(2002) Deception aka Sanctum (8 page)

“I’ve booked you visits on next Friday at three and the following Wednesday at eleven,” she said. “Bring cigarettes and a transistor radio and a big PP9 battery for it.”

“Okay.” I jotted the items down on the phone pad. “Did you get my letter?”

“No.” She sounded suspicious. “Why? What does it say?”

“Nothing special, just, you know, hello. You didn’t get it?”

“I got one. Did you send two?”

“No. How often can I visit you?”

“Four hours a month. Four visits really.”

“Oh,” I said, hiding my disappointment. “At least that’s one a week.” It didn’t seem very much at all.

“Yeah. We could have one or two big ones instead, but I’d rather the one-hour ones. Gives me more to look forward to.”

I was briefly resentful at the forty-minute drive each way but pleased that I would be the high point of her week.

“How are you, Susie?” I said. “I miss you.” I had the phone pressed to my ear, my chin to my chest, and was talking quietly, privately, when suddenly a shriek on the other end made my eyes water. I dropped the receiver. It was swinging by the leg of the phone table, but I could still hear the noise of a scuffle and Susie demanding that I answer her.

“It’s frightening in here,” she said quickly. “There’s a lot of disruptive people.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, shifting the phone to the other, non-bleeding ear. “We’ll get you out of there, just hang on, Susie.” I felt quite manly saying that.

“Is Margie there?”

“Well, no. She’s just gone to the park with Yeni. I’m sorry.”

She sighed heavily, sounding like a blustery wind in the earpiece. “I wanted to talk to her,” she said, near to tears.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d phone today, I’m sorry.”

Neither of us talked for a moment. We just listened to one another breathe.

“Is she okay?” she asked.

“She’s fine,” I said. “Really fine. She’s been talking more.”

“Has she?” I heard a hopeful lift in her voice. “What’s she saying?”

“Yesterday she said ‘Teddy’ and ‘sleepy’ and ‘Yeni.’ ”

I should have known. I should have thought it through before and known how upsetting that would be, but I hadn’t planned the conversation that way at all. Susie howled. She howled from the depths of her ruined soul.

“Don’t bring her,” she bubbled when she could finally speak. “Don’t bring her to see me.”

And she hung up.

I tried phoning back, but you can’t call in to the number because it’s a pay phone. I desperately wanted to comfort her, offer to let Yeni go, anything. I’ve been carrying the phone around with me in the hope that she’d call me back, but she hasn’t. I’ve had an emotional hangover all day.

Other telephone news: Mum and Dad phoned from Marbella this evening while I was tidying up. Mum said not to worry, the papers seem to have dropped the story. So that’s all right then. They invited me out for an extended visit, and by all means, feel free to bring Margie. She’s not even two yet. I can’t leave her alone in the bath. The card they sent for her first birthday had a Monet print on it and a tenner inside. They might as well have sent her duty-free cigarettes.

* * *

I drove into town to see Fitzgerald this morning. I always expect his office to be near other lawyers, or next to the courts, or somewhere more atmospheric than an office block with a charity clothes shop next to the entrance. I took in my notes of points to query for Susie’s appeal. He didn’t seem all that interested in getting my input. He frowned as I spoke, drawing his gray eyebrows down over his eyes like duvets. I felt like a deluded idiot who’d been wasting my own time and was now intent on wasting his. I was reluctant to leave the Dictaphone tape with him in case it got lost, because he didn’t seem very concerned at all. I explained what it said anyway.

He sat me down and told me that the reports were being done on Susie. They were due to have the sentencing hearing in a few weeks, but of course I must understand that murder always meant life. He was a lot less friendly than he has been, for reasons that I can’t fathom. I’m touchy, I know I am, but it makes me feel suspicious, and I wondered briefly whether he threw the case. It’s stupid. He did very well, even the papers said he did well. I must come up with better things for him to base an appeal on. I need to work harder.

