2006-07-30T12:57:00.000+01:00

4.The Fugitive

Believing that the end of my reckoning lay in sight, I should have known better. Mum and Dad had retired and yearned to live in the countryside. They had not forgotten times past at Poynton when we stayed at the little caravan. It gave me renewed purpose and as my hunt ended, giving something back, I bought them a modern park home at Grappenhall in Cheshire. I hoped the location would inspire my recovery, together again, Mum and Dad urged me to stay until I had my own place. Wanting them to enjoy a pleasant retirement I installed numerous domestic goodies in the home, we shared it with all our pets, a huge German shepherd dog named Duke and three cats. As we grew to know one other again, Mum and Dad often joined me for long drives in the country, needing life slow, looking ahead and longing to share my life with a loving partner, I ached for surgery. Now 1986 and aged 30, I think that I had proved myself.
Winter almost upon us, it began for me a new secret project, as I searched for a holiday home for Mum and Dad my quest led me to a private park where they had once owned a static caravan. Dad’s pension failed to match his salary and sadly, it forced him to sell it. As I rediscovered the park and their caravan, still in great condition, to my joy, the sign said ‘for sale’. It would make a wonderful surprise, shortly the new owner and a few days later, I headed for Knott End in Lancashire. Mum and Dad didn’t know where we were going, joining me in the car as I took them to the park, once beside the caravan, happiness surged as I declared
“Here’s the key – it’s yours!”
Spoiling my progress as I dwelt upon it my past refused to let go, back in Israel, the Intifada commenced and peace seemed improbable. Doing my best to put it behind me, the only battles I had nowadays were arguments about football with Dad.
As time passed, March 1987 and I always undertook the weekly shopping trip alone. Keeping alive the child inside me and making up for what I had missed, I loved watching Mum and Dad’s faces light up each time I brought them back little surprises.
One day, as I jumped into my car, parked in a drive beside the home, menace tainted my errand. As I left the park, like mine, a black Rover SD1 slipped behind me and another two miles down the road, it was still on my tail. As I pulled into the verge and braked, likewise, the tail drew up behind me. As I spied them in the rear-view mirror, two men in black occupied the other car.
I could do no more and found a gap in the traffic, whereupon the tail rejoined pursuit. Beyond a joke, as I turned into a lay-by, the tail drew up as before and as we waited, a bizarre standoff ensued. As more minutes passed, it felt like an age. Climbing out of my car, as I approached theirs, the driver let down his window. I

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asked him why they were following me. Sneering at me, he said that I had better get used to it. He told me that they represented the Security Service. I believed him. The Mossad had warned me to expect it. He told me
“We know that you work for the Mossad, if you’re caught doing stuff on British soil,” he warned me, “You’ll be arrested!”
Shaken and wise to remain mute, I climbed back into my car and pulling away from the kerb, proceeded down the road. A glance in my mirror verified that they were still tailing me. I turned into the supermarket and found an empty space in the compound. As the spooks waited outside, they even trailed me back home. As their car braked by the entrance, it stopped just short of the park.
During the next six weeks, Orwell’s stark imagery turned into my reality. As MI5 watchers maintained 24/7 surveillance, wishing it would end, it got to me. They don’t just follow terrorists it could be you. Looked upon by them as a subversive and powerless to prevent it, I wanted the quiet life and didn’t fancy broadcasting my background or filling their file on me. I wanted to dwell in the future.
Next day, as I set off to Manchester to keep a date with a doctor, easing the car out of the park and taking a narrow lane beside a canal, it led to St Wilfrid’s. Not that I ever saw inside, but a charming Norman parish church, it paraded a quirky Cheshire cat carved high up on its bell tower. Parked nearby, rather more sinister, as another black Rover lurked, jumping out of it, the MI5 man signalled me to stop. I left my chariot in the cobbled lane. Following him on foot, we approached a quaint hump back bridge spanning the canal. About 40, martial in his bearing, as he gazed into the water below, about to share his master’s plan for my future, tongue in cheek, as we watched a pair of graceful swans, he observed
“It’s peaceful here.”
“It used to be” I retorted. “Before you lot started hassling me.”
“You have a choice to work with or against the Service. Tell us what we need to know about the Mossad and we’ll leave you alone. You’ve got a week to think it over – we want full details.”
“I don’t need that long. No matter what you threaten, I can only tell you that my work never conflicted with British interests. These days, I’m sorting out my life.”
“If you help us, the Service won’t trouble you again” he persisted “No one need know, I’ll leave it with you”. Offering me some advice, he added, “It’s in your best interests to reconsider if you want to avoid serious difficulties in your life.”
“Nothing will induce me to talk to you!” I assured him, angry.

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Crude, they had behaved like gangsters. Well they would this was Britain, my human rights denied me since my birth, no criminal, I had done no wrong. They must be bluffing, they say that if you’re honest you have nothing to worry about you’re safe in government hands. As I continued my journey into Manchester, no more shadows tailing me, all visible spooks gone. It seemed that the Security Service had called off their siege. Ready to forgive them, I had finished with all that stuff.
In April, beautiful spring weather persuaded me to join Mum and Dad at their caravan in Knott End. It was time to think about my own place. As Dad spotted an ad in the local rag, we visited a park home for sale. I didn’t want bricks and mortar and feel tied down with so much life still ahead of me. A bargain, sited in Cabus, a tiny hamlet near Garstang and only down the road from Knott End, not far from Blackpool, as Dad joined me we found the park and the home delightful. Quiet and off the beaten track, set in its own pleasant little garden adorned with lovely flowers and so reminiscent of Pott Shrigley, a stream rippled nearby. Making a big splash and boldly waddling over the lawn, a handsome pair of mallards had emerged from the bank. I laughed as a cute posse of fluffy ducklings trailed in their wake. As the cheeky drake tapped upon the front door of the home with his prominent beak, the bloke selling the property conceded
“Daft bugger, he’s a piggin’ nuisance, ‘e does it in the ‘opes you’ll pop out and feed ‘im and ‘is family – eh, would it annoy yer?”
The ducks irresistible, I bought the home at once. A few weeks more in July, I received excellent news. A surgeon had agreed to talk operation. I had to travel to Hove General Hospital in Sussex. Dad refused to let me take the 650-mile round trip alone. Mum elected to stay at the caravan to care for our menagerie. The date dominated my every thought. On the morning of my meeting, Dad joined me and setting off before dawn in my second vehicle, a Dodge Spacewagon, we headed south at easy pace. Upon reaching Hove, as Dad kissed my cheek, proud of me, he declared
“You look lovely!”
I told the surgeon I’m ready. He agreed. Just a formality, still needing another shrink report and like an ID card, I never went anywhere without one. However, feeling well pleased, I counted my trip a winner.
Weary, we returned to the caravan in late afternoon. A surprise, what was he doing here? As I parked the Dodge, a uniform drew our notice. As the local plod approached, he enquired if we had spotted any funny geezers hanging about the park. Before we could answer, he announced
“Several caravans were burgled on this park last night.”

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“We’ve just driven back from Sussex,” I explained. “We set off before dawn.”
Thinking no more about burglaries, I thought it the end to a good day, but I was soon to find out that MI5 spooks hadn’t finished with me. It was August, as Mum and Dad set off in the Rover to Grappenhall, they did the trip home at least once every fortnight to check out the property and collect any mail. I was hanging on for a letter from the shrink that would give the surgeon the green light.
My turn to take charge of the pets and a gorgeous summer day, I had promised to mow the lawn and after lunch, Duke took me for a walk. When we returned to the caravan, Mum and Dad still missing, so unlike them to be late, as another two hours crawled by, feeling very twitchy, I could wait no more. Visiting a public box sited on the park, I tried reaching home. Strange, the number unobtainable, I didn’t like this, unable to shake my instincts, they made me afraid. I tried again, line still dead and the operator told me that she couldn’t help. It could be a fault with the car, discarding the notion, I knew that the engine was in fine running order and Dad could fix a puncture.
I phoned the police. Making me shiver, they promised me that they would trawl road traffic accidents and call me back. After thirty minutes, I called them. They told me that a car was on its way, I had to stay by the box. Scared, I pleaded with them to give me information, they just said wait. Ten minutes later, I watched as a panda car sped down the lane. When it drew up alongside me, impatient, I opened the passenger door and implored the driver to give me news. Loads of oddballs in the sticks, mostly harmless, even funny, but not now, what was up with him? The copper just blanked me. Bawling at him, I tried again
“Have you any news? Has anything happened to my parents?”
“Don’t move!” slamming the door, he yelled “Stay where you are!”
As I watched the police car swiftly return up the lane, it had all the signs that something terrible had happened. Broken-hearted, my knees weak and collapsing by a wall, I shed buckets. As dusk fell, dragging myself to the caravan, I had to feed the pets. As hope rushed to my heart, I heard a car engine and dashing outside, its glaring headlights blinded me. Not the Rover, my chin sank, then as Mum’s voice called out my heart soared. About to run to her, as we collided, a lumbering mass struck me a powerful blow from behind. Crashing to the ground, as I lay prostrate on the lawn, as he straddled me, my assailant bawled
“I’m a policeman – you’re under arrest!”
Badly winded, I struggled for breath. Intent on pinning me down, the hefty guy on top of me drove his knee deep into my spine.

