They were both thrilled when Rachel got enough honours for university. ‘A first for this family,’ they had laughed. Nevertheless, there were tears shed on the day she packed her bags. She was their only child and had never been away from home before. It was reassuring that she would be sharing a house with two girls she knew from school. She was her usual bubbly self that Christmas, full of stories about college and city life. She had even managed to get a job at weekends to help pay her rent. Despite her hectic new life, she always found time to ring her mother each Saturday morning from a public phone box.
‘It is probably nothing. Don’t be worrying yourself,’ he had told Joan before driving to the city on that Saturday afternoon. Rachel had not made her usual call. Joan was anxious. She knew their daughter would be in the rented house on her own over the weekend. He arrived at the small terraced street just as it was getting dark. Number 15 was exactly as Rachel had described it. The only house on the street with a black front door. His heart missed a beat when he discovered the door slightly ajar.
To the left of the hall was the sitting room. He recognised a cardigan of Rachel’s on the back of a chair. He called out her name before he slowly climbed the stairs. He entered a bedroom at the top of the stairs. His daughter was lying naked on a bed, her young body lifeless. He started to shake violently. He felt a sudden movement behind him. A naked young man walked into the bedroom drying his wet hair with a towel. Just a boy, really – no more than eighteen or nineteen. They stared at each other in complete silence. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ snarled the young man.
He received seven years for the manslaughter. His early admission of guilt – he had called the guards himself – resulted in the final two years of the sentence being suspended. The young victim, named as Francis McDonald in court, had been a casual boyfriend of his daughter’s. She had told friends she was going to end their relationship that Friday night.
His brother picked him up outside the prison gates at 8:00 AM this morning. They were home in just over an hour. It was strange to be sitting in his own kitchen again. Apart from the few hours last year to attend Joan’s funeral, this was his first time out in five years. His brother couldn’t stay. He was glad. He did not want to be around people yet – no matter how well meaning. He knows that to many people he is a hero. The distraught father who avenged his daughter’s murder. To others, he will always be a killer who took the law into his own hands. To himself, he is neither. He is just a broken man who wants his wife and daughter back.