Laura pushed for conditions on the bail preventing Harry from going anywhere near his wife or threatening her in any way and Barnes agreed to consider that. He told her that after they’d finished questioning Harry and looked at what was on his computers, they’d decide if there was enough evidence to charge him, either over the child pornography or the death threats. If there was, in either case he’d most likely get bail. Regarding the pornography, it would depend on the seriousness of the offence – was he part of a paedophile network, had he been distributing the material, was it for his own use, how much did he have and how long had he been doing it. But it would have to be very serious for him to be locked up; just downloading and possession of indecent material would not be enough.
It was the same story with the death threat emails. If the police could prove that Paul Giles was in fact Harry, by finding evidence on his computers, they would charge him with harassment. But it wouldn’t warrant a custodial sentence – a restraining order only, would be the likely result. There was a silence on the phone. The conversation was over unless she had any more questions. She hesitated. She told Barnes about the website posting but decided against mentioning the car chase. She was afraid he might think her a little over-anxious.
Laura had slept well after the wine and a couple of Nytol and she felt a whole lot better today. The car incident didn’t seem so threatening. She liked that description – the ‘car incident’. It minimized the whole thing, brought it down to manageable proportions. The thought of it didn’t make her heart beat as fiercely as it had.
Twenty minutes later, after talking to her friend Emma Fletcher, Laura felt better still. Emma always cheered her up, right back from when they were at school together. Laura’s mum had used to call Emma ‘Mrs Brightside’ because she was always so positive.
Emma’s life had been very different from Laura’s – she had a husband and three sons and a part time job as a primary school teacher – but the two women had stayed close friends and now Laura had moved back to Sussex, they saw each other a lot.
‘I agree it sounds like a random piece of bad luck,’ she said, when Laura told her about the chase, ‘Joe’s probably right that it was some nutter who wanted to frighten a woman in a sports car. Why not go green and trade that gas guzzler in for a smart car. No-one will be chasing you then. Not even Joe.’
Laura laughed, said she’d give it some thought, and Emma suggested meeting up on Sunday to go shopping. Her husband was taking the boys to Speedway and she’d have most of the day to herself.
That suited Laura well because she wanted to chat to Emma about her father. He had been in touch again, asking to meet up, and Laura wasn’t sure what to do. She hadn’t seen him for nearly seven years, not since her mum’s funeral, and most of her didn’t want to see him now or ever again. But a part of her did, an annoying, nagging part; despite everything he had done to her mum, he was still her dad.
Michael Maxwell had never been aggressive towards his daughter, he loved his little girl and, although Laura heard his verbal attacks on her mother, she never once considered he might be hitting her. He made sure none of his bullying and abuse happened in front of Laura, not the shouting, not the humiliating, and certainly not the punching. He did it in the evening, after dark, when he thought his daughter was safely tucked up in bed. He was not the only wife beater to act that way. Anna had said the same about Harry Pelham – he only hit her when Martha was not around to witness it.
But from her bedroom, Laura could hear her father’s hectoring, intimidating voice. She would get up and creep closer, listen to him rant at her mother, telling her how stupid and worthless she was, laying down the law about who she could talk to, and where she could go. It upset Laura but it also irritated her. She wished her mother would fight back, would stop letting herself be such a victim. If she would only stand up for herself, her father would back off, Laura was sure.
She felt guilt flood her, the way it always did when she remembered her young, self-righteous self. She should have done more to help her mum, she should have confronted her father. She should have understood. She had never been able to forgive herself for not realizing how serious the abuse was. She had never heard anything that sounded like violence and her mum had done her utmost to hide it, but that was no excuse. She should have known.
A memory came to her, stark and raw, of the morning a starling had fallen down the chimney and got trapped in the living room. She called out for her mum to rescue it, but when there was no response, ran upstairs to find her. Her mum was in the bathroom and nine year old Laura burst in just as she was getting out of the shower. Her buttocks, hips and breasts were covered in yellow, black and blue bruises. She saw the shock on her daughter’s face and immediately related a story of how she had tripped at the top of the library steps and fallen heavily down them. She must have had the story ready always, just in case. Laura knew that now but at the time she hadn’t questioned it, had all but forgotten it in the excitement of freeing the panicky bird. Laura’s mum never again left the bathroom door unlocked.
It was years later that Laura had to face the truth and it left her in bits. She was living in London and in the middle of her law exams when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. The doctor who found it, also found serious bruising, vaginal and anal scarring and signs of old injuries. She had rung Laura, and the police, to say she suspected domestic abuse.
Jenny Maxwell left her husband but refused to give evidence against him and he was never charged. She came to live with Laura for nine months while she sorted out her life and beat off the cancer, but she would never speak about the violence however gently her daughter raised it. Just once, when Laura was going cautiously round the houses trying to approach the subject, she interrupted sharply, ‘Never let yourself be a victim. Never. That’s all I’ll say.’
