BEYOND

ALL EVIL

June Thomson & Giselle Ross

with Marion Scott and Jim McBeth

Copyright

Harper Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

First published by HarperElement 2011

© June Thomson, Giselle Ross, Marion Scott and Jim McBeth 2011

The authors assert the moral right to be

identified as the authors of this work.

A catalogue record of this book is

available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN 9780007438518

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2011 ISBN: 9780007438525

Version: 2018-07-13

Dedication

To little Jay-Jay, Paul, Ryan and Michelle –

forever innocent, forever loved

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Prologue: Fairy Shoes and Toy Soldiers

Chapter 1 - Beginnings

Chapter 2 - Love of Our Lives

Chapter 3 - Moths to a Flame

Chapter 4 - Rings on Our Fingers

Chapter 5 - Closer to the Flame

Chapter 6 - I Take This Man

Chapter 7 - The Honeymoon Is Over

Chapter 8 - The Way It Is

Chapter 9 - Even in Darkness

Chapter 10 - Nothing Ever Changes

Chapter 11 - Behind Painted Smiles

Chapter 12 - A Deeper, Darker Place

Chapter 13 - If Only ... (June)

Chapter 14 - This Child of Mine

Chapter 15 - So Alone

Chapter 16 - Why Didn’t We Walk Away?

Chapter 17 - These Special Gifts

Chapter 18 - The Joy They Brought

Chapter 19 - Beginning of the End

Chapter 20 - The Final Straw

Chapter 21 - If Only ... (Giselle)

Chapter 22 - Saturday 3 May

Chapter 23 - Mummy Can’t Fix It Now

Chapter 24 - Tranquillisers and Sympathy

Chapter 25 - In the Arms of an Angel

Chapter 26 - Tell Me Why

Chapter 27 - Revenge

Chapter 28 - Brutal and Merciless

Chapter 29 - Cold and Evil

Chapter 30 - Reaching for the Light

Chapter 31 - The Kindness of Strangers

Chapter 32 - The Love They Left Behind

Chapter 33 - This Sisterhood of Ours

Afterword by Ian Stephen

Moved by Giselle and June's story?

Help and Support for Victims

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

About the Publisher

Foreword

What follows is a conversation between two mothers who are leading each other from the darkness to the light.

Before they were united by two unspeakable acts of evil, June Thomson and Giselle Ross did not know each other. Today they are the closest of friends. In their hearts they wish they had not been brought together by incomparable loss, but now that they have found each other they are able to walk together towards a future neither of them believed was possible.

Only Giselle can appreciate how June has suffered; only June can understand the monumental effort it takes for her friend to rise and face each new day. This bond has already saved their lives, dragging them back from the edge of madness and giving them the courage to endure unimaginable pain.

On the same day, a few miles apart, June and Giselle’s estranged husbands, Rab Thomson and Ashok Kalyanjee, murdered their children. The men were not driven by rage. The killings were planned and carried out with precision, and designed to crush the women they had once dominated.

The names of the lost innocents are Ryan and Michelle Thomson, and Paul and Jay Ross, whom you will come to know and love as little ‘Jay-Jay’. Ryan was seven. His sister, Michelle, was 25, a wonderfully innocent woman-child, who had an intellectual age equivalent to that of her brother. Paul was six and lived for Spiderman. Jay-Jay was two, he loved Bob the Builder, and was still wrestling with the mysterious joys of a world in which he would not grow up.

Their fathers were the worst of all predators, perfect examples of what has become known as the ‘family annihilator’ – parents who kill their own children in an unfathomable act of revenge.

It is a psychological syndrome that is becoming disturbingly prevalent, but which no mother’s intuition or father’s sixth sense can predict.

According to the eminent clinical and forensic psychologist Ian Stephen, such killers are now responsible for more than one-third of all child murders. Throughout the pages of this book – and after the mothers’ story has been told – Stephen will offer his professional insight into the minds of the murderers and the women who once loved them.

