by Claire Askew
‘Get out of my house!’ Her voice sounded like broken metal, high-pitched and scraping. ‘You don’t care about my daughter – you only care about what you can get! You people are all vultures—’
She felt Aidan’s hand close around her arm, and Reh tumbled into view behind Lockley.
‘Oh, I care all right,’ Lockley said. His face had darkened: the smile was gone. ‘I care about finding out the truth – about making sure that people have the facts. And let me tell you, Mrs Hodgekiss . . . I’m hearing some truths about your daughter that might just shock you.’
Behind Lockley, Rehan was speaking rapidly into his mobile phone. Ishbel caught the words immediate back-up, and the journalist did, too. He wheeled round.
‘All right, I’m going!’ He held his hands up over his head, as though Reh might shoot him. ‘You should tell the cavalry to stand down, unless you want a story about yet more wasted police funds.’
Lockley raised his voice, so whoever Rehan was talking to on the phone could also hear him.
‘You can’t get me for anything,’ he said. ‘Breaking and entering won’t stick – Aidan here practically held the door open for me! And now I’m going.’
‘Good,’ Aidan said. His grip on Ishbel’s arm was painful, she realised, but she was also glad of it. Her heart spat and popped in the furnace of her chest. Maybe it was indiscriminate. She was just the person closest to him.
Lockley shimmied past Rehan, and turned his back on the three of them. He stopped, and looked back over his shoulder, right at Ishbel. The spike of fear he’d shown in the face of Rehan’s call for assistance was gone as soon as it had come.
‘You’ll hear from me again,’ he said, and was gone.
Ishbel’s pulse was battering away, like a loose door in a high wind. For the first time in a week, she felt fully awake, and the pain of Abigail’s absence felt so acute that she could barely stand. Rehan was still speaking into his mobile phone – more gently now, explaining what had happened. Aidan was still a pace or two in front of her: he’d turned slightly to watch Lockley flee out of the front door and down the garden into the security of the paparazzi gaggle. Ishbel could see a vein standing out on the side of her husband’s neck, the blood flashing through it in time with her own racing pulse.
‘The nerve,’ he hissed. Rehan looked up.
‘I’m sorry, Aidan,’ he said. ‘Both of you, I’m sorry – you shouldn’t have had to deal with that intrusion.’
But Aidan was looking past Rehan, at the door that Lockley had slammed behind him.
‘If anyone’s going to sort this out,’ Aidan said, mimicking the journalist’s sibilant tone, ‘it’ll be me.’
He turned, and without looking at her, walked past her into the kitchen. Her legs began to give out, and she sank onto the faded sofa. Outside in the garden, she could hear the paparazzi’s distant laughter, and Rehan’s quiet phone voice in the hall. But mostly, the room was full of Aidan’s rage: she fancied she could hear it buzz, like static – an extra layer of noise on the edge of everything.
Murderer’s mother released from custody – they say she’s innocent, but there’s blood on her hands
By GRANT LOCKLEY
PUBLISHED: 10:55 21 May
Good news today for Moira Summers, mother of the depraved Three Rivers College murderer Ryan Summers. She’s getting to go home.
Mrs Summers is due to leave the former Lothian and Borders Police Headquarters on Fettes Avenue this morning. From there she will be transported – with a police escort, would you believe – to the Summers family home in Edinburgh’s New Town.
Mrs Summers has been ‘assisting police with their enquiries’ – that’s what they’re calling it, anyway – for almost a week. I know I’m not the only one who’s been shocked at the fact that no charges have been brought against her. It is believed that for some of that time she has been in protective custody following a string of anonymous death and rape threats made towards her.
As a result, the Summers house is currently being guarded by uniformed police officers round the clock, thanks to the contributions of the British taxpayer. I don’t think it’s overly cruel of me to believe that Mrs Summers really does deserve whatever angry words the public might wish to fling at her. I also believe that it is ludicrous for our hard-earned taxes to be spent on protecting her from what are, most likely, empty threats made by people who just want to get that totally understandable anger off their chest. I mean, who among us would not have some choice words for this woman, were we to run into her in the street?
