by Jody Sabral
I find a spot on the terrace outside with my coffee to soak it all up. I hope it won’t be long before they release Greg now so we can talk things through properly. There’s no way he’s involved with any of this, I’m sure of it. Mr Wilcox practically told me his daughter was capable of killing. The police must be putting that all together. They must. I’ve made a resolution to tell Greg exactly what’s going on with me. To be honest and see what he says.
The air this evening is warmer than it has been for a while, and with it comes a softening of my fears. Just one week ago I was working on the desk, a job I’d been sidelined into. My career was starting to falter, but this story has changed all of that. It has secured my position in the natural pecking order. I’m a well-respected reporter now. It has saved me in a way. I can’t remember how many painkillers I have taken today, but I feel quite light-headed. That’s another thing I need to cut out, and I will. I’m going to get better.
I get a call from the on-shift editor to thank me for the interview and to tell me to go home. Nothing is moving on this story, and if it does, they have someone who can pick up the slack. I think I’ve paid my dues and finally feel I can relax about my job security for a change.
I feel mildly optimistic about the future for the first time in a while, so when I spot DI Brook striding towards me flanked by two uniformed officers, it’s a bit of a surprise.
‘Hello, Inspector. Did you see the interview?’
‘I did, strong stuff, but that’s not why I’m here.’
‘Are you going to let Greg go now? I’m sure he’s filled you in on how he knew Sarah. He’s no killer. In fact, she’s the one with a violent past.’
‘Yes, we know. And that’s actually why I’m here, because our investigation has uncovered new information. Alex South, I’m arresting you in connection with the murder of Sarah Wilcox. I have to caution you that anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
‘Don’t make this difficult on yourself, Ms South. I need you to come with me.’
63
They cuff me and put me in a police car before driving me away. Thankfully it is getting on for nine o’clock, so the dayside teams have gone home and the terrace is quiet, although Ayla is having a fag by the main doors. I’m not sure whether she sees me, but it won’t take long to filter through if she did. Fucking hell, how did I end up in a police car with cuffs on? I wish I’d never bloody met the Wilcox family.
I am deposited at the police station and put in a cell like a real criminal. I don’t get the interview room this time. The room where DI Brook first questioned me about my relationship with Sarah Wilcox. He thinks I killed Sarah or in some way was involved in her death. It’s absurd.
They leave me in the cell overnight, and after a bowl of what can only be described as the worst porridge I’ve ever tasted, they take me to the interview room. Without a drink to prop me up, my body has started to enter total withdrawal and is collapsing into an unrecognisably broken state. I barely slept at all last night, instead experiencing cold sweats that have left my clothes more than a bit damp. It’s fair to say I’ve never felt this bad in my entire life. Not even when I lost my unborn child. That was dreadful, but there was a numbness to it all. Plus there was Greg supporting me. And there were parameters to measure it by. This, however, is the unknown, so physically gruelling I feel like I could die.
DI Brook appears after a little while, a file in his hand. He looks like a man about to crack the case wide open. Energised. He swoops down on the seat opposite me, and a woman I’ve never seen before follows him into the room. He doesn’t spend time dilly-dallying and cuts straight to the chase.
‘For the tape. Interview with Alex South of Navarino Grove, London Fields, in connection with the death of Sarah Wilcox of Navarino Mansions, London Fields. Ms South, we know you visited Sarah Wilcox at her London flat even though you said you barely knew her. We also know that you received a call from her number, and a text message, shortly before you were seen entering her home on the night before her body was found. We have an eyewitness.’
Sarah lived in the block Greg recognised the other evening, the one opposite Mary’s place. I’m assuming Mary is the witness. I’m angry that she didn’t just come out and ask me about that night. The night I had my blackout. That’s obviously what they’re getting at, because yes, I now remember that I did receive a text from Sarah, I just don’t remember what happened next. This is turning into my worst nightmare. DI Brook clears his throat before opening the file in front of him.
‘This is an image from a CCTV camera on the corner of the road where Sarah Wilcox rented a flat in your name. It shows you pushing a wheelie bin away from the mansions in the direction of the park around the time of her death. Do you want to tell us what you were doing there? What were you doing with a wheelie bin outside Sarah’s flat the night she died?’
That’s when I start to hyperventilate. I can’t quite take it all in.
DI Brook pushes the image across the table so it is under my nose. When I look down, I recognise myself. I can’t remember any of it, though. I was drunk to the point of blackout. I’ve done some really crazy things while blacked out, but this? This takes the prize, an award-winning fuck-up.
‘Now is the time to talk, Ms South.’
But I can’t. I can’t talk, because the events of that night are so unclear. Fortunately, a knock on the door stops the interrogation and offers me a reprieve. DI Brook disappears, leaving me with his colleague. She just sits there in silence, watching every twitch I make, which is a lot of twitches because my body is in free fall and desperate for a drink. It’s been over twelve hours since they brought me in. Over twelve hours since I’ve had a drink. My body is going cold turkey, and not out of choice. This is dangerous territory for an alcoholic.
