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‘When he was ten, he picked up a mug from a teacher’s desk and threw it at the head of a fellow pupil. That child ended up losing his right eye.’
I closed my eyes and put my hand over my mouth. This was shocking. ‘But Dominic wasn’t taking Fenadine then.’
‘No. These are the reasons for him taking Fenadine.’
‘How do you know all of this?’
‘I’ve done my research,’ she said with a smile. Or was it a grin? It could have been a smirk. Either way, it reminded me of Jack Nicholson’s ‘Here’s Johnny!’ line in The Shining. Even my goosebumps had goosebumps.
‘Who told you?’
‘Client confidentiality,’ she said. Now, it was a sneer.
‘So, when he was on the drug, he was much calmer?’
‘Considerably.’
‘So it worked then?’
‘Until he murdered Stephanie White.’
‘But how do you know that was the drug and not just Dominic?’
‘The last recorded piece of evidence of Dominic’s violent behaviour was at the age of fifteen, five years before he killed Stephanie. Towards the end of 1998, Dominic suffered a setback. He’d finished school with very few qualifications. He went to college to retake some GCSEs and hoped to get on an engineering course. He failed. He applied for twenty-six jobs in a three-month period and was turned down for every one of them. He sank into another depressive episode, and his mother sent him back to the GP for a medication review. All they did was increase the dose from eighty milligrams per day to one hundred and fifty.’
‘That’s quite a leap.’
‘Which turned him into a killer. He was no longer thinking for himself. His mind, his senses, were dulled by the medication. He wasn’t in control. Go and speak to his father, your grandfather, he knows a great deal more about his son than he ever let on to me.’
‘How do you know that?’
A smile appeared on her lips. ‘I meet a great deal of people in my line of work. I can spot a liar from across a crowded room. I’ve met Anthony Griffiths on many occasions and spoken to him at length about his son’s behaviour, before and during taking Fenadine. He knows things he won’t share with me. With you being a family member, he may open up more.’
I was frowning. Surely if Anthony knew more, he would have told me when I visited him. Unless he thought he was protecting me.
‘Why is Dominic seeing you?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, what is it you’re doing for him? How did he come into contact with you?’
‘It was me who contacted Dominic. I was researching Fenadine, trying to track down people who had taken the drug and committed acts out of character. In 1995, I represented a woman who assaulted her ex-husband. She was found guilty and given a suspended sentence. However, she felt that, as she was taking Fenadine at the time of the assault, she was not responsible for her behaviour. Following the court case, she came off the medication and had no more outbursts of violent behaviour. Unfortunately, having a conviction had a negative impact on her getting employment. It’s taken years, but I successfully sued Maxton-Schwarz, the makers of Fenadine, on my client’s behalf. I’ve since found eighteen similar cases of people taking Fenadine who committed unlawful acts, and I’ve had their convictions quashed and received settlements from Maxton-Schwarz totalling more than ten million pounds. In America, settlements have totalled almost fifty million dollars.’
‘Bloody hell,’ I said. ‘So, Dominic could receive a payout?’
‘Dominic was sentenced to life in prison to serve a minimum of twenty-five years. Although he is still in prison, he will be getting released in the near future. Based on Dominic’s good behaviour over the past twenty years in prison and the fact he was under the influence of a prescription drug, now banned, at the time of the murder, I have put together a case that the parole board and the Home Office have accepted. I am hopeful that once this gets to court, I should be able to secure a seven-figure compensation claim from Maxton-Schwarz for your father.’
‘Seven figures? You mean one million pounds?’
‘At least.’ She shrugged, as if she dealt with seven-figure sums every day. ‘It’s a small price to pay for twenty years of your life.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Quite,’ Clare said, with a smirk on her painted lips.
‘Dominic has always denied killing Stephanie. Has he ever said anything to you about it?’
‘No,’ she replied quickly and firmly.
