Chapter 10: Interlude

The trial and conviction of Humphrey Goldsmith, self-styled incarnation of Cu Chulainn, required major readjustments by many of the people who had suffered under his baleful influence. There was huge public interest as you might expect but the judicial system with willing cooperation from the media, managed to keep the names of the Family Cuthbert and Clan Sgathach clear of harassment. Pabay Island was featured in depth with much cautious speculation on what happened there but the existence of the farm in Wales was never mentioned.

I stopped watching televised news and I didn’t read a newspaper while the trial was going on. Even so, I was aware that public opinion was largely against Humphrey, but that view was far from being universal. The traditional media were restrained but the social media were less bothered about sparing our feelings. Hamish Smith undertook to bring down the trolls and at one stage he had a hot line to twitter forcing them to act. On the other hand, there were hundreds of requests to join the Scions of Sgathach, the organisation named in court.

The trial started tamely enough with the advocate for the defence indicating that there were no victims, simply loving relationships that happened to involve an older man with younger women. The prosecution made it brutally clear that they would prove rape and sexual abuse by a ruthless predator. Humphrey made a good impression; he is a little over six foot tall with a handsome face and trim figure. In a conservative three-piece suit, it was easy to believe that young women would be charmed by him.

Since I had played a part in bringing him to trial, I resolved to attend throughout, although I readily agreed to absent myself when Emer gave her evidence; I later agreed to extend the same courtesy to my half-sister Ruth. I had never been in a courtroom before when a case was being heard, although I had visited most of the magistrates’ courts in Lincolnshire out of hours, so to speak, when my mother was pleading. I would be parked with a book in the corner of an office in the building while Mum earned her living.

It was clear that the judge and both advocates formed a group deliberately standing apart from all the others; even the instructing solicitors were slightly outside this elite triumvirate. The early evidence covered the arrest, and it was evident that the judge was content to leave things to the advocates until he considered that a point had to be clarified for the sake of the jury. Humphrey sat listening intently to the testimony of the arresting officers, nodding occasionally.

The prosecution case really got under way when Emer’s brother Eric was called to the stand. He was taken through the circumstances of his removal from the island by Bert and his subsequent adoption by Bert’s sister. It took most of the morning to establish that the journey had been hurried and unplanned, presumably paving the way for Bert’s evidence. In the afternoon, the advocate asked what he remembered of events immediately before his departure.

“Bert came into the room where I was with my father, as I then knew him.”

“Who was in the room at that time?”

“Just me and him,” Eric said, pointing to Humphrey in the dock. “We were both naked and he was sucking my penis.”

Humphrey began shaking his head in denial and wrote a note which he handed over the front of the dock to his solicitor; it was handed on to the defence advocate who glanced at it but didn’t otherwise acknowledge the receipt.

The prosecutor checked that his little penis had been erect and was being sucked by the man he knew as his father. She also established that Humphrey’s penis was erect and close to his victim’s knees. Eric was very clearly embarrassed about his position on the witness stand and only relaxed when she asked about Bert’s entry.

“Bert came in about three paces into the room, so he was only about a metre from me. He was at the side so he could see what was going on. He didn’t say anything but just turned and went out closing the door behind him. He, the defendant, told me to get dressed and he did the same. Then he sent me out the room telling me to say nothing. That was when Bert took my hand, and we ran down to the jetty and left.”

After checking the details, the prosecutor invited the advocate for the defence to question the witness. He began by apologising to Eric for the ordeal that had happened so long ago. He asked how Eric had felt when his father was sucking his penis.

“I hated it. It was horrible.”

“It all happened such a long time ago so are you sure that is how you felt at the time. As an adult you know that you should have found it horrible, but you were ten years old at the time. Are you sure you didn’t enjoy the experience, even a little?”

Eric seemed more relaxed under the cross-questioning than he had under direct examination. He stood looking with unfocussed eyes and you could tell he was making a real effort to remember what he had felt all those years before. It was quiet in the courtroom when he eventually spoke.

“I absolutely hated the smell.”

The judge asked him to speak a little louder and Eric turned to the bench.

“His prick – sorry, his penis – was stinking. He made me touch it all hot and slimy. I couldn’t get the smell off my hands. Claude made a special soap, but I could still smell him for hours afterwards.”

