‘He must,’ Elsie said, swilling out the teapot, her forehead creased with anxiety. ‘He can’t just take thousands of pounds from all those people and not pay them back. That would be awful.’
‘All what people Mum?’ Mark said, hanging up his tea-towel.
There was a pause as Elsie looked from one to another. ‘Nothing,’ she said, and now she looked shifty. What a mistake I’ve made, she thought. Oh dear. What can I say now? She propped the washing-up bowl on its edge and led them through into the living room, hoping the subject would exhaust itself on the way.
‘What people Mum?’ Mark insisted as they settled themselves into the armchairs.
‘I think you’d better tell us,’ Greg said, leaning across to touch her hand.
Elsie sighed. ‘I promised him I wouldn’t.’
‘Promised who?’ Alison asked. The conversation was alarming her but she hadn’t dared to speak until now because the suspicion that was growing in her was so distressing.
‘Rigg.’
I knew it, Alison thought. ‘Oh my God!’ she said and sat down heavily. ‘He’s borrowed money from you.’
‘Well yes. I had to let him have it. He was in such a state.’
‘How much?’
‘Well rather a lot.’
‘How much?’
‘Six thousand pounds.’
They were all stunned. But Alison was sick with shame and anguish.
‘Your nest-egg,’ she grieved. ‘Oh Mum! All your money! All the money Dad … This is awful I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Elsie said into the silence.
But it felt as though it was. ‘I married him,’ Alison said. ‘I brought him into the family. If I hadn’t none of this would have happened. I didn’t marry him so that he could do that to you.’ Her face was strained with the misery and guilt of it.
‘Yes, well…’ Elsie said, trying to pass it off. ‘It’s done now. I’m sure he’ll pay it back. When he’s sold the flat in Spain. That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Alison said, rather surprised. ‘It is. How did you know?’
‘They sent me a paper,’ Elsie admitted. As it was all coming out now she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. ‘Well, lots of papers actually. One of them was a list of all his creditors. I thought it was a bit much at the time.’
‘Have you still got it?’ Greg asked.
‘It’s in Dad’s box.’
‘Could we see it?’
The box was brought down from her bedroom and the papers were found and passed round for her sons and daughter to see. They made shattering reading.
Alison was so shocked by the list of creditors that she had to read it twice before she could take it in. How could he have run up such terrible debts? Five thousand owing to an insurance company, eighteen to the Camelot and Wessex Bank – that couldn’t be right – and scores of names and addresses, a thousand owing here, five hundred there. Who were they all? The list was four pages long and the last page was entirely given over to credit card debts. He’d been running ten credit cards and he owed money on all of them. Thousands and thousands of pounds. It made her ache to think about it.
Greg was reading the report on the creditors’ meeting.
‘You didn’t go to this meeting, Mum?’ he asked.
‘No. I didn’t like to,’ Elsie admitted. ‘He said he’d pay me back. That was enough for me. I didn’t think I needed.’
‘It’s all right, old love,’ he said, smiling assurance at her. ‘I’m not criticising you. There’s just something here I want to check.’
‘I went to it,’ Alison said. ‘If I can tell you…’
Greg turned towards his sister. ‘It says here, Mr Toan explained that his limited liability company was doing good business. “If he could continue to trade, profits from the limited liability company would ensure the payment of a dividend of 60 per cent to his creditors.” That wouldn’t be a video shop, by any chance, would it?’
‘Yes,’ Alison said. ‘It was.’ Now what?
‘And he actually stood up at this meeting and said it was a going concern?’
‘Well yes. He did.’
‘No,’ Greg said. ‘I’m sorry, little sis. But it wasn’t a going concern. It was in debt to the tune of ten thousand pounds, to my certain knowledge.’
Oh God! Alison thought. That’s even more than Harry Elton knows about. She felt as though she was in a trap, condemned to hear bad news for ever. ‘How do you know?’ she asked in a voice husky with fear.
