Suspect

by Michael Robotham

  “Tell me about the man who killed Catherine McBride.”

  The message seems to have reached him. Pushing Bobby out of my head, I try to reflect on Catherine’s killer, based on what I know of the crime. I’ve had a week of sleepless nights thinking of little else.

  “You are dealing with a sexual psychopath,” I begin, unable to recognize my own voice. “Catherine’s murder was a manifestation of corrupt lust.”

  “But there were no signs of sexual assault.”

  “You can’t think in terms of normal rape or sex crime. This is a far more extreme example of deviant sexuality. This man is consumed by a desire to dominate and inflict pain. He fantasizes about taking, restraining, dominating, torturing and killing. At least some of these fantasies will mirror almost exactly what happened.

  “Think about what he did to her. He took her off the street or enticed her to go with him. He didn’t seek a quick and violent sexual coupling in a dark alley and then silence his victim so she couldn’t identify him. Instead he aimed to break her—to systematically destroy her willpower until she became a compliant, terrified plaything. Even that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted the ultimate in control, to bend someone so completely to his will that she would torture herself . . .”

  I’m watching Ruiz—waiting to lose him. “He almost succeeded, but in the end Catherine wasn’t entirely broken. She still had a spark of defiance left. She was a nurse. Even with a short blade she knew where to cut if she wanted to die quickly. When she could take no more she cut the carotid artery in her neck. That’s what caused the embolism. She was dead within minutes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Three years at medical school.”

  Ruiz is staring at his pint glass, as though checking to see if it is centered properly on the coaster. The chimes of a church bell are ringing in the distance.

  “The man you’re looking for is lonely, socially inept and sexually immature.”

  “Sounds like your basic teenager.”

  “No. He isn’t a teenager. He’s older. A lot of young men start out like this, but every so often one emerges who blames someone else for his loneliness and his sexual frustration. This bitterness and anger grow with each rejection. Sometimes he’ll blame a particular person. Other times he will hate an entire group of people.”

  “He hates all women.”

  “Possibly, but I think it’s more likely he hates a particular sort of woman. He wants to punish her. He fantasizes about it and it gives him pleasure.”

  “Why did he choose Catherine McBride?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps she looked like someone he wanted to punish. He may have been driven by opportunity. Catherine was available so he changed his fantasy to incorporate her looks and the clothes she wore.”

  “The red dress.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Could he have known her?”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Motivation?”

  “Revenge. Control. Sexual gratification.”

  “I take my pick?”

  “No, it’s all three.”

  Ruiz stiffens slightly. Clearing his throat he takes out his marbled notebook.

  “So who am I looking for?”

  “Someone in his thirties or forties. He lives alone, somewhere private, but surrounded by people who come and go—a boarding house perhaps or a trailer park.

  “He may have a wife or a girlfriend. He is of above average intelligence. He is physically strong, but mentally even stronger. He hasn’t been consumed by sexual desire or anger to the point of losing control. He can keep his emotions in check. He is forensically aware. He doesn’t want to be caught.

  “This is someone who has managed to successfully separate areas of his life and isolate them completely from each other. His friends, family and colleagues have no inkling of what goes on inside his head.

  “I think he has sadomasochistic interests. It’s not the sort of thing that springs out of nowhere. Someone must have introduced him to it—although probably only a mild version. His mind has taken it to a level that far outstrips any harmless fun. His self-assurance is what amazes me. There were no signs of anxiety or first-time nerves . . .”

  I stop talking. My mouth has gone slack and sour. I take a sip of water. Ruiz is gazing at me dully, sitting up straighter and occasionally writing notes. My voice rises above the noise again.

  “A person doesn’t suddenly become a fully fledged sadist overnight—not one this skillful. Organizations like the KGB spend years training their interrogators to be this good. The degree of control and sophistication were remarkable. These things come from experience. I don’t think he started here.”

  Ruiz turns and stares out of the window, making up his mind. He doesn’t believe me.

  “This is bullshit!” he rumbles.

  “Why?”

  “None of it sounds like your Bobby Moran.”

  He’s right. It doesn’t make sense. Bobby is too young to have this degree of familiarity with sadism. He is too erratic and changeable. I seriously doubt that he has the mental skills and malevolence to dominate and control a person like Catherine so completely—the physical size, yes, but not the psychological strength. Then again, Bobby has constantly surprised me and I have only scratched the surface of his psyche. He has held details back from me or dropped them like a trail of bread crumbs on a fairy-tale journey.

  Fairy tales? That’s what it sounds like to Ruiz. He’s on his feet threading his way to the bar. People hurriedly step out of his way. He has an aura like a flashing light that warns people to give him space.

  I’m already beginning to regret this. I should have stayed out of it. Sometimes I wish I could turn my mind off instead of always looking and analyzing. I wish I could just focus on a tiny square of the world, instead of watching how people communicate and the clothes they wear, what they put in their shopping carts, the cars they drive, the pets they choose, the magazines they read and the TV shows they watch. I wish I could stop looking.

  Ruiz is back again with another pint and a whiskey chaser. He rolls the liquid fire around in his mouth as if washing away a bad taste.

