Petition for Divorce

Petition for Divorce

One day I had a wife the next day I didn't. No warning, no hint, no discussion, no note, nothing.

My wife wasn't in when I arrived home from work at my usual time on Monday evening. She didn't return that night and she wasn't there in the morning.

The police guy I spoke to on the phone came up with a dozen totally ridiculous reasons why she hadn't come home. Finally, he told me they wouldn't do anything until she had been missing for forty-eight hours. That left me with only one thing to do, so I want to work.

It was mid-morning when my secretary rang through to tell me I had a visitor. I wasn't expecting anyone but asked her to show him in any way.

When she opened the door to my office a big guy stepped toward me.

'Mr Rawlings, Richard Rawlings?' he asked me.

Bemused by his briskness I glanced at my secretary. 'Yes, I'm Richard Rawlings.' I told him.

He then shoved a large brown envelope toward me.

I immediately knew that he was a process server and took hold of it.

'You have been served,' he told me and from somewhere had a camera in his hand and took a picture of me holding the large brown envelope. He then turned, thanked my secretary and walked out of my office.

Neither my secretary nor myself said anything for several moments. 'What was that all about?' Stephany, my secretary asked me.

Instead of replying I opened the envelope and pulled a wad of papers out. As is usually the case they were upside down and we both stared at each other, then at the papers.

'What are they, Richard?' Stephany asked.

All I could do was stare at them with a terrible thought in my head.

Stephany, with her usual efficiency, took them from me. 'Oh no!' she gasped. 'Richard, what have you done? It's a divorce petition.'

I had thought some company was suing me. With total disbelief, I sank back into my chair. I looked up at her trying to understand what she meant. 'Nothing,' I told her. 'Pam didn't come home last night and she wasn't there when I left this morning.'

'Coffee, we both need coffee,' she stated and left me alone staring with incredulity at the bundle of papers in front of me.

Slowly I reached for them and slid them toward me. I was used to reading legal documents, usually a contract between my company and our various customers and suppliers. This set of papers appeared to be totally incomprehensible to me. I was still trying to make sense of them when Stephany returned with two cups of coffee.

'I've cancelled all your appointments for today and tomorrow. I also asked Bernard to come and look at some papers. I didn't tell me what they were,' she added.

The coffee helped, drinking it gave me breathing space. Divorce, why had my wife petitioned me for divorce? We had only recently celebrated our twenty-first anniversary. I loved her, I thought she loved me. Why hadn't she talked to me?

'Richard, Stephany tells me you have some papers you want me to look at.'

I looked up at Bernard, my company's legal guy, who had just burst into my office. 'I was served with these papers about half an hour ago,' I told him.

'Served with them, what have you done now?' he asked as he picked them up. "Oh my God! Pam is partitioning you for divorce.' Then he fell silent while going through them.

'Irreconcilable differences,' he informed me, then continued reading. 'She doesn't want anything from you, no alimony, nothing, proving you make no attempt to contact her.' Then he looked at me.

'When was the last time you saw Pam?'

'Monday morning, over breakfast.'

'Was anything different, did she say anything?'

I thought for a moment. 'No, nothing was different, she didn't seem any different from any other Monday morning. She didn't come home last night and she wasn't there when I left this morning.'

'Did she take anything with her that she wouldn't normally take to work?'

I shook my head. 'No.' I was beginning to get my thoughts together and I wanted answers. I looked from Bernard to Stephany. 'Bernard, you've known Pam nearly as long and I have.' I turned to Stephany. 'You've known us for what, ten years. This has come right out of the left field. Could she have been coerced into this?'

They looked at each other and I could see that were as perplexed as I was. 'Bernard, who is her solicitor?' I asked him.

'Crookshank and Willoby, I've never heard of them.'

'I want you to get on to them and I want a notarized letter confirming that my wife has made this petition for divorce of her own free will. Can you do that?'

'Of course, I get onto it right away.'

'Can you handle the divorce for me or should I engage someone else?'

'I can handle it for you, just give me your instructions.'