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Painfully pulling back both my arms, he got out his handcuffs and clapped them about my bare wrists. Witnessing the awful scene, as Mum screamed, he shifted his bulk. As I got a look at him, plain clothes and supposedly a detective, he told me to get to my feet.
“Leave her alone,” Mum yelled, warning. “I’ll let the dog out!”
I knew that Mum must do it. Frantic to escape, barking like mad, Duke made a terrible rumpus in the caravan. Heedless, as the cop dragged me to a waiting car, forcing my head down and a mighty shove, he sent me flying. As my shoulder struck the driver’s seat, falling heavily, stuck fast and facedown unable to move, I ended up in the back and on the floor. As the cop grabbed my ankles, he thrust my splayed legs into the car. Revving the engine, the driver bawled
“Hurry up, she’s let the fucking dog loose!”
Proud of Duke, about then he sank his fangs into the Old Bill’s boot, but as the car jerked forward, breaking free, the copper yelled to his buddy
“Let me get in the fucking car!”
As he slammed the door, under way and for sure no Mossad training stunt, I struggled to take in the unfolding drama. It had all happened so quickly, my mind trapped in a whirlpool and outraged, I demanded to know where they were taking me.
“You’re going to Warrington police station” they retorted and a pregnant pause, then the driver spat, ”You used too much fucking petrol!”
“What are you talking about” I screamed, “Where’s my father?”
As they yelled back, according to them, Dad was under arrest in the cells. He was then 72. I was then in my thirties, we possessed unblemished characters and no records, no criminals. Dazed, I demanded
“Why have you arrested him?”
“He helped you set fire to a mobile home in Grappenhall.”
Reeling from shock, I fell very silent for the remainder of the ride. Leaving the motorway, the car went through Warrington into the town centre passing a statue of Cromwell. Soon we approached an ugly building. Once inside the station yard, at the rear, the car stopped and I climbed out. A balmy night did I spell that right? The cops shoved me through a stout door, as I read, the sign proclaimed ‘Police and Prisoners Only’.
Holding my temper, as they pushed and jostled, tactile, they did whatever they liked, I still had no rights. Any other nation, except Albania, Andorra, Ireland and backward Britain, I’m a woman and I came back for this? A dreary corridor led to a bluff uniformed sergeant sat behind a large desk. As they released me

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from the bracelets, he bawled at me, empty your pockets remove any jewellery. Incensed, taking off my watch, I dropped it with my keys on the desktop. Disregarding my protest, he ordered me to remove my Star of David. No ornament, it should have remained on the chain around my neck. A woman should have frisked me. Lewd and disgusting, as one so-called detective touched me up, the sergeant queried
“Do you know why you’ve been arrested?”
“No idea,” I confessed.
“Arson!” bawled the brawler.
Finishing his paperwork, the sergeant told me that I could make one phone call. As I ended my call to a solicitor, a uniform led me along another foul passage and then locked me into a filthy cell. Humiliated and degraded, as I took them in, my dank medieval surroundings made me shudder. It upset me to think that Dad must share like conditions. As the steel clad door swung back, answering my distress call, the sergeant let a lawyer into the cell. Concerned, he guaranteed that the cops had no evidence, so I reassured him
“That’s because I didn’t do it and I know my father didn’t.”
The graffiti engraved bench doubled as a hard bed. No blanket, the least of my worries, the lawyer began
“They’ve jumped to conclusions, don’t worry, we’ll sue them for wrongful arrest” he advised me, “I want you to take the interview alone.” Bolstering my spirit, he asserted, “You’re no arsonist tell them the truth and you’ll soon be out of here – any questions?”
“How’s my father bearing up?”
“Don’t worry, he’s taking it calmly” he promised me.
“I’m traumatised – I can’t believe our home’s destroyed,” I told him.
“The police think that you and your father did it in the hope of collecting on the insurance policy,” revealed the brief.
As the lawyer departed, I had never known fear like this. In my career, following Academy advice and deserting it when I wanted, unable to do that now, not with Mum and Dad involved. Although innocent, aware that behind the scene, as corrupt government agencies manipulated the truth, I knew that this could easily end in injustice.
Shortly, a uniform guided me along grim corridors and into an austere interview room. Three plain chairs and a table, warm and bright, unlike the cops, as they arrived in the room wearing asinine grins and waiting – but for what? Blanking them, in no mood for mind games and soon giving up, they removed their jackets. August and behind me, the radiator on full blast, as they

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took their seats, I draped my jacket over the back of my chair to shield me from the heat. As they faced me across the table, his buddy beside him, the bloke that jumped me commenced the interview by informing me
“I’m DC Caswell and this is DC Lauledge.”
Fleshy faced and losing his hair and as it caught my eye an ugly crimson gash on his forehead, as he noticed me staring at it, Caswell admitted
“I got that fucker playing squash.”
Shrinking away from the brutal blond Lauledge, playing scribe as he toyed with a pen, his face intensely flushed and his breath stinking strongly of alcohol, he never once stopped grinning at me. Ignoring him, as we got started, Caswell claimed
“I want you to help me establish the facts.”
Still the legal owner of the fired park home and explaining that I had bought it largely for my parents use and that we were on holiday at the caravan in Knott End and knew nothing about its destruction until now. Discriminating, I couldn’t help, but notice that Lauledge recorded only bits of my narrative. As I persevered and unveiled that I owned another home in Cabus, Caswell asked me how much insurance had I taken out on the property at Grappenhall. Replacement value only I told him truthfully. Cynical and accusing, as he butted in, Lauledge queried
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m positive!” I yelled annoyed that he should question my integrity.
I told them the insurance company had sent me a letter refusing my first proposal. They had insisted that my guess at the home’s worth was much too low. Not into possessions, my figure covered only the price, which I had paid for the home and it was a bargain. I told them that my letter must be on their file, it would confirm everything. Insurance never cheap, I had taken far bigger risks and didn’t want to insure the home at all, but the park owner said it was the rules and he wanted to keep his licence. I told Lauledge to write it all down, but his pen still tending to sleep, I knew his game. Meaning to put me off my stroke, he told me
“Fuck off.”
Dad languishing in the cells, Mum alone, their home gone and me accused of it and I let it go. As Caswell urged me to continue, I explained to him that I had filled out a second proposal. The insurance policy yielded only minimal return in the event of loss and given its relatively safe location, I certainly didn’t expect to lose the home. In response, Caswell queried
“Where were you on the night of the fire?”

