They sat quietly in Michael’s car, parked in a supermarket car park, Jess supporting her head on one hand, pressed up against the window, Michael tapping the steering wheel aimlessly.
“Tell me about the money.”
She didn’t want to talk about anything. Not The Navigation, not Dave Morley, not that ghastly woman and certainly not the money. She just wanted to get back, collect the girls from school and pretend nothing had happened. But she knew it wasn’t possible. She let out a deep sigh.
“I forgot all about it, Michael. I’m sorry.”
“I could have deflected that one, if I’d known.” Jess recognised the slight admonishment, the frustration he felt at being made to look ill-prepared and ineffectual. It was not something she’d ever seen in Michael before and it upset her. She couldn’t afford to lose his trust; she had so much invested in it.
“I guess I’m still so naïve. The things that matter to me are not the same things that matter to everyone else. I still don’t expect people to try and take advantage, even though it seems like it’s been that way all my life. When will I ever learn?” They both knew the question was rhetorical.
“I was shaken to the core about what Dave did to me. Especially when I thought I was just getting back on my feet again. I enjoyed the job, got on well with everyone, had a place to stay and some money in my pocket, and I never had to talk about Jess or what had happened to her. I never imagined something like that would happen to Alice. And when it did, I just thought, well, here we go again. The place wasn’t a sanctuary. Wasn’t a new start for Alice. It was just another chapter in Jess’s disastrous life.
“I did ask him for money. But not for that.” She twisted her face in distaste. “It was genuinely meant to distract him. It was so stupid. I see now exactly how it looks. But he put me under so much pressure, made me feel like I was the one to blame, called me all sorts of terrible things, and I just crumbled.
“And it was just like my father and just like Mo. It was the same thing all over again. I was the common denominator, the constant. I was made to feel like I was the problem, not them. That’s why I just gave in. Let him do whatever he wanted. Get it over with. I gave in to them all. I thought that was what I was supposed to do.
“But when Trish came back and looked at me as if I was mad, something snapped. I had to get away. I threw the money on the bed. I knew it looked like money for sex, even though that was never my intention. I felt dirty and disgusted with myself.”
“How much was it?”
“I don’t know; a few twenties.”
“So what about the twelve hundred?”
“As I was leaving, I heard Trish and Dave screaming at each other in the kitchen. The money was sitting on the bar, in a plastic wallet with a paying-in slip. She was supposed to have taken it to the bank.”
“So you decided to take it for her?” She could tell he wanted to believe her, but she could also sense the scepticism from the tone of his voice.
“No. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just saw it and I‘d just been attacked and I wanted to retaliate, so on impulse I just picked it up. I got a lift in the laundry van, and the next thing, I’m fifty miles away.”
“So then what?”
“Well, I felt really guilty afterwards. I’ve never stolen anything, Michael. Never. It was so out of character, so when I got dropped off in Newhampton I went straight to the nearest bank and handed it over. I admit I kept twenty, but they owed me a lot more than that and it was all the money I had in the world.”
“So he’s making that bit up? About the theft?”
“Well, I don’t know. I suppose it looked like theft to them and it would have taken a day or two before they realised the money had actually been paid in. Jade told me that Trish threw him out immediately, so maybe he never found out the money was paid back.”
“But she’d have a record? His ex-wife?”
“I suppose so. It was five years ago, but she wouldn’t have forgotten something like that.” She rubbed her forehead. “Oh God, what a mess.”
“It’s a sideshow, Jess. Whether he knows it or not. It’s just another fact Pauline Robson is using to press his case.”
“How can she be so horrible?”
“She’s just doing her job. Sometimes we lawyers have to be like that.”
“You’re not like that.” She looked at him. It was inconceivable that Michael Goodman could be horrible to anybody.
“If I have to get nasty to protect you ...”
“But what are we going to do? I won’t let him near the kids.”
Michael sighed.
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere making threats. But you can see how it’ll play out if we go to the police. It’ll be the same again but ten times worse. It’ll be extremely traumatic and totally futile. She was right about that.”
“But what about Trish? She knew. She knew what he’d done.”
