Deception aka Sanctum

by Denise Mina

  I find I’m rewinding the tape to the start each time on the pretext that I need to check if I’m getting it down correctly. But as it plays, I’m not reading what I’ve written, I’m just glazing over and losing myself in the texture of her voice. I wonder if Susie wished herself up here when she was downstairs with me. And if she did, who was in here waiting for her?

  I got another letter from her this morning. It’s longer than the first but just as cagey. She tells me she’s been seen by the psychiatrist and he’s drawing up the report about her. The sooner we get to sentencing, the sooner we can start the appeal. It must be weird being assessed by a colleague. She’ll almost certainly know them, at least vaguely. She’s sounding less shocked, although it still doesn’t sound like her. The letter is stiff and formal, as though she’s trying to pass on a coded message. But then we’ve never written to each other, so maybe that’s just her writing style. I asked her to phone me. She still hasn’t and doesn’t even mention it in the letter.

  * * *

  I rewind the tape for a moment and press play: “… are generally middle-class white teenagers. Same thing. That luxury of distance.”

  The interviewer asks a long question.

  “We screen all potential visitors to make sure that the prisoner hasn’t misrepresented himself. Also, we need to know that the new visitor won’t try to kill the men they’re visiting. Yes, it is. It’s a very real worry actually.

  “I had been in charge of screening his letters. The law’s changing and we won’t be able to read their mail for much longer. It’s an important security function at the moment. Strangers get in touch with them, and they don’t always wish them well, I’m sure you can imagine.

  “Donna’d written four letters to Gow, and they were fine, nothing untoward. Declarations of love from the first letter… not smutty. Some of the unsolicited letters are very smutty. Donna’s sounded like a child writing to someone she had a crush on. Her letters are published on his website, so I’m not breaking a confidence. Stevie Ray, Gow’s manager, he scanned them in.”

  Susie had told me about the letters to Gow. Apparently a lot of women sent in pornographic photographs of themselves, and some of their letters were filthy. But Donna wrote about love and loving him and how she’d known he was the only man for her for years. You can see the picture she sent him of herself. It was published in one of the magazine articles. She seems sad and is wearing a crucifix, but she’s also managing to show quite a lot of tit.

  Mumbled question.

  “So, yeah, she seemed reasonable enough. How sensible is anyone who writes unprompted love letters to a self-confessed serial killer? Actually, when I interviewed her, I was surprised by how bright she was. She’s intelligent, has a quick mind, and she’s quite well read, too. Strange accent- have you heard her speak? Donna saw his picture in the paper at a time when she was vulnerable herself. You know about her father? He died two months before… No, two months before she wrote to Gow.” [She sounds exasperated.] “Honest to God, have you done any background work on this? Well, you won’t get very far doing that.”

  I suddenly understand why the journalist wished her ill. She sounds so contemptuous. She used to talk to me about my writing using just that voice. It sounded like she was being a cheeky cow, but she is just a very practical person, very goal-oriented. She doesn’t understand anyone pursuing a career with an uncertain outcome, or doing anything just because you enjoy the process.

  “The background is that Donna’s mother died in childhood and she was raised by her father. He was very authoritarian, a strict Catholic, and was routinely violent to her. He broke her collarbone when she was seven. She married young. Then, when her father had a stroke, Donna and her husband moved back in with him. Both men were violent to her.”

  Susie moves in her chair, bends forward or something. The waistband on her skirt gently squeezes a breath from her as it contracts on her smooth, down-dusted belly. She lets out a sigh so small, so intimate, it makes me want to cry. It’s as if she’s brushing her lips past my ear, a small breath easing from her throat, past the palate, brushing between her lips, and out. She takes in a tiny rasping breath to compensate before she carries on, and when she does, her voice has changed. She’s giving a lecture, a tutorial report, regurgitating information. She is hesitant, not because she is unsure, never that, but because she is summarizing, compressing, simplifying.

