After dropping my husband, Troy, at the airport for a business trip, my eight-year-old daughter grabbed my arm and whispered, “Mum, please don’t take us home. Daddy said something bad is going to happen today.” Minutes later, I watched him leave the airport without boarding his flight.Nia told me she had heard him on his secret phone. He planned to make our house look like the site of a gas leak. Three weeks earlier, he had persuaded me to sign an $850,000 life insurance policy. He had also been asking about my work shifts, our daughter’s school hours, and insurance payouts.
Instead of driving home, I parked where I could watch the terminal. Troy emerged without his luggage, climbed into a taxi, and disappeared into the morning traffic. When I followed him to our quiet estate, he had changed clothes. He carried a red petrol can in one hand and a crowbar in the other.I called his mother, Chelo, hoping she might explain. Instead, she whispered, “Take Nia and don’t complicate this. My son is under a lot of pressure.” I immediately called 999, gave the dispatcher our address, and requested police and firefighters.
Then my father’s security light switched on. Troy smashed the glass in our back door with his crowbar. Moments later, Chelo arrived carrying a bag containing his passport, driving licence, two phones, and cash. She had come to take him away, not help him commit the crime.Police arrived eleven minutes after my call. Troy was arrested before he could start a fire. Investigators later established that he intended to burn our empty house and claim the buildings insurance. His failing business had left us deeply in debt, partly because I had unknowingly signed a personal guarantee years earlier.
Troy pleaded guilty to arson with intent to endanger life and fraud. He received six years in prison. Nia and I moved into a small flat where she finally had a room of her own.But the truth that haunts me most is this: eleven days before the attempted arson, I watched security footage of Troy examining our gas supply in the dark. I saved it to a folder and went to work. I was waiting for enough evidence to be certain.My father installed that camera so our house could show who came through the door. It showed me everything. I was the one who waited eleven days to tell someone.