A year later, when Laura was twenty five, the cancer came back and this time Jenny Maxwell lost the battle. In an agony of guilt and regret, Laura wondered if the years of abuse had brought it on in the first place and whether, if she had realized what was going on and had spoken out, her mum would still be alive.
Laura forced the thoughts away. She picked up a dog-eared business card from her desk. It had the details for the Tunisian lawyer and she called his number.
CHAPTER TEN
The police guard made it impossible to get near Harry Pelham without explaining who he was and the reason for his visit. Ben Morgan had no intention of doing either. He’d had dealings with the police before and he didn’t want to renew the experience. He had been lucky to miss them at Harry’s house the day before and he had been lucky again to find out about the guard before it was too late. He arrived at the ward to find Harry nowhere in sight, so he asked a nurse for directions. She pointed to a side room and told him he’d have to ask the police officers if he could see Harry. There were two of them and one was standing outside the door to the room.
‘Why are they here?’ he asked.
‘No idea. All I know is any visitor has to get their permission if they want to talk to him.’
‘Do you think they’ll be staying long?
She shrugged, then said, ‘He’s lucky he’s not handcuffed to one of them.’
Ben laughed nervously at that and the nurse said she wasn’t joking. She had heard them talking about it but, in the end, they’d decided not to.
‘Are you family?’ she peered at him curiously, as if he might be related to a serial killer. He was late thirties maybe, tall and skinny with a patchy beard and pale, restless eyes. There was something strange about him, she decided.
‘No’ he hesitated, and when she obviously wanted more, said, ‘Just a friend.’
‘Looks like he needs one.’
‘Would you be able to give him a note for me?’
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She wondered what this shabby, anxious man was up to. She didn’t reply and started walking towards the policeman.
Ben Morgan turned the other w
ay and fled, making himself walk at a normal pace. Then he heard the nurse call to him and he ran down the stairs and out of the building, hurrying away from the hospital as fast as he could.
He jogged for fifteen minutes along the sea front until he came to a bar beside Brighton beach. He went inside and asked for an orange juice. He didn’t dare risk alcohol. He ordered a sandwich but was too wound up to eat it. He sat by the window staring out to sea. It was wild today, whipped up by a strong onshore wind which had blown away the earlier rain. He could feel his high mood turning sour. He was edgy and irritable, frustrated that he hadn’t been able to talk to Harry.
‘I do not have to get angry over this,’ he muttered, ‘I am choosing not to get angry. Just chill out.’
Ben Morgan had been in Brighton for almost a month now. He had forced himself to be cautious and to check out the situation thoroughly before making his move. For once, everything he had done had been carefully planned. He was pleased with himself about that. He hadn’t jumped straight in with both feet and no thought as to the consequences. He had a habit of doing that when he was feeling good, he knew, and it needed to be controlled.
The medication did control it pretty well but he wasn’t always so good about taking it; it had been a bit random lately. He noticed that his right leg was bouncing up and down on the floor and with an effort he stilled it and took a few deep breaths to try to calm himself down. He recognized the signs. The anger, the desire for action, the ideas racing through his head, the total confidence in himself. He had learned to be wary of these things. Learned the hard way.
He had been watching Laura Maxwell, following her, studying her routines and gathering details about her life. When he first arrived he had stood across the road from Morrison Kemp waiting for her to come out. What a shock it had been to see her again, what nightmare feelings the sight of her had aroused, feelings he had tried to bury deep but which kept bubbling back to the surface. The experience had literally made him ill. He had scuttled away and been sick in an alleyway.
Ben Morgan felt sick now thinking about what had happened to him. And Harry’s case was so similar to his own – his torture, at the hands of Laura Maxwell, so exactly what Ben had endured. When he had discovered that, he had wanted to die. It brought back, in technicolour, all the trauma of six years ago.
Well this time the result would be different, he would make sure of that. He had been there and would not stand by and let it happen again. Hatred and bitterness filled him. He was going to put a stop to it, once and for all.
Ben Morgan shook his head and tried, unsuccessfully, to get the ugly memories to go away. The Maxwell woman had made him seem like a complete danger to his young daughter, a father with a serious personality disorder. His medical notes had been taken to pieces by her, selective quotes taken from his psychology sessions, from his psychiatric assessments, from his previous medical history – he had been destroyed as a person and as a father. She had consigned him to hell.
He had sat in court listening to her make judgments about him, biased judgments designed to make him suffer, along with social workers and other so called experts who discussed his bipolar disorder, discussed his behaviour and thoughts and emotions as if he were invisible, as if they were able to understand what was going on in his head. The whole inside of his mind had been invaded by her – someone who knew nothing about him or his illness. He had been violated and degraded and he felt it again now just as keenly as he had done at the time. The taste of acid filled his mouth.
He remembered how tormented he had been over what to do about it, what action he should take. Sometimes it had been so bad it was like a physical pain. It had only got better when he had stopped thinking about possible consequences and started following his instincts. But that, of course, had not worked out well. He had stabbed a police officer, been sectioned for hospital treatment, and lost all contact rights to his daughter.