It may seem a bitter irony that, while their crimes have united their wives, Thomson and Kalyanjee have also been brought together. They languish in the same jail, where they have yet to offer any explanation or display remorse. Their silence continues to devastate both June and Giselle, for no power on earth can erase the misguided guilt they have assumed – the belief that somehow they should have known.

The mothers have lived with that erroneous belief since their children were killed. At least they are now insulated by sisterhood and the memories of the happy times with their children.

They have been empowered, each giving the other the strength to tell their unique story – the first true account of family annihilators by women who lived with them and survived.

It is a warning and a cautionary tale, but above all it is a story of love and a testament to the human spirit.

Both women endured dreadfully unhappy marriages. June’s life with Thomson was a dark, turbulent and miserable existence, characterised by mental torture, physical violence and even rape. Giselle’s relationship with Kalyanjee had been a strange and remote affair, of lives spent apart before, during and after their marriage.

In spite of this, their relationships produced treasured children. But on one terrible Saturday in May, the last normal day of their lives, the misery of their marriages swiftly receded into the past.

Both women were on the threshold of a new future. They no longer wanted or needed the men who had ruled their lives but they believed it was important for their children to maintain a relationship with their fathers.

If only they hadn’t. The consequences of their trust were unutterably appalling.

This is the story of the parallel journeys that took them to that terrible day when they and their children became the prey of two monsters in our midst.

Marion Scott and Jim McBeth

Prologue: Fairy Shoes and Toy Soldiers

June: Shoes for Michelle. I had to have them.

Fairy shoes. They glistened with a life of their own, as if they could dance from the shelf. The shop lights, bright and harsh, caused their red, glittering surface to shimmer. Shoes for a princess. Shoes for my Michelle. I could picture my daughter, laughing with delight, her dark-blonde curls streaming behind her as she flew to the wardrobe to pick a party dress to match these beautiful Wizard of Oz shoes.

Christmas music flowed from hidden speakers. Garlands and decorations hung from every wall. I was in a crowded place but, until a few moments ago, I had never felt so alone. Excited voices overwhelmed me, the sounds of mothers, fathers, grandparents and children making plans for the big day. So much excitement to contain, so much to look forward to. I could almost smell cinnamon and spiced apple, the memories of Christmases past.

The room was alive but I had felt dead for so long now. Yet somehow these shoes had brought me to life. I had to have them. They were in my hand. In my bag. Michelle would be so pleased. So pleased.

The part of my brain that knew my Michelle was gone had shut down. A voice spoke to me from very far away. A woman’s voice.

‘Who are the shoes for, June?’

The use of my name suggests familiarity, but I don’t think I know her. It’s become a common occurrence. Since it happened, everyone knows me.

‘Michelle,’ I answer, still under the spell of the shoes.

‘You’ve put them in your bag, love.’

‘I know. I have to have them,’ I said, walking to the door of the shop. I could hear Michelle’s laugh, see her face and imagine her pulling on the shoes. Running to the mirror. My beautiful, damaged daughter with the body of a woman and the mind of a child.

Outside the shop. Assailed by the winter cold. Then a new voice, harsh, authoritative.

‘Madam! I have reason to believe you have goods you have not paid for. Would you open your bag?’

I do what he asks. He fingers the shoes.

‘You can’t have them! They’re for Michelle!’ I tell him.

‘You’ll have to come with me!’

I follow. Everyone is looking, shocked expressions, judging faces. They don’t understand. Tears prick my eyes. The spell of the shoes is broken. I can see the man’s face clearly now.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I deserve to be punished. I took the shoes. I had to have them. Can I pay for them, now?’

His face tells me what I already know.

‘I have money,’ I add, showing him my purse containing £160.

In my mind, I try to tell him I couldn’t go to the cash desk. They would have recognised me. They know my daughter is dead. They would have told me Michelle was gone. I was suddenly cold. I wanted to go home.