Related reading: is the truth about Three Rivers College being covered up while the taxpayer foots the bill?
One week on from the horrific shooting, and we are still no closer to knowing why Moira Summers’ only son, 20-year-old Ryan, went on a killing rampage that left thirteen of his female classmates dead and many others injured.
Many have speculated – myself included – that Mrs Summers must have had some idea that her son was planning to commit the terrible crime. It’s certainly interesting that, very soon after news of the shooting broke, Mrs Summers hired the services of top defence lawyer Anjan Chaudhry, allegedly one of the best criminal lawyers in the business. This columnist asks: does that seem like the action of an innocent woman?
If Mrs Summers did indeed have some idea that her psychotic son was planning to gun down his classmates in cold blood, then she must be held accountable – and, in my view, treated as an accomplice to murder.
Take our poll: do you think Moira Summers suspected her son in the run-up to the Three Rivers shooting? Have your say here
In related news, a statement was made to the press earlier today by Aidan Hodgekiss, the father of one of Ryan Summers’ innocent victims. Abigail Hodgekiss, who was 19 and a drama student at Three Rivers College, was the first person to die by Summers’ hand. Mr Hodgekiss is the first of the victims’ loved ones to speak publicly since the shooting took place.
In his statement, Mr Hodgekiss said that he and his wife ‘cannot find the words to express our grief in the wake of this terrible tragedy’. He added, ‘Because of the unspeakable anger and hatred of one man – Ryan Summers – we will forever be denied our chance to meet the woman she [Abigail] would have grown into.’
Victim’s dad Aidan Hodgekiss’s emotional public statement: read it in full here
Mr Hodgekiss’s wife Ishbel, who works as a social care regulator, did not appear in front of the cameras today. Her husband – a dentist – spoke on behalf of the whole family when he thanked the general public for ‘the great outpouring of sympathy that has been extended by the people of this country, and the world’.
Mrs Hodgekiss is perhaps shunning the limelight because this tragedy has taken a toll on her mental and physical health. This columnist had the opportunity to speak briefly with her today, and she seems to be almost delirious with grief over the death of the couple’s only daughter.
Mrs Hodgekiss’s demeanour begs the question: to what extent can a loved one get over a tragedy of this magnitude? Will Ishbel Hodgekiss ever be able to return to her high-powered career in a field where nuance is everything? Or has Ryan Summers taken that away from her, too?
See more from Grant Lockley
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TOP COMMENTS
isjusticejustICE Having watched the Aidan Hodgekiss statement on Youtube . . . surely I can’t be the only one who thinks . . . he doesn’t seem very upset? If his wife has lost her marbles that’s much more understandable.
^ 16 people liked this
StillYes45 Surely Police Scotland will investigate Moira S further? Cannot believe her story. Says she didn’t know about the guns, didn’t know about the plan, didn’t know anything was going on with her son? I smell a rat.
^ 29 people liked this
SAPPERGEO Three Rivers was a set up!!! False flag event, Ryan Summers is still alive. Wake up at truthunifies.com
^ 31 people liked this
21
May, 5.35 p.m.
To whom it may concern,
Dear world,
Dear everyone,
Dear reader,
Dear Reader,
Reader,
I don’t think I need to introduce myself. You already know my name. Or if you don’t, then you know my son’s name. My son is the boy man who, just a few short days ago – though already that passed time feels like years – walked into the canteen at the Tweed Campus of Three Rivers College, and opened fire on his friends and classmates. He killed thirteen young women. His name is was Ryan Summers, and I am his mother.