‘He came to see me the night before this meeting,’ Greg explained. ‘I didn’t know there was going to be a meeting. He never said anything about it. But I can remember the date very well. It was the day after Susie’s birthday. We offered him a slice of cake, didn’t we, Susan.’
‘A big one,’ Susan agreed wryly.
‘Well anyway, we sat him down and talked pretty generally for half an hour or so and then he said he’d come to see if I would like to buy the video shop.’
‘What!’ Mark exclaimed, ‘He didn’t.’
‘He said I could have it for ten thousand pounds as a going concern.’
‘Oh God!’ Alison said, realising how grasping Rigg had been. ‘It wasn’t worth six. That’s what they paid for it’
‘Surprise me,’ Greg said. ‘Anyway he wanted ten.’
‘What did you say?’ Mark asked.
‘At first I couldn’t make out why he wanted to sell. I told him I’d need to see some documentation first, articles of association, his last audited account, details of subsequent trading, an assessment of the market value of the premises, that sort of thing.’
‘And did he show them to you?’
‘No. He said he hadn’t brought them with him. So I asked him if there were any debts outstanding. And he said, yes, one or two. So I said I’d need to know what they were and I wrote them down as he remembered them. They came to over ten thousand pounds. At which point I said, what he was really asking me to do was to put my hand in my pocket to the tune of twenty thousand pounds for a business in financial difficulties that I didn’t need and didn’t want. And you’ll never believe what he said then.’
Alison waited, feeling she’d reached the point when she would believe anything.
‘He said, “Ah yes. But when you’ve paid off the debts, the first £1.50 over the counter will be pure profit.” Pure profit! I shall never forget it if I live to be a hundred.’
It’s just what he would say, Alison thought. He was never interested in anything but profit. It’s all he ever talked about.
‘So I take it you refused his offer,’ Mark said.
‘Too right I refused it,’ Greg said. ‘I thought it was dicey at the time. And then when I heard he’d gone into voluntary arrangement I knew how wise I was.’
‘He’s a bloody crook,’ Mark said. ‘I’m sorry Ali but I can’t say anything else. To take Mum’s nest-egg and then to try and stitch Greg up for twenty thousand.’
The walls were falling in on Alison where she sat, the ground shifting underneath her feet. This was worse than anything she could ever have imagined. To take Mum’s nest-egg. Dear old Mum, who’d never had a penny to her name except what little Dad had saved for her. It was robbery. Cruel, barefaced, selfish robbery. Dear old Mum, who’d never willingly hurt anybody in the whole of her life, who’d worked hard and scrimped and saved to get by. And in he comes and swans off with all her savings. All her savings. He never had the slightest intention of paying her back. He won’t pay anybody back. He’d have taken Greg and Susan’s money too if Greg hadn’t been wise to him. Mark is right. And so is Brad. He’s a crook. A con artist.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘So very, very sorry. Oh Mum, you don’t know how sorry I am.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Mark said, putting an arm round her shoulder. ‘How were you to know? He’s a professional charmer. It isn’t just you and Mum. He took us in too. He’s taken all sorts of people in. You’ve on
ly got to look at that list to see that.’
But Alison wouldn’t be comforted. It is my fault, she thought. It’s all my fault they’ve been put in this position. He’s my husband. I married him. I’m responsible for all of this. I should have stood up to him long ago, I should have made him tell me what he was doing. I’ve been a coward.
Guilt pressed down upon her. I shall have to divorce him, she thought. There was no doubt in her mind at all. Even if I loved him once – and she wasn’t even sure about that now – I can’t love him again, not after this. I can’t love him and I can’t stay married to him. I’ve got to tackle him, get a divorce and be rid of him for ever. I shall make an appointment with a solicitor first thing tomorrow morning.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was early in the morning when Alison arrived in the town centre to keep her appointment with the solicitor. The main road was virtually deserted, its pedestrianised red cobbles stained with oil, its brick-walled flower beds sprouting empty crisp packets and crushed beer cans among the shrubs. She walked from the bus stop to the corner of the High Street, shivering despite the padding of her anorak. The tremor was more nervousness than cold, for now she was mere seconds away from the break-up of her marriage. She knew that what she was doing was right and inevitable, but as she walked through the door into the carpeted ease of the solicitor’s office, she felt more vulnerable and alone than she’d ever been in her life. What would she have to confess in these quiet rooms? What would she have to say? Would they despise her for failing?