There was no doubting the sincerity of the memory. The defence advocate indicated with a wave that he had no more questions, and the prosecutor stood, presumably to tell Eric he could step down; the movement attracted Eric’s attention and he turned from the judge to the advocate:

“I still can’t eat anything with my fingers,” he added, unconsciously rubbing his open palms on his trousers.

That was recognised by everyone as a turning point in the trial. The judge warned the jury that it was testimony unsupported by evidence, but he didn’t tell them to disregard it which came as a surprise to Hamish, who thought the prosecution might have to risk putting Claude on the witness stand. Emer and Ruth were the next two witnesses, and I missed their testimony as I had agreed. Hamish reported that they had done well, creating a favourable impression.

There were two more girls who reported sex with Humphrey when they were fourteen and fifteen respectively. They allowed themselves to be persuaded by the defence that they had made no complaint at the time. He suggested that they had enjoyed the experience, but he stopped short of pressing them for an answer. The final witness had passed her sixteenth birthday when she joined the cult. The prosecutor had introduced the fact that the girls brought money with them when they joined Humphrey.

I thought it was a weak finish to the prosecution case. The girl had arrived on Pabay about three months before Humphrey’s arrest, so it showed that he was still up to his tricks, but she was old enough to consent and there was no independent evidence of coercion. Bert had known nothing about the smell on Eric’s hands and they had decided not to risk Claude in the witness box; I was becoming anxious about the outcome of the trial.

“Did you become the mistress of the defendant?”

The girl said ‘No’ and the prosecutor asked further questions to clarify that the girl had been naked in bed with Humphrey but that he did not indulge in any sexual act with her. The judge got as bored as the rest of us, I suspect; in any event, he asked if the prosecutor was planning to finish soon. She replied that she had hardly started, or legal words to that effect, so he adjourned until the following morning.

When the trial resumed the following morning, it was obvious at once that the prosecutor had been stalling the previous evening.

“When you got into bed with the defendant you were naked, did you expect to participate in a sexual act?”

“Yes, yes I did. He had been telling me he couldn’t wait to get me into bed.”

“Do you know why he changed his mind?”

“Oh yes! I didn’t bring the money. I thought I had an inheritance when I reached sixteen, but it turned out that I got nothing until I reached twenty-five.”

“So he refrained from sexual intercourse with you until you reached that age?”

“Oh no! He said that it was hard enough getting it up for a sixteen-year-old. He prefers twelve-year-olds...”

The defence advocate interrupted at this point and asked for the evidence to be ruled inadmissible. The judge had a brief chat with the two advocates and then sent the jury out while the lawyers argued. They were ready, with bound volumes of past cases to establish precedents. Hamish was enthralled, making little approving sounds when a particularly clever argument was presented but I couldn’t understand a word of it.

In the end the jury wasn’t allowed to hear that Humphrey preferred to have sex with children although the judge referred to the testimony when he was passing sentence after the twelve good citizens had found the defendant guilty on all counts. The defence was brief when it was decided that Humphrey should not appear as a witness; according to Hamish, the defence had raised matters in cross examination that could have opened the door to some awkward questions.

He scored the trial like a sporting contest giving marks for style and presentation, but I had seen Eric come apart as he relived memories he had spent a lifetime forgetting. Although I hadn’t watched my wife and sister endure the same ordeal, I expected them to be traumatised. When the verdict was announced, I determined to begin at once to help them get over the shock, but life has a way of putting obstacles in your path.

The first of these was placed from behind bars. Humphrey announced that he would donate Pabay to the National Trust since Eric and Emer were not his children. The following day, the family of Sgathach, their mother, claimed the island for themselves. It was left to Hamish and me to establish that Humphrey had never married the heiress and had been a squatter on the island after her death. Her family had put in a claim because, as they told us, aristocratic families naturally fight to retain all their possessions. At the time they made their claim, they didn’t actually know where Pabay was. They left it to their solicitor to locate their newly prized possession, but he found another island of the same name belonging to a Scottish earl, who was utterly astonished to face a claim for land awarded to his family for some deed of valour in the sixteenth century.

