Losing Timo by Linda Baxter (2004)

During my ten years in London, there were many senseless crimes committed and reported on in the media. For some reason, one in particular stayed in my mind. Something clicked, and I cut the story out of my copy of The Independent, and filed the cutting in with loads of other documents, looking at it from time to time and wondering what happened about it. There were a few news reports about it at the time, and then, from an outsider's point of view, someone who wouldn't be dedicatedly looking for coverage, all went quiet. I got it out again a couple of months ago, and googled the name of the victim, wondering if there was fuller information on the net. Up came this book. The victim's name was Tim Baxter. He and a friend were walking home in the middle of the night after a night out (something I did all the time when I was there), reached the Hungerford Bridge near Charing Cross station, and were mugged half way across it. They were atrociously beaten and then thrown over the side of the bridge into the Thames forty feet below. His friend survived, but Tim drowned and was found at Gabriel's Wharf the following day. This book is his mother's story of the time - her numbed and then outraged reactions, her connecting with Tim's friends, her emerging celebration of her son. She combines short, reasonably cool descriptive essays with much more searing poems to build up a picture of the crime and its aftermath. Having dealt with a few grieving people in my time, I can say that there's one thing that this book leaves me wishing for. It is the story of the first period in the main (the crime was committed in 1999 and this book's last entry is 2003); I'd like to have heard how things have developed since then; to watch a greater sense of healing prevail. But even so, I can imagine the writing of this book not only helped Baxter come to terms with what happened, but that it would also help others facing that unimaginable horror.