Invisible

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by Barbara Copperthwaite


  I was terrified, my heart hammering painfully against my chest, lungs burning as if I was running a marathon rather than walking slower than a death march as I pushed on, on, on, through the wall of baying people, head constantly flashing this way and that as I tried to see a way forward.

  Even in the car I wasn’t safe, people hammering on the windows and roof, hailing down blow after blow and stopping me from driving away. I had to fight the urge to floor it, scattering bodies this way and that in my desperation to break free, and instead edge forward slowly, oh so slowly like a ship making its way through an ice flow.

  Thank God the house was free of media – they all seem to have taken themselves off to the court. I parked the car and ran like a woman possessed to the front door, keys jangling in my shaking hands. Once through it, I slammed the door shut, ran to the sofa and curled up on it like a child, hugging one of Daryl’s jumpers and trying to breathe in his smell, although it’s disappeared now. Trying to imagine the time (hopefully just days away now) when he will be home and I can hug at last the real thing.

  Sunday 10

  It’s 11.30pm and I’ve just got home. I spent the weekend at my parents’ house, and it was so lovely to get away for it all for a while. I spent a lot of time in the garden just looking at the flowers coming up and taking in that wonderful ‘spring has sprung’ feel. It all feels a world away from court. I don’t get to go out into my garden any more, too paranoid of the neighbours glaring at me or shouting something (or even throwing something over the fence, then denying it) so it’s fantastic to get some fresh air.

  While I was there Kim called to see how I was doing. We had a good old catch up chinwag, and she asked all about how I was coping with the trial. I’ve noticed she does that a lot, carefully choosing her words – I don’t think she actually believes Daryl is innocent but has vowed to stand by me and support me all the way, and I really appreciate that. I get the feeling that if she asked how the court case itself were going she wouldn’t be able to keep her own judgement from her voice, so instead she always asks how I am feeling about things. She doesn’t give a toss about Daryl, but she doesn’t have to; I know she cares about me as my absolute greatest friend (probably my only friend these days, but that’s a technicality) and for that I love her to bits.

  So, I told her how I was feeling. How am I feeling? A weird mixture of trepidation, fear, and excitement. I just want this to be over, and finally I can see the finish line. Afterwards we talked about her, but when I asked her what she’d been up to lately I noticed she kept letting the conversation slide away. I tried three or four times but to no avail.

  ‘Oh, we don’t need to talk about me’, ‘It’s the same old same old’, and the classic ‘yeah, I’m good…so anyway, how are you feeling about tomorrow’ subject change were just some of the things she said to avoid talking about herself. Is she keeping something secret from me?

  Anyway, it’s time for me to go to bed. I need to be fresh for tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to it: tomorrow’s the day when the bombshell is dropped and proof that Daryl is innocent will be produced. I’m hoping that once that happens the case will be dismissed. Just think, it’s possible that this time tomorrow I could be going to bed with my husband!

  Monday 11

  It’s only the second week of court and already I feel like a battle-scarred veteran. Standing in the hallway trying to find the courage to leave the house; facing the screaming crowd; fear, security pat down, find my seat; the nervous, jangling calm of the court just before the session begins. I somehow face it all and survive. As stressful and horrifying as everything is, I could face it this morning with renewed strength and even excitement, thinking to myself: ‘This could be the last time you’ll ever have to do it.’

  As I looked around the room as people in the public gallery took their seats, I was shocked to spot her: Miss E, my pregnant doppelganger. I found myself staring at her, fascinated and horrified all at once. She’s actually going to sit through the rest of the court case? She’s the only one of the women who’s chosen to do that though.

  She must have nerves of steel, because if I believed my rapist was in the room I wouldn’t have the courage to be in there with him unless I absolutely had to – unless of course she doesn’t truly believe it is Daryl, now that she’s seen him in the flesh. Not that she got a look at her attacker, but if…well, at that moment my mind ran away with a crazy scenario where she suddenly decided to speak out in Daryl’s defence, saying it wasn’t him who hurt her.

