I Trust You (17 page)

Chapter 32

‘G
erry told us it was going to be like glorified babysitting. He’d taken over one of the old pre-fabs down at the docks, one that Southern Shipping had allowed to fall into disrepair. Coleman installed a kitchenette and some heating. It was still fairly basic. The whole operation was very carefully planned. We were only a tiny part of it.’

              ‘Who carried out the kidnapping itself? How did the children get to Southampton?’ Marisa was on the edge of the sofa, staring wide-eyed at this middle-aged woman who was claiming the most incredible thing she’d ever heard. The jury was still out on whether Rita was a complete fantasist.

              ‘The thugs who carried out the car-jacking in Boston were just hired heavies. Gerry said they were brought in by the masterminds at the US end of the operation. Everyone got well paid after Montgomery’s seven million cleared the account. It was a lot of money in those days.’

              ‘It’s a lot of money now,’ Marisa added dryly.

              ‘The children left Boston Harbour by boat, of course. Gerry’s criminal contacts were all smugglers by trade. That’s how he got involved with them in the first place. The Montgomery babies were a commodity to those people, like diamonds or oil.’

              ‘So there was never any intention of returning the children to their parents?’

              A cloud of sadness crossed Rita’s face. ‘I didn’t find that out until later. For Gerry, it wasn’t simply about the money. If I’d known what he was really up to I would never have got involved, I swear to God.’

              Lee’s head was buried in the pile of papers, he appeared to be barely listening to his mother’s story.

              ‘When Arthur Montgomery stood on that piece of wasteland in Massachusetts, his grandchildren were already half way across the Atlantic. There was a huge manhunt in progress. They needed to get those kiddies off US soil as quickly as possible. The children reached me and Bill by the 22
nd
of July. They’d not been looked after very well on the voyage. I had to get fresh clothes and blankets for them, food and formula milk, nappies for the little one. Gerry made us take on new names for the job; Rita and Frank Haydon. He was worried the little girl might remember our real names and tell the police later. She was a very bright button.’

              ‘But you said Gerry had no intention of returning the children?’

              ‘No, he pulled the wool over our eyes good and proper. The job was meant to be temporary, a month at the most. The money we’d get for it was more than we’d ever dreamed to have in our lives. The social were already poking their noses about our place. Bill had knocked me about once too often and a do-gooder neighbour complained. But it provided me with a cover. When we were ready to start the job, I took off. It looked like I’d had enough of Bill and slung my hook.’

              Lee scattered the papers to the floor. ‘
What?
You walked out on me so you could help some bunch of nasty criminals extort money from people?’

              She reached out to try and touch his arm. He shook her off. ‘Don’t you understand? It was only meant to be temporary. Bill would tell the social he couldn’t cope and you’d go off to a nice foster home for a bit. Bill and I would take care of the little ‘uns for a few weeks. Then we’d come back for you, this time with the money we needed to provide you with a decent life.’

              ‘I didn’t want more money,’ he spat out venomously. ‘I wanted my mum and dad.’

              ‘It was a mistake. Gerry tricked us. It all went wrong.’ Rita hung her head in shame.

              ‘What did Gerry really have planned?’ Marisa’s tone was soft and cajoling.

              Rita lifted her face. ‘Revenge, pure and simple. He wanted revenge.’

*

Marisa made more tea. She rummaged around in a cupboard and located a packet of biscuits. It wasn’t much, but it would do. She carried the tray back into the sitting room to find Lee attempting to switch on the bar fire, which didn’t appear to have been used in decades. The sun was beginning to set and the cottage was freezing. Rita sat ramrod straight on a chair, her expression blank.

              ‘Try to drink some of this,’ Marisa placed the mug in her hand. ‘I’ve put sugar in it.’

              ‘Thanks, love.’

              Marisa knelt down by the sofa and observed the woman lift the hot drink to her thin lips. There was something about her she found familiar. It was probably the resemblance to Lee, she decided, which now she looked more closely, was really quite striking. ‘How did you end up here, on the Isle of Wight?’

              Rita gulped down the tea, her cheeks gaining more colour. ‘We stayed at the pre fab on the docks for two weeks, but the publicity around the disappearance of the kiddies was too ferocious for it to be safe. Gerry rented this place in August 1982. I’ve been here pretty much ever since.’

              Lee glanced up. ‘You’ve been
here,
in this shabby, Godforsaken cottage
the entire time
?’

              ‘What did you think, Lee? I was sunning myself on the Costa Brava?’

              ‘Well, somewhere that was worth ditching me for, at least.’

Marisa didn’t fancy refereeing another argument. ‘You and Bill brought the children here in August 1982?’

‘Yes, it was easy enough to take the children on the ferry. We looked like a normal family.’

Lee snorted, but went back to his reading.

