A Form of Justice

By Dawn Marsanne

Barrister Gina Overton decides to move back to Canterbury to be nearer to her elderly mother and takes up a position at legal chambers in the city. Her move coincides with the start of the SEKare Inquiry into abuse and neglect at a group of care homes in the area. Gina specialises in prosecuting medical negligence claims and has agreed to represent the group whose vulnerable relatives suffered in the residential homes. The experience proves to be more challenging than she anticipates and she finds herself to be the subject of some subtle intimidation. Who is trying to unsettle Gina and cause her to question her decision to relocate? Without the support of her husband, Will, who is yet to move to the area and with the increasing worries of her mother's dementia, she struggles to remain in control of her life. Is she being paranoid or is someone determined to make her life difficult?

Meanwhile, Melanie, with a history of self-harm becomes increasingly distressed as memories of being bullied at school are triggered by a message out of the blue from a girl in her school year. Can her counsellor Trish help her cope with her painful past? The tension mounts and the novel reaches a dramatic climax which changes the characters' lives irreversibly.

The book is an exploration of human interactions and the mental scars that result from abuse which can take years to heal. What drives people to intimidate and bully? What will result from the desire to dispense a form of justice?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dawn Marsanne
• Release date: Feb 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386933908

Dawn Marsanne

Having worked in the pharmaceutical industry for almost twenty-five years I wanted to write a novel which explored some of the serious issues in the field. The reproducibility of scientific data is a common problem which has recently been highlighted in the news and this forms the basis of my first book Adverse Reaction. I particularly enjoy reading thrillers and suspense novels and I have tried to create a fast paced story which holds the reader's attention. Many of the themes of the book occur in everyday life and I have used the backdrop of research to illustrate them. There are relatively few novels which are set in the laboratory environment so I saw this as an undeveloped area but at the same time scientific details are kept to a minimum to allow the work to be accessible to readers of a non-technical background. As I finished the novel I became sufficiently interested in the characters I had created to develop them further and the six book Persford Reaction Series was born. Since then I have written to standalone novels, A Form of Justice and Relative Error. Waves of Guilt is the first in a new series and is now joined by a sequel, Layers of Deceit.  Follow me on twitter @dawn_marsanne

Book preview

Chapter 1

––––––––

‘Hello, Melanie, come in and take a seat,’ offered Trish Webster.

‘Thanks. Oops, sorry,’ she replied, as she caught her leg against the low table causing a glass of water to wobble precariously. Melanie was always nervous before each weekly counselling session, and her state of mind manifested itself in her clumsy demeanour. On her way to the health centre this morning, she’d tripped several times on the uneven pavements and now  her black trousers were mud spattered from an inelegant stumble through a puddle.

‘Don’t worry. Take a few minutes to settle yourself. It’s a dreadful morning out there, you must have had to practically swim to get here,’ said Trish solicitously.

The heat had been building for weeks, and that morning the dry spell had been broken by a torrential thunderstorm which had made the atmosphere humid and unpleasant.

Melanie frowned, ‘Oh, yes, I’m a bit soggy. Although, now it looks as though it’s brightening up.’ Her long, almost black hair was swept back and pinned up high on her head and had stayed remarkably tidy despite the heavy rain. Only a few errant strands had escaped and lay stuck to her temples. She ran her hand over her forehead, gathering up the annoying hairs and reuniting them with the rest of her thick mane. With her pale complexion contrasting with her black tresses, Melanie could be a natural beauty, had her attractiveness not been tempered by the pain and anguish which lay beneath her visage. Trish wondered how long had it been since her muscles had relaxed into a genuine beaming smile. Too long, no doubt.

‘Take your time, there’s no rush,’ said Trish. She looked through the folder in front of her so as not to put her client under pressure. She got up from her seat and went over to the desk to put her laptop to sleep. The familiar noises of the busy health centre punctuated the silence; doors closing, footsteps passing the room, a car beeping its horn at another in the small tightly packed car park. Trish returned to her seat at the small table and sat down, adjusting her beige linen trousers at the knee and pulling her blouse down slightly at the collar to make it sit more comfortably.