The police allowed Hamish to search though a trunk of papers taken during the raid on the island. It contained letters confirming that Sgathach had been dealing in drugs, so the entire contents were being held. The most recent document was dated about twenty years before her death, before Humphrey came into her life. Hamish eventually found two important papers: the first was a deed gifting Pabay to Helen Bolton, thus defeating the family’s claim; the second was a signed and witnessed will leaving the island to ‘the fruit of my loins’.

One of the witnesses was Claude who had improved enough under the care of the doctors in Glasgow to remember swathes of the past although there were still huge gaps. In particular, he remembered Sgathach giving birth to a son who died when he was about a year old, long before she met Humphrey; unfortunately, he had no recollection of witnessing the will. Even although it was dated ten years before Eric was born, this last will and testament was held to be valid.

The law may be sure, but it is slow, so it was almost a year after the trial before the island was deemed to belong to Emer and Eric. In the meantime, we had overcome the second obstacle placed in my path by using some of Ruth’s savings to rent another farm in Wales and buying building materials to refurbish it. Over the years, members of the clan had developed the skills to do most of the work – I think I’m right in saying that the only professional help they needed was from a gasfitter.

With the future of the clan secured, I had only family obstacles to overcome before I devoted my attention to my poor wife. Either our night of passion when I rescued her or the gentle lovemaking in my father’s home two nights later, resulted in a pregnancy that was as welcome as it was unexpected. During her pregnancy with Aine, my wife had withdrawn from contact with anyone but me, as far as she possibly could. Humphrey demanded reports on her condition, and we used subterfuge to counter his demands that she move to Pabay for the birth.

Emer was quite different this time. She and Ruth had become very close following the meeting in Wales where they decided to cooperate, but my wife also spent much of her time with Dad and Rachel. We spent a good deal of time on Skye, living with Becky and Paddy while we spent the days with James and Shona. Aine was overjoyed at the prospect of a little brother and almost as pleased at acquiring so many new relatives. Dad and Rachel were tied to Lincolnshire while her parents lived out their final days in a local care home but there seemed to be universal agreement that we would all move to Skye as soon as possible.

Eric excluded himself and his immediate family from this group. It became increasingly clear that he truly loved his sister – but as she was when he last saw her as a ten-year-old. He and his wife were friendly when we sought them out, but they never took the initiative in arranging future meetings. His wife is several, years older than him and I think she found the Cuthbert family a bit too boisterous. We became closer after our son was born and we asked Eric if he minded us calling him Connla, Eric’s name at birth. He was pleased with both the name and the fact that we had consulted him. We all got along better after that but never became really close. Bert was charged by the police, but the Procurator Fiscal decided not to proceed against him.

I was the big problem. The thinking part of my mind processed the trial and sentence quickly but there was an emotional level where I was struggling to come to terms with things. There might have been a moment when I could have told Emer all that was in my heart, but her joy in the freedom conferred on her by the verdict convinced me that I had no right to impose my unreasonable response on her.

It seemed sensible to assume that time would reassure me so I left the questions unspoken even to myself; my misgivings didn’t go away but I built a wall behind which I could hide them. In the joy of her pregnancy and her blossoming friendships with my family, it was a long time before Emer noticed that I had a problem. It was almost too late.

To give my hidden wound time to heal, I threw myself into practical improvements. I became joint managing director of Forgall Products with Emer, taking full control when she opted for early and prolonged maternity leave – not that her medical condition called for time off, but she enjoyed her leisure time so much now. Bobby had a career-ending knee injury and happily agreed to take on my duties as transport manager. He turned all his charm onto our customers, single-handedly increasing our sales. Ruth’s clan allowed us to develop their designs; I found a manufacturer and used them as the basis for an export market.

It took some time to persuade Bert to return. He had carried a load of guilt for so many years that I think he would have been glad to receive a term of imprisonment. In the end it was Aine who convinced him that she and her Mum still needed him to look out for them as much as they ever had.

“You’ve only done half the job so far,” she bluntly told him. “If you feel as guilty as you say you do, you’d be back like a shot!”

She had grown up really quickly since she brought the pills to me, setting off the whole train of events. Physically she had caught up with her friends although her attitude to life was more mature than theirs. It was months since she had climbed onto my knee, and I was ‘Dad’ practically all the time. We were well into the transition from a father and daughter to two close and equal friends. She was the only one who sensed my unhappiness, but she didn’t feel sure enough of herself to inquire too deeply.