She took an apple from the bowl beside her and tossed it to him. "You're doing great, McLoughlin. In a minute you'll be telling me you'd rather be a woman."
He looked at her, saw the amused lift of her lips and laughed. "I damn nearly did. You're winding me up."
"No," she said with a smile, "I'm winding you down. Life is pure farce from beginning to end, with a little black comedy thrown in for shade. If it was anything else, mankind would have stuck his collective head in the gas oven years ago. No one could tolerate seventy years of tragedy. When I die-probably of cancer-Jane has promised to put on my tombstone: 'Here lies Anne Cattrell who laughed her way through it. The joke was on her but at least she knew it.' She tossed another apple into the air and caught it. "In a couple of weeks, if you last the pace, you could be as cynical as I am, McLoughlin. You'll be a happy man, my son."
He sat down with the apple clenched between his teeth and drew his briefcase towards him. "You're not all cynic," he said, speaking round the apple.
She smiled. "What makes you say that?"
"I've read your diary." He snapped the locks on the briefcase, half-opened it and withdrew the slim volume.
She watched him curiously. "Did you enjoy it?"
"Was I supposed to?"
"No," she said tartly. "I didn't write it for publication."
"Good thing too," he said frankly. "It needs editing to make it readable."
She glared at him. "You would know, I suppose?" She was incredibly hurt. Her writing, even the writing she did for herself, mattered to her.
"I can read."
"I can hold a paintbrush. That doesn't make me an expert on art." She looked pointedly at her watch. "Shouldn't you be trying to solve a murder? As far as I can see you're still no nearer finding out who the body belongs to or, for that matter, who hit me on the head." She couldn't give a damn what he thought, he was only a policeman, so why did her stomach feel as if it had just bounced off the floor?
He munched on his apple. "P. needs editing out," he told her. "P. ruins it." He flicked the diary into her lap. "The carving-knife is still at the Station, awaiting your signature. I rescued this early on to prevent Friar sneaking it out to photocopy the rude bits." He was sitting with his back to the windows and his eyes, shadowed, gave nothing away. She couldn't tell if he was joking.
"Pity. Friar might have appreciated it."
"Tell me about P., Anne."
She eyed him cautiously. "What do you want to know?"
"Would he have attacked you?"
"No."
"Sure? Perhaps he's the jealous type. It was one of his Special Brew bottles that was used to hit you, and I'm told he never lets them out of the pub."
She could deny that P. and Paddy were one-the prospect of McLoughlin meeting the P. he had read about rather appalled her-but that would be coy, and Anne was never coy. "I'm positive," she said. "Have you spoken to him?"
"Not yet. We only got confirmation of the forensic results this morning." The match on Anne's blood and hair proved the bottle was the weapon, but the other results were disappointing. A smudged set of fingerprints round the neck and an incomplete footprint built up from barely seen depressions in the ground. It wasn't enough to take them any further. Anne wished she knew what he was thinking. Was he a harsh judge? Would he ever understand how Paddy, just because he always came back, however irregularly, made Streech bearable? Somehow she doubted it, for, in spite of his strange attraction to her, McLoughlin was a conventional man. The attraction wouldn't last, she knew that. Sooner or later he would snap back into character and then she would be remembered only as a brief madness. And for Anne, there would be just Paddy, once again, to remind her that the walls of Streech Grange were not totally impenetrable. Tired tears pricked at the back of her eyes. "He's a kind man," she said, "and he understands everything."
If McLoughlin understood, he didn't show it. He left without saying goodbye.
Paddy was hefting empty beer barrels at the rear of the pub. He eyed McLoughlin thoughtfully as he swung another barrel effortlessly atop the pile. "Can I help you?"
"Detective Sergeant McLoughlin, Silverborne Police." Imagination had created in McLoughlin's mind a huge, muscular Adonis with the magnetic attraction of the North Pole and the brain of Einstein. The reality was a big, rather overweight, hairy man in a tatty jumper and seated trousers. The jealous fire dimmed perceptibly in McLoughlin's belly. He showed Paddy a photograph of the stone beer bottle, taken after its removal from the undergrowth. "Do you recognise it?"
Paddy squinted briefly at the picture. "Maybe."
"I'm told you bottle your Special in it."
For a moment they scented the air suspiciously like two powerful mongrels poised to defend their territory. Then Paddy chose to back off. He shrugged good-humouredly. "OK, yes, it looks like one of mine," he said, "but it's a hobby. I'm writing a book on traditional beer-making methods to make damn sure the old ways aren't forgotten." His gaze was level and without guile. "I host the odd tasting session where I give it away to the locals to get their opinions." He studied the other's dark face, looking for a reaction. "All right, so I may have asked for a donation from time to time towards my costs. That's not unreasonable, it's an expensive hobby." He found the other's silence irritating. "Dammit, man, haven't your lot got more important things to exercise your minds at the moment? Who gave it to you anyway? I'll skin the bastard."
"Is it true you never let these bottles out of the pub, Mr. Clarke?" McLoughlin asked coldly.
"Yes, it's true, and I'd bloody well like to get my hands on the bugger who took it. Who was it?"
McLoughlin tapped the black stain round the bottom of the monochrome bottle. "That's blood, Mr. Clarke, Miss Cattrell's blood."
The big man became very still. "What the hell is this?"
"It's the weapon that was useid to beat a woman's skull in. I thought you might know how it found its way into her garden."
Paddy opened his mouth to say something, then sank abruptly on to the nearest barrel. "Jesus Christ! Those bottles weigh a ton. I heard she was all right, but Jesus!"
"How did the bottle get into her garden, Mr. Clarke?"
Paddy took no notice. "Robinson said she'd had a knock on the head. I thought it was concussion. Those bloody wankers keep calling it concussion."
"What wankers?"
"Journalists."
"Someone fractured her skull."
Paddy stared at the ground. "Is she all right?"
"They used one of your bottles to do it."
"Goddammit, man, I asked you a question." He surged to his feet and stared angrily into McLoughlin's face. "Is she all right?"
"Yes. But why are you so interested? Did you hit her harder than you meant to?"
Anger flared briefly in Paddy's face. He glanced towards the kitchen door to make sure it was closed. He lowered his voice. "You're on the wrong track. Anne's a friend of mine. We go back a long way. She'll tell you I wouldn't hurt her."
"It was dark. Perhaps you thought it was Mrs. Goode or Mrs. Maybury."
"Don't be a fool, man. I go back a long way with them, too. Hell, they're all friends of mine."
McLoughlin's mouth dropped open. "All three of them?"
"Yes."
"You're telling me you sleep with all three of them?"
Paddy made damping gestures with his hands. "Keep your voice down for God's sake. Who said anything about sleeping with anybody? It's damn lonely up there. I keep each one company from time to time, that's all."