And now she is here, in this pink room, with its cherry-blossom walls and its locked windows, and she knows that she is somehow being diminished, that the care she is being shown by Scarlett is warped and wrong, that Scarlett has been taught how to love bypeople who don’t know how to love and that everything she thinks is good is actually bad, and Tallulah knows that she needs to keep just enough of herself floating across the top of the big black pool of weirdness, just enough to keep on breathing, just enough to bring her back to her mother and to her baby boy. Just enough.
65
September 2018
POLICE TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDRA ROSE MULLIGAN
8 September 2018
Manton Police Station
In attendance:
DI Dominic McCoy
DCI Aisha Butt
DI McCoy:Good afternoon, Lexie.
Alexandra Mulligan:Good afternoon.
DM:So, we’ve just spoken with Mimi Rhodes and we’re aware that Scarlett Jacques is currently, apparently, on a boat somewhere, with her mother.
AM:Yes. At least as far as I know. From what she’s told me.
DM:And you were told to keep the details of this trip quiet because her mother was trying to escape from an abusive relationship with her husband?
AM:Yeah. That’s what she told me. She gave me her secret Instagram account and I’d check in every now and then to see if she’d posted anything. But there was never much info. Never anything to show where they were. Just pictures of the sea, really, with little captions about her mood. And then, a few weeks ago, Mimi came over. She was really upset, really stressed. And she told me about what she heard at Scarlett’s house, about Zach and Tallulah having a huge row, about Tallulah telling Zach she was in love with Scarlett and Zach losing the plot and throwing the ring at her.
DM:And what else did she tell you about that night?
AM:Nothing. Just that.
DM:She didn’t tell you about what she heard through the kitchen door? What she heard Scarlett saying to Tallulah?
AM:[pauses]
AM:Well, yeah. Yes. She told me. Yes.
DM:And what did that make you think?
AM:It made me think that maybe Scarlett was involved somehow with what happened to those kids. To Zach and Tallulah. It made me think she was lying to me about them being on the boat to escape her father. And I know I should have brought the ring in to the police and told you what Mimi had told me. But I just … I had this big trip coming up to Florida, it was all booked and paid for and really complicated, five different hotels and all that, and I didn’t want to risk getting involved in a police investigation and having to cancel it. I thought about giving the ring to my mum and asking her to bring it in after I’d gone. But I just thought it might have repercussions for her job? I didn’t want to involve her; her job is her life, her world. But then I didn’t want to wait until I got back, I wanted someone to work it all out without anyone ever having to tell anyone. And my mum had told me that the new head teacher’s wife was a detective writer and I’m a big reader so I ordered one of her books, just out of curiosity, and there was this bit in it where someone hides a clue in a flower bed with a cardboard sign next to it saying ‘Dig Here’. And I just thought, you know, that might work. So I took the ring the night before I flew to Florida, to bury it in the garden in the cottage, in a flower bed, like the clue had been buried in her book, but the back gate was padlocked, so I buried it just by the back gate, where I knew she would find it.
DM:And this boat, with Scarlett and her mother on it? Where is it exactly?
AM:I have no idea. But I can show you the photos on her Instagram. Maybe you can work it out from that?
DM:Yes. Please.
DM:For the recording, Lexie Mulligan is using her smartphone to locate the photographs.
AM:Here. This is the latest one. From a few days ago.
DM:For the recording, the photograph in question shows a foot against a cream vinyl surface, the prow of a boat or a yacht, a dog’s paw.
DM:We need to get forensics to examine this account. Right now.
DM:So, Lexie. For the recording, I am showing Miss Mulligan item number DP7694, the metal lever found buried in the flower bed at Maypole House. Lexie, can you tell us what this object is?