Paul Hutchinson’s story was horrifying and disgusting. At least now he had been caught and was finally behind bars where he should have been all those years earlier.
At least now my beautiful daughter could rest in peace.
CHAPTER 12
CLOSURE
Hatred is a very strong word and not one that should be used lightly. But hatred – pure hatred – was the only emotion I now felt at the mention of Paul Hutchinson’s name.
Colette’s murderer had finally been brought to justice, but nothing anyone could say or do could ever bring her back to us. The one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world could never be achieved – Colette would never be back in my arms.
The stress of the years following her murder – the calls, the fear – had shattered and fractured my perfect family unit. That single man had destroyed all our lives the night he chose to take her from us.
For 26 years, our lives had been virtually put on hold. We were a set of people frozen in time, continually caught up in that horrific moment. Our lives had been paused, as if caught on some sort of warped videotape until justice could finally be done. Meanwhile, Hutchinson had got on with his life. He’d taken my child from me but fathered four of his own. He’d had the pleasure of watching them grow and develop into young adults while Colette’s life had been snatched from her.
I felt sorry for Hutchinson’s children. Sorry that they were linked by genetics to this monster. Hutchinson had had blood on his hands for 26 years. He’d chosen to take the coward’s way out, keep quiet and not admit his guilt to a single soul. His children now had this to bear; they had to live the rest of their lives knowing what their father had done. Through no fault of their own, these four innocent children had become embroiled in the same nightmare that we’d endured for 26 years. It had now become their nightmare too. Hutchinson had not only destroyed my family, he’d destroyed his own too.
But as much as I had sympathy for his children, I could never forget what he’d done to mine. He’d destroyed my family, all of us one by one. I often wondered if Tony and I would still be married if this hadn’t happened. I asked myself if Mark’s life would have been any different. My poor son had spent his entire adult life being haunted by what he saw that October morning. How different would his life be now if he’d not had to witness his sister’s cold, naked body, battered, bruised and violated by a total stranger?
There were so many questions. Would Colette have gone on to have children of her own? I wondered. I was certain that she would have. I’d been robbed of all that. Instead, I’d had to give my daughter the best funeral I could at the tender age of 16, because I knew that I’d never be able to give her the wedding of her dreams. I knew that I’d never be able to buy her the best wedding dress in the shop or marvel at the love she had for her future husband. Those moments had vanished into a puff of smoke.
I’d never be able to hold Colette’s children or kiss them goodnight and read them a bedtime story. I’d never get to see what a fantastic mother my daughter would have made.
I wouldn’t be able to celebrate her successes in life or hold her hand and comfort her when that very same life threw disappointments at her. I wouldn’t be able to do any of these things because he’d stolen her from us all. That bastard had brutally robbed her of her very innocence; he’d soiled her like the animal he was. If that wasn’t enough, he had then taken the most precious thing from her – her life. Nothing could mend this, no court case or jail term would be long enough to make him pay for what he’d stolen from Colette and from us.
I thought about my own life out in Greece – thousands of miles away from Nottingham, from my old home. I’d run away. I’d escaped in body, but not in mind. I could never escape the events of that night. When I went to bed, it haunted my every sleeping hour. There was no respite, no let-up from it. It had always been there lurking in the background. But it wasn’t just about me. We’d all lived through this constant nightmare but I could only speak for myself. Mark had his own demons to deal with, Tony too. I could only guess at how much they’d suffered but only they knew the real extent of it. It was a personal loss, a personal nightmare, and one so wrapped up with hurt and pain that it had to be buried deep down inside where no one else could see. But it was always there, eating away at you. It would jump up and bite you. It would pop into your head when you least expected it and would have to be dealt with and then forced back down, only to rise up at another time, on another day. But the grief would always be there, deep inside. No one could ever know or begin to understand what it felt like.
All the time we had suffered this, Hutchinson was living a relatively normal life. I often wonder if he had watched Crimewatch, making note of the constant appeals as they unfolded before him while he’d harboured his deep, dark secret.
It made me angry to think of him, self-satisfied that his plan had worked, that he’d never be caught. All those years he’d evaded capture and all those wasted years that I’d spent looking over my shoulder. The crank phone calls – had they been from him? Had he been the one that I’d imagined, hiding in the shadows at night, lurking in the bushes, watching and waiting? Had he been there absorbing every moment of our suffering with a sick and twisted fascination?
Some time after the case had concluded, Ann, one of my closest friends, came to visit me in Greece. Ann had been a good confidante to me over the years, particularly the early days of the investigation when I felt as if I was losing my mind. She’d always been there, a tower of strength propping me up through some of the darkest days in my life. As we began to talk, Colette came up in conversation.
Ann thought for a moment. ‘I never told you at the time,’ she began, ‘but, when I used to come and visit you in Keyworth, I used to park my car right down the street and walk up to your house.’
‘Why?’ I asked, a little puzzled.
Ann glanced back at me and shook her head sadly as if she had held something inside for years. Whatever it was, I knew that she’d not told me before because she’d wanted to protect me as any good friend would.
