The Suspect

3

The same WPC who has shadowed me for the last forty-eight hours hands me my tennis racket and a parcel containing my watch, wallet, wedding ring and shoelaces. I have to count my money, including the loose change, and sign for them.

The clock on the wall of the charge room says it’s 9:45 p.m. What day is it? Wednesday. Seven days before Christmas. A small silver tree is perched on the front counter, decorated with a handful of baubles and a wonky star. Hanging on the wall behind it is a banner saying, PEACE AND GOODWILL TO ALL MEN.

The WPC offers to call me a cab. I wait in the reception area until the driver gives me a blast on the horn. I’m tired, dirty and smell of stale sweat. I should go home, yet when I slide into the backseat of the cab I feel my courage leak away. I want to tell the driver to head in the opposite direction. I don’t want to face Julianne. Semantics aren’t going to wash with her. Only the unqualified truth.

I have never loved anyone as much as I love her— not until Charlie came along. There is no justification for cheating on her. I know what people will say. They’ll call it classic midlife paranoia. I hit my forties and, fearing my own mortality, have a one-night stand. Or they’ll put it all down to self-pity. On the same day I learn of my progressive neurological disease I sleep with another woman— getting my fill of sex and excitement before my body falls apart.

I have no excuses for what happened. It wasn’t an accident or a moment of madness. It was a mistake. It was sex. It was tears, semen and someone other than Julianne.

Jock had just told me the bad news. I was sitting in his office, unable to move. A huge bloody butterfly had flapped its wings in the Amazonian jungle and the vibrations had been circling the world waiting to knock me down.

Jock offered to take me for a drink. I said no. I needed some air. For the next few hours I wandered around the West End, visiting bars and trying to feel like just another person having a few drinks to unwind.

First I thought I wanted to be alone. Then I realized that I really needed to talk to somebody. Somebody who wasn’t part of my perfect life: somebody who didn’t know Julianne, or Charlie, or any of my friends or family. So that’s how I finished up on Elisa’s doorstep. It wasn’t an accident. I sought her out.

In the beginning we just talked. We talked for hours. (Julianne will probably say this makes my infidelity worse because it was more than just some insatiable male craving.) What did we talk about? Childhood memories. Favorite holidays. Special songs. Maybe none of these things. The words weren’t important. Elisa knew I was hurting, but didn’t ask why. She knew I would either tell her or I wouldn’t. It made no difference to her.

I have very little memory of what happened next. We kissed. Elisa rolled me on top of her. Her heels bumped against my back. She moved so slowly as she took me inside her. I moaned as I came and the pain leaked away.

I spent the night. The second time I took her. I pushed Elisa down and drove into her violently, making her hips jerk and her breasts quiver. When it was over, white tissues, wet with sperm, lay on the floor like fallen leaves.

The strange thing is that I expected to be consumed by guilt or doubt. Feeling normal didn’t even enter my calculations. I was convinced Julianne would see straight through me. She wouldn’t need to smell it on my clothes, or see lipstick on my collar. Instead she would know intuitively, just as she seems to know everything else about me.

I have never regarded myself as a risk-taker or someone who gets a thrill from living close to the edge. Once or twice at university, before I met Julianne, I had one-night stands. It seemed natural then. Jock was right— the left-wing girls were easier to bed. This was different.

The cabbie is pleased to be rid of me. I stand on the footpath and stare at my house. The only light is a glow from the kitchen window, down the side path.

My key slips into the lock. As I step inside I see Julianne silhouetted against a rectangle of light at the far end of the hall. She is standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Why didn’t you call me? I would have picked you up…”

“I didn’t want Charlie to come to the police station.”

I can’t see the look on her face. Her voice sounds OK. I put down my tennis things and walk toward her. Her cropped dark hair is tousled and her eyes are pouchy from lack of sleep. As I try to put my arms around her, she slips away. She can hardly bear to look at me.

This is not just about a lie. I have brought police officers into her house, opening cupboards, looking under beds, searching through her personal things. Our neighbors have seen me in handcuffs. Our garden has been dug up. She has been interviewed by detectives and asked about our sex life. She has waited for hours in a police station hoping to see me, only to be turned away— not be the authorities but by me. All of this and not one phone call or message to help her understand.

I glance at the kitchen table and see a scattered pile of newspapers. The pages are open at the same story. PSYCHOLOGIST ARRESTED IN MCBRIDE MURDER PROBE reads one headline. CELEBRITY SHRINK DETAINED says another. There are photographs of me sitting in the backseat of a police car with Simon’s coat over my head. I look guilty. Put a coat over Mother Teresa’s head and she would look guilty. Why do suspects do it? Surely it would be better to smile and wave.

I slump into a chair and look through the stories. One newspaper has used a telephoto shot of me perched on the roof of the Marsden, with Malcolm strapped in the harness in front of me. A second photo shows me covered in the coat. My hands are cuffed on my lap. The message is clear— I have gone from hero to zero.

Julianne fills the electric kettle and takes out two mugs. She is wearing dark leggings and an oversized sweater that I bought for her at Camden Market. I told her it was for me, but I knew what would happen. She always borrows my sweaters. She says she likes the way they smell.

“Where’s Charlie?”

“Asleep. It’s nearly eleven.”

