Then She Was Gone (25 page)

He had no hope. He was just another statistic. Another innocent man jailed for something he hadn’t done.

How many more of him were out there? How could any man believe anything they were told if this was where they ended up?

He wasn’t a father any more. He wasn’t a loving partner.

He was a killer.

That’s all people would see when they looked at him. His future was behind prison walls, with no freedom.

No way out. No way back.

Gone.

The pain wasn’t supposed to be real. It wasn’t supposed to exist. There had been moments when she believed that. That the pain she felt wasn’t authentic. That
it was just a figment of her imagination.

She hadn’t expected it to hurt, deep inside her. A lingering, dull ache. Not something that would live with her for years after. A burned memory she would carry with her across years of
brokenness and disappointment.

Pain was something other than hurt. She knew that now. There was a whole other level of agony she could experience, which made the rest of her experiences in life fade to nothingness in
comparison.

She couldn’t look at herself in a mirror for very long any more. She struggled to look people in the eye, afraid of what they would see staring back at them. She didn’t like the same
things she had before that night: TV programmes, films, music. There was a black hole within her now that she didn’t think would ever be filled.

It hadn’t started like that.

University was supposed to have been her chance to become something more. A way out of her boring life. An opportunity to find out who she really was as a person, to cultivate a personality
which would last into adulthood.

It was also supposed to have been fun. It was, for the first few months – the lectures becoming of secondary importance as she made friends and had nights out in Liverpool. A group of them
had formed – all from different parts of the UK, coming together in a strange city, helping each other become accustomed to the strangeness of being away from home. They’d been living
in the same student accommodation, all hiding in their own rooms for the first week, before tentatively coming together in the communal area during the first semester.

Learning to make friends all over again, like the first week of secondary school.

She had been studying politics and international business, deciding early on that she had probably made a mistake. The other students on the course all seemed to be much more knowledgeable than
her – with the added caveat that the lecturer seemed to want to skew things to a left-wing perspective unfortunately – but there were some enjoyable parts of the course. She just had to
look for them a little harder. She wasn’t about to give up, she was there for a reason, even if some days she forgot what that reason was. Her father had instilled in her the importance of
university education and she was always willing to accept what he had to say.

The girls she lived with had made a pact early on not to discuss personal politics. They would rail against injustices and perhaps touch on ways of dealing with them, but it never went further
than that. They all had the privilege of making that choice, of course. They knew that.

She had become aware of the Abercromby Boys Club during her first week of university. The group was well established by then, its members refusing to wear what other students wore. Instead, they
were always decked out in posh suits with never a hair out of place. Over the weeks of her first term, she’d noticed them here and there, on campus and in town. They were almost insidious,
blending into the background one minute, taking over the next. She would be working in the library, only to look up and see them take over an entire bank of desks. They had a certain look to them,
which marked them out from the people around them. They were hated by so many, but it was only jealousy. Everyone wanted to be connected to them in some way.

‘I don’t get it. They look like absolute idiots. Why would anyone speak to them, let alone spend nights out with them?’

‘I don’t know, I think they look all right. It’s nice to see them make an effort.’

‘You like the suits? Even the ones with bow ties they wear?’

‘Makes them look sophisticated.’

‘Remember, underneath that suit, they’re still teenage boys. Only one thing on their minds.’

They were a curiosity she’d wanted to learn more about. She’d noticed a few of the lads on her course had joined the club – their dress sense changing overnight, the way in
which they spoke to people becoming more arrogant and less friendly.

She’d gravitated towards them, wanting to know more about what they did in those clandestine meetings she knew went on. There was a part of her which had been drawn to them, she’d
wanted to know their secret.

It was months before she’d been invited to one of their infamous parties.

She’d begun to earn jealous looks from some of the girls she lived with, while others actively discouraged her from getting closer to the Abercromby Boys Club. They don’t understand,
she had thought.

She’d wanted to tread her own path, but she’d also understood the importance of being in the correct social circle. She could see those men belonged to something more, were doing
something more, and she’d wanted to be a part of it.

She couldn’t have foreseen the danger. She didn’t make a mistake. It was supposed to be harmless fun.

It shouldn’t have been her fault.

The first party had been nothing special. A bunch of students drinking and making fools of themselves – only wearing more expensive clothes and accessories than the other students out that
night. What it had taught her was that there was a hierarchy within the Abercromby Club. The upper level of management, or “grandmasters” she had heard them referred to as. It
hadn’t been difficult to spot them – eight men holding court in their own sectioned-off area of the large party.

There had been something exciting about the whole set-up. These eight men had created something, using money and power to get whatever they desired.

She’d wanted some of that power. That was her goal.

She hadn’t made a mistake. Somewhere, deep down, she knew that to be true. Despite what she would hear people say, there wasn’t anything she should have to feel guilty. She
shouldn’t have been blamed for what happened. Saying it was a mistake inferred she bore some responsibility for the pain.

That couldn’t be true. She was the victim.

Still, it didn’t stop the experience following that night. The pain of it. The haze of her memory wasn’t where it was found. There was no pain there. Only flashes of uncertainty, the
occasional glimpse of what had happened to her.

Memory is a stranger sometimes. It’s something untrustworthy. The experiences she believed she had gone through couldn’t be depended upon.

The pain came from what had happened later.

