by Suspect
She nods and holds open the door. Ruiz strides out and the younger detective snaps handcuffs onto my wrists. Simon starts to protest and is handed a copy of a search warrant. The address is typed in capital letters on both sides of the page. I'm going home.
My most vivid childhood memory of Christmas is of the St. Augus�tine's Anglican School Nativity play in which I was featured as one of the three Wise Men. The reason it is so memorable is that Russell Cochrane, who played the baby Jesus, was so nervous that he wet his pants and it leaked down the front of the Virgin Mary's blue robe. Jenny Bond, a very pretty Mary, was so angry that she dropped Rus�sell on his head and swung a kick into his groin.
A collective groan went up from the audience, but it was drowned out by Russell's howls of pain. The entire production dis�integrated and the curtain came down early.
The backstage farce proved even more compelling. Russell's fa�ther, a big man with a bullet-shaped head, was a police sergeant, who sometimes came to the school to lecture us on road safety. He cor�nered Jenny Bond backstage and threatened to have her arrested for assault. Jenny's father laughed. It was a big mistake. Sergeant Cochrane handcuffed him on the spot and marched him along Stafford Street to the police station where he spent the night.
Our Nativity play made the national papers. VIRGIN MARY'S FATHER ARRESTED, said the headline in /The Sun. The Star/ wrote: BABY JE�SUS KICKED IN THE BAUBLES!
I think of it again because of Charlie. Is she going to see me in handcuffs, being flanked by policemen? What will she think of her father then?
The unmarked police car pulls up the ramp from the under�ground car park and emerges into daylight. Sitting next to me, Simon puts a coat over my head. Through the damp wool, I can make out the pyrotechnics of flashguns and TV lights. I don't know how many photographers and cameramen there are. I hear their voices and feel the police car accelerate away.
Traffic slows to a crawl in Marylebone Road. Pedestrians seem to hesitate and stare. I'm convinced they're looking at me?wondering who I am and what I'm doing in the backseat of a police car.
"Can I phone my wife?" I ask.
"No."
"She doesn't know we're coming."
"Exactly."
"But she doesn't know I've been arrested."
"You should have told her."
I suddenly remember the office. I have patients coming today. Appointments have to be rescheduled.
"Can I call my secretary?"
Ruiz turns and glances over his shoulder. "We are also executing a search warrant on your office."
I want to argue, but Simon touches my elbow. "This is part of the process," he whispers, trying to sound reassuring.
The convoy of three police cars pulls up in the middle of our road, blocking the street in either direction. Doors are flung open and detectives assemble quickly, some using the side path to reach the back garden.
Julianne answers the front door. She is wearing pink rubber gloves. A fleck of foam clings to her hair where she has brushed her fringe to one side. A detective gives her a copy of the warrant. She doesn't look at it. She is too busy focusing on me. She sees the hand�cuffs and the look on my face. Her eyes are wide with shock and in�comprehension.
"Keep Charlie inside," I shout.
I look at Ruiz. I plead with him. "Not in front of my daughter. /Please./"
I see nothing in his eyes, but he reaches into his jacket pocket and finds the keys to the handcuffs. Two detectives take my arms.
Julianne is asking questions?ignoring the officers who push past her into the house. "What's happening, Joe? What are you...?"
"They think I had something to do with Catherine's death."
"How? Why? That's ridiculous. You were helping them with their investigation."
Something falls and smashes upstairs. Julianne glances upward and then back to me. "What are they doing in our house?" She is on the verge of tears. "What have you done, Joe?"
I see Charlie's face peering out of the sitting room. It quickly dis�appears as Julianne turns. "You stay in that room, young lady," she barks, sounding more frightened than angry.
The front door is wide open. Anybody walking by can look in�side and see what is happening. I can hear cupboards and drawers be�ing opened on the floor above; mattresses are being lifted and beds dragged aside. Julianne doesn't know what to do. Part of her wants to protect her house from being vandalized, but mostly she wants answers from me. I don't have any.