  But that wasn’t the only reason I kept looking at my ‘twin’. I couldn’t help thinking that hopefully this time next year I’d be like her; heavily pregnant with my own child.

  As my gaze slid away, I felt her turning to study me. It must be as odd for her really. I wonder what ran through her mind as she realised I was Daryl’s wife.

  First to take the stand today was the murder victim’s husband, Tony Scrivens. Julie Scrivens was found beaten, raped and dumped on some wasteland, cast aside like she didn’t matter.

  The court was shown some photos of her and Tony; they looked really happy together, always seemed to be laughing. He painted a picture of an ordinary woman with ordinary dreams; someone like me. Both of us had been going along with our lives, minding our own business when suddenly through no fault of our own something horrific had happened. Poor Julie though had paid with her life.

  Tony talked of how Julie had been going on a rare night out to the pub with some friends, leaving straight after work. Cried as he confessed that she hadn’t wanted to go, but he’d pushed her because he wanted her to have some fun as her mum had died a few months before and it had affected her profoundly. Poor fella obviously blamed himself. The last time he’d seen her had been that morning, at 7.30am, when he’d kissed her goodbye and left for work as a bus driver.

  ‘If I’d known it was the last time I’d ever see her…’ he sobbed. ‘…I didn’t know…’ I wasn’t the only person in the room who was wiping tears from their face as he spoke. ‘T-to think, she didn’t even make it to her n-n-night out,’ he spluttered, before disintegrating into tears.

  Confusion washed over me. She didn’t make it to her drinks out? But she was attacked at night wasn’t she? That’s what I’d understood from the scant newspaper reports I’d read.

  DI Baxter was next in the witness box, and swore his oath. He started by explaining that police had first become aware of a serial rapist on a violent spree because of the Tilbury attacks, which had included two rapes and one attempted rape that had escalated to murder.

  ‘It was only when Interpol contacted local police in connection with the crime in Turkey that the accused came to our attention. He’d become a person of interest to them because his description matched the attacker in Olu Deniz, they knew he’d been in the area at the time, and they’d tracked him down to his hometown. They were contacting the local police, asking them to go to his home and bring him in for questioning,’ DI Baxter said.

  I tilted my head, interested. So that’s how Daryl wound up in this mess; this was all new to me.

  ‘The officer who happened to take the call had by coincidence just moved constabularies. Previously he’d had some involvement with the Tilbury inquiry, and noticed some similarities between the attacks.’

  I frowned, confused. What similarities? The Turkey victim hadn’t been bound with duct tape, a condom clearly hadn’t been used, no weird latex gloves had been worn… To me this sounded like desperation; they were trying to see clues where there were none.

  DI Baxter continued. ‘The officer made some calls to the Essex police force, and also did some digging on his new patch. Thanks to his hard work, he realised that there had also been a similar incident in his new locality. A taskforce was created and Operation Global was launched, which I headed, as we realised that the accused was the common link to all the crimes – he lived a few miles from the first attack, and in his capacity as a lorry driver he was familiar with Tilbury Docks an
d surrounding area having often picked up or dropped off goods there. In addition, he had holidayed in the resort of Olu Deniz at the same time as a rape was conducted.’

  ‘Coincidence,’ I breathed, not loud enough for anyone to hear. I just wanted to reach the bit where they realised Daryl was 30,000 feet in the air at the time of the murder, surrounded by around 200 witnesses. But the inspector just droned on.

  ‘We started to look at his work as a lorry driver, identifying that the accused often did a run from a paper mill in Manchester to Tilbury Docks and back again. This was how we made the connection between him and the second rape in what we now know to be a six-crime series.’

  Then he described how Daryl had been arrested – and the most bizarre pantomime I’ve ever seen was then played out. He and the Crown Prosecutor produced identical-looking pieces of paper that turned out to be transcripts of my husband’s police interview, and then they read them aloud, like a script. DI Baxter played himself, while the QC played Daryl. It was so odd I almost felt like laughing, but instead chose simply sitting there with my mouth open in amazement.

