.
Caroline supposed that Raff was yet to realise exactly what his uncles involvement in Gillian's case had been, that it was him who had gone to the police, made a new statement, come forward with new information, Gillian's confession to him. She wasn't ready to tell him yet that not only was there a chance his Mother might go to prison but that it would be his uncle, the only real father figure he had ever known, that would be responsible for putting her there.
"Would you at least stay in the car?" Caroline asked. "He might feel...more inclined to talk if I go alone, less of an ambush, and really Mya could do with at least one of us free when the other gets locked up for intimidating a witness." A weak joke. A little too close to the bone.
"This might do her more harm than good, you know that." Kate repeated her earlier misgivings.
"I know. I have to try. You didn't see her in court Kate. She was hopeless. She's given up. If she won't fight, we have to do it for her."Caroline reasoned.
She had been desperate to make eye contact with Gillian during the short hearing, send her a message of support, but the farmer had looked at no-one.
Kate stared at the mobile home, sizing it up, risk assessment. "If you are not back in this car in 15 minutes. I'm coming in after you."
"Agreed." Caroline accepted the terms as she let herself out of the car.
"Be careful." Kate begged. "Please."
Caroline couldn't see any sign of life or movement from within the van. She knocked at the door once, the sound not enough, the plastic coated door giving away hardly a peep. Caroline tried again, giving her heavy, I mean business, fist pounding to the metal wall of the van. The tin can on wheels almost flinched at the intrusion.
Nothing.
Caroline walked around the home, trying to get a look in at any of the windows, but with curtains drawn she couldn't see a thing. She returned to the door and hopped back up onto the little step.
"Robbie." She called as she hammered the door again. "Robbie, open up! I know you're in there!"
Caroline felt the lurch of the van as a weight shifted inside it and stepped back just as the door was flung open. The man before Caroline, though familiar, seemed changed, she didn't know him well, but on the number of occasions they had cause to meet he had made a perfectly respectable impression, smart, articulate enough, despite his being a bit...rural.
Today he looked like a slob, he wore tracksuit bottoms, a tatty sweater, his facial hair was over grown and his hair unruly, he looked unkempt and worn, skin sallow and eye's red rimmed.
"Go away." He said, before really registering who it was at the door.
"Hello Robbie, a word if I may?" Caroline requested, curt, arms folded, Dr Elliot on duty.
"Piss Off, snotty bitch!" He replied.
Caroline was hit by the smell of stale beer, from his clothes, his breath, seeping through his very pores, her face crumpled distastefully.
"Not very original." She commented. "You going to invite me in or are we going to do this on the doorstep?"
"Didn't you hear me right? I told you to sling yr hook! Do one! Sod off!" Robbie said slowly.
Caroline waited patiently as he turned back into the van, leaving the door open, more than enough invitation for the blonde.
"I'm here to see what you have to say." Caroline began. "Your side of things. Maybe it will help Raff, maybe it will help Gillian, it might even help you!"
"Oh what a kind and benevolent person, I should have listened to her about you, bloody perfect Caroline, what has any of this got to do with you anyway?" He bellowed as he slumped against the cushions of the cheap seating.
"Alan, he's my Dad now, Raff...well, you're his Uncle, I suppose I'm his new Aunt." An attempt to put them on equal footing, though Caroline remained standing. "And Gillian..." Caroline began. "She is the sister I never had, she means the world to me and she needs my help. You would do that, wouldn't you Robbie? If your brother was still here? You'd do anything for him? So you must understand me."
"Have you come here to taunt me?" He asked, looking genuinely confused by Caroline's approach, he may have been expecting her to beg, appeal for mercy, he didn't know her very well. "There is no way I'm changing my statement now. There is nothing you could threaten me with, I have nothing left to loose."
Caroline sat down now, as far from him on the small seating area, as she could. She sighed, long and heavy.
"Just tell me what happened? Please? What did she say to you to start all this again?" Caroline appealed.
"I asked her to marry me." Robbie confessed with a hollow laugh. "Can you believe that? Stupid, idiot!"
"You what?" Caroline asked, perhaps she had misunderstood.
"Yeh, I mean, I knew it wer possible I'd get a knock back, but not like this. I kept on at her, Why? why couldn't we put an end to all this pissing about, once and for all and just get wed?" Robbie said as if re-living the moment, his frustration clear in the animation of his hands, curled like claws, just hanging on.
"And she told you." Caroline concluded in quiet acceptance.
