door handle in my grip, couldn’t get any sense of my leggings sliding over the leather seat of her posh sports car. I couldn’t smell the sweat of our sports kits in the small tinny space, couldn’t hear the car radio burst into life as she switched on the ignition. Maybe she never did. Maybe the seats weren’t leather – that could be my imagination trying to get my memory to take a dictation so that I’ll have a script to read from. I couldn’t see our breath as condensation on the windows, the curve of my own arm as I held her fast with one hand. I couldn’t feel the controlled jab of the knife in her ribs. I listened and I listened but I couldn’t… I couldn’t hear her scream.
‘So you called the police?’
‘No. I read about Ian on the iPad. And that’s when it all came back: the whole of Saturday, day and night, the day I’d been dreading, the second worst day of my life.
‘And then I called them. Because I remembered, you see? I remembered all of it. And I knew I’d killed Anne-Marie too. And tried to strangle that chap. And Jo, lovely Jo. I knew that any violent flashbacks I’d had weren’t my mind playing tricks at all. They were memories.’
‘So you called.’
‘I dialled the crime number and a lady answered and I told her. I told her I’d been killing people.’
45
Lisa
Transcript of recorded interview with Lisa Baxter (excerpt)
Also present: DI Heather Scott, PC Marilyn Button
HS: Ms Baxter, how would you describe your relationship with Mr Edwards?
LB: Mark? What do you mean? As in friends? We were friends, good friends; – I’d have thought that was obvious.
HS: Do you often meet Mark without Rachel being present?
LB: No. Well, not like regularly, for coffee or a drink or whatever, no. That would’ve been, well, it would’ve been all wrong. But recently I’d been round to their house a few times when I knew she was on shift or out but that was only because I was worried. He was worried too. All the walking at night and the way she’d go sort of absent sometimes. And the file, of course. We were scared she was going… you know, down, like she did before. I’ve said all this.
HS: And last Friday afternoon, when you told her you were in the supermarket, you were with Mark?
LB: Yes. I’d gone round to see him when I knew she’d be out because she seemed more fragile than ever. She wasn’t taking me on at all. She was going under. I knew she was seeing her dad that day and I thought I should have a word with Mark, as in a stronger word, and I did – I said to Mark, ‘You need to call someone. She’s not right. She’s not well.’ I did say that.
HS: And did Mr Edwards call anyone?
LB: He was going to talk to her about it first. He didn’t want an ambulance just turning up like the first time, but they just weren’t communicating. He’d tried to tell her not to do the file, but they’d lost their way to each other and it was so sad to see. They wouldn’t come out for a drink or a meal or anything. And with Patrick gone, that’s my ex, it wasn’t the same without us being two couples. I think they were both trapped. They couldn’t talk. And Katie had dropped out and I suppose she’d disappeared into YouTube, all that make-up, literally plastering on a brave face for the world. She was looking for followers, looking for a party, looking for anything… well, like Rachel was, wasn’t she? Looking for love in the wrong places, I suppose, or at least someone to talk to. We all need it, don’t we? To have someone who cares and who’ll listen? And I suppose if you can’t find it at home… It was heartbreaking to see them unable to talk to each other like they used to, but they just couldn’t get on with each other anymore. Everything Rachel said was wrong, everything Katie did was wrong. And Mark was just standing on the sidelines bleeding.
HS: Ms Baxter—
LB: Sorry, can I just say something? I… I mean… none of us knew what Rach was getting herself into. I just want to say that. How could we have known? It was bad enough to think of her wandering the streets and obsessing over her press cuttings, but