Suspect

by Michael Robotham

  Her lips are moving. She’s talking to someone. I crane my neck to see who it is—leaning on a large Italian olive jar, which begins to topple until I rescue it with a bear hug.

  A hand reaches across the table and the fingers mesh with hers. It’s Jock. I feel sick. She pulls her hand away and slaps him on the wrist like she would a naughty child. Then she crosses the kitchen and bends to put coffee cups in the dishwasher. Jock watches her every movement. I want to stick needles in his eyes.

  I’ve never been the jealous type, but I suddenly get a bizarre flashback to a former patient who was obsessed with losing his wife. She had a great figure and he kept imagining that men were staring at her breasts. Gradually, in his eyes, her breasts grew bigger and her tops became smaller and tighter. Her every movement seemed provocative. All of this was nonsense, but not to him.

  Jock is a breast man. Both of his wives were surgically enhanced. Why be satisfied with nature’s meager bounty when you can be all that money can buy?

  Julianne has gone upstairs to dry her hair. Jock fumbles in the pockets of his leather jacket. His shadow is framed in the French doors, just before he steps outside. Gravel crunches underfoot. A lighter flares. The cigar tip smolders.

  I kick his legs out from under him, sending him tumbling backward, landing heavily in a shower of sparks.

  “Joe!”

  “Get out of my house!”

  “Jesus! If there’s a scorch mark on this sweater . . .”

  “And stay away from Julianne!”

  He edges away and tries to sit up.

  “Why are you sneaking around out here?”

  “Because the police are out front.” I make it sound so obvious.

  He stares at his cigar and contemplates whether to light it again.

  “You had an affair with Catherine McBride. Your name is on her fucking CV!”

  “Steady on, Joe. I don’t know what you’re . . .”

  “You told me that you didn’t know her. You saw her that night.”

  “No.”

  “You arranged to meet her.”

  “No comment.”

  “What do you mean, ‘No Comment’?”

  “Just that: no comment.”

  “This is bullshit! You arranged to meet her.”

  “I didn’t show up.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “All right, I’m lying,” he says sarcastically. “Whatever you want to think, Joe.”

  “Quit pissing about.”

  “What do you want me to say? She was worth a poke. I arranged to meet her. I didn’t show up. End of story. Don’t preach to me. You screwed a hooker. You lost your chance to moralize.”

  I swing a punch but this time he’s ready. He sways to one side and then sinks his shoe into my groin. The pain comes as a shock and my knees buckle. My forehead is pressed against his chest as he stops me from falling.

  “None of this matters, Joe,” he says, in a soft voice.

  Gasping for breath, I hiss, “Of course it matters. They think I killed her.” Jock helps me upright. I swat his hands away and step back. “They think I had an affair with her. You could tell them the truth.”

  Jock gives me a sly look. “For all I know you were poking her as well.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it!”

  “You have to understand things from my point of view. I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “So you dump me even deeper in the shit.”

  “You had an alibi—you just didn’t use it.”

  Alibis. That’s what it comes down to. I should have been at home with my wife—my pregnant wife. She should have been my alibi!

  It was a Wednesday night. Julianne had her Spanish class. She normally doesn’t get home until after ten.

  “Why didn’t you keep your appointment with Catherine?”

  There’s a smile behind his eyes. “I had a better offer.”

  He’s not going to tell me. He wants me to ask.

  “You were with Julianne.”

  “Yes.”

  I feel something shift inside me. I’m scared now.

  “Where did you see her?”

  “Worry about your own alibi, Joe.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “We had dinner. She wanted to see me. She asked about your condition. She didn’t trust you to tell her the truth.”

  “And after dinner?”

  “We came back here for coffee.”

  “Julianne is pregnant.” I make it a statement, not a question.

  I watch him contemplating another lie, but he decides against it. We now have a mutual understanding. All his mediocre lies and half-truths have diminished him.

