Invisible (27 page)

‘People will think you’re
supporting that man,’ Mum insisted. In that one sentence alone her voice had
gone from reasonable
to
worked
up. Dad put a soothing hand on her forearm to stop her from saying more.

‘Honestly, what he’s put those
poor families through. And then to make them give evidence, re-live it all…’
she hiccupped, tears making her squeak. Then she ran from the room, crying, Dad
going after her.

As I retreated once again
under my duvet and pulled it over my head to soften the sound of Mum blowing
her nose, I thought about what she’d said. Why is Daryl pleading innocent? I
don’t get it. What can someone who is so obviously guilty get out of pretending
he didn’t do it?

The image of his taunting
shark’s grin as he’d mouthed ‘I love you’ to me that one last time flashed into
my mind.
Of course.
It was that obvious, that simple, and
that demonic. He wants to taunt those women too, and their families. He wants
to relive his glory one last time, exerting power over them once more.

Twisted, evil sicko.
That’s my husband.

Suddenly I flung the duvet
back and with a grunt I hauled myself upright and marched to the phone.
Dialed before I could change my mind.
It rang a couple of
times before a voice that always makes me tense up answered: Daryl’s mum.

‘How did you know and I
didn’t?’ No preliminaries, no introduction, we didn’t need it.

‘Oh, hello,’ sighed Cynthia.
‘How did I know what, dear?’

Patronising
cow.
‘How did you know your son
was guilty? I didn’t. I had no idea; I thought he was innocent.’ Each word shot
out like machine gun fire. ‘I take it you did know, from the way you’ve wanted
nothing to do with him since his arrest.’

‘He’s…’ she stretched the word
out, thinking. ‘He’s never been right. That’s the only way I can describe him.
When I heard what he was accused of, it confirmed everything I’ve ever
suspected of him, I’m afraid.’

‘And you never thought to warn
me?’

‘Dear, that’s not my place.
For all I knew, you were fully aware of his defects and chose to be with him
anyway. Perhaps you even liked them.’

‘Fine, great, thank you for
the information,’ I stormed, about to launch into a full-on tirade.

‘Please,’ she interjected
calmly, ‘don’t call me again. This is painful enough. Good luck for the future,
dear. Goodbye.’

Now I’m back under the duvet
trying to figure out how this living nightmare started.
Was
Daryl damaged irreversibly by his cold mum? Or did his mum withdraw from Daryl
when she realised she’d given birth to someone so utterly broken?

And would it make any difference if I had the answers?

There’s another obvious
question too. How could I have been so stupid? I skim read the newspapers and
assumed that Daryl had a cast iron alibi for the murder. I was in so much
denial that if someone had held a piece of chalk up to my face I’d have sworn
it was black not white if it had meant Daryl was innocent. Now I can finally
see what was so
searingly
, staggeringly obvious to
the rest of the whole world: Daryl’s guilty as sin. I was so blind.

Monday 18

This morning I lay on my
mattress for some time staring at the ceiling, occasionally stealing glances at
the alarm clock. Was it time to get up yet? No, I could wait another couple of
minutes.
Then another couple of minutes.
And another.
Until finally I was reduced
to telling myself that I’d get up once I’d counted to twenty…five.

Eventually I pulled myself
together and got up, dressed, and ready for court. Dad stopped speaking to Mum
as I appeared in my suit and he set down his
cuppa
;
clearly they’d been discussing me. He cleared his throat.

‘You’re definitely going
then.’
Less a question, more a statement.
His short,
clever fingers ran round the handle of his mug, a nervous habit he can’t seem
to break.

I nodded, smoothed the front
of my skirt down,
then
picked up the car keys. I know
they think I’m nuts and I couldn’t face a conversation about this.

‘At least let me do you a
decent breakfast to face the day,’ sighed Mum, jumping up. Ah, they must have
decided arguing with me was useless.

‘Umm, no thanks.
Just a coffee for me,’ I said, wrinkling my nose. The thought of food
making my stomach churn uncomfortably.

‘You’ve got to eat,
sweetheart…’

‘Just a coffee.
Thanks,
Mum.’

I only took one big, scalding
gulp, just to show willing, then hurried from the house, with Mum calling after
me, ‘We’ll order you a new bed while you’re out, love.’

‘Don’t bother, honestly,’ I
shouted back, slamming the door shut. Somewhere to sleep is the last thing on
my mind currently.

The
defence
started their case today. Really, what hope do they have? At long last I can
now understand their reticence about revealing their strategy to me.

Daryl was going to give
evidence but I’ve heard a
rumour
that his
defence
team encouraged him not to. Good, because it’s more
than I could stand, the thought of seeing him try to lie his way out of this,
spinning that mesmeric web of his until I can fight no longer and somehow,
against logic and all evidence to the contrary, I fall under his spell of
confusion, misdirection and half-truths. I’d go mad.
Even
madder than I already am.

With no character witnesses
willing to speak out on his behalf either, his barrister was forced to immediately
bring out the big guns. In this case, a consultant psychologist who was willing
to somehow justify what he’d done and
tell
everyone
that basically he needed a hug rather than punishment. What rubbish.

Because it turns out that this
is
all my
fault.

‘It is your opinion that the accused isn’t responsible
for his actions. That, unable to handle his emotions when he was put under
pressure, he acted out in the only way he knew how; is that correct?’ put his
QC.

The psychologist tucked her raven black hair behind one
ear and nodded seriously. ‘Yes, and for that reason, simply put, he lacks the
capacity to comprehend what he has done.’