The detectives take me through to the kitchen where I find Ruiz peering out of the French doors at the garden. Men with shovels and hoes are ripping up the lawn. D.J. is leaning against Charlie's swing, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looks at me through the smoke, inquisitive, insolent. A faint hint of a smile creases the cor�ners of his mouth?as though he's watching a Porsche get a parking ticket.
Turning away reluctantly, he lets the cigarette fall into the gravel where it continues to glow. Then he bends and slices open the plas�tic packing surrounding a radiator.
"We interviewed your neighbors," explains Ruiz. "You were seen burying something in the garden."
"A bug-eyed goldfish."
Ruiz is totally baffled. "I beg your pardon?"
Julianne laughs at the absurdity of it all. We are living in a Monty Python sketch.
"He buried Charlie's goldfish," she says. "It's under the plum tree next to Harold Hamster."
A couple of the detectives behind us can't stifle their giggles. Ruiz has a face like thunder. I know I shouldn't goad him, but it feels good to laugh.
**2**
The mattress has compressed to the hardness of concrete beneath my hip and shoulder. From the moment I lie down the blood throbs in my ears and my mind begins to race. I want to slip into peaceful emptiness. Instead I chase the dangerous thoughts, magnified in my imagination.
By now Ruiz will have interviewed Julianne. He'll have asked where I was on the thirteenth of November. She'll have told him that I spent the night with Jock. She won't know that's a lie. She'll repeat what I told her.
Ruiz will also have talked to Jock, who will tell them that I left his office at five o'clock that day. He asked me out for a drink, but I said no. I said I was going home. None of our stories are going to match.
Julianne has spent all evening in the charge room, hoping to see me. Ruiz told her she could have five minutes, but I can't face her. I know that's appalling. I know she must be scared, confused, angry and worried sick. She just wants an explanation. She wants to hear me tell her it's going to be all right. I'm more frightened of confronting her than I am of Ruiz. How can I explain Elisa? How can I make things right?
Julianne asked me if I thought it unusual that a woman I hadn't seen in five years is murdered and then the police ask me to help identify her. Glibly, I told her that coincidences were just a couple of things happening simultaneously. Now the coincidences are starting to pile up. What are the chances of Bobby being referred to me as a patient? Or that Catherine would phone my office on the evening she died? When do coincidences stop being coincidences and be�come a pattern?
I'm not being paranoid. I'm not seeing shadows darting in the corner of my eye or imagining sinister conspiracies. But something is happening here that is bigger than the sum of its parts.
I fall asleep with this thought and sometime during the night I wake suddenly, breathing hard with my heart pounding. I cannot see who or what is chasing me, but I know it's there, watching, waiting, laughing at me.
Every sound seems exaggerated by the starkness of the cell. I lie awake and listen to the seesaw creaks of bedsprings, water dripping in cisterns, drunks talking in their sleep and guards' shoes echoing down corridors.
Today is the day. The police will either charge me or let me go. I should be more anxious and concerned. Mostly I feel remote and separate from what's happening. I pace out the cell, thinking how bizarre life can be. Look at all the twists and turns, the coincidences and bad luck, the mistakes
and misunderstandings. I don't feel angry or bitter. I have faith in the system. Pretty soon they're going to re�alize the evidence isn't strong enough against me. They'll have to let me go.
This sort of optimism strikes me as quite odd when I think about how naturally cynical I am concerning law and order. Innocent peo�ple get shafted every day. I've seen the evidence. It's incontrovertible. Yet I have no fears about this happening to me.
I blame my mother and her unwavering belief in authority fig�ures such as policemen, judges and politicians. She grew up in a vil�lage in the Cotswolds, where the town constable rode a bicycle, knew every local by name and solved most crimes within half an hour. He epitomized fairness and honesty.
Since then, despite the regular stories of police planting evi�dence, taking bribes and falsifying statements, my mother has never altered her beliefs. "God made more good people than bad," she says, as though a head count will sort everything out. And when this seems highly unlikely, she adds, "They will get their comeuppance in Heaven."
