Guilty (14 page)

“I know, Mum, I know,” Oliver whispered.

“How?” she replied, stunned.

“Dan told me. He had realised all along. He had some shred of humanity, Mum. He said for once in his life he would be the perfect gentleman and leave well alone. Genes aren’t everything, Mum. Simon is our dad. Please leave it like that. He squeezed his brother’s hand. “Bri didn’t know, but Sadie would be our flesh and blood even if she wasn’t, despite all.”

18.

Driving down the M5, Simon felt like he was driving into the sunset of his life. Echoing the metaphor, the bright red sky spoke poetically to him, “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”. He hoped for a quiet, tranquil retirement where he could finally find mental peace away from the monster that had haunted him and fascinated Caroline, but his lawyer’s mind had a niggling doubt that would just not lie down. If Sadie did have a screw loose, shouldn’t she have been given treatment in place of punishment?

“Don’t blame Sadie, she’s wired wrong,” the little voice whispered in his mind. He pressed the accelerator down harder, making the engine roar. “Be realistic,” he commanded the bee in his bonnet. “Such ideas about genes rips the fabric of responsibility on which our society exists. Biology does not have to be our destiny.” With that thought, he tuned in to classic FM. As Mozart’s 5th symphony filled the car, he employed his lawyer’s brain to form a defence for his rejection of Sadie and her problems. He tried his best to smother the smouldering embers of guilt.

“It’s true there can be genetic biases but it is also true that they are not dictatorial and immutable. Surely the criminal tendencies inherent in some of our genes can be neutralised.

On the other hand . . .”

How many times, wearing his lawyer’s hat, did he have to think of things from the alternative viewpoint? On the other hand, if there was an imbalance in her brain shouldn’t she have been given help? If a mutant form of a normal gene had caused this imbalance, flooding it with a pool of one neuromodulator or starving it of the one that usually enables one to put on the brakes, if this was the case couldn’t the doctors have somehow supplied the lacking chemical? Had her brain been beyond repair? He thought of Barack Obama who had claimed that his target for the 21st century was to discover all there is to know about the human brain.

Would a defence lawyer really be able to prove that Sadie could be no more held responsible for her crimes than another person could be for their own cancer or heart attack? If Sadie had a broken brain, the cause of all their broken hearts, was he really the coward who he knew Caroline thought he was? Fleeing off yet again from the problem, ditching them all for eternity. He had not allowed his mind to reflect on all these issues for so long now. He felt his head bursting, a booming migraine was taking hold and he knew he would have to find a place to pull over and sleep. It felt like some sort of karma as he lay across the backseat retching into a plastic bag. His skull felt like it was about to explode as he considered if Sadie’s grey matter, if scanned, would show the tell-tale prefrontal deficiency, a clear marker of psychopathy?

Caroline had done her best to reignite some sort of responsibility in Simon. She had tried to keep him in the picture by emailing him all of Bri’s notes. His total lack of response, not one response, had not surprised her. Not one single reply had made her assume he had pressed the delete button each time an email and its attachments had popped into his mailbox. However, once again, Caroline had not done her family justice. Simon had printed each email and its contents off and had dared to let his lawyers brain read through them.

This had been at great expense to himself, risking his sanity again, risking the repeat of his breakdown. He was quite proud that he still had the ability to pick things up quickly. He had been particularly interested in the story that Bri had been concentrating on, the case of Stephen Tony Mobley, a white middle-class American from an affluent home. He had been given the perfect upbringing. Yet as he grew up he became increasingly violent. In 1991, aged twenty-five, he casually walked into a pizza store and shot the manager in the neck. After he had robbed the till he had light-heartedly joked that he would be applying for the vacant post created by the death of the employee who he had just shot. Mobley was now awaiting the electric chair on death row. Bri had discovered that Mobley’s lawyer was appealing that the murder was not due to an evil decision but the tragic consequence of a genetic predisposition. In other words, Tony Mobley’s genes meant he was born to kill. Mobley’s auntie was called to be the chief witness for the defence. She had provided evidence that several members of the Mobley family over the past four generations had exhibited extreme aggressive and criminal actions. Mobley’s attorney said that although there was no legal defence, there was the mitigating factor concerning the family history. Although the attorney was denied permission to see if Mobley had a chemical imbalance he still made an appeal to the Supreme Court against the death sentence. His case rested on the family history of violent behaviour amongst the males.

He retched again, his plastic bag leaking out onto the carpet. What a mess; his planned escape route had been blocked by his own mental loyalty to Sadie. Wherever he fled, she would be there. There was no shaking her off.

