Douglas Kennedy - A Special Relationship

'I've only been a mother for a few weeks', I said.

'Yes, but surely there are some chums here...'

'I've only been in the country a few months. And I haven't really met many people...'

'I see', Ginny Ricks said. 'Well... I'll have one of our researchers get cracking on the witness statements today. One last thing: you did bring the retainer, I hope?'

I handed over the bank draft and said, 'If there's any way we could keep costs within that £2500, I would greatly appreciate it. My resources are fairly limited'.

'We'll do our best', she said, 'but if we do need to track people down and the like, it will run up things'.

'Right now, I have exactly £4000 to my name, no job, no bank account'.

'I understand your position', she said, standing up. 'And, no doubt, we'll be speaking in the next few days'.

But the next person I ended up speaking with from Lawrence and Lambert was one of their assistants. Her name was Deirdre Pepinster. She also spoke in the same horsey voice affected by Ginny Ricks - yet with a 'this is so boring' inflection with made me uneasy.

'Now I've been trying to reach this Ellen Cartwright for the past two days...'

'But I told Ginny Ricks that she was out of town'.

'Oh, right. Anyway, turns out she's on some hiking trip in Morocco - and is completely out of contact until the week after next. And Jane Sanjay, your health visitor, is on extended leave of absence. Canada, I think. Won't be back for four months at least'.

'Any chance of tracking her down?'

'It might run up the bill a little more'.

'I could take care of it. Especially as she liked me. And I think she'd say nice things...'

'Leave it with me'.

'And I'm sure I could also find out lots about the woman who's now with my husband...'

'Let us handle that as well. We too need her background information'.

'But it's more hours on the clock, isn't it?'

'We want to do the most thorough job possible'.

I didn't hear from her again until the end of the week.

'Right', she said. 'The woman in question is named Diane Dexter. Home address: 42 Albert Bridge Road, London SW11. She also owns a house in Litlington, East Sussex, and an apartment on the Rue du Bac in Paris... which is a pretty nice part of Paris, not that Litlington is shabby either. Very handy for Glyndebourne... on whose board she sits'.

'So, she's rich'.

'Quite. Founder and Chairman of Dexter Communications - a mid-sized, but highly successful marketing company. Privately owned. Very highly regarded. She's fifty, divorced, no children...'

Until now, that is.

'Any idea how or when she met my husband?'

'You'd have to hire a private detective for that. All I've been able to find out is the basic details about her'.

'So you don't know where they are now?'

'That wasn't part of my brief either. But I did get a witness statement from your GP and from Dr Rodale, who treated you at St Martin's'.

'What did she say?'

'That you had been suffering from "pronounced postnatal depression", but responded well to the anti-depressants. That was about it, actually. Oh, and I found out what happened at the ex parte hearing. Seems you threatened the life of your son one evening...'

'But that was sheer exhausted anger'.

'The problem is, you said it to your husband's secretary. Which means that a third party heard it. Which, in turn, means that there's third party evidence. The other problem is that they essentially demanded a hearing by telephone on a Saturday night in front of a judge named Thompson who notoriously sides with the father in cases involving the mental health of the mother, and was presented with this evidence in conjunction with your extended stay in the psychiatric wing of St Martin's. And you were also out of the country at the time, which, no doubt, they used to make you appear frivolous...'

'But I was at a funeral...'

'The judge didn't know that. All he knew was that you were a clinically depressed woman who had threatened to kill your baby, and then left the country at the first possibility. And as it was only a two-week order, I'm certain he had no problem signing it. Sorry...

'Now, back to the witness statements. On the Health Visitor front... it seems that Ms Sanjay just left the place she was staying in Vancouver and has hit the road, travelling around Canada, but won't be back in the UK for around four months'.

'Maybe she has an internet address?'

'You don't have it by any chance?'

I stopped myself from letting out an exasperated sigh.

'No - but if you call the local health authority...'

'Fine, fine, I'll follow it up', she said, sounding bored.

'And could you ask Ginny to call me, please. The hearing's next Tuesday, isn't it?'

'That's right. All our witness statements have to be with the court by close of business on Monday'

Which meant that she only had the weekend to track down Jane Sanjay by email... if, that is, Jane stopped in some internet café to check her email this weekend, and if the less-than-engaged Ms Pepinster bothered to even find her address.

I waited by the phone all day Friday for a call from Ginny Ricks. None came - even though I did leave two messages with Trudy.

'Sorry, but she's left for the weekend', Trudy said when I called the second time. 'But I know she'll be calling you as soon as she gets back from the country on Monday'.

Ah yes, another weekend in the country - no doubt with her 'chap', who was undoubtedly named Simon, and probably was an old Harrovian who now 'did something in the City', and spoke in the same honk as his beloved, and favoured Jermyn Street tailoring, and weekend casual by Hackett's, and no doubt had a lovely cottage on the Sussex Downs, so handy for those summer evenings at the opera at Glyndebourne, where Diane Dexter was on the board, and would be showing off her new acquisition(s) when this year's season...

I got up and went into the kitchen - to a small shelf in a cabinet where we kept assorted cookbooks and a London A-to-Z, and a UK road atlas. Litlington in East Sussex was around seventy miles from London - and an easy run from Putney. Before I could stop myself, I phoned Directory Enquiries and asked if there was a listing for a Dexter, D. in Litlington, East Sussex. Sure enough, there was such a listing. I wrote it down. For around a half-hour, I resisted the temptation to pick up the phone. Then I went back to the kitchen bookshelf and dug out a British Telecom guide to their digital phone services, discovering that if you wanted to make a call and not have your number traced (or appear on the other person's digital display), all you had to do was dial 141.

But it took another hour - and that evening's dosage of anti-depressants - to screw up the courage to make the call. Finally, I grabbed the phone, punched in 141, then the number, covered the mouthpiece with my hand, and felt my heart play timpani as it began to ring. On the fifth knell - just as I was about to hang up - it was answered.

'Yes?'

Tony.

I hung up, then sat down in a chair, wishing that I was allowed to mix alcohol with my anti-depressants. A belt of vodka would have been most welcomed right now.

Hearing his voice was...

No, not heartbreaking. Hardly that. In the week or so since this nightmare began, the one thing I felt towards my husband was rage... especially as it became increasingly clear that he had been hatching this plot for a considerable amount of time. I kept reviewing the last few months in my mind, wondering when his liaison with this Dexter woman began. Trying to fathom where he met her, whether it was a coup de foudre, or was she the predatory type who swept down on a man who (as I well knew) was fantastically weak and easily flattered. I thought back to all of Tony's late evenings at the paper, his occasional overnight trips to Paris and The Hague, and that wonderfully extended window of opportunity when I was doing time in the psychiatric unit: all those weeks when his wife and child were conveniently being looked after elsewhere, and he could do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted.