Of course, theparole requirements meant that he would be on ‘licence’, as theyput it, for the rest of his sentence, and subject to recall shouldhe offend again, but he had no intention of that – or no intentionof ever being caught and recalled, at least. Initially Gemma hadbeen his probation contact and support during the final stages ofhis sentence and the pre-parole period. She had accompanied thesenior probation officer and her boss, David, on his initial visitsto supervise Mark after he’d been transferred to Ford Open Prison,and then taken him on herself after David’s surprise earlyretirement. Gemma was young, twenty-three, when he firstencountered her, and just a few months into her first job sincegraduating, typically (and a little ironically) with a degree inSociology. He liked the way she wore close fitting clothes thathighlighted her figure, the pencil skirts and tight designer jeansin particular. To begin with, he hadn’t been able to work outwhether she was really posh or just radiated it. He had soonrealised there was no pretence.
After years ofcelibacy and without any recent practice, Mark had enjoyed charmingand intriguing her and she had seemed to like the attention too.Sure enough, soon after his release they had become an item andthen moved in together. They had played it by the book and had comeclean about their relationship; and so as to avoid any conflict ofinterest, the official supervision of his rehabilitation had beenpassed on to one of Gemma’s colleagues, Mathew. A somewhat moretypical example of the probation officer role than Gemma, or to putit more accurately an absolute stereotype of it, Mathew was aslightly earnest, bearded ex-hippy type who enjoyed the opportunityto have an articulate client with whom he could discuss music, filmand any other examples of cultural coolness that he could engineerinto their conversations. Mark found Mathew’s snobbish take on anyand all of those topics profoundly irritating, but he had alwaysbeen a good manager of other’s impressions of him and was happy toplay along with things. After he had lent Mathew a couple of hisBalzac novels there was no looking back. Mathew was convinced theyhad made some kind of intellectual contact with one another andMark had no reason to disabuse him; he was well aware of the sensein keeping his parole supervisor on side.
Thinking back,Mark realised how easy it was to forget unpleasant things; as withmost ex-cons he’d vowed never to go back, but by contrast withthem, he liked to think he meant it. When Gemma had met him at theprison gates on his release last November, Mark had been convincedthat he would just enjoy whatever life threw at him and thatanything would be better than the last few years. He wouldn’t carewhat he had to do or what he had or didn’t have, he would relishjust being away from the petty constraints of institutional life.However, and as he was well aware from having come across studieson the recidivism of offenders when teaching the sociology ofdeviance in his previous existence, the memories receded prettyquickly; really, when he took the time to reflect, his personalityhadn’t changed that much after all. Maybe the personality he hadused to convince the Parole Board had, but not the realone.
Post-prison,things had started quite nicely. Gemma had kept her job and he’dsettled into the flat above a florist’s in a small parade of shopsjust out of the centre of Littlehampton; it was not far fromGemma’s apartment, close to the station and overlooking the riverArun. In fact, going well over and above the usual post-releasesupport offered by the probation service, and presumably withouttheir knowledge, Gemma had found and arranged the renting of theflat for him before his release. Mark had given her access to hisshare of the divorce settlement, which considering his status as aconvicted criminal hadn’t been too bad. Somewhat paradoxically, themurder of her parents had left his ex-wife a very wealthy woman andshe hadn’t objected to Mark’s solicitor sorting out a reasonabledeal from the sale of the house they’d bought together; no doubtshe’d just been glad to see the back of him and to move on with herlife.
The first fewmonths and over the Christmas and New Year had been pretty good.Gemma and he had not been a couple immediately, although Markassumed that they both thought that was inevitable. From theirfirst meeting at Ford Open Prison, the atmosphere and rapportbetween them, along with the comments and looks they gave oneanother, had convinced him they had a future. After his release, ithad been Mark’s intention to play it reasonably cool to begin with,and certainly not to appear too desperate. He had made it clearthat he wanted to keep in touch with Gemma and was pretty sure shefelt the same – after all, she had helped arrange the flat for himand taken the trouble to collect him from Ford on his release date.As well as that, she had persuaded her new boss to let her continuewith his supervision immediately after release, fortunately apractice that was being encouraged as offering some kind ofcontinuity of support and aid to rehabilitation forex-prisoners.
In the earlydays