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“That depends,” I reminded them, “You’ve not told me when it took place.”
Making a show of consulting his notes, he knew the date all right. As he gave it to me, Zulu, Dad’s favourite. I had just bought the video and thinking back, I told them
“I was in Knott End at the caravan watching a film with my parents.”
“Ooh!” mocked Lauledge “Mummy and Daddy will swear you never strayed all fucking night.”
I insisted that Lauledge should copy his crass comment into the statement that he was trying to invent. I thought it might more accurately reflect their tone. As he leapt from his chair, it went flying, Lauledge clenched his fist and stretching over the table as he lunged at me, I jumped from my seat dodging his swinging blow. Appearing taken aback, but it could be part of their act, Caswell asked him
“What was all that about?”
As Caswell suspended the interview, leaving me alone, he pushed Lauledge out of the room. Things different today, not then, in spite of all the rumours, in those days, the image of the bobby still sweetness and purity, no tapes, no videos – no witnesses, British law trusted cops. Courts then believed anything written down in a notebook sacrosanct. On my own and powerless to take it further, as the cops returned, still flushed, Lauledge took his seat and resumed his position. Caswell demanded to know where my car was on the night of the arson
“It would be parked next to the caravan at Knott End,” I told him.
“Several witnesses have come forward and have stated that your car wasn’t at the caravan park the night the fire took place,” rejoined Caswell, exultant.
“That’s it, it’s why I had the video” I explained “I can prove my car was off the road when the fire took place. I had to take a taxi back to the park, the Rover was on a garage ramp in Blackpool.”
“We’ve got witnesses!” cried Caswell “One of your neighbours saw a black car just like yours, he said it was parked by your home on the night of the arson…”
“Impossible” I maintained, confident, “My car had no wheels, it was having shock absorbers fitted on the very night of the arson. I’ll still have the invoice it’ll be stashed at the caravan. It cost me £300 – check with the garage!”
Floundering, as Caswell exposed the ID of his so-called witness, a little cruel, Mum called him Loopy Lou. He attended a local head hospital and an odd guy; he belonged to some sort of sect and

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would say anything to win attention. On the defensive, Caswell contended
“He saw your car! A black Rover parked outside your property, he saw you drive it away” and pausing for effect “Just as the home exploded in a huge fireball”. Bawling, he concluded, “Can you account why your neighbour should say that?”
“You’re saying that the car, he alleges he saw, must be mine” I persevered. “Look, you’re supposed to be a copper – there’s more than one black Rover in Britain! It’ll save a lot of time if you check with the garage, they’ll tell you on the exact date and time of the arson my car was on their ramp under repair.”
“Are you telling me your neighbour’s a liar?” retorted Caswell.
“ No I’m not saying that” I responded, exasperated “Though you must know he’s a bit strange. I’m simply telling you it couldn’t have been my car.”
As Caswell ended, I wanted to see the statement that Lauledge was supposed to have recorded. Pocked with errors, no true testimony and his writing a scrawl, he had failed to take down many things, which I had said. As we argued, I refused to sign it. When another uniform slammed me back in the cell, feeling a touch less unhappy, I reckoned that the cops must now realise that they had made a serious blunder.
Shortly, as Lauledge unlocked the cell, no love lost between us, he led me down yet another grim corridor and into a commodious, but gloomy chamber. In one corner, Dad nodded, looking ill, his emergence cut me like a blade. Interrupting my thoughts, a uniformed female sergeant urged Caswell get on with it. Clutching a clipboard as he read from a formal sheet, he began
“You are hereby charged with arson with intent to endanger life.”
I felt horrified. Evenly, Caswell asked us if we wished to respond. Dad didn’t look all here and made no reply. Salvaging some spirit for both of us, I yelled
“I am innocent!”
As Lauledge mocked me, the sergeant sharply rebuked him. Getting his own back, as he returned me to the cell, it made me question his mental age. Spiteful and sulky, he observed
“You’re a fuckin’ Jew aren’t you, my Dad’s German, a proud Nazi. I wish I was taking you to the fuckin’ gas chambers.”
I spent a rough night in the cell, but unconcerned about me, worried only about Dad, next morning, as they released us, Batman and Robin led us up stony steps and into the dock. As they flanked us in the courtroom, a shadow of his former self, holding Dad’s hand in mine I squeezed. Standing before a lone magistrate, Caswell read out the false charges and confirming our

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names, using the caravan as our address, we had to accept the bail conditions and report once a week to Garstang police station. As we left the dock, Dad’s lawyer joined us, not far from the court and my brief urged us to convene for coffee in his chambers. After our lawyers had pledged to build for us a sound defence, leaving legal matters there for now, Dad joined me.
Keys dangling from the ignition, we found the Rover unlocked in front of the police station. The car’s interior now a mess, the cops had turned it over. Driving back to Knott End in silence, we found Mum in a state. Seeking to ease her fears, we told her that our briefs believed that we had no worries.
Seven days later, Dad’s brief called to the park in his car. Another boiling day, we held a conference in the garden. As Malcolm removed his jacket, sleeves rolled and losing the tie, everyone sipped iced juice. Relaxed in stripy deckchairs as he outlined the fictional case against us, I liked Malcolm he described it weak. His prognosis sunny like the weather, a plain speaking northerner in his 50s, he forecast that the Crown Prosecution Service must soon see sense and abandon the case. Before he left us, I asked Malcolm what should I do with the conclusive evidence, in response, he told me to hand my garage invoice to my own brief and then he confessed.
“This is the strangest case that I have ever handled, the police have charged you prematurely. They don’t possess a scrap of evidence worthy of the name. I don’t count a madman who claims he can see in the dark.” Not finished and wagging his finger at me, reproachfully, he added, “You didn’t tell me, I’ve had a look at the scene, the park’s got no streetlights, your neighbour might have seen a car shaped like yours, but he didn’t get a number and couldn’t possibly see who was driving it.”
Malcolm confirmed that the purported police witness was a psychiatric patient, nothing wrong with that, except that he didn’t like Jews. I knew from personal experience that seeing a shrink made no case for madness, but being a Fascist did. It seemed that he had a few problems. No real witness, I knew what he claimed he saw wasn’t true and rested my case.
Friday 14th August, miserably sticking to our bail conditions, we had to report to Garstang police station and as Dad joined me in the car, on the way he asked me to stop and let him buy fags and an evening paper. Back on the road, as we approached the busy A6 road junction, reducing my speed, the traffic heavy, I had to wait for a gap. Standing to my right, a mock Tudor pub drew my attention. As I spied his car lurking in the compound, it lay in wait behind some bushes. A lone copper loitered inside it and springing into action as I seized my chance, foot down, the Rover shot across the road as I headed into town. In hot pursuit, blue lights flashing, the cop car was on me.

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“We’ve got trouble, Dad!”
Until now, Dad didn’t know about the drama unfolding behind us. Pulling the car over to the kerb, I got the handbrake and cut the engine. Stopping his car a few metres behind mine, the cop killed the lights and climbing out in a hurry, he made a beeline towards the Rover. As the driver, I had expected him to approach me first; instead, as I watched him in my mirror, as he swiftly drew near my car, he made for the kerb. While my car had air-conditioning, Dad had his window down and no more ado; the cop stretched his arm into the car and plucked the tax disc from my windscreen. Not attempting to examine it, he stuffed the disc into his top pocket, then, taking out his notebook, as he found a pen, the cop bawled
“I can arrest you for this! Your tax disc has been fraudulently altered!”
Making it look good, as the cop hastily jotted something down in his notebook, Dad and me stared at each other. What was happening? We were speechless. Meanwhile, done with the book and directing me to drive to the station, he had seen too many movies, the cop cautioned me
“Don’t try anything. I’ll be right on your tail!”
They had warned me, outside Israel, I had no friends. Inside the station, as Dad stopped by the desk to sign the bail book, two fat arses in uniform hauled me into a grim back room, acting like shock troops and ordering me about, they bawled sit at that table. A uniformed sergeant and his chins sat facing me. Sealed inside a plastic bag, as he flashed a car tax disc in front of me, too quick to get the details, but intent on examining the so-called evidence more closely, as I tried to snatch it from him, it earned me a fit of bad-mouthing. Livid, I quizzed
“How do I know that’s the same disc taken from my car?”
“I don’t care about that, you’ve been arrested for fraud, you’ve breached your bail we’re holding you until we can get you to prison.”
I had no need to falsify anything and begged him to check with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority based in Swansea. Their computers must prove that I had paid my tax. Ignoring my appeal, well he would the cops had fitted me up. As the sergeant charged me, I couldn’t believe this was no bad dream. Desperate to see him, as I gazed into Dad’s face, he couldn’t speak, he didn’t have to his eyes told me all I needed to know. Urging him not to worry, I pledged
“You know I’m no criminal in a few days I’ll be out of this mess, tell Mum I can cope” kissing his hand, simply, I told him “I love you, Dad.”