‘I’m OK now, better to get started,’ replied Melanie. The tension was clearly visible in her neck, and the tendons stood out, so taut they looked like they could be plucked to produce a tune. Her teeth were clenched together making her cheeks rigid, and her whole visage resembled that of an alabaster sculpture.

‘So, how have you been feeling generally during the last week?’

‘A little better, thanks. I’ve been doing the breathing exercises. I think they are helping.’

‘That’s excellent. In what way have you noticed them helping?’

‘They’ve helped take the edge off the anxiety at times, if I remember to do them.’

‘That’s great, you’re doing really well. It can be difficult to remember to do them when anxiety kicks in. Try to practise them at times when you feel calm too, as that can make it easier when you really need them’.

‘Yes, I keep forgetting, but I might try to do them each morning’

‘Good idea. So how often have you been experiencing the anxiety in the last week? Has there been any change?’

‘Most days, if anything, I think it’s getting worse’

‘Have you noticed what has been triggering it?’

‘It can come out of the blue but always when I think about my childhood. I just can’t get it out of my head, images just pop into my mind and won’t go away. I want to forget those years. I wish my childhood had never happened. I just want to start remembering at the age of eighteen.’

‘That sounds really upsetting, and wanting to forget is completely understandable, but as you know, sadly we can’t change the past. However, as we discussed last week, we can work together to find ways to help you to cope with the memories in a way that doesn’t cause you so much distress in the present.’

Melanie nodded. ‘I know what you said last week but I’ve thought about it, and I don’t think I can do it, it upsets me too much to think about when I was a child, I just can’t talk about it.’

‘It is your choice of course, and we would only talk about what happened, when and if, you feel ready. At the moment the memories are popping up unexpectedly and causing you distress every day. Sometimes choosing to talk about memories can help people to feel more in control, with the potential benefit of reducing their power over you.’

‘I know you’re right and that does make sense, it’s just hard to contemplate at the moment. It’s not just about my parents and all the arguing, it’s got so much worse. That’s why I’m in a state today. Something has happened on top of those things we’ve already talked about. I wish she would leave me alone’

There was a long pause.

‘Do you feel able to tell me what’s happened?’ Trish wondered if her mother had been in contact but didn’t want to push her for answers if she wasn’t ready to talk. Her curiosity got the better of her, and after another tense silence, she followed up on this. ‘Did your mother contact you?’

‘My mother? Oh, no, we hardly ever speak.’ Melanie’s voice began to waver. Suddenly she burst into tears which turned into sobs. Trish passed over a box of tissues and waited for a few minutes.

‘I was OK but then she contacted me, and since then I’ve been having nightmares.’

Trish felt confused. ‘I’m sorry, who contacted you?’

‘Someone from my old school contacted me on Facebook, and it just brought it all back.’ Melanie started to sob again.

Trish handed her another tissue

‘Sorry, it just comes over me. I wish I could turn the clock back, I would have been alright if she hadn’t messaged me. I’d managed to push it all into the background.’

There was another pause, but this time Trish waited until Melanie was ready to continue.

‘I was bullied, for years. I stopped eating. It turned into anorexia, and I nearly died. Oh, God. I can’t cope. It’s awful, you’ve no idea.’ The tears cascaded down her cheeks once more, causing the tissue to disintegrate as she wiped her face.

Trish looked at the young woman before her. She was still painfully thin but not critically so. She felt genuine sadness for someone in her mid-twenties who had already suffered so much and was now overwhelmed and powerless in the face of these re-triggered experiences. Melanie was in no state to continue for the moment. Trish held out the bin for the shreds of tissues and offered the box to her to take more.

‘Thank you for telling me. I can see that was really hard for you to say’.

Melanie nodded and was struggling to hold back the tears.

‘Would you like some water?’

Melanie nodded again and looked grateful for the potential break from talking.

‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

As Trish stood up, she felt dizzy and had to hold on to the wall. A sudden hot flush spread over her face, and she could feel the perspiration breaking out on her back. How much longer would these awful menopausal symptoms carry on? Her loss of consciousness was fleeting, but as the present reclaimed her, some images of her own past loomed into focus.

