‘Is that all she said?’
Patrick’s temper snapped again; his mouth writhed in a sneer. ‘Surely your observant witnesses have told you that!’
The brigadier gazed stolidly at him. ‘If you would bear with me, Mr Ogilvie. I have to be certain about details. So, Miss Cabot came over to you—’
‘Cabot?’ It was the first time the girl’s name had been mentioned; Patrick couldn’t help the startled question.
The brigadier waited, watching with the patience of a fisherman who thought he might have got a bite on his line.
‘That’s her name?’ Patrick asked.
‘Antonia Cabot,’ the brigadier told him, and there was a strange echo inside Patrick’s head, as if he had heard the name before; and maybe he had, from Rae, or the Holtners, when they had spoken about Alex’s niece, the art student, coming from Florence.
‘Antonia Cabot,’ he said huskily, aloud, and shivered. It was a beautiful name and she was lovely—what had happened to her last night?
The brigadier watched him shiver, his eyes narrowing.
‘A beautiful girl,’ he said softly. ‘Young, blonde, desirable...’
Patrick thought of her as he had first seen her, dancing with another man, her body moving sensually, lightly, with gaiety.
She had come over to him, smiled at him, with that shy, unconscious invitation; and he had been bitterly angry because she looked so much like Laura, but wasn’t Laura, and because...
He swallowed, feeling sick, perspiration on his face.
‘You wanted her,’ the brigadier said, and the words echoed what he had almost thought just now, what he wished he could pretend he had never thought.
He almost screamed, Yes! because it was true, although he wished it weren’t. Yes, he had wanted her. He had looked at that lovely face, that lovely body, and wanted her, but she wasn’t Laura, and he wasn’t interested in a one-night stand with some unknown girl just because she looked like Laura, so he had turned his back and walked away.
Why had she told the police that the man who had attacked her looked like him?
Or was him? Had she actually said it was him? Why would she say that? Had she lied? Or simply been confused? The questions ran round and round inside his head.
‘Why won’t you tell me exactly what happened?’ he broke out. ‘You keep asking me questions, but you never answer mine. Was the girl attacked at the party? In the gardens? In the house? Didn’t anybody see, hear, anything? There were all those people around; surely somebody must have seen something?’
‘They saw you, Mr Ogilvie,’ the brigadier said, ‘walking down through the gardens, to the beach. They saw you. She saw you go, too, the girl, Antonia Cabot. She was sorry for you. She thought you looked unhappy, and her uncle later told her about your broken engagement. So she followed you, down to the beach, with some idea, I suppose, of talking to you, comforting you. She saw the trail of your footsteps along the sand and followed them, fitting her own feet into them, she said; it was some sort of game, I gathered.’ The brigadier looked faintly indulgent. ‘She is very young. And then suddenly someone jumped out at her from behind a boat; she caught a brief impression by moonlight of a face, light brown hair, a T-shirt, jeans. She thought it was you, playing a trick on her; she began to laugh.’
‘It wasn’t me; I never saw her on the beach!’ Patrick said.
The brigadier just watched him, then went on, ‘Then something hit her on the head, and she lost consciousness. She doesn’t know how long she was out, but when she came round she had been gagged with sticky tape; she couldn’t scream, and her attacker had taped her eyes, too, so she couldn’t see him, but he spoke to her, she said. In English; it was an English accent. She said it sounded like your voice.’
‘I only spoke to her once; I said one sentence to her! How could she possibly know what I sound like from that?’
‘You were on the beach, Mr Ogilvie?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Your clothes were covered in sand and salt water.’
‘I sat down on the sand for a long time, but I didn’t see that girl, and I did not attack her!’
‘Tell me again why you went down to the beach, Mr Ogilvie,’ the brigadier began again, and Patrick felt as if his head was going to explode.
‘I’m tired; I need sleep,’ he said wearily. ‘You can’t keep me here all this time without letting me see a lawyer. I insist you let me make a phone call to the British consul.’
‘We have telephoned a lawyer on your behalf and he will be coming to see you quite soon,’ the brigadier promised. ‘And the British consul will see you in the morning. After the identity parade.’
Patrick froze. ‘Identity parade?’
‘Miss Cabot is in hospital tonight, but I’m told she is prepared to see if she can identify you in a line-up tomorrow. She is a very brave girl.’
* * *
Patrick saw an Italian lawyer, small, thin, dark, and red-eyed from being woken up in the middle of the night, who had a thick summer cold, which made him sneeze constantly and depressed him.
‘The girl’s evidence is bad news, Signor Ogilvie. She identifies you almost certainly, by sight, and by sound, places you on the spot at that time, as do a number of other witnesses, and you yourself admit you were there on the beach at that time. Nobody else from the party was down there on that part of the beach. They all have alibis; they were all with other people at the relevant time. And you had recently broken up with your fiancée, which makes the police feel they can prove motive as well as opportunity.’
‘I didn’t do it!’ Patrick hoarsely said.
‘Of course,’ the lawyer said, smiling indifferently. ‘They haven’t yet got the forensic results—the various tests on you and the girl. They will come in tomorrow or the next day. The problem is...the attacker was scared off before he actually raped the girl; apparently he heard voices, people coming towards them, and ran off, and then the girl ripped off the tape on her mouth and eyes, and crawled into the sea—’
‘Why on earth did she do that?’
The lawyer looked coolly at him. ‘Common behaviour pattern in these cases. She felt dirty; she wanted to wash herself clean; the sea was the nearest place. She says she swam for some time. She may have been feeling suicidal, of course. The police didn’t mention that, but I’d say it was on her mind.’
Patrick leaned forward, feeling sick, dropping his head into his hands. ‘And I thought I had problems,’ he muttered. ‘God, what a mess.’
His lawyer said quietly, ‘Unfortunately, she practically wiped out most of the forensic evidence—which would be good, if you were guilty, because it would mean they couldn’t prove it, but as it is our case that you are innocent it makes our job harder as we can’t prove you didn’t!’
‘Are you saying it’s hopeless?’ asked Patrick, and the lawyer shook his head.
‘Of course not. No, but let’s hope she doesn’t pick you out at the identity parade.’
‘She will,’ Patrick said with grim certainty.
‘Be careful—that sounds like a confession,’ his lawyer quickly said.
‘I can’t help what it sounds like—I can only keep telling you, I didn’t do it. But she thinks I did. I told you what happened at the party. I wouldn’t dance with her; I turned my back on her and walked away. She’ll pick me out.’
The lawyer looked shocked. ‘Are you saying that she lied to the police? That she