‘Alex, If you tell us the truth about what you did, it will help, you know.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes you can.’
‘I’m…’
I know what I need to say, but everything in me is resisting.
‘Go on. You can talk to me, Alex.’
Her eyes are softer now. Either that or I’m hallucinating. I’m seeing all kinds of things actually. Namely Sarah standing in the corner of the room. I shake my head as if that will help clear my brain. I have to tell someone. I have to say it, because I have to survive.
‘I’m… I’m a…’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I’m an alcoholic and I need a drink or you could end up questioning me in hospital.’
‘What?’ I can see she isn’t expecting that.
‘I’m an alcoholic. I’m not proud of it, but I am, and I haven’t had a drink now for probably fourteen hours and I’m starting to get the shakes. It’s quite dangerous to just stop; it can kill a person, you know.’
At this, she almost chokes, then stands up and leaves me alone in the room.
When DI Brook returns, which isn’t for quite a while, he has a doctor with him, who agrees that I need a drink or they could be dealing with another dead person, this time one in their custody. We make a deal: a glass of vodka for everything I know about Sarah Wilcox.
I tell them about the emails and the messages I’ve received on social media recently, and how I ignored them thinking it was just someone being a bit of a weirdo. I get plenty of crappy emails in my line of work. I answered her text because it was a good lead and I was desperate to impress my editors. I must have gone there that night to hear her out, but I honestly can’t remember what happened because I blacked out. The doctor confirms this is a real possibility, not that it helps my case, because that’s when they charge me with the murder. The admission that I went there is enough, apparently. I should have asked for a lawyer, but I’m not in the right frame of mind. The doctor understands it, but the police don’t. They think I’m just some drunk making excuses for bad behaviour.
They say they have forensi
c evidence that I was in Sarah’s flat, and that I used the wheelie bin to dump her body in the park. I have no comeback to that, because I can’t prove otherwise. The grazes on my wrist and bruise on my leg don’t look good. They are clear signs of a struggle, which in their minds means I killed her. They say it is only a matter of time before they connect the other murders to me.
They have released Greg. He left me a note that they allow me to read. I kind of wish they hadn’t, because it just smashes my heart into a million pieces all over again.
Dear Alex.
It was genuinely lovely to see you and to see that you’re doing so well. I want you to know that I will always love you, but I can’t go back to being in a relationship with an active drinker who is not yet in a recovery programme. Alcohol by the looks of it is still your first love, and I can’t compete with that. You probably don’t remember sending them, but I did receive some messages from you over the past year. They were aggressive and defensive at the same time. I put it down to the drink, but hoped with your new job you’d managed to face the fact that you have a problem. Given what the police have told me, though, I see that everything is not quite what it seems on the surface. I urge you to go back to AA so that you can beat this thing. You have a disease that is going to destroy your life unless you ask for proper help. You need a professional to guide you into recovery. You need to face up to things before it’s too late, if you do want to be a mum.
I can’t enable you any more, I’m sorry. I just wish you’d sort yourself out, because you can be such a lovely person, but the alcoholism needs treatment before it ruins your life, and it will, it always does one way or the other. You need to stop lying to yourself and face the music.
I wish I’d sent the Milk Tray, but it wasn’t me.
Take care of yourself.
Greg
Everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve is over now, as is my relationship with alcohol. I suppose that is the only shining light amidst this darkness. I don’t know how I ended up here. Whether I’m a victim or a killer. I can’t remember what happened that night. That’s the absolute worst of it, because I don’t know if I’m innocent or guilty. The booze drove me to that place. A place of no defence. I suppose this is what they call rock bottom.
Epilogue
July 2018
Dear Diary,
I’m an alcoholic and I am powerless over alcohol.
I admitted this for the first time in my life while in police custody. I have now been dry for one hundred and sixteen days.
The murder charge against me was changed after a discovery was made in Sarah’s flat. I may never know what happened that night, or whether I killed her. It’s quite hard to live with that, but I simply can’t remember. The coroner believes she died from a fatal dose of GHB mixed with alcohol, which she probably ingested before I got there, rather than the knock on the head that likely occurred in a fight we must have had. That was the logical explanation given the marks on my body.
The key found on her body unlocked a cupboard that held stocks of GHB as well as photos of Jade Soron, Maggie Horrocks, Alice Fessy – and me. The police also discovered a diary containing a suicide note. The note was Sarah’s way of helping me in her last moments, I suppose, because without it I could have been convicted of murder. It’s not a done deal yet, though, as my defence has to prove beyond reasonable doubt that I didn’t do it, and that’s quite difficult in such circumstances, so I’m told. There’s a lot of evidence against me, but then there’s a lot of evidence against her too. Charlie’s identity was stolen and I believe that she used it to attract the girls she killed.
