A Skeleton From The Closet

Ive found myself thinking of friends recently, I don't know why but its been on my mind for a few weeks now. I thought it was time I shared a ghost from my past with you. Bared my soul so to speak, share the burden of secrecy, tragedy, betrayal and sadness that has been lurking in the darker corners of my mind for a few years now. Let the darkness unfold......

How many friends do you have? Before you answer that let me just clarify what I mean by friend. Forget the fake, pretend, un-real friends that many people gather on face book, twitter and the like. I'm not talking about some person you happen to chat to every now and then on the Internet but have never actually met. Not even the people you work with whom you may refer to as friends but if you quit work wouldn't miss at all. When I say friends I mean friends, true friends. People you would do anything for, people who you don't even have to see or speak to for months and yet if you suddenly needed them or they you, you would travel any distance to be with. People you would trust no matter what. That is what I mean by friend.

I am lucky enough to have a few of these friends, not too many (I don't believe any one has) but a hand full. That's all a person needs really, not too many but we all need one or two.The last time I added to this my list was 7 years ago when I was lucky enough to be able to add 2 people to my true friend list. Little did I know that only a few months after adding these 2 I would be scratching 1 from the list forever.

How well do you truly know a person?

I will ask this question again at the end, please don't take it to heart. I still trust impeccably those that remain on my list, but how well do any of us know any one else?

Some of you will know, some of you won't, but Ive been married before. I don't usually mention this but its relevance here is important so there you have it. At my wedding I chose one of my friends, as we all do, to be my best man. That is the true measure of friendship, to ask this of a person you must have a place in your heart for them. this man accepted of course. I had been the best man at his wedding a year earlier so it was no surprise really. This is usually a bond that cements a friendship forever. Usually!

We had been friends since we met when I was 16 and by the time I got married at 28 our friendship had grown very close. When he met his wife we (my wife included) went on holiday together, we drank together, we laughed together, we bared our wounds and healed together. Within a few years I had separated from my wife and moved to London. I still called in from time to time to see my friend and his family. They had 2 children, from a previous relationship of hers, that he had taken on and treated as his own. A young boy and his older sister.

After been in London for a few years with nothing happening in my life I left the country and bummed around Europe for a year. It was on this trip that I met Yiu Chi and Stef, 2 people that to this day I consider family. It was while in Turkey, camping on the southern coast of Turkey (Datca) that I received a call from my brother.

My friend had been arrested.

He stood accused of molesting his stepdaughter.

I was shocked, I couldn't believe it. It couldn't be true. But it was.

When I returned to England I visited the old factory I used to work at, the place where I first met my friend. After speaking with my old mates the full extent of what had been happening became known.

The following is what I have been told by those who knew him at the time. I have seen no official report on the matter but have no reason to doubt any of it.
His wife become pregnant. They were both overjoyed as you would expect. Shortly after announcing it to the kids the daughter asked my friend in private what he was hoping for. He answered that he would like a girl......... as he had finished with her!!! The following day at school she broke down in class and it all came flooding out. The following few days the true depth of his crimes became known. When the police arrested him they searched his car and found, hidden in the boot, child pornography. They searched his computer and found the same, there were even movies that he had filmed of his daughter by using cameras hidden in her bedroom and bathroom.

He was sentenced to 5 years (only!!!) due to a glowing character reference by his mother. Well she's not going to give him a bad one is she. 5 years for destroying an innocents life.

To say I was shocked is an understatement. This was a man whom I loved like a brother, he was kin, I trusted him implicitly. I felt unclean because I had cared so much for him, I felt betrayed because I had trusted him. I even felt a touch of guilt for not knowing what he was capable of. It made me think of an event that happened years earlier. I don't know for how many years he had been doing what he was doing but around 6 years earlier he and his wife were at my house and we were just making small talk as friends do. When they told me a story. At the time it seemed humorous, an innocent statement that could easily have been taken the wrong way.

One evening he had gone into the girls bedroom to kiss her goodnight. He thought she was asleep and she never made it known to him that she wasn't. The following day she came down and told her mother that he had touched her. He laughed and said he had stroked her hair as she was asleep and didn't want to wake her by kissing her. They laughed, the girl went on getting ready for school. When they told me this I too laughed as I, along with his wife, would never have believed it could have been anything else. Were we wrong, was that the first instance of the horror to come. Could we have, together, stopped him from doing anything else. I will never know.

I haven't seen his wife since this happened, slightly through fear. Right or wrong I simply wouldn't know what to say, how do you even begin to approach a subject like this. I have tried in the last couple of years to find her but, I trust, she now goes by her maiden name as I haven't been able to locate her through her married name and unfortunately I can't remember what her maiden name was. Shame on me.

I have no idea why this has all come to mind recently or why I felt I needed to share it with you but it does feel good to right it down. Maybe its a delayed reaction to a friend request I got on Facebook a few months back. It was from him. Why he would think I would want to know him now I have no idea, especially since I have a, soon to be, 3 year old daughter.

To finish off, I ask you once again. How well do you truly know a person?

Think about it, but don't give yourself nightmares.

Till next time....

The voice has spoken.