Chapter 2

I didn't get much sleep that night, the dreams returned again. I suppose it was only natural what with the funeral that day. And add to that the confrontation I'd had with my daughter, Siena. I'd known that that was a bad idea from the start.

Anyway it was about nine that I sat down to breakfast. I wasn't really in that much of a hurry because my flight wasn't going to leave until late that afternoon. It was after I'd finished eating and was trying to pretend to myself that I was reading the morning newspaper whilst I drank my coffee that the two shadows appeared.

Looking up I saw Dick Wineforth and Hilary Bond standing there.

"Oh shit! My legal representative and my would-be legal nemesis together. Bugger, am I in deep shit or something?" I smiled up at them.

"No, Mike. Hilary and I were married two years ago. Actually, we just want to talk to you!" Dick said, helping Hilary into one of the other seats at my table and then asking a passing waitress for another pot of coffee as he took the seat opposite me.

"Dick, you're sounding officious. You are off duty today?" I grinned.

"Yes and no, mate. I'm not on police time if that's what you are asking, but my loving wife here has lumbered me with a duty to perform."

"And that is?" I asked before turning to Hilary and without waiting for his reply. "Good morning, Hilary, and congratulations. I'm not sure that you made the best choice for a husband here though."

"Charming, after all I've done for you. Whoops, sorry I said that," Dick Wineforth replied.

"Forget it, Dick; you know that I don't hold you responsible for anything."

"Good morning, Mike. You might have told me you were in town." Hilary interrupted the banter.

"Well, your husband knew."

"But you didn't know he is my husband now, did you? I'm very hurt that you never called."

"Our business with each other was completed some time ago, Hilary."

"God, did you cut yourself off from all your friends completely?"

"That was the basic plan, Hilary, you knew that. My business in this town was complete."

"Not quite, Mike, we fear you've been back once already. And besides, there are three young people waiting in the hotel's library who want someone to explain to them what the hell really happened."

"Shit!" I said out loud.

"Oh, come on, Mike, they deserve to know. She's dead now, there's no need to protect her reputation anymore," Hilary admonished me.

"Her reputation will remain important in their memory, Hilary. They've believed that I was the villain for so long, god alone knows what the knowledge that their belief has..." I checked myself, "may have been wrong, will do to their psyche."

"Nonsense, Mike, they deserve to know the truth," Dick Wineforth said, "And besides, I think that Siena has got it pretty well figured out in her own mind already. God only knows how she will be able to handle not knowing whether her assumptions are correct."

"I knew it was a mistake to see her yesterday. I said too bloody much!"

"You should have said a lot more in the first place, Mike. We told you that at the time," Hilary insisted.

"Hilary, the mother they loved was lying in a hospital bed with her brains bashed in. What was I supposed to do? Try to tell the world that I was goody-two-shoes and that she was most likely an adulterer? That's assuming that my assumptions were correct in the first place. There was never any real proof anyway, just a logical assumption of my own. Oh yeah, the newspapers would have had a bloody field day with that, if I'd started throwing accusations of her infidelity around; it was bad enough as it was. They would probably interpreted it as a bloody good motive for me wishing to harm her anyway!"

"Maybe you were right. There were those allegations of wife beating as well, Mike. Even if there was no real evidence to back them up!" Hilary conceded

"You know that he would have put that down to an honest assumption or something Hilary. Dick will tell you Garnet was one slippery customer. Wont you Dick?"

"Yeah, Hilary. He had the advantage of being her solicitor, so the bugger could hint at what he liked, then clam up and claim client confidentiality whenever he fancied. Those allegations of wife-beating that leaked to the press must have come from him in the first place. Even when she recovered from her coma, she had very little memory and none whatsoever of what had happened in the previous five years or so. He could put what words and thoughts into her mind he fancied. As her legal representative, he had more access to her than even we had."

"I know what Garnet was like, don't worry. But that doesn't change what you need to do right now, Mike. Your children are waiting in that library and they want you to tell them your side of the story. Dick and I will come in with you if you would like, and we promise to stay out of it."

"The fact that the two of you are here with them, Hilary, suggests to me that you are very much in it already."

"Okay, we've been at your house with them almost all night. God knows how Siena wangled Dick's mobile number out of the officers at the station, but she managed it somehow."

"Not my house, Hilary, their house now."

"No, Mike, didn't you ever read those divorce papers?"

"I can't say I even know where they are, Hilary; in the bank I suppose. I just sent the cash when the girl in your office told me it was due."

"And the tapes!"