It turned out the divorce papers had been prepared and signed a week before I was served with them.

Accepting my wife's condition for the divorce, I made no attempt to contact her. My concern was that if money became part of the divorce settlement it could seriously affect my financial position and in consequence, the potential survival of my company. Apart from personal phone calls to Pam, I'd never had any contact where she worked, I just knew that she was the administrator for a group of clinics that did enhancement surgery.

A week later, when Bernard contacted then on my behalf, masquerading as a garage with information on her next service, he was told that she had resigned the previous week.

I tried to find a reason for what she had done, nothing could explain it. That didn't mean I wasn't heartbroken. I'd had twenty-one wonderful years with her and had been looking forward to another twenty-one years. The hardest part was helping my son and daughter accept that their mother had deserted them. Like myself, they had no idea why their mother had chosen to disappear and divorce me, without any explanation.

All that happened nearly a year ago.

Now the divorce was final I was free of any obligation to my ex-wife. That didn't mean I didn't still love her. Not like I had totally, unconditionally loved her. That depth of love had been ripped from me. What was left was something like the love for an auntie or a grandmother. A concerned love for someone who had been a big part of mine and my children's lives.

So, I started to look for her. To find out if she was all right. O.K. I admit it, I needed to know why she had divorced me? Also, my children needed their mother back in their lives.

I knew that since the day she left me she could have gone anywhere. Perhaps that was why she threatened my financial future if I attempted to contact her, so she could travel freely knowing that neither I nor the police nor anyone else was looking for her. It was a deviousness in her nature that I had never seen before. That, coupled with the time between the papers being drawn up and served led me to believe a third party was involved. If another man was involved she had been totally successful in deceiving me and everyone else who knew her.

The first place I contacted was the clinic where she worked. By then a new administrator had been appointed and after explaining who I was she told me she would make some inquiries and call me back.

I took her call in my office the next day. After a brief introduction, she continued. 'Mr Rawlings, everyone I have spoken to who knew Mrs Rawlings, has told me how surprised they were when Lady Harrington told them she had resigned when she didn't come in on Monday. She has never contacted anyone here since.'

'Thank you for taking the trouble to ask around for me.' I said and was about the put the phone down when she continued.

'Mr Rawlings, everyone I spoke to agreed that she was behaving perfectly normally right up until the Friday before she resigned.'

I had hoped that someone there would have something useful to tell me.

Normally I only look at the evening news headlines on the TV, but one day, three months later I had been late switching the TV on. so I missed the headlines and left it on to hear the news summary at the end.

If I hadn't I would not have seen her.

It was just a few seconds about the funeral of Lady Harrington, who had died after a short unspecified illness. The main topic was about her husband, Lord Harrington, who had died seven years earlier and his surviving son, Donald who had become the new Lord Harrington. There was no mention of a wife, though standing beside him was a tall woman, dressed in black and wearing a veil, like all the other female mourners.

I immediately had no doubt that the woman was my ex-wife. It was an immediate gut reaction, I couldn't explain what it was about this woman, but I just knew she was my ex-wife, Patricia. I could understand her being there because she had worked as PA for Lady Harrington before becoming the administrator for her clinics about the time her husband died. So why now, over a year since she disappeared, was my ex-wife standing beside the new Lord Harrington with another man, who looked more like a bodyguard than a mourner, standing so close on her other side?

As I watched, I wondered why I had never contacted Lady Harrington herself after my conversation with the clinic's administrator. Whatever the reason, it was too late now and at last, I knew my ex-wife hadn't totally disappeared.

Everyone thinks you can find anything on the internet, Well, you can't, as I soon found out. There was very little about the new Lord Harrington, no Facebook pages, and just a brief mention of his family history on Wikipedia and their connection to a banking dynasty.

Hopefully, Bernard would have some ideas. It took some convincing before he agreed to look into the possibility that the woman at the funeral was my ex-wife. 'Why do you need to know?' he kept asking me.

Eventually, he accepted that although she had left me I hadn't left her, strange as that might sound. Now, even more than the days after Pam left, I was convinced something or someone had forced her to leave me. Pam knew she would have got millions in the divorce, so why had she insisted on such ridiculous terms.