When I came home, I wrote a long letter to Susie, an encouraging letter, telling her that I’d had a good meeting with Fitzgerald. I finished it and got halfway through dialing Harvey Tucker’s number, but I hung up. He’s not going to phone me back. Even if he did, I don’t know whether I could stand to ask him about Susie. What if he tells me all the things I don’t want to hear? There’s just the faintest possibility, but it niggles me. If I’m going to find any grounds for appeal, I have to approach this with an open mind. It doesn’t really matter what I feel about Susie spending time with Gow. If she did, well then she did, but I need to know so we can answer those points in an appeal. I have to put my own feelings aside. I’m determined to make a contribution to her appeal; I want to help.

Box 1 Document 2 Notes from Susie’s Trial

Police Constable McCallum, who gave this evidence, was very young and seemed scared of the court. He gave a lot of details that I thought irrelevant. He was then quizzed about the details by both sides. This is word for word as I took it down:

PC: Mr. Gow’s body was found in the abandoned bothy above Inshore Loch.

Prosecution asked for a definition of “bothy.” PC said it was a “single-room dwelling on hills, used by walkers for shelter.” Judge snickery because the lawyer didn’t know what a bothy was.

PC: Approach to bothy over a mile from road. Well-worn path, familiar to hikers. Out of season, no one there. Police alerted by anonymous caller. Never discovered identity, but call came from a public phone booth that would only be known to a local. Bothy facing north on loch side. Windows broken, no door. Roof collapsed in on west side. Bothy itself: very dark on entry. [PC shaking.] Victim lying on side, facing back wall. Could see hands tied tightly behind back with plastic tag.

Prosecution asked why “tightly”?

PC: Hands very, very swollen.

How swollen?

PC: Hands about double size and purple. Thought they were gloves at first. Plastic digging deep into skin; wrists bloody. Victim missing one shoe, never found. Stepping to left, PC noticed Gow’s injuries. A lot of blood on the floor and under his head. Mouth obscured by blood. No, sir. . . .

I think he was questioned by someone here. My writing goes all wonky, as if I’m not sure I should bother taking it down.

PC: I couldn’t see. It was very dark. . . . Yes, sir, I use a flashlight. Even then, it was still v. dark. Couldn’t see a weapon at this stage [I think this is what I’m writing here.] And the tongue . . .

Oh, God, the tongue. The dreaded tongue.

PC: had been . . .

He gulped here, I remember. Everyone leaned forward to catch what he was going to say. Even the impassive stenographer tipped one degree toward him. The blood drained from the PC’s face as he said it.

PC: removed.

Everyone in the public galleries recoiled and gasped. The mustardy old man who was sitting in front of me clapped his hands to his face, as though they were coming after his tongue next, and a couple of old women in front of me held on to each other. Who were these ridiculous people? It really must be the height of cant to wait for a place in the public gallery at a murder trial and then act surprised when violence is mentioned. Why go to so much trouble to hear the details and then get indignant the very moment their prurience is satisfied?

Susie did herself no favors by turning around and tutting at them. The papers said she was callous, but she’s a medic: she was having bits thrown at her when she was in her teens.

The only genuine response came from Stevie Ray, who sobbed loudly. Everyone knew he was Gow’s manager; he’d been on any TV show that offered pocket change. He’s effectively unemployed now that his only client is dead, but there was no sympathy for him in the gallery. Everyone just looked away and left him crying like a bullied boy in a playground.

PC: Clean removal from the root, not gouged.

How would he know?

PC: Tongue later found in corner of room. Sitting on newspaper. Lot of blood from mouth on floor. Face clean on upper cheek, suggesting not moved since tongue cut. Deep wound on underside of head, probably initial wound. Checked for pulse.

F’sake! Half his head f’ing missing!

PC: Found victim was dead.

No!

PC: For ten minutes searched front and back of bothy for other persons. No one there. Called for backup.

