‘Oh, God …’
‘Yes … and their solicitor informs me they’re planning to take Jack with them.’
I was now rigid with shock.
‘Can they legally do that?’ I managed to say.
‘If the hearing goes their way and they make an application …’
He broke off. I said, ‘Finish the sentence, Mr Clapp.’
‘I’d really rather …’
‘Finish the sentence.’
On the other end of the line, I could hear him take a deep steadying breath before saying, ‘If the hearing goes their way – if they convince the judge that you are an unfit mother and an ongoing danger to your son – then you will have no say in the matter. They can take your son wherever they want to take him.’
Thirteen
‘THE ISSUE HERE,’ Maeve Doherty said, ‘comes down to one central question: where does the child best belong? That’s what the court will be deciding – and because there have already been two legal decisions made in favour of the child’s father, it’s going to be our job to convince the judge that, at the very least, the child’s best interests are served by joint residence between his mother and father, preferably with him spending more time with his mother.’
‘But if Tony wins residence?’ I asked.
‘Then you’ll have no say about where the child lives with his father,’ Maeve said. ‘So if – as your husband’s solicitors have indicated – he and his new partner are planning to settle in Sydney for several years, then they can most certainly take him there, even if you do object to being so geographically separated from your son. Naturally, should this happen, we can argue, and probably win you, visiting rights – but that will hardly be satisfactory. Unless, of course, you’re willing to move to Australia.’
‘Without a visa or a job? Sure.’
‘Well, hopefully that won’t come to pass. The problem here, however, is that two court orders have indicated that you could be considered an unfit mother, and that your alleged behaviour after the child’s birth indicated that the child could potentially be harmed by you. Which is what they are going to argue again. Now we can certainly call a variety of professional witnesses who can both vouch for your mental stability, your fitness as a mother, and the fact that you were suffering from clinical depression at the time. How many statements do we have now, Nigel?’
‘Eight altogether,’ he said. ‘And … uhm … they’re all very favourably disposed towards Ms Goodchild.’
‘Which means we can count on eight favourable witnesses. The big sticking point, however, is the CAFCASS report. The court always pays attention to this report. It inevitably wields a considerable amount of influence on the final decision – as it can only be commissioned by the court, and it’s also looked upon as the definitive statement on the case from the Social Services. Which is why I’m rather worried about this report. Because it doesn’t come down firmly on your side, Sally. You concur with my worries, don’t you, Nigel?’
We were sitting in Nigel’s office. It was two days after the bombshell letter had arrived from Tony’s solicitors, announcing his intentions to move to Australia. Though she was trying to juggle around four briefs at the same time, Maeve Doherty considered the situation serious enough to find a free hour to get down to Balham for a meeting with the three of us. Which is how I found myself making only my second visit to Nigel Clapp’s office since he had started representing me.
‘Uhm ... in my experience,’ Nigel said, ‘if the CAFCASS report doesn’t challenge the status quo, the court will usually allow the status quo to be maintained. Which … uhm ... I’m afraid to say might mean that residence will be granted to your husband, but with more generous and unsupervised visiting privileges. Which still means that they can take him to Australia. So, uhm, I’m in agreement with Ms Doherty … we need to strive for some sort of joint residence arrangement …’
‘But Nigel,’ Maeve said, ‘the problem here is not having any real ammunition against either Tony or his partner. Unless your “detective” has turned up something.’
Nigel almost managed a small embarrassed smile at the mention of his ‘detective’.
‘Shall I bring her in here to see what she’s managed to uncover?’ he said.
‘Your detective’s a she?’ I asked.
Nigel started to blush.
‘It’s … uhm … Mrs Keating.’
‘You’re kidding me?’ I said, then suddenly saw that this comment made him anxious.
‘She’s really rather good at it,’ he said.
‘I can confirm that,’ Maeve said.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to imply …’
‘Why don’t you get her in here?’ Maeve said.
Nigel reached for the phone and dialled a number. From next door, we could hear Mrs Keating answer her phone with a loud, ‘Yeah?’
‘Would you mind coming in here for a moment, Rose – and could you please bring the Goodchild file with you.’
