by Gerard Gray
So he was never really there for you?
No he was there, when he was there. For instance, my mum has a photograph of my dad. It sits right alongside the statue of the Flower Madonna, given to her by my dad’s mum. The photograph is black and white. It is of my dad and me at six months of age. My dad is a handsome man in it, well dressed and proud. I am laughing, supposedly due to the cameraman shaking my favourite teddy in the background. It is an incongruous moment in time, an island of serenity in an otherwise turbulent sea.
What’s this got to do with your dad not being there for you?
I’m getting to that. On asking her about it once, the photograph that is, my mum replied that it had been a happy time, but that it was hard to believe, looking at the photo, that only a week later he would be getting carted off to the mental hospital. He was so well in that picture, back to his old self, so happy with his new son. At that moment in time, the time of the photograph, he was there for me. Do you see what I mean?
But most of the time he wasn’t. Is that not right?
Not most of the time – some of the time.
A year at a time, you said, every other year. That doesn’t sound like some of the time to me.
I smiled bitterly.
I have another memory of that photo. I don’t know how old I was but I remember sitting in the classroom, perhaps aged seven, thinking about that picture. It was all I had left to remind me of him. I don’t know why I was thinking like this, but it must have been during one of the long periods that he had been away. I think I placed my hands on the side of my head and started to cry. The child sitting directly next to me put up her hand and said: “Miss, Peter is crying.” It was a cry for help, but the teacher, if I remember correctly, said nothing. She just let me cry. Perhaps she knew my background; perhaps she didn’t know what to do with a child having a breakdown. I placed my seven-year-old head down onto the table. My teacher was right; there was nothing anyone could do to bring my dad back to me, so why even try.
I raised my tired head up off the table. I needed to get away from the introspective inquisition. Police officers were still hustling and bustling on the other side of the window. Apparently a carnival was in town. I cast my head as the thought of Ted Bundy, the American serial killer, drifted into view. The police who had captured him had left him alone in a room allowing him to escape from a second floor window – we were on the ground floor. After his escape he went on to murder even more women. The Scottish police weren’t going to make the same mistake with this child murderer.
I suddenly cringed, my insides burning up. I touched the source of all my intestinal problems, just below the ribs. A plume of molten magma rushed through my bowels. I could feel my urine burning my insides. I was going to have to go to the toilet soon. Would they let me go to the toilet?
“This is so unfair,” I said, resting my face against the cool table. If only they would let me see my family, or phone my mother. I missed them all terribly, and I was deeply worried. I prayed to God that my mum would be all right. “Please let her be OK. Hopefully they will let me phone her soon.” My stomach turned over once again on remembering why that wasn’t going to happen. I winced on hearing Steven’s words: “I have a cast iron alibi. Let’s see who has the last laugh here.” Well one thing was for sure… I was no longer laughing.
Sorry, I need you to clarify something for me.
Yes?
Just what the fuck is going on here?
I have no idea. I’m so very tired. I need to sleep.
He played you for a fool, didn’t he?
Yes. Yes he did. All the time I’d thought of him as an off the rails madman, when all along he’d been cold and meticulous. How did he get my credit card details? He must have copied them down on meeting me in the pub for the first time, when I went to the toilet or something. I suppose all he needed was my number and my security code on the back. Surely the police know how easy it is to do that.
I placed my hand on my chest, my heart racing out of control. I sat up straight, gasping for air. I was having palpitations.
He’s going to get away with this. You do know that, don’t you?
I breathed deeply, an insidious poison spreading through my veins.
You’re going to go to gaol, you do know that, don’t you? They have your computers.
I balked on seeing the girl with the black bunches lying helpless on the bed. I attempted to press the red x in the corner of my mind, but still the image remained, popping right back up at me.
You could have stopped it.
I tripped in my thoughts, almost falling. The voice in my head had changed. Someone else was inside me now. Was it my dad? Had it been him all along?
“Is that you, dad?”
No reply.
Yes, I could have stopped it. On numerous occasions I could have put an end to it by taking the bastard out. He didn’t always have his gun with him, so why didn’t I try to stop him? Why? At the very least I’m a coward; at worst a pervert and an accomplice. I had straddled her with my dick growing between her legs, growing like cancer. I’d had a hard on. Oh, God, if only I’d stood up to him right at the start that boy might still be alive and the girl with the black bunches wouldn’t be lying in a critical condition in the hospital.
Do you want to know what he did to her?
No. No, I don’t. Please don’t tell me.
I tried to stop myself from going any further with my thoughts, but the momentum was too great. I remembered the look on that female detective’s face when she had spoken about the state the girl was in. Her voice had been utterly professional, but her emerald eyes had said something else. They had given away her true feelings, her true emotions. She found me repugnant – a rapist and a monster.
She was scared of you, of what you did. Do you want to know what you did to that girl?
I did nothing.
I stopped myself in mid thought. Was the detective scared of me? I thought about the way her eyes had looked at me accusingly. At the time I didn’t know what the intent was behind them, but I thought I did now. Was it fear? Was it the same look I had seen on that girl’s face as I lay between her legs? Did the officer actually fear me?