A dismayed murmur ran through the court, everyone
realising that this was a play to get Daryl’s sentence reduced. Remembering the
sick smile that I’d seen momentarily on his face while hearing evidence, it
took everything I’d got not to shout: ‘oh yeah, if he doesn’t comprehend what
he’s done, how come he looks like he’s enjoying himself so much?’

‘Order please,’ insisted the judge.
‘Quiet
in court.’

The barrister took a moment
then turned to the expert witness again. ‘Can you talk us through how this
occurred?’

‘Certainly.
Through a series of conversation with the accused I built up a picture
of his character and emotional make up, and also used his wife’s diary as a
reference.’

My heart jumped painfully. She
was actually going to use my own words to back up her tin pot theories. I’d
handed it over days after the arrest in order to prove Daryl’s innocence, now
it felt like it was being used against me.

‘You will hear that he was
under a lot of pressure to start a family, something he didn’t want to do, and
this I believe was the stressor that triggered the spree,’ she added.

Hold
on,
hold on, what’s so terrible about wanting to start a family?

‘Throughout the diary there
are references to the accused’s sexual dysfunction. This will have affected the
relationship deeply. He will have felt that he was letting his wife down, the
rage building inside him. That, in addition to his feeling of losing control of
his life because he doesn’t want children, will have created a powder keg of
emotion that would not take much to explode.’

‘Can you talk us through the
first attack, please?’

‘Yes, this was clearly
unplanned as it happened just miles away from his home. This indicates that he
was out of control, acting on instinct. Then there is the level of violence
involved and the lack of sophistication in his approach; this lack of finesse
shows it was, as I have said, an explosion of emotion.’

Lack of sophistication?
What did she mean; that he wasn’t using chat up lines or something?

‘The third rape is a
particularly good illustration of the relationship between the accused and his
spouse,’ she continued. ‘By now he has perfected his technique, which has
become much more controlled – he is regaining the control in the rapes that he
feels he has lost in life. The language he uses during the attacks really shows
this; he is cool, calm, emotionally detached almost as he tells the women what
he thinks of them.’

Then she read from a paper
Daryl’s words.
‘
Listen, whore, I’m not going to lie,
this is going to be very bad. But if you behave, you’ll be fine. If you’re a
stupid cunt and don’t behave…well, you know what the consequences will be,
don’t you?’

‘After the third attack, he
feels so happy and confident in his actions that he even calls his wife and
talks cheerfully to her,’ the psychologist explained. ‘She describes him as
being
“happy to hear my voice”
despite it being 2am. She says
“
he was in a really good mood; the kind
of mood that’s contagious. Honestly, when he’s like that being near him is like
being near the sun”.’

I winced at the words. Remembering that feeling, that
person, that innocence I had… Ignorance really was bliss, but now I couldn’t
believe I’d ever been that stupid.

Still the psychologist’s
voice boomed out confidently across the court room. She must have taken lessons
in public speaking or something, because she certainly knew how to project.
There was no chance of blocking her out…

‘Rape number four occurred
after the accused and his wife argued. Again, this will have triggered his feelings
of uncontrollable rage. The following day, thanks to his purge, he called his
wife and apologised to her for his behaviour during arguments. This proves that
only his release allows him to handle his relationship.’

Right, so the only thing
keeping us together was rape and violence? I’m so awful to be married to that I
forced him to do those things? And I love her euphemistic terms for rape, by
the way: ‘purge’ and ‘release’.
Purlease
.

Daryl’s lawyer prompted his witness again. ‘I’d now like
to ask you about poor Julie
Scrivens’s
murder.
According to the diary, there doesn’t seem to have been any arguments in the
accused’s household. This doesn’t seem to fit into the pattern you’ve
described. Can you explain that?’

‘The murder is different,’ she nodded pensively, shiny
black bob swinging. ‘I believe that by this stage the accused was completely
out of control. He was able to stop the attacks for some time, given that
previously they’d been occurring around once a month or more, then suddenly
there is an extended break of two months because his marriage is less
tumultuous.’

There it was again, the dig at me. I didn’t know whether
to feel ashamed at myself, or furious at her. It’s not really my fault is it?
Is it? Oh God, what if it is…

‘But it’s no longer enough for him. He needs the thrill
of the crimes,’ the psychologist nodded more enthusiastically, really warming
to her theme now. ‘In addition, he is still suffering from erectile dysfunction
issues within his marriage, and the only time he seems properly able to have
full penetrative sex is during his crimes, when re-enacting them with his wife,
or in the immediate aftermath of them when he is probably re-playing them in
his mind.

‘My theory about the trigger for the escalation from rape
to murder is that he was unable to achieve erection during the attack – a post
mortem showed Mrs
Scrivens
was not raped.

‘One of his previous victims does mention that at one
point during her attack he was unable to perform a second time, and this
prompted a rage in him which resulted in her receiving a severe beating from
him.
 

‘I believe this happened again, but that this time he was
so furious that he completely lost control – in the very situation he has
created in order to feel control. His unleashed fury was catastrophic for his
victim.’

You can say that again.

But she had more on the subject. ‘The diary mentions that
when he arrived home that night, immediately after the attack, he vomited. The
following day he agrees to the very thing he dreads the most – having a child.
These actions are clear illustrations of his panic…and most importantly his
remorse.’

‘No!’ came a shout to the right of me. Julie’s husband
was shaking his head, furious. ‘He’s a
monster,
he
doesn’t care what he’s done.’