‘Oh, yeah, right.’
She showed up a moment later. As she came in, I noticed brownish crumbs on her large floral dress. The remnants of bourbon creams, no doubt. Nigel re-introduced us. Though she had let me into the office only ten minutes earlier, she still looked at me as if I was some stranger whom she had never laid eyes on before. Nigel said, ‘Ms Goodchild and Ms Doherty would like to hear the results of your investigation into Ms Dexter.’
‘You want to read the report, or you want me to give you the condensed version?’ she asked.
‘Let’s … uhm … hear the condensed version, then we can make photocopies for both of them of your report.’
‘Fine by me,’ she said parking herself in a chair, and opening the file. ‘Got all her specs here. Diane Dexter, born Leeds, 15 January 1953. Father worked for the local Gas Board, Mum was a housewife. She went to the local grammar school, a state primary. Bright girl – won a place at Leeds University in Economics. Went to London after getting her degree. Ten years in advertising. Worked for some big firms – including Dean Delaney, and John Hegarty. Then got headhunted by Apple UK to run their marketing division. Five years with them. Branched into market research. Co-founded a company – Market Force Ltd – in 1987 with a partner named Simon Chandler, with whom she was romantically linked for a time. When they broke up in 1990, he bought out her share of the firm, which she used to set up Dexter Communications, which has become super-successful over the last ten years, to the point where she’s now worth around £10 million, with houses in ... well, you know all that from the earlier Lawrence and Lambert report in the file.
‘Now, here’s what little dirt I could find on her. Two month’s hospitalization in 1990 at the Priory for “psychotropic dependence” – better known as cocaine misuse. The bad news is that there were no arrests for drug possession, in fact nothing criminal whatsoever, bar a couple of points on her driving licence for speeding. And she’s been totally clean since the Priory stint in ’90. In fact, she’s actually given talks to youth groups about her past addiction, and has also raised money for a charity that sponsored drug education programmes in and around Leeds.’
Great, I thought. A reformed druggie who’s remained clear for thirteen years – and now does good charitable work as a way of making amends for her wayward past. Oh, and she’s wildly successful and rich to boot.
‘The cocaine angle is an interesting one,’ Maeve Doherty said. ‘There might be something there. Anything else?’
‘Besides the relationship with Simon Chandler, there have been two failed marriages: a two-year quickie to a chap she married out of university, and whom she divorced in ’75. He’s now a school-teacher somewhere in Yorkshire. Then there was a six-year stint with a television director named Trevor Harriman, which ended when she met Simon Chandler in ’85. In fact, Chandler was named as co-respondent in the divorce petition by her erstwhile husband. Since she and Chandler parted company in 1990, there have been a few affairs – including one with that thriller wri
ter fellow, Philip Kimball, but nothing solid. Until she met Tony Hobbs in 1999.’
I interrupted here. ‘Now Tony insisted that, from the outset, they were just friends.’
‘Well,’ Rose Keating said, ‘they may have been “just friends”, but she took him on a South African holiday in ’99, then scuba-diving on the Great Barrier Reef the following year, then spent a month with him in Cairo in 2001.’
‘What month in 2001?’ I asked.
‘September.’
‘That makes sense. We first hooked up in October of that year.’
‘Hate to tell you this, but it was she who dropped him in September – on account of the fact that he wouldn’t come back to London to live with her.’
Maeve Doherty came in here.
‘Did you manage to find out when they started seeing each other again?’
She nodded. ‘About twelve months ago – shortly after Mr Hobbs’s return from Cairo.’
I sucked in my breath. And asked, ‘How do you know that?’
‘Ms Dexter’s ex-housekeeper told me. He came over one afternoon to see her.’
Maeve Doherty asked, ‘But did the ex-housekeeper state whether he was just visiting her or actually visiting her?’
‘Oh, it was definitely the latter. He stayed with her until about one in the morning ... and they didn’t emerge from her bedroom until it was time for him to leave.’
… and to go home and tell me he’d been out boozing late with his chums.
Now I asked, ‘And according to the housekeeper, was he regularly at her place thereafter?’