  “Yes, she’s pregnant.” Then he laughs quietly. “Poor Joe, you don’t know whether to be happy or sad. Don’t you trust her? You should know her better than that.”

  “I thought I knew you.”

  A toilet flushes upstairs. Julianne is getting ready for bed. My eyes travel from the lighted window back to Jock. Suddenly I see the answer.

  “Catherine didn’t write those letters to me—she wrote them to you.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “We have the same initials: J.O. That’s how she addressed the letters. And you called her Florence.”

  His silence infuriates me. I want to take one of his tennis rackets and break his kneecaps. “Did you post her letter to me? What were you trying to do—frame me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “You have to tell the police.”

  “Maybe I should tell them where you are.”

  He isn’t joking. Inwardly, I want to kill him. I’m sick of the contest.

  “Is this about Julianne? Do you think I’ve been keeping the seat warm all these years? Forget it! She’s not going to come running to you if something happens to me. Not if you betray me. You’ll never be able to live with yourself.”

  “I live with myself now, that’s the problem.” His eyes are shining and his oboe voice is wavering. “You’re a very lucky man, Joe, to have a family like this. It never worked out for me.”

  “You couldn’t stay with any woman long enough.”

  “I didn’t find the right one.”

  Frustration is etched on his face. Suddenly it becomes clear to me. I see Jock’s life for what it is—a series of bitter, repetitive disappointments, in which his mistakes and failings have been recast over and over because he could never break the mold.

  “Get out of my house, Jock, and stay away from Julianne.”

  He collects his things—a briefcase and a jacket—and turns toward me as he holds up the front door key, leaving it on the kitchen counter. I see him glance upstairs as if contemplating whether to say goodbye to Julianne. He decides against it and leaves.

  As the front door closes behind him I feel a hollow, nagging doubt. The police are waiting outside. He could so easily tell them.

  Before I can rationalize the danger, Julianne appears downstairs. Her hair is almost dry and she’s wearing pajama bottoms and a rugby sweater. Completely still, I watch her from the garden. She gets a glass of water and turns toward the French doors to check if they’re locked. Her eyes meet mine and show no emotion. She reaches down and picks up a ski jacket which is hanging on the back of a chair. Slipping it around her shoulders, she steps outside.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I fell over the fence.”

  “I’m talking about your ear.”

  “A dodgy tattooist.”

  She’s in no mood for glib asides. “Are you spying on me?”

  “No. Why?”

  She shrugs. “Someone has been watching the house.”

  “The police.”

  “No. Someone else.”

  “Jock said somebody tried to break in.”

  “D.J. scared him off.” She makes him sound like a guard dog.

  The light behind her, shining through her hair, creates a soft halo effect. She’s wearing the “ugliest slipp
ers in the world,” which I bought her from a farm souvenir shop. I can’t think of anything to say. I just stand there, not knowing whether to reach out for her. The moment has passed.

  “Charlie wants a kitten for Christmas,” she says, hugging the jacket around her.

  “I thought that was last year.”

  “Yes, but now she’s stumbled on the perfect formula. If you want a kitten, ask for a horse.”

  I laugh and she smiles, never taking her eyes off me. The next question is framed with her usual directness.

  “Did you have an affair with Catherine McBride?”

  “No.”

  “The police have her love letters.”

  “She wrote them to Jock.”

  Her eyes widen.

  “They had an affair when they were both at the Marsden. Jock was the married man she was seeing.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Tonight.”

  Her eyes are still fixed on mine. She doesn’t know whether to believe me or not. “Who sent the letter to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And why hasn’t Jock told the police?”

  “I’m still trying to work that out. I don’t trust him. I don’t want him here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he lied to me and he’s kept details from the police and he arranged to meet Catherine on the night she died.”

  “Surely you’re not serious! This is Jock you’re talking about. Your best friend . . .”

  “With my wife as his alibi.” It sounds like an accusation.

  Her eyes narrow to the points of knitting needles.

