“No,” Alana said, her eyes sliding to the side as she tried to remember. She shook her head. “No, he didn’t say a thing. It was a quiet night. The only thing I heard was him tripping over something—maybe a stone in the dark. That’s how I knew he was there. I thought I’d got away from him, until he followed me down the gully off the road and attacked.”
“He followed you?” Nate asked with a frown. “How dark was it?”
“Very dark,” Alana said. “There was a storm coming in. There was only the light of the moon to see by, and that wasn’t much. It was only because I’ve been walking around that area for so many years that I knew where to go to avoid stumbling or falling.”
“Then he must be a local as well,” Nate said, looking at Laura. “If he was able to follow silently and only stumble once, he must have known where to walk.”
“That, or he’s been exploring the area to familiarize himself with it,” Laura said. “Have you noticed anyone around the museum or the surrounding area recently? Someone who was hanging around or looking at things in a way that seemed odd?”
“I don’t think so,” Alana said, shaking her head. She slumped a little further into her stack of pillows. She looked tired, and Laura was conscious of sticking to their promise—but they needed answers, and so far, nothing Alana had said had helped at all. “I wasn’t looking for it. I suppose it’s hard to say.”
“I understand,” Laura said, even though she wanted to scream. “Is there anyone in town you can think of that might have had a reason to target you? It might not be so obvious as someone hating you. It might be anything, even something small. This killer isn’t thinking rationally right now.”
“I don’t know of anything,” Alana said, shaking her head slower again. “I’m sorry. I wish I could remember. I knew he was behind me, but I never saw him—and when he was strangling me, even though his head was above me, he was lined up exactly with the moon. A perfect silhouette. I couldn’t make out his face.”
“Are you sure it was a man?” Nate asked.
“Yes,” Alana said, after a moment of hesitation. “Yes—he was strong and taller than me. And I smelt something. He had the scent of the sea on him, very strongly. I don’t know if it was genuine or if it was a scent—like an aftershave. But it was very masculine.”
“That’s useful,” Laura nodded. Scent wasn’t the best way to identify a suspect, but it would help. She didn’t recall Aaren Mullins having a particularly strong scent at all, but if they found a particular aftershave in his home then they would have a good link.
“Do you recognize this man?” Nate asked, shifting gears. He took his phone out of his pocket and showed Alana the screen—a photograph of Mullins.
“Of course,” she said. “That’s Aaren. He worked for us for a long time until halfway through the year. What’s happened to him? Is he alright? Was he attacked too?”
Laura exchanged a glance with Nate. That wasn’t good at all as far as their theory went. If she had asked whether he was her attacker, they would know she felt it was possible. But this response, seemingly an automatic one, indicated more concern for him than anything else—as though he was so unlikely to be her attacker that it didn’t even cross her mind.
“We can’t talk about that at this time,” Laura said, opting for the safer option. She didn’t want to bias their witness by trying to lead her down the path to identifying him. The conviction wouldn’t be worth a thing if she did. “Did you come back to consciousness at any point after the initial attack?”
“A couple of times,” Alana said. She looked down, as though the memory alone was enough to frighten her. Laura couldn’t say she blamed her. “I remember opening my eyes and I was high up, really high. I tried to wrench my hand away and then the rope went around my neck again and I passed out. I don’t know how I managed to survive that twice. The next time I woke up, it was raining, and I was alone, and I was so cold I couldn’t stay awake.”
“It’s not unusual,” Laura said. She hoped that in some way, it would actually be reassuring. That Alana would feel she had survived because she was supposed to, not out of dumb luck. “Strangulation causes a person to pass out before they die. In some cases, the signs of life become so faint that they aren’t detectable unless by a medical professional who knows what to look for properly. In that case, it’s easy for a killer to walk away thinking his job is done, only for the victim to wake back up later. You survived because your body has an excellent defense mechanism for this kind of attack, and you went into survival mode early enough. That’s what saved you.”
“That, and the doctors,” Alana said. She gave a weak smile. Talking about it all only served to remind Laura that Alana was very weak and tired, and that she needed a lot of rest. She’d been through things that could have killed her three times over. That was going to need some recovery period.
“We’ll leave you to rest,” Laura said, getting up from her chair. She glanced at Nate. He didn’t appear to have any objections. She wasn’t sure she would have allowed him to continue if he had. It was clear to her that Alana needed a break.
“Will you be able to catch him?” Alana asked, worry and fear in her voice.
Laura gave her a small smile. “We think we already have,” she said. “We just need him to confess.”
Alana sank back against the pillows again in relief. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s a weight off my mind.”
But as Laura walked out of the room with Nate at her side, she had to confess only to herself: she was worried.
Alana clearly didn’t see Mullins as a killer. And if she didn’t, did that mean that she and Nate had arrested the wrong man—leaving the real one out there to kill again?
***
“Alright, Mullins,” Laura said. She slapped a photograph down on the table between them. It was fresh from the Sheriff’s photographer, still warm from the printer: a shot of Alana hanging on the figurehead as the others worked to get her down, cropped in to her unconscious and pale face. “Let’s talk about the museum.”
Mullins stared at the photograph with a look of horror, then back up at her. “Alana?” he said, his voice hoarse. “Is she alright? Is she-?”
“She’s alive,” Nate said meaningfully. “Which means she’s been able to give us a statement about the man who attacked her. A witness statement.”
Nate’s words were carefully chosen—specific but vague. Everything he said was absolutely true. But choosing to call it a witness statement, and using the reference to her attacker, made it sound as though Alana had been able to identify him, even though she hadn’t.
If he was guilty and didn’t keep his nerve in the face of a direct accusation like that, then he would confess. That was the hope.