During Christmas 1972 they told me I was being moved on again. Someone somewhere, some faceless civil servant who had never met me, had decided that one year in the hard, high-security island prison had changed me, that I’d learned from the tough oppression and constant vigilance, and that the threat I’d posed had passed, and I was ready for some rehabilitation to prepare me for my return to the outside world.
The establishment they chose for this worthy exercise was Maidstone Jail in Kent. I welcomed the move; it was a more relaxed prison, and would cut out travelling problems for my visitors. Chatting in unnatural surroundings, conscious all the time of prying eyes and cocked ears, is bad enough, but it is even worse when your loved ones and friends are whacked out by a five-hour trek over land and sea. Maidstone, in contrast to Albany, was a comfortable hour’s drive from London.
Quickly, my world became brighter. I was given a job in the kitchen in charge of the hotplate, took French lessons, organized volleyball competitions, kept in shape in the gym and generally made the most of prison life. But, like everyone else, I lived for my visits and when Dolly and Nancy arrived, and Nancy ran to me and I took her on my knee and held her close, it hit home to me how much I’d missed.
Spring came to Maidstone and I started counting the months to my release. I had kept my nose clean from the moment my sentence began and I worked out that, with full remission, I would be a free man in January 1975. The thought was warm and comforting. But it led me on to think about Dolly and the children, and what our life would be like. I was far from happy. I had to face facts: Dolly and I had gone from bad to worse and it was unlikely to be any better on my release. I was going to need a lot of help to adjust and Dolly, neurotic and unstable, was not the supportive kind. I had to be careful not to stick my head in the sand and pretend our problems didn’t exist. Having been unjustly robbed of precious years I wanted to come out and make the most of life with someone who cared about me. I had two years to think it through and to work out what I really wanted to do with the rest of my life. I was determined there would be no more mistakes.
It was not long before Diana came into my mind again. She had rarely been out of my thoughts, but her lack of contact had made me think that, sadly, the relationship was dead. What was she doing? Where was she working? Had she left her husband? Was she happy? The questions filled my head night after night, and I decided it might be a good idea, with my release date looming nearer, to ask a departing inmate to try to track her down. Yes, I know it was a wild, crazy idea. But after five years in prison wild, crazy plans seem perfectly logical and sensible. I began keeping my ear to the ground for Leicester-bound inmates.
On 2 May 1973 George Ince appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court accused of murdering Muriel Patience at the Barn Restaurant in Braintree, Essex, the previous November. Seven days later the jury returned saying they could not agree and a retrial was ordered. It began on 14 May, still at Chelmsford but with a different judge – Mr Justice Everleigh. As the second trial got under way, the newspapers started running stories of a ‘mystery witness’. I knew immediately who it was but when Dolly visited me I didn’t say a word; nor did she. Then the papers started referring to a Doris Gray – the name to which Dolly had changed by deed poll three years before – and I knew for certain I was right. The mystery woman, it seemed, was going into the witness box to say that George Ince could not have been at the Barn Restaurant in the early hours of 5 November because all that night he had been in bed with her. Reading that, I went cold. My stomach knotted in fury, and I paced up and down my cell, my mind running hot with vivid, masochistic imaginings of the man walking into my home, talking and playing with my children before climbing into bed with the woman who was still my wife.
Suddenly my brighter, more hopeful world was shrouded in a gigantic black cloud of despair. I fought to control my self-torture, but agonizing thoughts kept invading my mind. How often had Ince been to the house? Had little Nancy been encouraged to call him Daddy? Did he walk about the house half-naked like I’d done? Did she…did she see or hear her mother moaning in ecstasy as Ince made love to her in my bed?
It was a terrible, terrible experience and I was impotent in my frustration, unable to vent rage on anything except my cell wall. And then I was told Dolly was coming to see me.
The prison promptly ordered six extra officers to be present at the meeting. After more than five years, they still didn’t know me; they had no idea how I thought or how I reacted to situations.
‘Nice,’ was all I said to her as she sat down.
She started gabbling on nervously about it. I cut her short. ‘All I want you to tell me,’ I said curtly, ‘is whether Ince has got something on you to make you give evidence. Or did it happen? Were you with him?’
‘Do you want someone to get thirty years, like the twins?’ she said.
I ignored the fact she had avoided the question.