‘According to the housekeeper, yeah,’ Rose Keating said. ‘He was over there all the time.’
Maeve Doherty asked, ‘I suppose Mr Hobbs’s barrister could question the validity of the housekeeper’s testimony … especially as she was an ex-employee.’
‘That’s right,’ Rose Keating said. ‘Fired for alleged stealing.’
‘Oh, great,’ I said.
‘Yeah, but the housekeeper got legal advice and forced Ms Dexter’s hand. Turns out not only did she receive a written apology from her, saying the whole charge was false, but she also got a cheque for a year’s wages as a way of saying sorry.’
‘And will this housekeeper be willing to testify?’ Maeve Doherty asked.
‘Oh, yes. She don’t think much of Ms Dexter, that’s for sure. And she also told me where and when the two of them slipped out of town for a little romantic rendezvous over the past six months. Twice in Brussels, once in Paris. Got the names of the hotels, called them up, they confirm that Mr Hobbs had company on both occasions. In fact, the concierge at the Hotel Montgomery in Brussels told me it was the same woman both times.
‘Oh … one final important thing. Seems Ms Dexter miscarried a child when she was big into cocaine. The year afterwards, she tried IVF. Didn’t take. Tried it again in ’92 and ’93, by which time she was forty, and the game was kind of over. The thing is – according to the ex-housekeeper – having a kid has become something of an obsession with her, to the point where, in the mid-nineties, she considered adopting for a while until business stuff superseded ... seems she ran into a little corporate financial problem for a while …’
I looked at Rose Keating, amazed. ‘How the hell did you find all this stuff out?’
She gave me a coy smile: ‘I’ve got my ways, dear.’
Maeve Doherty said, ‘The fact that they were carrying on while he was also married to you is good stuff. The fact that he has written that theirs was a friendship until your illness – and we have proof otherwise – is also good stuff. And the fact that she’s been desperate for a baby all these years … well, we can certainly put two-plus-two together on that one.’
But then she looked at me directly and said, ‘However, I have to be honest with you here, Sally. In my opinion, while all this evidence is useful, it still doesn’t contradict, or undermine, the dirt they have against you.’
I suddenly felt in need of an extra dose of anti-depressants. Just as I suddenly saw myself down at the Aldwych, lining up with other would-be emigrants at Australia House, explaining to some bored consular official how my ex-husband and his new wife won residence of my child, and I want a visa for the Land of Oz so I’ll be able to have my weekly visit with my little boy. To which the consular official would undoubtedly ask, ‘And why did your husband receive residence of your little boy?’
‘Uhm ... Ms Goodchild?’
I snapped back to terra firma.
‘You all right, dear?’ Rose Keating asked me.
‘I’m trying to be.’
‘The problem is,’ Maeve Doherty said, ‘the Final Hearing is in twelve days. And unless…’
Nigel Clapp came in here. ‘Uhm ... I think what Ms Doherty is getting at is ... uhm ... well, to be completely direct about it, we need to find something else on either your husband or Ms Dexter. As Ms Keating has done such a thorough job sifting through Ms Dexter’s life—’
‘Can you think of anything about your husband that might be useful?’ Maeve asked me.
‘You mean, besides the fact that he dodged marriage for years and told me he never wanted kids?’
‘But he still brought you with him to London when you became pregnant,’ Maeve said.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘His life was pretty much work and the occasional girlfriend before I came along. I can’t say he told me much about all that. In fact, the only time I found out anything about his old private life was when some journo in Cairo told me …’
At that moment, I heard a tiny little ping in the back of my brain; a single line of conversation that had been spoken to me around seven months ago. Something which, in my confusion at the time, I hadn’t even picked up on. Until now. When, out of nowhere, it was yanked up from the dustbin of my brain and placed in front of me.
‘Are you all right, dear?’ Rose Keating asked me.
‘Could I use your phone, please?’
I called Directory Enquiries for Seaford. The number I wanted was listed, but the person I needed to speak with wasn’t there. I left a message, asking her to call me at home in London urgently. Then I went back to Nigel’s office and explained whom I was trying to contact, what she said to me some months earlier, and why it might prove useful.
