Petition for Divorce

"Thank you again, Karim, for your help in overcoming her initial reluctance to obey me. A week with your associates left her totally broken and more than willing to undergo the enhancements I had planned for her."

"Always my pleasure to help in these matters. Our friend in Dubai has told me that your new surgical procedure has also been very successful at achieving what used to take my grandfather a year or two."

"She had the procedure four months ago and after recovering and a few weeks of training she was ready in time for my visit to our friend in Dubai. Tonight, Karim you will experience her again for yourself. I am sure you will find her even more pleasurable."

There was a pause in the conversation. "Pamela, come here my dear."

There was a delay for a few seconds. Then for the first time in over a year, I heard a voice that sounded very much like my ex-wife's. "What is it, my Lord "

"This is Karim, my dear. You will be spending the next two days entertaining him."

"Yes, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord."

At that point, Bernard stopped the recording. I was dumbfounded, as I watch Bernard refill my glass.

'Do we know where she is now?' I demanded. 'That woman is the mother of my children and I want them to have her back in their lives. I want that bastard punished for what he had been doing to my ex-wife.'

'Would you consider taking her back, Richard?' Bernard asked me.

That was something I hadn't considered at all. Probably because I had always thought she must have had some involvement in her disappearance. Now I had heard the recording of Lord Harrington and Karim's conversation I knew she had nothing to do with her disappearance. What now concerned me, even more than the changes made to her appearance, was the significance of this surgery they had talked about.

'I can't consider that right now, I just have to get her away from Lord Harrington.' I told him. I gave Bernard another five hundred thousand pounds and he told me he would get me the information I wanted within the month.

It was only three weeks when Bernard came into my office on Thursday morning and handed me another report. 'This will tell you everything you asked me to find out,' he told me. 'Read it and I'll meet you in the pub at seven this evening.'

I don't know who the guys were that Bernard was using, but every time that had come up with the information I wanted. Reading their latest report, I found out that Lord Harrington was a very nasty person. He had separated the first clinic his mother had opened, in the lodge of his ancestral home, and turned it from a legitimate business of facial and body enhancement into a place where men sent women for sexual enhancement and corrective surgery. Almost all their clients came from the sex industry or the middle east.

This was where Lord Harrington was keeping my ex-wife until he took her on his monthly trips abroad. What he used her for while in the clinic, I had trouble thinking about.

When Bernard and I discussed this latest report we both decided that more help was needed to get someone into the clinic or contact someone working there. Our plan to get someone into the clinic took another four weeks. Another four weeks for Pam to be exploited by Lord Harrington.

Bernard arranged for our next meeting in a room at a local hotel. He told me there would be someone else at our meeting. Her name was Jocelyn and she was a very expensive lady. I don't know where or how Bernard found her, but I was a bit taken aback when Bernard introduced us. Jocelyn was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, in her early thirties and I was immediately captivated by her smile.

'Hello Robert, Bernard has been telling me about your wife and this Lord Harrington. It all sounds quite dreadful.'

While I fumbled for words Bernard spoke up. 'Jocelyn needs some corrective surgery, just the sort of procedure they do at the clinic.'

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that, I hope it isn't serious?'

'No, darling,' she replied in the most seductive voice I have ever heard. 'It's just a little expensive and Bernard told me that you might be willing to pay for me to have it.' After a moment of looking into my eyes, she reached for me and moments later she had her arms around me. 'You, poor man,' she whispered. 'You must still love your ex-wife very much.'

Hearing those words, spoken by this beautiful woman I had just met, made me admit that perhaps I did still love her. That thought also made me hate Lord Harrington even more. Slowly I extricated myself from her arms. I'd never been in such close proximity to such a sexually intimidating woman. If I had wanted her, I knew money would be no object.

'Jocelyn has a regular client who would act as her partner and make the arrangements with the clinic for her admission.' Bernard told me.

I turned to Joselyn. 'How long have you and Bernard been discussing this.' I asked her.

'Only a few days, and I really do need some corrective surgery.'

