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Question after question was asked about what had happened after that initial night in my hotel room. Had I seen her again, had anything else happened? I did my best to be as clear as I could with the answers that I gave. Slowly but surely the questions crept towards the night where I was ushered into the back of the car with Natasha waiting inside.
“Now, Mr Love, on the night of the twenty-seventh of April, you were performing in O2 Academy in Glasgow. Is that correct?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“And as Mr Thatcher made us aware during his testimony, he was not present when you left the stage that night, is that correct?”
“Yes, he had been called away.” I was trying not to panic about what was coming. I looked again to Tom in the gallery. He smiled and gave me a double thumbs up, mouthing ‘you’re doing great’ back at me.
“Mr Love, in your own words, can you walk us through what you told the police happened that night?”
I took a deep breath and bowed my head for a moment, summoning up the calm I was going to need to get through the next part of my testimony.
“When I got off the stage after the concert, I asked where Mr Thatcher was, as he was usually there to accompany me. I went to my dressing room to use the bathroom and collect my things. While there someone came into the room and told me there had been a sighting of Mrs Gibson in the venue, and I needed to leave via the fire escape opposite and get into the car waiting for me outside.”
“And do you know who it was that came into your dressing room?” McAdams asked.
“Yes, it was Mr Trevor Gibson,” I confirmed.
“And what happened once you got into the car?”
“I discovered that it was Mrs Gibson in the driver’s seat. She threatened me. She told me that she was taking me somewhere that we could talk.”
“Was she armed?” McAdams prompted.
I sighed. “She had a gun.”
“Did you fear for your life?”
“Yes.” My voice trembled.
“Did she say or do anything else that made you concerned?”
“We parked in a car park and waited for Mr Gibson to arrive. But when he did, she pointed the gun at him and told him there had been a change of plan. Instead of him getting in the car with us as he seemed to suggest he had been meant to, she drove off without him. He seemed shocked that she did that.”
“Where did Mrs Gibson take you?”
“To a cottage in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where I was.”
“Didn’t it cross your mind to escape? You’re taller than Mrs Gibson, couldn’t you have overpowered her and got away?” he asked, beating her Advocate to the punch. This way it appeared more sympathetic to me.
“It did. But I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know if she knew the area more than I did. She was armed with a gun; I didn’t want to antagonise her into using it. I thought I might stand a better chance of survival if I just did what she said.”
“Was the gunshot wound the only injury that you received from Mrs Gibson?” he prompted again.
“No, she hit me with the butt of the gun two or three times across my face,” I confirmed.
Advocate McAdams looked to the court and to Natasha as she sat beside her own Advocate. “Why couldn’t you defend yourself from the blow, Mr Love?”
“Mrs Gibson had tied me to a chair.”
“I would like to draw the court’s attention to exhibits ten through twenty-seven. Photographs taken at the crime scene showing the chair and rope in situ, and the injuries sustained by Mr Love that go hand in hand with his testimony here today.”
On the large screen in the courtroom which Tom had said was used to show maps and CCTV footage of my abduction when he was testifying, the images McAdams was discussing appeared. I thought I had been prepared to see them—I had been warned that they were coming, I had been shown them in private. But there was something about them being presented to everyone publicly that made my heart start to pound in my chest. I looked away from the images. I tried to look away from the gaze of all the people, but suddenly it was too much to deal with.
“Mr Love, are you feeling alright?” the judge asked me as I started to sway on my feet.
“My Lord, perhaps we can have a minute.” I heard McAdams say as the room started to spin. The Judge agreed and Advocate McAdams started to approach me with a glass of water in his hand. I wanted to reach out and take it from him, but my legs buckled from under me, and I slumped down into the stand.
