Page 156 of The Last Love Song
‘It kept boredom at bay.’
‘I’m sure.’
The governor studied Helen McCarthy. The young woman who had arrived in her office seventeen years ago, vehemently protesting her innocence, had changed beyond recognition. The inactivity and diet of starchy food had contributed a good three stone to Helen’s frame. Her hair hung long and lank to her shoulders. In the charity-shop Crimplene dress that had been found to discharge her in, she looked a decade older than her forty years.
‘Helen, I know how you’ve always protested your innocence and how much time, money and effort you put into your two failed appeals, but it’s over now. No recriminations, no vendettas. That would only lead straight back in here. You’re still a young woman. Take what you have of life, use what you’ve learnt here and go and start afresh. Do you know where you’re going?’
Helen nodded. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Good. And of course, one of the terms of your licence is that you report to your parole officer every two weeks. Don’t miss one appointment. As well as keeping an eye on you, they’re there if you need a chat or advice.’
‘Of course.’
‘Well then, I won’t waste another second of your time. You’re free to go, Helen.’
Helen stood up and reached out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Curtis.’
‘Goodbye.’
Vivien Curtis watched Helen leave her office. She sighed. Almost every new prisoner who arrived at her prison protested their innocence. Helen McCarthy had spent thousands on two fruitless appeals. Certainly, there had been a lot of circumstantial evidence...Who knew?
She closed Helen’s file and stowed it away under ‘Past Inmates’.
Helen stared out of the window as the taxi drove her into central London. Everything seemed bigger, brighter. The cars on the busy roads around her looked like something out of the space age, and the shop windows were filled with furniture and fashions that she had only glimpsed on the television and in the papers she had read.
Seventeen years – seventeen years for a crime she had never committed. Seventeen years to ponderwhothe real perpetrator was. Most of her money had gone on lawyers’ fees. She still had her mews house in London and the estate in Ballymore which, by the sound of it, was a festering heap of damp, decay and dry rot.
And that was it.
She’d lost her precious company. Metropolitan Records had been floated successfully a year after she’d been incarcerated, with a newly reformed Brad, who had taken great pleasure in writing to her in prison to notify her that she’d been voted off the board of directors.
Several times in the early days she’d contemplated suicide. Her life was over, her plans turned to dust. She’d taken any kind of medication they’d offered her to try to blank out the pain. Only the thought of getting out and clearing her name had kept her going. Her BA in law had given her the knowledge that she would need if she was to succeed.
‘Just here, thanks,’ she called to the taxi driver as they approached the mews entrance.
‘That’ll be twelve quid, love.’
Helen gulped. She had twenty pounds in her purse that she’d been issued with when she left the prison. A journey like this would have cost her no more than two pounds seventeen years ago.
She paid the taxi driver, climbed out and walked to the peeling front door. She turned the key in the lock and walked in.
The house smelt musty, but it was tidy and dust-free. Katie had been paid a small retainer to keep an eye on it.
Helen put down her holdall and went into the sitting room. Despite herself, she smiled. The furniture could be sold as a treasure trove of sixties memorabilia, in perfect condition.
She wandered around, knowing she must rid herself of the nightmarish memory of the last time she’d been in here...
48
September 1969
Helen had presumed the knock on the door at eleven o’clock that evening was Sorcha, come back from Metropolitan either to cry on Helen’s shoulder because it really was over between her and Con, or to pack up her things and move back to Hampstead. The last person she expected to see was a police officer.
‘Good evening, are you Helen McCarthy?’
‘Yes. Is there a problem?’
‘I’m afraid so. Can you confirm that you’re a director of Metropolitan Records?’
