by Menon, David
‘We came up with a repayment plan that we worked out she could afford and put it to her creditors’ Owen explained.
‘And why did your Auntie get into difficulty?’
‘Even though they’re sisters my Aunt Jess and my Mum are very different people’ said Owen. ‘Aunt Jess has always been lousy with money. She’s never married, she has no kids. My Mum met my Dad, I met you. Not everybody has been as lucky, my Aunt Jess being one of them, and loneliness is a curse that leads to so many other kinds of unhappiness. Your Dad has probably tried to spend his way out of being haunted by his memories’.
‘He wouldn’t have any money worries if that bastard let him have his inheritance from my Gran. I can’t believe my mother is living with him’.
‘I know, babe, but you know, don’t be too hard on your Mum. Your Dad can’t have been easy to live with all these years. She might be suffering with her own emotions. I’d be surprised if she wasn’t to be honest’.
‘Owen, she’s left my Dad for that evil monster Griffin, let alone the fact that he’s her father-in-law’.
‘I know and I’d be furious too. But let the dust settle and then let her explain herself. That’s all I’m saying’.
‘Oh Owen. I didn’t mean for all this to fall on us. You must be wondering what kind of family you’re marrying into’.
‘No’ said Owen, firmly. ‘I’m marrying you, not your family. And I’m in love with you. If any problems come our way then we’ll sort them out. We’re not going to be defeated by anything. I do have to ask one thing though?’
‘What?’
‘Do you want to delay our wedding?’
‘No!’ said Gabby, adamantly. ‘Owen, our wedding is the only way we can maintain control over our lives. It’s the only thing we’ve got. We’re not going to delay it for anything’.
‘Just thought I’d ask’ said Owen who didn’t want to appear insensitive. He loved the bones of Gabby and wanted her to feel the greatest freedom as she walked down the aisle to marry him. He’d do anything for her. ‘I just want you to be happy’.
Gabby sat up and took Owens’ face in her hands. His short black hair, dark blue eyes, square jaw and dimple in his chin meant the world to her now, even more than before. She felt so lucky. It wasn’t just that he was gorgeous. It was his sensitivity, his kindness, his thoughtfulness. That’s why, she imagined, he made a good nurse. He just seemed to be able to hit the right button at the right time. Cameron the big, hunky Aussie was all very well, a good laugh and a good friend and a huge piece of eye candy for any girl. But Owen was her man and always will be.
‘And I will be so happy when I’m your wife’ said Gabby who then kissed her fiancé with the kind of sensuality that left Owen in no doubt about her intentions.
‘Wow!’
‘Let’s go upstairs’.
‘I didn’t think you … ‘
‘ … I want you to make it to me like I can’t think about anything else except you and me. Just like you always do. I need that tonight, Owen. I need you to make me feel that tonight’.
SORCERER NINE
Ed Lake asked his daughter Gabby to go through some personal effects of her Grandma’s that he’d kept for years but never looked at. He hadn’t been inclined to. He hadn’t been interested. But George didn’t know that he had them so he considered them valuable just for that reason.
‘So what do you think of your Grandma now?’
‘I don’t know to be honest. Hatred mainly, especially after my Dad told me she knew what Griffin was doing to me’.
‘Over ninety percent of this kind of abuse takes place within the family and although other members may suspect, for their own reasons they don’t want to believe it. Or they just don’t know it’s going on’.
‘But why don’t they do something about it if they suspect?’
‘They might be scared of the alleged perpetrator? For some women it’s a case of any man is better than no man’.
‘Oh that’s pathetic! That really angers me to be honest’.
‘There’s a lot of really weak people out there, Gabby, and they’ll put up with anything to avoid what they don’t want which is to be alone’.
‘I want to understand so I can help Dad through this but to think that my Grandma knew about it and did nothing’. She shook her head. ‘I can’t get my head round that’.
‘That’s because you’re strong and won’t be put down by anyone’ said Owen. ‘But that’s not the case for everyone and we don’t know about the dynamics of your Grandma’s relationship with George. It’s complex, Gabby’.
