"My pleasure," said Ferris and rang off.

In the meantime, Annie thought, she would just carry on as she had been doing. If the hair proved that Kirsten Farrow wasn't involved in the Lucy Payne murder, then she could scratch that line of inquiry. It had been a long shot, anyway. She would have wasted a bit of time on a wild goose chase, but sometimes things like that happened. Then she would have to redirect all her resources into other lines of inquiry. Maggie Forrest, for example. Janet Taylor's brother had been a possible, too, but Tommy Naylor had tracked him down at a detox centre in Kent, where he'd been drying out for the past month, so that was another dead end.

Annie found the visitors area and parked, checked in with the security desk and found herself buzzed up to a fourth-floor apartment. At the end of the thickly carpeted corridor, Sarah Bingham opened the door to her and led her through to the living room. It wasn't large, but the floor-to-ceiling window with balcony created more than enough sense of space. The view south to Gateshead wasn't an idyllic one, more dockside than docklands, but it was probably an expensive one. Annie felt suspended above the water and was glad she didn't suffer from vertigo.

The furnishings were all red leather modular designs, and what appeared to be a couple of original pieces of contemporary art hung on the walls, which were painted a subtle shade somewhere between cream and pink that Annie couldn't quite name. It was probably a combination of some exotic place and a wildflower, like Tuscan primrose or Peloponnesian carnation.

Annie expressed her admiration for the paintings, especially the one made up of different coloured dots, and Sarah seemed pleased at her appreciation. Maybe most of her guests didn't like abstract art. A large flat-screen TV hung on one wall, and an expensive Bang & Olufsen stereo system took up the other side. There were small speakers on stands in all corners from which orchestral music issued very softly. Annie couldn't tell what it was, but she couldn't really pick out a tune, so she guessed it was probably twentieth century. It was the very contemporary habitat of a very contemporary young woman. A quick calculation told Annie that Sarah must be about forty, the same age as her.

Sarah Bingham herself was chic, from ash-blonde hair so perfectly coiffed, layered and tinted that it looked natural, to the white silk shirt and black designer cargo pants. Perhaps the only dissonant note was a pair of pink fluffy slippers. But she was at home. She made Annie feel quite dowdy in her Levi's and black turtleneck jumper. She also had the kind of lithe body you only get from an hour at the gym each day. Annie didn't have time for that, even if she had had the inclination. A white MacBook surrounded by papers and file folders sat on the chrome-and-glass work table by the window. So much for the paperless office, Annie thought. A Hermes handbag lay on the next chair, as if tossed there casually.

"I don't know what I can do for you," said Sarah as she sat in a sculpted armchair, "but you've certainly got me intrigued." Her accent was posh but not forced. Like everything else about her, it seemed natural.

"It's about Kirsten Farrow."

"Yes, you said on the phone." Sarah made a vague hand gesture. "But that was all so many years ago."

"What do you remember about that time?"

"Ooh, let me see. Well, Kirsty and I became friends at university. We were both reading English lit. I was seriously into feminist criticism and all that stuff, but Kirsty was more traditional. F. R. Leavis, I. A. Richards and so on. Very unfashionable in the heady days of deconstructionism and what have you."

"What about the attack?" asked Annie, anxious not to waste too much of her allotted time on literary criticism.

"That was awful," said Sarah. "I visited her in hospital and she was...I mean, it took her months to put herself back together. If she ever did."

"What do you mean?"

"Perhaps you never really get over something like that. I don't know. Do you?"

"No," said Annie, "but some people learn to function in spite of it. Did you spend a lot of time with her in that period?"

"Yes," said Sarah. "It seemed important to stick by her while everyone else was busy getting on with their lives."

"And what about your life?"

"On hold. I planned to do graduate work, a Ph. D. in Victorian fiction. I wanted to become a professor of English." She laughed.

"Wanted to?"

"Yes. I got bored by it all in my first year. I dropped out and bummed around Europe for a while, as one does, and when I got back I went in for law, at my parents' suggestion."

Annie looked around. "You seem to be doing all right."