  ‘The accused said “no comment” to all questions apart from the following,’ explained the inspector, setting the scene. He cleared his throat, an actor preparing for his role… ‘Were you in Tilbury on the night of Sunday 3 February?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything that might incriminate me,’ the barrister for the prosecution playing Daryl read from the script.

  ‘What if we said to you we could prove you were?’

  ‘You’ve got nothing. I know you’ve got nothing.’

  ‘We have all kinds of evidence, Daryl. Come on, you’ll feel better if you tell us everything.’

  ‘No comment. Except…surely someone doing something like this would wear gloves or protection or something. Can’t be evidence if they did that. Bit thick, aren’t you, plod?’

  Both ‘actors’ then put their scripts down, having finished reading the interview aloud. Apparently that had been the only time Daryl had deviated from his ‘no comment’. I can only assume he got annoyed by the constant questioning and decided to goad the officers a little – well, I can understand that having been through it myself, but I’m worried other people might think it looks like a boastful criminal. Honestly, sometimes my husband can be such an idiot, if only he’d kept his mouth shut! And to think that initially I’d thought not giving a proper interview had been a bad idea…

  Twisting my wedding ring round and round nervously, I silently urged Baxter to get to the good bit of his testimony. Sounds terrible, but I needed him to start talking about details of the murder, which we hadn’t heard about yet. Instead he started droning on about Tilbury Docks; how it’s located on the River Thames at Tilbury, Essex, and is the principal port for London; it’s the main port for importing paper, and is the third largest container port in the UK. Who bloody cares?!

  Tension bubbled into hysteria and I fought back the urge to giggle as I flashed back to the road trip Daryl and I had taken together to Tilbury that time; how Daryl had bored me with dull facts like this. I felt like shouting to the stand: ‘You two should get together after the case, you have a lot in common.’

  Finally, though… ‘The body of a female woman was found in bushes near the grounds of Tilbury Fort at 7am on Saturday 30 May by a dog walker,’ said the inspector. ‘Through dental records she was identified as Julie Scrivens, 26, who worked behind the counter of a local convenience store. Tests indicated that her time of death was approximately 7pm the previous night, Friday 29 May, and this was further established by witness statements and CCTV footage.’

  Goosebumps shivered over my skin. I suddenly felt feverish, hot and cold all at once. She was killed at 7pm, on her way to meet friends at the pub after work. Daryl didn’t arrive at our home until 10pm. Oh my God, he doesn’t have an alibi.

  All hopes of having my husband home that night melted away faster than an ice lolly in the desert.

  Even as I shivered in despair, Baxter continued his monologue. He described how the victim (‘Julie, call her Julie,’ I wanted to shout) had been found stuffed under a bush.

  ‘Her lower half was naked, her upper half clothed, but the top pushed up to expose her chest and cover her face. She had been restrained with duct tape at the wrists, and been severely beaten until her facial features were no longer recognisable.’

  Revulsion made me look away from him, as though that would somehow block out his words. As I did so, my eyes landed briefly on Daryl. For a second he smirked. Just the tiniest flicker, but enough for me to know I hadn’t imagined it this time, as I’d thought I had the other day.

  My insides turned to ice as efficiently as if someone had poured liquid nitrogen into them. I once saw someone instantly freeze a beautiful red rose that way and been amazed by how perfectly the bloom had been preserved – until they’d shattered it to show how brittle it had become. And I swear, if someone had touched me or looked at me right at that moment, I’d have exploded into a million pieces too until nothing was left of me but splinters.

  Loathing twisted through me so suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I didn’t know this man at all; that I’d spent nine years of my life with a person I don’t recognise. It makes me think of the medieval myths of changelings; trolls secretly left in place of a stolen human baby. Someone stole my husband and replaced him with a monster. And I didn’t even notice.

