Chapter 4

I woke early. Not that I'd slept much. I kept tossing and turning and decided to get up just after six o'clock. I was cold. At some point during the night, I must have kicked off the duvet and the fitted sheet had come away from the mattress on three corners. Yesterday's clothes were folded on top of the dresser. They'd been washed, dried and smelled clean and fresh. I quickly put them on and went quietly downstairs.

Normally, I can't function without having a coffee and a big bowl of cereal, but I wasn't in the mood to hang around and see Mum. I tiptoed around the ground floor, picking up my coat, handbag and car keys, and as I slipped out of the front door, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Luck was on my side, which made a refreshing change, and the Golf started on the first attempt. I set off without looking back. I wanted to get home, shower, slump in my bed and fall asleep for the rest of the day. Even though it was a workday, and I was due there in less than two hours, I couldn't face it. While waiting at a red light, I dashed off a text to my boss, informing him that I was suffering from excruciating period pains. I had to smile as I hit send. I imagined him blushing as he read the message. He wouldn't question it, as he didn't enjoy talking about anything personal. He would even get embarrassed by us singing ‘Happy Birthday' to a colleague.

Once home in my familiar flat, I locked the door behind me and secured the chain. It wasn't a large flat: one bedroom, open-plan kitchen, living room and dining area, and the bathroom was en-suite, so any guests had to trundle through my messy bedroom to use the toilet, but it was all I could afford for now. I lacked storage space and there was only enough room for a two-seater sofa, which isn't easy to relax on when you're of a large build, but to me it was home. It gave me independence; that's what my little flat represented, and I loved it. I was very happy here.

I turned on the shower and allowed the room to fill up with steam and fog the mirrors before I climbed over the edge of the bath and let the hot water cascade over me. It was the longest and most luxurious shower I'd ever had, and I didn't want it to end. When I went into the bedroom, the bedside clock told me I'd been in the bathroom for almost forty minutes. Where had the time gone? What had I been thinking about that had distracted me for so long? I couldn't actually remember, but I had a pretty good idea – my father.

I felt empty and dazed. I wrapped my big pink towelling dressing gown around me, tied it around my waist and slumped, face-down, on the bed. I was asleep within minutes and stayed like that until I woke eight hours later at three o'clock.

I sat up with a feeling of determination running through me, as if my dreams had made me realise what I had to do. I looked at my phone: four missed calls and twelve text messages, all from my mother. She was a worrier. I didn't bother to listen to the voicemails but read a couple of the texts and fired one back saying I was fine and just needed to be on my own for a while.

My stomach rumbled. I hadn't eaten anything since those few slices of pizza last night. I stumbled off the bed and into the kitchen. Looking through the cupboards, I realised I needed to do a shop, and soon. It would have to be pizza again.

I placed my order on the same app I had ordered from the night before, and while waiting for it to be delivered, I powered up the laptop on the small dining table and opened the Google home page. It was time to find out who my father really was.

Typing ‘Dominic Griffiths' into the search engine revealed more than two million hits. The first was a Wikipedia entry for him. I know Wikipedia can't be taken as gospel, as people can edit it whenever they like, but it was as good a place to start as any.

The intercom buzzed, and I literally screamed. My pizza had arrived, though I didn't much feel like eating it now. It made me feel sick knowing that my father had murdered a poor, innocent young girl. And worse still, I knew her mother. She had taught me English. She introduced me to the classics. She was my favourite teacher, and all the time I knew her, we had had this horrifying connection.

I didn't even open the pizza box. I tossed it onto the table then returned to the laptop.

I went back to the search page and looked up more information about the case and subsequent trial. I wanted to get a feel for the atmosphere at the time.

I looked at the photos that accompanied the story. Alan Shearer and Shay Given looked so young twenty years ago. It was strange seeing Shearer with hair. They both had glum expressions as they held up a photo of Stephanie for the cameras. Lower down the story, Detective Inspector Ian Braithwaite was snapped while giving the press conference. He looked drawn and tired, as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. That was probably how it felt.