The most likely reason why I put her body in a wheelie bin and took it out to the park is that I thought I’d killed her during a fight. In my panic, I tried to cover up the accident and thought the police would see her death as part of their ongoing investigations. This is all supposition, of course, as I can’t remember what I did. I definitely had no idea at the time of receiving the text from Sarah that she had killed Jade, Maggie and Alice. The message she sent was deleted from my phone. I must have done that too. The police are working on trying to get it back. That should help my defence.
Sarah’s therapist supports the suicide theory. He told the police that after rehab she must have been overwhelmed with an intense sense of hopelessness when she realised what she’d done as a sober person. Put that with being unable to help me and it had created the kind of despair that saw her take her own life.
The police couldn’t put the other murders together at first because it really had nothing to do with online dating and everything to do with me. I was the connection. All three women were linked to me or friends of mine on Facebook. Sarah simply used the dating app with a false identity to start a conversation with them. She was never after a sexual relationship; she just wanted to get them alone in a bar so she could drug them which allowed her to strangle them.
Her motivation could have been as fundamental as seeking attention from me, but the sad reality is that I’d only met Maggie Horrocks once, and the other two were just friends of friends, people I’d never met. The Milk Tray had been sent by Sarah too, in a bid to make me think of the past and what I’d lost. She had become a woman obsessed with fixing me instead of fixing herself, and had externalised the process after being left to her own devices without the proper follow-on care. I might have been able to help her if I’d responded to her messages, but we’ll never know now.
The police had the diary analysed by a string of professionals, who all said the same thing. That Sarah Wilcox showed signs of obsessive behaviour towards me. The fact that she had moved to within half a mile of where I lived and rented a flat in my name had sealed that theory for them. After that, they spoke to Mr Wilcox and discovered that she had seen a child psychologist when she was eight, but denial in the family had prevented further sessions that could have turned her life around.
It was noted in her file from that time that Sarah had displayed psychopathic tendencies, expressing a desire to kill her mother. Her parents knew she was only nine years old when she started drinking, but they didn’t stop it because it had ironically turned her into a better person by suppressing those evil thoughts.
I’m an alcoholic and I have no control over alcohol. I wish I had been able to say that a year ago, because if I had, none of this would have happened and four bright, amazing women might not have died. It’s hard to know what might have happened to Sarah had she had the proper care she needed post-rehab; I like to think she could have made a full recovery. My therapist told me that she was thrown into sobriety too quickly without a loving, nurturing carer to help her face her past in a safe environment, which had left her fractured mind extremely vulnerable to the past traumas she had started to recall.
I’m an alcoholic and powerless over alcohol. I can say that now, but it took me being arrested for murder to admit it to myself. The police agreed to change the charges to preventing the lawful burial of a body, which can carry a heavy sentence, but I might get away with a fine because of the suicide theory.
The irony is that I now have upwards of two million Twitter followers, having embraced my alcoholism and told my story, a number that will surely only grow because I am going to write a book about my addiction and where it got me. Greg has been in touch to tell me how proud he is of me and that he hopes the trial goes well. Who knows what the future holds on that score. I’m trying to stay in the present and take it one day at a time, something Sarah was unable to do because her fractured mind pushed her between two worlds, past traumas and present frustrations.
I’m an alcoholic whose deep denial caused the deaths of four women, and for that I am eternally sorry and promise never to drink again.
Who are you?
Acknowledgements
I’d like to say a massive thank you to Steph, Laura, Rod, Rob, Seun, Jamie and David Y, who in the early days gave me critical feedback and support to get this book off the ground. To Pete for brainstorming wi
th me over many many cups of tea. To Ivan who believed in it from its conception. To Cathal. To Sara who pushed me onwards with her genuine enthusiasm and Donna who got me closer to the finish line. To Tricia and Danielle who spurred me on when I lost the plot. To Russell. To Nigel who helped me through an incredibly tough time. To my brother Adam and his crew. To Marie. To David L. To Fatih for being a friend for life. To Nadene. To Alex who has supported my writing with conviction. To the CWA. To my colleagues in BBC Newsgathering who have always shown enthusiasm for my writing endeavours. To George. To Sinead. To Alan. To Caroline. To Guney. To the Al-Anon family. To everyone at Canelo for being so supportive and excited at the prospect of bringing this story to light. And lastly but not least, to Amber and crew, who continue to inspire me and make me believe that the future is brighter.
About the Author
Jody Sabral is based between the South Coast and London, where she works as a Foreign Desk editor and video producer at the BBC. She is a graduate of the MA in Crime Fiction at City University, London. Jody worked as a journalist in Turkey for ten years, covering the region for various international broadcasters. She self-published her first book Changing Borders in 2012 and won the CWA Debut Dagger in 2014 for her second novel The Movement. In addition to working for the BBC, Jody also writes for the Huffington Post, Al–Monitor and Brics Post.
You can always trust your best friend… can’t you?
‘A tense, pulse-quickening tale. If you read the first chapter, you can’t help but read the second. I flew through this perfect summer read of best friends in turmoil in one feverish session.’ Paula Daly
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First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Canelo