I try again. ‘She’s not sleeping well – you know what it’s like in the last trimester. She can’t seem to get comfortable.’
But Nell’s still frowning. Nicky is now yelling that the goal was a cheat; Gerry gets up and goes to the window, calling to his sons to play nicely in that sententious parental tone we all swear we’ll never use. Something else about having kids that never seems to change.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘it’s tough with the job but I’m doing as much around the house as I can, and we’ve got a cleaner coming in once a week for the rest.’
Nell is watching her boys. ‘We were talking earlier,’ she says, without looking round. ‘She says you’ve moved into the spare room.’
I nod. ‘Just so I don’t wake her up. Especially given I’m now getting up at stupid o’clock four days a week for the bloody gym.’
She turns towards me. ‘Quitting still a bummer?’
The look that comes with the words is cool but not unkind: Nell’s an ex-smoker too. She knows all about nicotine displacement strategies.
I try a wry smile. ‘A bastard. But I’m getting there.’
She eyes me up and down. ‘And toning up a bit too, I see. Suits you.’
I laugh. ‘Well, that’s a bloody miracle, considering I’m on a packet of Polo mints an hour.’
There’s a pause and then, finally, she smiles. But it’s a forlorn one. ‘Just look after her, Adam, OK? She’s so stressed out – this baby means so much to her. I don’t know what she’d do if –’ She stops, bites her lip and looks away.
‘Look, Nell – I’d never let anything happen to Alex. Not now, not ever. You do know that, don’t you?’
She glances up, then nods, and I wait. I know what she wants to say, and why she’s having so much trouble doing it.
‘It was in the paper,’ she says eventually. ‘He’s out, isn’t he? Gavin Parrie.’
‘Yes, he’s out.’ I force her to look at me. ‘But he’s on licence – there’ll be strict conditions. Where he can go, who he can see.’
Her lip quivers a little. ‘And he’ll have one of those tag things, right? They’ll know where he is twenty-four hours a day?’
I shake my head. ‘Most of them aren’t that techy. Not yet. The tags are linked to the offender’s address. If he goes out of a specified range the monitoring service gets an alert.’
‘And like Gerry said, if he came anywhere even remotely near here, they’d have his arse back in prison so fast he’d leave skid marks. Right?’
I take a deep breath. ‘Right.’
‘So why would he take such a massive risk?’ She’s willing me to agree now, willing me to belittle her fears. ‘He’s not stupid – he has way too much to lose.’
‘Right.’
She sighs. ‘I’m sorry. You probably think I’m completely overreacting. I just can’t stop thinking about those threats he made in court –’
She can’t possibly know how hard it is to be the man she needs me to be. But I try. ‘He was just venting, Nell. It happens all the time. And I don’t think you’re overreacting. Families always worry when offenders are released. The other victims will be going through exactly the same thing.’
‘But at least Alex has you,’ she says, giving me a wobbly smile. ‘Her own private protection officer.’
I don’t trust myself to reply to that, but luckily I don’t have to. She touches me gently on the arm and reaches for the pile of plates. ‘We’d best get on. They’ll be wondering what we’re up to in here.’
As I walk back into the dining room I wonder what she’d have said if she knew the truth.
Gavin Parrie isn’t stupid, she’s right about that. And he’d have a hell of a lot to lose, she’s right about that too. But he does have a reason. A reason that might – perhaps – be worth the risk.
Revenge.
Because he wasn’t just venting, that day, in court.
He was guilty. He knows that and I know that. But there’s something else we both know.
Gavin Parrie was convicted on a lie.
* * *
Daily Mail
21st December 1999
‘ROADSIDE RAPIST’ GETS LIFE
Judge calls Gavin Parrie ‘evil, unrepentant and depraved’
By John Smithson
The predator dubbed the ‘Roadside Rapist’ was given a life sentence yesterday, after a nine-week trial at the Old Bailey. Judge Peter Healey condemned Gavin Parrie as ‘evil, unrepentant and depraved’ and recommended he serve a minimum of 15 years. There was uproar in the court after the sentence was announced, with abuse directed at both judge and jury from members of Parrie’s family in the public gallery.
Parrie has always insisted that he is innocent of the rape and attempted rape of seven young women in the Oxford area between January and December 1998. The case hinged on forensic evidence found in Parrie’s lock-up, linking him to one of the victims, which he contended was planted there with the collusion of Thames Valley Police. As he was led away, he was heard issuing death threats against the officer who had been instrumental in his apprehension, saying he would ‘get him’ and he and his family would ‘spend the rest of their lives watching their backs’. The officer in question, Detective Sergeant Adam Fawley, has received a commendation from the Chief Constable for his work on the case.
Speaking after the verdict, Chief Superintendent Michael Oswald of Thames Valley Police said he was confident that the right man had been convicted and confirmed that no other credible suspect had ever been identified in the course of what became a county-wide investigation. ‘I am proud of the work done by my team. They went to enormous lengths to find the perpetrator of these appalling crimes and bring him to justice, and it is absolutely unacceptable that they should be subject to either threats or intimidation. Police officers