‘I don’t want anyone to go down for anything,’ I said. ‘I just want to know, Dolly.’
She opened her mouth again, but I shut her up. ‘I just want to know, Dolly.’
She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she looked down. ‘He was with me,’ she said softly.
I didn’t say anything. Silence was a massive wall between us. Then, deciding attack was the best form of defence, she started to get hysterical.
‘What do you expect?’ she screeched loudly. ‘You’ve been away all these years!’
‘That’s not the reason,’ I said, still calm. ‘It happened before, I know.’
‘Not like you think.’ she snapped. Then she started blaming me. ‘It’s your fault. You went away. What do you expect me to do, sit indoors all my life?’
‘I didn’t expect you to take him home. I didn’t expect you to screw him in front of Nancy.’
Anyway, he was with me. And I am going to give evidence. How can I let a guy go away for thirty years?’
I took in what she said. I didn’t like what I’d heard, but I felt she had no choice. ‘Quite right,’ I said finally, amazed at my tight self-control. ‘If that’s the truth, go and give evidence.’
I meant what I said. I knew Ince could get thirty years and I didn’t want to see that happen to an innocent man. Not even Ince. ‘I don’t like it,’ I added. ‘But you have to do it.
With it all out in the open Dolly started running off at the mouth. ‘I couldn’t help it…all the problems I’ve had…It’s been one thing after another…I had to do something…you don’t know what it’s like…’
‘Don’t make excuses,’ I broke in. ‘You’ve done it. You’ve probably been doing it for years. The thing I can’t stand is that you’ve let him in our house with Nancy there. With me here and him there it’s blowing the kid’s brain.’
She didn’t say anything. There wasn’t much she could say. We talked about it a bit more, then I said I wanted to be alone to think what I was going to do about her now.
It didn’t take me long. Dolly hadn’t reached her Poplar love-nest before I decided that I didn’t want to know; our marriage had run into stormy waters long before and it was now lying smashed to pieces on the rocks. Divorce was going to be painful for Gary and Nancy, but that was the price that would have to be paid.
Dolly did give evidence and George Ince walked out of Chelmsford Crown Court a free man. I hated the idea of seeing Dolly again but I had to because of the children: we needed to talk about what was going to happen to them after the divorce. On her next visit I told her we were finished, but she refused to accept it.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Everything is going to be all right now. It’s over between George and me. We’ll go away when you come home. It’ll be nice.’
‘What?’ I said incredulously. ‘We’re not going away anywhere. I don’t want to know. It’s over. End of story.’
But still she couldn’t believe I meant it. ‘I got twenty thousand from a newspaper for my story of my affair with George. I can put some of it away till you get home. We can go away somewhere.’
‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I don’t need holidays or anything else with you. I don’t want to know about that money. Give Gary some and keep the rest. As far as you and I are concerned, we talk about the kids and that’s it.’
Over the next few months, she kept trying to make me change my mind. Once she brought a friend with her, who said I really should forgive Dolly and make an effort to patch things up.
‘I don’t really want to discuss it any more,’ I said.
‘The thing with George is over,’ she told me. ‘Dolly isn’t seeing him any more.’
By then Ince had been arrested on a charge involving a gold bullion robbery and was in Brixton awaiting trial. News travels fast on the prison grapevine and during the next few days I heard that Dolly had visited him. So much for it being finished, I thought.
Dolly’s friend came again. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she began.
‘Well, did she see him?’ I cut in brusquely, not wanting to waste time on it.
‘Yes,’ the woman replied. ‘But it was the last time.’
‘Do me a favour,’ I said. ‘Tell her to come and see me. I want this over. Now.’
The following week Dolly arrived with Nancy and Gary. She looked dreadful: thin, with bags under her eyes, untidy make-up and her hair a mess.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. I meant it. I’d never seen her look like that.
‘Why should I look well?’ she replied defensively. ‘All the problems I’ve had.’
I almost choked. ‘You’ve had problems!’
She talked rubbish for about two minutes. I looked at Nancy, then Gary. I felt for them, but I couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Do me a favour,’ I said quietly. ‘Get out of here. Now. And start divorce proceedings. I can’t do it from in here.’
We sat there glaring at each other. Nancy and Gary were quiet. They didn’t know what to say; I suppose they were frightened.
