***
It had beenyet another long, hot and pretty tiring afternoon session at theChichester Magistrates' Court for Gemma. The court itself was anunimposing square block of a building whose main claim to fame hadbeen the appearance there in 1967 of Mick Jagger and KeithRichards, for committal to Crown Court after their arrest atRichards’ country house, Redlands in West Sussex, for various drugoffences. They had both turned up at the court to plead not guiltyand elect for a trial by jury and been faced with a scrum of fansand media reporters outside the building. Although that had beenfourteen years ago it was still talked about with some affection bythe clerks and receptionists who’d been around at the time. Indeed,the number of celebrities supposedly involved appeared to grow asmemories faded, as did the notion that it was all anestablishment-organised attack on the Rolling Stones, fuelled bywhat sociologists might have termed a ‘moral panic’ over thegroup’s influence on the youth of the country and over hippies ingeneral. Carole on the front desk had kept her newspaper clippingsof the event in her desk drawer and insisted on reminiscing aboutthem at any opportunity, seemingly forgetting that Gemma had seenthem on her first visit as well as most subsequent onestoo.
Thatparticular day’s burglary case against Gemma’s client, ChristopherJones, an emaciated ex-drug addict, hadn’t attracted the same mediafrenzy that the Stones had. Even the regular reporter forthe Chichester Observerhadn’t bothered to show up. Apart from the dutysolicitors only an equally skeletal-looking girl had turned up;although a few years younger than Christopher she was presumablyhis partner. Gemma had prepared her report and, she liked to think,delivered it with some style. It was clear to her prison was notthe best place for Christopher to end up, and she had made a strongcase for a Community Sentence. However, his appointed solicitorthat day, Mr Lane, was not one of her favourites and had obviouslybeen more interested in getting away from the court as soon as hecould. He had offered little in the way of mitigation even thoughChristopher had owned up, pleaded guilty and saved everyone a lotof bother as well as expense. When the leading magistrate startedto deliver a sentence of imprisonment for one year Gemma resolvedto try to avoid working with Lane again, but the added ‘suspendedfor two years’ at least provided some satisfaction for herinvolvement.
She gatheredher files together, had a quick word with Christopher, remindinghim that any future misdemeanours would automatically revoke thesuspension and lead to prison, and went out into the car park andafternoon sun. It was nice enough to put the roof down on her MGmidget and boded well for the barbecue Mark said he was going toprepare later. She pulled out of Chichester town centre and on tothe old Roman Road and then the A285 to Petworth. There was no needfor her to get back to the office in Littlehampton today. She wasgrateful that her current boss, Gregory, didn’t mind her doing herpaperwork at home; although she reckoned he must be getting on forsixty, it helped that he obviously fancied Gemma. She didn’t mindthat, though; at least he wasn’t obviously pervy about it. Shewondered what it was with men of a certain age, or to be fair anyage. The drive itself was a pleasant and picturesque one, rightthrough the best of the South Downs, but that afternoon in courthad convinced her even more strongly that it was time for a change;she didn’t intend or need to continue to do what she’d just gonethrough for that much longer.
In essence,Gemma was pretty much bored with the probation job, and perhaps asa consequence of that, or perhaps anyway, with her life in general.Toward the end of her final year at university, not having muchidea of what to do next, she had sort of drifted into it. There hadbeen an advert on one of the university notice boards for arecruitment fair of some kind and Gemma had gone along for noparticular reason; she’d picked up various bits of information andleaflets from the different stands, including an application formto work as a probation officer. She had been told by the probationrepresentative that there were good opportunities for graduates andthat you could specify what areas you wanted to work in. One of themore interesting courses on her degree had been on crime andsociety and had involved considering how best to deal with repeatoffenders. Perhaps because of that passing interest, Gemma haddecided to give it a go and fill the form in, specifying anywherein the south of England. It had been something of surprise when shewas invited to Littlehampton for an interview only a few weeksafter graduating with her upper second degree in Sociology. Itwasn’t that she particularly needed to work, she was well providedfor from her father’s will but she couldn’t face going to live withher mother in the old family home in Farnham. While that might havebeen comfortable enough, watching her mother‘s embarrassinglydesperate attempts to stay young – and, even more excruciatingly,available – was not on her agenda. Gemma had never got onparticularly well with her mother anyway but after the way she hadtreated her father before he died it had become more than that.Over the last few years Gemma had become convinced that her motherwas to blame for her father’s death and also for his general andobvious unhappiness. Since going away to university soon after herfather’s death, her feelings of indifference had developed intosomething closer to hatred and she had recently felt a strong andgrowing desire for revenge of some kind.
As it was, theinterview itself had gone pretty well. It had really been more of aconversation with the senior probation manager, David, and theadministrator-cum-secretary, Lizzie, at the Littlehampton office.Gemma had always got on well with older people, particularly men,and it had been apparent from the start they were pretty desperatefor new staff in the West Sussex region. David was clearly quitetaken with her –