  “She threw her husband out, got a restraining order against him, and her father died shortly afterward. A few months later she wrote her first letter to Gow. It may have prompted her to write to him, actually. A cross between a relief and a grief reaction.”

  The interviewer says something.

  “I don’t know about Donna. I wouldn’t like to guess. What I can say is that there may be a number of different motives at play in prison-romance situations. They might just be romantic, or the women could be religious and approach the prisoner because they’re looking for someone to save. Or they might be looking to get something off the prisoner, like money or attention or vicarious celebrity.

  “Of course some of them are just sickos who fancy killers. We try and weed those out at as early a stage as possible. It’s a very negative sort of contact for the men to have. It reinforces their justifications for their crimes, especially if the crime has a sexual element. It buoys up the delusion that the victims are complicit… No, ‘sicko’ isn’t a technical term, but everyone understands it, don’t they? I can give you the clinical term if you like: hubristophilia. Doesn’t clear it up more than ‘sicko,’ does it? Hubristophilia is an attraction to someone who has committed outrages on other people. Some women view it as very masculine to have done something like that. Perhaps the ultimate expression of masculinity.”

  He asks, “Do you?” His voice is as clear as mine. He’s sitting next to her now, facing the same way as her, and his larynx sounds compressed, as though he’s sitting back and is relaxed. They seem to be getting on quite well now. Susie’s flirting with him, and I can picture her leaning forward, sipping at her drink.

  “No. [She sounds very sure.] That’s an insulting construction of masculinity. It’s a fearful construction. It’s focusing on the most appalling aspects of gender-stereotyped behavior and making it the core. Like passive-aggressiveness in women, or compulsive cleaning.”

  I wonder why the interviewer didn’t mention this part of the conversation in his evidence to the court. Susie specifically says she didn’t find Gow attractive. Or she says she didn’t find the violence attractive. It could have a bearing on the appeal. I think it might be worth my bringing this to Fitzgerald’s attention.

  “I need the loo,” Susie says on the tape. She seems to lean forward, letting out another tiny sigh, and the tape stops.

  It starts again abruptly, and her voice sounds lighter because she’s had a break.

  “These jail romances are very much an active search by the women for a partner within that community. If they’re approaching a famous prisoner, they’ll send an introductory letter, and if they get a response, they’re off and running with an imaginary love affair. The hubristophiliacs show themselves pretty quickly. They always ask for details of the crimes. The more benignly inspired correspondents can get all the way to a visit, but visits are fraught, especially first ones. If they turn up, they might not go in to the visit.

  “If they do go in, they’re always surprised at the guy’s ordinariness. Once they discover that the man has a spark of humanity, say he likes dogs or his granny or collects stamps, well then, the visitors ascribe all sorts of lovely qualities to him. A woman goes in expecting Attila the Hun, minus the charm, and he is so much better than she expected. Mind-blowingly better. She’s awash with relief in his presence and she mistakes it for love. The impression that he is supernice isn’t contradicted by reality because they never live together and they rarely meet. It’s perfect for a fantasist: it’s a reality-proof romance.

  “Of course, a lot of it is that they’re cel
ebrities and that gives everything prisoners do a rosy glow, even brutal murders. Attaching themselves is a way for the women to achieve a higher social status. It may even be a way of committing vicarious murder. If they’re very angry and have contemplated murder themselves but haven’t done anything, it helps them understand the urge, helps them normalize and excuse it.”

  Susie really knows what she’s talking about, but the interviewer doesn’t seem to be listening. “Are the letters any good?” he asks, “Or are they full of pervy stuff?” He sounds very smug and nasty and stupid and unthinking. I remember suddenly that he’s pals with Morris and may share his creepy attitude toward women.

  “They’re private,” says Susie, squeaking across the leather settee. Away from him, I hope, and I want to kiss her for it. The journalist asks why Donna would have written to him in the first place. Susie can’t say for sure. I stop the tape and rewind. She makes this strange whung noise, and then her voice sounds higher. I wonder whether his hand is on her knee or something. I rewind again. She sounds odd but carries on talking. I’m sure she’d have said fuck off if he’d done something she disapproved of. It must just be the mention of Donna. When she says her name in the next sentence, her voice cracks, showing the strain.