“Did she witness you … in the act?”
“No, but she knew what had happened.” And then her heart sank, remembering the words. Remembering Trish’s words and her own response.
Did he force you? No. I let him.
“Maybe we can contact her and ask her to be a witness.”
“Forget it, Michael.” She knew she’d destroyed her own case; damned by her own honesty, her own state of mind. There was no way of proving rape. If only she hadn’t asked for money. If she had just walked out there and then, the moment he first touched her. But then she wouldn’t have two beautiful daughters, Lucy and Sophie; just like if she hadn’t married Mo, she wouldn’t have Leila.
“Michael, why do I love my children so much?” It sounded rhetorical, but he had an answer.
“You’re their mother. How could you not?”
“I mean, how can I love so much something conceived in hate?”
“That’s the way you are, Jess. And they’re innocent.”
“And I’m going to protect them.”
“And I’m going to help you.” He put a hand on her shoulder, and she leant over and kissed him on the cheek. “Come on. I’ll run you home.”
***
Pauline Robson and Dave Morley took a comfort break and then reconvened their meeting in her office over coffee. She was still smarting from the outburst by that little trollop and it showed in her mannerisms; constantly touching her hair, fiddling with her pearls and flicking through papers, trying to expunge the memory of the last few moments of a meeting in which she had been so outrageously insulted, her composure shattered and, most crucially, her dignity soundly trashed.
Dave sat opposite. She was a stuffy old tart, he thought. Except when Little Miss Stroppy wound her up. What Pauline needed was a good seeing to. He tried to imagine what it would be like, how she would look scrubbed up and wearing something skimpy, and the thought of it got him aroused. He’d have a go, given the chance. Teach her a bit. Probably never had it before. He was looking vacantly at her, his imagination out of control, not realising she had asked him a question.
“Mr Morley?”
“Oh, sorry, Pauline, I was thinking about something else,” he chuckled.
She seemed to bristle at the unauthorised use of her first name, or perhaps she could read his mind; he wasn’t sure which. Either way, he relished the imaginary flirtation, the deliberate provocation, and he felt his arousal intensify.
“I was suggesting we follow up with a letter rebutting her accusations just so they are in no doubt about the futility of their case. And then—”
“Nah, I wouldn’t bother with that.”
She looked at him disparagingly.
“Mr Morley …”
“Dave.” He smirked at her.
“Mr Morley,” she went on. Stuck up bitch. The things I could do to you. “If you will please allow me to finish. I shall, at the same time, demand a DNA test to prove parentage, a precursor to an application to the family courts for a child arrangement order to have you formally recognised as the father of the two children, thereby securing your access rights.”
“Nah, as I said. I wouldn’t bother with that.” She removed her spectacles again and gave him a look of disdain, bordering on contempt. “Waste of time.”
“Mr Morley. If we are to succeed in getting you access to your children, we have to follow the correct procedure.”
“Pauline,” he said again deliberately to provoke a reaction, which it did, in the form of a curled lip. “I need two more kids and another nagging mother like I need a hole in the head.”
Pauline Robson sighed and slumped back in her chair.
“Then why, may I ask, have you started proceedings in the first place?”
“She’s loaded.”
“Excuse me?”
“Alice. Jess. Whoever. The tart’s loaded. She’s got a huge house and acres of land and a flash car. She’s rolling in it!”
“And your point is?” she asked guardedly, but her tone suggested she knew exactly what his point was.
“Tell her I’ll give up my rights, waive ’em or whatever the correct legal term is, and promise never to darken their doorstep again. All I ask in return is a promise from her not to mention the ‘R’ word again.”
“And?”
“And a bit of compensation for the trauma and disappointment I’ll feel at being parted from my daughters. You know … giving them up.”
Pauline Robson looked at Dave Morley with ill-disguised contempt.
“You want to sell your paternity rights? You want to sell your half of the children to their mother?”
“Nah. Not sell. Not as such. She gets what she wants and I get what I want. It’s perfect, innit?” She put down her pen and sighed.
“And do you have a figure in mind?”
“Oh yes.”