2-73（在线收听）

73.

But the universe was just getting warmed up. Soon after I got back to Britain, the main villain inthe phone-hacking scandal, Rehabber Kooks, was acquitted at trial.

June 2014.

The evidence had been strong, everybody said.

Not strong enough, the jury said. They believed what Rehabber Kooks testified on the witnessstand, even though she’d strained credulity. No, she’d abused credulity. She’d treated credulity asshe’d once treated a redheaded teenage royal.

Likewise her husband. He’d been caught on video throwing black bin liners full of computersand thumb drives and other personal belongings, including his porn collection, into a garagedustbin, just hours before the police searched their place. But he swore it was all a sillycoincidence, sooo…no evidence-tampering here, sayeth the justice system. Carry on. As you were.

I never believed what I read, but now I truly couldn’t believe what I was reading. They wereletting this woman walk? And there was no furor from the general public? Did people not realizethat this was about more than privacy, more than public safety—more than the Royal Family?

Indeed, the phone-hacking case first broke wide open because of poor Milly Dowler, a teenagerwho’d been abducted and murdered. Rehabber Kooks’s minions broke into Milly’s phone aftershe’d been declared missing—they’d violated her parents at the moment of their worst pain andgiven them false hope that their little girl might be alive, because her messages were listened to.

Little did the parents know that it was Team Rehabber listening. If these journalists werevillainous enough to go after the Dowlers in their darkest hour, and get away with it, was anyonesafe?

Did people not care?

They didn’t. They did not care.

My faith in the whole system took a serious hit when that woman got off scot-free. I needed areset, a faith refresher. So I went where I always went.

The Okavango.

To spend a few restorative days with Teej and Mike.

It helped.

But when I returned to Britain, I barricaded myself into Nott Cott.