Jack Grimley, Annie was willing to bet, though he wasn’t actually a fisherman, and she doubted that Kirsten, if that was who it was, was studying him because she thought he was a nice bit of rough.
“Then what?”
“We left. Walked around town. Ended up sitting on a bench talking, but again I got the impression she was somewhere else.”
“Did anything happen?”
“No. Oh, I made my tentative move, you know, put my arm around her, gave her a kiss. But it obviously wasn’t going anywhere, so I gave up and we went back to the B and B.”
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“To your own rooms?”
“Of course.”
“Did you see her again?”
“Not that I know of, though, as I said, the police think I might have.”
“You don’t remember anything else about that day in Staithes?”
“No. Sorry.”
“I understand it was touch and go for a while?”
“I’m lucky to be here. Everyone said so. I’m even more lucky to have been able to pick up my life and carry on, become a lawyer, get a good job, the lot. Everything except marriage and kids. And that just never seemed to happen. But there was some talk at the time of possible permanent brain damage. My guess is they don’t understand the Aussie brain over there. It’s much tougher than you Pommies think.”
Annie laughed. “I’m glad.” She liked Keith McLaren, at least what she could gather of him over the telephone. He sounded as if he would be fun to go out with. He’d also be about the right age for her. Single, too. She wondered if he was good-looking. But Sydney was a long, long way away. It was good to have the fantasy, though.
“You must have wondered why it happened,” she asked. “Why you?”
“Hardly a day goes by.”
“Any answers?”
McLaren paused before speaking. “Nobody ever came right out and said it at the time,” he said, “perhaps because I was either in a coma or recovering from one, but I got the distinct impression that the police didn’t discount the theory that I’d tried it on a bit too aggressively and she defended herself.”
That didn’t surprise Annie. She was almost loath to admit it, especially after talking to McLaren and liking him, but it was one of the first things that would have occurred to her, too. Whether that was because she was a woman or a police officer, or both, she didn’t know.
Maybe it was because she’d been raped, herself. “They suggested you’d assaulted her, tried to rape her?”
“Not in so many words, but I got the message loud and clear. It was F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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only the fact that there were two unexplained bodies around and she seemed to have done a runner that kept me out of jail.”
“Did you ever see her naked?”
“What a question!”
“It could be important.”
“Well, the answer’s no. Not that I remember. Like I said, I don’t know what happened that day in the woods, but I think my memory up to that point is as clear as it’s going to get. I mean, she just didn’t want to know. I kissed her that once, on the bench near the Cook statue, but that’s all.”
So, Annie thought, he couldn’t have known about Kirsten’s chest injuries—if, indeed, it was Kirsten—until they were in the woods together, which he couldn’t remember, and he had somehow got her top off. But the dream indicated that he had some subconscious knowledge of her injuries. He must have tried something on with her, then, or perhaps it was mutual up to a point, then she began to struggle, to panic. Kirsten knew by that point that she couldn’t have sex, so what was going on?
If McLaren had cottoned on to who she was, as he may well have done even if she had modified her appearance, seen through her disguise and posed a threat to her agenda of vengeance, then wasn’t there a chance that she had cold-bloodedly lured him into the woods and set out to get rid of him? That she had led him on, and when he was sufficiently distracted, attempted to kill him? What kind of crea-ture was Annie dealing with? The moment she thought she had some kind of connection with Kirsten, the damn woman slipped beyond her understanding and sympathy again.
“What do you think about the police’s theory?” Annie asked.
“I don’t see it,” McLaren said. “I mean, it might sound weird to you, but I’m just not like that. I don’t think I have it in me. You might think every man does, I don’t know. I suppose you’ve seen it all in your line of work, and you’re a woman, but I don’t. I honestly don’t believe that I would ever attack or attempt to rape a woman.”
Annie had also experienced rape, but she didn’t happen to believe that every man was a potential rapist. “Thanks for your time, Keith,”
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she said. “You’ve been really helpful. And if it’s any consolation, I don’t believe you’re that sort of person,