'You'll do this for me, there are other clinics you know.'

'Bernard and I have known each other a very long time and doing this will be my way of thanking him for something he once did for me.'

'Robert, just thank the lady,' Bernard told me. 'There are things we need to discuss.'

I took Jocelyn's hand and pulled her close. 'You are a very brave lady, Jocelyn and thank you, thank you very much.' I restricted myself to a brief kiss on her cheek.

Three weeks later Jocelyn was admitted to the clinic. Her surgery was due two days later and she would be there for five days of recovery. I suspected, because of her profession, that the surgery had something to do with her vagina, but we never discussed it. It was all paid for by me, a totally exorbitant sum of money that included accommodation for her partner. I just hoped it got us the information we needed.

I never saw Jocelyn again but Bernard and I met in our regular hotel room a week later to discuss what she and her partner had found out about Pam's involvement with the clinic.

'It's not good news, Robert,' he started. 'Though it is something like we expected.'

There were several things I expected to be told so I just waited for Bernard to continue.

'After Jocelyn was registered with the clinic, she was taken to a reception room for an initial examination. While she was there the receptionist spoke to her partner. He was told that there was a resident lady experienced in proving personal service. All he had to do was phone reception and she would be sent to his room.'

'Jocelyn and her partner discussed the offer and decided that her partner had to request a visit if only to confirm that the woman was your ex-wife. It turned out that the woman was highly skilled in all the personal services he received from her. It seems your ex-wife is still called, Pamela.'

Bernard paused and let me think about what he had just told me. 'Her partner also stated that all the time she was with him there was very little conversation and especially how dull her eyes were. Though he didn't think she was on any drugs.'

'On the day before her discharge, Jocelyn was in the reception area when she heard the receptionist take a phone call. From what she heard a Mr Faizal was demanding that the whore immediately visit his room again.'

Neither of us said anything for several minutes. There was just too much to think about. Finally, I asked him. 'Do you think she is living there all the time?'

'From what Jocelyn told me, there were nine other rooms in the accommodation wing. So yes, she is certain she is living there all the time to be available whenever one of the residents asks for her, day or night.

Out of all the scenarios I had imagined for my ex-wife, I think this was one of the worst. Confined to the clinic and required to provide sexual services to any man, at any time, perhaps at night as well as during the day.'

'Somehow, Bernard, we have got to get her out of there,' I told him while remembering what Jocelyn had told me. No woman, especially not my ex-wife should be forced to live like that, regardless of my feelings for her.

It took another two weeks to organise our plan for getting the mother of my children out of the clinic. It wasn't a particularly outrageous plan, but it did require a lot of carefully planned actions and involved several men.

We chose a Sunday when most patients had been discharged and before the next ones arrived. Also, our observations indicated that was the day some of the staff took the day off.

The first indication Lord Harrington had that anything was happening, was when two police cars requested entry to his estate. Permission was obviously granted and our plan went into action. As soon as Lord Harrington met the officers in his residence, he was informed that they believed a suspected illegal immigrant was staying at his clinic. This of course was a perfectly legitimate reason for the police to be there and one Lord Harrington couldn't confirm or deny.

So, he agreed to go to the clinic with the two officers, followed by the other police car. At the clinic, he was asked to assemble all the staff, patients not confined to bed and the residents in the reception.

This took about twenty minutes. The leading police officer then told Lord Harrington that the person they were looking for was not among those assembled in reception. He then ordered four of his officers to search the premises, apparently, much to the annoyance of Lord Harrington. At which point a search warrant was handed to him.

Bernard and I heard all this happening while waiting in our regular hotel room. Finally, we received the official-sounding message we had been waiting for. 'We have the illegal in custody. Repeat. We have the illegal in custody.'

I had prepared a room for my ex-wife to be taken where a doctor Jessop and nurse Harris were waiting for her. It was two days before I got the whole story of her recovery from Bernard.

'Lord Harrington,' he started. 'Went ballistic when they found Pam and claimed she was the illegal they wanted. Some of his staff had to restrain him when she was led from the clinic and put unto one of the police cars.'