A policeman and policewoman had arrived. I recognised the woman from the days following the murder of my son and daughter. She spoke quietly to her colleague, who then had a hushed conversation with the store detective.

‘Come with us, June,’ said the policeman.

His voice was not unkind. The fairy shoes were gone. They had taken them from me.

It was cold on the car journey to the police station. We passed beneath blurred neon signs that gave only the appearance of warmth. The police station was as brightly lit as the store had been but it was stark, devoid of decoration. I stood before the imposing figure of the desk officer.

How did I get here? How did I get to this?

The big man looked at me. He was conflicted. I was ostensibly a thief, but a very different kind of thief from those he usually dealt with.

‘Time you went home, Mrs Thomson,’ he said.

I walked away, my face burning with shame.

Now I was at home, sitting in the dark, the illumination of the street lights washing the mantelpiece and the framed photographs of Ryan and my Michelle. I cried.

What on earth had I wanted with fairy shoes?

Giselle: I know why! The same reason I buy toys for my babies.

They lie before me on the cold, hard ground, frozen to the earth in their packaging, these gifts that I have chosen so carefully for my sons. Spiderman for Paul; Bob the Builder for little Jay-Jay. Toys that will never be played with by boys who will never grow up.

As the seasons come and go, the colour of the packaging fades, the boxes disintegrate. My babies know they are there. Michelle would have known, too, about the glittery new shoes.

I never miss a Christmas, or a birthday. Wherever they are, they all know – Paul and Jay-Jay, Michelle and Ryan. They know. That knowledge keeps us going.

There were days when I prayed for death to take me to them. I hated the winter nights and the coming of darkness when they locked the gates of the cemetery and I had to leave my boys. I would go home and ask God to allow me to be with them. But morning inevitably came and I was still here. Part of me was glad. It allowed me to resume my vigil.

So I sit here on the hill, where my sons rest, embraced in each other’s arms beneath two marble teddy bears. And so it will go on, as long as I have breath. On a clear day, I can see in the distance the prison where their killer was taken – their father.

On the day they were laid to rest, I knew he was there – but there was no communication, no word of remorse, no flowers for his dead sons. I still do not know if, to this day, he knows where they lie. It is of no consequence to me. As long as I know, as long as I am close to them, keeping them safe in death as I could not do in life.

I am the sentinel.

I have only been absent on a few days. Those were the days when I tried to end it all. Now I will never miss a day. I have stopped trying to kill myself with cuts to my wrist, pills swallowed by the handful. I have come to realise that suicide should not be my destiny.

People know where to find me. I am surrounded by the thousands who passed away long before my babies. I embrace myself against the cold. I bake in the sunshine. I lower my head against the rain. The doctors tell me I torture myself, perpetuate my anguish. They don’t understand.

I watch for signs from my sons – the wind that drives the windmills on their grave speaks to me in their voices. The marble teddy bears watch me with unblinking eyes. Gold-leaf inscriptions on their bodies record the names of my sons. Spring, summer, autumn and winter, flowers decorate the resting place.

When my babies were first placed there, I wanted to climb in beside them. Now this graveside is my sanctuary. When I arrive each morning I tell them my news, such as it is. They know I am here and what I bring – the small, bright pebbles, the toys, the gifts to place beside them.

Before I leave I repeat the words I had inscribed on the teddy bears. To Paul: ‘Goodnight my little angel, love Mummy xx.’ To Jay-Jay: ‘Goodnight my precious baby, love Mummy xx.’

I want them to know that Mummy is with them and that she loves them. When they had needed me most, on the day the monster took them from me, I had not been there.

My babies, if only I had known, I would have thrown myself in front of his knife, offering my life for yours. I promise I would have saved you. But I didn’t know, my babies, I didn’t know.