‘Oh, God, no, please,’ she inwardly intoned. Taking some deep breaths, she hurried into the corridor, flapping her blouse away from her chest as she walked along. Thankfully, she wasn’t having one of her really heavy menstrual days or she would feel even worse. As she poured the water, she clung to the fact that at fifty-one she had now reached the mean age for menopause. Surely it couldn’t be much longer until she was over the worst?

Before returning to her client she tore off a piece of kitchen roll and dampened it with cold water, then pressed it to the back of her neck. Her shoulder length hair was beginning to lose its natural ash blonde colour. Soon there would be more grey than blonde, but nature had dealt her some good fortune as the subtle change in pigment actually looked like highlights. As far as Trish felt, that was was about the only favourable part of the menopause, a small crumb of benevolence being bestowed upon her amongst a sea of unpleasant consequences. In her few solitary moments she managed to reassert control over her feelings. Her focus must be on her client, not herself.

Poor Melanie. She was in a far worse state. It didn’t take years of training to notice her fragility. There was a heap of work to be done to give her some confidence to live her life to the full and help her out of this severe onslaught of anxiety and depression. Trish was aware that she needed to reassess risk with Melanie before the end of the session. It was her responsibility to evaluate whether Melanie was in danger of harming herself in any way, and at this moment Trish was not so sure.

As she walked slowly back to the room, she mentally prepared herself for the difficult half hour ahead.

Chapter 2

––––––––

Gina Overton was busily preparing for the long-awaited SEKare Inquiry which was scheduled to begin the following week. Her office at a barristers’ chambers in Canterbury was on the top floor of a building which dated from the Victorian era and had retained many of the original features, such as fireplaces, cornices and ceiling rose. After the early morning rain, the strong summer sunlight was now penetrating the sash windows, heating the already warm office. Gina opened the window a few more inches and adjusted the blinds to block out the sun’s rays. As she sat at her desk, a cacophony of young voices from a group of passing students filtered in through the six-inch gap. Gina listened, identifying them as Spanish voices, for a minute she had thought they might be Italian but she was sure she could discern the subtle difference.

The inquiry would be the culmination of two years of lobbying by the relatives of care home residents who had died from neglect or suffered abuse at the hands of staff in a group of homes in South-east England. As a barrister, Gina had many years of experience prosecuting cases of medical negligence and had proved herself to be an accomplished and successful lawyer. Thus, she was the natural choice to represent the group known as Justice for SEKare.

The harrowing subject of the inquiry had given her many sleepless nights due to the testimonies of relatives who discovered their loved ones to be the playthings of cruel and callous care workers who had shown not a jot of benevolence towards their patients. Some tech-savvy relatives had taken the initiative to set up webcams to capture concrete evidence of the treatment which they suspected was being meted out to the defenceless occupants of the SEKare Homes. The purpose of the inquiry was to ensure that similar incidents would never be repeated by making recommendations for the monitoring of the standard of care and to root out any bad apples in the system. Several workers and carers had already been prosecuted, the majority pleading guilty to the irrefutable charges and thus receiving more lenient sentences from the court. None would ever work in the care system again.

Gina’s normally immaculate appearance had taken a knock over the last few weeks probably due to the stress of the move south and the burden of disparate tasks on her mind. Since the menopause, she had fastidiously limited and monitored her calorie intake as her small frame easily betrayed any slight weight gain, resulting in an unattractive paunch around her middle. Her stylishly cut, tailored suits were unaccommodating to any excess fat and each day was a constant battle to resist the temptation of calorific food.

To others, she still looked perfectly smart and professionally turned out, her appearance suggesting she was at least ten years younger than her fifty-two years. However, Gina was a perfectionist and felt that her hair needed a boost. Using the selfie function on her phone, she could see that it looked lifeless, lacking shine and vitality and as it was now four weeks since its last trim, her layered style was in need of a general tidy up, just a few millimetres off the length and some thinning of the crown would make all the difference. Hopefully, she could delay having her highlights replenished for a few months as it meant several tedious hours in the salon. She was contemplating phoning for an appointment when her mobile vibrated.

‘Hi, Will,’ she answered. ‘How’s your day going?’

‘Fine, thanks, darling. Very well, actually. I’ve made some progress and have finally agreed on a transfer date. That’s why I’m calling.’

‘Wow! At last!’ she replied to her husband. ‘How did you manage that? Violence? Threatening behaviour?’