For a split second I hoped she did. After what she had done to me, after what she had put me through tonight, I hoped the bitch never slept again. How could she do this to me? I was innocent.
Sure you’re innocent
I am innocent, I tell you. I’m innocent. “Oh, fucking hell, this isn’t happening. Please tell me this isn’t happening.” The atmosphere in the room grew thick with disbelief. The last time I had felt like this I had been staring down at a tee shirt as a warm black stain spread before my eyes. None of this felt real. It felt like a fucking nightmare.
“Please dad, don’t do this to me. Please help me. Please help that girl. Don’t let her die.”
I stopped myself. Why had I asked him that? Was it because I was actually concerned for the girl, or because I knew she was my last hope? If that girl died I was well and truly fucked, and I knew it. Was I only concerned about her because she could save me? I was disgusted with myself.
“I’m a monster, just like him.”
Like father, like son, aye?
I stared hard at a blank wall to my right, the seeds of indignant anger finally taking root in my guts.
“You’re ill again, aren’t you?”
No.
“Just leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”
No, I’m staying.
I laughed sarcastically. “You know, when I asked you to get me out of that hellhole, to get rid of that monster, to save that girl, I didn’t mean this. I didn’t mean fucking this. They’re going to send me to gaol. Do you hear me? I’m going to go to gaol.”
I turned my head quickly to the door. Someone had opened it slightly, popping his head around the corner. It was one of the detectives from earlier.
“I’m sorry, but I thought you should know. The girl has just d
ied.”
“What?”
“The girl, she died. We need to move you to a cell. We’ll be with you in a minute.”
The officer said something else, but I didn’t hear him. My whole world had just leapt off a bridge.
*
They guided me like a child out into the hallway, pushing and pulling my body through one door after another. I felt like I was walking in a dream, the only reality a dull needle like pain directly behind the eyes. I looked down at my hands. Did they look dead? I couldn’t tell in the dim light of the hall. I took in a succession of deep breaths. I was going to be sick.
A third officer joined us just before entering what looked like a foyer. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said, peering through the door. He stared out into the void for a couple of seconds, made a sort of clicking noise with his tongue and then turned back around to face us. “Straight through, OK? No stopping.” He was looking at me. Was he talking to me?
The four of us walked briskly out of the dark hallway into a bright spacious reception area. It was a modern extension built to link two old red brick buildings together. Large panes of glass reached from the floor to the ceiling, providing an excellent view of the main street and beyond.
My God, I had to catch my breath.
Hordes of people were pressed up against the panes of glass, cameras flashing, voices grabbing. It was like a scene out of Dawn of the Dead. I stopped and stared at the muffled cacophony beyond the window, but the officers by my side had other ideas.
SMASH!
An entire pane of glass came crashing to the floor, throwing all four of us up against a wall. One of the officers attempted to jump to the side as yet another missile came hurtling through a window, but he wasn’t quick enough; the brick struck him on the head. Distracted, his colleague turned to help, leaving me momentarily exposed to the world.
And that’s all it took.
Out of the corner of my eye a squall began to rise.
He was a man, well over six feet in height. Lightning struck and thunder roared as he blasted through the jagged window and on towards the guilty party before him. “I’ll kill you!” he screamed, his malevolent face a twisting spiral of rage. “You fucking bastard. You fucking paedophile.” The officer by my side tried his best to divert the oncoming storm but was sent sprawling to the floor, dragging me with him. There was no time to rest. The policeman leapt instantly to his feet, just in time to stop my assailant from rugby kicking my head right into the obituary column.
The other two officers, having now pulled themselves together, finally came to our aid. They grappled and grabbed the tempest of a man to the ground, one of them falling over himself in the process. “I’ll kill you,” the attacker was growling, as the police ground his face into the shattered glass. “I’ll kill you.”
The storm wasn’t over yet.
I turned my head towards the broken window. It was unbelievable. A horde of undead was pouring through the open gap, cameras tearing at my limbs. “Did you murder those kids, Peter?” I heard one of them say; others were shouting my name, grabbing, wrenching and biting. I lay on the ground helpless, simply staring back at them. One of the photographers managed to scramble his way to the front, leaned over the policeman protecting me and flashed his camera right in my face.
“Get out of it!” the policeman yelled, pushing the cameraman over.
Officers suddenly poured into the room from all angles, forcing the riot back onto the street. I curled myself into a foetal position and stared at my attacker, the police restraining him, his face turned to the side. Tears were streaming down his bloodied cheeks. “He butchered my daughter,” I heard him whimper. “He killed my little girl.”
*
It only took the police a couple of minutes to get the riot back under control. The officer by my side apologised as he guided me up the corridor towards the cells. “We had a reason for moving you,” he said, obviously in shock. “One of the victim’s family members had been lurking outside the building, outside your window, making threats. He’s a known felon. I’m sorry, but we had to move you to the cells for your own safety. There was a reason.”
