Divorce was something worth celebrating and that should have been yet another line in the sand. Somehow, though, I knew it wouldn’t be the final cut-off between Peter and me. I just didn’t expect him back in my life so soon.
I sold Hazlewood Avenue for another tidy profit, then bought a new place in St Ronan’s Road, Southsea. While I was living there, I met the man whom I would be with for the next ten years. His name was Tim and he was lovely. He’d closed his engineering business a year before and was dabbling with the idea of property developing with his spare cash. We decided to move in together, so I sold Southsea, again for a healthy markup, and we jointly bought another place in the area for £250,000 – which we did up and sold a year later for £525,000. The day that sale went through I looked at Tim and said, ‘I’m in the wrong business.’ I followed Tim’s lead and wrapped up my own business. Now I was a property developer too.
Suddenly we were enjoying lie-ins, cooked breakfasts and drawn-out lunches together and still finding time to do a few hours’ lucrative work each day. It was the perfect career for both of us and life was sweet. And then, in 2001, I received a call from a lady called Susan Blackwell.
‘I’m the probation officer for Peter Tobin,’ she announced, and at the very mention of his name my heart sank. Steeling myself to get the divorce had been hard enough, but at least I’d had a while to think about it. This call had come out of the blue and her very title gave away the bad news.
‘I have a note on Peter’s file that you should be kept up to date with his progress.’
‘Is he coming out soon?’
‘Yes, he’s behaved well and he’s won parole. He’ll be out in a few months.’
Her words were like a slap in the face. I’d built a very comfortable life for me and Daniel. Now, even though there was no way we wanted to see him, Peter could wreck it all.
‘Can you tell me where he is now?’ I asked.
‘Yes, he’s on the Isle of Wight.’
‘Christ, that’s close! I’ve actually been past there recently.’
He would soon be getting closer.
‘Can you stop him coming to Portsmouth?’
Susan was pleased to inform me that: ‘Yes, we can.’
‘Thank God.’
‘Yes,’ she continued, ‘we’re going to base him in Southampton.’
‘Oh, that’s much safer.’ I couldn’t hide the sarcasm. This was a man who could take my child for a walk in Portsmouth and end up in West Lothian. A few miles around the coast would provide no obstacle for him.
But I was grateful they’d told me. ‘Please keep me informed,’ I said, and she agreed.
I tried not to think about it, but by the time Peter was released on parole I was pretty nervous. They’d found him a starter job and a temporary home and he had to sign the sex offenders’ register once a week as a condition of his parole. After a tense seven days, I received the call I’d been waiting for.
‘Peter has signed the register. All is well.’
Great, I thought. He’s going to keep his nose clean. I can get on with my life.
The following week, they called again. ‘Bad news, Cathy. Peter didn’t sign the register today. He’s on the run – and we think he’s coming to you.’
You cannot imagine the fear that coursed through my veins. I’d had a comfortable few years, put on a pound or two through good living and generally learnt to enjoy the finer things in life now I could afford them. All of that meant nothing now I knew this madman was on the loose.
I swung into action. I told Tim I needed a spy-hole drilled in the front door immediately.
‘I think you’re overreacting,’ he said. He was trying to comfort me, but it just wound me up. He had no clue what I’d already been through – my fault for having kept most of it back.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘that man wants to hurt me. He’s still sore that I left him.’
But there was another reason I was scared. As far as Peter was concerned, I had robbed him of his son. I’d done it once when I’d fled from Bathgate. Now, as far as he knew, I’d prevented Daniel from visiting him in prison. I’d even forbidden him from having a photograph!
If there’s a chance he could use Daniel to hurt me, I thought, he’ll take it. And I’ve got to be ready.
My next stop was Havant police. They were more receptive to my fears than Tim had been. Within the hour, I had a crew round at Southsea, fitting panic buttons. They also arranged for a CID officer to be stationed at Daniel’s school. I would still take him and pick him up, but the policeman was there for the rest of the day – on the understanding that Daniel never found out. It was crucial to me that he didn’t worry and that his friends didn’t discover his past.