‘I wish I had brothers and sisters who could share the burden of all this with me. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you’.
Owen kissed the top of her head. ‘Well I’m not going anywhere’.
‘When we come to have kids, Owen, I don’t want to have just one. I want to have two or three and raise a close family who’ll all be there for each other’.
‘No argument from me there’ said Owen. ‘I was an only child too, remember? I want us to have a big, loud noisy brood around us and for all the same reasons as you’.
‘This time next month we’ll be Mr. and Mrs. Cunningham’.
‘Can’t wait’
‘Me neither’ Gabby enthused. ‘Especially if last night is anything to go by’
‘Wait until our wedding night, Miss Lake. I’ve saved a few tricks up my sleeve’.
‘You have? I didn’t think there were any left’.
‘Oh I’m still going to surprise you’ said Owen.
‘I’m a lucky girl’.
‘You so are’.
They laughed as they kissed.
‘But listen, we’d better get back to sorting all this stuff out’ said Owen.
‘Okay’ said Gabby. ‘Anything you say tiger’.
Owen looked across the dozen or so boxes and large bags containing letters, ornaments, books, and all kinds of odd stuff. He focused in on a box which seemed to contain nothing but letters. Being the curious type he couldn’t help but open the one that was on top of the pile and try and gauge a sense of what Gabby’s Grandma had really been like.
‘Hey, babe’ said Owen as he read. ‘You didn’t tell me about your father’s Aunt Jocelyn?’
‘That’s because I didn’t know about her’.
‘It says here that she was the sister of your real grandfather and she’s really mad at your grandma who she’s accused of destroying her family. It’s got an address in Bowden on it. Might be worth checking out?’
Detective Constable Oliver Wright had made a good impression on Jeff Barton since he joined his squad only a few months ago. Oliver was keen to get on and he liked being on Barton’s squad though that was not to say it wasn’t competitive. He knew that some of the other members of the squad didn’t like him because he was smart, he wore good suits and kept himself fit. Some of his more senior colleagues wouldn’t run the length of the sausage roll they liked to eat for breakfast. But Oliver knew he had the eye and the ear of the boss and he wouldn’t be surprised if he was being lined up for promotion if he played his cards right.
‘Sir, we’ve now interviewed all the former staff members at Pembroke who were there during the Griffin years’ said Oliver in response to a general call for progress from Jeff in a full meeting of his twelve strong squad.
‘All of them under caution, Ollie?’
‘Yes, sir’ Ollie confirmed. ‘They all confirmed the initial story of Tony Chambers about being blackmailed by George and Mary Griffin with events from their past. We managed to track down the first wife of Chambers. She now lives in Cyprus with another man and she confirmed that she and Chambers never got divorced’.
‘And what else do the other staff members say about the abuse?’
‘They all back up Chambers story about George and Mary Griffin basically being sadists, sir’ said Wright. ‘During the Griffin years a total of twelve boys were sent to Pembroke ranging in age from nine to fourteen
. We’ve now got statements from all except two who committed suicide not long after they left Pembroke’.
… what a bloody scandal of a waste’ said Jeff, shaking his head. ‘Did any of them come out of it relatively unscathed?’
‘Yes, sir’ Wright waded in once more. ‘Dominic Power. He was out of town when I called but he’s expected back tomorrow and his Aunt is going to get him to call us. Soon after he left Pembroke he went down to New Zealand to live with his Aunt and Uncle on the South island near the city of Christchurch. He settled down with them. He’s now manager of the vineyard he’s worked on since he arrived there in 1994’.
‘Married? Kids?’
‘No, sir. Still lives with his Aunt and Uncle. They had two kids and took Dominic in as one of their own. His Aunt Sheila Fitzgerald told me on the phone that she and her husband Declan had wanted to adopt Dominic after he lost his parents in a house fire. They were Sheila’s brother and sister-in-law’.
‘So why didn’t they adopt him?’ asked Rebecca.
‘Their application was rejected by the local council, ma’am’.