If only I had, if only …

Chapter 1

Beginnings

‘They would become the perfect prey for the perfect predators’

Ian Stephen, MA, Dip Ed, Dip Ed Psych, clinical and forensic psychologist

June: Did you ever doubt if you were loved? I did. I remember that cold feeling, as if it were yesterday …

Dad was in the kitchen. He was at the cooker. Something was wrong. Why was he making the dinner? Where was mum?

‘Dad?’ I asked.

He didn’t respond.

Something definitely wasn’t right. This tall, strong man at the heart of my life lit up whenever he saw any of his five children. No matter what drama was being enacted in our household, Dad could always be relied on to comfort us with his strong arms and soothe away our troubles in a gentle voice.

But he was silent and I was suddenly afraid. I couldn’t see his face, couldn’t read his eyes, but I knew even by the set of his shoulders that he was burdened by an ineffable sadness.

I had barged in through the door, trailing early evening air and winter cold into the warm kitchen. I was elated. Teenage hormones and the adrenalin rush created by sprinting from school had made me feel quite giddy.

All the way home, my thoughts had danced with the delights of lipstick, boys and David Cassidy. I was madly in love with the American teen heartthrob – heaven forbid, it was the Seventies after all – and all I wanted to do was play my one and only record on the precious stereo Dad had given me for my birthday.

I had sung the words of ‘How Can I Be Sure’in my head on the journey. I longed to reach home, to rush to my room, to languish on my bed and let David’s velvet voice wash over me while I gazed adoringly at his poster on the wall. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

But David and my girlish crush on him were driven from my mind in an instant. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather.

I laid down my schoolbooks on the table and slipped into one of the chairs clustered around it. I traced confusion and concern with my finger tips on the Formica surface. I took a deep breath.

‘Dad?’ I said again. ‘What’s wrong? Something’s happened.’

He still wouldn’t turn round, still wouldn’t look at me. He had a spatula in his hand and he was using it to flick over meat in a frying pan.

‘Your mother’s gone,’ he replied in a voice that was weighed down by his obvious sadness.

‘Where?’ I said, rallying for an instant, believing that she must have left early for her beloved bingo hall.

‘She’s just gone,’ he said in the same voice: ‘And she won’t be coming back. Not this time.’

He turned to me now and the pain was etched in his face. I felt anger.

‘I hate her!’ I said.

‘Don’t!’ he said: ‘Don’t say that about your mum … ever!’

‘But Dad!’

‘Dad nothing. She’s your mum. She always will be.’

Those would be the last words Dad would ever speak to me, or any of us, about Mum. He never uttered a bad word about the woman. I was about to reply but my rancour was stilled by faces at the door – my brothers and sister.

‘June,’ Dad went on: ‘You’re a big girl now, the oldest, and I’m relying on you to help me with the others. We’re a family, we’ll get through this together, you wait and see.’

Dad’s words had the same effect as always. I was soothed. I extended my arms to Roger, Jim, Linda and Gordon, who was little more than a tot. They filed into the kitchen, a deserted, sheepish little bunch seeking comfort and reassurance.

I tousled Gordon’s hair, lifting him onto the chair as the others took their places around the table. Dad hoisted the pan from the cooker and said: ‘The tea’s ready.’

I had grown up in an instant. My childhood had become as much of a dream as my love affair with David Cassidy. I didn’t know it then but I was taking my first steps on a journey into a future in which my personal sense of unworthiness would convince me that I did not deserve to be happy. I was, in a sense, being trained to put up with less, to accept rejection as the norm.

Giselle: I never doubted for a second that I was loved.

‘Giselle!’

My mother’s disembodied voice. Trying her best to sound angry and failing. My dinner must be ready.

‘I’m coming, Ma!’ I shouted from the bedroom.

I turned back to the mirror. For the thousandth time I was appraising my looks, and I hated what I saw. Who could love me? I stood out like a sore thumb in my class at school. All of the other girls were tall, pretty or blonde, or all three. Here I was, aged 13; short, gap-toothed, red-haired and covered in freckles. Not a pretty sight, I thought, especially when accompanied by a crippling shyness that could make me blush to the roots of my hair if someone so much as spoke my name.

