Oh God, maybe you don’t. You’ve never been here, after all. You’ve never sat across a desk feeling so exhausted you want to drop and so scared you want to vomit, with the police asking and asking and asking until you don’t know what you’re saying anymore.
I guess it comes down to this in the end.
I am the nanny in the Elincourt case, Mr. Wrexham.
And I didn’t kill that child.
I started writing to you last night, Mr. Wrexham, and when I woke up this morning and looked at the crumpled pages covered with my pleading scrawl, my first instinct was to rip them up and start again, just like I had a dozen times before. I had meant to be so cool, so calm and collected—I had meant to set everything out so clearly and make you see. And instead I ended up crying onto the page in a mess of recrimination.
But then I reread what I’d written and I thought, No. I can’t start again. I just have to keep going.
All this time I have been telling myself that if only someone would let me clear my head and get my side of the story straight, without interrupting, maybe this whole awful mess would get sorted out.
And here I am. This is my chance, right?
140 days, they can hold you in Scotland before a trial. Though there’s a woman here who has been waiting almost ten months. Ten months! Do you know how long that is, Mr. Wrexham? You probably think you do, but let me tell you. In her case that’s 297 days. She’s missed Christmas with her kids. She’s missed all their birthdays. She’s missed Mother’s Day and Easter and first days at school.
297 days. And they still keep pushing back the date of her trial.
Mr. Gates says he doesn’t think mine will take that long because of all the publicity, but I don’t see how he can be sure.
Either way, 100 days, 140 days, 297 days . . . that’s a lot of writing time, Mr. Wrexham. A lot of time to think, and remember, and try to work out what really happened. Because there’s so much I don’t understand, but there’s one thing I know. I did not kill that little girl. I didn’t. However hard the police try to twist the facts and trip me up, they can’t change that.
I didn’t kill her. Which means someone else did. And they are out there.
While I am in here, rotting.
I will finish now, because I know I can’t make this letter too long—you’re a busy man; you’ll just stop reading.
But please, you have to believe me. You’re the only person who can help.
Please, come and see me, Mr. Wrexham. Let me explain the situation to you and how I got tangled into this nightmare. If anyone can make the jury understand, it’s you.
I have put your name down for a visitor’s pass—or you can write to me here if you have more questions. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. Ha.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to end on a joke. It’s not a laughing matter, I know that. If I’m convicted, I’m facing—
But no. I can’t think about that. Not right now. I won’t be. I won’t be convicted, because I’m innocent. I just have to make everyone understand that. Starting with you.
Please, Mr. Wrexham, please say you’ll help. Please write back. I don’t want to be melodramatic about this, but I feel like you’re my only hope.
Mr. Gates doesn’t believe me; I see it in his eyes.
But I think that you might.
12th September 2017
HMP Charnworth
Dear Mr. Wrexham,
It’s been three days since I wrote to you, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve been waiting for a reply with my heart in my mouth. Every day the post comes round and I feel my pulse speed up, with a kind of painful hope, and every day (so far) you’ve let me down.
I’m sorry. That sounds like emotional blackmail. I don’t mean it like that. I get it. You’re a busy man, and it’s been only three days since I sent my letter but . . . I guess I half hoped that if the publicity surrounding the case had done nothing else, it would have given me a certain twisted celebrity—made you pick out my letter from among all the others you presumably get from clients and would-be clients and nutters.
Don’t you want to know what happened, Mr. Wrexham? I would.