‘On what grounds?’
‘They both smoked, ma’am’.
There was an audible gasp of comic disbelief round the room at what Oliver Wright had just told them.
‘You are kidding me?’ said Rebecca.
‘Absolutely not, ma’am. Sheila and Declan Fitzgerald paid for his ticket to New Zealand as soon as he was released from Pembroke. Now, the other excuse the council used to reject their application was that, in their opinion, it would be unwise to take Dominic to the other side of the world and away from the rest of his family here in Manchester’.
‘But did any of the rest of his family give a shit about him?’
‘No, ma’am. According to the records his aunt Sheila travelled halfway round the world to see him at Pembroke but his relatives here in Manchester who were only a few miles away, never went to see him’.
‘Unbelievable!’ exclaimed Jeff. ‘So on the word of some useless social worker or other well-meaning idiot on some council adoption committee, instead of going to an Aunt and Uncle who wanted to take care of him but who smoked, Dominic Power had to endure years of sexual abuse?’
‘That’s about it, sir, yes’ said Ollie. ‘I suppose to be fair whoever it was who made that decision wouldn’t have known what was going on at Pembroke’.
‘But that’s not the point, Ollie’ said Jeff. ‘Common sense clearly didn’t prevail here. And anyway, why didn’t the council know what was going on? That is another angle to this case we’ve got to investigate. Why didn’t the local council know what was going on in a council run home? Surely there must’ve been inspections?’
‘I’m sure there were, sir’ said Rebecca. ‘But I think that Griffin would’ve had ways to fool them. They’d never have got even an inkling of what was going on’.
Jeff sighed heavily. ‘How could the Griffins ever have done this?’
‘Well in Mary Griffin’s case we’ll never know because she’s dead’ said Rebecca.
‘I think society in general finds it hard to accept that women are involved in things like this’ said Ollie.
‘Well it shouldn’t do, Ollie’ said Rebecca. ‘Because we’ve had enough cases over recent years to show us that women are just as capable of committing heinous crimes as men’.
‘But it still shocks more than when men do it’ said Jeff. ‘Good work, Oliver’.
‘Thank you, sir’.
‘But what also concerns me at the moment is the fact that we still have no idea of the identity of the three skeletons that were found at Pembroke’ said Jeff. ‘Now I believe that Griffin is responsible in some way for their deaths but however much progress we make on the sexual abuse side of the case, we’re not done until those remains are identified and we find out how and why they died’.
‘Gabby, are you really prepared for what you might find out here?’ Owen asked after they’d pulled up outside the house in Bowden where her newly discovered Aunt Jocelyn had once lived and perhaps still did.
‘Owen, with everything else I’ve had to deal with these past few days I’d say that yes, I am prepared for what I might find out at the home of my Great Aunt who I never knew about’.
A tall rather elegant looking woman who was probably in her late sixties or early seventies answered. Her hair was styled neatly into place and Gabby noticed she must’ve had highlights in a shade of something like chestnut. She had a broad smile with bright green eyes and she looked like one of those stoic people who could cope with anything. She was dressed in a light blue blouse with the collar turned up, plain white trousers and casual light brown slip on shoes, large round gold clip-on earrings and a matching chunky necklace. It was a bit like looking at Jane Fonda.
‘Can I help you?’
‘My name is Gabby and this is my fiancé Owen’ said Gabby.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you Jocelyn Holmes?’
‘Yes? What is it you want?’
‘Harry Lake was my grandfather and I believe you’re his sister?’
It took Jocelyn a few seconds but then the penny dropped.
‘So you’re the granddaughter of my brother Harry?’
‘Yes’ said Gabby who could see that Jocelyn was getting emotional.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Jocelyn exclaimed. She put her hand to her mouth.
‘I’m really sorry if this has come as a bit of a shock’.
‘A shock, yes, but a very pleasant one. Please, please come in’.
