Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new) (21 page)

              This particular night we went out quite late as I had been distraught after contact.  We went for a meal at a local Chinese restaurant.  Afterwards we returned to my father’s house.  I had had two small glasses of wine during the course of this meal and feeling exhausted, was now about to go to bed.  I took a Phenergan antihistamine, which I did every night, partly for my allergic rhinitis and partly because it helped me to get some well needed sleep and some co-codamol for a back pain I was suffering.  This mixed with the combination of two small glasses of wine would make me rather drowsy within an hour.   I was on my way to bed when Dad and I, both keyed up and worried about the situation began to discuss it and ended up taking our frustration out on each other.  Fuelled by exhaustion and emotion, I blamed him again for giving us up.  He retaliated by blaming me for having dated M’s father.  With all of this, I forgot that I had just taken some medication and decided to drive the half mile distance to my cottage to give us some space.

              I got in the car and being ancient as it was and a very cold night, the engine was slow to warm up.  I moved off rather jerkily  and pulled round the corner where three cars were parked on the side of the road.  I gave them a wide berth to avoid hitting them.  It had always been a bug bear of the residents in the area that this junction was a tricky one and one had to proceed with caution, which I did. 

              I suddenly realised I was feeling tired and perhaps it would be best to go back to Dad's.  I decided to pull in, leave the car and walk back.  Once I stopped I put the light on in my car to search for my mobile phone to ring Jan for a chat first, as I wanted to cool down a bit before returning.  I saw in my rear-view mirror that there was a police van parked on the slipway just besides my father’s house.  This seemed strange on a Friday night at a time when the pubs would just be emptying.  There were no more than a few houses where my father lived and certainly no reason for the police to be hanging around.  I knew that I had done nothing wrong and had nothing really to fear, so I began to rummage on the floor for my phone, when there was a knock on my window from a police officer.

              They asked me if I'd been drinking and I told them I had had a small amount of wine with my Chinese meal a couple of hours earlier.  I failed to register a positive result from the breath test and they needed two to get a clear reading but I felt secure in the knowledge that there was no way I could be over the limit.

              The officer told me that as they could get no definite reading, they were taking me to the station.  I felt a cold knot of fear and panic as I wondered if I was to end the night back in a jail cell.  I was put in the back of the van in a sectioned off area that was barely big enough for one adult.  There was no seat belt and no window so I couldn't tell where we were and I bounced around uncomfortably trying to keep my balance with nothing to hold onto at all.  I suffer from claustrophobia in elevators and planes, so you can  imagine what this was like for me.  By now my breathing was coming in short pants and I feared my asthma may kick off at any moment.

              Once at the station, they checked me in much the same way as they had on my return from America.  This time I had the added humiliation of being in pyjama bottoms and a thin T- shirt with my anorak over the top and bootie style slippers.  After all, I hadn't expected to be seen by anyone and had intended to go straight to bed when I got to the cottage.

              I was taken into an interview room to have a breathalyzer test and was asked to blow into it.  It was difficult to understand how to get the right breath and despite many attempts, I just couldn’t get it to work.  Their yelling at me didn’t help and as I had anticipated, the sheer panic of the situation triggered my asthma and before too long I was wheezing.  Still they persisted in trying to make me blow.  It was at that point that the stress and pressure I had been under for so long really hit.  I couldn't get the damn breathalyzer to work, no matter how hard I tried and the more I panicked, the shallower my breathing became and the more they bullied me.  I now had tears of frustration pouring down my cheeks and after the fifth or sixth attempt of forcing me they called the police surgeon to take a look at me. 

              The man that came in had something of a dark, sinister look about him.  He was unpleasant in his whole demeanour.  He must have been in his seventies, white haired, sharp featured and wearing a black suit which against his white complexion and beady dark eyes, emphasised the coldness of his appearance.  There was something of the Victorian Psychiatrist about him – or the kind of man that one imagined might have been used to interrogate people during the war - his whole presentation smacked of deceit.

              The Surgeon checked my medical notes online and found I was indeed asthmatic, three inhalers in my handbag underlined this – yet still his evidence later on the stand would be that I had faked an asthma attack.  At the time, however, he confirmed that I was indeed having an attack and the Paramedics were called to the scene to take me to hospital.  Despite this, on arrival they began shouting at me too and by now I was getting increasingly anxious as I struggled to breathe. 

              The Paramedics overruled the Surgeon which seemed odd as they were less qualified and they decided I was not to be taken to hospital after all but would now have to give blood.  Despite gasping seriously now for breath, I was desperately trying to be cooperative.  I stuck my arm out, sobbing and barely able to speak and they demanded I give a verbal consent to the blood test.  “Do..what...you..want,” I spluttered, between gasps, whilst extending my arm. Still they did not take the test. 

              I was feeling light headed and could barely hear them now.  Why didn’t they take the blood?  Still nothing happened and I feared I may pass out at any moment.  From what seemed like a great distance in my now semi-conscious state, I heard the Custody Sergeant’s voice booming; “we're charging you with failure to provide.”  Bemused and, feeling faint, I couldn't understand what had just happened at all.  I had offered to provide – I had held my arm out and conceded.  They had refused to take the test.  But later, as was so often with the Island’s police force, they would represent this very differently on the stand and each one of them would lie to back each other up – especially the police surgeon.

              I spent a miserable, freezing cold night back in a cell, though through sheer will and having now been allowed my inhaler, I eventually retained my calm and closed my eyes.  The next thing I felt was a hard, painful pinch of my ear.  The Custody sergeant yelled again – “just checking you’re not dead,” he laughed.  I clutched my knees to my chest in the dark and once again, prayed that morning would come soon. 