‘Ha! Almost. I’ll tell you the full story tonight, but I thought that you’d want to know so you can start to look for a house to rent.’

‘So, when is it?’

‘July 1st.’

‘Gosh, that’s soon. I thought you were going to say six months.’

‘Well, we’ve been discussing things for ages, and they’ve had my notice in writing for a while. It was just a case of ensuring my replacement could start, and everyone was happy.’

‘What about your private practice?’

‘That’s not quite finalised, but it will probably start the following month. It’s all agreed so no need to worry. Anyway, it’s probably better to stagger the two.’

Gina was quiet as she doodled on her legal pad.

‘Gina? Are you OK, you’ve gone quiet.’

‘No, it’s just now it’s been finalised it’s, well, it’s a big change. I hope you’re happy with this.’

‘Look, we’ve been through this before, I’ve lost track of how many times. We can’t go back on our decision now.’

‘I know, I know, it’s just, well, Mum won’t be around forever and we were happy up in Manchester.’

‘Yes, but she could live a long time yet and just think of having to make frequent trips up and down from Manchester. What about emergencies? It can be a dreadful strain on people separated by such a distance.’

‘I know. I just feel I’m piling all the stress on to you.’

‘I fully understand that you want to be nearer to her, I don’t know how to convince you other than by what I’ve already said.’

‘OK, OK, I just have these moments of indecision, perhaps I’m over thinking the situation.’

‘I’m fine about it, trust me. Besides, it’s nice for you to be back on your home turf, so to speak. I love Canterbury, and it’s no further from Marcus.’

‘It’s just with your parents already having passed away it seems a bit one-sided.’

‘Well, it’s not, so let’s not waste time going over the same ground. OK?’

‘OK, I’ll have a look at some estate agents’ sites this evening. It will give me a break from my work.’

‘I thought you’d be visiting all your old drinking haunts in the evenings. Clubbing the night away.’

‘Ha! Very droll. So much of the city centre has changed, and from what people tell me you need to be careful at night.’

‘Really? That bad?’

‘Well, yes, and I also read a report online which claimed that Canterbury is one of the worst places for alcohol-fuelled violence.’

‘No, I don’t believe that!’ replied Will. ‘Surely it’s no worse than most cities or Manchester?’

‘I was shocked too and it seems there’s been a big increase in the number of bars which stay open late.’

‘Well, we won’t be out in the city centre in the early hours, will we?’

‘No, that’s true.’

‘Anyway, how’s the preparation for the inquiry going?’

‘Fine, thanks. They are a good set of people here at Barker and Hinds. I’ve got a nice office, and if I stand on tiptoes I can just see the Cathedral.’

‘Sounds great. By the way, I’ve booked my train ticket for Friday, and I don’t have to go back until Monday so I can come along and watch you in action!’

‘You’ll be able to catch up on your sleep, it can be quite tedious, don’t expect too much.’

There was a pause.

‘I miss you, Gina. The nights are so lonely.’

There was a knock at the door.

‘Look, I’ve got to go, chat later, love you.’

‘Love you too, phone me tonight.’

‘Will do.’ She blew some kisses down the phone and ended the call.

‘Come in!’

‘Special delivery!’ announced Carly, one of the administrative assistants. She was in her thirties and had worked at Barker and Hinds since leaving school at the age of eighteen, gaining some legal qualifications through part-time study. Gina could not have hoped for a more pleasant and efficient assistant whose forte was multi-tasking whilst maintaining a sunny disposition whatever the workload or crises which inevitably arose from time to time.

‘Oh, those are lovely! Thank you,’ said Gina, admiring the hand-tied arrangement of flowers which Carly placed on her desk. Gina quickly opened the small envelope attached to the display. ‘Marcus, my son.’

‘And some post for you, Ms Overton.’

‘You can call me, Gina, it’s perfectly OK.’

‘Oh, er thanks. Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea?’

‘Er, yes, tea, thank you.’

Carly left and Gina felt slightly tearful, caused by her recent phone call from her husband and also from the tender sentiment on the card.

‘To a fantastic Mum and hope these brighten your office. Love you loads.’

