‘What incident?’ she blurted.
‘There was an altercation in the jail where your father is being held—’
‘Is he hurt?’ she demanded, her stomach hollowing at the thought.
‘The medical exam shows a mild concussion and a few bruises. He should be well enough to be returned to custody tomorrow.’
‘So he can be attacked again or will you be doing something to protect him?’ she screeched, tossing aside the duvet to get out of bed. She paced from one end of her small bedsit to
the other before the man at the end of the phone deigned to answer.
‘You father is a criminal, Miss Scott. He doesn’t deserve special treatment and he will be given none. Consider yourself fortunate to be receiving this courtesy call at all. As I mentioned before, his arraignment is in two days. It’s up to you to attend if you wish. Goodnight—’
‘Wait! Please,’ she added when the man didn’t hang up. Esme forced herself to think rationally. Were this one of her young wards, what would she do?
‘Does he have a counsel? I’m assuming he’s entitled to one?’
The terse silence that greeted her told her she’d caused offence. ‘We’re not a backward country, Miss Scott, despite what the world’s media likes to portray. Your father’s assets are frozen, as is the law in fraud cases, but he’s been given a public defender.’
Esme’s heart sank. In her experience, most public defenders were overstretched and overworked. Add the fact that her father was indubitably guilty of the charges levelled against him and the outlook was bleak.
The part of her that experienced the urge to end the conversation right now and pretend this wasn’t happening was immediately drowned out by the heavy guilt that followed. But she’d cut ties with her father for a very good reason. She’d turned her life around. She wouldn’t feel guilty for that.
‘Can I talk to him?’
For several seconds, silence greeted her request. ‘Very well. Provided he’s given the all clear by the doctors, I’ll allow him to make one more phone call. Make yourself available at six a.m. Goodnight, Miss Scott.’
The line disconnected, taking the authoritative voice with it.
A tiny knot in her stomach, caused solely by that charged, electric quality to her caller’s voice, unfurled. She dropped the phone and returned to sit on her bed, her vision blurring as her hands shook. As Zaid Al-Ameen had loftily stated, Esme wasn’t surprised by the news. If anything, she was only surprised it had taken eight years to finally arrive.
She exhaled roughly, willing the guilt and anger and pain to subside. When after a full ten minutes she still hadn’t managed to wrestle her emotions under control, she rose and padded to the small desk in the corner of her bedroom.
Further sleep tonight was out of the question. The only way to prevent the vault of bad memories straining to crack open was to fill her time with work. Her work, which thankfully involved concentrating on other people’s problems rather than her own, always managed to distract her. From the very first day she’d stepped into her junior social worker role four years ago, she’d welcomed that distraction simply because her actions produced positive results. Sometimes in indistinguishable ways, other times more meaningfully. Either way was good enough, although not good enough to ever wipe away the black stain on her soul.
Touch Global Foundation, the worldwide foundation she worked for, dealt directly with local organisations to help the disadvantaged, with numerous arms offering everything from drug rehabilitation to residential relocation.
Except working now, with her father’s news fresh in her mind, was near impossible. Esme forced herself to finish up the notes recommending rehousing for a single mother of four to a better neighbourhood, and a dyslexia test for the second child. She set a reminder to follow up her recommendation with a phone call, and closed the file.
Calling up her search engine, she typed in the relevant information. Although during the frenzied pockets of time she’d spent with her father he’d often talked of the Kingdom of Ja’ahr, they’d never visited that country. It hadn’t been on the list. Back then, decadent, well-established kingdoms like Monaco and Dubai and the brighter lights of New York and Vegas had been more desirable.
Within minutes, Esme understood why her father had taken an interest in Ja’ahr. The small kingdom, poised on the edge of the Persian Gulf, had gained as much international renown as its well-known neighbours in the last decade for all the right reasons.
Clever brokering of its rich resources of oil, gems and shipping lanes had seen it attain world’s richest status, catapulting its ruler and royalty to extreme wealth, while the lower classes had been left far behind. Such a divide wasn’t uncommon in such countries, but in Ja’ahr’s case it was staggering.
Inevitably, the result of such a divide had caused political and economical unrest, some of which had escalated into violence. All of which had been ruthlessly suppressed.
Esme cautioned herself not to believe everything she read on the Internet. But disturbing stories about the Kingdom of Ja’ahr’s judicial system were hard to dismiss. Stiff sentences were handed down for the lightest of offences, with even more ruthless punishment meted out to re-offenders.
‘We’re not a backward country, Miss Scott, despite what the world’s media likes to portray.’
Except their judicial system seemed backward. Right back to the Dark Ages. Which didn’t bode well for her father.
He deserves it. Remember why you walked away?
Jaw clenching, she straightened her spine.
She’d walked away. She’d changed her life for the better.