Gabby and Owen were a little self-conscious as they were led into a spotlessly clean house where everything appeared to be in its place and nothing was accidently scattered anywhere. They already shared the housework and Gabby was adamant she would never turn into one of those women like her cousin Andrea who has to ‘do all her cleaning’ before she can do anything else. Andrea is fat, forty, a divorced mother of three whose life seemed to depend on taking the vacuum cleaner to every room in her house by eight o’clock in the morning or else she gets into a panic. Gabby always thought it was a pity Andrea hadn’t paid as much attention to her relationship with her ex-husband as she did to making sure the rug in the living room was correctly angled to the sofa, or the towels in the bathroom were folded in exactly the way she wanted them. He might not have left her if she had.
‘Please sit down’ said Jocelyn. ‘You’ll have to forgive me. This is taking me back many years’.
‘I understand’ said Gabby after she and Owen had sat down on the sofa. Jocelyn was in the armchair.
‘What’s made you come to see me now?’
‘My grandmother died recently’ Gabby revealed. She was holding hands with Owen.
‘Yes, I read about it in the papers’ said Jocelyn, her face set and stern. ‘But don’t expect me to grieve for her and forgive me if that offends’.
‘It doesn’t offend’ said Gabby. ‘I don’t have a very high opinion of her myself right now but we were going through her belongings when we found your letter to her’.
‘She promised never to show my brother’s suicide note to anybody and I found out that half of Manchester had seen it. The day Harry committed suicide was the saddest day of my life. He was my only sibling and it almost destroyed our parents. They were never the same again. I’d just got married and was very happy. My husband died a few years ago from cancer but we’d had a wonderful life that Harry and his family were always missing from. We had two sons, both of whom now live and work in London. One is a journalist, the other works in the charity sector. They have families of their own and both want me to sell up and move down there but I couldn’t. This house has been home since the day I got married. I couldn’t leave’.
‘Mrs. Holmes, …’
‘ … I think you’d better call me Aunt Jocelyn, don’t you?’
Gabby smiled and Owen squeezed her hand. ‘Okay, Aunt Jocelyn. Did my grandfather commit suicide after he found out about my Grandma’s affair with George Griffin?
’
‘Yes’ said Jocelyn. ‘She married Griffin with obscene haste after Harry died. Our poor Harry was barely cold. Your grandmother then cut herself off from my family’.
‘But what about my Dad who was your nephew?’
‘We never saw either of them again’ said Jocelyn, sadly. ‘Your father was only seven at the time’.
Gabby breathed in deep. ‘Aunt Jocelyn, Griffin subjected my father to years of sexual abuse. My father is in hospital at the moment. After my Grandma died it all got a bit too much for him because Griffin made sure that he controls my father’s inheritance from my Grandma. It tipped him over the edge’.
‘Oh my Lord’ said Jocelyn, her eyes wet with tears. ‘I read about all the accusations in the papers from that Ronnie Wiseman but I never thought … oh God, if only I’d known. Please tell him I’m sorry’
‘It’s not your fault, Aunt Jocelyn’.
‘But he’s my nephew, my flesh and blood. But when his mother cut them off from us all, what could I do? I couldn’t force contact on them. I sent Christmas cards and birthday cards for the first few years but they were all returned and then I just gave up. I really had no idea that poor Edward was suffering like that’.
‘Its okay, Aunt Jocelyn’ said Gabby, reassuringly. She could see Jocelyn was getting upset. ‘I haven’t come here to blame you’.
‘I always knew Griffin was a monster but I could never imagine that was going on. You must be a very strong young woman to deal with all this, Gabby’
‘Oh she is’ said Owen, smiling broadly at his fiancé. ‘She both terrifies and impresses me’.
‘It did all come as a bit of a shock to say the least’ said Gabby. ‘But we’re dealing with it’.
‘Do you have time to stay and have a drink with me?’
Gabby smiled. ‘Of course we do’ she said.
‘It’s not every day my great-niece turns up on my doorstep, accompanied by such a handsome young man. Oh you’ve made me a very, very happy woman by coming by, Gabby. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do and we’ve got to think of a way of helping your father get better’.