Dark Tales. The Vet. Ch. 02

"Yeah?"

"Give." He held out his hand and I counted the money out. "Right you have hired me so everything is covered by legal privilege. Tell me everything, including the bits you didn't tell Niamh."

So I did. Including the Spanish trip. "Jesus boyo, you dug yourself a hole. Right. I'll go back and do a bit of investigating. It won't be cheap, but it will be worth it."

Niamh and I were still going out to dinner and dancing, but we had an unspoken agreement that we were slowing things until we had some news from Uncle Bendan. Six weeks after our conversation, he arrived back in Galway and called into the surgery.

"Can you take some time off, Seamus?"

"Yes, sure." I arranged with Eithne, the receptionist, to get Declan to cover. Shall we head up to the farm?"

"Sounds good."

We took our coffee into the sitting room and Declan gave me the report.

"That is a comprehensive account of what happened to your wife after you left. It is the only copy there is. Read it thoroughly and phone me tomorrow evening. I'm staying with Niamh, but I'll be fishing during the day." He finished his coffee, we shook hands and he left.

I weighed the report in my hand, anxious to know what it said. Afraid of what it might mean.

********

The police had responded to my phone call to find Janet and Julian squirming in agony. They called an ambulance and the lovers were treated for severe immersion injury compounded by the action of diarrhoea. They hadn't suffered lasting damage, but it took some time for their skin to heal. Neither Julian nor Janet brought made a complaint that meant the police hadn't laid charges. The e-mails to their company, on the other hand, had set the cat among the pigeons.

An American company was in negotiations with Mec-dy to buy them out. One of the e-mail addresses I had sent the photos to happened to be a member of the buy-out team. When they got it, the Americans started to get cold feet. European employers were not as concerned about the private lives of their employees as U.S. companies. There is not the same precedent for claims against businesses for sexual misconduct by staff. Nevertheless, they were wary of an action being brought in the courts in their country. The Europeans investigated the culprits and promptly terminated their employment. Urquart was furious, and blamed Julian and Janet.

When he lost his job, Julian's wife, Natalie, had thrown him out of the house. With nowhere to go he moved into my house with Janet. While clearing his possessions Natalie found some drugs. These she handed into the police who arrested and charged him. This led the police to search my house where they found more. Inquiries of the Spanish police revealed that they had also found drugs on his boat. He claimed that he was holding them for Urquart, and claimed that they used the boat to smuggle drugs from the continent, but only for their personal use. Unfortunately for them, the quantities were sufficient for charges of dealing to be laid.

The link with a major regional employer had given the local journalists a chance to make a bit of a name for themselves so they had covered it in more depth than the nationals.The police investigated the European connection, and Witters, van der Cruyssen, Visser and Delmas were hauled in by their respective police agencies. Investigations led to charges of sex and drug trafficking, linked to Eastern Europe with sentences ranging from ten to fifteen years

Urquat turned out to be an even nastier piece of work than I had realised. He had Janet and Julian abducted. They were taken to an unoccupied warehouse, but fortunately for them the police had Urquart under surveillance, and immediately called in reinforcements to raid the premises. The police weren't quite quick enough to save Julian from a severe beating, but Janet had only received a broken nose and cheek bone when she was rescued.

Urquart, Julian, and Janet were tried on a variety of charges. Julian went down for ten years on the drugs charges. Urquart got a twenty stretch and had his property and bank accounts seized by the Assets Recovery branch of the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Janet got off with a suspended sentence.

She tried to get me declared officially dead, using the newspaper reports I had seen to back the claim, so she could sell the house and claim on my life insurance. The case had dragged on and the loss adjusters disputed the claim. Eventually the bank foreclosed on the mortgage and she lost the house. With no income she couldn't pursue the case and wound up working in Tesco, as a shelf stacker and checkout girl. There she met a widower who managed to date her, eventually proposing. With all the newspaper coverage, the only way for her to grab him, and doubtless more importantly, his money, was to get rid of me. The upshot of that was that Janet had divorced me for abandonment. I was a free agent!

********

Next morning, I phoned Naimh, and arranged to meet her for lunch. I was waiting for her. Her face was a mix of anticipation and anxiety.

"Well?"

"Your uncle gave me this." I handed her the report. "I want you to read it before we make any decisions."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as I am of anything. If you and I are to have any sort of future, I need you to know the truth. I've lived under a shadow for too long. I want to be able to walk in the sun with you. No secrets."

"I'll take this home. I'll phone you later."

I spent the afternoon on tenterhooks. The call came at seven.

"Seamus, can you come to the house? Uncle Brendan is here. We can think about what we do now." I was in the car in a flash.

Seated on the patio, I toyed with my coffee anxiously. Brendan spoke.

"As I see it, you cannot marry ..."

My heart sank. Until that moment, I don't think I realised how much I loved and wanted to marry Niamh.

"... for at least eighteen months."

"What?" I was thoroughly confused.

"Niamh cannot get divorced for another eighteen months."

"I thought you couldn't get divorced in Ireland?"

"You are behind the times Seamus, or do you prefer James? Divorce has been available in Ireland for nearly ten years. Niamh and her husband have been separated for two and a half years, but the law requires that they have been apart for four years. You can't get married until then." That explained a lot.

I looked at Niamh, "What do you say?"

"We have eighteen months to wait."

"I haven't asked you to marry me."

"You will," she smiled.

*******

Niamh doesn't know about the conversation Brendan and I had the day after she told me I would ask her to marry. He wanted to make sure I wouldn't harm his only niece. I assured him I had grown, and that I had no intention of putting myself in such a position ever again. I may not have been in jail but I wasn't free. He gave me that freedom and I am never going to sacrifice that freedom again.

We married two years later. I am still known as Seamus. It is much easier than explaining to all my new friends and clients. Niamh and I live on the farm, but now I rent out the land. The freedom to travel and see the world with such a beautiful partner is too precious to tie myself to property.

And she doesn't want me leaving our bed at dawn.