Chapter 54

‘I can't believe any of this,' Terry said, after Barbara had told him everything.

On the coffee table in front of them lay the long grey coat and black wig. Terry looked up at Harry's pale and stony face. Barbara's eyes were full of tears. She was anxious and frightened. Terry was numb, disappointed and shocked.

‘My dad…' Terry began. His voice croaked. He cleared his throat and started again. ‘My dad said something about not blaming you both for what you've done. Did he know?'

‘I haven't done anything,' Harry said.

All eyes turned to Barbara.

‘He may have become confused,' she said quietly. ‘I needed to unburden myself. I needed to tell someone I could trust with what I'd done.'

‘He's not well, Barbara,' Terry chastised.

‘I didn't… I just wanted someone to understand.'

‘And did he?'

‘Yes. He did. He hated Dominic just as much as I did?—'

‘He wouldn't have wanted you to murder him,' Harry interrupted.

‘That's where you're wrong. I told him everything, and he hugged me. He said he wished he had had the strength to do it himself.'

‘He didn't know what he was saying,' Harry shouted.

‘He knew exactly what I was saying. For crying out loud, Ian spent hours in that attic with the pathologist while they opened those bin bags and took out Stephanie in fifteen pieces. He was her godfather, for Christ's sake. What do you think that did to him?' She wiped her tears away. ‘He was never the same after that. He bottled everything up. He stored it all, up here.' She tapped her head hard. ‘And it caused him to have a stroke that almost killed him. Dominic did all of that.'

‘You had no right—' Harry was interrupted by the doorbell. ‘Who's that?'

Barbara didn't reply. She stood up and went to the door.

Terry and Harry looked at each other with confused expressions. They listened intently, trying to hear who was at the door, but they couldn't. Outside, the crackling fire was slowly dying as Stephanie's belongings were finally consumed and the wood burned out.

Barbara walked back into the living room. Dawn Shepherd followed her, carrying a shoe box. Both had blank expressions.

‘What's going on?' Harry asked.

‘Harry, I need you to be calm and listen carefully to what Dawn has to say.'

‘She knew?' He pointed. ‘But she's his daughter.'

‘Can someone please tell me what's going on here?' Terry said.

The atmosphere was tense. They all sat down. The only place for Dawn was on the sofa next to Harry. He scooted over to the far end. He didn't want to be anywhere near her.

‘I think you'd better start from the beginning, Dawn,' Barbara said.

‘When I found out who my dad was, when I found out what he'd done, I felt sick to my stomach,' Dawn began. She didn't look at anyone. Her voice was low, and her head was bowed.

‘I was filled with all these conflicting emotions. I wanted to get to know him because he was my dad, but at the same time I didn't want anything to do with him because he was a murderer. But I wasn't sure if he was guilty. The more I looked into what happened, the more it became clear that he had murdered Stephanie – all the evidence pointed that way. But I also discovered that maybe he wasn't completely responsible for what he'd done. I heard about that drug he was taking, Fenadine, what it had done to other people who'd taken it. It was a lifeline. It gave me hope that maybe Dominic wasn't the cold-blooded killer the press made him out to be. Maybe my dad really was a mixed-up, confused young man.

‘I met his father, my grandad.' She smiled. ‘He was a sweet man. He loved his wife, that much was evident from the minute I met him. He wanted to protect her memory. At the same time, he could see I was eager to know everything I could about Dominic and what he was like. He gave me his wife's journals.' She removed the lid of the box but didn't take out any of the hardback notebooks. ‘He knew exactly what she'd written. He'd read them all many times since her death. He knew what I'd find out when I read them, but he never mentioned it. He let me discover the truth for myself.'

‘What truth?' Terry asked.

‘Carole Griffiths started writing these journals just after she was married. After several miscarriages, she resigned herself to the fact that children just weren't on the cards for her and Anthony, but then she became pregnant. The problem was, she'd become severely depressed as a result of facing the prospect of not being able to have children, and Dominic's birth didn't lift her out of it, like you'd expect it to. She couldn't bond with him. Anthony worked away a lot, so she was left to bring him up on her own, and she just physically and mentally couldn't do it. Dominic began acting out, like a child who isn't taught right from wrong would, but Carole exaggerated it.

‘Carole began taking medication for depression, but one particular doctor realised it was probably Dominic who needed the medication, not her. Again, she lied to the doctor. I suppose, nowadays, she'd have been diagnosed with Munchausen by Proxy or something, but at the time, nothing was picked up. There's one entry in here where she categorically states that Dominic is ill. She believed it herself. In fact, there was nothing wrong with him that a bit of guidance wouldn't have sorted out. He didn't get that, and he went off the rails.'

‘Tell them about Joby Turnbull,' Barbara said.

Dawn took a breath. ‘When Dominic was seventeen years old, he had a friend, Joby Turnbull. Joby was struggling with his sexuality. He turned to Dominic to confide in and told him he was gay. That night, Dominic attempted to rape Joby.'

‘What?' Terry exclaimed.