  “I think Donna identifies with Gow as a vilified figure, as an underdog, and feels that she, uniquely, can understand his pain. More pressingly, he fits the pattern of violent men she’s familiar with and attracted to. It’s smart really, if you think about it. She’s attracted to violent men, can’t resolve it, and so she reaches a compromise by choosing someone violent who happens to be imprisoned forever and can’t get to her.”

  It doesn’t sound as if she hates Donna when they talk about her properly, but the journalist didn’t mention this bit of the conversation. I should ask Fitzgerald if he wants this tape. That journalist’s evidence was definitely prejudicial.

  I turn off the tape, tip the chair back, and look up out of the skylight. Why would Susie think about prison marriages so much? It doesn’t happen that often. In all the time she has worked at Sunnyfields, only one other prisoner requested permission to marry, and the wedding fell through because the bride got drunk and took a weekend trip to Oban instead. But the books on the shelf have long indecipherable notes in the margins, whole paragraphs underlined, and she’s thought enough about Gow’s relationship with Donna to distill all that information and explain it in small sentences to a journalist.

  The waiter comes back and puts some china down on the table. He states a price and thanks the man. The interviewer asks: “How can these women, like, get romantic with guys when they’ve done such, like, mad things to other women? What would you say to those people who’d say it’s all really pervy?”

  He keeps saying that word, as if he thinks all sex is wrong. It makes me think he’s never had sex, or has no penis, or is sexually compromised in some giant way. But maybe it’s just that he’s sitting next to my wife in her sexy suit and I’m not and I dearly wish he had no penis, or at least wasn’t pals with Morris, who’s a bit of a cripple-dick himself.

  “Overtly, none of the women believe their boyfriends are guilty. If the evidence is undeniable, they think up mitigating factors. But deep down, most of them know the man did commit the crime and that blood lust is enormously erotic to them. Even the religiously motivated ones are attracted to the violence. Think about it: that entire connection is contingent on the sinful behavior of the prisoner. They never target Social Security frauds, do they?

  “In some way all the women who get involved with these men are religious really, all hoping to be that one special lady who changes him. They think if they make enough effort, are feminine enough, groom themselves, keep a clean house, they can make it work. What they don’t realize is the pattern is already set.”

  Susie realizes that she’s rambling. She sits back and coughs, asks the interviewer if she should go on. There is a silence; perhaps he’s writing.

  “Yeah… uh-huh… go on.”

  “Well, you see, the solution to violent men isn’t to alter the stimulus; it’s to effect change in the actor.”

  “You mean the women are being stupid?”

  “No, no, no, it’s not stupidity. It’s much deeper than that. It’s a quasi-religious belief: be good and God will favor you. It’s redemption through another’s eyes.”

  Even I’m cringing now. She’s obviously rehearsed that spontaneous observation and it comes out sounding hollow and stagy. I know she’s smirking as she says this last bit. I can hear her swallow another mouthful of drink, and I realize suddenly that she’s been drinking wine and is a bit tipsy.

  “The men are blank canvases for them to imagine onto. It’s love blindness in extremis. But that’s true for all of us, isn’t it? Isn’t that what love is? Fantasy projection? Ignoring the facts until you’re too committed to get out.”

  chapter seven

  I CAN’T BRING MYSELF TO REPLY TO SUSIE’S LETTER. I COULDN’T say all the bland things she wants me to say: things are fine, I am well, much love, well done, get well soon.

  What the fuck was she doing in Cape Wrath? I wonder about the details that don’t fit. If she did go up there to save Donna, why didn’t she phone the police when she saw Gow’s body? Instead of phoning the police, she went into the hotel and ordered a large whiskey. She was there for thirty-five minutes and didn’t alert anyone.