The final photo was of Stephanie in the famous football strip, grinning happily into the camera on her birthday. Little did she know that a few hours later she would be torn from her family and their lives ruined for ever.

I stood up from the table and walked around the room to stretch my legs. It wasn't just the lives of the victim and her family that had been destroyed; it was all those others too. Detective Inspector Ian Braithwaite looked devastated in the photograph, as if it was his own child who had gone missing. How had he reacted when her body was discovered? Would he have considered it a personal failure that he hadn't been able to reunite the girl with her parents? What happened to him afterwards? One man's actions had created a snowball effect and touched many people's lives. I bet even Alan Shearer and Shay Given would often think of poor Stephanie and how it could have been one of their own children.

I wanted to stop reading. I was causing myself unnecessary heartache, but I needed to continue. Within these archived stories there had to be something that would answer the many questions I had racing around my mind. One question, in particular, screamed louder than the rest: why?

I had no idea Mrs White was married to a detective. What must he have been going through, knowing that his daughter had been kidnapped? I knew he wouldn't have been allowed to investigate, but he must have been climbing the walls, wanting to pound the streets of Newcastle, knocking on every door and not resting until she was found.

My vision blurred as I looked at the photograph of the innocuous house in Aldwick Road through tear-filled eyes. It seemed like a decent neighbourhood where people looked after their properties and gardens. Yet behind one of the painted front doors lurked a murderer. How long had Stephanie's body been in the house? Had Dominic's parents known she was there? Were they covering up for their son? I shuddered.

One question niggling away in my tired brain, which the internet may be able to answer, was: why was Dominic being released after twenty years, when he'd been sentenced to serve a minimum of twenty-five? I found the answer to that straightaway.

‘Bloody hell,' I said, as I closed the laptop.

I wondered if that was the reason Dominic had maintained his innocence, because he had been taking a drug that was supposed to help him with his moods, but had ended up tipping him over the edge to commit murder. In his eyes, he wasn't guilty. To the rest of the world, he was.

However, there was no getting away from the fact that he had cut up the body and stuffed it into bin bags before hiding it in his loft. My stomach turned as I pictured the handsome young man from the newspapers standing over a body with a saw. I always thought I was unshockable. A fan of horror movies, I've sat through some disturbing films and haven't shied away from the screen when seeing a helpless victim being cut up with a chainsaw. I've just sat back, eyes wide, and shovelled in more popcorn. I've watched detective dramas on television and read everything Lynda La Plante and Val McDermid have written, but this was real life, and it was incredibly painful.

An even darker thought came into my head. Had Dominic been taking Fenadine while he was seeing my mum? She went out with him for a year – he could have snapped at any time. When she decided to break up with him, he could have killed her and cut her up. The tears came then as I wondered just how close my mother had come to being a victim. I wanted to hug her.

So many questions, so many thoughts, all of them making me feel sick. I needed a lie down. No, I needed fresh air. I didn't know what I needed, but maybe wine would help. I pulled a bottle out of the fridge and got a glass down from the shelf. To try to understand what was going on, I would need to speak directly to the people who were involved at the time. Would Mrs White appreciate me turning up on the doorstep? Were Dominic's parents, my grandparents, still alive? I hoped so. If anyone could fill in the background detail, it would be them.

I made a list of all the people I wanted to speak to: Harry and Mrs White. I don't think I'll be able to call her Barbara – she'll always be a teacher to me. Anthony and Carole Griffiths, who are my grandparents. The detective who led the investigation, DI Ian Braithwaite, and Dominic's solicitor, Clare Delaney. How realistic is it that Fenadine turned Dominic into a murderer, and he isn't just a cold-blooded killer? I looked at the list written in my neat handwriting, wondering how many on it would talk to me, how many would tell me to piss off and how many doors I'd have slammed in my face.

I left the list and put the pizza in the microwave to heat up. The best thing I could do for now was to try and forget about it for the rest of the day. If I allowed Dominic to consume me then I'd end up making myself ill, and I needed to be on top of my game here. The microwave pinged. Pizza, a bottle of wine and series two of Fleabag on iPlayer. Once Hot Priest appeared, everything else was forgotten.