Finally Dolly said, I will do that.’ And she took Nancy’s hand and half-dragged her out of the hall, leaving Gary sitting there with his eyes full of tears.
I put my hand on his. ‘I’m sorry about that, Gary.’
‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you said it.’
We sat there for a few seconds, not knowing what to say. My heart went out to him.
Finally I said, ‘You’d better go. She’ll leave without you.’
‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I don’t care any more.’
We sat there and finished the visit. When Gary left he found his mother waiting in the car for him. The journey back to London must have been awful.
That was the last time Dolly visited me.
My darling, adorable Nancy, just eight years old and so lovely and innocent. How I idolized her! The thought of her being hurt cut through me as I sat in my cell that evening, but I knew there was nothing I could do, especially from prison. It really was all over with Dolly, and the sooner the break was made, the better. Nancy would come to terms with it, I consoled myself: kids always do.
But later that night the pain was deep as my mind ran back over all the precious years I’d missed of Nancy’s growing up. She had been three when I was arrested. One minute I’d been free to come and go as I pleased, to take my child wherever I wanted and care for her like any normal working father, the next I was caged like an animal, stripped of all parental rights except an unnatural, stilted chat in a sombre prison visiting room a couple of times a month. Five years I’d missed, years that should have been carefree and fun-filled, lovingly memorable. And I was to miss more. Even if all went well and I was released in January 197S, Nancy would be coming up to ten. Another two years and she would be in puberty, then a teenager. Before I knew it, she would be asking me to give her away in church.
Sitting in my cell, alone yet again with my thoughts, I concentrated on memories of Nancy until I could summon up a mental picture of our holiday together in Sitges. How pretty Nancy had looked that April, her blonde hair bleached even lighter by the Spanish sun and her little body bronzed deep brown. She was a water baby, always in the hotel pool – only two years old but totally fearless, running and jumping into the safety of my arms then, as her confidence grew, jumping into the deep end on her own. When I reprimanded her with fatherly concern she would climb out then leap straight back in, going under and coming up again, clinging to me and giggling with childish joy as she rubbed the water from her eyes.
Yet, as always when I thought of Nancy, the doubts surfaced in my mind despite my attempts to push them away. That night after I’d seen Nancy dragged from the hall without a chance of a loving goodbye kiss the doubts stared me in the face, again, and this time I had to accept they were real. Deep down I knew Nancy was not my child.
It wasn’t easy to accept, of course, and for a long time I’d refused to believe it. Not mine! That laughing, giggling, squealing, shrieking little ball of wide-eyed innocence, that cartwheeling bundle of energy, that adorable impish little girl? Not mine!!
As a loving father it was something I had never ever questioned or considered. Cradling Nancy as a new-born baby, watching with pride as she tottered on her first unsteady steps, holding her hand as she toddled along East End streets, talking to her softly as she lay in bed exhausted after a play-filled day…the very idea that the little girl I worshipped might be someone else’s flesh and blood was absurd. No, impossible. And then I had heard it from the mother of the child herself and for six years the horrible haunting question had hung over me like a thunder-cloud.
Dolly told me during a row when Nancy was two. I was getting ready to go to Leicester on business and Dolly didn’t like it. ‘You think more of that bloody club than you do of me,’ she said.
I groaned inwardly. This was an old chestnut and I wasn’t in the mood for it. I wanted to get on the road. ‘You know I’ve got to keep an eye on things,’ I said, fighting to keep the exasperation out of my voice.
But Dolly was in the mood for a row. She’d been tense all day, building up to it. ‘It’s probably not the only thing you keep your eye on,’ she sneered.
‘What do you mean by that?’ I snapped.
‘You certainly don’t seem interested in me. You don’t want to know.’
I ignored that and carried on dressing.
‘You don’t want to bloody know!’ Dolly raised her voice, trying to provoke.
‘Leave it out, Dolly.’ I said calmly. ‘Not now. I’m late.’
‘Business. Bloody business. It’s business all the time. When’s the last time you took me out?’
I felt it best to ignore her and not rise to the bait.
‘Come on,’ Dolly persisted, more loudly. ‘When’s the last time?’
‘Keep your bloody voice down. What’s the matter with you?’
And then she went into one, shrieking hysterically, accusing me of ignoring her, not wanting her any more, moaning that I let the twins run my life. Her voice got louder and louder and then she shouted, it’d serve you right if I found someone else while you’re enjoying yourself up there.’