  “An alibi for what, Joe? Do you think he killed someone or do you think he’s screwing me?”

  “That’s not what I said.”

  “No. That’s right. You never say what you mean. You couch everything in parenthesis and inverted commas and open questions . . .” She’s on a roll. “If you’re such a brilliant psychologist, you should start looking at your own defects. I’m tired of propping up your ego. Do you want me to tell you again? Here’s the list: You are nothing at all like your father. Your penis is the right size. You spend more than enough time with Charlie. You don’t have to be jealous of Jock. My mother really does like you. And I don’t blame you for ruining my black cashmere sweater by leaving tissues in your pockets. Satisfied?”

  Ten years of potential therapy condensed to six bullet points. My God, this woman is good. The neighborhood dogs start barking and it sounds like a muffled chorus of “here, here!”

  She turns to go inside. I don’t want her to leave so I start talking—telling her the whole story about finding Catherine’s CV and searching Jock’s apartment. I try to sound rational, but I’m afraid that I come across as though I’m clutching at straws.

  Her beautiful face looks bruised.

  “You met Jock that night. Where did you go?”

  “He took me for supper in Bayswater. I knew you wouldn’t tell me the truth about the diagnosis. I wanted to ask him.”

  “When did you call him?”

  “That afternoon.”

  “What time did he leave here?”

  She shakes her head sadly. “I don’t even recognize you anymore. You’re obsessed! I’m not the one whom . . .”

  I don’t want to hear it. I blurt out: “I know about the baby.”

  She trembles slightly. It might be the cold. That’s when I see the realization in her eyes that we’re losing each other. The pulse is getting weaker. She might want me, but she doesn’t need me. She is strong enough to cope on her own. She lived through the loss of her father; Charlie’s meningitis scare when she was eighteen months old; a biopsy on her right breast. She is stronger than I am.

  As I leave, breathing in the coldness of the air, I turn back to look at the rear of the house. Julianne has gone. The kitchen is in darkness. I can follow her progress as she moves upstairs, turning off the lights.

  Jock has gone. Even if he tells Ruiz the truth, I doubt anyone will believe him. He will be seen as a friend trying to save my hide. I cross the Franklins’ garden and slip down the side path. Then I walk toward the West End, watching my shadow appear and disappear beneath the streetlights.

  A black cab slows as it passes. The driver glances at me. My hand pulls at the door handle.

  I just don’t know where to go. I need to put my head down for a few hours. Just to sleep. I can only think of Elisa’s—any port in a storm.

  As the cab weaves through the streets of Notting Hill, I contemplate her reinvention from call girl to campaigner. She doesn’t see herself as a visionary and she dislikes being portrayed by journalists as some sort of evangelist who rescues girls from the streets. Elisa doesn’t see prostitutes as “fallen women” or victims of a harsh society.

  Six months after her release from prison, she had left a message for me at the Marsden. She had an idea and wanted my opinion. I remember her coming to see me, wearing little makeup and with her hair cut short. She looked like a junior executive.

  She wanted to set up a drop-in center for young girls on the streets—giving advice about personal safety, health, accommodation and drug rehab programs. She had some savings and had rented an old house near King’s Cross station.

  The drop-in center proved to be just the start. Soon she had set up Prostitutes Are People Too. I was always amazed at the people she could call upon for advice—judges, barristers, journalists, social workers and restaurateurs. I sometimes wondered how many were former clients. Then again, I helped her . . . and it had nothing to do with sex.

  The “inside out” house is in darkness. The Tudor beams glisten with frost and the small light above the doorbell flickers as I push the button. It must be after midnight and I can hear the buzzer echoing in the hall. Elisa isn’t home.

  I know where she hides her spare key. She won’t mind. I can wash my clothes and I’ll make her breakfast in the morning. That’s when I’ll tell her that I need her alibi after all.