"Oh yeah, and the tapes for the good doctor. I was pleased to hear he kept his word, Siena had no idea about them."

"No, they are all locked up in a drawer back at my office. As far as I'm aware, only you, her doctor, and I knew about them. Oh, and a couple of the nurses who were charged with playing them to her; but they were sworn to secrecy as well. So can we go and join your children now?"

"Have I got much choice?"

"Not if you want to catch that plane this afternoon. My husband here has a friend who has a friend, who has another friend in passport control. Between them, they figure they can keep you delayed at the airport for at least two days."

I looked at Dick Wineforth who just shrugged his shoulders. Then I looked back at Hilary.

"You wouldn't, Hilary?"

"Us? What? No, Mike! It would just be a slight administrative error." She smiled back at me innocently.

"Bugger, I do believe you would do it, as well!"

"There's only one way to find out, Mike. But I suggest it would be a whole lot less hassle for everyone if you just walk over to that library and spend half an hour explaining everything to your children."

That innocent little girl smile returned to Hilary's face again.

The library was as it had been the previous evening. There were no windows forcing it to be lit by artificial light all of the time. The only difference that morning, was that all three of my children were seated around a table drinking tea. They rose to their feet as we entered the room.

"Do you want us to stay?" Dick Wineforth asked.

"Not much point in you leaving, is there?" I said as I walked over to the table.

"Good morning," I said to the three of them.

"Hello, father!" all three replied in unison. Actually, it sounded as if they'd rehearsed it.

"Now, I want none of you to speak. I'm doing this against my better judgement and if you interrupt, then I'm liable to change my mind. Is that understood?"

"But what if..." Kaye my youngest daughter began to ask.

"If you have any questions then we will get to them later, after I've said my piece. Is that understood?"

"Yes, father." Bugger, in perfect unison again.

"Right, well, I'll start then. You might not have noticed but something wasn't quite right in our home life around that time, and hadn't been for a month or so."

"I noticed ... sorry, dad," Siena apologised for forgetting my condition.

"Accepted, sweetheart. Please try not to interrupt me again; this is going to be very difficult for me."

"I've missed you calling me that, daddy," Siena added, looking very sheepish.

"I've missed having someone to call sweetheart as well, Siena. But you see what I mean, my plane goes at four this afternoon and if all three of you were to keep interrupting, I'd miss the bugger.

"Now, as I was saying I knew that something wasn't quite right and eventually I challenged you mother over it one evening. She claimed that there was nothing wrong, but we'd been together long enough for me to know different. I'm afraid I pushed the point and your mother got a little angry with me for doing so.

"To say things got a little testy between us in the following days would be putting it mildly. And our ... er, our marital relations suddenly came to an abrupt halt. I knew that something was in the wind, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what. Obviously I began to suspect the worst, but other than your mother's sudden change in attitude towards me, I could find no evidence that she'd been doing anything she shouldn't be doing.

"I began checking on her movements as best I could. You know the nights she worked late or had dinners and things with clients and the like. Everything appeared to be completely above board to me. The only thing I wasn't too keen about was that she seemed to be spending a lot of her working day with another solicitor in the practice, William Garnet. He specialised in criminal work and as your mother mainly handled litigation, I couldn't understand why they were working together so much."

My son, Graham suddenly put his hand up as if he was in class and had a question for the teacher. I stopped speaking and nodded for him to ask it

"Sorry father, but how could you know what happened inside mother's offices?"

"Three hundred pounds worth of closed circuit TV system, Graham. A friend of mine was the manager of a shop across the road from your mother's office. I bought a video camera and mounted it on the roof of that building. From there it could cover nearly all of the legal practice's general office and the doors to your mother's and Garnet's office. But I couldn't see what went on inside those two offices though."

"Thorough, weren't you?" Dick Wineforth said from the armchair on the other side of the room.

"I told you at the time, Dick, I never got anything that proved improper behaviour on those tapes. In my opinion they just ... or rather Garnet, seemed to spend too much time in her office from where I was standing. Far too much time!"

"A point noted by some of the other staff who worked in that general office and mentioned in their statements taken by my officers. The trouble was, it were just office gossip if you know what I mean. No one ever actually saw anything untoward happen and their meetings could be explained away as routine conferences. Sorry Mike, I just thought that the children should know that we were also working on that particular angle later, and found about as much proof as you did."

"Thanks, Dick. I had just about come to the conclusion that your mother was having some kind of mid-life crisis or something, when unfortunately she must have seen me following her one day, and we ended up bumping into each other. I brazened out and pretended that I was in that part of town by chance.

