Saving Gary McKinnon by Janis Sharp Read Free Book Online

professional and very helpful.
    Although
Lunar Girl
was corny in some ways and we were learning as we went along, I loved how some of the scenes turned out. It was a steep learning curve into film making and Wilson and I used to sit up until the early hours of the morning editing the film. I was fascinated at how the whole feel and tone and even the storyline of the film could be altered by editing.
    Amazingly,
Lunar Girl
was screened on TV many times, which I thought was awesome as we were musicians and had no previous experience of film making whatsoever.
    We had no way of knowing then that 2001 was going to be our last year of happiness for many years to come.
    Three things happened to me that in retrospect seem like warnings of what was to come and gave me the first inkling of the disastrous turn our lives were about to take.
    There was the day in the summer of 2001 that Wilson and I were walking our two dogs, a collie cross and an Egyptian Pharaoh hound, on Hampstead Heath. Our collie was Mindy, a stray dog we had taken in few years before, and our Pharaoh hound was Jaffa, who we had rehomed. We had moved from the area ages ago but still occasionally walked our dogs on the heath because they knew it and it’s a great walk.
    The north side of the heath has several meadows linked to each other by narrow tractor-sized tracks. We had just left the first meadow and paused while the dogs sniffed around whenI noticed a man, probably in his twenties, approaching us. Everyone had to pass this way but he seemed to be walking purposely towards us as though he wanted to talk.
    ‘What’s her name?’ he said as he stroked our collie rather than our regal-looking Pharaoh hound, which most people were drawn to.
    ‘She’s called Mindy, after Mork and Mindy,’ I said, smiling.
    ‘You’re a musician,’ he said in a matter-of-fact kind of way as he lingered and looked at me intently while continuing to stroke our dog.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘You have a son who plays music and writes songs.’
    ‘Yes, that’s right.’ How could he know that?
    ‘Well, your son is going to be famous all over the world but for something other than his music.’
    I was fascinated and was trying to think of what Gary could possibly do that would lead to him being known throughout the world if it wasn’t for his music. He was stuck in a job with a computer company at that time and, believe it or not, was described as having ‘unremarkable’ computer skills.
    I wanted to hear more from this softly spoken stranger who seemed to believe he had some kind of insight into our lives and was becoming more convincing by the second. He started describing other things about our lives that were uncannily correct and that he would have had no way of knowing. This was no ordinary man; he was only pretending to be ordinary.
    ‘Do you have an email address I could contact you on?’
    ‘No, I don’t have a computer,’ he said, looking back before disappearing into the woods.
    I smiled and said, ‘Well, of course you don’t,’ half expecting him to fade away as they do in mystical films.
    The next warning came in a dream I had.

    5 a.m., 29 January 2002
    ‘Wilson, are you awake?’
    ‘I am now,’ he answered, screwing up his eyes as he tried to avoid the light.
    ‘I had this dream; it was strange. My sister Lorna came to me and looked into my eyes and said, “Your life is going to change just like
that
,” and she snapped her fingers. I asked her, “In what way is it going to change, good or bad?”
    ‘She stared at me in a cold and serious way, not like Lorna at all, and repeated in a stern voice, “Your life is going to change just like
that
,” and she snapped her fingers again.
    ‘It was chilling. I know it means something.’
    ‘Well, it probably means your life is going to change just like that. Try to get some sleep, Janis; we have to be up early.’
    Sinking back into sleep I saw someone staring at me from the shadows. I recognised the face as