From the crime-scene photos and the aerial photograph in the paper, it was clear that the bothy was a single room with one doorway, sitting on a continuous slope. There was nowhere to hide. The PC could have searched the whole area by stepping outside and turning his head left and right, but neither lawyer asked about the missing ten minutes. I think they assumed he was out the back being sick. Maybe we could make something of this? He could have been contaminating the evidence in some way.

Susie didn’t do it. I’ve known this from the moment they raised the evidence about the tongue and the hands. Gow may have been left in the fetal position so that he bled to death, but anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of first aid could have done this. She wouldn’t have cut his tongue out or stabbed him on the side of his head either. Because she’s a doctor, she would have killed him more cleanly and she’d never have tied his hands up like that. I knew she was innocent before this evidence, and I’ve never doubted her. I still don’t doubt her.

Box 2 Document 2 Interview with Donna, Woman’s World, 4/24/98

The photographs of Donna make her look pretty. She had an electrifying figure and a nice smile, that’s undeniable. There’s a picture of her standing underneath the maximum-security prison sign in full wedding gown. The sentence structures in this article are horribly clunky. Imagine the corrosive effect this sort of magazine has on the language of people who read it week after week.

A woman’s wedding day is supposed to the happiest of her life, yet Donna McGovern was searched on her way into the service and spent her wedding night alone. Alone she may be, but Donna, 23, has no doubt that she made the right decision.

“Andrew is the man for me,” says Donna. “I know he is innocent and I will stand by him until he is released.”

But Donna may be waiting for the rest of her life, for her new husband is one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers. He has been called the Water Rat, the Riverside Ripper, and “just plain evil” by the daughter of one of his victims.

“People don’t know the real Andrew. He’s the most caring man I’ve ever met— very loving and sweet and gentle. He’s the most popular person in the prison. The other prisoners love him.”

After four years behind bars, Andrew Gow, 33, finally feels he has found true love. Speaking through his manager, Stevie Ray, Gow announced on the day of his wedding, “I have finally found love forever. Donna is a true lady.”

Gow was a minicab driver before he was convicted of murdering five Glasgow prostitutes in 1993. He was arrested after being stopped for cruising in the red-light district of the city and confessed to police that he had committed the terrifying series of murders. At the trial Gow pled guilty but now claims he is innocent.

While in prison Gow studied art and has become a poet. He writes to his new wife every day and sends her poems and drawings he has done of her.

They’ve reproduced one of his handwritten poems. McGonagall would blush. The script is neat and boxy, and he’s drawn flowers and knives all over the paper. Badly.

When I saw her I knew she was the one for me.

A very special lady.

Eyes of love like lovely diamonds.

A smile of joy.

Maybe it’s the light.

Maybe I’m dreaming.

Maybe there right.

Maybe I’m insane.

Although married, Donna and Andrew have met only four times.

The first time was after just three letters had passed between them. For the visit, Donna wore a red dress, which Andrew had chosen for her from ten photographs she had sent in of herself in different outfits. Donna says their first meeting was a special day.

“It was as if we’d known each other all our lives. We cuddled and laughed together. We weren’t awkward. It was a relief because I had finally found my Andrew. I always knew there was a special man out there for me, and when I saw the picture of Andrew in the paper, it was as if I recognized him. It was love at first sight.”

Donna was born and grew up in Leicester. Currently living in Kirkintilloch, near to the prison, she aims to train as a travel agent and wants to do exams so she can support her new husband when he is released. Sadly, Donna’s dad died recently, leaving her without a family of her own.

“Andrew and I are incredibly close,” says Donna. “Probably because I have no one else.”

But Andrew has been married before. Shortly after his conviction, his first wife, Lara Orr, was quoted as saying she hoped she never saw him again. “He is a violent man who made me dress up for kinky sex games,” said Lara at the time. “I hope I never see him again. He has ruined my life.”