"Not bad, I suppose. I wasted a few years on the way, but I soon made up for it. Now I'm one of the youngest partners in one of the biggest law firms in the Northeast. Would you like something to drink? You've come such a long way. How rude of me not to ask sooner."

"That's okay," said Annie. "I'll have something cold and fizzy, if you've got it, thanks." She'd had a couple more glasses of wine than she had planned after Banks had gone the previous evening, and it had left her with a dry mouth. She regretted lying to him about Eric, but sometimes it was the only way to keep someone out of your business. Banks's, and Winsome's, intentions might be good, but the last thing she needed right now was someone meddling in her life.

Sarah stood up. "Something cold and fizzy it is," she said and went to the cocktail cabinet. She came back with a chilled Perrier and ice for Annie and a gin and tonic for herself, then she settled in the chair again, curling her legs under her.

"Married?" Annie asked. She had noticed that Sarah wasn't wearing a ring, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

Sarah shook her head. "Once," she said, "but it didn't take." She laughed. "He said he couldn't handle my working all hours, our never seeing each other, but the truth is that he was a layabout and a sponger. You?"

"Never found the right man," said Annie, smiling. "Back to Kirsten. I hope it's not too painful for you?"

Sarah waved her hand. "No. As I said, it was all so long ago. It seems like another lifetime. Kirsten was attacked in June 1988. We'd just finished finals and we'd been out celebrating. We all got turfed out of some pub or other and ended up at a party at one of the university residences, about six of us. We were pretty drunk already, if truth be told, except maybe Kirsten. She had to head home early the next morning so she was pacing herself. The party was still going when she left. Nobody really thought anything of it. I mean, people were coming and going all the time, at all times of the day and night. But that was when it happened, you know, on her way home across the park."

"And someone interrupted?"

"Yes. A man walking his dog. Thank God for that, at least."

"But her attacker got away?"

"Yes. The police thought it was the same man who'd raped and murdered five other girls, a serial killer, I suppose you'd call him. But poor Kirsty couldn't remember a thing about the attack, which was perhaps a mercy. Can you imagine having to relive something like that?"

Annie sipped some more Perrier. "Did she talk about it much?"

"A bit. I saw her a few times in hospital, and I went to stay with her and her parents that first Christmas after she came out of hospital. They lived in a big house near Bath. I think Kirsty had been undergoing hypnosis at the time. I do remember that it really frustrated her that she couldn't remember anything after leaving the party. She said she wanted to remember it all, find out who did it and go after him."

"She said that?"

"Yes, but she was very upset at the time. She didn't really mean it. I mean, the hypnosis was only frustrating her. I think it might have been the police's idea."

"Did you tell the police what she said to you?"

"Well, no. I mean, why would I? It was just angry talk. She'd no idea who it was."

"Do you remember the name of the hypnotist, by any chance?"

"I'm sorry, no. I don't recall that Kirsty ever even mentioned it."

"But this was in Bath in 1988?"

"Yes. Winter."

"Go on."

"Kirsty's parents went out on New Year's Eve, some party or other. Anyway, Kirsty and I got drunk on her father's cognac and she told me everything."

Annie edged forward in her seat. "What do you mean?"

"About what he'd done to her. The bastard." For the first time, Sarah seemed shaken by what she was remembering.

"What had he done?" Annie knew she could dig out the medical report, which had to be in the archives somewhere, but she wanted to hear Sarah's version.

"He used a sharp knife on her. Here." She moved her hands over her breasts. "And between her legs. She didn't show me, of course, but she said she had a lot of scarring and stitching. But that wasn't the worst of it. She also told me the damage to her vagina and uterus had been so extensive that she couldn't enjoy sex, and she couldn't have children." Sarah wiped a tear from her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't think I'd be like this just talking about it. I thought I would be okay, that it was long enough ago."

"Are you all right?"

Sarah sniffed and went to get a tissue. She blew her nose. "I'm fine," she said. "It was just the power of the memory took me by surprise. I could see her sitting there, with that forlorn expression on her face. I mean, can you imagine how that must screw you up? Being sentenced to celibacy and childlessness for the rest of your life? And she was only twenty-one, for crying out loud. I think at that moment I'd gladly have killed him myself if I'd known who it was."