Looking back now, the idea of Daniel worrying about anything makes me laugh. He takes laid-backness to new levels. I’d like to take some credit for that, but he’s the one who’s done it all. He seems to have taken everything that happened before his sixth birthday and just dealt with it. Some kids might have become wallflowers or gone off the rails without a full-time dad around – look how it had affected me. Not Daniel. He was bright and intelligent and was always the first to sign up for new experiences. Junior RAF, the Marines, drums, guitar, camping – you name it, he wanted to try it. When he was sixteen, he would even climb Kilimanjaro with his Uncle Geoff.
But in 2001 this was the last thing on my mind. Back then, I was just desperate that Daniel stayed safe.
Keeping Peter’s movements from Daniel was one thing, but I couldn’t hide them from his school. It was a tricky phone call, but I had to inform them that their pupil had an escaped convict for a father. He’d savaged two fourteen-year-olds already. The school needed to remain vigilant.
Once again, I was bombarded with questions from the police. They asked where I thought he might have gone. I couldn’t help them. In fact, I was annoyed at being bothered. I said, ‘You lot have seen him more than me in the last seven years. Look in your records – you’ve still got my address book from last time.’
Luckily, Peter was picked up shortly afterwards and the police confirmed that he’d been on his way to Portsmouth. For breaking the terms of his parole, he was put back in prison for, I assumed, the rest of his fourteen-year sentence. That turned out not to be the case.
I don’t think Daniel was ever aware how close his dad had got yet again. That made it easier to just knuckle down and concentrate on our lives. Tim and I developed well together and fresh housing projects made us a decent income. There wasn’t much to grumble about at all. By 2006 we were living in a nice house, had nice cars and, best of all, Daniel had grown into a confident, handsome young man. I had no complaints at all. But then Aunt Anne called and said, ‘I think you need to turn on the TV now.’
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. Peter was being hunted for the murder of a young Polish girl called Angelika Kluk. Just as he’d done when he’d fled Havant in 1993, Peter had been working as a church handyman, this time in Glasgow. And, just like before, he’d changed his name – this time he was calling himself Pat McLaughlin, thank God, and not Wilson. Angelika was a student staying at St Patrick’s Church, where Peter worked. She was last seen in his company on 24 September 2006.
As far as the police can tell, Peter had become obsessed with the idea of sleeping with the beautiful twenty-three-year-old the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. His fantasies were fuelled by the fact that he knew she was having a sexual affair with a married businessman. There were even stories that, during her stay at the church the previous year, she had embarked on a physical relationship with the priest at St Patrick’s, Father Nugent. But what really appealed to him was the fact that she was so far from home.
With so few friends of her own, Angelika naturally enjoyed spending time with the charming odd-job man. If she wasn’t busy studying, she often helped him out on jobs, so much so that he called her his ‘little apprentice’.
One weekend she had been helping ‘Pat’ build
a shed inside the garage attached to the presbytery. That was when he’d struck – literally. Police say Angelika was hit six times on the head by a wooden table leg. The force exposed her skull and sent blood all over the garage. Then Peter had bound her wrists, gagged her mouth and raped her unconscious body. At some point, though, Angelika regained consciousness and found the strength to fight back. That’s when Peter produced the knife. He stabbed her sixteen times in the chest, before dragging her body through the church and dumping her in a chamber beneath, of all places, the confessional box.
Then he’d showered, cleaned up the blood from the garage and turned up for work again the next day to finish the shed as though nothing had happened. How many times had I witnessed that detachment, that ability to just carry on as normal after doing the most unspeakable things? For the first time, I began to appreciate how close I must have come to sharing the same fate as this Polish stranger.
Angelika was killed on the Sunday and by Tuesday Pat McLaughlin had disappeared, having already been questioned, along with everyone at the church, by the police. It was days before her body was found and even longer before the police put two and two together and realized they weren’t chasing Pat McLaughlin at all but Peter Tobin.
