Absent Light by Eve Isherwood Page A

going to play Devil’s Advocate with you,” he said brightly.
    â€œNow I’m getting deja vu.”
    â€œHow do you know last night wasn’t some prank by a lunatic drunk?”
    â€œThat’s the sort of thing Harmon’s sidekick, Wylie, would come out with,” she protested.
    Stratton continued, undeterred. “People get pissed on New Year’s Eve. They do all sorts of mad things.”
    â€œLike this,” she said, standing up, rolling up her left trouser leg. “This is just the edited highlight. Believe me, it’s a lot worse further up.”
    Stratton’s jaw slackened. “Christ, have you seen a doctor?”
    â€œIf you think I’m queuing up in casualty to see some quack who’s been working round the clock for the past twenty-four hours, you have to be kidding,” she let out a laugh. Still less do I want to see a scenes of crime officer, she thought more sombrely, and have my photograph taken.
    â€œAll right,” Stratton said slowly, “show me where it happened.”
    They went outside into the garden and walked up the path together to the back gate. Any sun had given way to a grey and grudging sky. It felt cold enough for snow. “It was rumoured you’d had some sort of breakdown,” Stratton said as he opened the gate.
    She’d heard the same. In reality, she’d teetered on the brink. She’d felt as if she were suspended in time. How she thought she felt was not how she really was. And she’d been particularly affected, she remembered, by noise. Anything and everything made her jump. The world was a monstrous clamour, but nothing sounded as loud as the noises in her head. She would have liked to put Joe straight, but decided it was best left unsaid. “Whatever I felt then, I’m fine now,” she said with a brisk smile.
    She let Stratton study the scene for himself. He walked up and down, crouching briefly by the rubber marks, examining the security light, which, according to him, had been tampered with.
    â€œIt was thought-out, perfectly timed. He could have killed me.”
    â€œBut he didn’t,” Stratton said, as if thinking aloud. “He had the opportunity but he didn’t take it. Why would he do that?”
    She shrugged her shoulders. “To create fear?”
    â€œMaybe he wants to punish you.”
    â€œWhich brings us neatly back to grudges,” she said, hoping to be spared the psychoanalysis.
    They went back to the coach-house and she made more coffee.
    â€œCan you think of anybody you might have offended, intentionally or otherwise?” Stratton asked.
    â€œNo one.”
    â€œNo rejected males, no broken hearts?” he said, flashing the type of admiring glance that made her feel vulnerable. Stratton was married, after all. She wasn’t falling for that one again.
    â€œWhy has it got to be a man? It could be a woman.”
    Stratton rejected the idea out of hand.
    â€œWhy not?” she said, with interest.
    â€œDriving vans at people is a man thing.”
    â€œSounds sexist.”
    Stratton laughed. “You always come out with stuff like that when you’re losing an argument.”
    â€œNo I don’t,” she said, playfully slapping his arm. “Actually, now you come to mention it, there is another woman in the picture.” She told him about Freya Stephens and showed him the contact sheets. Stratton examined them. There was no flex in his jaw, no quickening of his eyes. He put them down and studied her for a moment.
    â€œYou tried to contact her?”
    â€œHer mobile was switched to a messaging service.”
    â€œAnd she hasn’t been in touch since?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œSounds flaky.”
    â€œI know.” It was one thing to suspect, another to have it confirmed.
    â€œSo what’s your take on this woman?” His brown eyes fixed on hers in a way she found vaguely unsettling.
    â€œThat’s a