Page 29 of Wanting Daisy Dead

Tammy : As promised earlier, we’re interviewing Louisa Montgomery, widow of David – or Professor M, as he was affectionately known by his students.

Louisa : Thank you for having me ...

Tammy : My pleasure. Is it true you and David were childhood sweethearts?

Louisa : Not exactly, though we were eighteen when we met at Cambridge.

Tammy : Oh, so it was a meeting of minds?

Louisa : Yes.

Tammy : So, tell me a little about your life with David.

Louisa : It was perfect, or so I thought. We were both academics, had a good family life with our two children, enjoyed the theatre. We had dreams of retiring to France one day, buying an old farmhouse, doing it up.

Tammy : You were happy?

Louisa : Yes – very.

Tammy : And then . . .

Louisa : It was October 2nd, 2005. I remember it because it was the end of life as I knew it.

That morning an envelope arrived at home, addressed to me, and I wandered into the kitchen opening it.

David and the children were having breakfast, they were laughing and loud and .

.. everyone was noisy and ... happy. (Louisa takes a breath.) We were chatting about a half-term holiday, planning a trip to the Dordogne.

And as I was talking, I pulled out the contents of the envelope, placing the letter on the table .

.. and as the family had breakfast and laughed and joked, I started to read the letter.

(Louisa stops talking, then seems to compose herself.)

It was so cruel, revealing intimate details about David and her, but also about our marriage, things only he could have told her.

That hurt more than anything else – to know he’d shared personal information about our relationship with a teenager.

The tone was horrible – she mocked me, said he didn’t love me and he needed someone younger like her.

I found it hard to forgive Daisy for that.

It’s one thing telling me my husband’s having an affair – but the details, they were so unnecessary.

The extra pain was ... well, sadistic.

She showed no remorse or empathy. Then she ended the letter by saying, ‘I’m having his baby, he’s leaving you and we’re going to run away together. ’

Tammy : And you’d had no idea, of the affair or the pregnancy?

Louisa : No ... This was the first I knew. She told me in her letter.

Tammy : And when you say ‘she’, you mean Daisy? She was definitely the one who wrote the letter?

Louisa : It was signed, ‘Love, Daisy.’

Tammy : That must have been so hard.

Louisa : Brutal . . .

Tammy : So, can we just rewind a little, back to the morning the letter arrived. For you, was that the end of your marriage?

Louisa : Yes. He’d thrown away our lives and our family for a fling with a student.

He’d betrayed me, but he’d betrayed Daisy too, sleeping with someone so young who looked up to him.

It was a different world, before #MeToo.

The power dynamic was unhealthy, and no one was looking out for girls like Daisy Harrington.

She was nineteen, and he was forty-four – twenty-five years older.

Tammy : Wow.

Louisa : I remember thinking about my own daughters, and how I’d feel as Daisy’s mother.

She was in his care ... (Louisa is struggling to find the words.) David was a lecturer, a trusted adult, and Daisy’s mum should have been able to trust that her daughter was safe in his care.

I found it hard to get past that. I just felt disappointed in my husband, and as much as I resented her and was hurt by the letter, as a mother I also felt protective of Daisy.

Tammy : Just a matter of weeks after you received the letter, there was even worse news – that Daisy was missing. Did it ever cross your mind that David may have had something to do with her disappearance?

Louisa : I have to be honest, of course it did.

But I never imagined for a moment he’d hurt her.

I did wonder if perhaps she’d gone away, and he knew where she was.

It occurred to me that he was planning to meet her, and they were going to run away together.

But by then he was saying he didn’t love her, he loved me and wanted to try again, and we had the girls and our home and our life – I thought it was over with her.

Tammy : But then Daisy’s body was found in a beach hut you owned on Exmouth Beach, very close to your home.

There were no signs of anyone breaking into the hut – in fact the hut was locked, so whoever had killed her locked the door after themselves, and the police and prosecution said this could only have been David.

Louisa, didn’t you even think then that your husband might just be guilty . ..?

Louisa : Some days I wondered if he knew more about it than he was saying.

And the police finding her body in our beach hut was pretty damning, I can’t deny it.

Then, of course, there was the trial, which I found incredibly hard.

I was horrified that a young girl had died, but the humiliation of sitting in court hearing intimate details about their relationship was almost too much for me.

And after his imprisonment, I’ll be honest, I found it hard to even think about him without crying or feeling such anger.

I wanted to punch walls. It took me a long time to get in touch, or even respond to his letters.

I refused to visit him, and certainly wasn’t taking the girls into a prison – they were too young.

But his parents had fought hard for his innocence throughout, and when they died there was no one on the outside for him, so I continued with the campaign.

I did it for my children, but also ...

I knew my husband, and I was never truly convinced that he was capable of murder.

Tammy : Do you have your own suspicions who the real killer might be?

Louisa : Yes, I have my suspicions ...

Tammy : Is the person you have your suspicions about someone who shared the house with Daisy?

Louisa : Yes ... Yes, it is.