Just My Luck(107)

52


Lexi


Thursday, 24th October

It made the papers, naturally. Not just a discreet little piece in the Buckinghamshire Gazette – a few column inches, the way Reveka and Benke’s deaths were reported – no, our story was splashed across tabloids and broadsheets for many consecutive days as the trial played out. Of course it was, it had all the elements to titillate the morbidly curious, the wickedly gossipy: a lottery win, an extravagant lifestyle, illicit sex and shocking violence. Our family’s pain was trumpeted. We were exposed. Everyone got to know that my husband betrayed me not once but twice, both women ostensibly my friends. Friends for fifteen years. It was revealed that, more horrifyingly, he placed his child in extreme danger for financial gain. He was the one who hired the thugs who beat her, bound her, starved her for twenty-four hours. He cried in court, sobbed, swore that he hadn’t given specific instructions for any of that; that the thugs went too far of their own accord. He had only asked that they hold her. He had thought they were taking her to a hotel, but the thugs had decided that was too risky and made their own plans. Jake had underestimated the vileness of the people he had mixed himself up with; the underlying throbbing brutality. He begged the judge and jury to believe him. I want to believe him because he would have to be the absolute devil to have planned to put Emily, his own daughter, through such horrors but even if I believe him, I still blame him and can never forgive him. There’s no getting away from the fact that he was the one who was responsible for the loss of her child. The loss of her childhood. And Logan’s come to that.

Jake wanted more. Always more. A wife, a lover, another lover. During the trial it transpired he’d never offered Jennifer and Fred a million to change their testimony; he’d offered Jennifer a life with him and ‘his’ half of the win. But it wasn’t enough for him to walk away with close to nine million, which he would have got if he’d divorced me, he staged the kidnap to siphon off ten million. If we’d divorced, we’d have split what was left, and he’d have bagged the majority of the cash.

But he still wanted more. Jennifer wasn’t enough either.

Carla was in on the kidnapping plan. Patrick continued to protest his innocence. He also continued to insist that he was due a share of the lottery win and that they had never left the syndicate. I went along to watch the trial. It was distressing, humiliating, but how could I keep away? I noticed that when Patrick insisted that they had never left the syndicate – that they were due a share of the money all along – the judge sneered. Judges are supposed to keep their faces entirely neutral, but he couldn’t stop himself sneering. He seemed disgusted by the whole lot of them. I think that is why he threw the book at them. Custodial sentences. Three years for Carla and Patrick. Seven for Jake. The judge was a father of three teenage girls himself. He must have been sickened.

Jennifer, Fred and Ridley have moved away. Somewhere up north. Leeds, I think. They want to start again. They want to try again. I wish them well, but mostly I wish them well away from us. I still have an account with almost three million pounds put aside. It’s Fred’s, if ever he should want it enough. He knows the terms. And if he never claims it, I might give it to Ridley, when he’s old enough to manage that sort of wealth properly.

We’ve put money in trust for Megan and her brothers too. We wanted them to come and live with us, but the social services decided it was too complicated. They are living with Carla’s sister in Surrey; apparently she’s a lovely woman. They are settling well enough. I know they will be taken care of, looked after and loved. Emily has stayed in touch with Megan. Their relationship isn’t as tight as it was, how could it be? But they send one another snaps and messages. There’s talk of a meet-up in London. I don’t know if it will happen. Time will tell whether they can remain close, after everything. It might be better if the friendship fades. If they move on. Like the social worker said, it’s complicated.

My children are doing OK. Considering everything, they are doing brilliantly. They have had to deal with so much. They’ve been hurt and horrified in a way that will take years to heal properly. They’ll never get over what’s happened, but I think they will get through it. I’m impressed by their courage, their resilience. We spent the summer in Moldova at Toma’s school for underprivileged kids. It was just what we all needed. To get away. To climb out of our own lives and skins for a while. The work he is doing there is astonishing. He’s genuinely making a profound difference, offering opportunities through education. Lives will be changed for the better. I love him for it.

I love him for many reasons.

The kids have returned to their old school. Logan was delighted; he has a great friendship group and simply slipped right back into it. Emily seems to be getting along very well with Scarlett, Liv and Nella. They are sweet girls.

Sadly, I never went back to CAB. Our family name has been dragged through the mud and I’m basically a reluctant celebrity. Ellie couldn’t in all conscience sanction my return – it would be too disruptive. I miss the Bureau, but I understand. You can’t have everything in life. Besides, I want to offer the kids as much stability as I can and being at home helps with that. I don’t need the money. The police recovered the ten million Jake pretended he’d given to kidnappers. It was spread through various accounts: most in his and Carla’s name, about a million in Patrick’s accounts. The money in Patrick’s account suggested his guilt, no matter how much he protested his innocence. I don’t know if that money was his cut of the kidnapping or Carla leaving him a bit of money to assuage her own guilt, or was it crueller than that? Did she and Jake frame Patrick? I guess that will remain a mystery forever. The money has been returned to me. Emily, Logan and I have spent a lot of time talking about what we might do with it next. Following the experience in Moldova, they both seem keen to set up something similar here in the UK; a trust that gives opportunities, creates light where before there was only despair.