As the horrific news unfolded before my eyes, my heart went out to the poor, distraught family of Angelika Kluk. Then it hit me. How had Peter committed this murder? As far as I knew, he’d be in prison until 2008. Yet the news was saying it had just taken place and they were trying to catch him. I said to Tim, ‘I don’t understand it. He should be inside.’
But the simple explanation was that he wasn’t inside. He hadn’t been since 2004. I’d naturally assumed that when Peter had broken his parole, he’d be incarcerated until the end of his original term. But no, he’d served a further three years only. He’d been let out and had immediately fled to Paisley in Scot land, an area he was obviously comfortable with for some reason. The following year a warrant had been issued for his arrest after a knife attack on Cheryl McLachlan, but he’d absconded again. Only now, a year later, had he popped up, this time under the pseudonym Pat McLaughlin. This time as a fully fledged killer.
For years I’d been convinced I was the only one who knew what Peter was capable of. Now the whole world knew – and that just made him all the more terrifying.
‘Tim,’ I said, ‘the police have no idea where he is. But I promise you now: he’s heading here.’
Seeing it on the news, Tim finally grasped the magnitude of the shadows of my life.
‘I’d better get that spy-hole put in.’
The first time Peter had gone on the run in 1993, the police couldn’t have been more supportive. Then, I suppose, it was in their interests to look after me because I might lead them to him. Thirteen years later and they obviously didn’t think I warranted so much attention this time. I couldn’t understand it, but I didn’t let that stop me. When I marched into Havant police station, I noticed there was a copy of the local paper on the desk. Guess whose picture was plastered across the front page?
‘Can I help you?’ the desk sergeant asked.
‘Yes,’ I said, pointing at the paper, ‘I’ve come to talk about him.’
Thirteen years earlier that would have been enough to guarantee, at the very least, a cup of tea with the chief constable. Times had changed, the old personnel had moved on. This time I really had to fight for a panic button. I wished I hadn’t had to give the last one back, but there were only two or three in any county. Eventually I got one, but I also wanted answers. Why hadn’t anyone told me Peter had been released? This was 2006 – he’d been out for two years. Daniel had been walking to school, I’d been working all over the place. We’d been sitting ducks had Peter come this way.
The next twenty-four hours were hideous. I was convinced Peter would be looking to recreate past glories. I didn’t dare leave the house once. Even with all my security in place, I still found my greatest ally was the TV. Sky News had updates running like ticker tape across the bottom of the screen and I couldn’t drag myself away. Every TV in the house was tuned to a different station, in case I missed some detail. I had the radio on too. I knew nothing would change while I stared at the screen, but I couldn’t stop watching. Not until the monster was caught.
Once the media publicity kicked in, Peter – or Pat – was actually picked up very quickly. He’d checked himself into a London hospital, complaining of heart difficulties. I think he must have thought doctors are too busy to read newspapers. Someone recognized him instantly and called the police. He had no heart trouble at all. At last I could turn off the TV. I wouldn’t be seeing him ever again.
Or so I thought. The police investigating Angelika Kluk’s murder kept me informed throughout. When the case finally went to trial in Edinburgh in 2007, I couldn’t help following its progress in the news. It was so macabre, but I couldn’t ignore any little detail. To my knowledge, Daniel didn’t read a single headline. He just wasn’t interested. I’d told him the truth about his father the day we’d seen Peter’s image on TV, but a year later Daniel hadn’t asked another question. That was his way of dealing with things and I respect that.
I, on the other hand, needed closure. I didn’t want to miss a scrap of the evidence that was finally going to see Peter put away for good.
Then, one day in May, a police officer rang.
‘Cathy, I thought you would want to know, it’s nearly over. The judge gives his verdict tomorrow.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll be up on the next flight. I’m not missing this for the world.’