  Daryl didn’t seem to realise I’d seen his mask momentarily slip. Our lawyer started cross-examining the DI, at him like a Rottweiler, making him look a fool who hadn’t done his job properly. I tried to feel pleased but I couldn’t shake my sense of disorientation. What had I just seen? Had my husband really been amused by that horrifying description of Julie’s discarded body? I shook my head to physically shake off the fear that gripped me, and tried to listen to what was being said.

  ‘Did you even consider anyone else as the culprit in this case?’ the barrister asked

  ‘No, he was the person we concentrated on.’

  ‘A little blinkered, is it not? Considering the attacks were scattered not just across the country but the globe? Is it inconceivable that someone else might have committed the crime?’

  The inspector pursed his lips, annoyed, pulling his dog-bum face. ‘As I said, we concentrated on the accused.’

  ‘Some might say you took the easy option. To cut off all other possible avenues seems very hasty. Within 75 miles of Tilbury Docks alone there are 18 million people, and you’re saying not one of them was worth considering? You decided to concentrate on just one man? Some may say that’s a brave decision…others foolish…’

  Foolish, foolish, foolish, that’s what it was, I told myself over and over. Repeated it silently like a mantra. But why had the police been so sure it was Daryl? Why hadn’t they even looked at anyone else? He had no alibi for any of the attacks…

  By the end of that day’s court session my head hurt from the confusion swirling round it. As Daryl was led away, I stared straight ahead, stunned and scared. From the corner of my eye though I saw him try to make me look up so he could tell me he loved me. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.

  The second he disappeared from sight though I knew I’d made a terrible mistake – I needed to see him, right away, if I was to get rid of the fear and doubt at the back of my mind that was like an itch I couldn’t scratch.

  I raced over to Daryl’s defence team. ‘I want to see him,’ I demanded. ‘I have to see him.’ I needed to confront him.

  ‘No one can visit him until he’s given evidence,’ I was told with an exasperated huff.

  ‘I need to see him!’ I said, voice rising hysterically.

  ‘Well…legally it is possible…but it’s a logistical nightmare.’

  I repeated the sentence a fourth time, urgency robbing me of originality. Finally they gave in. ‘You’ll have to make your way to the prison, and it’ll only be for a few minutes.’

  That was fine. A couple of quick
calls and everything was arranged. I drove like a loony to the prison, racing against the beat of my heart. Then I sat down with Daryl. Just seeing him instantly made me feel calmer, my resolution to confront him sliding away. I had to ask though.

  ‘I need you to tell me the truth, babe,’ I urged. ‘It’s just me and you, no one else is listening. Did…did you hurt those women.’

  The shock and betrayal in his eyes brought tears to my own. ‘I can’t believe you’d think that,’ he said finally, his anger clear but controlled. ‘Don’t you know me at all? Do we have a marriage left, if that’s what you believe I’m capable of? When do I get the time to go off all over the place hurting women when I’m working all hours to keep a roof over our heads?’

  ‘I’m sorry, so sorry.’ I reached out to grab his hand but he shook me off. Sat back, massive hands folded in his lap, trying to get as far away from me as he physically could. Panicked and guilty, I apologised again and again for the hurt I was inflicting on him. ‘I know it sounds stupid but I had to ask, I thought I saw…’

  What did I think I’d seen? It seemed ridiculous now I was away from the courtroom and actually sitting centimetres away from my husband, the man I loved and who I knew inside out.

  Finally he relented, grudgingly said he forgave. ‘The atmosphere in court is enough to get to anyone. I just thought we were stronger than that,’ he said, clearly disappointed in me.

  As he was taken from the room though, he turned from the guard and those beautiful ice blue eyes of his bored into mine. ‘I love you,’ he said. My face lit up with relief.

  ‘I love you, too,’ I said desperately.

  Back at the car though, I hunched over the steering wheel and cried, great racking sobs that threatened to shake my whole body apart. What am I going to believe? I was always taught to believe the good in people not the bad. The doubts are driving me insane, my head hurts with trying to figure out if he’s guilty. If he is, surely he’d have admitted it though – at least to me, after all this time, so I could know exactly what I’m dealing with?

 

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