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“C’mon, get on with it,” bawled the burly sergeant.
Pausing by the door, one last time, Dad wished me. “Shalom.”
I had to spend another night in a bleak cell. Next morning, the cops took me to their Lancaster headquarters to face more music. Once there, a rotund man in his 50s entered the cell. His suit said detective and acting a lot like Jack Frost off the telly, he informed me that they called him Morrison. Spiteful and revelling in it, he told me that a magistrate had granted him a warrant to search what remained of my property. Looking well chuffed with himself, he began
“Inside your property, my officers have recovered a quantity of goods stolen from some caravans at Knott End in a spate of burglaries” for good measure he warned me “We’re building a cast-iron case against you.”
As Morrison departed, leaving me alone in the cell to dwell upon my deepening crisis, how could I tell him that MI5 had framed me? He would think me mad or having a laugh and that was the last impression I needed to make.
An hour more, Morrison returned, he wanted to ask me more questions. As he led me into a large room, we sat down at a bare table for another confrontation. A fresh-faced duty lawyer joined us. Not best up to it, exhausted, long past caring and using my arms in lieu of a pillow, I lay my banging head on the table. Keen to start and ignoring my posture, Morrison probed
“Can you tell me how stolen goods got inside your property?”
“I know nothing about it,” I mumbled.
My voice muffled, I amended my position. A humid day and the room stuffy, the oppressive conditions made me feel drowsy, especially after my incarceration in the chilly cell. Bright tubes overhead hurt my sore eyes, as I kept them tight shut, Morrison didn’t mind, he suggested
“Perhaps it’ll help if I describe the goods.” Reading aloud from his list, he went on “A television, a small portable TV, a coffee making machine, a clock radio…”
“Yeah, Dad bought stuff like that from some blokes who visited the caravan park at Knott End, they were selling things from the back of a van. If he’d known it was hooky, he’d never have touched it. I was in Manchester when they called to the site”, I continued. “When I got back, Dad looked pleased, he told me that he’d bought some bargains.”
“Who were these men?” quizzed Morrison.
“Dad said they drove a blue Ford Transit, they said they were touring all the local caravan sites selling stuff at rock bottom

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prices – Dad said they seemed too good to miss, he was wrong, they were too good to be true.”
“Did these fellahs tell your father who they were or where they were from?”
“They said they’d a shop in Blackpool and called to holiday sites every summer to clear surplus stock – Dad can describe them.”
“Can you think of anything else that might corroborate your story?”
“Just verify everything I’ve told you with my father!”
“I’ll do just that!” pledged Morrison.
Fatigued, I forgot to tell him that on the night of the burglaries, impossible to be in two places at once, making an early start, I was on my way to Sussex to see my surgeon. As he returned me to the cell, missing the warmth of the interview room, I didn’t drop off until the small hours. Hastily bolting upright as dread consumed me. Don’t know how I knew, Dad had just died. His face before me, a faint smile tracing his lips, somehow, speaking to me, he promised me that, one day, justice would be done. As the old soldier faded away, breaking the spell, as the custody sergeant unlocked the cell, he asked me if I was okay.
“My Dad’s just died in Victoria Hospital,” I told him.
Shortly the sergeant returned and told me “I’m sorry its bad news, I just phoned the hospital – they’ve confirmed your father’s just died… uh, how did you know.”
I hadn’t seen Dad in three days and apart from stress caused by recent events, he had enjoyed excellent health. I still didn’t know everything and probed
“Why did you choose to visit my cell just when you did?”
“I don’t know” his turn to be confounded, the sergeant responded “Its weird this is not the first time that I’ve experienced spooky happenings in this job.”
As the sergeant left me alone, this time without my friend Moses to support me, as I recalled his strength and wisdom, he helped me get through the night.
Next day spawned another nightmare. As Morrison burst into the cell, abrupt, you wouldn’t think that my Dad had just died. Charging me with the burglaries, at once he warned me that about to appear in court, afterwards I would go straight to Risley Remand Centre. Near Warrington, the media called it Grisley and a fearful legend it’s horrendous conditions had driven many inmates to suicide.
As the cops manacled my wrists, they conveyed me to prison in the back of a minibus. A journey of some sixty miles, it gave me

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time to search my soul. My heart bled for Mum. Functioning on autopilot and absorbing pain on impact, most of all, imagining Mum’s suffering, I yearned to be with her. Terribly tormented, yet still defiant, my spirit cried out – let me go, I’m innocent!
Leaving the motorway behind and as the minibus travelled the short distance to the Remand Centre, swirling mist and soaring grim walls fuelled my dread. As the bus pulled into the prison grounds, halting before a looming gate, horribly fascinated as I watched the forbidding barrier bare its jaws, in motion once more, as the bus entered into the prison, it halted almost immediately, as a second barrier blocked our entry.
Escalating my torture, as we waited for the first gate to close and the second gate to open, cutting the engine, the driver cried
“One female!”
Why was this happening? Repeatedly, I asked the same question. As the bus trundled through the prison grounds, not too scary at first, it reminded me of an IDF base. As the driver pulled up before the female reception, released from the handcuffs and the cop led me inside.
Cruel and unjust, as she stripped me of my identity, the smirking female screw clearly enjoying it, as she insisted
“He must be housed in the men’s prison.”
Not sure how much more I could take, leaving the female prison, we closed in on male reception. My pain welling up inside me, a living nightmare, steeling my nerve, as we entered the building, an ocean of stupid gawping faces confronted me. As the cop handed me over to a churlish screw, he sat me down at a table and taking a minute to record my few details, another screw soon joined him. As they frogmarched me along infinite corridors, every so often we needed to stop and as they jangled their keys, we passed through yet more steel barred gates. Finally, we halted outside an empty cell in the so-called hospital wing and unlocking the door, as it swung back, they ordered me inside.
As my stomach heaved, I had entered into a vile stench of piss and shit. One screw hurled a suicide-proof tunic at me, reinforced brown canvas, hideous and shapeless just holes for my arms and head. Not done yet, chucking a stout box onto the cell floor, as they watched me, both screws screamed
“Get all your fuckin’ things off. Get ‘em in that fuckin’ box!”
Turning my back on them and concealing my breasts, my heavy heart pounding and engulfed by degradation, determined to save my dignity if I could. Pulling the tunic over my head before slipping off my knickers, I dropped all my things, even my shoes into the box. Thinking me scum, the screws issued a dire warning

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“Give us any fuckin’ aggravation we’ll give you some fuckin’ shit!”
Slamming the door behind them, the screws left me alone in the revolting reek. Far from the worst of it, shit plastered the walls. No bed, forced to make do with a thin mattress dumped on the floor, a rolled up blanket lay upon it. I had been out of the country and didn’t realise that Britain refused even the most basic human rights to certain hostages in their gaols, I knew now. Serving as a feculent lavatory, a pot in one corner and in another a forlorn pile of very dead cockroaches. As I sat upon the evil mattress and commenced to unravel a piss-stinking blanket, very much alive, a huge cockroach crawled out and a fat turd behind it. Urgent, I cried
“God give me strength!”
An eye-level Judas hole set into the steel-clad door allowed screws and cons to spy on me from the corridor outside. Too high on the facing wall a grimy bottle-glass window let scant light into the sty, unable to see out I had already seen too much.
My conditions worsened that night, facing an old childhood fear, as one screw flicked on the night-light, a red glow urged out the cockroaches. Infesting the pit, they swarmed the cell floor scavenging shit, and don’t know how they made the distinction, the nauseating food. Many more tried climbing the mattress, under siege, I rolled up a booklet that some screw had thrown into the cell, something to read, I had given it a glance, all about prison rules, none applied to me. Making use of the booklet, too soft to kill them, I employed it every night to fend off the creepies. I have faced far worse, but this was a phobia, it made me recall West Gorton. Its cellars crawling with them, we lived next door to a pub and each night as I lay awake listening for their scratching, cockroaches invaded my bedroom and compelled me to scream for Mum and Dad.
As more days rolled by, going quite mad, as I confronted my fear, my mates now, the cockroaches not as nasty as the screws and sure that I could recognise individuals, I gave them names, but couldn’t pick them up, I knew where they’d been, mind you, we lived in the same shit. No sleep at night, not just crawlies, as I suffered post traumatic stress and suffered harrowing scenes from my previous life, my flashbacks tortured me. As prison noise piled on more misery, impossible to rest in the day, deprived of sleep, my mind stepped over a dangerous frontier and existed in a strange world.
Slopped into blue plastic bowls chucked onto filthy floors, unable to eat the foul rations, it arrived with plastic spoon and paper cup half-empty with tepid water. In the middle of a hot summer, my dehydration caused a rash. If only for Mum’s sake, in an effort to

