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‘Mark was an unforeseen bonus of her hate campaign. In trying to frame you, she realised she would have Mark to herself.’
‘Why not just kill me? That would’ve got me out of the way much quicker.’
Blue Eyes pauses, bouncing the tips of her fingers together.
‘She was already cultivating her relationship with Mark,’ she says after a moment. ‘She knew she’d be a suspect, possibly the main suspect. She knew the neighbours would have seen her in Mark’s car, seen her calling at your home while you were out. She’s been a victim, she claims, of gossip before. I’m sure she realised Katie had her eyes on her, that Katie didn’t trust her. If she played the sympathetic friend, if she made sure to report back to Mark on your evening wanderings, she could build up a picture of you as unstable and sinister – mad, if you like – making sure that those close to you would have no choice but to believe you’d committed these crimes, even makingyoubelieve it, ultimately.’
‘Wow.’
‘Indeed. Not that she admitted to any of this. Narcissists reinvent the world and find evidence where none exists, often despite evidence to the contrary.’
I shake my head. ‘I suppose I’m guilty of reinventing the world to fit my delusions.’
‘I guess. But the truth was there underneath. You knew it was there, that’s why you didn’t turn yourself in until… until you didn’t know it. The moment you truly believed you’d committed a crime, you called the police.’
‘You said Ingrid had been charged with the murders of Joanna, Anne-Marie and David. What about Ian?’
‘Ah.’ She leans back in her chair and crosses her legs before meeting my eye once again. ‘What the news report actually said was that he was “fighting for his life”. Like Kieron was. The exact same phrase. You jumped ahead, could see no other outcome for him but death. But Ian didn’t die, Rachel. He survived.’
‘Oh God.’ My eyes fill. I press my hands to them, a great sigh escaping me. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. That lovely boy. Oh, that’s so…’
I look up, meet her eye. A cloud passes over the sun.
‘Wait a second,’ I say. ‘You said Ingrid waged a hate campaign against me. Why the heck would anyone single me out for a hate campaign? What did I ever do to her?’
56
Ingrid
Transcript of recorded interview with Ingrid Taylor (excerpt)
Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button, Ms Janice James (solicitor)
IT: Before you charge me, I just want to say something. You’re doing a lot of talking and you’re making it sound like I had it all worked out, but I didn’t. I’m a nice person. I’ve been suffering from… from undiagnosed depression after a traumatic divorce. I’m a really nice person. It was all just a horrible series of coincidences. If my ex had spent enough time in bed and less time pouring our savings down the toilet, I would never have ended up in this mess. That was him all over: selfish. I thought he was having an affair – that’s the only reason I followed him. Any woman would have done the same. I mean, I thought he was on drugs, don’t you see? I even checked his arms for tracks.
That I actually followed him makes me laugh now. It makes me sick, to be honest. It’s been terrible for me, really hard. No one understands, absolutely no one. The humiliation has been unbearable at times. The shame. To see him go into abookmaker’s, a bloodygamblingshop, and suddenly everything becoming clear. The money draining from the bank account, the weight loss, the dark circles under his eyes. Money, our money, haemorrhaged on bloody horses of all things, drip-fed over hours into slot machines, funnelled into football results. And when the chips were down, as they invariably were, there was the inevitable self-pitying drowning of sorrows at the pub, weeping into the bosom of Rachel bloody Edwards. Every day, when he said he had to work late, off he went, until there was no money left to piss away.
So I watched. So what? I’ve become a great watcher. Any woman would have done the same. And when he filed for divorce and all that business in Helsby… I was bullied. I’ve been bullied. What you’re using against me is gossip. I washoundedout of that town, as if none of them had ever put a foot wrong. I didn’t touch that woman’s husband and what happened at the party is my word against theirs. The knife was on the worktop; I just held it for two seconds, literally two. I only went out for a couple of lunches with the stupid cow’s husband and that was only because I was bored to death at home. But sleep with him? No way, I would never do that.
All I ever did was focus on my health. (Laughs) Sorry, if I’m laughing it’s only at the irony of giving up work, taking folic acid, devoting time to my flute when all the time the main task at hand, for which I needed hisinput,was the one task left undone. That man took me through my entire thirties and now look at me. Darling, you had one job, as they say.
And so, yes, I watched. You can’t charge me for that. And yes, I watched Rachel Edwards. With her fallen features and fried hair, her palpable apathy and rounded shoulders. No one called her a Jezebel, did they? Well, I’ll just say for the record that the other woman doesn’t always wear a tight red dress. There she was with a friendly hand on his shoulder, a pint pulled ready to greet him after a day flushing my money down the drain, always welcoming, always with theHow are you, Phil? All right, Phil?Chat, chat, chat. Chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, while he ruined my life, my life not hers, with his filthy habit.
Enabler.
Home wrecker.
And his name isPhilip, by the way, not Phil.
When the flat came up for sale on Rachel’s road – sorry,close– it was the perfect opportunity to start again. I was being hounded out of Helsby like awitch– have you any idea how that feels? No one understands. You can’t prove I knew where Rachel Edwards lived. I’d had a change in circumstances and needed to downsize, that’s all. I couldn’t have stalked her even if I’d wanted to; she didn’t even exist online.
And this idea that I was somehow after her husband? That’s because of what happened in Helsby, isn’t it? That underwear shot you seem intent on using against me was only because Mark had texted me one morning to ask if I was ready and I’d answered with that picture with the captionNot quite, lol, for a joke! A joke! You’ve taken it completely out of context. Mark and I used to make each other laugh all the time, this is what I mean by you twisting everything against me. He only deleted it because he said his weirdo wife might not understand my sense of humour. She might get the wrong idea. I mean, not being funny, but if she couldn’t trust him to befriendswith someone, it’s obvious they were at the end of the road. I’m certainly not to blame for the shitty state of their marriage.
And as for the people who have come forward with stories of how she helped them talk through their problems, how they’d come to think of her as a friend, I can see what you’re doing, pitting her profile against mine, but, well, they’re weirdos too. Dog walkers are strange, end of. They buy an animal so that they can stick it on the end of a rope and walk around the neighbourhood in endless circles picking up poo and making small talk with people they don’t know, never will know and will never invite into their homes. Weird. I wasn’t doing that, was I? All I did was go for a couple of walks and that’s enough to put me in the frame for brutal murders? Rachel Edwards could easily have broken into my flat, smeared the victims’ blood over my clothes, nicked my silk jacket, my shoes and secretly put them at the back of the wardrobe when I wasn’t in the house, stolen some cigarette ends and placed them at the scene, somehow got my fingerprints on that car. And how anyone could tell it was me from those CCTV captures I don’t know. What a joke. My own mother wouldn’t have known me.
(Pause)
HS: For the tape, Ms Taylor is composing herself.
