by June Thomson
He said something more but the wind smothered his words.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘I hope you don’t mind?’ he went on.
‘No, no. Come any time.’
‘I think about them often.’
I realised that I had regarded him as being out of place here. This hill was where my family and I came. Why would anyone else want to come? Alastair lived his life in a world that I expected to go about its own business without regard to me.
This man, who had known my sons only in death, surely must have other places to be, other things to demand his attention? But here he was.
In that moment I knew that evil cannot triumph, that our children are still a force for good in the world and that healing can begin with the kindness of strangers.
Chapter 32
The Love They Left Behind
‘The memories these mothers have of their children keep them alive.’
Ian Stephen
June: This is their legacy, their story as much as ours, isn’t it?
As time passes and the light draws nearer, the legacy our children left behind is bathed in a pale glow that is becoming stronger by the day.
For a long time we thought we would not escape the dark and that our children would only be the sweetest of memories, smiling at us from the photographs on the mantelpiece. I realise now that they are so much more than that. They are living beings, released from the prison of their bodies. They surround us, wherever we may be, for every second of every minute of every day, still in our hearts and in the lives of those who held them dear.
I see it in the kindness of my friend Doreen, who, like Giselle, helped me through the darkest part of the night. Doreen gave of herself completely, dried my tears and made me smile when I thought such a thing was impossible. She spoke quietly of my children, bringing them to life, returning them to me time after time.
I see it in my niece Abbi – so grown up now, a female version of what Ryan would have been. He is not gone while she is alive. She witnessed the depths of my despair. She held me. She, too, spoke to me of Ryan and Michelle with a simple wisdom that, sadly, is lost to the young when they grow up.
I see Michelle in my sister Linda. I see Ryan in my father’s eyes. When I look at my brothers, Jim, Roger and Gordon, I see my children in them, a hint of what they might have become had they been spared.
I see them in the letters from children, classmates of Ryan and Michelle, that were sent to me when I was at my lowest ebb. Then they were merely a comfort; now they are beacons of hope.
‘We will never forget you because we know you will always be with us forever,’ wrote Chloe.
‘We will miss your smile, your laugh, your cute face,’ wrote Heather.
When I pass the playground of Buckhaven Primary School, where Ryan chased Heather and Chloe, I see the train that was built in his memory, a lasting reminder of a little boy who loved fun. Children who never knew him play on it now, and while it bears his name he will live on in their innocent games.
I see my Michelle and Ryan in Shaun and Ross, the sons who are even more precious to me because I still have them to love and cherish.
Michelle and Ryan are not gone. They are here now with me.
They are beyond harm, beyond suffering, shining brightly in all of us.
Giselle: They’ll be alive forever and ever, long after both of us are gone.
It is never relinquished, never out of his sight, this valueless piece of plastic, fashioned into a child’s toy hammer. It bears a fading image of Bob the Builder and it belonged to my Jay-Jay. It is more precious to my father than any of the possessions he has gathered over the course of his long life. I will find him with it in his hand, turning it over, allowing it to provoke the memories. It is, to him, a treasure. He will hold it in one hand and clutch his favourite picture of Paul in the other. For as long as he has these mementoes, my sons are alive.
‘Remember how Jay-Jay used to climb on my knee and hit me on the arm?’ he will ask.
He will be asking me the same question until the day he dies. I smile and nod, as I have done so often. Da will then be drawn to his wardrobe where Paul’s favourite Spiderman outfit hangs.
‘The wee man really thought he was Spiderman, didn’t he?’ Da asks.
I nod again.
In another part of my home little Giselle has gone off to be by herself, taking with her my treasure box, the precious physical reminders of my sons. She has trawled through them so many times – Jay-Jay’s tiny clothes, Paul’s pristine school uniform. She touches each one tenderly and goes to a place beyond tears.
Katie comes with me every day, accompanying me to my sons’ resting place. We do not speak much. There is no need for words. I stand vigil. She is my guardian.
Uncle Tam, so big, so brusque, so vulnerable, still talks about his boys, his little angels. His eyes have a sadness in them that was not there before, because he sees them wherever he looks.
I still hear snatches of my children’s voices, captured from recordings, which now live in the mobile phones of my family. When I hear their voices now, I can see that for every minute they were with us my babies were happy and loved.
Whenever they need to be found they always come, reaching out to us from my dad’s hands, Tam’s eyes, Giselle’s memories and Katie’s silence.
They are not gone.
Chapter 33
This Sisterhood of Ours
Our story has been told.
And now there is silence.
It is companionable and without tension.
We embrace.
There is no distance between us. It is a proximity that goes beyond the physical.
It is a long time since we two have been strangers. Now there is affinity, empathy and comfort. In this unique place of ours, we are sisters. We hold the mirror to each other’s face and see the same reflection. We are grateful to have found each other; grateful to have discovered the one person in the world who can finish our sentences; grateful to have someone who can truly say, ‘I know how you feel!’ We have been to each other rocks in a storm-lashed sea, safe havens in a bleak landscape.