Why am I writing to you? That’s a good question. Someone told me that ‘the open letter’ was the latest way to say what you feel. Over the past few days, I’ve been told many times that I should repent apologise for ever creating the boy man who is was my son. I can’t do that. For twenty years, Ryan was my only child and he always brought great joy to But what I can do is apologise for what he did his selfish acts the horrendous acts he has committed. I want to say sorry to the families of the girls young women who were killed. I know that these young women were each, in their own way, brilliant and gifted, just starting out with their studies, just starting out with their lives. My son Ryan took away so much when he killed them, and for that I apologise say: I’m sorry. I also want to say sorry to the other students and staff who were on the campus that day. I’m sorry for what you saw witnessed had to witness. And I want to say sorry to anyone else who is hurting as a result of in the aftermath of this tragedy. So many of you have told me I know that so many of you are hurting.
I want to tell you that I am hurting too. I spent almost a week inside a police station, after the shooting. I have offered up the last twenty years of my life as evidence to be picked over. I have answered the same questions dozens of times. I have been asked again and again why Ryan my son Ryan did what he did. I have said again and again that I don’t know. Like all of you, I wish I knew.
I am now at home, in the home where I raised my son, alone but for the armed policemen standing outside my front and back doors. I have lost count of the number of death threats and rape threats that have been made towards me. Even if I felt brave enough to ignore those threats, I cannot go outside without facing the dozens of representatives from the world’s press who are watching my movements day and night, blocking my road, and inconveniencing my neighbours. I will have no visitors, as no one will want to be associated with me. I can’t talk to anyone except for the police. I probably won’t even publish this letter.
Moira mashed the paper into a ball, closing her fist around it. She’d been planning the letter all day. It started in her head, in the interviews, while Anjan or the police were talking. Then she’d fleshed it out as she sat in the back of the unmarked car – dark glasses on behind the tinted windows – being driven towards this house with its spitting ring of paparazzi, news helicopters taking turns at fly-pasts over the street. Amy had advised her to pull her coat over her head, and then Amy and a uniform had guided her up the path and into the hallway, their six feet lit in a dizzying snowstorm of flash.
The tea that Amy had made her was still by her elbow, stone cold, a sheen forming round the rim.
‘The panic button’s for emergencies,’ Amy had said, placing the tea in front of her. ‘You shouldn’t need it. It’s really unlikely that anyone will try anything, not with two uniformed police standing right outside. Two scene guards will be there the whole time. They’ll change over about twice a day, but there’ll always be someone there. And you have my number, and the station number. Don’t even think twice about it if you want to talk to me – just pick up the phone. You’re my biggest priority right now, okay? Okay, Moira?’
She’d nodded, trying for a smile.
‘Oh,’ Amy had added. ‘I wouldn’t recommend going on the internet right now.’
Moira looked around. She’d been sitting at the table for what felt like a long time. Initially, after Amy left, she did nothing – just sat, listening to the shuffle and mutter of the men outside. The house had never felt this empty: no TV on, no radio, no washing machine. And there were no shuffling footsteps above her head, no clatterings: she’d never hear the sound of her teenage son, just existing somewhere in this house, ever again. She thought of the muffled gunshots from his video games – the way they had become just another part of the house’s background noise – and shuddered. She remembered times soon after Jackie had died when everything was so wholly desolate that she’d found them comforting, those sounds: the distant, constant rattle of Ryan’s simulated gunfire. She’d spent many an evening sitting on her sofa in this very room, feeling reassured by the fact that because of those sounds, she knew her boy was nearby – with her, almost. Her one precious boy: he was safe inside the four walls of the house. ‘You’re the man of the house, now,’ she’d said to him in a thin, wet voice, the day they came back from his father’s funeral. They’d stood in the hallway and she’d looked up into his face – he was so tall, it still surprised her sometimes – and tried to pick up his gaze. But Ryan kept his neck bent, his head like a rain-heavy flower, and his eyes on the ground as she pushed out the words through spit-bubbles and hot tears. She remembered feeling angry with him then: his sullen blinking back of any emotion. ‘Okay, Mum,’ he’d said at last, and she’d turned away, released him to slink off up the stairs and be alone. I should have hugged him, she thought now. The memory wedged in her ribs, like a hot blade pushed deep. She felt angry again, but the anger was turned inwards, towards her own sluggish heart. Maybe I didn’t hug him enough. If I’d only hugged him that day, or touched his arm . . . She flinched and shivered, and the memory dispersed a little, like fog. A small blessing.