She fiddled with a couple of the blooms and inhaled their beautiful aroma. Marcus had remembered not to include the lilies, as she could not tolerate the pungent scent and annoyingly they could cause staining on furniture and clothes. Gina typed a quick thank you and told him she would call that evening.

Prior to taking up her position at Barker and Hinds, she’d made frequent trips down to Canterbury to meet with the Justice for SEKare group, staying for a couple of days at a time. It was fortunate that the inquiry had been scheduled just after her relocation and now it wouldn’t be long until Will joined her.

Despite the upheaval, she felt it was the right decision. That was what she needed to affirm to herself, particularly in the small hours of the morning when self-doubt and anxiety needled its way into her brain. This would be her final move though, in another ten years she would be considering retirement.

She was sure that Will was genuinely happy about the move south and she couldn’t wait for the time when they would be living together properly as a couple. For a couple of weeks since moving to the new job, she had been living with her mother in her bungalow in Broadstairs about half an hour away by car or train but for this weekend she had taken a hotel room in the city so she could have some private time with Will, without them having to entertain her mother for the whole weekend.

Carly returned with a cup of tea and Gina turned her attention to the distasteful video footage which was to be shown to the inquiry. It made for uncomfortable viewing, nobody could deny that, and after the third excerpt, she sat back in her chair with her eyes closed. Suddenly she felt light-headed. The room swam, and she clutched at the edge of the desk. She took some deep breaths and tried to calm her racing heartbeat. For a few seconds, images zoomed in and out of her consciousness. They were the same images which had troubled her in the small hours of the morning, ever since she had begun preparing for this assignment.

Uncertainty was beginning to chip away at her confident persona, burrowing its way in through any small fissure it could find. Should she have agreed to take on this role? It was high profile and could open many doors in the future but did she really need that publicity? Will had encouraged her, unaware that she had lost some of her confidence and from time to time anxiety was a force with which her inner psyche had to grapple. It lurked in the background waiting for the slightest stimulus and opportunity to reassert its presence. The fact that many middle-aged women suffered the same feeling was some consolation, yet at the same time did little to help her own problem. Internet forums were full of personal accounts of sudden panic attacks that had caused them to stop driving until the paralysing waves of fear had passed. For Gina, the sensation of panic had taken on a human persona, stalking her two steps behind, invisible to everyone but ready to tap her on the shoulder and announce its presence as if to say, ‘I’m here, I’m watching, I’m following.’

Gina reached in her bag and took out a bottle of herbal Rescue spray and administered three squirts under her tongue. Usually, the calming effect was enough to tip the equilibrium in her favour and to redress the balance. At times like this, she longed for a cigarette. She had managed to give up the disgusting habit after marrying Will. She’d not really had any choice about eschewing her cancer sticks, as her husband called them. As a heart specialist, he knew only too well the toll that her twenty a day habit was having on her body. Recently, she’d taken up vaping to help her periods of anxiety but tried to limit her sessions to three times a day. Whilst her comforting spray took effect, she brought up the news websites as a distraction and read the latest shenanigans in the Brexit saga.

Chapter 3

––––––––

‘I thought I’d find you out here,’ said Tom Webster, upon his return from work. He went over to kiss his wife who was busy in their large garden.

‘I’m a bit hot and sweaty,’ Trish said, returning his kiss.

‘You look like you’re wearing warpaint,’ he said, rubbing at a smear of soil on her right cheek. ‘It’s looking lovely as always,’ he said, scanning around their largish garden. ‘Very neat. That bed is amazing, it’s really coming into flower now.’

‘Thank you,’ she replied. ‘The rain this morning freshened everything up, but it’s all dried off quite quickly now with the heat.’ She paused to cast an eye over the garden. ‘The lawn still looks like straw though.’

‘Lawns always recover, remember the drought of seventy-five?’

‘Not very well, I wasn’t interested in gardening then, I was nine. Shall I get us a drink and we can sit for a while unless you want dinner straightaway?’

‘No, I’m not very hungry, it’s so hot and humid.’

‘Gin and tonic?’

‘Why not? Perfect drink for a summer’s evening.’

