where we installed CCTV. Sarah insisted. Her story was that she wanted to keep a record of the number of times he had fits. It wasn’t. I would come home from a late shift and find her in my studio, studying the recordings from the day, looking for a stutter, a flick, a twitch. Looking for any kind of voluntary movement at all from our immobile little angel. Her anguished, empty smile as she greeted me always told me her search had been equally as empty.
There is a bank of four screens to the right of my case wall. On one of them is a frozen, slightly juddering image of the door to the hotel room where Jess and I stayed in Edinburgh. I have been playing it over and over again, willing the door to open, knowing it never will.
One of them is showing BBC One. It’s coming up to ten o’clock, time to turn it up and listen to the news, see what they are saying publicly today about the case.
I turn the volume up and then flick another button on the remote to turn on another monitor which shows a live feed from Jacob’s room. I know the blinds were turned up last night, so they had to have been moved between eleven o’clock last night and me getting home tonight at seven. I press rewind on the remote.
‘Even Fallen Angels Have wings.’ What the hell did he mean by that? Is he suggesting she flew out of the bloody hotel room? That’s just ludicrous. But how else could she get out if not through the main door. Through the window? It is three floors up onto a main thoroughfare in the centre of Edinburgh, someone would have seen her. I see images of Edinburgh start to appear on the News Headlines on the TV as the sound bites seep through my thoughts.
‘Mayhem at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh today as a lone gunmen commits suicide while exposing a senior Roman Catholic leader as a possible serial killer.’
The Fringe is on the Royal Mile, just around the corner from the hotel Jess and I stayed in. A blurry camera phone image of a screaming, running crowd is on the screen, a large cabinet with a person on a crucifix visible through the darting people.
Could Jess have climbed out of our bedroom window and walked along the ledge to the next room? Did anyone come out of the next room? Have I got CCTV footage of that? I start to rewind the image of the hotel room too, looking down the corridor. I can just see a couple of inches of the bottom of the door to the next room along.
The video of Jacob’s room is rewinding, no movement visible in the room back to lunchtime.
‘Our Edinburgh correspondent, Ewan Daniels is at the scene.’
‘Thanks Hew. As you can see from the amateur video, at approximately 10:30 this morning outside the Cathedral behind me, a lone gunman, dressed as a Court Jester…’
Court Jester. Why would a gunman dress up as a Court Jester? Ah, Fringe Festival, no one would think that was anything odd.
Stop! 11:28. What’s that in Jacob’s room? I stop the video and slowly fast forward it. About ten minutes after I left the house this morning. There. That’s a woman. I put it in normal playback. A woman wearing a black coat. A slim woman with auburn hair, wearing a black coat and red high heels. The same woman I saw this afternoon! She walks with her back to the camera over to the cot, gently spinning the mobile and then picks up a small teddy from the myriad of toys. It’s Ian, a cheap tatty little bear that we bought on a trip to Ikea. She puts it up to her face and I see her shoulders hunch. Is she smelling it? Taking in the scent? She puts the toy into her pocket as she starts to walk around the cot towards the window.
‘The Roman Catholic Church has so far declined to comment on the allegations that Archbishop Liam O’Driscoll was involved in the murders of seven…’
Seven women, sodomised and asphyxiated. Jesus. If that’s true, it’s not surprising they are refusing to comment,
Turn
There is a bank of four screens to the right of my case wall. On one of them is a frozen, slightly juddering image of the door to the hotel room where Jess and I stayed in Edinburgh. I have been playing it over and over again, willing the door to open, knowing it never will.
One of them is showing BBC One. It’s coming up to ten o’clock, time to turn it up and listen to the news, see what they are saying publicly today about the case.
I turn the volume up and then flick another button on the remote to turn on another monitor which shows a live feed from Jacob’s room. I know the blinds were turned up last night, so they had to have been moved between eleven o’clock last night and me getting home tonight at seven. I press rewind on the remote.
‘Even Fallen Angels Have wings.’ What the hell did he mean by that? Is he suggesting she flew out of the bloody hotel room? That’s just ludicrous. But how else could she get out if not through the main door. Through the window? It is three floors up onto a main thoroughfare in the centre of Edinburgh, someone would have seen her. I see images of Edinburgh start to appear on the News Headlines on the TV as the sound bites seep through my thoughts.
‘Mayhem at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh today as a lone gunmen commits suicide while exposing a senior Roman Catholic leader as a possible serial killer.’
The Fringe is on the Royal Mile, just around the corner from the hotel Jess and I stayed in. A blurry camera phone image of a screaming, running crowd is on the screen, a large cabinet with a person on a crucifix visible through the darting people.
Could Jess have climbed out of our bedroom window and walked along the ledge to the next room? Did anyone come out of the next room? Have I got CCTV footage of that? I start to rewind the image of the hotel room too, looking down the corridor. I can just see a couple of inches of the bottom of the door to the next room along.
The video of Jacob’s room is rewinding, no movement visible in the room back to lunchtime.
‘Our Edinburgh correspondent, Ewan Daniels is at the scene.’
‘Thanks Hew. As you can see from the amateur video, at approximately 10:30 this morning outside the Cathedral behind me, a lone gunman, dressed as a Court Jester…’
Court Jester. Why would a gunman dress up as a Court Jester? Ah, Fringe Festival, no one would think that was anything odd.
Stop! 11:28. What’s that in Jacob’s room? I stop the video and slowly fast forward it. About ten minutes after I left the house this morning. There. That’s a woman. I put it in normal playback. A woman wearing a black coat. A slim woman with auburn hair, wearing a black coat and red high heels. The same woman I saw this afternoon! She walks with her back to the camera over to the cot, gently spinning the mobile and then picks up a small teddy from the myriad of toys. It’s Ian, a cheap tatty little bear that we bought on a trip to Ikea. She puts it up to her face and I see her shoulders hunch. Is she smelling it? Taking in the scent? She puts the toy into her pocket as she starts to walk around the cot towards the window.
‘The Roman Catholic Church has so far declined to comment on the allegations that Archbishop Liam O’Driscoll was involved in the murders of seven…’
Seven women, sodomised and asphyxiated. Jesus. If that’s true, it’s not surprising they are refusing to comment,
Turn
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