‘It’s a bit of a long shot,’ I explained, ‘because what she said was pretty damn vague. But it’s worth finding out what she meant by it.’
‘Uhm ... do you think you could track her down and talk to her?’ Nigel Clapp asked. ‘We have just twelve days.’
Twelve days. That deadline kept looming in my mind. As did the realization that Maeve Doherty had been speaking the truth: without some new evidence, the court would probably find for Tony. The record spoke for itself.
Twelve days. I rushed home to Putney and checked my messages. Just one – from Jane Sanjay, informing me she was back in the country, but was down visiting friends in Brighton for a week before starting work again. ‘We’ll do that lunch sometime in the future … and, of course, I’ll see you at the High Court for the hearing. Hope you’re somehow keeping calm …’
Hardly. I re-dialled the Seaford number. Once again, I was connected to the answer phone. Once again, I left a message. Then I went back to work on the Film Guide. But unlike my previous proofreading stints, this time I was unable to fall into the rabbit hole of work and cut off from the outside world for a two-hour stretch. This time, I kept glancing at the phone, willing it to ring. Which it didn’t.
So I called back and left another message. Then I started calling at three-hour intervals.
At the end of the day, the phone did ring. I jumped. But it was Rose Keating.
‘Just called to see if there was any news?’ she asked.
‘She hasn’t rung me back yet.’
‘Keep trying, dear,’ she said, though I also grasped the subtext of what she was saying: we need something new.
By midnight, I must have called another eight times. I slept fitfully and eve
ntually found myself at the kitchen table around five that morning, proofing some more pages. At seven, I tried the Seaford number. No answer. I tried again at ten, at three, at six. Then, when I phoned at eight-thirty, the unexpected happened. It was actually answered. When Pat Hobbs heard my voice, she became indignant.
‘Was that you calling me all the time yesterday?’
‘Ms Hobbs … Pat … please hear me out …’
‘Don’t you go calling me by my name. I don’t know you.’
‘I’m Tony’s wife …’
‘I bloody well remember. You bothered me all those months ago …’
‘It’s an urgent situation.’
‘Is he dead or dying?’
‘No, but …’
‘Then it’s not urgent.’
‘If you’d just let me explain …’
‘Don’t think I will.’
‘It’s just one simple question.’
‘Which I’m not going to answer, no matter what it is. And I don’t want you disturbing me again.’
She hung up. I rang back. The line was busy. I called back again ten minutes later. Still busy. Half an hour later. Still busy. She’d taken it off the hook. I paced the kitchen with worry. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Then I found myself reaching for the phone and calling National Rail Enquiries, and finding out that if I caught the 21.32 from Putney to Clapham Junction, and changed for the 21.51 to Eastbourne, I would arrive in Seaford at 23.22.
I threw a few things into an overnight bag – thinking that, as it was a seaside town, there must be a few bed-and-breakfasts down there. Then I ran for the train.
As I walked out of Seaford station two hours later, I caught that iodine smack to the air that hinted that the sea was near. There was one lone cab outside. I showed him the address – garnered from Directory Enquiries.
‘It’s just three minutes’ walk from here,’ he said, pointing towards a Safeway supermarket opposite the station. I thanked him and started walking. The streets were empty. The lamplight was low, so all I could discern was a small main street with a jumble of Edwardian and modern buildings – including a very modern, boxy branch of Safeway. I turned right before it, and found myself on a street of low-lying shops, at the end of which were a handful of pebble-dashed bungalows. No 26 was the second from the end. It was painted cream. It had lace curtains in the windows. It also had a wooden sign above the door, informing the world that this house had been named: Sea Crest. My plan had been to seek out the house, then find a B&B nearby, and set the little travel alarm I brought with me for six-thirty, in order to be at her door by seven. She might hate the early morning wake-up call, but at least I’d have a chance of catching her before she went off to work (if, that is, she did work). But when I reached her front door, I saw that all the lights were on. So, figuring it was best to incur her wrath while she was still awake, I approached the door and rang the bell.
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