Robbie's head snapped to Caroline as if recalling she was there. "She told you too." He said darkly, remembering something.
Xxxx
Kate had flicked the radio off in the car as Caroline had approached the mobile home. She felt sick, her hand clutching at her stomach, without hope of stilling it. She couldn't hear anything that was said when the burly man had flung open the door but she had tried to focus on any little sign of what was going on, what his state of mind might be, his reaction to Caroline. She'd watched her girlfriend follow him inside and then they were gone, out of sight. Kate's eyes flicked to the clock on the dash. 15 minutes...she would try and give her ten at least, she told herself as she watched and waited, eyes flicking from one window to the next and back again.
Xxx
"Did she tell you we were adopted? He was the only family I had. He was my brother. I know he wasn't a saint but neither were she, that's why she chose him!" Robbie recounted bitterly.
"And that's what this has always been about is it? Jealousy? A bruised ego? Bloody pathetic." Caroline muttered, shaking her head.
Robbie shook his head, more forcefully. "You don't know what you're talking about, you don't know me. I stood there at the wedding, I gave em my blessing, all the time thinking it should have been me, that's how much I loved him, I let him have her!"
"Oh great, smashing, you took a step back and in the mean time he made her life a living hell!" Caroline said through gritted teeth.
"They had their ups and downs..." Robbie began, dismissive.
"Are you kidding!? He was your brother, you must know deep down what he was, you're not a complete moron! He raped her, he abused her, over and over, beat her, bruised her, burned her! He was a complete monster." Caroline ranted, incredulous.
"That's the story she's told you, he might have liked his drink too much and they fought, I know he slapped her about a couple of times, she battered him once too, not long after they first got wed, he told me!" Robbie admitted in weak defense.
"You really think that Gillian stood a chance against him? He was a bully, he was vicious, he did what he liked with her and she just took it!" Caroline was becoming enraged, she had gone past wanting to get Robbie on side and her disgusted outrage had taken over.
"It wasn't like that, I would have known, she could have said! It doesn't make it right anyway, even if there was some truth in it, in what you said,... you tell some one, you go to the police, you don''t murder anybody!" Robbie stated.
"It wasn't murder! It was survival!" Caroline shouted, standing up again, her anger too great to allow her to sit idle.
Robbie looked unsure, doubtful, confused, wounded, bewildered, all of it.
"If she hadn't stopped him, she'd be dead, she'd be long dead, she knew that. Maybe he did? Who know's? The coroners verdict said suicide and how could she, 5ft nothing Gillian, cause an experienced farmer, strong, tough as he was, cause that kind of damage to him? Unless he wanted it? Unless the coroner was right all along?" Caroline asked the question that had been playing on her own mind. Maybe it would be enough, enough to make him doubt, to make him drop this vendetta.
"None of this will bring him back." Caroline said finally. "You haven't got your brother, but you have got Raff, his son, and Emily Jane. How do you think they will feel if they see you send Gillian to prison for good? Then you truly will have no one." Caroline assured.
Robbie looked at her, silently, his brow furrowed, the deep lines of time kris crossing his forehead.
Xxx
Kate jumped out of the car and stood on the mixture of gravel and weeds. 8 minutes, long enough, more than long enough. She strode purposefully over to the van but stopped short of knocking right away. She listened. She couldn't hear much of anything, which in itself was disconcerting. She thrust her hands into her pockets and decided to give them one more minute.
The sound of the door swinging open caused Kate to jump to attention as she saw Caroline storm out of the van, her eyes landing on Kate, her expression stern, stubborn, set, yet she took Kate's hand gently in her own and led them both calmly back to the car.
Xxx
Caroline had never visited a prison before. She had never had cause too. The building itself was not the imposing kind of building that Caroline had imagined, like some of the old schools she had visited that looked like they came straight from a Victorian novel set in an asylum. The red brick, low level buildings here, were set out over acres of land and without the high metal fencing that outlined them, may have looked like a modern hospital, or somewhere more pleasant still.
As she drove into the car park the signs directed her to an even more modern, circular, and somewhat more palatable looking building calling itself the Visitor Centre. Caroline could see art work in the windows, children's drawings and colourful posters. The centre did seem set apart from the rest of the prison but one could not get away from the checks at the entrance, the uniformed prison officers, the CCTV cameras that twitched and tracked her every move.
Caroline had been shocked when Gillian had refused to see any of her family. Being on remand she was entitled to three, hour long visits per week, yet so far she had consented to seeing no-one. Until Natalie had called Caroline and informed her that Gillian would like to see her. No-one else.