A hatch opens in the lower half of the door and a wooden tray is propelled across the floor. I have a plastic bottle of orange juice, some gray-looking sludge that I assume to be scrambled eggs and two slices of bread that have been waved over a toaster. I put it to one side and wait for Simon to arrive.
He looks very jolly in his silk tie printed with holly and silver bells. It's the sort of tie Charlie will give me for Christmas. I wonder if Simon has ever been married or had children.
He can't stay long; he's due in court. I see strands of his horse�hair wig sticking out of his briefcase. The police have requested a blood and hair sample, he says. I have no problem with that. They are also seeking permission to interview my patients, but a judge has refused them access to my files. Good for him.
The biggest piece of news concerns two of the phone calls Catherine made to my office. Meena, bless her cotton socks, has told detectives that she talked to Catherine twice in early November.
I had totally forgotten about the search for a new secretary. Meena had placed an advertisement in the Medical Appointments section of /The Guardian/. It asked for experienced medical secre�taries, or applicants with nursing training. We had more than eighty replies.
I start explaining this to Simon, getting more and more excited. "Meena was coming up with a short list of twelve."
"Catherine made the short list."
"Yes. Maybe. She must have done. That would explain the call. Meena will know." Did Catherine know she was applying to be /my/ secretary? Meena must have mentioned my name. Maybe Catherine wanted to surprise me. Or perhaps she thought I wouldn't give her an interview.
Simon scissors his fingers across his tie, as if pretending to cut it off. "Why would a woman who accused you of sexual assault apply to become your secretary?" He sounds like a prosecutor.
"I didn't assault her."
"And why would she write a love letter to you?"
"I don't know."
He doesn't comment. Instead he looks at his watch and closes his briefcase. "I don't think you should answer any more police ques�tions."
"Why?"
"You're digging yourself into a deeper hole."
Simon shrugs on his overcoat and leans down to brush a smudge of dirt from the mirrorlike surface of his black shoes. "They have eight more hours. Unless they come up with something new, you'll be home by this evening."
Lying on the bunk with my hands behind my head, I stare at the ceil�ing. Someone has scrawled in the corner: A day without sunlight is like ... night. The ceiling must be twelve feet high. How on earth did anyone get up there?
It is strange being locked away from the world. I have no idea what's been happening in the past forty-eight hours. I wonder what I've missed. Hopefully my parents have gone back to Wales. Charlie will have started her Christmas break; the boiler will be fixed; Julianne will have wrapped the presents and put them under the tree. Jock will have dusted off his Santa suit and done his annual tour of the children's wards. And then there's Bobby?what has he been doing?
Midway through the afternoon, I am summoned to the interview room again. Ruiz and the same detective sergeant are waiting. Simon arrives out of breath from climbing the stairs. He's clutching a sand�wich in a plastic prism and a bottle of orange juice.
"A late lunch," he confesses apologetically.
The tape recorder is switched on.
"Professor O'Loughlin help me out here." Ruiz conspires to raise a polite smile. "Is it true that killers often return to the scene of the crime?"
Where is he going with this? I glance at Simon who indicates I should answer.
"A 'signature killer' will sometimes return, but more often than not it's an urban myth."
"What's a 'signature killer'?"
"Every killer has a behavioral imprint?it's like a criminal shadow that is left behind at a crime scene, a signature. It might be the way they tie a ligature or dispose of a body. Some feel compelled to return to the scene."
"Why?"
"There are lots of possible reasons. Perhaps they want to fanta�size and relive what they've done or collect a souvenir. Some may feel guilty or just want to stay close."
"Which is why kidnappers often help with the search?"
"Yes."
"And arsonists help fight fires?"
Ruiz leans across the desk toward me, until I can see the capil�laries beneath the skin of his nose. I swear he can breathe through those pores.
"Are you willing to talk to me without your lawyer present?"
"If you turn off the tape."
Simon objects and wants to talk to me alone. Outside in the cor�ridor we have a frank exchange of views. He tells me I'm being stu�pid. I agree. But if I can get Ruiz to listen, maybe I can convince him to look at Bobby again.