The bar was starting to fill up with the lunchtime rush. He hated crowds and noise. They stressed him out and could trigger off his illness. He wanted to run. It was one of the few strategies he had for coping with stressful situations – to run through the streets, faster and faster, until all he could think about was the burning in his lungs and his legs. He liked to think it was a positive thing, a definite plan to help himself, but in his darker moods he felt that all it amounted to was running away.
The afternoon was cold and the rain was spitting again. Ben Morgan stood for a moment gazing up uncertainly at the heavens with a tense and troubled face. Then he set off at high speed for his appointment, his tall, thin figure racing towards the café near the crumbling West Pier.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Tunisian lawyer, Karim Chehoudi, did remember Laura and he was happy to help. She was grateful and agreed to meet him for dinner next time he visited London. He knew much more about child abduction cases than she did and she noticed he was careful not to raise her hopes of success too much. Given that he wanted the dinner date, he was probably trying to sound as optimistic as possible, and secretly rated her chances as zero.
She gave him the details for Ahmed and his father, sent him their photographs, and he promised to pass them on to the Tunisian immigration authorities with a request to be informed if the pair left the country. If they went anywhere which had signed the Hague Convention it might be possible to intercept them there and get the boy returned to England.
Karim Chehoudi said he had good contacts among the immigration officers and assured her he knew how to get them to take his request seriously. Laura wondered if he meant money and whether she should offer to pay for any necessary expenses. But she worried he might take offence so she said nothing except how much she appreciated his help. He sounded pleased and she hoped she had done the right thing. Now she could only wait and keep her fingers crossed that the chance came up. It was all she could do for Mary Hakimi. She thought that it wasn’t very much.
There was an email from Anna in her inbox asking if she could find out from the police how long Harry was going to be in hospital and how long he would be held for questioning. Anna desperately wanted reassurance that action would be taken to protect her and Martha before, as she put it, ‘that vile man is on the loose again.’ Laura had called her earlier to tell her the news from Barnes, and Anna had been very shocked and disgusted to hear what her husband was suspected of.
‘I can’t have him seeing Martha anymore, Laura, I just can’t,’ she sobbed down the phone. ‘Really, I couldn’t cope with that. It makes me wonder if … ’
Anna hadn’t been able to finish the sentence but Laura knew what she was wondering. Had Harry ever abused his daughter? He had never been violent towards Martha, Anna had said, but what else might he have been doing?
Laura pulled a bundle of papers from the Pelham file, details of Harry’s financial affairs. There were property developments, options for building projects, company directorships and various bank accounts, a number of them overseas. Some of these had slipped his mind when he’d listed his financial resources for the court. Anna had filled in the gaps and Laura was preparing to raise the discrepancies at the next hearing. Anna knew that Harry was concealing large amounts of money and had done her best to gather evidence to prove it.
‘He’s been cheating and hiding things for years,’ Anna had said in one emotional outburst. ‘He thinks I don’t know but I do and I want the judge to know exactly how mean and deceitful he is.’
Laura warned against personal abuse or appearing too vindictive because it didn’t go down well. Of course, Harry must be honest about his financial resources and if there was evidence that he was not, the court would take that very seriously. But the judge wouldn’t be interested in dishing out blame or hearing vitriolic attacks by one partner on the other. The court’s sole aim, after ensuring Martha’s welfare, would be to achieve a fair settlement between husband and wife. It wanted compromise not retribution.
It was Laura’s duty to advise Anna of these things
, it was up to Anna if she took any notice. She didn’t. Laura may as well have been talking a foreign language that she didn’t speak a word of. Anna was haunted by the terror that if she showed the slightest weakness, the slightest sign of wavering, he would take advantage and somehow return to controlling and manipulating her.
‘If I ever told him “no” he wouldn’t accept it. He just insisted on what he wanted until my “no” became a feeble “yes”. I didn’t know how to stand up to him, but never again,’ she said.
It was the reason Anna at first refused point blank to take part in mediation.
‘I’m scared stiff of meeting him again, Laura, he’ll just try to get power over me.’
Laura did eventually manage persuade her to give mediation a try but it had gone badly. Laura had not been there but heard about it from Anna. Harry was loud and domineering, wanting everything done his own way. Seeing his behaviour again at close quarters had triggered her intense fear of him.
She had screwed up her courage and told the mediator how she’d been forced to leave home because of his increasing violence. She hadn’t known what he might do next or if Martha was safe. Harry went mental over that, Anna said, shouting that he’d never hit anyone and would never harm his daughter.
The mediator had tried to get the session back on track and to talk about important things that needed resolving, such as Martha’s future, and her financial arrangements, but Harry had started accusing Anna of having an affair, calling her a slut and demanding to know how many other men she’d slept with during their marriage. Anna had surprised herself then; for a moment she’d forgotten to be frightened. She fought back, defiantly giving details of her husband’s extreme, mindless jealousy.
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