The Suspect

1

Three miles is a long way when you’re running in Wellington boots. It is even farther when your socks have slipped down and gathered in a ball beneath your arches, making you run like a penguin.

Scrambling along muddy sheep tracks and jumping between rocks, I follow a partly frozen stream cutting through the fields. In spite of the boots I manage to keep up a good pace and only occasionally glance behind me. Right now I’m doing everything automatically. If I stop for anything I’m finished.

My childhood holidays were spent exploring these fields. I used to know every copse and hillock; the best fishing spots and hiding places. I kissed Ethelwyn Jones in the hayloft of her uncle’s barn on her thirteenth birthday. It was my first kiss with tongues and I got an instant hard-on. She leaned right into it and let out a scream, biting down hard on my bottom lip. She wore braces and had a mouth like Jaws in the James Bond films. I had a blood blister on my lip for a fortnight, but it was worth it.

When I reach the A55 I slip beneath the concrete pylons of a bridge and carry on along the stream. The banks grow steeper and twice I slide sideways into the water, breaking thin ice at the edges.

I reach a waterfall about ten feet high and drag myself upward using tufts of grass and rocks as handholds. My knees are muddy and trousers wet. Ten minutes farther on, I duck under a fence and find a track marked for ramblers.

My lungs have started to hurt, but my mind is clear. As clear as the cold air. As long as Julianne and Charlie are safe, I don’t care what happens to me. I feel like a rag that has been tossed around in a dog’s mouth. Someone is playing with me, ripping me to shreds, my family, my life, my career… Why? This is all bullshit. It’s like trying to read mirror writing— everything is back to front.

A hundred yards on— over a farm gate— I reach the road to Llanrhos. The narrow blacktop has hedgerows down either side, broken by farm gates and potholed tracks. Staying close to the ditch along one side, I head toward a church spire in the distance. Patches of mist have settled in the low ground like pools of spilled milk. Twice I leap off the road when I hear a vehicle coming. The second is a police van, with dogs barking from behind the mesh-covered windows.

The village seems deserted. The only places open are a café and an estate agent with a BACK IN TEN MINUTES sign on the door. There are colored lights in some of the windows and a Christmas tree in the square, opposite the war memorial. A man walking a dog nods hello to me. My teeth are clenched so hard that I can’t reply.

I find a park bench and sit down. Steam is rising off my oilskin jacket. My knees are covered in mud and blood. The palms of my hands are scratched and my fingernails are bleeding. I want to close my eyes to think, but I need to stay alert.

The houses around the square are like storybook cottages, with picket fences and wrought-iron arbors. They have Welsh names written in flowery script beside each front door. At the top of the square, white streamers are threaded through the railings of the church and soggy confetti clings to the steps.

Welsh weddings are like Welsh funerals. They use the same cars, florists and church halls, with their ancient tea urns operated by the same ample-breasted women wearing spacious floral dresses and support hose.

The cold leaks into my limbs as the minutes tick by. A battered Land Rover turns into the square and crawls slowly around the park. I watch and wait. Nobody is following. Stiff-legged, I stand. My sweat-soaked shirt clings to the small of my back.

The passenger door groans with age and neglect. I slide into the seat. A large pillow of foam covers the rusting springs and torn vinyl. The engine is so badly tuned that it sets off a thousand rattles and clinks as my father struggles to find first gear.

“Damn machine! Hasn’t been driven in months.”

“What about the police?”

“They’re searching the fields. I heard them say they’d found a car at the station.”

“How did you get away?”

“I told them I had surgery. I took the Merc and swapped it for the Land Rover. Thank God it started.”

Each time we hit a puddle, water spouts like a fountain from a hole in the floor. The road twists and turns, dipping and rising through the valley. The sky is clearing to the west and the shadows of clouds sweep across the landscape on a freshening breeze.

“I’m in a lot of trouble, Dad.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“I know that too. What does Simon say?”

“I should give myself up.”

“That sounds like good advice.”

In the same breath he accepts that it won’t happen and nothing he can say will change things. We’re driving along the Vale of Conwy toward Snowdonia. Fields have given way to sparse woodland, with thicker forests in the distance.

The road loops through the trees and a large manor house is visible on a ridge overlooking the valley. The iron gates are closed and a FOR SALE sign is propped against them.

“That used to be a hotel,” he says, without taking his eyes off the road. “I took your mother there on our honeymoon. It was very grand in those days. People came to tea dances of a Saturday afternoon and the hotel had its own band…”

Mum has told me the story before, but I’ve never heard it from my father.

“We borrowed your uncle’s Austin Healey and went touring for a week. That’s when I found the farmhouse. It wasn’t for sale back then, but we stopped to buy apples. We were stopping quite often because your mother was sore. She had to sit on a pillow over the rough roads.”

He’s giggling now and I realize what he means. This is more information than I really require about my mother’s sexual initiation, but I laugh along with him. Then I tell him the story of my friend Scott who knocked his new bride unconscious on a dance floor in Greece during their wedding reception.

“How did he do that?”

“He was trying to show her ‘the flip’ and he dropped her. She woke up in hospital and didn’t know what country she was in.”

Dad laughs and I laugh too. It feels good. It feels even better when we stop laughing and the silence isn’t awkward. Dad glances at me out of the corner of his eye. He wants to tell me something but doesn’t know how to start.

