Back at Redditch Police Station, prior to the press conference, Ray, Michelle, Steve and I were taken into a room where Tracie was sitting with Irene and Alan. Two policemen were talking to Tracie as she played with her hands and said nothing. We were offered tea as DS Ian Johnston came in.
‘She’s not going to do this, Alan,’ Irene said, looking at us. ‘Look at her, she can’t do it.’
‘Perhaps you can go in with her?’ Ian Johnston said to Ray and me. ‘For support.’
It was something we’d never considered being asked to do and the prospect of facing more reporters and photographers was really daunting. But we were just as keen as the police and press to hear her version of what happened for the first time. If her story didn’t add up to us, we wanted to see what the reporters made of her.
I could see from the looks on Ray and Michelle’s faces that they weren’t happy. Just being in the same room as Tracie was too much for them.
‘What would I have to do?’ I asked Ian.
Tracie had told me not long after meeting Lee that she’d never been close to her mum. Any chance she’d had round at our house to run Irene down, she’d always made the most of it.
‘She’s not like you,’ she’d told me on more than one occasion. ‘We don’t talk about things like you do with Lee and Michelle. Sometimes I wish you were my mum, Maureen. I don’t think there’s anything I couldn’t say to you.’
Looking at Tracie, staring nervously round the room, wringing her hands and pulling the sleeves of her jumper down over her wrists, I couldn’t imagine that she’d go through with it.
‘I think Tracie just needs a bit of moral support,’ said Ian. ‘And I’ll be in there with you.’
Tracie said nothing as I went over to her. ‘Listen to me, I’ll go in with you,’ I told her. ‘You’re the star of this.’
It was almost as if a light had come on in Tracie’s head as I described her as a star. She looked at me and nodded. There was no way she was going to miss out on her chance to perform for a captive audience.
‘You’re right, Maureen… I’m the star witness, aren’t I?’ she said. ‘I’ve got to do this.’
Irene looked at Alan. ‘You must do it, Tracie,’ she said, sounding irritated.
Alan was gentler as he put his arm around her. ‘Just put all your thoughts out of your head,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine.’
‘I can’t,’ Tracie interrupted him and looked at Irene. I could see she was desperately seeking her mother’s approval. ‘Remember when I tried to…’ Tracie started but stopped in mid-sentence as Irene glared at her.
‘TRACIE!’ she shouted, clearly irritated.
‘Come on, I can stop it at any time,’ Ian told Tracie. He was still looking at me as we all stood up. He was looking at his watch as he took hold of Tracie’s arm. I sensed he was desperately trying to get her through the door so that she couldn’t change her mind.
As I followed Ian to the door with Tracie, Ray stepped forward. ‘I’ll come in with you,’ he said. ‘We’ll get through this together.’
The camera flashlights exploded as Ray and I followed Tracie into the packed room to where the media were waiting for their first glimpse of us. I could hardly catch my breath as Ray and I sat at a table next to her but, as I slowly looked around the room, I could see all eyes were on Tracie. They seemed fascinated by her.
Settling in the chair, I looked at the sea of faces in front of me and Tracie suddenly grabbed my hand. I felt her hand shaking and could see her staring at the floor as Ian introduced us. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. It felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.
Tracie said she and Lee had left the Marlbrook pub at around 9.45pm on the Sunday night in Lee’s white 1990 Escort XR3i turbo car. On the way back to Tracie’s flat in Alvechurch, a two-mile journey from the pub, she described how Lee had overtaken a tatty dark-coloured 1986 Ford Sierra, which then began a ‘cat-and-mouse’ chase. ‘The car kept flashing its headlights and honking its horn at us,’ she said. ‘It was tail-gating us… we were driving at speeds of up to 70mph. I was shouting at Lee to slow down, to ignore them… But you know what a lot of men are like behind the wheel. Sometimes they change personality… They overtook us eventually and Lee stopped the car and got out.
‘Lee and the Sierra driver, who was about 18 or 19, with short dark hair, were calling each other names and swearing at each other. They were pointing their fingers at each other and shouting. I kept yelling at Lee to get back into the car.
‘I thought it was over when the driver started walking back to his car but, as he did, the passenger, who was white and very overweight, got out of the car and started attacking Lee. The guy was wearing a donkey jacket. He was older and fat and had staring eyes. He hit Lee several times. I got out of our car. I’m not the kind of person to sit there and just watch without doing anything. I was scared but I wanted him to stop.
‘When I went to comfort Lee, the fat man called me a slut and punched me in the head. The driver was telling him to leave it. I didn’t realise he’d used a knife on Lee. He was lying in the road and I knelt down beside him. He couldn’t speak. I don’t know if he was still alive. He wasn’t breathing. I was trying to check for a pulse but I couldn’t find one. I just tried to stop the bleeding and comfort him.’
Tracie kept looking down as the camera flashes kept going off.
‘It’s the most stupid, vile thing that’s ever come out of a car chase,’ she continued. She was still hanging on to my hand as a reporter asked what Lee was like. ‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘Kind, generous, funny… The man who did this has ruined my life and Ray and Maureen’s.’
Ray choked back tears as the cameras flashed again. ‘We’re devastated,’ he said. ‘We’re a close family. Lee was an honest, caring lad who tried to make the most of his life. We need capital punishment back. What I want to do is look into the eyes of my son’s killer. If he’s done it once, he can do it again. The next time, it could be your son, your daughter. I appeal to you to just turn him in… he deserves nothing better…’ His voice broke as he tried to continue and he sat back with tears streaming down his face.
When another reporter, Rod Chaytor from the Daily Mirror, asked if Tracie could go over the timings of what had happened again, she stared at him, wild-eyed.
‘What time did you say you and Lee left the Marlbrook pub, Tracie?’ he asked her.
‘It was about a quarter-to-ten,’ she said.
‘And yet the 999 call came in at 10.45?’ he persisted. ‘And it was a ten-minute journey to Cooper’s Hill… is that right?
Tracie looked round and then helplessly at Ian Johnston. ‘Yes, I think so. I think so, yes… I’m not exactly sure. Quarter-to-ten.’
For the first time during the press conference, Tracie looked rattled and stopped talking. Sensing her bewilderment, Ian Johnston came to her rescue. ‘Obviously, we’re still looking at this kind of detail,’ he said. ‘If there are no other questions, I think that’s all for now.’
As we drove home, Ray and Michelle had a field day going over what Tracie had said. ‘It didn’t take much to hang herself, did it?’ Michelle insisted. ‘It’s obvious she’s lying.’
‘It was an Oscar-winning performance,’ said Ray. ‘Surely you saw that, Maureen? She never shed a tear until she was asked to go over the timing.’
Nothing I said to Ray and Michelle would