The young woman at the enquiry desk was pleasantness itself.
‘If you’ll just take a seat,’ she smiled. ‘I’ll tell Mrs Cromall you’ve arrived.’
The waiting room was full of comfortable armchairs and there was a television chuckling to itself on a low display table, but Alison was too keyed up to sit down and relax. She prowled around the room, pretending to look at the pictures on the wall, automatically tidying the magazines. Mercifully it was a short wait. After ten minutes, a young woman in a blue suit appeared at the door to introduce herself as Mrs Cromall’s secretary and to ask her if she would be ‘so good as to follow me.’
They walked up a flight of stairs, along two anonymous corridors, past several anonymous doors. Alison felt like Alice in Wonderland falling effortlessly down her long tunnel, not knowing where she was going to land.
But there was no white rabbit, just a middle-aged woman with an urchin cut, a welcoming smile and a briskly efficient manner. It didn’t take her long to establish the salient facts about her new case – that her client was on family credit and would need legal aid and that the husband in the case had walked out on his family in March 1990 – over a year ago.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘First things first. I think we’d better establish what the grounds will be for this action. We’ve got plenty to choose from: adultery, unreasonable behaviour, two years’ desertion, two years’ separation by consent – which means you both want this divorce – or failing everything else, five years’ separation.’
‘Which would be the easiest?’ Alison asked.
‘Separation by consent,’ the solicitor said, ‘if he’ll agree to it. You’d have a year to wait, of course, but it’s usually relatively straightforward.’
That was a disappointment. ‘Would other grounds be quicker?’
‘Possibly but not necessarily,’ Mrs Cromall said. ‘Would a year’s wait cause problems?’
‘No. Not really. It’s just I thought…’
‘Even quick divorces take time,’ the solicitor pointed out. ‘Separation by consent is less messy. Has he visited you since he left?’
‘Now and then,’ Alison said, remembering the terror of that dreadful time. ‘Not often.’
‘But he didn’t stay? You didn’t cohabit?’
‘No.’
‘Then look at it this way, you’ve served out a year of the time already.’
‘I suppose so.’
Mrs Cromall wrote on the form in front of her. ‘Quite straightforward, so far,’ she encouraged. ‘Now, about children. Do you have any children?’
‘Yes. Two.’
‘Dates of birth?’ Mrs Cromall asked. When they were given, she added ‘They’re quite young then. Does he pay maintenance for them?’
‘No.’
‘Do you wish to apply for maintenance?’
‘Could I?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then I will,’ Alison decided. And why not? It’s about time he paid for the children. They’re his as much as mine.
‘There is one difficulty I ought to point out to you,’ Mrs Cromall said.
Alison’s heart sank again. ‘Yes?’
‘If he comes to court and promises to pay you maintenance, your family credit will stop or be reduced according to the amount agreed, and there are no real powers to make him pay if he doesn’t want to. Lots of husbands pay for a few weeks and then stop. It can take months to get a count order to compel them to pay and even then they can play the same game again, pay for a few weeks and then stop. From what you say, it seems within the realms of possibility that your husband might not always pay up. If that were to happen you could find yourself seriously short of funds, because, as I expect you know, it could take several weeks to reinstate your family credit payments. It’s something to consider. Did he pay you regular housekeeping when you were together?’
‘Well, more or less,’ Alison said, feeling she had to be fair. ‘Not what you’d call regular.’
Mrs Cromall looked at her client shrewdly. ‘Then he might not pay up, is that it?’
