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‘So you went to the crime scene.’ Blue Eyes taps her pen against the palm of her hand. ‘Although it wasn’t a crime scene as yet.’
The fly has started up again, buzzing, headbutting the pane as if sooner or later it’ll fly out. I wonder if Blue Eyes can hear it, whether it’s bugging her like it’s bugging me, but she’s as self-possessed as a sphinx.
‘It was just my thinking place then,’ I say. ‘That’s all it was. I suppose it’ll have that yellow and black tape you see on the news, won’t it? Will there be a white outline of a body taped out on the ground?’
Her mouth tightens. Disapproval, that’s what I read anyway.
‘I expect I’ll be on the news, won’t I?’ I go on, like an idiot. ‘One way to get seen, I suppose –I’m a Celebrity, Don’t Let Me Out of Here.’ A laugh escapes me but dies. ‘It’s where I took the girl as well, obviously. But she was found on the road, wasn’t she?’
Blue Eyes gives me something on the smile/indigestion spectrum. She’s saying nowt,giving me enough rope. I wish she would; I’d hang myself right away, save anyone else the bother. I take the customary deep breath. Once more unto the breach. What’s a breach? No clue.Get on with it, woman.
I get on with it. There was a man in the town-hall gardens that morning. He was standing at the top of the rise, behind the kids’ park where I used to take Kieron and Katie and push them on the swings. He had an Alsatian on the end of a long lead and he was looking out over the main road. Loneliness came off him. I could almost see it shimmering in the air. His trousers needed a good iron and he looked to be in his mid-fifties, but at the same time he looked older – as if, like a dodgy mechanic, life had added years to his clock. He didn’t notice me looking. I wondered if he’d see me if I stood right in front of him. I didn’t, obviously, that would’ve been nuts, but I knew, or felt I knew, instinctively, that he’d suffered. Lost someone – his wife, possibly. Don’t ask me how. He seemed sort of… trapped in himself, unsure of how to get out. Something about the way he looked across to the houses beyond the railings, as if something might appear for him. Someone. He was yearning… just… yearning.
I grab two tissues from the box and wipe my eyes. ‘I just had this overwhelming urge to ask if he was all right.’
‘And did you?’
‘I didn’t. I mean, you don’t, do you? We don’t ask people we don’t know if they’re OK, do we? Not as a rule. I just said good morning but I don’t think he heard me. He hadn’t seen me, that’s for sure, so I went and sat on my little bench, where I used to sit while Kieron and Katie fed the ducks. We used to take a picnic there when it was warm enough; they thought it was our secret place, bless them, and their eyes used to pop out of their heads with excitement when they heard the ice-cream van coming up the town-hall drive. An egg-mayonnaise bap, a few breadcrumbs for the ducks and one vanilla cone each, and honestly, you’d have thought I’d given them the world.
‘I didn’t sit there for long. I was too antsy. In the end, I thought I’d pop and see Lisa.’
‘That’s Lisa Baxter?’
‘Yes. She’s my best friend. Well, she was.’
3
Ingrid
Transcript of recorded interview with Ingrid Taylor (excerpt)
Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button
IT: I could tell there was something wrong with her the first time I saw her. Her appearance was… I mean, I’m not being mean, but I just thought she’d let herself go like a lot of women that age do. Then when I stepped inside her house that first time, she had this folder thing on the side by the hob, and when I asked her about it she was really quite shifty. She said it was bank statements or something, but she closed it quickly – too quickly, I thought – and put it on the shelf on the dresser, as if she didn’t want me to steal her lasagne recipe or something.
HS: And you looked inside it?
IT: Look, I know you shouldn’t go snooping in someone else’s house, but the way she was acting made me curious. Anyone would be. She went to fetch an ashtray – I mean, I always smoke in the garden but she insisted I could smoke indoors – and when I heard her plod upstairs – she has a very heavy tread – I had a quick glance through, that’s all. And I can tell you something: it wasn’t recipes.
HS: Ms Taylor, can you tell us what you found?
IT: Well, the cuttings, obviously. All those deaths. Violent crimes. Related articles too – knife crime on the rise, how safe are our streets, campaigns, that sort of stuff.
HS: And what was your reaction?
IT: Shock. It was shocking. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, to be honest. Page after page of it. There must have been over a hundred articles in there – stabbings, shootings, armed robbery, you name it. Mark told me she wanted to organise some sort of campaign, but of course now it all makes perfect sense. I mean, this was before I got to know Mark, and I have to say, I almost ran out of the house screaming. I mean, hello? Talk about psychopathic, my God!What’s your hobby? Oh, I collect violent deaths and keep them under cellophane so they don’t spoil. I mean, who does that? You’d have to be… well, she was, wasn’t she? In the guise of a mother figure. I mean, it’s straight from Stephen King.
HS: Ms Taylor—
IT: I suppose there’ll be more clippings in there now, won’t there? Including the… the ones she did herself… Oh God, I don’t even want to think about it, but it was theorganisation, you know? The care. That was almost the most terrifying thing. Each one in its own clear sleeve like it was a precious document. And when I found out about… about what she’d done, I thought, why not keep a folder on the computer? Call it something random like, well, likeRecipesorKidsor something.Expenses. Anything. Why keep paper, these days? But I guess you can’t settle down on the sofa and leaf through a computer file quite the same, can you, if that’s even what she spent her time doing. Who knows? Maybe she liked to flick through them on her days off. Perving over other people’s murders while she sipped the rank instant coffee she served. That makes sense, I suppose. I mean, it’s sick, isn’t it? Morbid. Actually, this is making me stressed. Can I smoke in here?
4
Rachel
‘Bloody hell.’ Lisa was still in her dressing gown. ‘What’s the matter, wet the bed?’
‘Very funny. I was up early, that’s all, so I thought I may as well walk the dog.’