‘Gi-selle!’

This time there was an edge in Ma’s voice, which suggested she was running out of patience. I wasn’t unduly worried. Ma’s bark was far more ferocious than her bite. In fact, she didn’t have a bite. She was a softie, a sweetheart, who was loved by all. That’s not to say she was a pushover, because she wasn’t. But to this day, when I conjure her up in my mind’s eye, I picture a woman with a smile on her face. When my mother Jean was alive, it took a lot to switch off that smile.

‘Gi-se-lllle!’

I realised suddenly that the voice was closer than it should be.

‘Ma?’ I said, as she appeared at the bedroom door.

She wore an expression of mock anger, her brow furrowed in a feeble attempt to look stern. I almost laughed, but I didn’t. This was a game we played. The rules were simple. She would look angry. I would look penitent. Anger wasn’t in Mum’s nature and I had never known a reason to fear her or my big, bluff father, who, when it came to his family – and his youngest daughter – had an awesome bark but even less of a bite.

‘You looking in that mirror, again? You’ll wear it out!’ she said.

‘Look at me, Ma! Red hair and freckles! God hates me!’

‘But I love you, darlin’. C’mon, you’re beautiful,’ she said, enfolding me in her arms.

‘I’m not! I’m not! I’m not like the other lassies. They’re pretty and tall, not a wee carrot-head like me!’ I cried.

‘I’ve seen the lassies in your class,’ she said. ‘They all look the same. You’re special. None of them can hold a candle to you. You’re a lot prettier than they are. You wait and see. When they grow up they’ll all wish they looked like you.’

All lies, of course, but beautiful lies, spoken by a kind woman who for all of her life would live in the confines of a small, safe world, the boundaries of which extended no further than her home and her family.

‘You get in there and get your tea,’ Mum said, guiding me out of the bedroom. I was momentarily buoyed by her support.

Perhaps my red hair and freckles weren’t so bad after all. Somehow, though, I wasn’t convinced. But my mother – and my father – had a knack of arming me against the world. My mother held my hand as she led me to the kitchen. For as long as she lived, my mother would hold the hand of her ‘baby’.

The kitchen was pandemonium, loud with the sound of my brothers and sisters – William, Alex, Johnny, Tam, Janie and Katie. It was a typical Glasgow household. Some of them had already left home, but they always found their way back to Ma’s for tea.

‘Giselle Ross,’ said Da. ‘At last! We can eat now.’

Da never called me or my sister Katie simply by our Christian names. He always appended our surname. Don’t ask me why. It was just a tradition and it always sounded as if he were about to give us a telling off. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Da was like Ma, a sweetheart. You wouldn’t think it, if you met him. John Ross is a pre-war model, a long-distance lorry driver, and a bit of a man’s man. Ma was always hugging and kissing us, but it has to be admitted that the modern expression ‘touchy-feely’ was not coined on behalf of my father. He loves us all fiercely, but we don’t demand big public shows of affection. Christmas and New Year in his home are marked by a firm handshake for his sons and a peck on the cheek for his daughters.

When I was a child and being bullied at school, Dad would tell me, ‘If someone hits you, Giselle Ross, you hit them back. If you don’t, lady, I’ll come and hit you.’

Of course, he would do no such thing. It was his clumsy psychology lesson on how to stand up for yourself. I looked around me. I was safe. I was secure. What did it matter if I had red hair and freckles? I had all the love I needed. I never wanted to leave this place and I wouldn’t for the next two decades. I didn’t know that then, of course, but my brothers and sisters would fly the nest, one after the other, and I, the youngest, would stay. I would live a cloistered existence of my own making and not for a single second regret it by worrying whether I was missing out.

What had the world to offer me that I could not find at home?

