‘What do we have on James Holden?’ Isaac asked his team. The initial research from Bridget Halloran in the office had been precise, but nothing of a surprise, as the man was well known to the general public.
‘Apart from the fact that he was seventy-two with a wife and two children?’ Bridget said.
‘We need something more than that.’
‘James Holden was elected to parliament thirty-three years ago. He held the post of Minister of Health in a previous government, but currently is in opposition.’
‘Not much chance of their being returned to power anytime soon,’ Wendy Gladstone said.
‘Regardless of his party’s electoral prospects,’ Isaac said.
‘James Holden took up the cause of declining moral standards eight years ago,’ Bridget continued. ‘He’s stated on many occasions, passionately in the Houses of Parliament, that more should be done to encourage the institution of marriage, and that graphic violence and sex on the internet and the television are detrimental to society. In the last few years, he’s taken on prison reform. According to him, prison is there for rehabilitation, not just for punishment. Holden has made an effort to take recently released prisoners who showed remorse for their crimes and to find them suitable employment, not a dead-end job paying the minimum wage.’
‘Helen Langdon, is she one of these prisoners?’ Isaac asked.
‘Helen Langdon, previously known as Helen Mackay, had served four years of a seven-year sentence for the second-degree murder of Gerald Adamant, a man who had inherited a fortune from his father at the age of fifty. At the time of his marriage to Helen Mackay, he was sixty-eight, she was twenty-four. The media soon dug up dirt on Helen, not that there was much. She had briefly appeared onstage at a risqué club, but apart from that, she’s clean. Her family were found to be decent people with a daughter who, through no fault of her own, men lusted after. According to Helen, it was love for Adamant, the only person who had seen her inner self, and Adamant, if you remember, wasn’t a bad-looking man. He certainly looked younger than his age, and she definitely looked older. The marriage cost plenty, the honeymoon even more, and for a few years, no more was heard of them, apart from Adamant’s philanthropic work, his wife at his side.’
‘And then?’ Isaac said.
‘Adamant is dead, Helen is charged with murder. According to her, the marriage was fine. He treated her well, she loved him. And then, one day, he snaps, accuses her of sleeping with other men, never loving him.’
‘Any truth in his accusations?’
‘No proof was ever found. The evidence at the trial showed that Gerald Adamant and his wife did have a good marriage, and there was no indiscretion by either person.’
‘But she killed him.’
‘The two of them are in the kitchen of their house. Renovations are going on, he’s got his hands around her throat. She grabs hold of a hammer lying to one side and strikes him on the head to make him back off. Adamant died later that day. The rest you know.’
‘Let us give the woman the benefit of the doubt,’ Isaac said. ‘Is there any information as to how she came to be working for Holden?’
‘Holden was known for his frequent visits to the prisons throughout the country. On one of these prison visits, he befriends Helen Mackay – she’s reverted to her maiden name – and subsequently makes an impassioned plea for her release, due to disputed evidence at her original trial.’
‘Since her release, she’s been vindicated of the crime,’ Larry said.
‘Carry on, Bridget.’
‘Helen Mackay changed her name on her release. She had a degree in accountancy; his organisation needed an accountant. After a couple of years, Helen Langdon, as she is now known, was largely forgotten.’
‘She was living well in Kensington,’ Wendy said.
‘Adamant’s family, supporters of hers during the original trial, bequeathed her the apartment and sufficient money to live.’
‘She wasn’t entitled to more?’
‘A pre-nuptial had been signed. Technically, she was entitled to nothing, but Adamant was a good man, so was his family, and Helen had made the man happy, even if she ultimately killed him.’
‘It’s one hell of a story,’ Larry said.
‘Life is often stranger than fiction,’ Isaac said.
***
Violet Holden, as distraught as she was, realised the situation was delicate. Her husband, believed by the man in the street to be a moral man, had a dark side. Not that she had been under any illusion for many years, not since the first time he had erred. Back then, their son was up and walking, no more than one year old, and in walked the father, a look of guilt on his face.
That time he had confessed, as he would every time afterwards. That was why she had been able to tell the police in all honesty that her husband had only been with Helen the one time. If he had lived, he would have come back to the family home and confessed, and each time there’d be the pledge that he would never do it again. Violet knew full well that he would; not often, but often enough.
‘Why was he with her?’ Linda Holden, the younger child of James and Violet, said. Her mother knew that Linda was an unattractive woman of thirty-three, having inherited her father’s bulbous nose and his blotchy skin, and her mother’s slender frame. The mother consoled
