The Photograph

Dear Sarah,
Here's the photograph on which my whole case is based. Look beyond the bent corners, the unsaturated colours and the fake smiles. Look into the real action that's taking place behind the focus of the shot. Look carefully. What do you see?

Can you make out, nestled in the shadows, the hidden person? That person is me. I don't expect you remember me being there, as you were what? Three, perhaps four-years old? It doesn't seem all that long ago I was bouncing you on my knee, making your gurgle with laughter so that you mother thought you might "bring up your tea all over my clean sofa". We just laughed some more, didn't we? Surely you must recall that?

If you ask about I would expect that some recollection remains in the minds of the older people who were guests that night. Maybe they retained some vital information about me that you’ve been seeking; some snippet of evil only they noticed, but through which they can justify their vitriol. Perhaps they just want to be interviewed on the television like those I went to school with? I don't think I'll ever know.

Those times were happy ones, were they not? Didn't we have fun, you and I? Didn't we? I implore you to spit out your memories to the court, to tell the jury that I was a friend – your only friend during those times – and that I looked after you like your mother never could thanks largely to her daily alcohol consumption – a point, I might add, that has been overlooked by both the media and my lawyer. Still, the fact that she is now dead probably means that this nugget of information is unlikely to help me in my predicament.

All I have left of those happier times is this photograph. Of course, it proves nothing, let alone my innocence, but to me it means a lot. To me it points to a time when accusations weren't provided by the shouts of hundreds of people, when words didn't count as 'pointing the finger', when police authorities did their job and researched an individual's background and didn't rely on rhetoric from a national newspaper. I knew my life was over when they came and held placards outside my house – many misspelled and illegible – with their children tagging along, taken out of school to be shown my home firsthand.

Then, following nights brought bricks and bottles of petrol with lit rags dangling from the small opening. It brought angry letters to the local newspaper. It didn't take long for me to lose my job, to be ostracised by friends, family, colleagues and – in a final fuck you – by everyone within a 10-mile radius of my home. And for what?

For something that we are all guilty of at some point in our miserable lives: for telling the truth, for dealing with the scum that permeates our society. However, somewhere along the line it backfired and I must pay the consequences for my actions.

Is it a fair society that allows you to get away with... with murder? Yes, with murder. Is it reasonable that I must feel the wrath of people for whom none of this is real? These people, they have only the journalists' words to use as a weapon. The same journalists upon whom they pour scorn every single day. It makes me sick to think about it.

And, it's because of you that I find myself here, staring death in the face on a daily basis. Thanks to you I stand accused of these crimes. Thanks to you, my love.

So, you look closely as the photograph. Stare at me, send your hate forth. When I am gone, you'll come to realise that it was I that protected you from your uncle. Protected your virtue, warned him away.

However, it does no good to me now. I do admit that it was I who killed you. I never touched you, though: not once. If only you could be here to tell them it was an accident, to tell them that I was saving you from a fate worse than... worse than what? Death?

So, look closely at the photograph. There is a man captured in that photograph, a man who will cause more pain than I ever could. I am only guilty of trying to protect you, to save you, to keep you pure. To that, my Lord, I plead guilty.

Yours lovingly


Dad