'Just to show how serious I am Bernard, I'll deposit five-hundred-thousand into an account. I don't mind how you spend it, but get me some results.'

'You really are serious, aren't you Richard?'

'Yes, I am. There's another half million if you need it. I am certain that woman was my wife and I want to know why she was at that funeral?'

Bernard and I had known each other since university. I also knew that before he became my company's legal advisor he had represented some people who had ended up in jail for various unscrupulous activities. We never talked about it but I was hoping he still had contacts.

It was a month before I heard anything from Bernard until he asked to meet one evening in a local pub. Almost as soon as we had pint's in our hands we were reminiscing about our time together at university. 'That were good times,' I told him.

'Yes, they were,' he agreed. Then he got serious and out of his pocket drew a slim folder and slid it over across the table to me. "No, don't open it. Read it this evening then we can arrange somewhere to talk.'

I thanked him, finding it difficult not to open the folder.

'Do you need any more money?'

'Not now. I may do if you want me to follow up on some of the information in that report.'

'With this information, do you think Pam's disappearance is connected to Lord Harrington?'

I wondered why he took a moment to reply. 'Read the report, then we'll discuss it.'

Neither of us wanted another pint and I now wanted to get home as soon as possible.

By the time I closed the folder I knew some very unsavoury things about the new Lord Harrington. I also knew that if the woman was my ex-wife she must have seriously pissed him off or found out something about his nefarious business dealings for him to get her to disappear and divorced from me before she could tell anyone.

The next morning I arranged to meet Bernard early in the afternoon, in a local hotel room. Sometimes, being the boss and having money, were of considerable benefit. I wondered if Lord Harrington realised he was dealing with an independently wealthy man when he got involved with my ex-wife.

Bernard apologised, almost as soon as we met in the hotel room, for doubting me about who the woman at the funeral was. Then we got down to discussing his report.

'I suppose there is no point in asking how you got all this information?' I asked him.

'What information,' he replied with a big grin.

'It's pretty damming stuff. How do you think they have kept it quiet for so long?'

'It only involved one of their clinics so there would be only a few people involved. Let's hope your wife was the only one to be a threat.'

'Could she have been complicit in some way, and they forced her to keep whatever she knew from me. That's what I can't understand.'

'Fear,' Bernard replied. 'It's a very powerful incentive.' Then he added. 'There is a possibility she didn't know the significance of whatever she found out, but they couldn't take the risk of her telling you. After all, we know the divorce papers were rushed through just a few days before you were served.'

I preferred Bernard's explanation. 'Well, I have to do something. I can't just do nothing, she was, after all, a wonderful wife for over twenty years and she is my children's mother.'

'OK, where do we start, it could get expensive and a bit dangerous?' Bernard said.

'First, we have to assume that all this information is accurate. Do you agree, Bernard?'

'Yes, definitely,' he replied. 'Lady Harrington opened her first clinic forty years ago, backed by money from her husband's bank. It wasn't until after she opened the fourth clinic twenty years ago when either she or her husband get involved with the wrong people.'

'I'll agree with all that. My wife had just joined the company that supplied all their surgical instruments, straight from university, when I met her.' I told Bernard. 'Lady Harrington was then on their board and Pam was employed as a secretary in the sales department. Five years later she became Lady Harrington's personal assistant.

'Then,' continued Bernard. 'Seven years ago, when Donald is thirty-two his father dies and he takes over the title of Lord Harrington and also gets onto the board of his father's bank. Did Pam ever talk about him?'

'No, I don't think she ever talked about him. She didn't even go to his father's funeral. It was after her husband died that Lady Harrington persuaded Pam to become the administrator of her clinics. Perhaps having been her PA for five years she trusted Pam's loyalty?'

'So, now we come to the crux of the matter. What did your wife find out that got them so concerned that, overnight, she was virtually taken out of the picture?'

'Until I saw her television picture,' I interjected.

