she were floating. It was a pleasant sensation, though; it had been a long time since she had felt grateful for the atmosphere of a crowded pub. Sarah was sitting close to the side door, a half of lager in front of her and a paperback in her hand. Kirsten waved to her, stopped at the bar for drinks and went over. Sarah shifted some parcels from the chair next to her and put them on the floor. Kirsten sat down.
“Christmas presents,” Sarah said.
Kirsten sipped her double Scotch and reached for her cigarettes.
“Are you all right?” Sarah asked. “You look a bit pale.”
“I’m fine,” Kirsten said. “I just had a bit of a shock, that’s all. I feel dazed.”
“What was it? The hypnosis?”
Kirsten nodded. “I remembered, Sarah. I remembered what he looked like.” Her voice sounded shaky and far away to her.
Sarah put her hand on Kirsten’s arm. “You don’t have to talk about it-”
“No, it’s all right. I don’t mind. At least not with you anyway…a friend. Laura’s a doctor. She’s being paid to help me, however nice she is. I mean, I like her and I’m very grateful to her, but…”
“It doesn’t go any deeper?”
“No. When it’s not me in the office, it’s someone else, isn’t it? And she’s probably just the same with them. It’s nothing special; it’s impersonal, like the police.” And she told Sarah about finally seeing her attacker.
“How old do you think he was?” Sarah asked.
“I never really thought. About forty, forty-five, I suppose. Pretty old. It’s just that he had this lined face, you know, rough-hewn, like, lines from the edges of the nose and the mouth.” She drew them with her fingers on her own face, then she shuddered. “It was awful, Sarah. It was like going through the whole thing again, but I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to.”
“What happened next?”
“Laura brought me out of it.”
“Did you tell the police what he looked like?”
Kirsten sipped some Scotch and glanced toward the bar. Things were coming into clearer focus now; her feet were touching the ground.
“Not yet. Laura’s going to phone them and send a report.”
“Are you sure you’re telling me everything?” Sarah asked.
“Why?”
“You sound vague, and you’ve got that shifty look on your face. I’ve known you long enough to tell when you’re holding something back. What is it?”
Kirsten paused and swirled her drink in her glass before answering. “There was something else…just an impression. I can’t really be sure.”
“What was it?”
“When he put the gag in my mouth, I was too busy struggling, trying to catch my breath, to really notice at the time.”
“Notice what?”
“The smell. There was a smell of fish. You know, like at the seaside.”
“Fish?”
Kirsten nodded. “It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t remember it until I’d left her office, when I was coming here to meet you.”
“Why don’t you phone her?”
Kirsten shrugged. “Like I said, it’s probably not important.”
“But that’s not for you to decide.”
Kirsten toyed with her cigarette in the large blue ashtray, shaping the end in one of its grooves. She felt herself starting to drift again like the smoke that curled and twisted in front of her. “I don’t know,” she said. “It just seems that I keep feeding them bits of my memory, you know, things I’ve had sweated out of me, and nothing happens. They’re so impersonal, just a big bureaucratic machine. I mean, two more girls have been killed since my…two. I can’t explain myself, Sarah, not yet, but it’s me and him. I feel I’ve got it in me to find him. It’s as if he’s inside me and I’m the only one who can flush him out.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus Christ! Kirstie. If you ask me you’re turning a bit batty. It must be all that solitude and country air.” She put her hand on Kirsten’s arm again. “You really should tell the police everything you can remember. Like you said, he’s killed two women already, and there’s bound to be more. People like him don’t stop till they’re caught, you know.”
“Do you think I don’t know that,” said Kirsten, pulling her arm away angrily. “Do you think I don’t feel for those women? I have to live what they died.”
“Come again?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry if I seem so touchy about it. I can’t explain. I’m not even sure what I mean myself.”
Kirsten sipped some more Scotch and looked around the pub again. The people looked indistinct; their conversations were just meaningless sounds. Sarah changed the subject to shopping.
As she half-listened and let herself be lulled by the buzz of talk around her, Kirsten came to a decision. People didn’t understand her, it seemed. Not even Sarah. People didn’t understand how personal it was. Not just for her, but for Margaret Snell and Kathleen Shannon too. Doctors, police…what did they know? In the future, she would have to be careful just how much she told them.
When she tasted that foul rag he had stuffed in her mouth and smelled his rough stubby fingers, she recognized the salt-water taste as well as the fishy odor. The rag tasted as if it had been dipped in the sea. Wasn’t there, then, a good chance that he had come from a coastal town?
And there was something else. Not only had she remembered the smell, but when he had thrown her to the ground and put the rag in her mouth as she stared up at him in the moonlight, his mouth had been moving. He had been talking to her. She couldn’t hear any sounds or words, but she knew he had spoken, and if she could bring that back, there was no knowing what it might tell her about him. It might even lead her to him.
39 Susan
As Susan approached the Brown Cow at lunchtime on the third day, she saw two white factory vans parked in front, and before she had even got near the entrance, two men came out of the pub and walked over to them. It was impossible to be sure from such a distance, but one of them matched the image in her memory: low, dark fringe, the thick eyebrows meeting in the middle. She had to get closer to see if he had deep lines on his face and, most of all, she needed to hear his voice.
When they started their vans and pulled out, she followed on foot. At least she could see which way they turned as they drove down the lane. If they went left, they would be on their way to the factory, and if they carried on down to the main road, they would be off making a delivery somewhere. She was in luck. They turned left.
Sue hurried after them. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but there was no point in hanging around the Brown Cow any longer. When she reached the turning, the vans had already pulled up outside the loading bays a hundred yards beyond the mesh gates, and the drivers were nowhere in sight. She walked along the street as far as the row of shops. She couldn’t just wander through the factory gates and go looking for the man; nor could she sit in the cafe where the inquisitive woman would be on duty. What could she do?
Before she had time to come up with a plan, she noticed the man walk out of the glass doors of the office building. He seemed to be slipping a small envelope of some kind into his pocket. A pay packet, perhaps? Whatever it was, he looked as though he had finished for the day. If he was a driver, the odds were that he had just returned