The pain in his head was unbearable. Thank God he had found a service station. If only he could get some sleep. He was in too much agony now to think straight but his brain wouldn’t drop the issue. “Criminals are born not made.”

Half awake, half dreaming, the story of the turtle and the scorpion filled his thoughts.

A scorpion and a turtle are sitting on the bank of a river, both needing to get to the other side. The scorpion asks the turtle if he could have a ride on his back to the other side. The turtle immediately declines the request. The turtle explains that as the scorpion has a huge stinger on his tail and as it is in his nature to sting, it would not make sense for the turtle to have him on his back.

The scorpion promises not to sting, explaining that it would not make sense to do so as then they would both drown. Halfway across, the turtle feels the sting and as he is drowning asks, “Why?”

The scorpion replies, “As you said, it is in my nature.” Both sank to the riverbed.

The tornado had passed and left ruin in its wake; the car needed an urgent valet; vomit everywhere. He shook his head from side to side, so relieved to note the pain had left. Was Sadie, then, in conclusion, a fact of life for which nobody could be blamed? He opened the car door, sunlight flooded in, dazzled he staggered out. A group of teenagers hopping back into the neighbouring car smirked as they saw the sick down his shirt. “Hell of a night out, old man?” they laughed.

He slowly made his way to the restrooms. He viewed the electric hand-dryers with disappointment; no paper towels to try and clean himself. He’d noticed a Premier Inn as he’d hobbled in. He’d see if they had a vacant room; a shower would be a blessing. He had plenty of spare clothes in the boot.

Exhausted, stretched out on the bed, he flicked the TV on in an attempt to distract his thoughts but his brain was having none of it.

“The criminal gene?” he commenced again. “If Bri does get an appeal based on this theory, aren’t we all on the road to eugenics? The idea that the human race could be improved by breeding out the bad. If they really could identify the criminal gene, suppose the next step was to identify it in the womb. What would happen to those embryos? If they survived detection but were identified at birth what could be done with them? Lock them away for life?”

Bri had researched the Danish twin study because Denmark was a leading light for social psychologists interested in criminal genetics. Since 1870 every pair of twins has been registered. The study concluded that a Danish man with an identical twin with a criminal record has about 50 per cent greater chance of having been in prison compared with your medium Danish man. So the conclusion was that although criminals weren’t born, the odds at the moment of birth of becoming one aren’t even.

His notes had highlighted the research of a psychologist called Sarnoff Mednick, a psychologist at the University of Southern California. He said a child who has criminals as biological parents is more likely than other youngsters to follow the criminal path even if his adoptive parents are law abiding.

Simon’s training made it crystal clear to him that the defence would always dismiss these theories as unsubstantiated. Every geneticist recognises that even if a trait is 100 per cent genetically determined, there is probably something that could be done against it. Bri had pointed out the classic example concerning the inherited disease phenylketonuria, a disease which results in mental retardation. It can be overcome by changing the child’s environment. If a diet free of the amino acid phenylalanine is given, the genetic destiny can be completely overcome.

Simon analysed his own belief. “Am I a reductionist? Do I really believe there is a genetic basis for Sadie’s crimes?”

Somehow being physically miles away from Sadie enabled him to allow his mind to consider what he actually did believe. His mind had been a closed book to all of this for years.

“I think,” that in itself was a massive step forward out of the mire of mindless activity he had purposefully hidden in for years. “I think Sadie did have a genetic predisposition to violence and antisocial behaviour. As a lawyer however I think the only treatment is to lock such criminals up.”

Simon smiled to himself. He had successfully faced Sadie’s issues and formulated a rational opinion; a huge step forward for him. He was healing, he was on the mend.

“However, as a dad I think the only treatment is to help however I can.” Suddenly he wondered how it had never occurred to him before. All of them: Bri, Oliver, Sadie, Caroline and Steve must have thought so many times why he couldn’t be the lawyer they needed to help Sadie.

How could it honestly never have entered his head?

But now, now the clouds had finally lifted. Everything was crystal clear. Just as his migraine had gone, his fears seemed to have evaporated. It was so obvious.

He raced down to the reception to pay with his credit card. He jumped in the car and grabbed his sat nav. He retyped destination. He was back from the dead. It was a Eureka moment. He would give the money from the sale of his house to Bri to fund the appeal.

As he started the drive home, all sorts of cases kept popping into his mind! His stressed brain, previously frozen, was thawing. He remembered cases he had read about with interest, maybe sceptically but with interest!

