Even into her thirties, she hadn’t grown up at all. She still flinched at his name. She still romanticised all his good qualities, sometimes so much that she forgot about all his sins. It was time to stop this! It was time to grow up. Aiden was no longer in this world and she needed to accept that, for her, this was a good thing. The bond had been broken. At last, she was free.
Stepping out of the bedroom, she headed back down the stairs and glanced at the clock on the wall. She walked over to the phone and searched the small draw in the table that the phone sat upon.. Taking a small leather-bound address book out of the drawer, she flicked to the back page and pulled out the business card she found there. She then dialled and waited.
“Hello?” A girl’s voice came over the line.
Lily’s heart sank. She hadn’t stopped to think that, after all these years, Robert Wesley would likely have a wife of his own, have children, or may not even be the occupier of the number he had given her the very last time she had seen him. “Is Robert Wesley there?” she quaked.
“Yes, I’ll get him.”
Lily suddenly became aware that her heart was pounding hard against her chest. She was about to speak to Robert for the first time in over eleven years, and she wasn’t sure what he would say to her. The fear of being rejected swept across her as his voice came down the line. “Hello?”
She gulped. “Robert, Robert Wesley… is that you?”
The line fell silent. Her anxiety was tangible and she idly wondered if Robert could feel her trepidation.
“Lily?” His breath hitched. “Lily, is that really you?”
A tear fell down Lily’s cheek. “Yes, Robert… it’s Lily.”
The interview
7th December 2001
I stare down at my notes. Just one question left. I am tired, though ‘drained’ would also be a fitting word. I have been sitting before Mr Foster for over three hours, and have so far recorded on two tapes on my Dictaphone, the third tape coming close to expiring. I have suggested a break several times during the course of the interview, assuming initially that he may want to smoke, but he refused me on my initial offer, confirming that he has given up the habit. He has also refused all other offers. I have, however, had a constant supply of tea, and Mr Foster water, and he insisted on biscuits being brought in about an hour ago. Though he did not eat any himself, I have helped myself to three.
As I inform him that I have only one more question for him, he seems quietly relieved. I think he is weary too. We have covered a lot of ground in such a short amount of time and I sense him now longing for the moment soon to come when his cell will be locked and he can spend the next twelve hours by himself. My presence today has modified his strict daily routine. He hasn’t grumbled once, but I see that I will soon be outstaying my welcome.
I believe Mr Foster has warmed to me during my time here, and though I cannot say that I am not utterly disgusted by the offences he has admitted to me, and will therefore come away with little affection for the man, I can at least confirm that I have got to grips with his character enough to have allowed myself to at least take pleasure in this experience, on a professional level.
I am proud to have made it through. Some of his confessions had me near to fleeing. I, of course, knew of his official offences before I walked in his cell, but the detail he has given today gives me a much clearer idea of the gravity of them.
Though I am, and will be for some time after I leave here, utterly shocked and dismayed by Mr Foster’s story, I will not go away wondering how a man could be capable of such delinquency. Some of the anguish he had to suffer growing up has me reeling with understanding and compassion – for him, and for all those who continue to suffer in such a way. My eyes have been opened to a world I have always been safeguarded from, by sheer luck that I was not born into it.
My heart goes out to Gina Watson, a girl who knew nothing of peace, of fairness, of love. Yet I quietly send my best wishes to Mrs Foster too, a young lady who had a childhood filled with care, but, I am sure, has experienced her own turmoil on account of this beautiful and dangerous man before me.
Mr Foster closes his eyes briefly, and rubs the back of his neck. He takes a deep breath and exhales on a vocal yawn. “Shall we wrap this up, then?” he says to me, but I know now that he isn’t being rude. I smile knowingly, and he seems to appreciate that I do not take offence. It is far simpler and less distressing when you understand that he is just a very direct man.
“Yes, of course, Mr Foster.”
He nods and shifts his backside in his chair, opening out his legs into a lounging position. He’s been fidgeting and shifting his position throughout the interview, but so have I; the plastic chairs are not very comfortable. He has employed what I have secretly labelled his bring-it-on stance now.
I take a breath and it dawns on me that this is it: my big interview is over, and what an interview it has been. I do not think anyone will ever know whether Mr Foster regrets the choices he made in his life. He has told me that his only regret was losing the love and respect of his wife, but I find that hard to believe. I watched him carefully when he spoke so openly of Gina Watson and the damage he caused in her life, and every now and then those glacial blue eyes of his betrayed him and represented a person who was far from unrepentant. Though maybe I am merely attempting to understand how someone who has caused so much suffering cannot be plagued daily by shame and remorse.
I ask my final question. “Mr Foster, are you worried at all regarding the consequences of this interview?”
His eyes narrow, and for the first time since we shook hands at the cell door over three hours ago, a shred of fear flickers across his face. But he replies unequivocally, “No, Miss Daley, I am not.”
But I am unsure whether I believe him.
Supplementary
Kathryn Daley returned to Her Majesty’s Prison Maidstone on 21st January 2002, two weeks after the murder of Mr Aiden Lance Foster. She interviewed four of Mr Foster’s inmates and two officers on duty on the evening of his death. Each of them confirmed that they had not seen or heard any cause for concern that evening. Officer Livingston, who was reported to have found Mr Foster’s body in the cell of Dmitry Kovalenko, refused to be interviewed.
Kathryn also interviewed Vivien Foster on 23rd January 2002. She remains living on the Carlton estate in Hackney where Aiden Foster grew up. Mrs Foster, aged fifty-four, was described by Kathryn as amiable, yet frail and discouraged. Having lost her husband in 1996, and now her son, and with her daughter living in Brighton with her husband Adam Draper and their two daughters Esme and Charlotte, she spoke briefly of the pain of being alone.
She was further distressed to have been informed that, just four days after the death of her son, her good friend Grant O’Donoghue, aged seventy-eight, had died of a heart attack in his home in Hampstead. She spoke of Mr O’Donoghue’s grief following her son’s death and declared that he had died of a broken heart.
Mrs Foster lives on, but Kathryn Daley reported that she left the interview wondering what the mother of the most industrious criminal of a generation really had to live for.
“I am a product of my upbringing and my environment. I read that psychologists call it human conditioning. And no matter who we meet, no matter what we do or where we go, we all fall victim to it in the end.”
Aiden Foster
(1969–2002)
HMP Maidstone
7th December 2001
The End
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Human Conditioning Page 41