"At the time she said nothing to me about our unexpected encounter, and I sort of assumed she'd accepted that us both being in the same part of town that day had been a coincidence. But later I discovered that she must have been subtly checking to see whether I had been following her and eventually she had caught me.

"Your mother went ape shit at me. We had a flaming row when I got home that night; that was the night she acquired that black eye. And no, I didn't hit her!"

"She got so worked that up she walked into the kitchen cupboard door!" Kaye interrupted.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I was sitting on the stairs, listening."

"Oh shit! We thought you were in bed."

"I was, but I was thirsty so I got up and was going down to get myself a drink," Kaye explained, "You and mummy were having one of your non-shouting, shouting arguments; so I hid on the stairs until you finished. You walked right past without seeing me when you stormed out of the house."

"Why have you never mentioned this before?" Siena demanded of her sister.

"I did! I told granddad and he told me that I had too keep it a secret. I was only nine, Siena."

"Christ, it was that bloody black eye that..." I began to bluster.

"Mike! Don't go there!" Hilary said with a firm voice from the other side of the room.

"Sorry. You're right, Hilary. Kaye, I'm afraid that your grandparents were never particular fans of mine. I very much suspect that your grandfather had an ulterior motive, when he asked you not to tell anyone about your mother walking into that door."

"Garnet was acting as the grandparents legal advisor around the time as well, Mike," Hilary informed me.

This was something that I hadn't been aware before, although it didn't surprise me. All of my confrontations had been with a particularly officious social worker.

"A bit out of his area of expertise, wasn't it?" I commented.

"But it served his purpose in helping to muddy the waters, Mike," Dick Wineforth suggested.

"Yeah, I'll give you that," I agreed with him, but then I turned back to the children.

"Anyway, your mother and I, once I'd calmed down, sat down and talked about things, well we tried to anyway. That's when the idea of sending you three down to your grandparents for a few days came up. Your mother and I needed some time alone to have it out between us in private.

"Well, actually I thought your mother and I had sorted it out on the way back up from the coast after dropping you off. We'd stopped for a drink and quite suddenly, with no explanation whatsoever her whole demeanour changed. I have no recollection of what we were talking about at the time, I think possibly about when we used to sneak away for dirty weekends before we were married."

"Oh, that's were I came into the picture!" Siena interrupted me.

"Er, what makes you think that?"

"Dad, I can add up, you know? Your marriage licence is in the file along with all of our birth certificates." My daughter grinned at me.

"Ah yeah, but I can explain. You see, your grandparents were putting up all sorts of objections to us getting married so you're mother and I decided to ... well, to find a way around their objections. I'm afraid that that didn't do anything to endear me further into your grandparent's affections."

"What you are trying to say, is that I wasn't an accident!" Siena grinned.

"Bloody hell, no! You will never know how much work and effort went into your ... well, your mother and I tried for nearly eight months before she became pregnant with you."

"So it wasn't a shot gun marriage then?" Graham asked.

"Oh shit no, it was the last thing your grandparents wanted, but with your mother being pregnant they couldn't keep putting obstacles in our way any longer. You know if your grandfather had had a shotgun, I think he would have shot me rather than let me marry his daughter."

"Why did he dislike you so much, dad?" Kaye asked.

"I'm not sure Baby," Kaye grinned when I used the word Baby, "I think it could have something to do with that happened out in Korea, but I'm not sure. My father and your mother's father were in the same unit out there, but my dad never made it back."

"What he's not telling you, is that his father was awarded a posthumous medal and your grandfather received a dishonourable discharge!"

I spun around in my seat to stare at Dick Wineforth, who had just spoken.

"What? Didn't you know?" Dick asked.

"Well yeah, I did know; but how do you know?"

"Mike, we looked at everyone, even the children's grandparents. They were too bloody quick off the mark with their claim for custody of the children."

"You didn't think that Ralph would have ... Not his own daughter!"

"What and then set you up for it; why not? It was worth a look, if nothing else. We were clutching at straws by then," Dick replied.

"Oh my god. That would never have of crossed my mind."

"It did ours, and several hundred other scenarios, but we kept coming back to the same one."

"Yeah well, we'll get to him in due time," I said before turning back to my children again.

"Where was I; I asked you not to interrupt me? Oh yeah, we'd just stopped for a drink in a hotel that we'd once spent a night or two in, before we were married when your mother suddenly announced that she was sorry, and admitted that she had made a big mistake. When I asked what she had been mistaken about, she asked me not to press her. So I didn't! I kind of had it figured that she'd tell me what her problem had been when she was ready to.