June: You were so fortunate. If my mum couldn’t love me, how could anyone else?

Mum had cleared at arguably the most vulnerable time in the life of a teenage girl.

I was sad, deeply sad, but I tried to hide it behind a mask of indifference and bravado. A mother’s love should be the rock upon which each of our lives is built, but in my case it wasn’t to be the case.

Did my mother not love me enough to stay? If she had loved me why would she leave me? Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but I could not help how I felt then, and I can’t help how I feel now.

I’m certain she must have loved me in her own way – or is that just something I comfort myself with? I still don’t know. What I do know is that from that moment I knew I couldn’t rely on her.

Her leaving had dredged up many emotions which I now realised had been experienced subconsciously. Even when she was in my life, I did not feel the closeness with her that I had with my father.

I had been able to identify with my pals’ closeness to their own fathers because that was my experience. I never doubted for a single second that Dad loved me. Our closeness was a living thing and it remains so. I have no idea what the catalyst was for Mum leaving us for good. I wouldn’t see her for many years and then I would learn that she had eventually met someone else.

Mum and Dad had very different personalities and it was a period when ordinary couples were not expected to be openly affectionate towards each other. So there had been no real tell-tale signs indicating her impending departure. One day she was there, the next she was gone.

To this day, Dad will still not say a bad word about her, but I have always had the impression that he was secretly relieved when she left.

It must have been very difficult for him but he was armoured by his reputation for being a good and decent man. He was held in such high esteem and so well liked in the community that no one dared gossip about the breakdown of his marriage.

Dad was a foreman at the local dye works and he continued to work in the factory and function as father and mother to us all. In those days, in those circumstances, no one would have raised an eyebrow if Jim Martin had decided to deliver his children into the care of social workers. In fact, this was commonplace when a working man was deserted by his wife.

He was, however, made of sterner stuff. It must have been hard for him in a town such as Kilbirnie, in Ayrshire, a grim, grey industrial place that produced a similar breed of people.

Dad did not whine. He just did the best he could and his best was very good.

Ironically, I would repay him by going off the rails.

Giselle: Wherever I turned, wherever I looked, Ma and Da were always there …

The words written in my final school report card declared that Giselle Ross had grown into an amenable young woman who might do well in the world if she would just ‘push herself forward a bit more’.

Fat chance. I had no wish to push myself forward, or to trek too far into the world beyond the confines of my home and family. The word ‘confine’ conjures up a sense of being restricted. I wasn’t. I embraced the safety of home life. I harboured no ambition for a high-powered executive career. Was that wrong of me? Maybe. But I was being true to myself. One must never confuse contentment with a lack of ambition.

Teenage love affairs were mysteries to be experienced by others. I had never had a boyfriend. I was – and I remained for a long time – an innocent. My days revolved around the home, like a wheel that turned contentedly through one day to the next. Ma and Da were the hub, my brothers and sisters the spokes of the wheel. I had no notion of becoming a mother, but Ma demanded that her house be ‘filled with babies’, and in time it would. I would then become a brilliant auntie to the children in this ever-extending family.

When Katie had her two children, Paul and little Giselle, I drew them into my loving world. I saw them every day. I was like a second mother to them, as Katie would become a second mother to my Paul and little Jay-Jay when they came along.

From time to time, Ma and Da would, to coin a phrase, make efforts to persuade me to get a life. I had a life, a wonderful life, and one that satisfied all of my needs. I felt no jealousy of others who lived a different kind of life.

And so it would go on.

June: You were the perfect daughter; I was acting like a brat …

I wasn’t so much bad as wilful, an attention-seeker. These days psychologists would have a name for it and I’m sure they could come up with any number of reasons to explain why I began acting out. It doesn’t take a degree in psychology to recognise that the change in my behaviour coincided with abandonment and a flood of teenage hormones. I may have been secretly relieved that Mum was out of our lives but it did leave a huge void.

