He closed his eyes. "Oh, you've got lots to tell me," he murmured. "Why you came to Streech. Why Mrs. Phillips calls this house a fortress. Why you have nightmares about death." He opened his eyes a fraction to look at her. "Why you panic every time your safe is mentioned and why you like to divert interest away from it."
"Did Fred let you in?"
"No, I climbed the wall at the bottom."
Her eyes were deeply wary. "Why would you do that?"
He shrugged. "There's a barrage of photographers at your gate. I didn't particularly want to be seen coming in."
"Did Walsh send you?"
She was as taut as piano wire. He reached out and took her hand, playing with her fingers briefly before letting them drop. "I'm not your enemy, Cattrell."
A smile flickered. "I'll bet that's what Brutus said as he stuck the knife into Caesar. I'm not your enemy, Caesar, and, hell, old chap, it's nothing personal, I just happen to love Rome more." She stood up and walked to the window. "If you're not my enemy, McLoughlin, then drop me, drop all of us, from the enquiry and look for your murderer somewhere else." The moon was pouring herself in a shimmering libation about the garden. Anne pressed her forehead against the cold glass and stared out at the awesome beauty of what lay beyond. Black roses with coronas of silver; the lawn glittering like an inland sea; a weeping willow, its leaves and branches wrought in sparkling tracery. "But you can't do that, can you? You're a policeman and you love justice more."
"How can I answer that?" he teased her. "It's based on so many false premises that it's entirely hypothetical. I sympathise with personal vengeance. I told you that this morning."
She smiled cynically into the glass. "Are you telling me you wouldn't have arrested Fred and Molly for murdering Donaghue?"
"No. I would have arrested them."
She looked at him with surprise. "That's a more honest answer than I expected."
"I wouldn't have had any choice," he said dispassionately. "They wanted to be arrested. They sat there with the body, waiting for the police to come."
"I see." She smiled faintly. "You make the arrest but you shed crocodile tears while you're doing it. That's a great way of salving your conscience, isn't it?"
He stood up and walked across to look down into her face. "You helped me," he said simply, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I'd like to help you. But I can't if you won't trust me."
He was so damn transparent, she thought, with his state-of-the-art cunning. She chuckled amiably. Two could play at this game. "Trust me, McLoughlin. I don't need your help. I am as innocent of personal revenge and murder as a newborn baby."
Abruptly, as if she were no more than a rag doll, he lifted her off her feet and twisted her towards the light, examining every inch of her face. As a face, it wasn't that special. She had laughter lines etched deeply round her eyes and mouth, frown lines on her forehead, but there was no menace lurking in her dark eyes, no shutters closed on nefandous secrets. Her skin gave off a faint scent of roses. He let go with one hand and ran the tips of his fingers along the curve of her jaw and down the soft line of her neck before, as abruptly, releasing her. "Did you cut his balls off?"
She hadn't expected that. She straightened her sleeves. "No."
"You could be lying through your teeth," he murmured, "and I can't see it."
"That's probably because I'm telling the truth. Why do you find that so hard to believe?"
"Because," he growled angrily, "my damn crotch is ruling my brain at the moment and lust is hardly an indicator of innocence."
Anne glanced down and gave a gurgle of laughter. "I see your problem. What do you plan to do about it?"
"You tell me. Cold showers?"
"God no. That would be Molly's choice. My advice is, when you've got an itch, scratch it."
"I'd enjoy it a little more if you scratched it."
Her black eyes danced. "Did you have the sense to eat something?"
"Sausage and chips about five hours ago."
"Well, I'm starving. I haven't eaten since lunchtime. There's an Indian take-away a couple of miles down the road. How do you fancy discussing your options over a Vindaloo?"
He lifted his hand to caress the curls round the base of her neck. The need to touch her was like an addiction. He was crazy, he didn't believe a damn word she said, but he couldn't help himself.
She saw the look in his eyes. "I'm not your type, McLoughlin," she warned. "I am selfish, self-opinionated and entirely self-centred. I am independent, incapable of sustaining relationships and am often unfaithful. I dislike babies and housework and I can't cook. I am an intellectual snob with unconventional philosophies and left-wing politics. I don't conform, so I'm an embarrassment. I smoke like a chimney, am often rude, loathe getting tarted up and I fart very loudly in bed."
He dropped his hand and grinned down at her. "And on the plus side?"
"There isn't a plus side," she said, suddenly serious, "not for you. I'll get bored, I always do, and when something better comes along, as it surely will, I'll dump you just as I've dumped everyone else. We'll have a halfway decent bonk from time to time, but you'll pay heavily in emotion for what you can buy free of strings in Southampton. Is that what you want?"
He regarded her thoughtfully. "Is this a regular turn-off, or am I privileged?"
She smiled. "Regular. I like to be fair."
"And what's the drop-out rate at this stage?"
"Low," she said ruefully. "A few sensible ones leg it. The rest plunge in thinking they're going to change me. They don't. You won't." She watched his expression. "Getting cold feet?"
"Well, I can't say I fancy it much," he admitted. "It sounds horribly like the relationship I had with my wife, dull, stifling and leading nowhere. I had no idea you were so narrow-minded. Put in 'frightened to explore' after 'selfish, self-opinionated and self-centred,' and I guarantee the drop-out rate, pre-copulation, will astonish you." He took her arm and steered her towards the window.
"Let's eat," he said. "My judgement's better on a full stomach. I'll decide then whether I want to sow my seed in sterile ground."
She pulled away. "Go fuck yourself, McLoughlin."
"Getting cold feet, Cattrell?"
She laughed. "I'll turn off the lights." She slipped back to the door and plunged the room into darkness. He took out his torch and waited by the windows. As she approached, she neatly avoided a small table with a bronze statuette of a naked woman on it. "Me," she said. "When I was a nubile seventeen-year-old. I had a bit of a thing going with the sculptor during one school holidays."
He lit it with the torch and studied it with interest. "Nice," he said appreciatively.
She chuckled as she followed him out. "The figure or the sculpture?"
"Both. Do you lock these doors?" he asked, sliding them to behind him.
"I can't, not from the outside. They'll be all right."
He put a hand on the back of her neck and walked her across the terrace on to the lawn. An owl hooted in the distance. He looked back at the house to get his bearings and half-turned her to the left. "This way," he said, flashing the torch ahead of them. "I parked the car in a lane that runs along the corner." Beneath his fingers he could feel the tightness of her skin. They walked in silence until they entered the woodland bordering the lawn. Away to their left, something scuttered noisily through the undergrowth. Her skin leapt with fear, jolting him as violently as it jolted her. "For God's sake, woman," McLoughlin growled, swinging his torch beam among the trees. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" He shone the torch into her eyes, suddenly angry. "You've buried yourself alive, erected a mountain of barbed wire over the mound, and you call it nothing. She's not worth it. Can't you see that? What the hell can she ever have done for you that you have to sacrifice your whole life in exchange? For Christ's sake, do you enjoy dying by inches? What happened to the Anne Cattrell who seduced sculptors in her school holidays? Where's the thorn in the Establishment's flesh who stormed citadels single-handed?"