I remember when he gave me the coming-of-age speech. He told me he had something important to tell me and took me for a walk in Kew Gardens. This was such an unusual event— spending time together— that I felt my chest swell with pride.

Dad made several attempts to start his speech. Each time he became tongue-tied he seemed to lengthen his stride. By the time he reached the bit about intercourse and taking precautions I was sprinting alongside him, trying to catch the words and stop my hat from falling off.

Now he nervously drums his fingers on the steering wheel as though trying to send me the message in Morse code. Clearing his throat unnecessarily, he begins telling me a convoluted story about choices, responsibilities and opportunities. I don’t know where he’s going with this.

Finally he starts telling me about when he studied medicine at university.

“After that I did two years of behavioral science. I wanted to specialize in educational psychology…”

Hold on! Behavioral science? Psychology? He glances at me balefully and I realize that he’s not joking.

“My father discovered what I was doing. He was on the university board and was a friend of the vice chancellor. He made a special trip to see me and threatened to cut off my allowance.”

“What did you do?”

“I did what he wanted. I became a surgeon.”

Before I can ask another question he raises a hand. He doesn’t want to be interrupted.

“My career was mapped out for me. I had my placements, tenures and appointments handed to me. Doors were opened. Promotions were approved…” His voice drops to a whisper. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m proud of you. You stuck to your guns and did what you wanted. You succeeded on your own terms. I know I’m not an easy man to love, Joe. I don’t give anything in return. But I have always loved you. And I will always be here for you.”

He pulls off the road into a turnout and leaves the engine running as he gets out and retrieves a bag from the backseat.

“This is all I managed to bring,” he says, showing me the contents. There is a clean shirt, some fruit, a thermos, my shoes and an envelope stuffed with £50 notes.

“I also picked up your mobile.”

“The battery is dead.”

“Well, take mine. I never use the damn thing.”

He waits for me to slide behind the wheel and tosses the bag on the passenger seat.

“They’ll never miss the Land Rover… not for a while. It’s not even registered.”

I glance at the bottom corner of the windscreen. A beer bottle label is stuck to the glass. He grins. “I only drive her around the fields. Decent run will do her good.”

“How will you get home?”

“Hitchhike.”

I doubt if he’s thumbed a ride in his entire life. What do I know? He’s been full of surprises today. He still looks like my father, but at the same time he’s different.

“Good luck,” he says, shaking my hand through the window. Maybe if we’d both been standing it would have been a hug. I like to think so.

I wrestle the Land Rover into gear and pull onto the asphalt. I can see him in the rearview mirror, standing at the edge of the road. I remember something he told me when my favorite aunt died and I was hurting inside.

“Remember, Joseph, the worst hour of your life only lasts for sixty minutes.”

The police will track me on foot along the stream. The roadblocks will take longer to organize. With any luck I will be outside any cordon they throw up. I don’t know how much time this gives me. By tomorrow my face will be all over the newspapers and on TV.

My mind seems to be speeding up as my body slows down. I can’t do what they expect. Instead I have to bluff and double bluff. This is one of those he-thinks-that-I-think-that-he-thinks scenarios, where each participant is trying to guess the other’s next move. I have two minds to consider. One belongs to a deeply pissed off policeman who thinks I’ve played him like a fool and the other to a sadistic killer who knows how to reach my wife and daughter.

The engine of the Land Rover cuts out every few seconds. Fourth gear is almost impossible to find and, when I do, I have to hold it in place with one hand on the gearstick.

I reach over the backseat and feel for the mobile phone. I need Jock’s help. I know I’m taking a risk. He’s a lying bastard, but I’m running out of people to trust.

He answers and fumbles the phone. I can hear him cursing. “Why do people always call when I’m taking a piss?” I picture him trying to balance the phone under his chin and zip up his fly.

“Have you told the police about the letters?”

“Yeah. They didn’t believe me.”

“Convince them. You must have something from Catherine that can help prove you were sleeping with her.”

“Yeah. Sure. I kept Polaroids so I could show my wife’s divorce lawyers.”

God he can be a smug bastard. I don’t have time for this. Yet I’m smiling to myself. I was wrong about Jock. He’s not a killer.

“The patient you referred to me, Bobby.”

“What about him?”

“How did you meet him?”

“Like I told you— his solicitor wanted neurological tests.”

“Who suggested my name— was it you or Eddie Barrett?”

“Eddie suggested you.”

Rain has started spitting down. The wipers have only one speed— slow.

“There is a cancer hospital in Liverpool called the Clatterbridge. I want to know if they have any record of a patient by the name of Bridget Morgan. She may be using her maiden name, Bridget Aherne. She has breast cancer. Apparently, it’s well advanced. She might be an outpatient or be in a hospice. I need to find her.”

I’m not asking as a favor. He either does this or our long association is irredeemably ended. Jock fumbles for an excuse but can’t find one. Mostly he wants to run for cover. He has always been a coward unless he can physically intimidate someone. I won’t give him the chance to wheedle out. I know that he’s lied to the police. I also have too many details about the assets he kept hidden from his ex-wives.

His voice is sharp. “They’re going to catch up with you, Joe.”

“They catch up to all of us,” I say. “Call me on this number as soon as you can.”