‘Gerry said it was only short term. Until all the fuss in America died down. President Reagan had been on the telly, appealing for the kiddies to be returned safely. The whole world watched it. I kept asking if the ransom had been paid. I thought that if we were going to send them back it was best done sooner rather than later. To be honest, I was starting to grow attached to them. Not so much the girl but the baby. He was so dependent on me.’

Lee’s body stiffened. He said nothing.

‘But the months passed. We even spent that Christmas here and saw in the New Year together. Bill kept going off to work on the ships and I was left looking after the kiddies. I’d had an office job in Southampton for a while. I missed the freedom. Then Gerry showed up one morning. He said he’d come for the girl. He’d found a home for her. I asked where. He said there was a decent couple he knew, they were professional and well-off. The wife was desperate for a child, going off her rocker with the desire for one. The Montgomery daughter would go to them. I asked why she couldn’t just be returned to her real mother. Gerry got angry. He said they didn’t deserve to have the kiddies back. Their pain was a rightful punishment. I didn’t argue too much because by then I didn’t want the baby to be returned. He was over a year old and such an affectionate little thing. The truth was that I loved him. So in some ways, Gerry’s words were like music to my ears. He said they had to be separated. If they were together, then someone would make the connection, realise who they were. The brother and sister mustn’t ever see one another again.’

Marisa had shuffled closer, the pieces of the jigsaw finally fitting together in her tired brain. ‘The children, you must have named them something different. Especially the little girl, when she went away to be looked after by the couple. They must have been given a new name.’

Rita smiled brightly, her face transformed by this rare act. ‘Gerry gave that job to me. There was an encyclopaedia on one of the shelves in here. It belonged to the old fella who rented it before. I spent hours searching through it for something appropriate. When I settled on the names I knew I had it absolutely right. They suited the children’s characters so well. The boy I called Dylan, which means ‘son of the sea’. The girl’s name meant much the same, but was Latin rather than Welsh. The meaning was perfect, because that’s exactly how they had come to me – straight from out of the sea. I called the girl Marisa. Isn’t it pretty? And it was so unusual at the time.’  

Chapter 33

M
arisa snuggled down further into the crook of Lee’s arm. Without his body heat, the bed would have been as cold as ice. ‘I don’t think she really understands who I am.’

              Lee sighed. ‘Me neither. Being stuck in this place for thirty odd years has sent her mad.’

              ‘I know we won’t really sleep, but I felt we couldn’t push her any further for information. It was time to call it a day. Her mind is very weak. Seeing you again would have been a huge shock.’

              ‘Thanks.’ He gave her soft shoulder an affectionate prod. ‘Gerry must have told her that if she and the boy ever left this place, the police would come after them all. The secret would have to be kept forever.’

              Marisa shuffled up, so that she was leaning her weight against one of the pillows. ‘You shouldn’t think that Rita staying here to bring up Dylan meant she’d replaced you, or forgotten about you. I believe she fell in love with the Montgomery baby because he was a substitute for you – the little boy she’d lost, been cruelly tricked to give away. From the minute your parents got involved in Gerald’s scheme, he had no intention of allowing them to return properly to their previous lives. When Bill began to finally tell you the truth, Coleman had him killed.’

              Lee cupped her face in his hand. ‘That boy, Dylan, he is your
brother
. The couple in Boston, the glamorous ones on the front pages of all those papers – they were your
parents
. Has that sunk in yet?’

              She shook her head, gently kissing his lips. ‘I’m not sure I want it to right now. I want to make love to you as Marisa Coleman one last time, curl up with you in this narrow bed and have you hold me until the sun comes up. Tomorrow, we can start to consider the future, and figure out where all of this craziness is going to take us.’

*

Only by the light of day did Marisa properly see the photographs. They lined the stairwell and cluttered the mantelpiece in the tiny sitting room. Dozens of pictures of a little boy with white blond hair and deep blue eyes.

              She reached out to pick up one of the frames that was tucked behind the others at the back. It appeared to have been taken on the beach at Ventnor. A girl of about three years old, with wispy blond hair and sporting a polka dot swimming costume was building a sand castle. Next to her was a sturdily built toddler. His bright red t-shirt contrasting dramatically with the yellow sand.

              Rita came up behind her. ‘That’s Marisa and Dylan on the beach, not long before Gerry took her away. I wonder how the little girl got on those first few weeks after they were separated. Dylan cried for days. He missed his sister so much.’

              She felt the tears pool in her eyes. ‘Where is Dylan now?’

              Rita smiled proudly. ‘He did very well at school. Gerry said that as long as I never told him the truth about where he came from the boy could lead a normal life. Gerry sent us money each month and I saved for Dylan’s education. He attended school on the island but went away to university in Bristol.’

              Marisa gave a start. She wondered if she’d ever seen him, passed him in the street one day without even realising it.