"I want it noted that I advised you against this."
"Don't worry, Simon. Nobody's going to blame you."
Ruiz is waiting for me. A cigarette is alight in the ashtray. He stares at it intently, watching it burn down. The gray ash forms a misshapen tower that will tumble with the slightest breath.
"I thought you were quitting."
"I am. I like to watch."
The ash topples and Ruiz pushes the ashtray to one side. He nods.
The room seems so much larger with just the two of us. Ruiz pushes back his chair and puts his feet on the table. His black brogues have worn heels. Above one sock, on the white of his ankle, there is a streak of black shoe polish.
"We took your photograph to every pub and wine bar in Leices�ter Square and Covent Garden," he says. "Not one barman or bar�maid remembers you."
"I'm easy to forget."
"We're going out again tonight. Maybe we'll trigger someone's memory. Somehow I don't think so. I don't think you were anywhere near the West End."
I don't respond.
"We also showed your photograph to the regulars at the Grand Union Hotel. Nobody remembers seeing you there. They remem�bered Catherine. She was dressed real nice, according to some of the lads. One of them offered to buy her a drink, but she said she was waiting for someone. Was it you?"
"No."
"Who was it?"
"I still think it was Bobby Moran."
Ruiz lets out a low rumble that ends with a hacking cough. "You don't give up, do you?"
"Catherine didn't die on the night she disappeared. Her body wasn't found for eleven days. Whoever tortured her took a long time to break her spirit?days perhaps. Bobby could have done it."
"Nothing points to him."
"I think he knew her."
Ruiz laughs ironically. "That's the difference between what you do and what I do. You base your conclusions on bell curves and em�pirical models. A sob story about a lousy childhood and you're ready to put someone in therapy for ten years. I deal with facts and right now they're all pointing to you."
"What about intuition? Gut instincts? I thought detectives used them all the time."
> "Not when I'm trying to get approval for a surveillance budget."
We sit in silence, measuring the gulf between us. Eventually Ruiz speaks. "I talked to your wife yesterday. She described you as being a little 'distant' lately. You suggested the family go away on a trip ... to America. It came up suddenly. She couldn't explain why."
"It had nothing to do with Catherine. I wanted to see more of the world."
"Before it's too late." His voice softens. "Tell me about your Parkinson's. Must be pretty gutting to get news like that?particu�larly when you've got a good-looking wife, a young daughter, a suc�cessful career. How many years are you going to lose? Ten? Twenty?"
"I don't know."
"I reckon news like that would make a guy feel pretty pissed off with the world. You've worked with cancer patients. You tell me?do they get bitter and feel cheated?"
"Some of them do."
"I bet some of them want to tear down the world. I mean, why should they get all the shitty luck, right? What are you going to do in a situation like that? Go quietly, or rail against the dying of the light? You could settle old scores and make amends. Nothing wrong with exacting a bit of rough justice if it's the only kind on offer."
I want to laugh at his clumsy attempt at psychoanalysis. "Is that what you'd do, Inspector?" It takes Ruiz a few moments to realize that I'm now scrutinizing him. "You think the vigilante spirit might take you?"
Doubt fills his eyes, but he won't let it stay there. He wants to move on, to change the subject, but first I want to set him straight about people with terminal illnesses or incurable diseases. Yes, some want to lash out in frustration at the sense of hopelessness and helplessness. But the bitterness and anger soon fade. Instead of feeling sorry for themselves they face the fury of the ill wind and look ahead. And they resolve to enjoy every moment they have left, to suck the marrow out of life until it dribbles down their chin.
Sliding his feet to the floor, Ruiz puts both hands flat on the table and levers himself upward. He doesn't look at me as he speaks. "I want you charged with murder but the Director of Public Prosecu�tions says I don't have enough evidence. He's right, but then so am I. I'm going to keep looking until we find some more. It's just a mat�ter of time." His eyes are gazing at something a great distance away.