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survive, forced to swallow my pride, I begged the screws for precious water, they only laughed.
Relief visited me in the strength of a siddur provided by the prison rabbi, the little Jewish prayer book just about kept me alive. One week more as the cops returned me to Garstang Magistrates’ Court, they informed the bench that I was a bastard and don’t let me go I would commit more offences. My plea not guilty, I had committed no crime and possessed no criminal record, what had happened to innocent until proven guilty? No voice in the issue, the bench said put him in the zoo for another seven days and sent me back to Risley and to the same dire cell.
As they forced me to endure yet more depravity, the screws let me out only ten short minutes each day, just time to empty the pot and splash water on my face. I didn’t half stink, hair all matted, I begged them to let me wash, but the screws only sniggered. The full horror too much, no sleep, food, water, medical care and for sure no love, delusion saved me from reality.
Seven days later and back in the tumbrel to Garstang. Once more, the cops claimed that if set free, I would leave the country. I’ll admit that I didn’t want to stay. As the screws threw me back into the mind-numbing strip-cell, Dante’s depiction extended. My weird visions more vivid and convincing as I constantly studied my prayer book, lost now, engulfed in a bizarre cocktail of chimera, I began to think of myself as a messenger crowned Princess of the Universe, sent by God to endure the evil that men do.
Another week on and back before the magistrates at Garstang, I had ceased to care about what they said, all I knew was back to Risley. This time the screws put me into an ordinary cell, clean sheets and luxury, even a chair, I had lost all hope of sleeping in a bed again. A new regime, they let me wash, but compelled to adopt men’s garb, I had to wear a blue/white-striped shirt, brown jeans and prison shoes like canoes, they let me keep my trainers. Barmy, I put down my escape from the horrendous strips to the Almighty’s recognition of me as His angel.
Convinced that each evening, unreal crowds gathered outside the prison walls demanding my release, as radios played protest ballads, nothing weird in that, except that the pop stars sang about me. As I said sorry to the screws for putting them to the trouble, I reckoned that the prison governors had leased a warehouse to store truckloads of fan mail that my unreal pals, as they whispered in my ear, told me arrived for me everyday.
My head a bubble, I even imagined that politicians argued for my freedom. My fantasies absurd, it afforded precious liberty. One evening, as I gazed out of the cell window, his camera flashing as he got my picture, the paparazzo startled me. At once, loads of screws fell upon him and nabbed his camera. I felt sorry for him

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as they yanked out the film. Filled with concern, I screamed please don’t hurt him and as the guy struggled to break free, his captors dragged him to the main gate. As dusk fell, I lay upon my bed and calling to me, sweet and melodic as I listened to the voices, they promised to protect me in court next morning.
When the minibus closed in on Garstang, I watched as hefty cops struggled to hold back unreal crowds behind strong steel barricades. Overjoyed to see them, I believed that they were my fans here to give me their support. As I leapt from the bus, how come that no cops saw them? As IDF Special Forces scrambled over the courthouse roof, one man stopped and offered me a thumbs-up, waving back to him, I failed to comprehend why one copper gave me such a strange look.
Once inside the courthouse, my escort led me to an anteroom and leaving me with my lawyer, a tall bearded stranger soon joined us. Brian Blessed’s double, in his 40s, a man mountain, his chest and shoulders huge. Holding my hand gently in his and offering me an engaging smile, his voice deep like Moses, he declared
“I’m Larry, I’m a probation officer from Fleetwood.
Dressed in a conventional suit and tie, yet Larry’s ponytail marched halfway down his back. As they stared at me in abject horror, manifestly shocked by my corpse-like appearance, agitated, my brief cried
“Its her trial today, what are we going to do!”
“Time to enter court!” called the usher.
“You’ll have to think of something on the way in,” suggested Larry.
In a joyful pretend world of my own, I skipped into the courtroom, my thoughts wild as spectators jammed the stern chamber. Archaic British law then denied me marriage. It failed to stop me strolling down the aisle. As everyone watched, did someone chant my name, before you knew it, like a football crowd, others joined in and as I closed in on the dock, pausing on my way to thank them for turning up and supporting me, many pulled faces and didn’t know what I was rambling on about. Never mind, as I climbed into the dock, I tried to close a little door behind me, but loose on its hinges and it refused to shut properly, so stooping down to take a closer look, I had the problem sorted and trying to help, I told the usher
“The screws are loose – let me fix it for you.”
Nice about it, he never said, but I see it now, the way he looked at me, the usher thought my screws loose. As my brief approached the bench, halting their plans to try me, he suggested that it was perhaps more efficient to hear the charges of burglary and fraud in the Crown Court with the arson. As they agreed with him,

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disappointing the spectators, the bench adjourned the case. Back in the anteroom, Larry rejoined us. Me still well out of it in cuckoo land, and my brief remarked
“I believe you’re in no fit state to defend yourself.”
“You’re not the type to be a burglar,” remarked Larry, perplexed. “You don’t fit the profile, its a young tearaway’s crime, your thirty with no previous. How come you got mixed up in this mess?”
“I’ve done no wrong,” I protested. “MI5 are doing this because I’m a spy.”
“What?” cried Larry, “You’re with the Firm?”
“No, not them!” I didn’t know what day it was and exclaimed, “I’m with the Israelis. MI5 are responsible for getting me into this mess.”
“You’re saying that you’re some sort of James Bond?” probed Larry, intrigued, swiftly amending his faux pas, “Sorry that should read, Jane Bond!”
“I shouldn’t be telling you about any of it,” I told him, doubtful.
On my return to Risley, a screw from the hospital wing met me in the reception. A caring chap he encouraged me to try the appalling food. Just for him, I tried a nibble. Kindness new to me in prison, as he handed me a plastic beaker, it brimmed with butterscotch flavour Complan and not wishing to hurt his feelings, I drank every drop. His humanity heralded my recovery and eating at last, as my sleep improved, I never heard the voices again, although my quirky lapses chased into another week, they always began soon after I retired to bed and still seemed real enough.
Making a great hubbub, strange delusion compelled me to listen to imaginary groupies crowding the prison walls. Loyal fans, they protested and wanted me set free and persistent, twirling about in my head, as I wondered what they used for a sound system, it kept playing the familiar five-tone music score from Steven Spielberg’s space movie – Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
As more time passed there it is again, I heard it all the time especially on Friday nights. Trumpeted on special occasions in the synagogue the shofar always stirred me. Born in the age of David, Jews sounded the ram’s horn before impending battle, just in time for my next trip to Garstang. Larry and my lawyer soon latched onto my despondency, it was the food, closer to reality and today I felt very low.
Once more, back in court waiting for the cops to contrive more defamation to keep me rotting, as he offered me his valiant support and rose to address the bench, I felt proud of Larry. Sunlight catching his tresses, dancing flames behind his broad

