The Suspect

2

The mattress has compressed to the hardness of concrete beneath my hip and shoulder. From the moment I lie down the blood throbs in my ears and my mind begins to race. I want to slip into peaceful emptiness. Instead I chase the dangerous thoughts, magnified in my imagination.

By now Ruiz will have interviewed Julianne. He’ll have asked where I was on the thirteenth of November. She’ll have told him that I spent the night with Jock. She won’t know that’s a lie. She’ll repeat what I told her.

Ruiz will also have talked to Jock, who will tell them that I left his office at five o’clock that day. He asked me out for a drink, but I said no. I said I was going home. None of our stories are going to match.

Julianne has spent all evening in the charge room, hoping to see me. Ruiz told her she could have five minutes, but I can’t face her. I know that’s appalling. I know she must be scared, confused, angry and worried sick. She just wants an explanation. She wants to hear me tell her it’s going to be all right. I’m more frightened of confronting her than I am of Ruiz. How can I explain Elisa? How can I make things right?

Julianne asked me if I thought it unusual that a woman I hadn’t seen in five years is murdered and then the police ask me to help identify her. Glibly, I told her that coincidences were just a couple of things happening simultaneously. Now the coincidences are starting to pile up. What are the chances of Bobby being referred to me as a patient? Or that Catherine would phone my office on the evening she died? When do coincidences stop being coincidences and become a pattern?

I’m not being paranoid. I’m not seeing shadows darting in the corner of my eye or imagining sinister conspiracies. But something is happening here that is bigger than the sum of its parts.

I fall asleep with this thought and sometime during the night I wake suddenly, breathing hard with my heart pounding. I cannot see who or what is chasing me, but I know it’s there, watching, waiting, laughing at me.

Every sound seems exaggerated by the starkness of the cell. I lie awake and listen to the seesaw creaks of bedsprings, water dripping in cisterns, drunks talking in their sleep and guards’ shoes echoing down corridors.

Today is the day. The police will either charge me or let me go. I should be more anxious and concerned. Mostly I feel remote and separate from what’s happening. I pace out the cell, thinking how bizarre life can be. Look at all the twists and turns, the coincidences and bad luck, the mistakes and misunderstandings. I don’t feel angry or bitter. I have faith in the system. Pretty soon they’re going to realize the evidence isn’t strong enough against me. They’ll have to let me go.

This sort of optimism strikes me as quite odd when I think about how naturally cynical I am concerning law and order. Innocent people get shafted every day. I’ve seen the evidence. It’s incontrovertible. Yet I have no fears about this happening to me.

I blame my mother and her unwavering belief in authority figures such as policemen, judges and politicians. She grew up in a village in the Cotswolds, where the town constable rode a bicycle, knew every local by name and solved most crimes within half an hour. He epitomized fairness and honesty.

Since then, despite the regular stories of police planting evidence, taking bribes and falsifying statements, my mother has never altered her beliefs. “God made more good people than bad,” she says, as though a head count will sort everything out. And when this seems highly unlikely, she adds, “They will get their comeuppance in Heaven.”

A hatch opens in the lower half of the door and a wooden tray is propelled across the floor. I have a plastic bottle of orange juice, some gray-looking sludge that I assume to be scrambled eggs and two slices of bread that have been waved over a toaster. I put it to one side and wait for Simon to arrive.

He looks very jolly in his silk tie printed with holly and silver bells. It’s the sort of tie Charlie will give me for Christmas. I wonder if Simon has ever been married or had children.

He can’t stay long; he’s due in court. I see strands of his horsehair wig sticking out of his briefcase. The police have requested a blood and hair sample, he says. I have no problem with that. They are also seeking permission to interview my patients, but a judge has refused them access to my files. Good for him.

The biggest piece of news concerns two of the phone calls Catherine made to my office. Meena, bless her cotton socks, has told detectives that she talked to Catherine twice in early November.

I had totally forgotten about the search for a new secretary. Meena had placed an advertisement in the Medical Appointments section of The Guardian. It asked for experienced medical secretaries, or applicants with nursing training. We had more than eighty replies.

I start explaining this to Simon, getting more and more excited. “Meena was coming up with a short list of twelve.”

“Catherine made the short list.”

“Yes. Maybe. She must have done. That would explain the call. Meena will know.” Did Catherine know she was applying to be my secretary? Meena must have mentioned my name. Maybe Catherine wanted to surprise me. Or perhaps she thought I wouldn’t give her an interview.

Simon scissors his fingers across his tie, as if pretending to cut it off. “Why would a woman who accused you of sexual assault apply to become your secretary?” He sounds like a prosecutor.

“I didn’t assault her.”

“And why would she write a love letter to you?”

“I don’t know.”

He doesn’t comment. Instead he looks at his watch and closes his briefcase. “I don’t think you should answer any more police questions.”

“Why?”

“You’re digging yourself into a deeper hole.”

Simon shrugs on his overcoat and leans down to brush a smudge of dirt from the mirror like surface of his black shoes. “They have eight more hours. Unless they come up with something new, you’ll be home by this evening.”

Lying on the bunk with my hands behind my head, I stare at the ceiling. Someone has scrawled in the corner: A day without sunlight is like… night. The ceiling must be twelve feet high. How on earth did anyone get up there?

It is strange being locked away from the world. I have no idea what’s been happening in the past forty-eight hours. I wonder what I’ve missed. Hopefully my parents have gone back to Wales. Charlie will have started her Christmas break; the boiler will be fixed; Julianne will have wrapped the presents and put them under the tree. Jock will have dusted off his Santa suit and done his annual tour of the children’s wards. And then there’s Bobby— what has he been doing?