The officer led my shell of a body into a room, this time one with no window. It didn’t look like a cell to me; the thought was fleeting and gone before it had even arrived. The officer checked me over to make sure I was OK. “I think you’ll live,” he said, screwing up his eyes, examining me carefully. “Someone will be with you in a couple of minutes. Would you like a cup of tea, sir?”
I stared blankly back at him.
He nodded to himself, clicked his tongue, and left the room.
I could still hear the crowd’s muffled jibes echoing in the back of my mind: Murderer; Paedophile. I slowly shut the door on them all, placed my head down onto the cold desk, and started to cry.
Why are you crying?
Because I’m innocent.
Are you so sure?
Of course I am.
Has it never occurred to you that you made the entire story up? That you did indeed rent that farm; that you did in fact kill all those kids?
That’s ridiculous. I would know it if I’d done all that.
Really? You didn’t know about the cat, but you killed that. Did you not?
I raised my head from the desk. The voice didn’t sound like my dad’s anymore.
I was suddenly gripped by a terrible fear, as though an evil entity were standing behind me. I clutched my throat, breathing heavily.
“I didn’t do it.”
Murderer. Paedophile.
I blanked my mind. I didn’t want to think anymore. I placed my head back onto the desk.
Once again my children’s faces appeared before my eyes, but this time they brought me no comfort. I had lost them forever. Steven’s words came crashing back to me: “The book always chooses someone who has a lot to lose”. He wasn’t lying. I had lost everything and so had my sons. Everything I had feared for them was going to come true. They would grow up with a father who was in prison, like every other ned on the street. I felt sick to my stomach. My family was cursed, that was the only answer. No respite, no end to the misery. My grandparents, my aunts, my dad, my mum… Michael and Depp.
“I’m finished.”
No you’re not.
“I am, dad. I’m finished.”
A tired memory came to mind. Why this thought had chosen to visit me at that moment was anyone’s guess. It was of my dad in his last hours, lying in his hospital bed waiting to die.
“Dad,” I had said to him, the tears gathering in the back of my throat. It was the end, and I think he knew it. He turned to me with his glassy, child like eyes and stared. And it was amazing, a miracle. This man was literally hours away from death, supposedly way past comprehension, but here he was looking at me, waiting for me to speak. I don’t think the doctor believed me when I told him about it afterwards. He said that if he did come back, though, that it was a miracle, a small miracle.
“Dad?”
No reply, just those innocent eyes.
“I've come to say goodbye, dad. I won't be seeing you again.”
“What?” he mumbled.
My God, he was lucid.
“Dad, I won't... be seeing you again.” I spluttered into tears.
He looked so young, his thick black hair only slightly thinning now, his smooth features void of the ravages of age. “The next time I see you, we'll be in heaven.” I turned my head to make sure that no one was listening. The door was open so anyone could hear us. I didn’t care.
“Hmm,” he replied, and then his head turned away from me slightly, his eyes leaving mine. “I'll see you again,” he said quietly, as though I were being daft.
“No you won't, dad.” I tried my best to swallow back the ball of metallic fluid expanding at the base of my throat. “I've got to go back to Glasgow. This is the last time I’ll see you. I can’t stay anymore, I just can’t.”
Again he turned to me.
“Dad, remember what we said.”
His innocent eyes shifted to look at me once more.
“You help Marie from that side, and I’ll help her from this.” I was talking about my sister.
He stared at me for a couple of seconds before turning his head slowly back to where it had been initially. “I’ll help when I can,” he said. “I’ll help when I can.”
*
The red headed detective entered the room, but I didn’t even raise my head. I simply looked up at her like my mum’s sick dog, Lucy. I was finished. The world had succeeded in utterly destroying me. This woman had destroyed me.
In the blink of an eye I sat myself up straight. I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Running towards me, through the open doorway were my children. I instinctively threw my arms around them both as they came crashing into me.
“Daddy, daddy.”
I hugged Depp tight, afraid to let go. He was wearing his new Batman costume. “I’m sorry, Depp. I’m so, so very sorry.” The tears were flowing thick from my eyes. I held my sons tight against my chest, rocking back and forth. I raised my head to find Karen standing behind me. She smiled sympathetically and gave me a big hug.
Was I dreaming?
“You’re free to go,” came the voice of the female detective.
“Sorry?” I said, trying to focus on her face, my head spinning. I had to take a deep breath to compose myself. “I don’t…”
“Sandra Black corroborated your statement. I’m sorry that you had to go through this. I truly am. What happened out there was a disgrace, and rest assured, there will be a full enquiry into how that could have happened. I know how hard this has been for you, believe me, but we have a difficult job to do here, I hope you understand. Dr Hastings is going to take a look at you now, and then I think you need some rest. We’ll need to…”
“Stop,” I shouted, throwing my hand into the air. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. Who is Sandra Black?”
“Sorry. Sandra Black passed away just half an hour ago. She was the girl who was with you at the farm.”