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back, the Wisdom of Solomon and as Larry reacted to the latest tripe served up by the cops, he thundered
“I have been a Probation Officer many years and I have never heard so much nonsense. Can’t you see she’s not a danger to the public? Her father’s just died – she needs to be with her mother!”
Waking them up, as Larry crashed his fist on an oaken desktop, reverberating about the courthouse and tempting the bench to find humanity he roared.
“Take a good look at the woman before you, you can’t think she’s a man, you can’t put her back in a men’s prison – its inhumane, truth is you don’t know what to do with her, for pity’s sake” implored Larry “Don’t send her back!”
Touched by Larry’s plea and human after all, the magistrates granted me bail on two counts. I had to stay at my Grandmother’s; she had a flat near Warrington, and I had to report daily to the town’s police station. Taking my arm, as he led me from the dock, thoughtful, Larry asked for my reaction.
“I can’t believe it” dazed, I asked me “Am I free?”
“I’ll take you to the police station to collect your property, then we’ll go to the caravan” he suggested and taking stock of my dishevelled appearance, kindly, he added, “You can pick up some clothes.”
Outside the court, too easy to get used to the rôle of prisoner, it felt so strange, no cops and no handcuffs. Grateful for my freedom, as I clambered into his big Transit, Larry cleared the passenger seat of electrical bits and bobs before setting the van in motion. As I admired the vehicle’s wall-to-wall carpets and its unusual circular windows, Larry told me that he was in the middle of customising his van and overcome by curiosity, I quizzed him
“Larry…eh, are you a hippie?”
“A Jewish hippie carrying a Home Office pass, yep” he owned up “That’s me!”
Larry’s laugh hearty and earthy. As he trailed behind me into Garstang police station, halting my tracks, at once recognising his droopy moustache, the skinny cop on duty behind the desk, the same man responsible for getting me shut in Risley. The other cops set to retire and this lad only in his twenties, perhaps blind ambition had driven him to assist MI5. Lets face it, Garstang, nothing happened here – as a rule. As I approached the desk, a confession of his guilt, he enquired
“Any hard feelings?”
Igniting my fury, as he struggled to make light of our previous meeting, I accused him of fitting me up. Ignoring me, as he busily hunted for my file, I quizzed him, why had he not consulted the
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DVLA. As Larry advised me to calm down, it couldn’t be helped, livid now that my faculties had recovered, I argued
“You could have checked out my car was taxed, you could do it now, go check the Dodge too, it’ll take you all of two minutes – why did you stop me?”
“It was a tip off” he blurted.
“A tip off – where did get your info?” I queried.
“I can’t tell you that!” he countered.
Locating my file and the copper led me into the property room. Opening a safe, as he returned my belongings, he gave me a shoulder bag, a purse with £300 inside it and assorted bankcards. It compelled Larry to quiz me
“Do you always carry such large sums in cash?”
“An old habit in case I need to move fast” I admitted.
Signing for my things, I left the station before the cops got another tip off and trying hard not to glance at the Rover, still stuck in the police compound, I could do nothing about it now. As we returned to his van, a short journey, Larry headed towards Knott End. As my sturdy companion recalled my startling spy admission, well intrigued by it, he sought an explanation. I found it difficult and responded
“I didn’t want to tell you, I wasn’t myself at the time.”
“Have you ever had any connection with MI5?” he persisted.
“Recently,” I owned up.
“All that stuff is true?” he probed.
“It’s why I’m in this mess,” I told him. “I’ve been framed by MI5.”
“I knew there had to be more,” observed Larry “I said you don’t fit the profile.”
As we reached the park, Larry parked his Transit near the caravan and before I made a move, he warned me
“Your Mum was victimised before she left the park, don’t worry, any trouble now leave it with me, I’ll flash my Home Office card”. Glad he was on my team and unable to resist, he bragged “But nobody messes with me!”
As I let myself into the caravan, gloomy, not just because of the curtains, Mum had drawn them to disappoint prying eyes. Once full of life, I could always count on a warm greeting. As they flooded back, no more a font of happiness, now the memories haunt me. Fighting more tears, my jaw set and off with them, no longer mine, jeans and T-shirt contaminated. Chanel rid me of the peculiar prison smell.

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As I threw more things into a case, hurriedly pulling on tight black pants and a white silk blouse, on the verge of breakdown, I rushed to the door. As intervening wisdom prevailed, warning me not to look back. Too late, beneath an imprint of the King George VI crown, bold typeface on the lid read ‘War Office’. Snatching up the box, it held Dad’s campaign medals, leaving mine behind, I dashed outside and pausing a moment, as I opened it up, there it was – the big silver one. Ribbon purple and green and the bar inscribed ‘PALESTINE’ and engraved on the obverse of the medal, I would never forget the message in Hebrew script.
‘May there be abundant peace from heaven and life for us and for all Israel.’
Regaining my spirit, it would take much more than prison to break my resolve or to reveal the name below the inscription. As I secured the caravan, Dad’s ghost followed me.
“One day they must pay,” I pledged, saving my tears.
“Where would you like me to take you?” enquired Larry, as I climbed back into his van.
“Thanks, can you drop me off in Blackpool, I’ll get to Warrington from there.”
“I can do much better than that,” he promised, “I’ll take you into Preston.”
We said little during the journey, Larry knew that I had plenty to mull over. Finally, at the bus terminal, as I jumped down from the Transit, he handed me my case and turning to him, as we faced one another, one last time, squeezing his mighty hand. Always I shall remember him. It felt like losing my best pal. My eyes wet, as they gazed into his, like Dad, I wished Larry
“Shalom”
“Take care” he responded, “God bless.”
The bus conveyed me to Wigan. On the last leg, taking a taxi into Warrington, as we trundled past the grim Remand Centre at Risley, another suicide? As crows circled like vultures in the mist, the cabby volunteered
“I’ve ‘eard some bad tales of that place, love.”
“I’m sure you have” I concurred gravely.
Ringing the bell, I peered through a frosted aperture in my Grandmother’s front door. Mum ventured into the lobby and then unaccountably, she turned away and vanished. Baffled, trying the bell once more, this time, as Mum opened the door, we embraced. Explaining why she had not opened the door on the first ring, Mum confessed
“I didn’t recognise you – you look terrible, you’re so thin!”

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As we clung onto one another, tears flowing, cats nudging my legs, and in the kitchen, Duke whining, Mum pulled me quickly into the flat. Not greeting me, Gran lurked in her bedroom. As we settled in the lounge, filling up, as I rushed to her side, trying to be strong, Mum claimed that she was fine, but I didn’t believe her. Setting down the teacups and no wish to upset her more, glossing over my ordeals, as I shared with her Dad’s spiritual visit to the police cell. In a whisper, Mum told me
“Suicide…your Dad committed suicide.”
Death before dishonour, he had taken an overdose. The force of my emotion fit to explode, as Mum recited events, she told me that before Dad died, the police had taken his statement in Warrington, and like me, he had denied arson. When they questioned him about the mystery men in the blue Transit. Dad’s evidence corroborated my alibi, but sneering cops claimed that he had done it because he was my father. As they rejected the truth, the police had put it down to collusion. As my bitterness welled up, blatant, MI5 had fired the home to fix my downfall, but the fallout killed Dad. I had not told her, Mum knew what I had been up to on my travels, telling me that Dad knew about me being tailed by MI5, she explained
“He was ashamed, angry about being duped by the men in the van, he felt he’d let you down.”
My enemy faceless, it dwelt in glamorous buildings and expedient, hid behind a fine Latin motto, but they knew no honour. Although I possessed an unblemished character, MI5 had found it easy to fit me up. Once my case went to court, in view of my background, the charges far-fetched and hard to swallow, so for good measure, they made me a burglar and fraudster too. On paper, it made me a real bastard, it insured against me walking free. As it stood, I had no credible defence. Any jury would think me mad to blame them. Who would believe that the Security Service could harm me?
Prevailing myth supposed that MI5 never chased ordinary folk, only terrorists and spies like the old KGB. Long after they had put their hex on me, in October 2002, a former trade unionist, comic British actor Ricky Tomlinson, put folk right by speaking out on BBC television about the file that they kept on him. Retired Special Branch Officers used the same programme to admit that sometimes they would behave like criminals if it justified their means. MI5 knew about me, not because I told them, they hang about at airports and I had been busy, they had logged my flights to Israel. I didn’t need to be an accountant to work it out. Two plus two equalled Five. Behind the bogus burglaries, they sold the booty to Dad and sneakily switched my tax disc, when Warrington police turned over my car. They tipped off Garstang police and the rest is history. MI5 had carried out their threat to ruin me. As my heart wept for Dad, bravely, Mum persevered with her story.