"Was there ever any suggestion that it was someone close to her?" Annie asked. "Perhaps someone who'd left the party early?"

"The police certainly never told me what they were thinking, but they grilled everyone who'd been there, and all her uni friends."

As Annie guessed, it would have been standard procedure. Still, there was always a chance that they had missed something. "Did you see her after that New Year's Eve?"

"Oh, yes. A few times. But she never really talked about it in that sort of detail again. I do remember one night in particular," Sarah went on. "Odd, isn't it, how some things stick in your memory? It was the first time Kirsty had come back up north after...since the attack. Over a year later. She'd been in hospital for quite a while, then she'd been at home with her parents recuperating for a long time. Anyway, I had a poky little bedsit thenit used to be Kirsten'sand she came to stay for a while. September 1989, I think it was, not long before term started. We had a lot to drink that first night, and she said some very odd things. Her behaviour quite frightened me, in fact."

"What odd things?"

"I can't remember the details, just that it was creepy, you know? She was talking about an eye for an eye and saying she felt like a victim of AIDS or vampirism."

"AIDS?"

"She didn't mean it literally. I told you she was talking crazy. She didn't have AIDS, at least not as far as I knew. No, she meant like some sort of contagion she'd caught from her attacker. I told her it was crazy talk and she stopped. That's all I remember. But it gave me a chill at the time. Still, I thought, better out than bottled up inside."

"She spoke about revenge?"

"An eye for an eye, yes. She said again that if she knew who it was she'd kill him."

"Did she give any indication that she did know?"

"No. How could she?"

"Sorry, go on."

Sarah gave a nervous laugh. "It was just the wine talking, really. We were into our second bottle by then. Anyway, things went on pretty much as normal for the next while, then term started."

"So Kirsten was staying with you all the time she was up north that September?"

"Yes. Until the middle of October, I think."

"You don't sound so certain. Are you sure?"

Sarah turned away. "That's what I told the police."

"But is it true?"

She studied her fingernails. "Well, you know, she sort of came and went."

"Came and went?"

"Yes. She spent a few days walking in the Dales, okay?"

"Were you with her?"

"No. She wanted some time by herself."

"When was this exactly?"

"I can't remember. It was so long ago. September, though, I think. Soon after she came to stay."

"Did you tell the police about this?"

"I...no. She asked me not to."

"Any idea why?"

"No. I mean, look, I'm sorry, but I didn't have a very good opinion of the police back then. The last thing Kirsten needed was any hassle from them. She'd suffered enough."

"Any particular reason you didn't like the police?"

Sarah shrugged. "I was just a radical, that's all, and a feminist. They seemed to be only interested in upholding archaic laws made by men and in supporting the status quo."

"I used to think that, too," said Annie. "Of course, it might have been more true back then than now, but there are a few dinosaurs left."

"I still can't say they're my favourites," said Sarah, "but I've developed a lot more respect over the years, and I don't generalize as much as I used to. I don't practise criminal law, but I've come across a few good police officers in my line of work. It's as you say, there are dinosaurs. Bad apples, too, I suppose."

"Oh, yes," said Annie, thinking of Kev Templeton. He might not be a bad apple in the sense of being crooked, but he was certainly a shit of the first degree.

"But back then you lied to them?"

"I suppose so. Honestly, I'd forgotten all about it. Am I in trouble?"

"I don't think anyone really cares about an eighteen-year-old lie, except that it might be relevant today."

"I don't see how."

"What did happen?"

"I told you. She went to the Dales for a while, then she came back. She was in and out a lot over the next couple of weeks, then she took the room on the upper floor. She started her post-graduate work, same as me, but she got bored even sooner."

"So she dropped out?"

"Yes. Went back home, I think. At least for a while."

"And then?"

Sarah looked down at her fingernails again, beautifully manicured and painted a tasteful shade of pink. "We sort of drifted apart, you know, the way people do. As I told you, after I got out of the graduate program I went travelling for a while, then I got immersed in my law studies."

"So you didn't see Kirsten again?"

"Only once or twice over the next couple of years. We'd have a drink for old times' sake."

"What did you talk about?"

"The past, mostly. The time before the attack."