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There’s a moment of silence. I can’t speak. She doesn’t speak. Until she does.
‘Let’s look at the man in the cemetery. It’s not in your statement because it was never recorded as a crime. But I think it can take us somewhere because it’s in your story.’
‘Henry.’
‘Henry Parker. It was important to you to give him a name. You were adamant that he should have an identity. Why do you think that was?’
‘I… I think everyone should have an identity. We’re all human beings, aren’t we? I suppose… was it because I felt like I’d lost my identity? Yes, I suppose that’s it.’
‘Good.’ She gives me a brief smile of encouragement. ‘Henry Parker was never stabbed. I checked the incident report, and as far as anyone’s aware, he was never strangled either. Does—’
‘But it said in the news report that he was.’
‘It didn’t. Again, it’s down to what we notice, what we read into things. The report said he’d partially asphyxiated. His alcohol levels were toxic. He’d passed out and vomited and almost choked. There was no strangling. And there was no information as to when exactly he had collapsed, so it could have been much later. You say you woke up with pain in your head, still behind the gravestone, the jump leads loose around your knuckles. What do you think really happened?’
‘I must have… I must have fallen. Maybe I fainted and hit my head on the gravestone? Maybe I’d wound the leads tight because I was so cross. I was angry about having to go for chips, about having wet clothes on, about the car… about a lot of things. I mean, they say the menopause causes rage, but to be honest, sometimes I think what women have to put up with at this age is enough to make anyone furious.’
She chews her cheek, stops herself, lips pressing together tight. ‘It was a little earlier in your story that you mentioned that your husband didn’t want you physically anymore. Can you see any connection between that and your experience of the man in the churchyard? I know this is delicate, but it will help if you can talk about it.’
‘Mark? Do you think Henry was Mark? The pervert? In my mind?’
‘Not exactly. In our sessions, you mentioned that Mark no longer wanted you sexually. He turned his back on you, figuratively and literally, leaving you feeling very alone.’ She looks up, meets my eye. Her eyebrows rise a fraction.
‘You’re saying I was angry at Mark for not wanting… not wanting me in that way?’ I can feel myself blushing. I can’t say it like she can, just come out with it like that. ‘You’re saying it was that type of connection I was looking for?’
‘The mind and how it processes trauma is a complicated thing, Rachel. I’m not saying it was exactly like that, and it may well be oversimplifying, but thinking in these rather simplistic terms might help you to solve the puzzle of yourself and these attacks. You’ve mentioned carrying a surplus of love. Everyone who has given a statement is at pains to say that you’re incredibly loving. When Kieron was born, you suffered postpartum psychosis. You choseto share that with me and you included the very phrase that your psychotherapist gave you at the time. You remembered this phrase. It meant a great deal to you.’
‘Love on steroids.’
She almost smiles. ‘Eighty-five per cent in the “Are You an Empath?” quiz. That has come up more than once.’
‘When you explain it like that,’ I say, ‘it’s like you’re telling me what I already know. It clicks, if you know what I mean. It’s like my brain conjured up this grubby scenario for me to make me feel even worse than I already did.’
She is nodding. ‘If it makes sense to you, then that’s helpful. I have no doubt that you really did stumble across this man doing what you said he was doing, just as I’m sure you went to the pond with Joanna Weatherall. It’s what you did with your perception, or your memory of how it played out, that might help us unravel your version of events. We might never find out exactly which parts were true and which parts were… as you say, conjured up, but we might find other things.’
‘I’ve told you the truth.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But we have to try and figure out what this truth means.’
47
Mark
Transcript of recorded interview with Mark Edwards (excerpt)
Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button
HS: Mr Edwards, your wife seemed to be under the impression that there might have been something more than a neighbourly relationship between you and Ingrid Taylor. Have you any comment to make on that?
ME: Yes, I have. (Becomes immediately agitated) There was nothing at all between Ingrid and myself. Nothing, have you got that? She was a bit full-on, I’d say, but I didn’t take too much notice. I gave her a lift to work and she did call round on pretexts when Rachel was out – could I countersign the photos for her passport, could I help her read her gas meter, that type of thing – but that was it. She’d sometimes stop for a chat. She was lonely, I think. She was cut up about her divorce. But there was nothing else. I made it clear I wasn’t interested and she took the hint in the end.
HS: Mr Edwards, on the night of Saturday the twenty-eighth of September, you said you were at the golf club with your friend Roy. I’m looking at a map, and I can’t help but notice that the golf club appears to be very close, by car, to the town hall. No more than a few minutes. Would you agree?
ME: Where are you going with this? I went nowhere near the town hall on Saturday night. I had nothing to do with that lad. I had a beer with Roy and then I went home to bed. Rachel got in very late. I just thought maybe she’d stayed on at the Barley Mow or gone somewhere else for a late drink, maybe Lisa had persuaded her.
HS: You didn’t ask her where she’d been?
ME: No. I… I pretended to be asleep. As I say, things were difficult. Especially that day.