When the water boils, she fills each mug and jiggles the tea bags. I can smell the peppermint. Julianne has a shelf full of different herbal teas. She sits opposite me. Her eyes rest on me without any emotion. She slightly rotates her wrists, turning her palms up. With that one small movement she signifies that she is waiting for me to explain.

I want to say it was all a misunderstanding but I’m afraid it will sound trite. Instead I stick to the story— or what I know of it. How Ruiz thinks I had something to do with Catherine’s murder because my name was in her diary when they fished it out of the canal; and how Catherine came to London for a job interview to be my secretary. I had no idea. Meena arranged the short list. Catherine must have seen the advertisement.

Julianne is a step ahead of me. “That can’t be the only reason they arrested you.”

“No. The telephone records show that she called my office on the evening she was killed.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“No. I had an appointment with Jock. That’s when he told me about… you know what.”

“Who answered the call?”

“I don’t know. Meena went home early.”

I lower my eyes from her gaze. “They’ve dredged up the sexual assault complaint. They think I was having an affair with her— that she threatened to destroy my career and our marriage.”

“But she withdrew the complaint.”

“I know, but you can see how it looks.”

Julianne pushes her cup to the center of the table and slips off her chair. I feel myself relax a little because she’s no longer staring at me. Even without looking at her, I know exactly where she is— standing at the French doors staring through her reflection at the man she thought she knew, sitting at the table.

“You told me you were with Jock. You said you were getting drunk. I knew you were lying. I’ve known all along.”

“I did get drunk, but not with Jock.”

“Who were you with?” The question is short, sharp and to the point. It sums up Julianne— spontaneous and direct, with every line of communication a trunk route.

“I spent the night with Elisa Velasco.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“Yes.”

“You had sex with a prostitute?”

“She’s not a prostitute anymore.”

“Did you use a condom?”

“Listen to me, Julianne. She hasn’t been a prostitute for years.”

“DID… YOU… USE… A… CONDOM?” Each word is clearly articulated. She is standing over my chair. Her eyes swim with tears.

“No.”

She delivers the slap with the force of her entire body. I reel sideways, clutching my cheek. I taste blood on the inside of my mouth and hear a high-pitched ringing inside my ears.

Julianne’s hand is on my thigh. Her voice is soft. “Did I hit you too hard? I’m not used to this.”

“I’m OK,” I reassure her.

She hits me again, this time even harder. I finish up on my knees, staring at the polished floorboards.

“You selfish, stupid, gutless, two-timing, lying bastard!” She is shaking her hand in pain.

I’m now a big clumsy unmoving target. She beats me with her good fist, hammering on my back. She is screaming: “A prostitute! Without a condom! And then you came home and you fucked me!”

“No! Please! You don’t understand…”

“Get out of here! You are not wanted in this house! You will not see me. You will not see Charlie.”

I crouch on the floor, feeling wretched and pathetic. She turns and walks away, down the hallway to the front room. I pull myself up and follow her, desperate for some sign that this isn’t the end.

I find her kneeling in front of the Christmas tree with a pair of garden shears in her hand. She has neatly lopped off the top third of the tree. It now looks like a large green lampshade.

“I’m so sorry.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Please listen to me.”

“Why? What are you going to say to me? That you love me? That she meant nothing? That you fucked her and then you made love to me?”

That’s the difficulty when arguing with Julianne. She unleashes so many accusations at once that no single answer satisfies them collectively. And the moment you start trying to divide the questions up, she hits you again with a new series.

She is crying properly now. Her tears glisten in the lamplight like a string of beads draped down her cheeks.

“I made a mistake. When Jock told me about the Parkinson’s it felt like a death sentence. Everything was going to change— all our plans. The future. I know I said the opposite. It’s not true. Why give me this life and then give me this disease? Why give me the joy and beauty of you and Charlie and then snatch it away? It’s like showing someone a glimpse of what life could be like and in the next breath telling them it can never happen.”

I kneel beside her, my knees almost touching hers.

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I needed time to think. I couldn’t talk to my parents or friends, who were going to feel sorry for me and give me chin-up speeches and brave smiles. That’s why I went to see Elisa. She’s a stranger, but also a friend. There’s good in her.”

Julianne wipes her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater and stares at the fireplace.

“I didn’t plan to sleep with her. It just happened. I wish I could change that. We’re not having an affair. It was one night.”

“What about Catherine McBride? Did you sleep with her?”

“No.”

“Well why did she apply to be your secretary? What would make her think you would ever give her a job after what she put us through?”

“I don’t know.”

Julianne looks at her bruised hand and then at my cheek.

“What do you want, Joe? Do you want to be free? Is that it? Do you want to face this alone?”

“I don’t want to drag you and Charlie down with me.”

My maudlin tone infuriates her. She bunches her fists in frustration.

“Why do you always have to be so fucking sure of yourself? Why can’t you just admit you need help? I know you’re sick. I know you’re tired. Well, here’s a news flash: we’re all sick and we’re all tired. I’m sick of being marginalized and tired of being pushed aside. Now I want you to leave.”

“But I love you.”

“Leave!”

“What about us? What about Charlie?”

She gives me a cold unwavering stare. “Maybe I still love you, Joe, but at the moment I can’t stand you.”