That got me a, "umpf," from Bernard. 'She had disappeared overnight,' he continued. 'You had been divorced a year and then she is seen standing next to the new Lord Harrington at his mother's funeral.'

'If only she had talked to me.'

'Too late for that now, anyway, they've had a year to groom her....'

'God, I hate that word. Why not just make her disappear,' I suggested with a grimace?'

'Because she was useful to them,' Bernard suggested. '

'But useful to whom, Lord Harrington, or someone else? What do we know about the clinics? I asked.

Bernard took the report from me and turned the pages. 'We know their main activity is appearance enhancement and everything that entails, particularly for women. Perhaps Pam found out that one of the clinics was being used for something other than that.

He looked at me for a moment before continuing. 'Thinking about it, from what you have told me about that weekend and the Monday morning before she disappeared, I don't think your wife realised that she knew anything that was a threat to anyone. I even think that the haste with which the divorce papers were prepared confirms that.'

'How can we confirm that?' I interrupted. Then I thought for a moment. 'Let's consider this,' I asked Bernard. 'We need more information about Lord Harrington. For now, let's agree that unknowingly my ex-wife found out something about him when his mother, Lady Harrington, died.'

When we left the hotel room we had agreed that Bernard would use his contacts to find out more about Lord Harrington and also to find out where my ex-wife was.'

It was five weeks before Bernard and I met again in the same hotel room. He told me he would bring the report with him. I arrived after Bernard and the first thing he did was hand me a glass of whisky.

'I need one, even if you don't.' he told me, taking a gulp from his glass.

I did the same before opening the conversation. 'So, why didn't you want me to have the report before now?'

He pulled a folder out of his briefcase. 'This report is just the outline. What I am about to tell you is far more damming and I wanted to tell you personally. Hence the whisky, I think you are going to need it.'

I held my glass out for a re-filled it. 'OK, Bernard, what is so damming about this report you have to tell me yourself?'

'First, a week after his mother's funeral, we know from the first report that Lord Harrington went to Dubai on business. That was nothing considered unusual because his bank has a branch there. Now though, with the second report.' he tapped it. 'We have found out a lot more about his travels.'

We both drank some whisky before he continued. 'Wherever he goes abroad he flies in the bank's private jet and takes a woman with him. The only time she is seen is when they board and exit the aircraft. She is not seen during the day, remaining in his hotel suite or in the home of whomever he is staying with.'

'Do we know who this woman is? I asked, almost certain I knew the answer.

Bernard completely ignored my question. 'Once a month he regularly goes to a middle Eastern country where his bank does business. Usually, he stays for four or five days at the most.'

Without asking Bernard topped my glass up. 'Most evenings he attends a reception of some sort or other and the woman always arrives with him.' He hesitated a moment. 'She never leaves with him, always with one of the guests.'

'Is this woman who I think she is?' I asked him again, a little more aggressively.

Bernard didn't answer, instead, he took another folder out of his case, opened it and placed a large, glossy photo in front of me. I pulled it closer but didn't recognise the woman until I looked at her eyes. Whatever they had done to her, coloured and shortened her hair, pumped up her lips, altered her chin, enhanced her breasts, they were still my ex-wife's eyes. Now much duller than I remembered them.

'Have you got any other pictures of her?' I asked Bernard after looking at her photograph for several seconds.

'Yes, but you don't need to see them, we both know that is Pam.'

I held the picture in one hand and took a long drink of my whisky. 'Not as I remember her.' I said out loud while feeling my anger slowly rising.

While I had been looking at the photograph of my ex-wife, Bernard had placed a small recorder on the table. 'Two weeks ago,' he told me. 'While Lord Harrington was on a visit to Kuwait, the following conversation was recorded at a reception given by the director of a company his bank is associated with.'

Before he switched the recording on he added that the conversation was between Lord Harrington and a man called Karim.'

There was a lot of background noise but the voices were still clear enough to understand.

"Donald, good to see you in such high spirits, my friend."

"It is always a pleasure to visit you in your beautiful home, Karin, my friend"

"I see that our little problem is looking quite as desirable as ever"