‘We didn't know anything about that,' Harry said.

‘It was never reported. There was no physical evidence as Joby managed to fight him off. However, it was believed that Dominic was taking Fenadine at the time of the assault. He wasn't. He was prescribed it, but he never took a single tablet. The attempted rape was all down to Dominic.'

‘I don't understand,' Harry said, squeezing the bridge of his nose.

‘All of Dominic's bad behaviour was put down to him taking this drug,' Barbara said. ‘But he lied about taking it.'

‘But he was taking it when he killed our Stephanie.'

Dawn rummaged around in the shoe box and brought out a dark red book. A page had been marked with a Post-it note. She opened it.

‘Carole was very thorough in her journals. Sometimes, it's difficult to work out what is the truth and what's made up, but photographs don't lie.' From her handbag, Dawn took out a magnifying glass. She handed the journal and the spyglass to Terry and pointed out a photograph for him to study.

They all sat in silence as Terry leaned over the notebook and cast his eye over the picture. Dawn turned to Barbara and gave her a weak smile. They had both known this day would come, and they'd arranged what they were going to say.

‘His bedroom's a mess. There's crap everywhere. It's like Where's Wally? What am I supposed to be looking for?' said Terry.

‘The drawer under the single bed is open. Look inside it.'

Terry leaned further forwards and squinted. ‘Boxes of something. Is that… Fexa…?'

‘Fenadine. They're his tablets.'

‘So, he was a hoarder. I've got empty boxes piled high in the garage,' Harry said.

‘Those boxes aren't empty. There's a protective tab on each one, and they're still sealed. They were never even opened. Dominic was prescribed Fenadine, but he never took a single dose.'

‘What?' Terry asked, his mouth agape.

Dawn took a photograph out of her pocket and handed it to Terry. It was the blown-up shot, clearly showing the sealed tablet boxes.

‘When Anthony and Carole were moving out of their house, not long after Dominic was sent to prison, Carole couldn't bring herself to go through her son's things, so Anthony did it. He confirmed that every single box of tablets Dominic had been prescribed was untouched beneath his bed. He threw them out and never told his wife. We confronted Dominic with the evidence, and he admitted he'd never taken Fenadine.'

‘So, his defence, based on the effects of the medication, was a lie?' Harry asked.

‘Yes,' Barbara confirmed clearly.

‘Dominic Griffiths knew exactly what he was doing when he tried to rape Joby Turnbull, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he kidnapped your daughter and killed her,' Dawn said. ‘He saw this whole Fenadine business as a way to get out of jail early. He lied. I went to visit him in prison before he was released and asked him if he killed Stephanie. He said he couldn't remember a single moment of it. He lied to my face. I hate to say this about my biological father, but Dominic Griffiths was evil and rotten to the core.'

Dawn fell silent and allowed her revelation to sink in for Terry and Harry.

‘Not only was he a murderer, but he conned the judicial system, and a pharmaceutical company awarded him one million pounds for what he'd done,' Barbara said. ‘He was laughing at us, Harry. He was rubbing our noses in it. Yes, he served twenty years for killing Stephanie, but he hadn't learned anything at all. He hadn't atoned. He wasn't remorseful, and he didn't feel any regret. He'd lost twenty years of his life. He was forty and had a million pounds in his pocket. We had to do something.'

‘We?' Terry asked.

Barbara and Dawn exchanged glances. Barbara nodded.

‘It was all my idea,' Dawn said. ‘Barbara didn't want anything to do with it at first. I had to convince her that it was for the good of everyone involved.'

‘And you inherit his compensation and live happily on blood money for the rest of your life,' Harry said, with bitterness in his voice.

‘No. I don't want a single penny of it. Me and Barbara have made a list of charities that support people who have lost someone to murder. The money will go to them.'

‘You have it all worked out, don't you? Like father, like daughter,' Harry said, standing up and moving to the other side of the room.

‘Harry!' Barbara said.

‘It's all right,' Dawn said.

‘No, it isn't.' Barbara followed her husband, who was stood by the patio doors, watching the fire die. ‘You talk about justice, Harry. You talk about leaving everything to the legal system. Well, this is what your legal system has done. Yes, he was found guilty of murder, but he was a manipulating, evil, cold-blooded bastard. He saw a loophole, and he jumped right through it. If he was released after twenty-five years, full of remorse and sorry for what he'd done, I might have been able to accept that and move on, but he didn't. There was no reaction to medication, because he never took it. He saw our Stephanie on the street, and he kidnapped her. He lured her to his shed. He murdered her. He cut her body up into fifteen pieces. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he didn't care.'

Barbara didn't take her eyes off Harry. She watched as the reflection of the flames danced on his face. His eyes were full of tears.

‘I can't condone what you did,' he said quietly.

‘I'm not asking you to. But you need to understand why I did it. Why we did it.'

‘Why did Anthony confess to the murder in his suicide note?' Terry asked from the other side of the living room.