  “You really think this guy did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He wraps his fingers around the pint glass and leans back.

  “You want me to look at him?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  Ruiz exhales with a rustle of dissatisfaction. He still doesn’t trust me.

  “Do you know why Catherine came down to London?” I ask.

  “According to her flatmate she had a job interview. We found no correspondence—she probably had it with her.”

  “What about phone records?”

  “Nothing from her home number. She had a mobile, but that’s missing.”

  He delivers the facts without comment or embellishment. Catherine’s history matches with the scant details she gave to me during our sessions. Her parents had divorced when she was twelve. She hooked up with a bad crowd, sniffing aerosols and doing drugs. At fifteen she spent six weeks in a private psychiatric hospital in West Sussex. Her family kept it quiet for obvious reasons.

  Becoming a nurse had seemed to be the turning point. Although she still had problems, she managed to cope.

  “What happened after she left the Marsden?” I ask.

  “She moved back to Liverpool and got engaged to a merchant seaman. It didn’t work out.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “No. He’s in Bahrain.”

  “Any other suspects?”

  Ruiz smiles wryly. “All volunteers are welcome.” Finishing his drink, he gets to his feet. “I have to go.”

  “What happens next?”

  “I get my people digging up everything they can on this Bobby Moran. If I can link him to Catherine I’ll ask him very politely to help me with my inquiries.”

  “And you won’t mention my name?”

  He looks at me contemptuously. “Don�
�t worry, Professor, your interests are paramount in my concerns.”

  17

  My mother has a pretty face with a neat upturned nose and straight hair that she has worn in the same uniform style—pinned back with silver clips and tucked behind her ears—for as long as I can remember. Sadly, I inherited my father’s tangle of hair. If it grows half an inch too long it becomes completely unruly and I look like I’ve been electrocuted.

  Everything about my mother denotes her standing as a doctor’s wife, right down to her box-pleated skirts, unpatterned blouses and low-heeled shoes. A creature of habit, she even carries a handbag when taking the dog for a walk.

  She can arrange a dinner party for twelve in the time it takes to boil an egg. She also does garden parties, school fetes, church jamborees, charity fund-raisers, bridge tournaments, rummage sales, walkathons, christenings, weddings and funerals. Yet for all this ability, she has managed to get through life without balancing a checkbook, making an investment decision or proffering a political opinion in public. She leaves such matters to my father.

  Every time I contemplate my mother’s life I am appalled by the waste and unfulfilled promise. At eighteen she won a mathematics scholarship to Cardiff University. At twenty-five she wrote a thesis that had American universities hammering at her door. What did she do? She married my father and settled for a life of cultivating convention and making endless compromises.

  I like to imagine her doing a Shirley Valentine and running off with a Greek waiter, or writing a steamy romantic novel. One day she is going to suddenly toss aside her prudence, self-discipline and correctness. She will go dancing barefoot in daisy fields and trekking through the Himalayas. These are nice thoughts. They’re certainly better than imagining her growing old listening to my father rant at the TV screen or read aloud the letters he’s written to newspapers.

  That’s what he’s doing now—writing a letter. He only reads The Guardian when he stays with us, but “that red rag” as he refers to it, gives him enough material for at least a dozen letters.

  My mother is in the kitchen with Julianne discussing tomorrow’s menu. At some stage in the previous twenty-four hours it was decided to make Sunday lunch a family get-together. Two of my sisters are coming, with their husbands and solemn children. Only Rebecca will escape. She’s in Bosnia working for the UN. Bless her.

  My Saturday morning chores now involve moving a ton of plumbing equipment from the front hallway into the basement. Then I have to rake the leaves, oil the swing and get two more bags of coal from the local garage. Julianne is going to shop for the food, while Charlie and her grandparents go to look at the Christmas lights in Oxford Street.

  My other chore is to buy a tree—a thankless task. The only truly well-proportioned Christmas trees are the ones they use in advertisements. If you try to find one in real life you face inevitable disappointment. Your tree will lean to the left or the right. It will be too bushy at the base, or straggly at the top. It will have bald patches, or the branches on either side will be oddly spaced. Even if you do, by some miracle, find a perfect tree, it won’t fit in the car and by the time you strap it to the roof rack and drive home the branches are broken or twisted out of shape. You wrestle it through the door, gagging on pine needles and sweating profusely, only to hear the maddening question that resonates down from countless Christmases past: “Is that really the best one you could find?”

  Charlie’s cheeks are pink with the cold and her arms are draped in polished paper bags full of new clothes and a pair of shoes.

  “I got heels, Dad. Heels!”

  “How high?”

  “Only this much.” She holds her thumb and forefinger apart.

  “I thought you were a tomboy,” I tease.

  “They’re not pink,” she says sternly. “And I didn’t get any dresses.”

  God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting is pouring himself a scotch and getting annoyed because my mother is chatting with Julianne instead of bringing him some ice. Charlie is excitedly opening bags.

  Then she suddenly stops. “The tree! It’s lovely.”

  “So it should be. It took me three hours to find.”