'I wish I could have seen it,' I told him.

'So, do I,' he replied, then burst out laughing with me.

Finally, I was able to ask him. 'Has he tried to find out where she is?'

'If my guess is right, the local police will deny any knowledge, rightly so. They wouldn't have been involved, even if it had been a legitimate search for an illegal immigrant. It will be some time, if ever before he realised it was all a hoax to get your wife out of there.'

'Good,' I replied.

'Now, how is she?' he asked.

'I haven't seen her yet; the doctor tells me she is totally confused and under sedation while they assess her condition. They have yet to find out what this surgery is she is supposed to have had.

I was nervous as hell when four days after her recovery from the clinic I entered the room where she was. The nurse had already told her she was going to have a visitor.

She was sitting, propped up on a pillow wearing a pink, cotton nightdress. It was buttoned up to the neck and had long sleeves. I assumed nurse Harris had bought it for her. 'Hello Pam,' I said with a nervous grin I couldn't suppress.

She had been looking at the door when I entered but it was several seconds before I saw a glimmer of recognition in her blue eyes.

'Robert,' she whispered more as a question than a statement.

'Yes, Pam, it's me, Robert.'

A tear trickled down her cheek before she whispered my name again, 'Robert, is it really you?'

This woman, who had been my wife for over twenty years looked so bewildered that something broke in me at the sight of that tear. The next thing I knew I had her in my arms and I was crying like a baby.

All the anguish in the way I was divorced, the year of loneliness, all the weeks of investigation, didn't matter anymore. My wife was safe with me again. I now knew she had been an innocent pawn in the hands of a monster. A recent analysis of her signature on the divorce documents had proved it was forged.

'Shush, Darling,' I told her when she started to apologise. 'We will talk about it later, in a day or two. Right now, I want you to rest. The children and coming to see you tomorrow.'

That brought more tears. 'I thought I'd never see them again,' she told me.

'We are all going to get you past this nightmare,' I told her when our tears had been dried. I think she slept much more soundly after that.

While I was comforting my wife, I couldn't think of her as my ex-wife anymore, Bernard was looking at ways to destroy Lord Harrington. We had agreed, from the conversation recorded with Karim, that his banking business was where the corruption lay, and probably where they thought my wife had found out something that had got this whole rotten business started.

Seeing her children, Jennifer and Jake would be I hoped, the turning point in my wife's recovery. Both of them had arranged to stay for a few days.

When Jenifer and Jake arrived, I introduced them to doctor Jessop and nurse Harris and we had a quiet talk about their mother's condition. There were tears in her daughter's eyes even before she saw her mother. It was a heart-warming and yet a stressful reunion for all of us, not knowing if their mother would ever recover enough to join our broken family.

Knowing that doctor Jepson had completed his examination of Pam, as he was leaving that evening I invited him into my office. I offered him a whisky which he accepted. 'My wife seems in better spirits now the children are with her.'

Taking a sip, he studied me for a few moments. 'Mr Rawlings, seeing her children is not going to overcome all the trauma your ex-wife has suffered.'

I nodded in agreement. 'Now you have examined her, what can you tell me about the surgery that was performed on her?'

'Other than confirming what you already know, I can't tell you anymore.'

'Doctor-patient confidentiality I suppose, even though I am paying you.'

'No, Mr Rawlings. Your ex-wife asked me not to, in fact, she begged me. She told me she would tell you herself if there was ever the right opportunity.'

'The right opportunity, what did she mean by that,' I asked him.

'I think you need to talk to nurse Harris about that, Mr Rawlings.'

We finished our whiskies and said our goodnights.

The next afternoon, while the children were with the mother, I invited nurse Harris into my office. I had asked her to care for Pam because she was also a psychiatric nurse. I offered her a coffee or a glass of wine. She wanted a coffee, so it was a few minutes while I prepared one for both of us before I was able to ask her my first question.