Alison couldn’t defend him. She had to be honest or she wouldn’t have any money to feed the kids with. ‘Yes. I’m afraid it is. He’s never paid maintenance for the children, you see. We had an arrangement. If I wanted children I could have them, but I had to look after them and pay for them.’
‘What you’re saying is he didn’t want them.’
‘No. He didn’t.’
‘Then he won’t want custody. To look on the positive side.’
‘No. I suppose not.’
‘Visiting rights?’
‘He might.’ She hadn’t thought about it.
‘How would the children feel about that? I gather they haven’t seen much of him during the last year.’
‘I think they’d prefer not to see him.’
Again the shrewd look. ‘Because?’
Alison bit her bottom lip, hesitating. It seemed so disloyal to be telling all their most intimate secrets to a stranger. But what else could she do? She wanted this divorce and she knew it was bound to involve telling tales.
Mrs Cromall tapped her chin with her pen. ‘Am I right in assuming that your husband is – shall we say – a violent man?’
It was a relief to have it put into words. ‘Yes. I’m afraid he is.’
‘It’s useful to know,’ Mrs Cromall said calmly, ‘in case he refuses to agree to this divorce as you propose it and we have to fall back on other grounds. Perhaps you could tell me the extent of his violence.’
It had to be said. ‘He knocked me about.’
The shrewd face melted with sympathy. ‘Often?’
‘No. Only once.’
‘We must make sure he doesn’t do it again,’ Mrs Cromall said. ‘You can take out a restraining order, you know.’ She looked at the form again, checking the entries. ‘Right. Now all I need for the moment is your husband’s current address.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Alison said. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
‘His last known address then.’
‘That was Shore Street.’
‘Now that’s a problem,’ Mrs Cromall said. ‘We must have an address for service of documents. Is there anyone else who might know where he is?’
‘His insolvency consultant might. Or his mother. I’ll ask them.’
‘Splendid,’ Mrs Cromall said. ‘There’s no rush. We can’t do anything until your two years are up but it’s as well to get eve
rything clear, just in case we have to change tack. In view of what you’ve just told me, you understand.’
‘I’ll see what I can find out,’ Alison promised.
‘Keep me informed,’ Mrs Cromall said. ‘You can phone in the address when you’ve got it, can’t you?’
As they shook hands at the end of the interview, Alison felt deflated. After the courage it had taken to make this decision, it was miserable to have achieved so little. Especially when there was another awful moving day to face and the bulk of the packing to do, all by herself. She couldn’t ask her family to help her this time. Not after the way Rigg had treated them. That simply wasn’t on. Sighing, she turned up the collar of her anorak and set off into the wind.
That afternoon, she plucked up what was left of her courage and made the two phone calls she’d promised.
Harvey Shearing was no help to her at all. He didn’t know where Rigg was and, when she pressed him, told her, with some irritation, that he didn’t need to know until the date the first dividend was due. He was so off-putting he made her feel she’d been presumptuous to contact him.
Maggie Toan had been having an afternoon nap when her phone rang.
‘No, my dear,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea where he is. Why do you want to know?’
‘I’ve got some letters for him,’ Alison explained – with relative truth.
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about letters if I were you,’ Maggie advised. ‘He’ll pick them up in his own good time.’ She had a sneaking suspicion that Rigg and Alison weren’t living together any more now they’d allowed the house to be repossessed. If the silly girl was worrying for an address, it seemed more than likely. If that was the case, she didn’t want to hear about it. ‘I daresay he’s busy at the moment,’ she said, ‘rushing about all over the place. You know Rigby. He’s always got so many irons in the fire.’
It was Alison’s turn to be irritated. I don’t need irons in the fire, she thought, just an address in Mrs Cromall’s file. ‘You’re sure you haven’t had a letter from him?’ she prompted. ‘That might have an address on it.’
‘I’ve told you,’ Maggie said, and her voice sounded sharp. ‘I don’t know where he is. Why should I? I never know where he is. I’m only his mother.’
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