  I have to stop myself telling her the whole story about my friend from the Greek deli in Chalk Farm Road, who told me about a guy who supplies trees to “half of London” from the back of a three-ton truck.

  The whole enterprise sounded pretty dodgy, but for once I didn’t care. I wanted to get a flawless specimen and that’s what it is—a pyramid of pine-scented perfection, with a straight trunk and perfectly spaced branches.

  Since getting home I have been wandering back and forth to the sitting room, marveling at the tree. Julianne is getting slightly fed up with me saying “Isn’t that a great tree?” and expecting a response.

  God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting is telling me his solution to traffic congestion in central London. I’m waiting for him to comment on the tree. I don’t want to prompt him. He’s talking about banning all delivery trucks in the West End except for designated hours. Then he starts complaining about shoppers who walk too slowly and suggests a fast- and slow-lane system.

  “I found a tree today,” I interject, unable to wait. He stops abruptly and looks over his shoulder. He stands and examines it more closely, walking from side to side. Then he stands back to best appreciate the overall symmetry.

  Clearing his throat, he asks, “Is it the best one they had?”

  “No! They had dozens of better ones! Hundreds! This was one of the worst; the absolute pits; the bottom of the barrel. I felt sorry for it. That’s why I brought it home. I adopted a lousy Christmas tree.”

  He looks surprised. “It isn’t that bad.”

  “You’re fucking unbelievable,” I mutter under my breath, unable to stay in the same room. Why do our parents have the ability to make us feel like children even when our hair is graying and we have a mortgage that feels like a Third World debt?

  I retreat to the kitchen and pour myself a drink. My father has only been here for ten hours and already I’m hitting the bottle. At least reinforcements arrive tomorrow.

  I was always running in my childhood nightmares—trying to escape a monster or a rabid dog or perhaps a Neanderthal second-rower forward with no front teeth and cauliflower ears. I would wake just before getting caught. It didn’t make me feel any safer. That is the problem with nightmares. Nothing is resolved. We rouse ourselves in midair or just before the bomb goes off or stark naked in a public place.

  I have been lying in the dark for five hours. Every time I think nice thoughts and begin drifting off to sleep, I jump awake in a panic. It’s like watching a trashy horror movie that is laughably bad, but just occasionally there is a scene that frightens the bejesus out of you.

  Mostly I’m trying not to think about Bobby Moran because when I think about him it leads me to Catherine McBride and that’s a place I don’t want to go. I wonder if Bobby is in custody, or if they’re watching him. I have this picture in my head of a van with blacked-out windows parked outside his place.

  People can’t really sense when they’re being watched—not without some clue or recognizing something untoward. However, Bobby doesn’t operate on the same wave length as most people. He picks up different signals. A psychotic can believe the TV is talking to him and will question why workmen are repairing phone lines over the road, or why there’s a van with blacked-out windows parked outside.

  Maybe none of this is happening. With all the new technology, perhaps Ruiz can find everything he needs by simply typing Bobby’s name into a computer and accessing the private files that every conspiracy theorist is convinced the government keeps on the nation’s citizens.

  “Don’t think about it. Just go to sleep,” Julianne whispers. She can sense when I’m worried about something. I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep since Charlie was born. You get out of the habit after a while. Now I have these pills, which are making things worse.

  Julianne is lying on her side,
with the sheet tucked between her thighs and one hand resting on the pillow next to her face. Charlie does the same thing when she’s sleeping. They barely make a sound or stir at all. It’s as though they don’t want to leave a footprint in their dreams.

  By midmorning the house is full of cooking smells and feminine chatter. I’m expected to set the fire and sweep the front steps. Instead, I sneak around to the newsstands and collect the morning papers.

  Back in my study, I set aside the supplements and magazines and begin looking for stories on Catherine. I’m just about to sit down when I notice one of Charlie’s bug-eyed goldfish is floating upside down in the aquarium. For a moment I think it might be some sort of neat goldfish trick, but on closer inspection it doesn’t look too hale and hearty. It has gray speckles on its scales—evidence of an exotic fish fungus.

  Charlie doesn’t take death very well. Middle Eastern kingdoms have shorter periods of mourning. Scooping up the fish in my hand, I stare at the poor creature. I wonder if she’ll believe it just disappeared. She is only eight. Then again, she doesn’t believe in Santa or the Easter Bunny anymore. How could I have bred such a cynic?

  “Charlie, I have some bad news. One of your goldfish has disappeared.”

  “How could it just disappear?”

  “Well, actually it died. I’m sorry.”

  “Where is it?”

  “You don’t really want to see it, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  The fish is still in my hand, which is in my pocket. When I open my palm it seems more like a magic trick than a solemn deed.

  “At least you didn’t try to buy me a new one,” she says.

  Being very organized, Julianne has a whole collection of shoe boxes and drawstring bags that she keeps for this sort of death in the family. With Charlie looking on, I bury the bug-eyed goldfish under the plum tree, between the late Harold Hamster, a mouse known only as Mouse and a baby sparrow that flew into the French doors and broke its neck.