Cath Staincliffe - Letters To My Daughter's Killer

‘The back of Lizzie’s skull was crushed with multiple fractures, the right orbital socket around the eye was fractured, as well as the nose and the right ulna – in the arm. Cause of death was due to blunt force trauma. It is likely that she died as a result of one of the early blows.’ I wonder how they can possibly know that.

‘The weapon was long and narrow, cylindrical, almost certainly the poker that was recovered from the scene,’ Kay says.

‘Oh God,’ I breathe.

‘Poker?’ Tony says. The fire irons. Genuine antiques. Tony gave them to Lizzie and Jack when they put the wood-burner in. You can get modern ones almost identical, black cast iron. Long-handled shovel, tongs, brush and poker.

Jack presses his fist to his head, closing his eyes for a moment. ‘There could be fingerprints?’ he says, looking at Kay.

‘Were there any on the poker?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know,’ Kay says. ‘It will take some time for us to have forensic results back, but fingerprints are one of the first things to be recovered and examined. The CSIs will also look for footwear impressions, palm prints, anything they can find. And DNA traces on Lizzie’s body. Her body has been swabbed and her hair brushed, scrapings taken from under her nails. These are all areas where the attacker may have left traces that can help us to identify him.’

‘Was she raped?’ My voice is uneven.

Jack stiffens, and Tony hunches over in his seat.

‘There is no sign of that.’ Kay waits to see if we have any other questions before continuing. ‘There’s something else that the post-mortem revealed. Lizzie was pregnant.’

‘No!’ Jack says.

Tony and I look at each other, both bewildered.

‘Seven weeks’ gestation. Twins. You didn’t know?’ she says to Jack.

He shakes his head, tears welling in his eyes.

The reverberations from that bombshell echo in the silence that follows. All the futures that might have been. Brothers or sisters or both for Florence; Lizzie pushing a double buggy. The hope and promise of new babies.

Jack gets up abruptly and goes upstairs. We can hear him being sick, a raw, retching sound.

‘What about Broderick Litton?’ Tony says.

‘We’ve not been able to trace him yet.’

‘Why not?’ I say. ‘All the surveillance we have, cameras everywhere, bureaucracy, the internet.’

‘If people want to stay under the radar, it’s possible,’ Kay says.

I think about it: no wages or NI, no GP or car registration, no bank account. You’d have to live on the streets.

‘We are looking,’ she says.

I wonder where you are. Where you can hide. If you have gone on the run, to London, or Spain, or across the globe. Or perhaps you are still here, in Manchester, watching the news updates, relieved as Lizzie’s murder drops off the headlines and the front pages. Do you find an excuse to change channels when it’s on or are you audacious enough to make observations about it? I hope you are paralysed with fear. Unable to eat or sleep or think. Counting the minutes till there’s a knock on the door and they come for you.

Ruth

Monday 14 September 2009

Jack’s parents arrive, Marian and Alan; Jack saw them briefly at their hotel last night. After a tactful few minutes sharing commiserations and expressions of shock and sad disbelief, I leave them to it, ask them to excuse me if I go and lie down. There are too many people in the house as it is, and I think they need some space to talk with their son. I’m also worried that if I don’t stop for a little while, I’ll physically collapse. I’ve never been a fan of melodrama, and me keeling over would only be an added strain for everyone.

My heart is painful in my chest, a dull ache as if it’s swollen, and pounding too fast. I take my slippers off and lie on my back on the bed and try to slow my breathing, to release the knots in my stomach, the slab of tension across my back. It doesn’t work: as soon as I lose concentration, which I do easily, I find myself holding my breath. Dredging up some moves from yoga from years ago, I try those, but it’s hopeless. My body rebels, taut, spastic.

Closing my eyes, I focus on the sounds: birds in the garden, a bus wheezing by, the sound of someone clinking pots from downstairs, the ticking of the central heating radiator, sibilant fragments from Florence’s DVD. There is some tinnitus in my ears, a revolving hum that may be a machine somewhere but is probably just a noise in my head.

Should I see the GP about the burning pain in my chest? I’m on medication already for high cholesterol. Someone mentioned the GP, Tony or Kay, I can’t remember now. For tranquillizers or sleeping pills. The poker. A dozen blows. Twins. Like the whirring in my ears, the images, the details tumble around.

This was Lizzie’s room.

The place where she had her cot, though her incessant crying meant that for much of the first year she slept in with me while Tony managed on a mattress on the floor in here. When she was walking and talking, the crying eased and we moved her into this room. She outgrew the cot, had a child’s bed. Then came bunk beds and sleepovers, posters on the walls and a desk for homework. So fast. It all went so fast.

The room has changed now: once Lizzie moved out for uni, I did it up. Started taking temporary lodgers, actors up for work at the Lowry or the Royal Exchange, Contact or the Palace. There’s a small TV and DVD in here for the lodgers. If we get on well, we watch some programmes together on the big set downstairs. Having the company is nice, and when I have the place to myself again, I enjoy the freedom. It helps pay the bills, and I’ve met some lovely people over the years, only one or two idiots. I also get to see an awful lot of theatre.

‘DI Ferguson wants to meet you,’ Kay tells us. ‘She is leading the investigation. Will this afternoon be all right? What about Tony?’

‘I’ll check with him,’ I say.

‘Have you had anything to eat?’ she asks.

‘I can’t face it.’

‘Some soup,’ she suggests. ‘Your friend Bea called while you were resting. She brought some leek and potato. And a French stick.’

‘I need to ring her.’

‘She said she’ll come round tonight unless you text her,’ Kay says.

‘Where are the others?’

‘They’ve taken Florence to the library.’

‘The library?’

‘That all right?’ Kay says. ‘They asked her where she’d like to go and that’s what she said.’

It makes sense. Somewhere familiar, safe, welcoming. The staff know Florence through me, and Jack takes her to the story sessions and the events we have there. I’m about to reply, to tell Kay something about the library and my lifelong job there, when the pain in my chest ratchets up several notches and my head swims. I put out my hand but there’s nothing there to hold on to, and I feel myself swooning, falling back, my bones gone to water.

The GP, someone from my practice I’d never met, listens to my heart and takes my blood pressure. He knows the situation and advises me to try and eat, little and often, and increase my fluid intake. He thinks I’m dehydrated as well as suffering from shock and stress. ‘Your heart sounds fine, no arrhythmia; your blood pressure is high, but that’s to be expected. I’m not unduly worried.’ Doctor speak. Unduly. Who else says unduly these days?

He writes a prescription for a mild tranquillizer in case I need it.

‘What about side effects?’ I say. ‘Is it addictive?’

‘Not with a short course at this dosage,’ he says. ‘There are a range of potential side effects. The leaflet lists them all, but the most common ones are feelings of detachment…’