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“That lot at the caravan park treated me like I was Myra Hindley, the park owner banged on the door ordering me to go. I couldn’t eat, but I couldn’t let the pets go hungry, I tried to buy them food at a local shop, but they refused to serve me. I rang your Gran and asked her if I could stay.” As Mum let go, she admitted, “This is the first time I’ve cried since your Dad died.”
As I held her in my arms, I feared Mum might never recover. Losing no time, next day, I took the first train into town. As I switched lawyers, handing my case to Malcolm, Dad’s brief had impressed me. On my way back to the flat, as I made for the station platform, waiting for a train, a pretty young girl approached me and asserting that I looked like a lady she could trust, only in her ‘teens and candid, the girl told me that she was staying at a children’s home in the town. Meanwhile, on her way to Manchester to see her mum, she asked me for my opinion. I assured her that she looked lovely and I would feel proud to be her mother. As the train arrived, sitting next to me, as she took it out of her handbag and showed me her visitor’s passport, the girl said that her mum planned to fly her to Paris where they hoped to get to know one another again. I didn’t want to leave the train at my stop and praying all went well for her, as I reflected upon the brief encounter. Perceptive, right to trust me, the girl had seen me for the person I really am and unable to stop myself, before taking many steps, I found a bench and breaking down had a little cry.
A few days on and boarding another train into town, I needed Malcolm’s help when Garstang police sent me a nasty letter. It stated that unless I removed the Rover from their compound within seven days, the nerve, they threatened to sell my car for scrap. Salt in the wound, charging me a greedy £5 per day, as they claimed backdated parking fees the police alleged that I owed them £250.
“Stay well clear of Garstang”, warned Malcolm, ”Get a garage to move your car to Warrington – I’ll deal with the police.”
Stating that it was unlawful to charge me parking fees, Malcolm warned the police that he wouldn’t hesitate to prosecute them if they pressed me for money or touched my car.
My knight in shining armour, no quibble and free, the Automobile Association agreed to ferry the Rover 60 miles direct to my door.
When the patrolman unloaded the car from the back of his transporter, I tried to reward him. Astonishing me, as he refused my gesture, he stormed
“The coppers gave me a bloody hard time, the bastards did their utmost to stop me from recovering your car…they thought I’d never do it – but here we are!”
As the AA patrol pulled away, I slid behind the wheel. Bringing him briefly to life, a Lancashire newspaper, dated 14th August,

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still lay on the Rover’s rear seat where he had left it. Tears once more tracing my cheeks, I whispered
“We miss you, Dad.”
“I knew you needed time by yourself” said Mum, opening the door and pulling me out. “Come on in I’ll make us both a nice cup of tea.”
Next day, still taxed, yet doing it again and wisely, photocopying my new tax disc, prepared this time, unlikely, but I wished MI5 would repeat their set-up.
Mum always joined me in the car for the soul-destroying trip to town to sign the bail book every day. I deeply appreciated her company. We would never forget our little shopping jaunt in Manchester when Mum helped me choose my first girlie clothes. As we reminisced about the old days, alas, they seemed so very far away. Closer to hand, Malcolm’s office only around the corner, not far from the splendid Georgian town hall gates, I popped in for a chat.
Now November and Malcolm had bad news for me. Expressing his regret, he revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service meant to pursue the make-believe case against me. At least, unable to make it stick, the CPS had reduced the worst fabricated charge from ‘with intent to endanger life’ to simple arson. While in his office, I asked him
“Have you had confirmation from the DVLA that my car was taxed?”
“They say they’ve lost the records for your car.”
“Lost!” nonplussed, I yelled, “They’re on computer – they can’t lose them!”
I should have expected it. Still very shocked, MI5 had been very thorough – well I mean open to them, government offices are ripe for cheating. Determined not to let them beat me, I told Malcolm that we could still get onto the bank and trace the cheque that I had sent with the renewal form to the DVLA.
“I shouldn’t concern yourself about that” Malcolm reassured me. “The penalty’s a paltry fine, we must focus on the arson or you could go to prison.”
I knew that if we uncorked the mystery behind the tax disc, it must undo their lies. I wanted to tell him the whole truth and uncover my background with the Mossad. I craved to expose my run in with MI5, especially their threat to ruin me. I could tell Malcolm none of it. He only knew about my sexual status due to my incarceration in a men’s prison. So as he said

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“We must concentrate on your defence in respect to the arson. To that end I’ve been active and hired an enquiry agent to quiz your neighbours in Grappenhall.”
In the pit of misery, as I drove back to her flat, Gran had always been rotten with Dad. Years ago, she had told herself that due to his posh manner, he must be loaded and see to all her comforts. Once Gran knew the truth, she never forgave Dad or Mum for marrying him. As she seized her chance, Gran made our woes worse. Depriving us of light and heat, as Mum slept with me each night on a hard sofa, a nasty winter, we shivered in the chill. No average pensioner and Gran by no means short of money, no need for draconian thrift, her room always stifling. As we froze, the mad rent Gran demanded more than paid for the sofa, washbasin and lavatory. Her cooker and phone off limits to us. Mum and me lived on take-aways. Gran refused to let Malcolm call me at the flat.
Taking cruel advantage, as Gran spat hurtful remarks about Dad, Mum’s health faded. I needed to act fast, but before then, as Malcolm fixed a date for us with a barrister, hoping that the conference might improve my ailing spirit, I drove to Liverpool.
Leaving Mum and the car in a multi-storey, I studied a brass plate. As expected, a posh place, it rubbed shoulders with the splendid town hall. Unaware that it was Christmas until I rang the bell, a raucous bash in full swing and feeling like an impostor, I stepped into the counsel’s elegant chambers.
Straight out of Dickens, more wigs and robes than a transvestite party, a merry crackling log fire and the pungent cigar smoke reminded me of Dad. As he proffered me his outstretched hand, my barrister began
“Hello, do call me, Mister Lamb.”
Dripping charm off his fingernails, foppish 40s and handsome as we assembled in a smart conference room, his advice not so nice Lamb explained
“If you plead not guilty, but are later proved otherwise, you’ll receive six years in prison, but if you find it within yourself to plead guilty, your sentence will be reduced to three or four years.”
“But I’m innocent!” I yelled, unnerved.
The barrister’s allure gone, shocked by his awful summary, before drowning in it, I turned on Malcolm. He had said the prosecution case was weak. I demanded to know why the change of mind. He claimed that he wasn’t then in possession of all the facts. I gave him a few more.
“I’ve asked the garage that repaired my car for a copy invoice, I searched for it when Larry took me to the caravan, someone’s

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swiped the original invoice, it’ll prove the car had no wheels on the night of the fire – it’ll destroy their case!”
“I’m sorry, prosecuting counsel will give great weight to the fact that you took out insurance before the arson,” drawled Lamb.
“You make it sound as if I bought the policy immediately before the arson.”
Fuming and I reminded them that I had taken out the said policy inside a fortnight of buying the home, many moons before any fire. This no plot like on the telly where the villain takes out the best-paying policy before bumping off the insured victim and reiterating my case, the rules, I covered the home because I had to. Never part of any scheme to make easy money, intent on saving a few quid, I had taken out the cheapest policy and insured the home at minimum value I lectured them and overcome with my exasperation, argued
“Its madness I’ve no motive!” I cried, “If I had needed money I could have sold the home at a good profit, I bought it at a bargain price. It’s easy for me to prove that everything I’m telling you is the truth.”
“I must warn you” unveiled the barrister, “The court is very likely to view your gender identity with great contempt.”
“What’s that got to do with justice?” I retorted.
“Its somewhat more difficult for a woman. Judges just don’t like women appearing before them. Invariably, women receive harsher punishment if found guilty than if they were a man. Your situation makes matters much worse.”
“It makes you unreliable,” owned up Malcolm. “I’m afraid that the judiciary’s out of touch, they see people like you in the same way they see criminals – on the margin of society.”
My trial due for hearing in January, entirely guiltless, yet I still faced prison and heartbroken by Dad’s death, Mum was dying. Determined not to be in gaol when she died, I felt justified in breaking bail. Mum knew my plans and at once agreed with them.
Next morning, I bought a paper and searched for a furnished house to rent in Manchester, that evening, Mum gladly joined me in the car for a ride down the motorway. We headed for Burnage in the suburbs. Upon our arrival, nearly new and located in a quiet neighbourhood, Mum liked the two-bed house in Lavister Avenue. His shifty eyes never meeting mine, I didn’t like the dubious landlord. However, Mum’s heart set on it I would handle him.
Two days later, I stuffed our meagre things into bin liners and rushing outside, dumped them in the Rover. Motor running, it ensured a swift getaway. Inside the car, amusing me, Mum held Duke like a giant baby across her knee. As I hauled a crateful of

