believes you and Mr Edwards were having an affair.
LB: An affair? What do you mean, an affair?
HS: A love affair.
LB: Me and her Mark? Are you yanking my chain? (Laughs) Oh my God. You’re actually serious? Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. I’d never do that to a friend, and certainly not to Rachel; that’d be like doing it to my own sister! Really, you can forget that one. Strike it right off your list. Besides which, Mark’s not my type at all. He’s too nice, for a start. I seem to prefer total bastards, if you’ll excuse my fran?ais.
HS: Ms Baxter, cigarette ends were found near the town-hall pond on Sunday the twenty-ninth of September and in the bushes near the car park of Brookvale Leisure Centre late in the evening of Thursday the twenty-sixth. Following forensic examination, a DNA match has been found with the sample found at Rachel Edwards’ property. Can you shed any light on that? Ms Baxter? Ms Baxter?
53
Rachel
Amanda sips her coffee. I hear the soft gulp as it goes down her neck. This is a new day. Yesterday she held my hand, told me that I was brave.
‘Rachel,’ she says after a minute or so. ‘I want to ask you now about David King.’
‘Dave? As in my manager Dave? Why? What’s he got to do with it?’
Slowly she picks up my statement. ‘You confessed to the murders of Joanna Weatherall and Anne-Marie Golightly, and the strangulation of Henry Parker. You claim to have killed Ian Brown. But there’s nothing in here about the murder of David King.’
I wipe my eyes, blow my nose, warmth flashing through the length of me. ‘David King? Dave?’
‘Your manager, yes. He was found dead in his flat in Duke Street, about ten minutes’ walk from your place of work.’
‘When?’
‘Two days after you made the call. But he’d been dead for over forty-eight hours. Which means he was killed sometime on Saturday afternoon or evening.’
‘What?’ Heat bursts in my head; my hair is damp.
‘He was murdered. Stabbed twice in the ribs with the same knife. You haven’t mentioned him other than to say he popped in around midday, that he made you a cup of tea. Do you remember anything at all?’
‘No, I… I didn’t know.’
‘Rachel, I’d like to try something with you, if you’re agreeable. I’d like to try hypnosis. Would you be willing to do that?’
It’s a strange kind of laugh that escapes us in moments where we can’t imagine ever doing anything of the sort, and it’s that kind of laugh that breaks from me now.
Amanda smiles, her blue eyes half closing. ‘It’s not… I’m not going to perform any tricks.’
‘Not going to make me stand on one leg and cluck like a chicken?’
‘I was hoping to take you back to the pond. I was hoping that now that you’ve been able to voice what happened to Kieron, we might be able to dig a little deeper into that memory. All right?’
‘All right.’
‘So you’re happy for me to use hypnosis?’
‘Yes.’
‘All right. All right, Rachel.’ She shifts her bottom to the edge of her chair. ‘Close your eyes.’
54
Rachel
‘You’ll hear my voice, Rachel, and my voice reminds you that you’re safe and calm and relaxed, really relaxed and warm in your safe place. Now I want you to know that all information that you have ever seen, heard or felt since the day you were born is stored in your subconscious mind, and that’s where we’re going to go. That information is available to you at will if you want it. All you need to do is to relax and let go… It has always been there, and will always be, for your easy access, just like taking something from a shelf. I want you to go back to the park that night. I’m here and you will hear my voice and my voice will remind you that you’re safe and calm and relaxed.
‘You and Ian are walking through the town-hall park towards the pond… Reach in now and remove any block to your memory that you may have had. Any time you feel a block coming back, take a deep breath, and as you exhale, you can command that block to leave you. It is your mind, your cache of information… you own it. And you control it. I’m here beside you, Rachel, and you will hear my voice, and my voice will remind you that you are safe and calm and relaxed, relaxed and warm in your safe space.