M. Gessen

But what do you do with somebody who lies habitually?

And I'm just going to say one more thing, which is that I did 35 hours of interviews with my cousin.

And at a certain point, I was really, really wishing that I could believe that he was not guilty or at least not as guilty as he seemed to be because I was so full of empathy for him.

And then I came across this letter that he wrote, not to me, but to friends and family who weren't me, but a fairly wide circle of people.

So it was circulating, and it described a court hearing that I had been at.

And it was so completely full of lies.

And I found reading that email almost physically discombobulating because I thought, oh, he is telling all these people exactly what he thinks is going to work for this particular situation, which I fear is what happened over our 35 hours of interviews.

He was telling me exactly what I wanted to hear.

And, you know, obviously I've had this experience before when you're interviewing somebody who tells you exactly what's

what you want to hear, I find few things quite as upsetting, which is probably why I'm advancing this unreasonable-sounding demand for truth.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, Harriet Clark, who has made me think harder than maybe I would like to.

I do actually want to thank you particularly for recording this conversation, which I think at some point or another, the kids will certainly listen to this stuff.

And this is possibly the most important thing they'll ever hear about what happened with their dad.

Thank you.

In theory, I knew that this kind of thing can happen in any family.

Upstanding citizens are always turning out to be secret criminals, and I wouldn't even call my cousin Alan an upstanding citizen.

But it's one thing to know and another thing to understand.

Alan, murder me?