plenty of other things to think about this morning.
Like Karen Drew, for a start.
The first detail Annie read from the files Tommy Naylor had brought from Mapston Hall shocked her: Karen Drew had been only twenty-eight years old when she died. Annie had thought her an old woman, and even Naylor had pegged her age at around forty. Of course, they had only had the bloodless, shapeless lump under the blanket in the wheelchair with dry, graying hair to go by. Even so, Annie thought, twenty-eight seemed terribly young. How could the body betray one so cruelly?
According to the rec ords, Karen’s car had been hit by a driver losing control and crossing the center of the road six years ago. She had been in a coma for some time and had had a series of operations and lengthy spells of hospitalization, until it became apparent to every medical expert involved that she wasn’t going to recover, and that the only real option was full-time care. She had been at Mapston Hall for three months, as Grace Chaplin had said. That wasn’t very long, Annie thought. And if Karen couldn’t communicate, she could hardly have made any enemies so quickly. Passing psychopaths aside, it seemed all the more likely that the reason for her murder lay in her past.
Medically, the report suggested, there had been no change in her physical condition, and there never would be. When someone is as limited in self-expression as Karen Drew was, the slightest hint of progress tends to be hailed as a miracle. But nobody had really known what Karen was thinking or feeling. Nobody even knew whether she wanted to live or die. That choice had been taken out of her hands now, and it was up to Annie to find out why. Was it a mercy killing, as Naylor had hinted at, or did someone benefit in some way from Karen’s death? And if mercy was the motive, who had given it to her? These were the questions she would like answered first.
One thing Annie noticed about the files was that they told her very little of Karen’s life before the accident. She had lived in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, but there was no specific address listed, nor any indiF R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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cation as to whether she had grown up there or moved from somewhere else. Her parents were marked as deceased, again without details, and she apparently had neither siblings nor anyone especially close, like a husband, live-in partner or fiance. All in all, Karen Drew hardly appeared to have existed before that fateful day in 2001.
Annie was chewing on the end of her yellow pencil stub and frowning at this lack of information when her mobile rang shortly after nine o’clock. She didn’t recognize the number but answered anyway. In the course of an investigation, she gave her card out to many people.
“Annie?”
“Yes.”
“It’s me. Eric.”
“Eric?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten so quickly. That hurts.”
Annie’s mind whizzed through the possibilities, and there was only one glaringly obvious answer. “I don’t remember giving you my mobile number,” she said.
“Well, that’s a fine thing to say. Something else you don’t remember, I suppose, like my name?”
“Give me your home number, then.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then how am I supposed to get in touch with you? I don’t even know your last name.”
“You’re not. That’s the point.” Annie ended the call. She felt a tightness in her chest. Her phone rang again. Automatically, she answered.
“Look,” Eric said, “I’m sorry. We’ve got off to a bad start here.”
“Nothing’s started. And nothing’s going to start,” Annie said.
“I’m not proposing marriage, you know. But won’t you at least allow me to take you out to dinner?”
“I’m busy.”
“All the time?”
“Pretty much.”
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R O B I N S O N
“Tomorrow?”
“Washing my hair.”
“Wednesday?”
“Tenants association meeting.”
“Thursday?”
“School reunion.”
“Friday?”
Annie paused. “Visiting my aging parents.”
“Aha! But you hesitated there,” he said. “I distinctly heard it.”
