Below the Fold

The press conference was hastily arranged: a white plastic table in front of a plywood wall, two microphones, a foldable chair, a bottle of water beside an upside-down glass, the school crest looming behind me and a piece of paper with the words I’d prepared.

The camera lenses glinted like eyes in a river. Not hostile. Just waiting. I was swimming with the crocodiles. I watched them watch me, and I felt the story begin to harden.

I looked down at the words on the page, and read out loud:

“I confronted him after school. I was angry. I lost control.”

I kept my voice steady. Factual. Not too emotional, not too soft. Enough guilt to be credible, but not so much that it sounded rehearsed.

“I pushed him, and he fell. It was… it happened suddenly.”

No gasps. No questions. No murmuring. Just the clicking of shutters and the smell of wet coats. One journalist pushed a microphone forward. Another coughed.

Across the assembly hall, in the shadows, sat the headteacher. Grey suit, tied up hair, puffy eyes behind frameless glasses. Beside her, DCI Merrick, mouth drawn tight, brow furrowed. He knew. I think he knew.

I knew he wouldn’t stop me.

The boy who died was Luke Cavanagh. Fifteen. Rugby team. Instagram full of gym selfies and protein shakes. He and my son weren’t friends. Not enemies, either. Just two boys in the same school.

Jamie told me Luke pushed him around sometimes. I told him to push back, harder.

It happened behind the science building, after school. A blind spot between the bins and scaffolding. There was shouting. A scuffle. Someone had filmed it.

Only seven seconds of it ever surfaced.

In the video, Luke is already on the ground, not moving. Jamie standing over him, fists clenched. Someone screams. Another kid says, “Shit, he’s dead.” Then the video cuts.

Seven seconds. That’s all people saw.

The clip spread through WhatsApp, then TikTok, then everywhere. Edits appeared within hours. Slowed down, zoomed in, set to dramatic music. Captions added: “He’s not moving. Look at his face. No remorse.” Self-proclaimed ‘body language experts’ analysed it. One edit included a fake subtitle: “I warned you.”

He never said that.

The original video vanished. The kid who filmed it never came forward. Maybe they got scared. Maybe someone told them not to. Doesn’t matter.

We went to the police and they questioned us. Took Jamie’s phone. Searched the house. There was no weapon, no blood, no signs of premeditation. The coroner said that Luke hit his head on a concrete curb. Blunt force trauma, not consistent with a punch. No evidence of a sustained assault. He was there, then he was gone.

But none of it mattered. The verdict had already been delivered.

My son was a killer.

And I was the father who had raised him.

The police didn’t charge him. Not straight away. They said that the investigation was “ongoing”. That they were “still reviewing digital material.” The school excluded him “for his own safety.” Meanwhile, outside, the noise grew louder.

Online was something else entirely.

People called him a freak, a psycho, a murderer. Anonymous profiles sent him, and us, death threats at night: Snapchat, Instagram, even post. Some just said “Kill yourself.”

Others were more creative. They mocked up photos of famous serial killers with Jamie’s face edited in. They made GIFs of the video. One created an AI ‘recreation’ showing Jamie violently attacking Luke. Some thought those were real.

Journalists rang the doorbell. A podcast emailed us, offering to let us “tell our side of the story.” A post on Reddit claimed that Jamie had a history of violence, citing a Year 8 detention for swearing at a teacher.

The story had been written. A killer kid, son of a retired constable. The worst kind of crime.

No nuance. No context. No room for doubt.

The truth was boring. Jamie was quiet. A little sarcastic. He liked mechanical keyboards and building PCs. He didn’t like crowds, or shouting, or attention.

And he’d never been in a fight in his life.

A solicitor we couldn’t afford told me that we were in a “volatile media climate.” She talked about “optics, public pressure, prejudicial coverage.” None of it made a difference.

Then Merrick visited me again, at home. He said that the CPS was circling. That they were “building something.” Not a solid case; something looser. A possibility. Because Luke’s parents were well-liked. Because the story had traction. Because someone needed to be punished.

I thought of my son; seeing his world shrink, watching his friends go silent, reading death threats before bed.

Then I thought of the kid who filmed it. The power they held. Watching us unravel while they stayed silent.

And then I thought of myself.

So I made a choice.

I went back to the solicitor. She sat me down in her office. An assistant brought me a bottle of water on a tray. Glass upside down.

“If I confessed,” I asked, “what would happen?”

“You would be arrested and charged. Manslaughter, best case.”

“Even with no witnesses? No proof?”

“A confession is proof.”

At home, I stood in the hallway and watched Jamie in his room. Headphones on, gaming. He kept losing, dying over and over, but he would just try again. Just-- quiet persistence.

I went downstairs. Made a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table.

I wrote out the lie.

Then I called the school.

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life.

“I did it. And nothing can change that.”

After the press conference, they took me into a side room. No cuffs. No shouting. Merrick sat across from me, tired.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” I said. “They do.”

He looked at me. I could see the calculation. A father who snapped was simpler. Cleaner.

“There’ll be a statement,” he said.

“I know.”

“You’ll be vilified.”

“I know.”

Just like that, the case was closed.

I pictured the headlines. Luke’s parents’ statement. A spike in attention, maybe. The twist, the confession.

Then it would slide below the fold.

My son would fade from view.

Maybe, eventually, he’d begin again. New school. New name. A life carved from the wreckage I left behind.

The truth is slow and strange and rarely whole.

It is too heavy for headlines.

But lies float.

They make a good story.

Even as the truth gets bured.

What I told them wasn’t justice.

It wasn’t noble.

It was just easier to believe.

And in the world we live in now, that’s all it takes.