‘I parked up the street and walked to your house because I always felt really uncomfortable. I can’t explain it, it was like I was being watched or something. It was really creepy. I never said anything at the time because I didn’t want to worry you.’
Ann was a close friend, but how odd that she had had these very same feelings too. I wondered if Hutchinson used to hide in the bushes around my house. Maybe he hid in the street opposite our old Keyworth home. There was a dead end there. The houses ran out, giving way to an unkempt area full of bushes – the perfect vantage point for someone as devious and twisted as he was.
There was a large garden situated on the corner of the street. It was exactly opposite the end of our driveway. Could he have lain in wait there? Could he have been sitting there, stalking us out, knowing when I was home alone and at my most vulnerable? Was he the one who had tormented me with the breathless messages, slowly sending me mad with grief?
I couldn’t prove it, but deep down in my heart of hearts I knew that it had to have been him. He was Colette’s killer – he’d wanted to prolong the torture, get his kicks from watching us suffer just that little bit more. And I did suffer. I suffered every day. People I knew, friends and acquaintances, used to say that whenever I smiled my eyes always looked very sad. However happy I appeared to be, however brightly painted on my smile, there was always this sadness in my eyes. It’s strange how you can never see this in yourself; even when you think that you are doing a good job of hiding your emotions, you are fooling no one, only yourself.
Hutchinson had been the one who would drive me thousands of miles away to seek solace in the sunshine and laughter of Greece, to leave the most precious thing in my life behind – my daughter.
All those years, laughing at us, all those years never thinking for a moment that his past would ever catch him up. But it did and it had.
I tried to imagine his face that April
morning when two detectives knocked at his door. Was he frightened as he peered out of the window to see who was calling at such an early hour? Did he know that the game was finally up? I hoped that he’d been paralysed with fear. It gave me a tiny bit of comfort to think he had suddenly known what it felt like to be trapped in his own home.
Now it was payback time. Now it was his turn.
All those years we’d spent wondering who Colette’s killer had been and now we knew. Paul Hutchinson, a so-called respectable father-of-four, a charity worker – a murderer. Hutchinson was nothing but a pathetic liar. A cold-hearted killer, who was prepared to sink to any depths – no matter how low – to save his own cowardly skin. Even when he was cornered he continued to lie, blaming his own dead brother.
Paul Hutchinson was a despicable man, and now we all knew what he had done. But there was one thing we still did not know.
Hutchinson admitted his guilt but he still refused to answer the one question that we’d waited 26 years to ask: Why did he choose to murder Colette? Why did he do this to her? But still, even now, even though he’d been jailed for life and was rotting behind prison bars, he still refused to say. Hutchinson had nothing to lose by telling us. We certainly couldn’t think any worse of him than we already did, but he wouldn’t even grant us that one shred of human kindness.
He was still taunting us, still holding the trump card; he was still laughing at us.
My brother Michael and his wife Sue were still in Nottingham, so they came with me to visit Colette’s grave after the court case. On the way, we stopped off to buy a huge bunch of fresh white lilies. We arrived at the churchyard that cold and bright morning and the first thing I did was clear around her headstone. It had become dirty since my last visit; dead leaves from the previous winter were littered everywhere.
As I tidied up the grave, I felt an enormous sense of relief for the first time since her death. Instead of sorrow, I felt overwhelming love and happiness. Instead of tears there was joy at having my lovely daughter back to myself. Colette was no longer public property – until now her pretty face had been hijacked by the news. Now she was my Colette again, and I had something good to tell her.
Before now, I’d had reservations about visiting Colette’s grave. Every time I’d considered it, all I could picture was Mark and I clinging to one another for support and crying together. My other reservation had been guilt. Before this moment, I’d not felt able to visit her grave in peace. But now, for the first time in all these years, I could go in total peace, knowing they’d caught the man who had done this to her. There had been so much pain. It had crippled me for most of my life, but now it had lifted. It had left my body like a spirit, drifting off high up into the air. The weight of its burden had lifted with it. This left a fresh space in my head, my heart and my dreams, which could now be filled with Colette. Gone were the horrible memories associated with her death – these had all vanished that day in court. They’d been locked up in the prison cell with the animal that had created them. They were stowed away, out of sight and out of mind forever. Now, at the graveside of my beautiful daughter, I was left light-headed and dizzy with emotion. For the first time since her passing, I had peace of mind.
As I placed the fresh flowers on Colette’s grave, I rested the palm of my hand on the grass covering the spot where her body lay.
‘Colette, my darling, we’ve got him,’ I whispered. ‘You can rest in peace now, sweetheart. He can’t hurt anyone else now. He’s behind bars; he’s got his punishment.’
Michael and Sue looked down at me as I knelt at the graveside speaking to Colette. Michael wrapped his arm around Sue’s waist protectively as they both listened, nodding their heads in agreement.
‘If you’re looking down on us today, darling, you will know that we finally got justice for you.’
As I finished speaking, my face broke into a huge and wonderful smile. It felt so good to be able to say that one word – justice. It was short and quick to say but it carried infinite depth and meaning. Justice. It had been a long time coming but now it was here and couldn’t be taken away from us ever again.