Something within her itched to press the panic button Amy had left for her, just to see what happened. She couldn’t quite believe that there were people out there who might want to kill her . . . but then, she could also believe it just fine. She tried to imagine what she’d have felt if the roles were reversed – if someone else had walked into Three Rivers College that day, and killed Ryan. Would she have wanted to hurt the woman who put that person on the earth? The idea was slippery, as though coated in some sort of dark oil: she couldn’t quite keep hold of it. Could I hurt someone? she wondered. Really hurt them? She shivered so hard that the chair she was sitting on creaked. It doesn’t matter. What matters is people want to hurt you. People who don’t even know you. She’d reached for the notepad then.
But no. Of course she couldn’t write an open letter to the world – though plenty of places, she knew, would be interested in publishing it. No matter how careful her wording, someone out there would read it wrong: dissect it, and find something she hadn’t intended in between the words. Something to show she was a bad mother; that she’d birthed some sort of monster – look, this woman knew her son was evil, and she did nothing! The world had already made up its collective mind.
The police had taken the brick away before she arrived – she’d assumed it was a brick, but it could have been some other missile. They’d hammered chipboard hoarding over the window, so the room was oddly dark. She knew about the brick from watching TV news in the police station anteroom: a lull between interviews, Anjan and Amy not with her, but somewhere nearby. There was no sound on, so she’d blinked in shock as the camera panned to the front of her house: reporters milling around outside, and the hoarding already in place. The words DEATH IS TOO GOOD had been sprayed in dribbling red paint on the wood, the vandal apparently interrupted before they could finish the thought. Because she’d come in with her coat over her head, Moira had no idea if the words were still there.
The glass that had detonated into the room was still there, though, in the carpet. When they came in, Amy had begun picking it up with her bare hands – not stopping until Moira had shooed her away.
‘I’ll just get these big bits, then,’ Amy had said, dumping the shards in the kitchen bin. The carpet was still sugared with lethal glass dust. I ought
to hoover, Moira thought, but she didn’t move.
The letter was clamped inside her fist, the paper now slightly damp.
‘What did I do wrong?’ someone said. The voice was her own, only tired, and with an angry edge of something in it. ‘What did I do, Ryan? What did I do to make you do that?’
The silence in the house seemed louder now that she’d spoken into it. You know what you did, it seemed to say. She wished Jackie were here: she’d feel safer. It was a feeling she’d had a few times since he’d died, but never so acutely as right now.
‘Get a hold of yourself, Moira.’ That was better. That sounded more like her.
‘Do something,’ she said. ‘Come on. Stand up.’
As though her body had been waiting for a verbal command, she stood.
‘Good girl,’ she said. ‘Now, let’s go into the kitchen and put this infernal thing in the bin.’
She pushed open the glass door. The kitchen was darkish, too – someone had pulled down the wooden slatted blind, and swivelled it fully closed. Amy, perhaps. The triangles of glass glittered dimly as Moira toed open the pedal bin. The sweet smell of rotting food rose up: of course, the house had been empty.
‘How do I put the bins out?’ she said. A muffled voice on the other side of the kitchen’s back door responded, making her pull the air in through her teeth in a frightened whistle.
‘Mrs Summers?’
‘Yes? Who’s there?’
‘PC Phillips.’ It was a male voice. She remembered: the policemen. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’
Moira frowned.
‘No, no. I was just . . . having a little conversation with myself. I’m sorry.’
She waited for an answer, but if any answer came, she couldn’t hear it.
The letter was still in her hand, unballing itself slowly, like the bud of a peony. She found a corner and pulled, until she could see the whole page.