The Widow

Chapter 32

Wednesday, 17 September 2008

The Widow

SOMEONE PUT THE Herald through the door today – they’ve accused Glen all over again and he put it straight in the bin. I got it out and hid it away behind the bleach under the sink for later. We knew what was coming because the Herald were banging on the door yesterday, shouting questions and pushing notes through the letter box. They said they were campaigning for a retrial so that Bella would get justice. ‘What about justice for me?’ Glen said.

It’s a blow, but Tom phoned to say the paper will have to have deep pockets to pay the costs and, most importantly, they have no evidence. He said to ‘batten down the hatches’, whatever that means. ‘The Herald are coming at us with all guns blazing, but it is all just sensationalism and tittle tattle,’ he told Glen, who repeated it line by line to me.

‘He talks like it is a war,’ I say and then shut up. The wait will be worse than the reality, Tom predicts, and I hope he’s right.

‘We’ve got to keep quiet, Jeanie,’ Glen explains. ‘Tom will start legal proceedings against the paper, but he thinks we should go on a bit of a holiday – “remove ourselves from the picture” – until this all blows over. I’ll go online and book something this morning.’

He hasn’t asked where I want to go and to be honest, I don’t care. My little helpers are beginning to have less effect and I feel so tired I could cry.

In the end he picks somewhere in France. In my other life, I would’ve been thrilled, but I’m not sure what I feel when he tells me he’s found a cottage in the countryside that’s miles from anywhere. ‘Our flight leaves at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning so we need to leave here at four, Jeanie. Let’s get packed up ready and we’ll take our car. Don’t want a taxi driver tipping off the press.’

He knows so much, my Glen. Thank God I’ve got him to look after me.

At the airport, we keep our heads down and sunglasses on and we wait until the queue is almost down to the last person before we head to the desk. The woman checking us in barely looks at us and sends our suitcase on to the conveyor belt before she’s managed to say, ‘Did you pack this bag yourself?’ let alone waited to hear the answer.

I’d forgotten how much queuing there is in airports and we’re so stressed by the time we get to the gate that I’m ready to go home to the press pack. ‘Come on, love,’ Glen says, holding my hand as we walk to the plane. ‘Nearly there.’

At Bergerac, he goes to get the hire car while I wait for the bag, mesmerized by the passing luggage. I miss our case – it is so long since we used it, I’ve forgotten what colour it is and have to wait until everyone else has lugged theirs off. I finally go out into the bright sunshine and spot Glen in a tiny red car. ‘Didn’t think it would be worth getting anything bigger,’ he says. ‘We’re not going to do much driving, are we?’

Funny, but being on our own in France is different from being on our own at home. Without a routine, we don’t know what to say to each other. So we say nothing. The silence should have been a rest from the constant noise and banging on our door at home, but it isn’t. It’s worse, somehow. I take to going for long walks in the lanes and woods around the cottage while Glen sits on a sun lounger and reads detective novels. I could’ve screamed when I saw what he’d packed. As if we haven’t had enough of police investigations.

I decide to leave him with his perfect murders and sit on the other side of the patio with some magazines. I find myself looking at Glen, watching him and thinking about him. If he looks up and catches me, I pretend I’m looking at something behind him. I am, I suppose.

I don’t really know what I’mlooking for. Some sign of something – his innocence, the toll taken by the ordeal, the real man, perhaps. I can’t really say.

The only time we leave the place is to drive to the nearest supermarket to get food and loo rolls. I can’t be bothered to shop for real meals. Finding the stuff to go into a spag bol is beyond me so we eat bread and ham and cheese at lunchtime and a cold roast chicken and coleslaw or more ham in the evenings. We’re not really hungry anyway. It It’s just something to push round our plates.

We’ve been here four days when I think I see someone walking along the lane at the bottom of the property. First person I’ve seen near the property. A car is an event.

I don’t think much of it, but the next morning there is a man walking up the drive.

‘Glen,’ I shout to him in the house. ‘There’s a bloke coming up.’

‘Get in here, Jean,’ he hisses and I hurry past him as he closes the door and begins drawing the curtains. We wait for the knock.

The Herald has found us. Found us and photographed us: ‘The kidnapper and his wife sunning themselves outside their exclusive hideaway in the Dordogne’ while Dawn Elliott ‘desperately continues her search for her child’. Tom reads us the headlines the next day over the phone. ‘We’re only here because we’re being hounded, Tom,’ I say. ‘And Glen has been cleared by the courts.’

‘I know, Jean, but the papers have convened their own court. It won’t be long before they’ll be on to the next thing – they’re like children, easily distracted.’

He says the Herald must have traced Glen’s credit card to find us.

‘Are they allowed to do that?’ I ask.

‘No. But that doesn’t stop them.’

I put down the phone and begin packing. The villains again.

When we get home, they are waiting and Glen rings Tom to talk about how to stop them saying these things.

‘It’s libel, Jeanie. Tom says we have to sue them – or threaten to sue them – or they’ll keep going, digging into our lives and putting us on the front page.’

I want it to stop so I agree. Glen knows best.

It takes a while for the solicitors to write their letter. They have to say why the stories are all wrong and that takes a bit of time. Glen and I go up to Holborn again, taking the same train I used to take when he was on trial. ‘Groundhog day,’ he says to me. He tries to keep my spirits up and I love him for it.

The barrister isn’t a Charles Sanderson, he’s a real smooth character. I bet his wig isn’t falling apart. He looks rich, as if he drives a sports car and has a country house, and his office is all shiny metal and glass. Libel is obviously the money-making end of the business. Wonder if Mr Sanderson knows.

This one is all business. He’s as bad as the prosecutor, asking all the questions again and again. I squeeze Glen’s hand to show him I’m on his side and he squeezes back.

The smoothie pushes and pushes on every detail.

‘I have to test our case, Mr Taylor, because this is basically a re-run of the Bella Elliott prosecution. That case was thrown out because of the police actions, but the Herald maintain you kidnapped the child. We say that is wrong and defamatory. However, the Herald will throw everything at you – from the case itself, and they can also use evidence they gathered that was not admissible in the criminal trial. Do you see?’

We must have looked a bit blank because Tom began to explain it in simple language while the smoothie looked out at the view.

‘They’ll have a lot of dirt, Glen. And they’ll throw all of it at you to get the libel jury on their side. We need to show that you’re innocent, Glen, to get the jury to find against the Herald.’

‘I am,’ he says, all fired up.

‘We know. But we need to show it and we need to be sure there are no surprises. Just saying, Glen. You need to go into this with your eyes open, because it’s a very expensive action to bring. It will cost thousands of pounds.’

Glen looks at me and I try to look brave, but inside I’m running for the door. I suppose we’ve got the dirty money we can use.

‘No surprises, Mr Taylor?’ the smoothie repeats.

‘None,’ my Glen says. I look at my lap.

The letter goes out the next day and the Herald shouts about it all over its pages and on the radio and television.

‘TAYLOR TRIES TO GAG HERALD’ is the headline. I hate the word ‘gag’.