Chapter 21

It was another cold night. I sent a fourth email to my landlord about my heating not working, but I wasn't hoping for a reply. He never replied. One day, in the height of summer, I was sure an engineer would turn up to mess around with the boiler, hit it with a spanner and say it was working fine. Then, come winter, I'd turn it on, and nothing.

I steamed a chicken breast and had it with a few vegetables. It was time I ate more healthily and made a real effort to lose some weight. I wouldn't mind getting down to a size fourteen by the summer, maybe twelve by Christmas. It was an achievable goal and one that would require minimal change to my day-to-day life. I was up for the challenge.

By eight o'clock, I was hungry. I had a box of Maltesers in the freezer. It would be a shame to leave them until they were past their best and had to be thrown out. I'd properly start my diet once all the chocolates and biscuits had gone, and I wouldn't replace them.

Sitting up in bed with the box of Maltesers open next to me, I pulled the duvet up around me to keep warm and continued to make my way through my grandmother's diaries.

I picked up where I'd left off and read about another miscarriage. It was sad reading of her desperation to get pregnant. All she wanted was to be a wife and a mother. She had no intention of being a career-driven woman. She didn't want to run marathons or climb mountains. Her only aim in life had been to get married, live in a nice house and fill it with kids. Unfortunately, the kids bit hadn't happened.

Then, in 1981, Dominic came along. The first few entries after his arrival were about how blissfully happy she was being a mother, and how it wasn't too late for her to have more. The journals were filled with photos of a smiling happy baby and beaming parents. It seemed that Dominic was the perfect baby. He ate well and slept through the night. Motherhood was a breeze. His formative years went without a hitch. There was no mention of the stories Clare Delaney had told me about when he'd slapped a girl so hard she'd lost the hearing in one ear, or about the boy he blinded. Once he became a teenager, that's when the trouble set in, and Carole's entries grew darker.

‘Bloody hell.' I looked up from the diary. Carole had made up a story about her son sexually interfering with a young girl, just so Anthony would spend some time with him. She'd started the entry as if it had really happened, like she was practising convincing herself it was true. I frowned as I shovelled another handful of Maltesers into my mouth and turned the page.

I flicked back through the entries to see if I'd missed any examples of Dominic's so-called bad behaviour, but Carole hadn't given any. She spoke about not sleeping, hardly eating, wishing Anthony was home and struggling to cope on her own, but she didn't back up her woes with any evidence. Was she lying? There was nobody for me to ask who could give me an honest answer. Anthony hadn't been there often so wouldn't have seen what was going on, and if I asked Dominic about his childhood, could his replies be trusted? Their former neighbour, Sylvia, talked about his unruly behaviour, but tipping over dustbins was hardly the work of the devil.

I had to stop reading as I couldn't see the words anymore. Tears were blurring my vision. Carole had lied to anyone who would listen, saying that Dominic was disturbed, and people had accepted what she said as the truth. She'd lied to her husband, to doctors, and it had led to Dominic being given a drug that changed his mood and led him to murder Stephanie Griffiths. And the reason Carole had killed herself must have been because she knew her lies had led to the poor girl's murder, and she was unable to live with herself.

I flicked through the pages and landed on one at random.

There were three polaroid photos that accompanied this entry, all depicting Dominic's mess of a bedroom. I leaned in close to get a good look at the images. All I could see was what appeared to be the bedroom of a normal teenage boy.

‘Dominic, you poor, poor man,' I said, as I wiped away the tears.

It really was Carole who should have been on medication. She had been forcing an illness onto her son. What was it called… Munchausen by Proxy?

I closed the diary and tossed it onto the floor. I couldn't read any more. I was so angry. Carole had been mentally ill and nobody could see that. Her actions had led her son to be so heavily medicated that it messed with his brain patterns and led to the attempted rape of Joby Turnbull and the murder of Stephanie White.

I snuggled down under the duvet and wrapped it around myself to form a protective cocoon. I couldn't help but feel sorry for my father. My father the killer; my father the victim.