Michael and Sue knelt down beside me. Soon we were all speaking to her; the wintry sun shone high up in the sky that cold sharp morning. The brittle rays of sunshine began to warm the crisp earth beneath us. The sombre atmosphere had lifted and the three of us sat there reminiscing, laughing and remembering Colette for the beautiful girl that she was and would always be in our hearts.
I visited again days later. This time, Mum and Mark came with me. It was 3 February, what would have been Colette’s 43rd birthday. We took more flowers to decorate her headstone, to show that she hadn’t been forgotten and never would be. I’d also bought some colourful pot plants that would flower long after the fresh flowers had died away. It was important to me for Colette’s grave to look pretty, loved and well cared for, just as she had been in life.
‘Everything is going to be all right now,’ I promised her. ‘He’s going to serve the rest of his life in prison for what he did to you, Colette. He will be punished. He will be punished for what he did to you. He will never get out of prison, Colette. He’ll die in there an old man. I will make sure of it.’
CHAPTER 13
THE STING IN THE TAIL
Following the end of the court case and knowing that we’d finally achieved justice for Colette, I felt able to return back home to Greece with a sense of peace. However, that peace was soon shattered with the stress caused by the return journey home. I left my mum’s home in Nottingham on the morning of 9 February 2010, but didn’t arrive in Zakynthos until 11pm on 11 February.
I had left Greece for the UK on 19 December 2009 and, as the sentencing date was set for the 25 January, it hadn’t seemed worth making a trip home in between. As a result I’d stayed in England over Christmas and beyond. This meant that my husband Peter and I had spent Christmas, our wedding anniversary and the New Year alone and apart.
By the time the case had concluded and Colette’s birthday had passed, we were well into February and I’d been away from home for two and a half months. Peter’s birthday fell on 12 February, so I was determined to make it back home for then. I’d felt guilty about the dates I had missed already – the last thing I wanted was to miss another and leave him to celebrate alone.
I booked myself onto a flight leaving Heathrow on the 9th of February. The flight was bound for Athens airport where it connected with another to Zakynthos. The plane was the last flight out of Heathrow that evening. It landed in Athens at 4.30am. The connecting flight to the island left two hours later at 6.30am. It was perfect. Or so I thought.
By this time, my face had not only been plastered across national and local newspapers, I’d also been featured on all the major TV channels and it was getting to the point where I was being recognised in the street. I’d planned to travel by bus down to Heathrow but my mum wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted on paying for a taxi so I didn’t get hassled by strangers.
The cab took me all the way to Heathrow airport but the usual terminal for flights to Greece had been closed down. As a result, I didn’t know which terminal my flight would be leaving from. The taxi driver became impatient – he drove around the airport, making frequent stops to ask staff where we should go. Eventually, he was advised to drop me off at terminal four and not terminal two. By now, he was getting a bit miffed and I was beginning to get a bit frantic as time was ticking by to my flight. I needn’t have worried – to my horror I was soon reading the last words I wanted to read: Athens flight cancelled.
I was frantic. I’d been so excited about going home and now I was stuck on my own in London with nothing on me. I needed to make that flight to connect with my second flight in a bid to make it home in time for my husband’s birthday.
I dashed back over to the handling agent. She informed me that they were putting on extra flights. I felt relieved but when she handed me my new ticket I realised exactly what she meant – they were putting peop
le onto flights leaving on other days. The ticket I’d been handed was for Thursday, two days later. Then I looked at the details for my onward flight. That was for the following day – Friday – Peter’s birthday!
I complained of course, but there was nothing they could do. A strike in Greece had caused this mess. I was panic-stricken. I’d been through so much and now I faced three days of hanging around airports in an attempt to get home. We were all stranded. Arguments ensued as people began to lose their temper with the poor members of staff. For me, the whole situation had become too much. The pent-up emotion of the past few months just came spilling out. I pulled out my mobile phone and called my mum back in Nottingham. I began to sob down the phone to her and once I started, I found that I couldn’t stop.
Soon the crowd stopped talking, a hush fell and people began to turn to look at me. I knew that I was making a complete fool of myself but I couldn’t help it. I’d been through the murder, the capture, the court case and now this. The cancelled flight was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
A member of staff noticed my distress and came rushing over.
‘I know it can be a very stressful time when things don’t go according to plan,’ she soothed.
I looked up at her, I knew that she was only trying to be kind, but sympathy was the last thing I needed. I just wanted to be on my flight home.
‘You have no idea,’ I began, ‘I have just been to hell and back over the last few months. My daughter has been murdered and I’ve just had to deal with the court case. Now I just want to go home.’
The woman looked at me and reeled back in horror; I could tell that she was visibly shocked. The gasps of those standing nearby were audible. My voice softened. ‘ I know it’s not your fault,’ I wept, ‘but someone should have at least phoned me to let me know. You have contact numbers for me. If I had been told then I wouldn’t have travelled all the way down here today – you were clearly aware of the situation hours before.’
Justice for Colette: My daughter was murdered - I never gave up hope of her killer being found. He was finally caught after 26 years Page 20