              Dad arrived to pick me up at six the next morning and they let me go.  He was more annoyed that he had been called out so early than anything else.  It was understandable.  We were both overwrought and living on so little sleep.

              He brought me home and after a long hot bath, I sat down at the computer and immediately wrote a full account of what had happened and sent it to Brian.  I needed to ensure that I had a contemporaneous record as I knew this would be important later on - But it was a sad fact, that the truth counted for very little when dealing with such corruption.  Whenever it is your word against theirs, the Court will usually side with the authorities and no matter how much you are telling the truth, you are merely whistling in the wind.  The amount of notes that I have taken over the years, the pages of reports I have tracked my comments on and the endless statements I have made, could have filled several volumes of
War and Peace
– but of the many millions of truthful words that I have written, I would say that less than a hundred have ever been taken as fact and those that have, probably amount to my credentials alone.

              My father and I went out for lunch.  I was exhausted.  I feared what may happen now as this would mean yet another Court trial.  I doubted I would be allowed UK counsel for this one and was soon proven right.  I was forced to employ a local lawyer and one that I didn’t take to, yet again - but it was about the only one who had not had involvement in our matters in some way or another. 

              After two court appearances, one that I took alone and where I was stopped from driving for three weeks and the next where my driving was reinstated – it then took over a year for the case to come to Court.  The only positive thing was that I could remain driving in the meantime and my lawyer took that as a sign that I wouldn't lose my license.  It would have seemed particularly cruel to allow me to go on driving for a year and then remove it, but in any event, with my GP’s evidence of my legitimate asthmatic condition, he felt we had a good case.  But was it really good?  Or was it merely good for him?  More money poured into the coffers of yet another lawyer’s office.  This may sound cynical but one doesn’t go through what I have endured without becoming so – the inevitable fruit of the tree of slow Death.

              Brian and the new QC, Phillip, flew over soon after this for my first meeting with him.  I was impressed from the start.  Unlike those who had gone before, this man treated me with total respect, was polite and quietly spoken, but with, I suspected a steely determination underneath.   I liked him immediately and trusted him and this sense of trust was enforced by the fact that he had taken a look at the whole case before he had come and decided we must appeal the Fact Find that had found for no abuse, despite now being well out of time.  He said that this was the only possible way of turning the case around and should have been done right from the start.  I could have hugged him at that point.  At last someone was saying to me what I had been advocating all along and for the first time since the case had begun, I felt in safe hands. 

              It was also decided that the best option was for Phillip to take charge of the Criminal Trial and Gabby work as his junior barrister.  There was so much cross-over material that one person handling everything made perfect sense.  Gabby had also discovered that she may have difficulties with my pre-trial hearing dates and this would ensure I was fully represented.  It seemed this arrangement suited everyone and at last I had a lawyer who respected my opinion and didn't treat me like a wayward child.  Phillip, at least considered my views and allowed me input.  At last I had some sort of voice for M and I and I felt if anyone could get me through my Abduction Trial, it was Phillip. 

              My contact with M continued in much the same way.   The constraints became no less and the experience was bitter sweet with us both longing to spend time together, but feeling the grief in parting.  There wasn't a single time I went to contact, that I didn't weep all the way back.  My emotions were put through a weekly roller coaster and both M and I had to endure more petty rules being introduced from week to week.  He was a child who had now had to get used to people making promises they did not keep.  The social workers told him he could go to his Cycling Club but then withdrew this.  He had enticements offered with one hand and then removed with the other, over and over and no matter how much I wrote to the Department and went to see the Management, it made no difference – they continued to bully M for sport, knowing how much it hurt me to watch. 

              Meanwhile M's father’s contact was being stepped up more and more each week and I watched as M seemed to regress into the world of infancy - speaking in a babyish way, wanting to watch DVD’s that he'd enjoyed as a very small boy – longing to return to the time before all this.  It was completely understandable, but it shattered my heart as I watched all the positive parenting and the constructive life he had had, smashed to bits – his confidence and zest for life slipping through the cracks of his new existence - no longer life - and the light go out in his eyes.  Powerless to do anything but watch, I bore his pain as well as my own and my howls in the night were those of a female wolf in a trap, whose cub was being culled before her eyes.

              I don’t know  how I continued to breathe from day to day, but somehow I did.  My emotions would swing from extreme anger at the injustice of what had happened to us, to disbelief and despair.  I lay awake night after night longing for my little boy and remembering the nights we had cuddled up to watch a favourite film, his head on my chest and me stroking the soft golden strands of his hair.  How could I have known back then that I had Paradise in those moments?  How much more would I have treasured those golden moments of his early childhood, had I known they would soon come to an abrupt and brutal end.

              Weeks and months passed without our life changing.  I existed between the gaps of contact  living only for the next two hours with my son.  I longed to drive to where he was living  and see his home, but I dare not.  I carried the temptation of the information with me, but I also wondered if it would be best to disclose to the Department that I knew his whereabouts to show them that whilst I knew, I wouldn't go near and perhaps they would then place further trust in me.  I had to weigh this up against the risk they may move M from his current foster home, but I had already got the impression that he was not happy there from the things he said at contact.  How could he be happy when all he wanted was to come home to his Mum and the seaside cottage that had been our home for the first seven years of his life?

              I decided that they were unlikely to move him and that in proving to them I was not a flight risk, they may  allow more contact or at least more relaxed contact.  After all it was inconceivable that I wouldn't eventually discover where he was, with it being such a small Island.