We have told our story to one another so many times.
Now we have shared it with you.
You are no longer a stranger.
You know now.
Step onto the rock with us. Be part of our friendship. We need you as much as we need each other. With you by our side, we are no longer alone. Our burden is shared.
We are not afraid you will lack understanding. We do not fear you will judge. We know that you, like us, will not have the answers. Heaven knows, we have tried for so long to find them.
The one thing that we are certain of is that we had to tell this story. For us. For our children. For every person who is suffering.
Don’t look away.
Afterword by Ian Stephen
This is a story for our times, a taboo that few wish to address because it attacks everything in which we believe and hold dear.
We demand that a parent should be loving and nurturing, and not the perpetrator of evil. To kill your own child sets you apart from everything acceptable to a caring society. But we must realise that society is changing and recognise that the family annihilator is responsible for more than one-third of child murders. The ‘bogeyman’ is no longer just lurking in the darkness. The unpalatable truth is that children may be safer on the street with strangers than they are in their own homes.
It is a dilemma that the legal establishment is already beginning to recognise. Paul McBride, one of the UK’s leading QCs, says, ‘I have grave concerns that this crime is on the increase. As a society, we need to take notice.’
Mr McBride, who was appointed to defend Ashok Kalyanjee, goes on:
It was obvious to everyone who dealt with Kalyanjee that he was suffering a mental disorder, but not one that could reduce the charge. No rational person could have done what he did, killing one child in front of the other, in
flicting burns upon himself and the children’s bodies.
As a society we want people to show emotion, remorse. This type of killer shows none. Their victims are seen as possessions, the latest accessory, and not as children to be loved and nurtured.
This is extremely dangerous, because when it comes to family breakdown those children become pawns.
We are living in a particularly brutal society and the venom of one partner towards the other can leave the children in terrible danger. The attitude of these emotionless individuals is, ‘If I can’t have them, nobody will.’
We have become self-absorbed. The people who commit these crimes may be just plain old fashioned evil, and when evil people commit evil deeds, often the best we can do as a society is lock them away for as long as possible.
It is the bitterest of ironies that we are seeing an alarming increase in this terrible crime because there are more support systems available nowadays to help women break away from bad relationships. In generations past, as June’s granny would have said, you made your bed and you lay on it – that’s what abuse victims did in earlier, tougher times. Women were often seen as subservient ‘chattels’. Now more women will, quite rightly, leave.
That is often the trigger. To an insecure, self-absorbed individual, the loss of status, the threat to self-esteem, the loss of control, of no longer being seen as the head of a family, combine in a constellation of symptoms with often catastrophic results. These are people, usually men, whose lives are about control and ‘ownership’ – and in a society that is increasingly possession-orientated children can be perceived as possessions rather than as individuals. When that lack of emotional attachment exists, it turns some parents into killers. They are made more dangerous because you are never certain what the trigger has been – or what they plan to do.
June and Giselle would not have had an inkling of the terrible events that would be visited upon them.
Rab and Ash may have emerged from this story as two very different men. Rab was the brute who controlled through fear and violence. Ash was the smooth talker who manipulated with smiles and words. But they are both sides of the same coin. In fact, if anything, Ash is the more sinister – a controlled, superficial, detached, emotionally devoid individual who believed himself superior and used charm to mask his dark side. He enjoyed the image of being a husband and father but he didn’t want the hard work or the responsibility that went with it. His main stressor was the fear of being exposed as a gambler. He would do anything to keep intact the image of the world he had constructed. When that world began tumbling down, he went berserk.
Rab and Ash chose women who were respectively needy and naïve. June’s childhood-abandonment issues created someone Rab could dominate. Giselle’s loving upbringing created a trusting innocent who perfectly suited Ash’s brand of manipulation. Ash chose Giselle because he would have immediately recognised that naïvety and inexperience. Someone with more sophistication would have been too headstrong.
They were the perfect prey for the perfect predators.
Once in thrall to these men they found it impossible to break free. Such women have only a very narrow window of opportunity in which to escape – and that is early in the relationship. If they do not escape, the longer they stay the more difficult it becomes to break away.
Even when abuse rears it ugly head, they can be convinced that it will not happen again. The more often it does, and the more often they leave and go back, the more compulsive the relationship becomes. They are stripped of personality. They reach a point where the only view they can express is the one their husband allows. They are separated from family and other relationships. They become isolated and cannot get independent feedback to contradict anything their husband says or does.
These men have an almost hypnotic effect on the women they dominate. Ironically, the victimiser may often be insecure to an almost paranoid extent. They may often be men who have been dominated or deserted by their mothers. They go on to invest that insecurity in their partners and the need to dominate them is paramount, which is why they cannot bear to let them get away. They believe the family cannot exist without them at its heart.