I didn’t know where that spur-of-the-moment decision had come from. Before that conversation, I’d had no desire to ever set eyes on that murdering piece of filth ever again. But the moment I heard D-Day had arrived, I knew I had to be part of it. Unfortunately, Tim and I had broken up in July 2006, after ten happy years. There was no fault on either side; it was just another relationship that had run its natural course. But we were still friendly, so I didn’t hesitate to ring him: ‘Do you fancy a trip to Edinburgh?’
‘Lovely. When?’
‘Now. Pack a bag – the flight leaves in an hour.’
I’d received the news at three. By six, Tim and I were on a plane. It was the first time I’d flown to Scotland since I’d been blackmailed into returning to Bathgate. It was the same man responsible this time. The difference was, I wasn’t scared. I knew I was going to see him get his comeuppance at last.
The next morning a police car picked us up from the hotel. Two spaces had been reserved in the gallery. We were in the top row. Angelika Kluk’s family were at the bottom. I felt so desperately sorry for them, but they were so proud, so impressive. They all held hands, giving each other strength even though they’d had to endure hearing every horrific detail of their beloved Angelika’s death and God knows what personal revelations about her life from a defence team struggling to find anything to justify their client’s actions.
Standing directly in front of them but facing the opposite way was Peter, the accused, in his protective glass box.
As soon as I saw the back of his head, I started shaking uncontrollably. I’d seen the same couple of grainy pictures of Peter on TV so many times over the last six months, but nothing had seemed real up to now. The headlines and accusations were so far beyond the parameters of normal expectation that I couldn’t easily process them and it may as well have been a story about a different person. That’s the effect a saturation of TV news has. If I hadn’t made the journey to Edinburgh, I’d have felt like I was living in The Truman Show. But here we were, in the same room, and the man who’d shared my bed for three years was about to be convicted of murder.
The closer the judge got to his conclusion, the more uncontrollably I shook. Tim clutched my hand, but I was a bundle of nervous energy, rocking in fear that the unthinkable might happen. That was when I noticed the court was packed with armed policemen, all with their eyes trained on the gallery. If there was even the slightes
t chance Peter would get off, they needed to be able to assert control over a dissenting crowd. And one of them had come to stand right next to me.
At that point, I just wanted to shout out at Peter, ‘Turn round! Turn round! I need you to know I’m here.’ But I didn’t dare, not with the automatic weapon a foot from my head.
Finally the judge gave the verdict. Peter was guilty and was going down for a minimum of twenty-one years. Just as in 1994, I felt numb. I wanted it to mean more, but it didn’t. The man in the dock had already stolen so many emotions from me, I didn’t have any left to waste on him now.
TWENTY-ONE
The Terrible Truth
It was nice that Tim and I could put aside our differences to fly up to Scotland together. Another relationship, however, had ended permanently. In October 2006, shortly after Peter’s arrest, my grandmother had died.
It was hard enough saying goodbye to Grandpa. Granny, however, had been the rock in my life for as long as I could remember. She was the one who’d secretly delivered meals without Grandpa noticing when I was a child. She was the one who’d taken on Mark and friends with no thought to her own safety. She’d lent me money to start a business and had given me the deposit for a house. I couldn’t have got by without her. I almost even forgave her that infernal old-fashioned hairstyle that had made me the laughing stock of Longhill School. Almost . . .
Seeing her succumb to Hodgkin’s lymphoma – a type of cancer – was heartbreaking, but at least I knew about her diagnosis almost as soon as she did, unlike the way Grandpa preferred to do things. Ever since Granny had been on her own, I’d always popped round once or twice a week and done her shopping. As time went by, she began to rely on me more and more. In her last three months, I was there every day. For the last month, it was a couple of times a day. By the time I managed to persuade the doctors that she needed to be hospitalized, I’d been virtually nursing her. She couldn’t stand, she couldn’t walk, she could barely eat. I knew the end was close, but until then I needed to be strong for her. Gran had supported me through so much. Now it was my turn to pay her back.
Escape From Evil Page 30