That was what she wanted to rectify. That’s what she wanted justice for, not what happened on that night. She didn’t know enough, couldn’t rely on the firmness of her
recollections.

She only had one clear memory. One certainty rising above the fog of doubt.

That had to be enough.

There was a time before and a time after. Two separate parts of her life, in which everything was compartmentalised. The memories of the before part were now tainted by what
came afterwards. There was no solace to be found in earlier recollections, knowing what followed.

She’d become a different person after that night. It had shaped the woman she became. The experience had altered the fabric of her being, forever noticeable and known.

People say you shouldn’t let the awful things that happen to you affect the person you are. That things are best left behind, that you should get over them, move forwards and put it all
behind you.

Those people are delusional. It’s impossible to forget something which takes away everything you ever believed about yourself.

There had been others who felt she was somehow partly responsible. That she had to accept her behaviour was somehow a factor in what happened.

She had believed those voices for a long time.

These were the facts, as best she could remember them.

Yes, she’d gone to that party willingly. Yes, she’d wanted to become involved with certain people there, in order to be in with the right people. Yes, she may have had too much to
drink that night. Yes, she’d dressed to impress, provocatively and without worry. Yes, she may have flirted with some of the men and enjoyed the attention she received.

What she hadn’t done was say yes to any of the things that had happened after her memory had faded and became fuzzy and distorted.

She wasn’t under the impression that consent was something intangible. That it was something which couldn’t be understood by seemingly bright and intelligent men. The absence of a
forceful no, isn’t an embodiment of a yes.

It mattered little. She’d known the whisper campaign had started.

‘You heard about her. Cried rape after she fucked a bunch of them at the same time.’

‘Fucking slut.’

‘Makes it harder for proper victims, that does. Just because she woke up and regretted what she did, doesn’t make them rapists all of a sudden.’

‘Yeah, should be ashamed of herself.’

Everybody knew what had happened that night, even if she didn’t. That’s how she felt. They were all talking about her and what she had done. She knew what their thoughts were, as
well. Had read enough about them online to know the reality of her situation. She was a liar, a slag who was just looking for attention.

She’d had no choice. She’d had to leave. There was no way back for her at that place. All the studying she had done, all the hard work, undone by one night.

Not that it mattered by that point. She was already gone.

She’d left university, unable to take the constant stares and the talking behind her back. It had felt as if she was the centre of an attention she didn’t want or need.

She’d felt alone.

Just the one image in her head. One face. She’d filled in the gaps from blurred fragments of memory and what they’d said to her the next day.

‘You were shit, love. Lay there like an ironing board.’

‘Thought you’d be well up for it.’

‘Yeah, happy enough at the beginning, weren’t you?’

‘Here’s your taxi fare. Do us a favour and don’t come back to one of our parties.’

Confusion and bewilderment. Those were the two points of reference for the morning after. There was no reason for her to be in that situation. No facts she could point to. Just a fractured
reality of what had occurred.

Her life had been ruined by one night. The years following had only increased the hurt.

Until now.

She’d never thought of herself as a vindictive person. Someone who had violence within them. That had changed in the days after that night. She’d wanted revenge for everything that
had been done to her. For the way they had treated her – like a piece of meat to be fought over by the pride. She’d wanted to inflict pain to make them pay for what they had forced upon
her. They deserved payback for what had happened to her.

She hadn’t been able to go back home. Her father couldn’t hide his disappointment with her. She’d stayed in Merseyside, moving over to the Wirral.

It was there that she’d first seen one of them. Years later. She’d still been rebuilding her life, trying to make sense of what had happened to her. Then, bang, there he was.

Tim Johnson.

Him.

She wanted revenge.

And she was going to get it.

There was someone she’d watched a documentary about. A serial killer in America, Aileen Wuornos, who had killed a series of men over the course of a couple of years.
There were arguments over why she’d done it, but her opinion was that something had broken inside Wuornos. That she couldn’t take what was happening to her on a regular basis any more
and she’d decided to fight back. It didn’t matter which men were victims of her anger and rage, they were all the same to her.

She had felt that same rage. That same anger. The need to burn it all down. To bring an end to every life, so hers was never in danger again. She wanted to save another woman from going through
what she had, but that was only a insignificant part of her thinking. It was more selfish than that.

There was a need to strike back. To punish and get justice for what had happened to her.

She had tried to do it the right way. To go through the correct channels and report everything that had happened to her in the right fashion. Never again. It was a joke, a way of making you feel
as if you were doing it the proper way without actually achieving anything.

When it’s one word against another, those without power always lose.

The idea of actual justice became foreign to her. She had thought that she was destined to live her life with nothing but hurt and pain to show for what had occurred that night. As her memories
returned, the pain grew stronger, turning into agony and suffering.

The dreams were the worst. Beginning with indistinct shapes, blurred and formless, rapidly turning into nightmares. She would wake up, covered in sweat and breathing hard, thinking there was
someone in the room with her. Someone in her bed. Someone in her mind.

There was no escape. Not from the thoughts in her own head. Over and over, the same thing again and again.

No escaping the need for something else.

Justice. Payback.

Revenge.

You’re sure they’re closing in. You know they’ll eventually work it all out and try to stop you before you’ve finished.

That means things have to happen sooner. You decide to take action before that net closes over you.