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meowing cats, Gran waylaid me. Explaining that unable to stop, as I jumped into the car, about to slam the door, I alleged that the police had dropped the charges. Aware that Gran might well check out my claim and racing down the road, suspecting that even now she was phoning the police, unable to see eye to eye with my gender switch and Gran loved me no more than Dad. We reached Manchester on the stroke of midnight.
Now 1988, we didn’t want to know what the New Year held for us, living for the moment, we let the future take care of itself. As I pulled the Rover into the drive at the side of the house and unloaded the cats, Duke led Mum to the lounge. Shortly, I found him stretched out full length on a fluffy rug right in front of a gas fire, higgledy-piggledy, three felines curled all about him. A cosy scene and all done, I fell into an armchair just as Mum appeared from the kitchen armed with a welcome tray of steaming tea and hot buttered toast.
Next day, after a fitful sleep, I awoke feeling uneasy about playing the fugitive. Loads of second thoughts, I knew that the police would use it in court against me. They would cite it as a sign of my guilt. Couldn’t be helped, no way was I leaving Mum to die alone. On the edge and hopeless trying to get my head into the case, appalled by my barrister’s summary, it looked like I would need to establish a defence on my own. However, weeks of stress had taken its toll and unless I took things easier, I would be joining Mum on her journey back to Dad.
Waiting until dusk, I left the house and set off on foot to the local shops, not getting very far. Feeling suddenly weak and dizzy, as sharp pains shot my limbs, my legs gave way. A jarring jolt as I landed on the hard pavement, resting on the freezing concrete a moment more, I managed to rally my flagging strength and Mum counting on me, hauling myself up, I determined to continue my errand. A bit worse for wear, I made it to the shops.
Wobbly on my way back to the house and the peak of the evening rush hour, I waited ages by the kerb for a lull in the heavy traffic. Seizing my chance, halfway across I blacked out right in the middle of the dual carriageway. Upon regaining consciousness, as traffic sped past me, I found myself perched on the brink of the central reservation. Gathering my wits and scattered shopping, a rare mercy, fate had inflicted nothing worse than a bloodied knee. Limping back to the house, as I staggered through the door, Mum spotted my torn jeans and at once attending to my wounds, she told me
“This is why I’m here, while there’s breath in my body, I’ll tend to your hurts.”
We had no problems with money. I had access to kosher funds, Mum lacked for nothing save Dad. A tactical withdrawal, not meaning to hide forever, Mum and me had been through it. Only
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human we needed time to recover. I still had to find the means to demonstrate in court how MI5 had set me up, a tricky task without them laughing at me and screaming fantasist or liar.
In the interim, missing Dad and as if he were still alive, everyday we talked to him and breaking me up, Mum yearned to join him. On the anniversary of his birthday, Mum showed me a treasured photograph. A poignant scene, depicting Dad proudly cradling Kathy in his arms and touching, Mum reminded me
“They’re together now.”
In March, unable to raise Mum’s spirit and I started to drink, before long, angry with myself, I smashed the bottle. Aiming to give us a lift, I made it my mission to tempt Mum out of the house. A drive in the country would do us both good and besides skulking about the streets at night made me look furtive. The best way to vanish was to show that I had nothing to hide. Needing to do something about the car, I paid a garage to give it a makeover. It came back stunning Ferrari red with modifications to the trim and alloy wheels just like the Peugeot ad on the telly at the time, it took my breath away.
I needed false number plates. In a hole and pushed to do it for Mum, I must spare you the details. A compassionate sayan helped me obtain a Greek driving licence. Good at accents, if asked I would say that I hailed from Kós. Taking the initials from the name on the licence and joining them up with the Rover’s engine size gave me the number ‘NP 2600’. A motorists shop made my posh personal plate and against the law maybe, that never stopped MI5.
Next day, 16th April and getting the car prepared for Mum as I shifted Duke’s woolly fur off the seats it was everywhere. As I flicked on the radio, the bulletin reported that the Mossad had assassinated terrorist leader Abu Jihad at his hideout in Tunisia. Would the killing never stop? Alas, it took me back to an age when the world still regarded me decent. These days Mum had no heart to leave her bed and taking her a cuppa, she seemed a bit perkier today. I got her chatting about the old days when we all used to pile into the sidecar. We enjoyed a laugh when Mum recalled the night we bumped home from Pott Shrigley, riding on the rim until he found a garage, no spare and Dad had a puncture. Growing tired, as Mum fell asleep, remaining by the foot of her bed, I too dozed off.
My dream ended abruptly, I would never take Mum on any more jaunts. Duke’s howls sending chill shivers chasing up and down my spine, his Mum too, I knew then. Downstairs, pausing opposite the kitchen and bracing myself, I threw open the door. As Duke fell silent, sinking to my knees, I let go a primeval wail.

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Once more, the dreadful stink of death upon me, sprawled about the floor lay Mum’s lifeless form. Dragging her body off cold kitchen tiles and onto the lounge carpet, I tried everything, but no miracle.
At once running outside, I banged upon a neighbour’s door, begging please call an ambulance. Inside once more and another portion of me dead, as I knelt beside her body reciting Kaddish, like Dad, Mum always said the Shema. Not mad, after Dad, aware that she could hear me, gently I closed her beautiful eyes and whispered
“I love you, Mum, shalom.”
My spirit crushed, the paramedics found me transfixed. Slipping his arm around my shoulders as the doctor held me, its interior draped in darkness, we watched as the ambulance drew away. Asking me to join him, I failed to respond. Taking my arm, the doctor led me across the avenue and into his house, where he sat me on his sofa. Pouring me a large brandy, he advised me to sip, gulping down the fierce liquor it burned my throat and dulled the pain.
Telling me that he wasn’t married, as he joined me on the sofa, sliding up close, the doctor caressed my thigh. Friendly, he suggested that I stay the night. He was very let down when I told him that my pets would go hungry. As I thanked him for his kindness, pulling me to him, as he kissed my lips, I knew then he meant to honour his promise to look in on me. Returning to the house, I entered the kitchen once more and in a cupboard, I found that Mum had prepared the pets supper for them. As I hugged and kissed each animal in turn, their warmth gave me comfort. Mum’s final act made me realise that I wasn’t entirely alone.
As I slumped into her armchair, Mum’s perfume still lingered. Filling a tumbler with whisky, I mixed it with my tears and soon passed out.
Next day, as two women cops drove me in their car to the mortuary to identify the body, only her shell. Until they killed him, so full of life and gaining her wish, Mum was with Dad and Kathy.
In May, on the anniversary of Mum's birth, I drank to her cherished memory. Life had lost meaning. Without the pets to keep me going, my existence pointless, I ate nothing, surviving on whisky and vodka. The file holding my innocence now long closed. All hope abandoned, anguish my staunch friend, reality plunged its claws deeper into my soul.
The doctor dropped in almost every day, confessing that he was married after all. He said that his wife had taken the baby and dumped him. Pouring himself another whisky, he drank more than me. I wanted to help him, as we discussed his problems,

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passionate and no surprise, he declared that he had fallen in love with me. In dire need, I let him embrace me, devilishly handsome, when he suggested that we go to bed, I told him why we couldn’t.
He wanted to help me and promising to consult his colleagues, he pledged that within a month, I would have my operation. Existing in an unlikely orbit, getting to know each other, as he took me to a local hospital where he practiced, showing me around a specialist clinic, proudly, he told the nurses that I was his girlfriend.
Assuring me that I made him happy, I believed him. We had stopped drinking. Meaning to fight for the custody of his baby girl. He wanted me to be her mum. I was Cinderella. The fairy tale must end.

NAKED SPYGIRL Chapter Four