When their worst fears are realised by perceived rejection or the threat to their carefully constructed worlds, they become highly dangerous. They may be likened to a person contemplating suicide. They struggle to reach a decision – a ‘solution’ – but, once having decided on what they perceive to be a ‘logical’ course of action, they enter the planning phase. Everything is meticulously worked out. The difference is that the victim is not them but their family. Throughout it all they will appear normal to those around them.
Rab and Ash would have believed they were doing the ‘right thing’. Such a thought process may appear irrational to you and me, but it would have been ‘acceptable’ to them because it allowed them to stay in control. Some family annihilators may even see themselves as ‘protecting’ their children and, in the end, when the terrible deed is done, it is invariably never their fault. Rab’s suicide note and Ash’s taped message were exercises in self-justification and an effort not to allow their wives to have the last word. They wanted to control to the bitter end, make their women experience guilt as well as terrible loss. The attempt to kill themselves was no more than a pseudo-gesture made in order to engender sympathy.
One of the burning questions is why these men choose to end their children’s lives in such a brutal fashion. The answer is simple. If, for example, they gave them sleeping pills, they would have to watch them die. However, with that first stab wound the control is released, and they stab and stab until they become calm and controlling again. They are, in many respects, like serial killers.
In Rab’s case, he posed his dead children. In doing that, he saw himself as the ‘loving father’. He wanted them to look ‘nice’ and not grotesque. In Ash’s case, he saw his children only as possessions.
Both of these men are thoroughly evil, although neither would perceive themselves to be so.
Could they ever experience remorse? In a sense, they could feel ‘sorry’ that they had to do ‘that’ to the children, but the blame is laid on the wife. They made me do it, they would say. In all likelihood, they will emerge from prison after their long sentences and still be the same men, still with that sense of being aggrieved, still deflecting the blame for their actions onto others, still without remorse. Rab will expect June to be waiting; Ash will have no inkling of the horror of what he has done.
Can we recognise them? Identify them as monsters in our midst? In most cases they are very socially adept. They are often charming, popular and they only show the world the face they want it to see.
They are the nice guys … and they live next door.
Ian Stephen is a chartered clinical and forensic psychologist. A former Director of Psychological Services at Scotland’s State Hospital for psychiatric patients at Carstairs, he has spent his career working with serial killers and the most dangerous and violent offenders in Britain. Ian worked closely with the actor Robbie Coltrane in the development of the television series Cracker.
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Help and Support for Victims
Rape Crisis England and Wales
www.rapecrisis.org.uk
0808 802 9999
Rape Crisis Scotland
www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk
0808 801 0302
Women’s Aid
www.womensaid.org.uk
0808 200 0247
Scottish Women’s Aid
www.scottishwomensaid.org.uk
0800 027 1234
Welsh Women’s Aid
www.welshwomensaid.org
Wales Domestic Abuse Helpline
0808 801 0800
Northern Ireland Women’s Aid
www.womensaidni.org
0800 917 1414
E
ire Women’s Aid
www.womensaid.ie
00353 1 800 341900
Victim Support
www.victimsupport.com
0845 303 0900
Acknowledgments
To writers Jim McBeth and Marion Scott, who had the commitment and understanding to empower us, in the hope that we can save one life and prevent just one more tragedy.
June: To my father, Jim Martin, who is everything a parent should be. To my brothers Jim, Gordon and Roger and sister Linda, for unfailing support. To my sons, Shaun and Ross. To Doreen, who is more than a friend.
Giselle: To my parents, John and Jean Ross, who shaped my world with love. To my brothers Tam, Alex, William and Johnny and sisters Katie and Janie. To my niece Giselle, the daughter I would wish for. To Alastair Douglas, who stands on the hill. To Paul Martin MSP, for actions and not words. To my dear friend Lynn Manners.
To criminal psychologist Ian Stephen, who has looked so often into the eyes of evil and recognises the monsters in our midst.
To lawyer Cameron Fyfe, a warrior on behalf of the isolated and the abused.
To Paul McBride QC, for his insight into the criminal justice system.
To Frank Pilkington, for guiding us towards the light.
To our literary agent Clare Hulton, for believing that a dark and difficult story for our times demanded to be told. To our editor Vicky McGeown at HarperCollins, for having the courage to make it happen.
To everyone living in fear … You are no longer alone.
About the Authors
Marion Scott and Jim McBeth are husband and wife. Marion is an award-winning journalist with the Sunday Mail, who has won praise for campaigning on behalf of abused children and victims of injustice. Jim writes for the Daily Mail. He is a former feature writer with the Daily Record, chief writer with the Scotsman and focus writer of the Sunday Times. They are regular contributors to national radio and television, and co-authors of No More Silence, published by HarperCollins.
