Anna Williams, Mental Health Treatment Requirement client, transcribed by Dr. Arthur Dean, National Offender Management Service
Thank you, Dr. Dean. I really appreciate you being here.
Yes, I understand. I’m here because the court ordered it as a condition of my probation. I’m to undergo regular therapy to help me gain a better insight into the choices I made.
Ha! Yes! I’m quoting the judge. I’m impressed that you recognised the wording. I’m going to have to keep on my toes around you. [Laughs.]
You already know why I’m here. I really don’t feel like rehashing what we both know. But there is something new I’ve found out, since the trial. I found out what was in the photo that Hannah-Claire took from me to show Mum. The one the police found in Nigel’s rubbish.
I already knew what it was a photo of, obviously. It was Mum and two friends, as young teenagers. There’s a copy in Mum’s yearbook, in the back pages of candid shots. And in it you can see a long, thin scar on her chest. It just peeps out the top of her shirt. She got it when she was swimming in the river. You can hardly see it now, and she doesn’t really show her chest now anyway, but back then it was pretty clear, if you knew where to look.
Well, the police got hold of Hannah-Claire’s belongings in storage in Canada, and there with her old baby clothes was her baby photo, her only one. There’s a gap in the hospital gown Mum was wearing and you can see the scar.
Hannah-Claire meant to show the teenage photo to Mum, to make her admit the real truth. But Nigel met her instead. I don’t know what they said to each other, but one of them smashed the photo in its frame. Nigel swept it all up the best he could, took the frame and the picture itself, and destroyed it all at the office. Not destroyed it enough, as you know, but he refused to admit anything, which is exactly what you would expect from him.
Look, I hate this part. I hate it. They weren’t able to convict. Convict him for what? That his step-niece-maybe-stepdaughter fell in the river while he was nearby? While they were having an argument? That he took a picture away from her? So what? Unless they could prove he pushed her, it didn’t mean anything. None of it.
Which is why what I did is so important. I’m pretty sure the goal of this therapy is to get me to see the error of my ways, but without me, he’d be a free man. That wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t be right.
The police finished analysing the stuff under my fingernails and it turned out that Nigel had been the one to beat me after the funeral. He even has scratches on his arms to match. He saw Henry and me together and, knowing what people already suspected Henry had done to Hannah-Claire, he saw his chance. After Henry walked away he . . . I don’t really want to talk about it. I was as bad as Hannah-Claire to him. He’d already done it to her, and I was a variation on the same problem: a child he didn’t want and couldn’t control.
Is he having to have therapy too? Because I think that would be a really good idea.
All right, sorry. This is about me. I understand that.
But don’t you get it, that if it weren’t for what he did to me, he wouldn’t be in jail? And he is now, for five years. Five years. For what he did to me. He didn’t get anything for Hannah-Claire, but he got five years for me. That sounds short but I bet it feels like forever to him. What I did was important. What I did was worth it. I got him.
Actually, no, I don’t feel badly about Henry. Hannah-Claire put up with him because she was lonely but he wasn’t generous. He wasn’t kind. He should feel guilty for how he treated her. The way people looked at him when he was accused, that’s how he deserves to feel, because the point is that people were able to imagine he’d done it. How do you get to be the kind of person that people think, Huh. Maybe he did kill his wife. Right? If you’re that kind of person, you need to own that. You need to face it. Maybe his brief stint in jail did that for him. Maybe that was a kind of therapy, right? Therapy for everyone! [Laughs.]
I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think Hannah-Claire deserved what happened at all.
What do you mean? My part? I wasn’t at the river. I was trying to protect her. Mum had already made her decision to not tell her, to not tell any of us, and Hannah-Claire just didn’t respect that. That’s what put all of this in motion. Not me lying; it was her not being satisfied with the lie. I gave her a lie I would have loved to have myself. I gave it to her. That’s a kind of love. And she just wouldn’t be satisfied.
[Exasperated breathing.] Well, for the same reason that kids all over the world imagine that their “real” parents are royalty or pirates or dinosaur archaeologists. Annalise is the closest thing to a princess where I was growing up. Of course I would have loved to be hers.
Of course I’ve heard. Everyone’s heard. “Annalise Wood Alive.” The headline font was like three inches high.
I don’t know. It’s weird.
Even Annalise wasn’t Annalise. I mean, she was Annalise Wood before she disappeared, but that Annalise was just a teenager who was pretty and popular in a general way but not perfect. Not famous. She only became the important “Annalise” in the eyes of others, once she was gone. She became a kind of symbol, a kind of idol, to strangers, and to me, but she didn’t get to experience being that herself. I don’t think anyone ever gets to experience being that, even if they’re alive and aware that it’s happening in other people’s minds. That’s something you can think about others, but you can’t ever be inside of it. When you’re inside yourself, you know better.
No, I don’t think she did know. From the way it’s been described in the news, Ginny Russell kept Annalise isolated from all that was going on. Ginny was terrified that if the accident was discovered, her father would go to prison for driving after his licence had been taken away due to poor eyesight. She felt badly about what had happened and dedicated her life to making Annalise physically comfortable. The injuries apparently made her . . . compliant. It’s horrible. Horrible. I can’t . . .
Nothing. I just mean that I’m not. [Breathes heavily.] I’m not . . . There was even my picture online; did you see? The reporter asked me for one so I got to pick. I chose one from a couple of years ago. I didn’t go back to the photos I used to fantasise about using; those would have been far too young; but it was from my second year at university. I was at a party, so there are other people in it too. They blurred out the other people’s faces but you can see that I was in a group, and I’m smiling, and my hair looks great, and I look pretty. I look pretty. That’s “me” now, if you google my name. Maybe someone is fantasising about being perfect like me.
Annalise is in a care home now. She’s the same age as my Mum. In a way she looks younger than Mum, actually, in that one picture the media have been allowed to use. Her face is childlike while her body is middle-aged.
I . . . No. That’s not what the fantasy ever was. That’s not what the fantasy . . .
Look, it’s not even my fantasy any more.
Because it’s not. Because I have my own story now. My stepfather beat me until I almost died. [Crying.] He killed my cousin. Who was my sister. He killed her and he almost killed me. And talking about that doesn’t feel special, the way that it did when I was making something up. It feels ugly, and out of control.
Thank you, Dr. Dean. I appreciate the tissues.