I snapped. ‘Shut your mouth, for Christ’s sake!’ I said fiercely. ‘You’ll wake Nancy.’
‘Why should you worry about that?’ Dolly bellowed.
I didn’t understand what she meant, so I said nothing.
‘I don’t see why you should worry about someone else’s kid.’
Silence. Then I said, ‘What are you talking about?’
‘What I say. Nancy’s not yours, you know.’
I froze, then just stared at her, searching her hard green eyes, unblinking now in blazing hatred.
‘She’s not, you know.’ Her mouth curled and twisted with arrogance, enjoying my pain.
What she had said roared in my ears, deafening me with its implications. I felt suddenly weak. A thousand responses hammered in my head but my brain was too numb to make sense of them, then one single thought forced its way to the front of my mind, pounding and pounding away: ‘Don’t let it be true. Don’t let it be true. Please, please don’t let it be true.’
But Dolly, cocky in her desire to hurt, just stared at me in silence, enjoying my anguish.
Later, days later, she took it back, said it was a lie dreamt up in the heat of the moment. But it was too late. She had sowed that seed of doubt and it was to grow and grow until it was always there in the back of my mind.
And now in my cell, swimming around in a sea of warm memories of little Nancy, Dolly’s damning declaration began to dominate my thoughts. I remembered all the odd coincidences, the strange happenings that somehow didn’t add up, and I remembered, too, the innocent slips of Nancy’s tongue telling me ‘George’ had been round.
All those wasted, precious years when my little girl had needed the influence of a caring father. Well, I had to stop tormenting myself. For my own sanity I had to accept once and for all that Nancy had indeed had that father’s influence all the time I’d been away.
His name was George Ince.
Mum and the old man were not surprised, of course, by my decision to divorce Dolly. When the papers revealed the affair with Ince Mum admitted she’d known about it for some time but hadn’t said anything because she felt it was not her business. ‘I didn’t like it,’ she said, ‘but I felt you had enough problems. I knew you’d have to decide for yourself one day.’
Dolly, ever ready to see the worst in people, always blamed Mum for telling me about Ince, but that simply wasn’t true. Mum was not the sort of lady who liked making waves and causing problems. When the mystery witness story broke I told Mum I hoped Diana would read it and get in touch with her, in which case she was to be sure to bring her to see me. I was tempted to ask Mum to try to find Diana herself, but decided against it because she had enough on her plate earning a living, taking care of the old man and visiting the twins and me in different parts of the country. I’d been keeping my ears open for departing inmates going to Leicester but had not heard of any so far.
I’d spent hours describing Diana to a little Jewish man called George who was in for fraud. He often said I talked about her so much that he felt he knew her personally, and he told me nothing would give him greater pleasure than to go to Leicester to try and find her. But of course that’s easy to say when you’re locked up more than 150 miles away. George was coming up for release and due to be given a little job in a hostel to prepare him for life outside.
One day he came looking for me, beaming all over his face. ‘Charlie,’ he said, excitedly, Tve got the hostel. They’re offering me London.’ He paused, then grinned. ‘Or Leicester.’ He stood there, waiting.
I didn’t know what to say; it’s difficult to ask someone to organize their life in a certain way just to help you find a lost love. But it was as if George was reading my thoughts.
‘Charlie, I’ve got no family to worry about. It makes no odds to me where I go. I’d love to go to Leicester to try to find Diana.’
I was lost for words. Prison life is not known for its generosity of spirit, for humane gestures that demand nothing in return. Finally I said, ‘That’s really nice of you, George. I’d love you to try to find her.’
George beamed. I think it made his day.
Sadly, George had no luck. The club in Leicester had closed and he could not find anyone who had worked there. He did the rounds, asking in pubs and so on, but drew a blank. I was disappointed, naturally, but told myself it was probably for the best. If Diana had got her marriage sorted out she certainly wouldn’t need an ex-jailbird knocking on her door and asking her to renew a romantic relationship with someone she had probably forgotten long ago.
And yet, as the months towards my release wore on I could not get Diana out of my mind. She had been so beautiful, so kind, so loyal; so much the woman of my dreams. I knew I was still in love with her and had never stopped loving her.
And I knew, despite everything, that I would not be able to stop myself trying to find her to tell her so.