‘The chaplain has helped me enormously in arriving at this point,’ I add, as though it were an afterthought to mention it. I’m mindful that if I tell them outright that ‘I have found God’, then it might sound contrived, like a cynical and tactical move on my part to bolster my chances of securing my liberty, which is exactly what it is.
‘I pray every day now and ask God for his forgiveness, his guidance and help in coming to terms with my crime, and understanding the illness that led me to commit it. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9,’ I add.
‘So it is God who has helped you to finally accept the truth?’ Dr Wainwright sounds pleased. He is, after all, a good Christian man himself. I know this because he wears a small silver crucifix around his neck and sometimes quotes the psalms, though not fanatically. Despite our weekly therapy sessions together throughout the past six years, I actually know very little about Dr Wainwright, and yet he knows everything about me – everything except the truth anyway.
‘Very much so,’ I agree enthusiastically. ‘Without my Bible studies and sessions with the chaplain, I think it would’ve taken me longer to arrive at the place I find myself at today, or even arrived at all.’
‘And where is this place that you find yourself at today?’ Jameson chimes in again, her pen poised as she scribbles something down onto a notepad in front of her. She looks a bit bored.
‘“A false witness will not go unpunished, and whoever pours out lies will perish.” Proverbs 19:9. And so, put simply, I am no longer prepared to lie anymore, not to others or myself, and especially not to God.’
Jameson is right though. Refusing to confess that Samantha Valentine was – is – a creation of my own damaged mind had, for the most part of my sentence, never been an option. Accepting it would’ve meant succumbing to the madness they have spent years trying to gaslight me into believing I am suffering from. And while I am undeniably a killer by default, I still have principles and my integrity.Thou shalt not lie.
But Ihaveto get out of here, and the only conceivable way to do this is by lying about the truth. How’sthatfor a twisted irony?
I have never once denied my crime, or the fact that I committed it. When I was arrested at the scene, I went without incident and co-operated with the police as fully and best I could. I gave them a full and frank confession.I told them the truth. Only they didn’t believe me. They decided I was delusional the moment they ran a background medical check on me and discovered I’d spent a stint in a psychiatric ward. From thereon in they stuck to their narrative and didn’t bother investigating my account in any real detail. On the surface it seemed as though Samantha Valentine was simply a manifestation of my psychosis – they could find no trace of her anywhere in existence – despite my endless protestations to the contrary. Lazy, discriminatory policing at its finest, it suited them to write me off as a just another headcase who needed taking off the streets.
If only they had dug deeper, or even bothered to dig at all – but they had their story that wrapped everything up nicely and nothing I said or did could stop them from sticking to it. I suppose, to give the police their due if I must, it really was,is, a crazy story, the kind of story a crazy person would tell. Only thatdoesn’t make it untrue, and neither does it make me mad. The truth is often stranger than fiction, and in my case, stranger still.
I had wanted to plead not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder and go before a judge and jury to give them my side of events, tell the truth of what hadreallytranspired. But my brief – who I suspected didn’t believe me either – had strongly advised against it.
‘If you lose – and you will lose, Erin – you’ll go to prison, possibly for the rest of your life. But if you plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, then I’m hopeful the judge will be lenient and send you to a psychiatric hospital.’
‘But I don’t need to go to a psychiatric hospital,’ I said. ‘I’m not mad, and I’m not lying!’
I learned then, however, that sometimes the facts have little to do with the truth, or maybe it’s the other way round. Either way, it meant I was facing a potential lifetime behind bars or the supposedly cushier option of a secure mental asylum. And so I chose what I was led to believe to be the lesser of two evils, which now, with the benefit of hindsight, was simply yet another example of me putting my faith and trust in the wrong people. I reallymuststop doing that.
After I was sent to Larksmere Hospital, I knew that either one of two things was probably going to kill me: the guilt that tormented me daily for what I had done, or the hatred for the person who had coerced and tricked me into doing it.
I should say at this point that killers aren’t born,they’re made,and I’m really not a violent person by nature. I’m a pacifist who has always detested aggression of any kind. Ironically, this is partially the reason why she was so easily able to manipulate me like she did. Thoughwhyshe did remains the biggest mystery still. Did she choose her victims at random? Were Bojan and I singled out for a reason? If so, what? Thepolice never even followed up on the neighbour’s statement about a potential stalker; those bozos never followed up onanything.
The judge in my case was sympathetic, citing my childhood trauma as a mitigating factor that ‘No doubt would’ve significantly impacted upon your mental health into adulthood’, and gave me six years for manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. My brief was ecstatic at least. It was lenient, a more than fair sentence, I suppose, which is perhaps the only thing in all of this mad, bad and sad story that is – because mine was a crime that should never have happened, orchestrated by someone who didn’t exist.Work that one out if you will.
I knew her as Samantha Valentine – though I know that wasn’t,isn’ther real name – and according to the police and the doctors and the nurses and the social workers and the judges, she was,issimply a creation of my damaged and psychotic mind.
Only, they’re wrong. And once I am out of here, I’m going to prove it.
EIGHT
DAN
Present day
I observe her closely from behind the video screen as she sits, motionless, on the orange plastic chair in Interview Room 1. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, and she glances nervously towards the door like she’s expecting someone to walk through it at any moment.
Hidden behind those large bifocal frames, her face looks pale and drawn and afraid. I doubt she’s slept much. I’d managed only a couple of hours myself last night on a makeshift camp bed in my office. We have just twenty-four hours to hold Tilly Ward without charge – no time to go home – so I washed and shaved in the bathroom at the station before hastily dressing in yesterday’s old clothes. Tom Ford, eat your heart out.
As I was brushing my teeth and rubbing my stiff neck, I noticed that some joker had stuck my photograph from the newspaper article up on the bathroom wall using crime scene tape. In thick black marker pen, they’d adorned my face with a pair of glasses and a comedy beard with a speech bubble coming from my mouth that said: ‘The name’s Riley…DanRiley…’
Yeah, very funny, I laugh. I’m really no 007 though, so the hapless photographer with theStandardLifehad his work cut out for him. To be fair, I think he did his best to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Anyway, my wife, Fiona, had liked it at least.
‘Ooh, I think you look all sexy and rugged,’ she gushed, proudly, but then again, she does need to wear glasses, and what was that word Vic Leyton had used yesterday to describe me?Distinguished, that was it. I spat the toothpaste into the sink.
‘Sexy, rugged and distinguished, eh?’ I muttered as I pulled at the crepey skin underneath my tired eyes and stuck my tongue out in the mirror. ‘And they say the camera never lies.’
‘So, listen up, people.’ The incident room falls to a hush as I enter. Like me, the team has been at it through the night and everyone looks a little frayed around the edges. ‘We’ve got the green light to interview Tilly Ward this morning following both the medic’s and psych’s assessments. Lucy, DC Parker, you fit for the job?’
‘Yes, gov,’ they nod in unison.