'Nurse, you've now spent some time with my wife, will she ever fully recover?' I couldn't think of anything more important to ask

I was surprised at the angry look she gave me. 'Your ex-wife was abducted, spent a week with a group of animals, who as you told me, in the words of Lord Harrington, "left her broken." Her appearance has been physically altered and she has been surgically mutilated. She has also been used as a prostitute for nearly two years, and you ask me if she will recover,' she looked even angrier now. 'No, it is doubtful if she will ever fully recover, Mr Rawlings. She will eventually learn to function like a normal human being, but she will never be able to think of herself as a normal woman ever again.'

I just stared at her, dumbfounded.

'That man is a monster, I hope you can do something to bring him to justice,' she stated with considerable vehemence.

'Believe me, nurse, I am going to destroy that man.'

'How you recognised her from less than a minute of television coverage I will never know.'

'Over twenty years of intimate familiarity,' I told her.

'Well, let me tell you this, Mr Rawlings, that woman is gone, destroyed and it may take you another twenty years to become as familiar with this one.' She then stared at me for several seconds. 'I hope you succeed, but you and her children are going to have a very difficult time ahead of you if you want her to be part of your family again.'

In the silence that followed I tried to collect my thoughts and remembered another question, I wanted an answer to. 'Can I ask you another question?'

All I got was a nod.

'When I spoke to Doctor Jepson he told me that my wife refused to let him tell me about the surgery performed on her. He told me she refused to let him tell me anything. She said she would tell me herself; "if there was ever the right opportunity." Do you know what she meant?'

Again, I was carefully studied before she answered. 'I think what your ex-wife was saying, is that she does not expect you to want her around long enough to have the opportunity to tell you what had been done to her.'

'Nurse Harris, please don't call her my ex-wife,' I asked her. 'My wife's signature was forged on the divorce papers. I'm certain she never had any intention of divorcing me. Probably knows nothing about it,' I added

Nurse Harris looked really shocked. 'Oh My God, they even did that to her.'

Over the next three weeks, I slowly got my wife to talk to me. She refused to tell me anything about the surgery, and very little about anything else. On nurse Harris's advice, I knew I had to be patient. She wanted to know all about me. That was when I told her about receiving the divorce papers.

There was an immediate look of incomprehension on her face when I told her. 'Robert, I never divorced you,' she stated vehemently.'

'I know that now. Your signature was forged. The terms of the divorce threatened my company if I tried to contact you. I couldn't allow that, so I did as the petition asked and made no attempt to find out why you just walked out of my life.'

By the look of concern on her face and the tears, I think that was the first time she started to realise just how much I had also been affected by what Lord Harrington had done to her.

She kept asking me about the television pictures I saw of her at Lady Harrington's funeral and every time she expressed the same amazement that I had recognised her. I kept telling her the same I told to Nurse Harris. 'Over twenty years of intimate familiarity, my darling.'

She did tell me a little about Lady Harrington and how much she enjoyed working for her, but she never mentioned her husband or son, and I and didn't ask.

I soon realise how right Nurse Harris had been. My wife had convinced herself that I would not want anything to do with the woman she had been turned into. That was the hardest battle I had. And it was a battle, but I felt I was winning, especially with the help of my two children.

The first time I kissed her, it was no more than a brief contact on one of the many times I told her I would always love her, I somehow managed not to recoil back in surprise. Her lips were more than just puffy looking, they were like pressing your finger against a firm, warm jelly. It was a week before I was allowed to kiss her again. That's how bad it was.

That occasion was when I told her our divorce had been set aside because of the circumstances under which her signature had been forged. That was when my wife let me kiss her again, and I kissed her more than once as we really held each other for the first time in nearly two years.

Slowly we were becoming more intimate, though we still slept in separate rooms. Unfortunately, I was not allowed anywhere near her any time she was dressing or undressing. She still slept in the button to the neck, long-sleeved nightdress

All this time nurse Harris was having regular consultations with Pam and advising me that my wife was slowly beginning to accept that despite the changes made to her appearance, the surgery she had undergone and the men she had been with, I was not blaming her and was as determined as ever for us to remain married.