Midway through the afternoon, I am summoned to the interview room again. Ruiz and the same detective sergeant are waiting. Simon arrives out of breath from climbing the stairs. He’s clutching a sandwich in a plastic prism and a bottle of orange juice.

“A late lunch,” he confesses apologetically.

The tape recorder is switched on.

“Professor O’Loughlin help me out here.” Ruiz conspires to raise a polite smile. “Is it true that killers often return to the scene of the crime?”

Where is he going with this? I glance at Simon who indicates I should answer.

“A ‘signature killer’ will sometimes return, but more often than not it’s an urban myth.”

“What’s a ‘signature killer’?”

“Every killer has a behavioral imprint— it’s like a criminal shadow that is left behind at a crime scene, a signature. It might be the way they tie a ligature or dispose of a body. Some feel compelled to return to the scene.”

“Why?”

“There are lots of possible reasons. Perhaps they want to fantasize and relive what they’ve done or collect a souvenir. Some may feel guilty or just want to stay close.”

“Which is why kidnappers often help with the search?”

“Yes.”

“And arsonists help fight fires?”

Ruiz leans across the desk toward me, until I can see the capillaries beneath the skin of his nose. I swear he can breathe through those pores.

“Are you willing to talk to me without your lawyer present?”

“If you turn off the tape.”

Simon objects and wants to talk to me alone. Outside in the corridor we have a frank exchange of views. He tells me I’m being stupid. I agree. But if I can get Ruiz to listen, maybe I can convince him to look at Bobby again.

“I want it noted that I advised you against this.”

“Don’t worry, Simon. Nobody’s going to blame you.”

Ruiz is waiting for me. A cigarette is alight in the ashtray. He stares at it intently, watching it burn down. The gray ash forms a misshapen tower that will tumble with the slightest breath.

“I thought you were quitting.”

“I am. I like to watch.”

The ash topples and Ruiz pushes the ashtray to one side. He nods.

The room seems so much larger with just the two of us. Ruiz pushes back his chair and puts his feet on the table. His black brogues have worn heels. Above one sock, on the white of his ankle, there is a streak of black shoe polish.

“We took your photograph to every pub and wine bar in Leicester Square and Covent Garden,” he says. “Not one barman or barmaid remembers you.”

“I’m easy to forget.”

“We’re going out again tonight. Maybe we’ll trigger someone’s memory. Somehow I don’t think so. I don’t think you were anywhere near the West End.”

I don’t respond.

“We also showed your photograph to the regulars at the Grand Union Hotel. Nobody remembers seeing you there. They remembered Catherine. She was dressed real nice, according to some of the lads. One of them offered to buy her a drink, but she said she was waiting for someone. Was it you?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

“I still think it was Bobby Moran.”

Ruiz lets out a low rumble that ends with a hacking cough. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“Catherine didn’t die on the night she disappeared. Her body wasn’t found for eleven days. Whoever tortured her took a long time to break her spirit— days perhaps. Bobby could have done it.”

“Nothing points to him.”

“I think he knew her.”

Ruiz laughs ironically. “That’s the difference between what you do and what I do. You base your conclusions on bell curves and empirical models. A sob story about a lousy childhood and you’re ready to put someone in therapy for ten years. I deal with facts and right now they’re all pointing to you.”

“What about intuition? Gut instincts? I thought detectives used them all the time.”

“Not when I’m trying to get approval for a surveillance budget.”

We sit in silence, measuring the gulf between us. Eventually Ruiz speaks. “I talked to your wife yesterday. She described you as being a little ‘distant’ lately. You suggested the family go away on a trip… to America. It came up suddenly. She couldn’t explain why.”

“It had nothing to do with Catherine. I wanted to see more of the world.”

“Before it’s too late.” His voice softens. “Tell me about your Parkinson’s. Must be pretty gutting to get news like that— particularly when you’ve got a good-looking wife, a young daughter, a successful career. How many years are you going to lose? Ten? Twenty?”

“I don’t know.”

“I reckon news like that would make a guy feel pretty pissed off with the world. You’ve worked with cancer patients. You tell me— do they get bitter and feel cheated?”

“Some of them do.”

“I bet some of them want to tear down the world. I mean, why should they get all the shitty luck, right? What are you going to do in a situation like that? Go quietly, or rail against the dying of the light? You could settle old scores and make amends. Nothing wrong with exacting a bit of rough justice if it’s the only kind on offer.”

I want to laugh at his clumsy attempt at psychoanalysis. “Is that what you’d do, Inspector?” It takes Ruiz a few moments to realize that I’m now scrutinizing him. “You think the vigilante spirit might take you?”

Doubt fills his eyes, but he won’t let it stay there. He wants to move on, to change the subject, but first I want to set him straight about people with terminal illnesses or incurable diseases. Yes, some want to lash out in frustration at the sense of hopelessness and helplessness. But the bitterness and anger soon fade. Instead of feeling sorry for themselves they face the fury of the ill wind and look ahead. And they resolve to enjoy every moment they have left, to suck the marrow out of life until it dribbles down their chin.

Sliding his feet to the floor, Ruiz puts both hands flat on the table and levers himself upward. He doesn’t look at me as he speaks. “I want you charged with murder but the Director of Public Prosecutions says I don’t have enough evidence. He’s right, but then so am I. I’m going to keep looking until we find some more. It’s just a matter of time.” His eyes are gazing at something a great distance away.

“You don’t like me, do you?” I ask.

“Not particularly.”

“Why?”

“Because you think I’m a dumb, foul-mouthed plod, who doesn’t read books and thinks the theory of relativity has something to do with inbreeding.”

“That’s not true.”

He shrugs and reaches for the door handle.

“How much of this is personal?” I ask.

His answer rumbles through the closing door. “Don’t flatter yourself.”