  Thumb and forefinger pinched together, I slide the key into the lock. Two turns. I swap keys. Another lock. The door opens. Mail spills out on the rug beneath the mail flap. She hasn’t been home for a few days.

  My footsteps echo on the polished floorboards. The living room has the atmosphere of a boutique, with the embroidered pillows and Indian rugs. A light is flashing on her answering machine. The tape is full.

  I see her legs first. She is sprawled on the Elizabethan love seat, with her ankles bound together with brown masking tape. Her torso is tilted back and her head is covered with a black plastic trash bag, secured with tape around her neck. Her hands are underneath her, tied behind her back. Her skirt is bunched up along her thighs and her stockings are laddered and torn.

  In a heartbeat I am a doctor again, ripping plastic, feeling for a pulse, pressing my ear to her chest. Her lips are blue and her body is cold and stiff. Hair is stuck to her forehead. Her eyes are open, staring at me in wonder.

  I feel a cold grinding in my chest as though a drilling machine is tunneling through my insides. I see it all over again, the struggle and the dying; how she fought to get free. How much oxygen is in the bag? Ten minutes at most. Ten minutes to fight. Ten minutes to die. She sucked the plastic against her mouth as she twisted and kicked. There are CD cases on the floor and a trestle table is upside down. A framed photograph is lying facedown, amid shattered glass. Her thin gold chain is broken at the clasp.

  Poor Elisa. I can still feel the softness of her lips on my cheek when we said goodbye at the restaurant. She is wearing the same dark blue camisole and matching miniskirt. It must have happened on Thursday some time after she left me.

  I walk from room to room, looking for evidence of forced entry. The front door was locked from the outside. He must have taken a set of keys.

  On the kitchen bench is a mug with a spoon full of coffee granules coagulated like dark toffee in the base. The kettle is lying on its side and one of the dining chairs has toppled over. A kitchen
drawer is open. It contains neatly folded tea towels, a small toolbox, light fuses and a roll of black trash liners. The kitchen trash can is empty, with a fresh bag inside.

  Elisa’s coat is hanging on the edge of the door. Her car keys are on the table, next to her purse, two unopened letters and her mobile phone. The battery is dead. Where is her scarf? Retracing my steps, I find the scarf on the floor behind the chair. A single knot is pulled tight in the center, forming a silken garrotte.

  Elisa is far too careful to open the door to a stranger. Either she knew her killer or he was already inside. Where? How? The patio doors are made of reinforced glass and lead to a small brick courtyard. A sensor triggers the security lights.

  The downstairs office is cluttered but tidy. Nothing obvious appears to have been taken, such as the DVD player or Elisa’s laptop.

  Upstairs in the second bedroom I check the windows again. Elisa’s clothes are hanging undisturbed on racks. Her jewelry box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, is in the bottom drawer of the vanity. Anyone looking would have found it soon enough.

  In the bathroom the toilet seat is down. The bathmat is hanging on a drying rail, over a large blue towel. A new tube of toothpaste sits in a souvenir mug from the House of Commons. I stand on the lever of the pedal wastebasket and the lid swings open. Empty.

  I’m about to move on when I notice a dusting of dark powder on the white tiles beneath the sink. I run my finger over the surface, collecting a fine gray residue, which smells of roses and lavender.

  Elisa had a painted ceramic bowl of potpourri on the windowsill. Perhaps she accidentally broke it. She would have swept up the debris in a dustpan and emptied it into the wastebasket. Then she might have emptied the wastebasket downstairs, but there’s nothing in the kitchen trash can.

  Looking closely at the window, I see splinters of bare wood at the edges where paint chips have been lost. The window had been painted shut and forced open. Levering my fingers under the base, I manage to do the same, gritting my teeth as the swollen wood screeches inside the frame.

  Peering outside, I see the sewage pipes running down the outside wall and the flat roof of the laundry ten feet below. Wisteria has grown over the brick wall on the right side of the courtyard, making it easy to climb. The pipes would give someone a foothold to reach the window.