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She was readingVogue, although how she could afford it, I’ll never know – not the clothes, the actual magazine, I mean. She had a cup of coffee on the go – a cappuccino by the looks of it in a white cup and saucer, like in a café, and I have to say I did think that might be taking a liberty, using next door’s crockery and coffee machine; somehow more of a liberty that she’d brought her own milk over, if you know what I mean. Anyway, she looked… what’s the word? Languorous, is it? Old Hollywood – Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck type thing. Statuesque. Some women just have the knack, don’t they? She’d fallen fast from her position, that much was true. But round our way, no one would notice anything. She was the type that would be bothered by wearing last season’s fashions, but no one here would know last season from next, and it would be years before her clothes became as shabby as everyone else’s, so she still stood out. Her blonde hair was tied back, but even the brown roots looked like they were there on purpose – Katie told me that you can pay to have that done, have roots actually put in, that it costs a fortune, which made me laugh at the time, but looking at Ingrid, I could see she had a look that I must have spotted on celebrities inGraziaand not thought twice about it until now.
I said hello and gave her a wave and she waved back.
‘Aren’t you at work?’
She shook her head. ‘Woke up with a headache, so…’ She shrugged by way of completing the explanation.
So bloody what?I thought but didn’t say.
‘Are you feeding the cats?’ was what I did say.
She nodded, lifted her eyes to my washing line. ‘Your sheets’ll dry in no time in this summer breeze.’
‘They will that.’
‘They’ll smell so fresh too.’
‘They will.’ I nodded to the cappuccino on her lap. ‘May as well enjoy a coffee in the garden, eh?’
She raised her chin, her eyelids lowered. ‘Not like I can do this on my grotty patio. And they have a Gaggia.’
I carried on pegging out. I was trying to see what I could pick up from her. I’d never seen any friends visit her, but then I wasn’t at home much. Maybe she was like me, couldn’t face her old mates. Maybe she was ashamed of her reduced circumstances. Maybe slumming it with me and my family made her feel better by comparison, who knows? Maybe… maybe… maybe nothing. Dread was all I could feel coming off her, anoh God oh God oh Godfeeling. That would be the ex. Probably some memory of finding him comatose with a needle in his arm or something – not that she’d ever said anything like that – or him getting violent from time to time – not that she’d said that either – or the moment it dawned on her that the bank account was empty and the house repossessed. That she had said, in so many words. The rest was me guessing.
She pulled on her cigarette – she’d lit another with the first. I supposed at least she wasn’t smoking in next door’s house. But she was edgy. Yes, definitely edgy, but whatever else was going on, she was shutting me out.
I stood at the fence, laundry basket under one arm. From here I could see her long, slim legs, which were that perfect honey colour some women manage but I never have, and which disappeared into cowboy boots. Not a look I could ever imagine pulling off.
‘Are you all right, Ingrid?’ I asked her.
‘Gives you a lift, doesn’t it?’ she said, as if I hadn’t spoken, pulling the jacket from her perfectly square shoulders and closing her eyes to the sun.
‘Mark says that whatever the weather, fresh air is good for the soul. The ozone, he says. You never regret getting out.’ I wondered to myself when was the last time that Mark had taken any ozone apart from in the pub car park on his way in for four pints of Greenall’s.
But at the mention of his name, it was as if someone had yanked an invisible thread attached to her shoulders. She sat up and opened her eyes, shielded them with her hand. ‘Mark’s so nice. He’s such a good bloke.’
Like the swearing, in her mouth the wordblokesounded posh.
‘Yes, he’s a good bloke.’ I shifted my laundry basket to the other hip. ‘If I had a pound for every time someone had said that,’ I muttered, ‘I’d be bloody rolling in it.’
The words didn’t reach her. They flew off, swallowed by the bitter wind.
27
Katie
Transcript of recorded interview with Katie Edwards (excerpt)
Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button
HS: Would you say that things were good at home? Were you a happy family, would you say?
KE: (Pause) We were getting better.
HS: You mentioned that your neighbour, Ingrid Taylor, came over to see your dad sometimes when your mum wasn’t there? For the benefit of the tape, Miss Edwards is nodding.
KE: She was always coming over. She pretended to be friendly and that, but I didn’t trust her, to be honest. She made up excuses to come over while my mum was out and she knew Mum was out because she was always looking out of her window. I saw her. I saw her follow my mum as well.
HS: She followed your mother?
