Free Caught in the Light by Robert Goddard

much as you can tell me."
    "It's really not as She broke off, as if to think. Then she said, "The woman you met in Vienna, Mr. Jarrett. Could you describe her to me?"
    "Marian? Well, if you insist."
    "I do."
    "All right. She's in her late twenties or early thirties. Medium height, slim build, short dark hair, pale complexion. She has a slightly flattened nose, large eyes, striking looks. Likes to wear red. Is that close enough?"
    "Yes. Too close to be any kind of mistake." She sounded mollified, but also puzzled. "Very well, Mr. Jarrett. I think we should meet."
    Jack Straw's Castle, Hampstead Heath, was Daphne Sanger's choice of rendezvous, not mine. It was predictably crammed with the younger Hampstead set at lunchtime on a Sunday, but maybe their noisy self-absorption was just the camouflage my companion required. She was waiting for me at a corner table when I arrived shortly after opening time, a neat, solemn-faced woman in her forties, dressed expensively but discreetly, with plainly cut ash-blond hair, gold-rimmed spectacles and startlingly long slender fingers, currently caressing a slim cigar.
    "Sorry it isn't quieter," she said. "But crowds have their advantages."
    "Safety in numbers, you mean?"
    "Safety is an issue, Mr. Jarrett. Perhaps you've already realized that."
    "Marian's safety is uppermost in my mind."
    "Ah, yes. Marian. Of course. It's very strange to hear her called that."
    "Why?"
    "Because it isn't her name. Not, at all events, the name she gave me."
    "But you recognized it well enough over the telephone."
    "Yes. Confusing, isn't it? If you'll forgive me for saying so, Mr. Jarrett, you do look confused. And a little .. . how shall I say? .. . harassed."
    "I've had a rough time lately."
    "Personal or professional?"
    "Both."
    "And what is your profession?"
    "Photographer."
    I'd never have expected such an apparently self-possessed woman to register shock so transparently. Her jaw fell and her eyes widened. I thought for a moment she was going to drop her cigar in her gin and tonic. "Photographer?"
    "Yes. What's so remarkable about that?"
    "Don't you know?"
    "No. Should I?"
    "No," she said after a moment's deliberation. "I suppose, after all, you probably shouldn't. Tell me how you met.. . Marian."
    "Tell me her real name first."
    "Her real name? I have cause to doubt either of us knows that. Eris Moberly was the one she gave me. I took her on as a client last summer."
    "What kind of client?"
    "I'm not sure I can disclose that. I'm a psychotherapist, Mr. Jarrett. Just about the most confidential branch of medicine there is."
    "Why are you disclosing anything, then?"
    "Because Eris Moberly is missing. Has been since early January."
    "You mean .. . since before I met her?"
    "It seems so."
    "When you say "missing" .. ."
    "I mean I can't find her. When she broke several appointments after Christmas I tried to contact her. She'd never given my secretary a telephone number, however, and her address .. . turns out not to exist. Louth Street, Mayfair. Sounds real enough, doesn't it? But a fiction nonetheless."
    "Are we sure we're talking about the same person? I've no reason to believe Marian deceived me about her identity."
    "Haven't you? What did she tell you about herself?"
    "Not a great deal. We didn't have long enough to ... become familiar with each other's pasts."
    "What did you have long enough for?"
    "Look, we met in Vienna in January, by chance. There was .. . immediate attraction. We became .. . emotionally involved."
    "You became lovers?"
    "If it's any of your business, yes."
    "I wish it weren't. Regrettably, I have to tell you that the woman you're "emotionally involved" with has a profound psychological problem. It wasn't a chance meeting. Let me ask you this. Did she know you were a photographer before introducing herself?"
    "No. That is ... Well, yes, in a sense. What of it?"
    "It's why she chose you, Mr. Jarrett. And why she used the name Marian Esguard."
    "What do you mean by that?"
    "I'm not sure