Caroline was seated a moment before Gillian was led into the room and she rose automatically as she saw her coming. Aware that an officer on each side of the room, watched her carefully. Gillian wore the clothes that Caroline had packed for her and given to Natalie to pass along. It had seemed a strangely intimate thing to be going through Gillian's draws, selecting comfortable items of clothing and trying to find things that matched. Picking out the newer, less worn pieces of underwear as she would if she was packing for one of the boys to go on holiday. So, Gillian wore her own clothes but also wore a brightly coloured bib over the top, like the ones the netball and hockey teams wore at Sulgrave, boldly marking her out from all but the other prisoners.
A hint of a smile as Gillian rose her head to meet Caroline's searching gaze.
"Caroline." She greeted as she sat down. "Thanks for coming."
Caroline stood a little longer, knocked off track by Gillian's unemotional appearance. The blonde had expected a tearful hug or a hand to hold, she felt the situation warranted that at least and she was not known to be over emotional as a rule. She recovered and quickly re-took her seat.
"Gillian." Caroline began. She had so many things that she wanted to say and yet she began with probably the least pressing. "Gillian, how are you? Are you eating, are they feeding you?" Caroline asked, thinking that her friend looked almost frail.
"Yeah, foods not bad, as it goes. As good as my home cooking anyway." Gillian replied with a small smile, resting her fingers together on the table.
"What about the other women? No one's...had a go at you...or ...there's no bullying is there?" Caroline asked, not sure what she would offer to do if there was.
Gillian shook her head, not exactly looking Caroline in the eye. "I keep my head down, stay out of all that." She assured vaguely. "Funny though, they think I'm snotty in here." Gillian quipped.
"You can tell me, if there is anything you need. Anything at all. I would have brought things today but Natalie said you didn't want anything and I wasn't sure..?" Caroline explained, feeling the sting of regret at the fact that she had ignored her instinct to bring things anyway, if she hadn't been at a total loss of the protocol on what one needs in a women's prison, she would have trusted in her need to provide and care for others, this woman included.
"There is something." Gillian said, clearing her throat and eyeing the nearest prison officer suspiciously as she leaned in closer. "It's not anything I need in here. I need, I need you to do something for me."
"Of course, what do you need?" Caroline asked eagerly.
"I need you to keep them out of court. Dad and Raff. I can't have them in there, listening to...well listening, at the trial. I can't do it." Gillian said firmly, looking much like her stomach had turned. She shook her head and began to scratch at an invisible mark on the table top.
"I understand, but...I don't think, I don't know how I could. I couldn't stop them." Caroline admitted, shrugging her shoulders unhappily.
"You have to. Caroline, you have to. I don't want them in there, and if they are, I am going to instruct Natalie not to say a word. I'll plead guilty, admit to everything, anything." Gillian warned.
Caroline didn't try to dissuade her, didn't have to establish how serious she was, she knew there and then that there was no changing Gillian's mind.
Xxx
Caroline drove back to Harrogate in a daze, automatic pilot. The only person she had told about where she was going today had been Kate but she hadn't expected to find her car parked outside Caroline's house when she finally pulled into the drive. She felt relief. She didn't want to be alone, not tonight, not ever again. She had seen Gillian's face as she sat across from her today, completely unreachable, utterly alone.
Caroline pushed open the door and stepped into the warmth of the house, almost every light shone from every room and she caught sight of Lawrence on his hands and knees crawling down the hall whilst careful not to up seat his wriggling rider. Mya was calling for her new brother to giddy up and digging her heel into his ribs as he complained loudly. The pair looked up to see Caroline's arrival and Lawrence collapsed in a heap as Mya jumped from his back, almost toppling over, but using him as a partial cushion, before taking off to meet Caroline.
"Hey Ma!" Lawrence called.
"Caline! Mummy missed you!" Mya called as she held her arms aloft and waited impatiently to be lifted.
"Did she?" Caroline asked, as Kate popped her head around the door of the kitchen. "I missed her too! Lots...and you know who else I missed? Lots and lots?"
Mya bounced on Caroline's hip excitedly, like an older child in class with a hand in the air, full of an answer and desperate to be the one to share it.
"Mya!" She screeched certainly. "Oh and Lawrie."
"That's right! Clever girl!" Caroline praised, kissing the apple like cheeks one by one.
A/N- Thank you for the feedback. I'm off on my hols now so may be a little delay before the next chapter. xx