There had been a defence lawyer for a man called Bradley Waldroup. He remembered the name because there had been a Sydney Waldroup at Law College with him and he’d wondered if they’d been related; after all it wasn’t the most common of names!

The trial had been at a court in Tennessee. Another link, Sydney had an American accent! Waldroup had drilled eight holes in a friend’s back before slicing her head open using a machete. He used the same tool on his wife before dropping it for a shovel! The wife survived! The death penalty faced Waldroup as the friend, not surprisingly, died.

However the world had been stunned because the defence had asked if it was a fact that Waldroup possessed the variation of the gene that codes for low levels of MAOA, that he suffered violent beatings time and time again as a child. The argument was that his free will had been blocked by his genetic predisposition. History had been made and this argument absolved him of first degree murder and he was given a charge of voluntary manslaughter.

Simon pressed the accelerator down as his adrenalin whooshed through his veins. For the first time in over a decade he felt the lawyer’s buzz, the rise to a challenge.

19.

I’ve been a trainer at Hearing Dogs for a couple of years now. Heart-warming partnerships have been my therapy. I have been part of amazing transformations and these in turn have transformed my life. The charity has existed for thirty-one years and I feel like I have been involved in it for ever. There are so many ways in which OCD still tries to control me, but when I see the unbelievable things our dogs are trained to do I now believe in miracles. The key is that I want the miracle of what Hearing Dogs is achieving to continue and I want to be part of it, so OCD has to become my friend, not my enemy.

If our dogs can be trained to jump on the bed to wake their owner, to notify them when the doorbell rings, I can train my OCD sufficiently for me to live a normal life, after all that is what our dogs do for our clients. We now also match dogs with deaf children. They learn to pull the duvet off when it’s time to get up for school.

My OCD has had to learn to take its place in my life; it is pretty second place to all that’s going on at Hearing Dogs!

OCD had made me suffer from low self-esteem and isolation from my peers. This is exactly what a deaf child can suffer from but our dogs can change all that.

I gained no genuine satisfaction in washing my hands again and again and again. I felt I did at the time; it was so, so, so necessary for me at the time but looking back I know that was nothing to the pure satisfaction I now experience. Seeing the difference the dogs and us trainers achieve in being part of all the success stories has set me free.

I honestly believe if Sadie could have replaced her addictions with an addiction to something more fulfilling, for example an addiction to extreme sports, I think she could have found a more positive path in life.

I especially enjoy working with the children and teenagers. I suppose it is because those were my own nightmare years. I’ll always remember the day Ryan first heard birdsong. He was four and had just got hearing aids. His silent world opened up for him and his confidence was born overnight.

We paired him with Billy, a black Labrador – yes, I had something to do with the choice of that name.

Billy will alert Ryan to all sorts of sounds he still won’t hear clearly. He checks Ryan constantly, lets him know when his mum shouts up it is tea time! I get a huge buzz from knowing Ryan is no longer suffering from his deafness just like I am no longer suffering from my OCD. Ryan is now the envy of his friends. They all want a Billy.

He sits with Ryan and his friends watching television, just chilling out. The best bit is Ryan and Billy, like me, always have a lot to smile about these days.

Sadie never really smiled, not from her eyes. The more I think back about her, and I do that a lot nowadays, I find myself wondering if things could have turned out differently.

I also find myself looking back at past incidents with new glasses on. I’ll give you an example.

Sadie seemed to have a knack for getting the more vulnerable kids to hero worship her. She’d make up great big secrets to confide in them and then they’d think it great that she had chosen them alone to share her innermost thoughts. Even I could see it was a trick, part of her manipulative ways! That way they felt they had her trust, a sort of secret society and they would open up and share so much with her.

She’d worked out the best way to get somebody to tell you about themselves is to tell them about yourself. She got peoples pin numbers out of them that way and bought herself loads of new clothes. Caroline was always having to change her pin, the number of times she fell prey to her own daughter’s superficial charm.

She had one such follower, a girl called Annabelle. I remember Annabelle trooped after Sadie everywhere but I could see that Sadie couldn’t really stand the girl. One day Sadie treated us all to Coke and ice creams from Annabelle’s purse and Annabelle just looked on, smiling sweetly.

Only when it was empty she tossed it back at the poor girl and said, “Pity you don’t have enough for fish and chips later,” and the silly little girl replied,

“I’ll go and ask my dad if he can give me some more.”

Sadie wasn’t stupid. She knew what Annabelle’s dad would have given Sadie: a thick ear, so she told her not to bother and the kid kept hovering, a disciple of this con artist.