Trish dropped her garden gloves on the lawn and went inside to get the drinks. Tom flopped down into one of the chairs on the terrace and stretched out his legs. The evening was still warm, but the sun had now moved over to the west leaving the terrace in the shade. He’d already removed his tie on his way home, and he rolled up his sleeves a bit further to cool himself down. He sighed and rubbed his greasy forehead. It had been a stressful day, but then that was what most days were like in his job as Practice Manager at a recently formed GP super-hub surgery. The new surgery had only been in operation for about six months and had been largely successful, providing many more services in a centralised location. With nearly twenty doctors on one site, the administration was a huge task, and the responsibility for efficient management was Tom’s although he had two part-time assistants.

‘Ah, lovely,’ he said as Trish brought out a tray with the drinks. ‘Cheers to happy gardening,’ he said, and they clinked glasses.

‘So, what’s been happening in the world of medicine today?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I do, it’s good to talk about things. I can see the tension in your shoulders, they are all hunched up.’

‘OK, well, don’t blame me for depressing you,’ he said sipping his drink. ‘The GP we were hoping to recruit has now changed his mind and is going to Leeds instead. We were banking on him, and now we have to start the process of advertising all over again.’

‘Oh, no, that’s a blow.’

‘Yes, and Pete Summerhayes has announced that as he’s now sixty he wants to reduce his hours to two days a week which will put more pressure on us,’ he paused. ‘Do you want more?’

Trish nodded. ‘Why not?’

‘A patient has gone on social media slagging us off and claiming that she can never get an appointment, says she has been refused treatment with us and had no choice but to go to A&E. Not only that, she has said that the receptionist swore at her, which I find very hard to believe.’

‘Have you contacted her?’

‘I tried, but she didn’t pick up my calls. Then on top of that, we’ve had a problem with the firm which did some of the building work, a large crack has appeared in one of the treatment rooms, and it’s been deemed to be unsafe to use. The builders are refusing to come back as they are busy with work up in London.’

‘Another G and T?’ asked Trish.

‘I shouldn’t but sod it. It’s one thing after another, and it means I can’t get on with other things which need my attention. I’m counting down the days to retirement.’

His wife went back into the house and returned with another drink for Tom.

‘Not having another one?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘I should go for a run this evening but it’s just too hot. I’m really going to struggle in that 10 K race at the weekend. God, I hope it cools down by then.’

‘Shouldn’t you be taking up a less strenuous hobby? I’m worried about how it’s affecting your knees and joints.’

‘Like bowls, you mean?’

‘Not bowls, no, perhaps we should do more walking. Aren’t we designed for walking long distances and just running for short bursts?’

‘Look, I’m going to carry on running for as long as possible. It gives me a buzz. We’ve had this conversation before, and I don’t want to start arguing again.’

‘Sorry,’ said his wife, realising she’d touched a nerve. Perhaps Tom’s body would tell him when it was time to stop and relieve her of the task. She just hoped he wouldn’t push himself too hard and end up having a hip operation before he reached sixty.

‘So, how’s your day been?’ he asked, changing the subject.

‘Oh, the usual. Nothing special really.’

‘You sure? You seem a bit flat.’

‘Well, I had a difficult morning, that’s all, and the weather is so hot and stuffy, but I’m OK.’

Trish looked into the distance as she replied and Tom began to worry that she was downplaying her depressed mood. In truth, Trish did feel dispirited, but she felt reluctant to open up to her husband, it would cause him to start being overly concerned which usually led to him pressurising her to give up her job. A job which she needed for her own self-esteem.

‘Is your arm OK? It’s looking redder than usual. Do you think you should put some cream on it?’

Trish looked at the inside of her left arm.’

‘It’s OK, probably the heat.’ She looked again. ‘Or, I might have brushed against something, rue, for example, can be an irritant. Ruta graveolens to give it its proper name.’

‘Show off,’ replied Tom, joking. ‘I don’t know how you remember all the names of the plants.’

‘Maybe I’m just naturally gifted?’

Tom laughed. It was good to hear his wife joking, but it seemed unnatural and forced. Beneath the surface, he could sense a fragment of unhappiness.

‘But seriously, you should be careful about rubbing against the plants, you know how sensitive your skin is.’

She looked at him with a slight pull of her mouth to express her

Reviews for A Form of Justice

[Alistair C. Stewart · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Gave up after a few chapters of this amateurish drivel with it's poorly written dialogue.