              ‘Dylan is a lawyer now. He and his wife live in London. They have a little boy and a baby girl. The family come here every year. Harry has just turned two. He’s so like his father was at that age, it takes me right back whenever I see him.’

              Marisa’s face broke into a wide grin. The tears fell, but they were tears of joy. She
had
seen her brother. On a sunny day in St James’s Park. And her niece and nephew too.

              Lee had set the tiny kitchen table for breakfast. He’d laid out a few jars of jam and marmalade. A couple of slices of bread poked out of the toaster.

              Marisa poured the tea. ‘You haven’t explained yet why Gerald didn’t want the children to go back to their parents. What on earth can that poor couple possibly have done to make him punish them in such a wicked way?’

              Lee cleared his throat. ‘Actually, I might be able to answer that. I came back downstairs after you’d gone to sleep last night. There were a few items in that folder I’d not finished reading.’ He slipped out of his seat and brought back a small plastic sleeve of papers. ‘So much of the coverage of the kidnapping was focussed on Nate Montgomery and his family, because it was assumed they were the target of the crime, being so wealthy and high profile in Boston. Only a handful of American newspapers made any mention of Jessica Montgomery and
her
background. The charity event the couple were heading to in Cambridge on the day the children were taken was raising money for a foundation which promoted the use of psychotherapy amongst prison inmates as part of their rehabilitation. When I read that, it reminded me of something. So I dug further through the articles.’ He handed Marisa one of the sheets.

              She examined it closely. The journalist had produced a short biography of Jessica Montgomery. If Rita was to be believed, the woman who was her birth mother.

Jessica Lauren Montgomery was a patron of the Ark Foundation. This organisation trained prison counsellors in the use of intensive psychotherapy techniques designed to help inmates come to terms with the reasons why they’d committed their crimes. Jessica’s involvement was inspired by the pioneering work of her father, renowned psychotherapist Max Lieberman (65), who had practiced all over the world including in Switzerland and the UK. In fact, Jessica herself had been born in England whilst Dr Lieberman was working to rehabilitate young offenders there. Lieberman, with his wife and young daughter, returned to Boston in 1963, where he made his name as the therapist of choice for the city’s great and good; including Oscar winning actors and leading politicians.  

Marisa let the paper fall to the table, where it rested on her plate. ‘Gerald must have followed Lieberman’s career after he left England in the sixties. I can barely imagine the burning hatred he would have felt for the man to take such crushing revenge after twenty years.’

              Rita put down her cup with a clatter. ‘Oh, Gerry loathed that man. He thought he was the devil. He claimed the children’s grandfather had tortured him as a boy, all in the name of
reforming
and
improving
the teenagers in his care. Then he became rich and famous, with a beautiful wife and daughter – the perfect American family.’

              ‘So he set out to destroy it,’ Marisa said quietly. ‘He certainly achieved his aim.’

              ‘The men involved in the kidnapping didn’t know this was Gerry’s real motive,’ Rita continued. ‘They all got their cut of the ransom money. Only Bill and I got short changed on that score. Gerry gave us handouts once a month, enough to get by and keep us quiet, whilst he himself used his share to create the yacht business. Bill continued to work the boats and came to visit Dylan and me here on the island when he could. Then, after your father had given up the drink, he begged Gerry to allow him to petition to get you back from the foster home. He swore he’d never tell you about what we’d done. He’d keep your life completely separate.’

‘That was when I was eleven years old,’ Lee said. ‘Seven years after I was sent into care.’

              ‘It took over a year for Gerry to agree. But he told us in no uncertain terms I must never meet with you. Sandra Powell had disappeared without trace. He wanted to keep it that way.’

              Marisa could hear the emotion in the woman’s voice.

              ‘Bill showed me photographs of you and him. I know you were a bit of a wild boy in your teens. I told Bill to go easy on you, it was our fault you’d turned out that way.’ A tear had escaped onto Rita’s lined cheek.

              Lee stretched out his hand and laid it over hers. She clutched it tightly.

              ‘When Bill retired from the boats he moved out here, rented that house in Ryde. He could come and visit me in the post van. We weren’t far apart.’

              ‘I’m glad that Dad still saw you, right up until the end.’ Lee’s voice was distant.

              ‘Bill and I always knew we were on borrowed time. As soon as my job of bringing up Dylan was over, we’d become a burden on Gerry, a liability. Who knew what stories we might blurt out as we got older and our minds unravelled. I’m glad Bill started to tell you the truth, it shows he wasn’t scared of Coleman any longer.’

              Lee stood up and began clearing the table. ‘Come on, we need to get you packed Mum. It isn’t safe to stay here.’

              Rita’s body went rigid. ‘I can’t
leave
, son. I’ve not been off this island in thirty years. I know I’ll die in this place, but I’ve resolved myself to it.’

              ‘I bloody well haven’t. That bastard’s already killed Dad, I’m not going to let him and his thugs get to you too.’