The Wreckage

13

Joe O’Loughlin is slowly crossing the concourse at Paddington Station. Ruiz recognizes the professor’s distinctive stoop and stiff-legged gait. He looks like a scientist or a doctor, more Einstein than Freud, with unkempt hair and a tweed jacket. Some weeks he forgets to shave and a salt-and-pepper stubble covers his chin and cheeks.

Ruiz takes his suitcase. Judges the weight. “You bought me a present?”

“It’s a bottle of something.”

“If I were a religious man I’d bless you.”

“If you were a religious man the bells would be ringing at Westminster Abbey.”

The two men weave through the crowds. Ruiz has to wait for the professor to catch up.

“Can you move any slower?”

“We’re all slow in the West Country.”

Through the automatic doors, they reach the cab rank where Ruiz has double-parked and displayed a disabled sign in his windscreen.

“Does that still work?”

“I got shot in the leg-there have to be some perks.”

Joe looks around. “So where is the young lady?”

“Now that’s a good question.”

Ruiz drives and talks-telling him about Zac Osborne’s death, the bribe and Holly running away. The professor interrupts occasionally to ask a question, focusing on the murder scene and the injuries inflicted.

“It had to be personal,” he says. “Very few people can torture someone so directly, hands-on, inflicting injuries over a long period, ignoring their pain… you’re dealing with a sadist who was very comfortable in a strange environment. He wasn’t panicked. He didn’t rush. He took his time, looking for information or waiting for the girl. What do the police say?”

“They’re calling it a drug turf war.”

“You don’t agree?”

“They found no drug paraphernalia in the flat.”

“Which doesn’t prove anything.”

“I talked to the pathologist this morning. Osborne had no drugs in his system. The tox screen came back negative.”

Joe leans over the seat and unzips a pocket on his suitcase.

“I had to call in some favors at Social Services. It’s not easy getting someone’s juvenile files.”

“What did you find?”

“Both of Holly Knight’s parents are dead. A murder suicide.”

“Domestic?”

“Her father strangled her mother and then hung himself. Holly’s brother died the same year. Brain aneurism. Holly must have been seven, maybe eight. She was made a ward of the court and fostered to six different families before she was fifteen. That’s when she ran away. She was found living with a man twice her age and was sent to another foster home, which she burnt down.”

“Did she give a reason?”

“Wouldn’t talk about it.”

Ruiz has seen how Holly reacts to authority figures. Her resentment borders on hatred.

“At seventeen she spent a year as a kitchen hand. Then she took a job waitressing. She was arrested in April 2009 during a G20 protest in London and a couple of months later she made a rape allegation that wasn’t pursued by the CPS.”

Joe continues to precis the file, aware of how brutally casual he sounds, giving a banal rendering of a terrible life. What does it do to someone, an upbringing like that? They grow up scared of the dark, scared of being alone, scared of their own dreams.

Ruiz rubs his thumb over his lips. They’re nearing the house. He makes a point of parking three blocks away.

“Forgotten where you live?”

“I like the walk.”

The professor senses another reason.

“Are you being followed?”

“Not sure.”

They go through a break in the buildings, past an upholstery shop, a plumbing store and a new childcare centre. Ruiz is watching the cross-streets, noting the cars.

Joe has a question. “You mentioned that Holly Knight could tell when you were lying.”

“Yeah. Is that possible?”

“You’re a former detective. You were pretty good at telling when you were being fed bullshit.”

“Not like she can. Some people sweat too much, or look to the left or start shaking, or mumbling their answers. This girl just knows.”

“Highly unlikely.”

“But not impossible?”

Joe falls silent, unwilling to make such a leap of the imagination.

“What is it?” asks Ruiz.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“I remember once reading about a police officer in Los Angeles who pulled over a sports car late one night in a rough area of the city. As he walked towards the vehicle with his gun drawn, a teenager jumped from the passenger seat and pointed a semi-automatic directly at him. They were yards apart. The officer held fire. For some reason, in that instant, he knew the teenager wasn’t a threat. He called it a hunch. The teenager surrendered.”

“So the guy got lucky?”

“A while later, a team of psychologists tested the officer; showed him a series of videotapes of people who were either lying or telling the truth. One tape showed people talking about their views on the death penalty or smoking in public. The same test had been given to hundreds of judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, police sharpshooters and Customs officers. On average they scored fifty per cent.”

“Which means they could have been guessing?”

“Exactly, but this police officer-the same one who had the gun pulled on him-he had a success rate of over ninety per cent.”

“So you’re saying some people are good at spotting liars.”

“Not just good, he was a virtuoso.”

“How did he do it?”

“Nobody knows for certain. I mean, there are studies on face-reading. Some people train themselves to look for micro-expressions, tiny telltale indicators of stress or deceit. There is a university professor in America, Paul Ekman, who has spent his whole career studying face-reading.”

“But you’re not convinced?”

Joe doesn’t respond. There are things about the human brain that he can’t explain: freakish feats of memory, or people with the ability to calculate prime numbers into the trillions. Autistic savants. Geniuses. Brain-injured patients with unique abilities… Neuropsychology is one of the last great frontiers of science.

Inside the house, Ruiz dumps Joe’s suitcase and pulls a tray of ice-cubes from the freezer.

“You going to join me?”

“No.”

The professor’s thumb and forefinger are rubbing together as if rolling a pill between them. He threads his fingers together as if in prayer and the twitching stops. He’s not embarrassed or disappointed. He long ago made his peace with the “other” that inhabits his body. Mr. Parkinson.

“So what do we do now?” he asks.

“We wait.”

“You think she’ll call?”

“Somebody will.”