  She was slightly nervous when Gow was released, I remember that, but she’d been sacked only two months or so previously, and I thought his appeal was a reminder.

  She went straight into the kitchen the night she was sacked; she didn’t come into the front room with me and Margie. She didn’t even reply when I called her. I found her at the table, drinking our second-best brandy and smoking a cigarette indoors. I knew something big had happened.

  I was pleased when Susie told me she’d been sacked. Finally, I thought, we’ll get to spend days and days together. I can show her what I do all day, introduce her to my small enjoyments; she’ll slow down. We’d be all right for money; we could live on the interest and I could work again if we ran short. Let’s travel together, I said. Let’s get another nanny and go and see Africa or China together before we’re too old.

  “There are things”- Susie squeezed my fingers together, pressing the knuckles so tight it hurt-“things you don’t know about, Lachie.” Her eyes overflowed and she climbed onto my knee, pressing her face into my neck to hide the tears. I held her, felt her rib cage deflate, stroked her bony little back as she struggled to breathe in. I held her until she caught her breath again and she called me her Lachie. I remember that strong, possessive feeling, that she was my girl, that no one could give her this sort of comfort but me. At the time, I thought to myself, I’m not a completely useless bastard after all.

  She had told me that, despite all the public pressure, Gow would never get out because her risk assessment of him was so bad. She was shaken when they sacked her, because she knew they’d get her replacement to do another RA. Gow’s lawyer could easily argue that her report was biased because she’d been accused of stealing his files. But she wasn’t scared when Gow did get out. She didn’t introduce any new security measures to the house and said, “Nah,” when I asked whether we should get rid of the decoy box and buy an actual alarm. Did she think he’d hurt Donna? Was she afraid he’d hurt other women? I must ask her when I visit.

  I think she was more afraid when Donna and Gow went missing than when he got out. They had disappeared for over a week before the call. All our phone records show is a forty-second call from the hotel in Durness, and then Susie took off.

  * * *

  I mustn’t give in to this insistent self-pity. Yesterday evening was the zenith. After tea I went into an apoplexy of miserable self-loathing: I ate a whole box of Celebrations in front of the television and almost choked on the irony. Yeni had put Margie to bed by the time I finished the chocolates, and I suddenly felt that I was missing her growing up. I went upstair
s and stood by her bedroom door, looking in at her sleeping. I stood there, wishing I was less ineffectual, until I realized that nothing could be more ineffectual than standing about in dim halls, wishing I was otherwise. If I were a friend of mine, I’d give me a slap.

  At the start of all this, when Susie was first arrested, I promised myself that I’d be a good man. I promised I’d put my own feelings aside and attend to those of my family, but time and time again I find it’s beyond me. The whole thing has been so emasculating: having the mother of my child taken from me, then sitting in the court like a spare prick, listening to the prosecution suggest that she was in love with Gow. It makes me so angry. I have an urge to go about smashing people in the face just to prove I’m still here, still making my stamp on the world, still a man.

  I phoned Susie’s colleague Harvey Tucker again, but he wasn’t in. I need to talk to him. Tucker didn’t pick up this time, but he must have the message by now. He obviously doesn’t want to talk to me. I left a message saying I wasn’t angry or anything. Just wanted to ask him a couple of things to set my mind at rest. He still hasn’t called back. Maybe I could use Gow’s prison files as an inducement to Tucker to get in touch; I could promise him a swap.

  The disk that’s with the prison files has a list of people who had contacted Gow in the past two years, like Stevie Ray and Donna. The entries have notes next to them like “letter, sexual content,” “letter, request to visit,” and then the final disposition like “no action,” “visit,” “Gow refusal,” or “Scottish Prison Department refusal.” Some of the correspondents wrote three or four times. One of them wrote twenty-three times, every one of them an “admiring letter, violent content” with a request to visit. Interestingly, it was Gow who kept refusing the visit. Even rapist serial killers must find some people distasteful, I suppose.