Afterwards, I felt as if I were searching, always searching, for something or someone to fill the emptiness. I pushed back the boundaries – pinching and drinking vodka from Dad’s cupboard; staying out late; running away from home. All stupid stuff, really. I just yearned to be noticed, to be valued; for someone to put their arms around me and assure me that I was safe. In the aftermath of my misdemeanours, my granny was drafted in to bring me back to my senses. She was a lovely old woman with a particularly simplistic view of the universe, which, as far as she was concerned, was painted in black and white.

She would declare, ‘Just remember, June, once you’ve made your bed you have to lie on it – think of what you’re doing to yourself and your dad.’

Poor Dad. He was so busy with work and looking after the home that the only way – in my confused mind – that I could get his full attention was by getting into bother. I can still remember the weary conversations, the pained expressions on his face.

‘Why are you doing this, June?’ he would say in an exasperated tone of voice, in reference to my latest escapade. ‘Why can’t you just behave like everyone else?’ he would go on.

Dad could not fathom why I was playing truant constantly and getting into daft scrapes. In retrospect, it is almost as if I was being ‘bad’ to test his love, trying to establish how far I could push him before he, too, abandoned me.

‘I can’t,’ I would reply, without knowing why, my face set in a perpetual scowl. His hurt looks wounded me to the core, but I could not help myself.

One of the worst things I did to him was to run away from home. I decided I would hitchhike to London. I set off with two pals, not giving a second thought to the pain it would cause him. When it was discovered that we were gone, he had everyone out looking for us: friends, relatives, the police. Our big adventure was, of course, doomed to failure. We actually made it south of the border but it wasn’t long before we ran out of money and were forced to throw ourselves on the mercy of the police. We were returned home in disgrace by social workers.

Dad was mortified and he lambasted me. Did I know the trouble I had caused? Did I realise how worried he had been? What kind of example was I to my brothers and sister? I stood, head bowed, stung by his words – but for some inexplicable reason a part of me was pleased to be the centre of attention.

I would never again run away from Dad, but it would take me a long time to shake off my recalcitrance. If someone said, ‘Don’t do that, June,’ that is precisely what I would do. What I needed was to be truly loved, to find someone of my own, someone who would make me the centre of his whole world. I would find him. Desperation shines like a beacon, and so often a light in the darkness attracts a predator.

His name was Rab Thomson.

Giselle: As time passed, we were walking to the same destination – but from different starting points …

The woman in the mirror was far less vulnerable than the girl had been. I swept the brush through my gleaming red hair. Ma had been right. The hair I had hated so much as a teenager had become my crowning glory.

It had been a long time since I had first stood in front of this looking-glass, bemoaning my perceived imperfections. I still did not care much for what I saw, but I was safe, perennially cloistered by invisible walls that had been built over so many years by my loving family. My brothers and sisters had long since gone, creating new lives of their own outwith the fortress. I remained. My ‘job’ was still to look after my parents.

My mother’s health had deteriorated badly. She suffered from chronic asthma, which obviously affected her breathing. It was extremely debilitating. She would spend nights in the living room, sleeping in a chair, propped up by pillows. I was never far away. I delighted in being able to look after her – and Da – as they had looked after all of us. I still had no sense that I was sacrificing myself and I had long since come to terms with my detachment from the ‘real’ world. It was a price worth paying. I was content. I saw the good in people, rather than the bad. I had learned how to do that from Ma. She helped her neighbours. She would not pass a beggar without giving him money. She bought sweets for children who had none.

When we were young, Ma and Da would take us on trips, days out in the car, walks in the countryside, strolls along seaside promenades. It was my turn now to chaperone them. I loved them. I loved their safe world. I embraced it. I never wanted to leave it. It might have remained so until one day, at the age of 32, I walked into our local post office with Ma. The man standing behind the polished wooden counter had soft brown eyes and he smiled at me.

His name was Ashok Kalyanjee.

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