She’d really milked that girl that day and looking back I think Sadie was wearing thin , completely fed up with Annabelle shadowing her everywhere.

Sadie was ace at keeping her cool under pressure and when Annabelle’s mum wheedled out of her daughter where her month’s dinner money had gone she went round to our house to speak to my mum about it.

Sadie, an expert at fabrication of intricate stories, without batting an eyelid, launched into the most amazing story. She had Annabelle’s mum eating out of her hand in the end, even apologising to Sadie who had reeled off a story that Annabelle had offered to buy them ice creams and Sadie had insisted she only bought us one of those Mini Milks, no mention of the various jars of sweets and chocolate bars she had stuffed in her bag.

She told Annabelle’s mother that Annabelle had then noticed the tin for the appeal for the earthquake victims which, in reality, was standing in that newsagent’s. She said that before she could stop her, Annabelle had emptied the contents of her purse into that box and Annabelle’s mum should be proud of what a caring daughter she had. By the time she’d finished her story the girl’s mum was busting with pride, her eyes brimming with tears.

Sadie knew she was safe; that Annabelle would not let her down further but looking back I don’t think Sadie’s air of grandiosity would let her ever forgive that girl for grassing her up and I now wonder if what I am about to tell you was in fact the result of Sadie’s hand!

The next day Annabelle was there knocking on our door at the crack of dawn to see if Sadie was coming out. My mum let her in while Sadie slept in.

When the girl was found at the bottom of the stairs, fractured skull, Sadie heard my mum’s scream and dashed out from her bedroom; we all assumed she was woken by the blood-curdling yells from my mother.

Was Sadie just an expert at faking shock and grief? She threw herself over Annabelle’s crumpled body, pleading for her to wake up, to open her eyes.

My dad had to drag her off Annabelle when the paramedics arrived.

Looking back now, after hearing all that jargon in the courtroom, all those definitions of the psychopathic mind, I can’t help but think Sadie had decided, after the grassing up incident that “it had to be done.”

Annabelle had to be removed.

Sadie had displayed all the expected emotions at the loss of her dearest friend but it was as if she had learnt what emotion is, what emotion should be expressed, but I knew she didn’t really feel that emotion. I am pretty sure she faked it. Only I appear to have noticed that yet again none of it came from her eyes and soul, just sort of a learnt, well-practised facial expression, rehearsed to a fine tune; the appropriate words and shrieks.

None of us at the time questioned it, the grey hoover wire apparently mistakenly left across the grey stair carpet from the night before when Sadie had suddenly gone into spring-cleaning mode, much to Mum’s pleasure, and completely topped and tailed her room. Only now I wonder if a push might have been involved, but I am not prepared to voice my suspicions. It won’t bring Annabelle back, it will only destroy her parents even further, if that is possible, and Sadie is locked away for life anyway so best to keep out of it but, well, just a big “but . . .” hovers in my mind but like I say, I’m not going down that route again.

I had CBT training! Want to know what that is? Well, looking at my thought processes basically and I am probably catastrophizing an incident into something much bigger, so best turn my mountain of worry back into a molehill! The dogs will do that for me, I just need to get that girl out of my mind!

It’s pretty damn difficult though, because now we know for sure what she’s like, things keep coming to mind, incidents from the past and I keep thinking, oh yes that explains it.

For example, take her thrill-seeking and impulsivity. She used to get us all playing chicken, running across the bypass. The drivers used to go mad and we all fell under her spell the day she got us throwing bricks from the motorway bridge; it actually smashed one windscreen which she thought was hilarious so us, the disciples of this mini Hitler, we rolled about laughing too. You see, remember I was antisocial, I was the freak but the freak who had fallen under her spell.

Shamefully I now admit I was as stupid as Annabelle that summer when I was on cloud nine if Sadie was in one of her “Josh moods” and took me around with her. I was prepared to forgive her every time for the days she had so cruelly dropped me, on so many occasions.

We all accepted it was Jamie’s own fault when he got clipped by that car. He lived, his broken leg and pelvis left him with a slight limp. Why did we all back Sadie’s story up? She claimed that she screamed at him to stop being so childish. Why did we all agree in our minds that this was the case? But I have to be honest with you now, she never did tell him to stop.

How can: “Go on Jamie, don’t be such a chicken, see if you can leave it to run until the very last second,” be interpreted as: “Don’t Jamie. Don’t, you’ll get killed. Stop being such a kid!”

Yet we all told the police that version of the story which Sadie fed us.