‘Anthony was dying,' Dawn said. ‘Around autumn last year, he was told the cancer had spread, and there was nothing the doctors could do apart from manage his pain. He told me that when the pain became too much, he'd take his own life. He didn't want to die in a hospice hooked up to a load of machines. When I discovered the truth about Dominic, I talked about it with Anthony, and the conversation moved on to us enacting our own justice for Stephanie. And for Carole.'

‘Enacting your own justice?' Harry spat with venom. He turned from the patio doors and faced Dawn. ‘You mean committing murder.'

Dawn stood up. ‘Yes. All right. I'm not scared of saying it. We discussed murdering my own father. Anthony was all for it. He asked me to come up with a plan, so we couldn't get blamed, and he'd leave a suicide note for the police, confessing to the murder, when he took his own life. Everything would be wrapped up.'

‘The perfect crime,' Harry said. His reply oozed with sarcasm. ‘You're proud of what you did, aren't you?'

‘No. I'm not, actually. The legal system you represented for almost thirty years failed you. There are people like Clare Delaney who are willing to exploit it. It's wrong. It's disgusting. Do you think I took any pleasure in killing my own dad? I didn't. But what I was doing was right, because the law, in this case, wasn't working.'

‘Where do Andrew Dickens and his friends come into it?' Terry asked, scratching his frowning forehead.

Dawn sat back down. ‘I knew I couldn't murder Dominic in cold blood. I'm not that kind of person. However, I knew from my friend Selina that there was a lot of bad blood towards Dominic in the supermarket. I'm not proud of this, but I used my friendship with her to get him a job there, so I could wait until he was settled, and the staff knew him, then make sure his identity was revealed.'

‘How did you do that?'

‘I know Selina. She's a massive gossip; it was only a matter of time before she'd let it slip who he really was.'

Harry scoffed. ‘And you call Dominic a great manipulator. You're just as bad. A real chip off the old block.'

‘I was doing what the police couldn't,' she said firmly.

‘You set up three men to commit murder.'

‘No. I set up Andrew to beat Dominic. My plan was for us to go in and finish it. I had no idea they'd go as far as they did. It wasn't easy, but I couldn't stand by and watch Dominic profit from killing an innocent thirteen-year-old girl. It was wrong and immoral, and he couldn't be allowed to get away with it.'

‘You profited too,' Terry said. ‘The new car and TV.'

‘Look out of the window, and you'll see there's a for sale sign in the back window. I don't want it. He bought me that car when mine broke down. I didn't ask him for it. The TV is now listed on eBay. He bought it for me as a Christmas present. I don't want it. I want nothing belonging to him.'

‘So, what are you expecting?' Harry asked. ‘A round of applause, a recommendation for an OBE? If you're wanting forgiveness, you can forget it.'

‘I don't need your forgiveness,' Dawn said.

Silence filled the room. Terry looked stunned, as if he couldn't believe everything he'd just heard. Barbara looked up at Harry. He looked down at her. Neither of them gave anything away in their facial expressions.

‘Harry?' Barbara asked quietly.

Harry's bottom lip was shaking as he turned away and looked to Terry. ‘You have to arrest them, don't you?'

Terry blinked hard, and a tear escaped his right eye. He quickly swiped it away.

‘You have Anthony's suicide note,' Dawn said. ‘Use it for what it was meant for.'

‘The CPS will not believe a man with bone cancer could inflict so much violence on a healthy forty-year-old.'

‘You've got Andrew and his mates for beating him.'

‘You've got the wig and the coat, Terry,' Harry said. ‘That's evidence.'

Dawn looked towards Harry. Was he really condemning his own wife to spending the rest of her life in a prison cell? Behind him, she saw the fire in the back garden.

‘There's a bonfire outside,' Dawn said to Terry. ‘Throw them on it. Burn them. You suffered as much as Harry and Barbara did when Stephanie was killed. Look at what happened to your dad. You and Ian are as much victims of Dominic Griffiths as they are,' she said quickly, the words falling over each other.

‘Terry is an upstanding detective. He will not compromise his professional integrity,' Harry said.

‘Terry, this can all be over tonight,' Dawn pleaded. ‘You've got Andrew and his friends for the assault. You've got Anthony's confession in his suicide note. Burn the coat and the wig, and we can all move on with the rest of our lives. None of us should allow Dominic to haunt us for ever. He was a cold, sick, violent, evil man. He would have killed again.'

‘You don't know that,' Harry snapped.

‘He tried to rape his so-called best friend. He murdered an innocent girl. These journals are full of examples of his violent behaviour.'

‘You said yourself Carole made most of them up.'

‘I've researched them, looked at school records and reports made at the time. I now know what's a lie and what's the truth. When he was five years old, he bit a girl on the leg and drew blood. When he was eight, he slapped a girl so hard on the side of her face she lost the hearing in her right ear. When he was ten, he stole and killed a neighbour's cat and left its body on the owner's doorstep. He was evil when he was born, and it would have continued. He needed destroying.'

‘Terry?' Barbara asked, standing up. ‘What are you going to do?'