Michael Robotham

by Suspect

  "Which are you?" I ask.

  He thinks about this. "I was once a pawn but I reached the end of the board. I can be anything now."

  Bobby sighs and gets to his feet. The conversation has started to bore him. The session is only half an hour old but he's had enough. It should never have started. Eddie Barrett is going to have a field day.

  I follow Bobby into the outer office. A part of me wants him to stay. I want to shake the tree and see what falls off the branches. I want the truth.

  Bobby is waiting at the lift. The doors open.

  "Good luck."

  He turns and looks at me curiously. "I don't need luck." The slight upturn of his mouth gives the illusion of a smile.

  Back at my desk, I stare at the empty chair. An object on the floor catches my eye. It looks like a small carved figurine?a chess piece. Picking it up, I discover it's a small wooden whale carved by hand. A key ring is attached with a small eyelet screw on the whale's back. It's the sort of thing you see hanging from a child's satchel or school-bag.

  Bobby must have dropped it. I can still catch him. I can call downstairs to the foyer and get the receptionist to have him wait. I look at the clock. Ten minutes past four. The meeting has started up�stairs. I don't want to be here.

  Bobby's sheer size makes him stand out. He's a head taller than any�body else and pedestrians seem to divide and part to let him through. Rain is falling. I bury my hands in my overcoat. My fingers close around the smooth wooden whale.

  Bobby is heading toward the underground station at Oxford Cir�cus. If I stay close enough, hopefully I won't lose him in the labyrinthine walkways. I don't know why I'm doing this. I guess I want answers instead of riddles. I want to know where he lives and who he lives with.

  Suddenly, he disappears from view. I suppress the urge to run forward. I keep moving at the same pace and pass a liquor store. I catch a glimpse of Bobby at the counter. Two doors farther on I step inside a travel agency. A girl in a red skirt, white blouse and wishbone tie smiles at me.

  "Can I help you?"

  "I'm just looking."

  "To escape the winter?"

  I'm holding a brochure for the Caribbean. "Yes, that's right."

  Bobby passes the window. I hand her the brochure. "You can take it with you," she suggests.

  "Maybe next year."

  On the pavement, Bobby is thirty yards ahead of me. He has a distinctive shape. He has no hips and it looks as though his backside has been stolen. He keeps his trousers pulled up high, with his belt tightly cinched.

  Descending the stairs into the underground station, the crowd seems to swell. Bobby has a ticket ready. There is a queue at every ticket machine. Three underground lines cross at Oxford Circus. If I lose him now he can travel in any one of six different directions.

  I push between people, ignoring their complaints. At the turn�stile I place my hands on either side of it and lift my legs over the barrier. Now I'm guilty of fare evasion. The escalator descends slowly. A stale wind sweeps up from the tunnels, forced ahead of the moving engines.

  On the northbound platform of the Bakerloo line, Bobby weaves through the waiting crowd until he reaches the far end. I follow him, needing to be close. At any moment I expect him to turn and catch sight of me. Four or five schoolboys, human petri dishes of acne and dandruff, push along the platform, wrestling each other and laugh�ing. Everyone else stares straight ahead in silence.

  A blast of wind and noise. The train appears. Doors open. I let the crowd carry me forward into the carriage. Bobby is in my pe�ripheral vision. The doors close automatically and the train jerks for�ward and gathers speed. Everything smells of damp wool and stale sweat.

  Bobby gets off the train at Warwick Avenue. It has grown dark. Black cabs swish past, the sound of their tires louder than their en�gines. The station is only a hundred yards from the Grand Union Canal and perhaps two miles from where Catherine's body was found.

  With fewer people around I have to drop farther back. Now he's only a silhouette in front of me. I walk with my head down and col�lar turned up. As I pass a cement mixer on the footpath, I stumble sideways and put my shoe into a puddle. My balance is deserting me.

  We follow Blomfield Road alongside the canal until Bobby crosses a footbridge at the end of Formosa Street. Spotlights pick out an Anglican church. The fine mist looks like falling glitter around the beams of light. Bobby sits on a park bench and looks at the church for a long time. I lean against the trunk of a tree, my feet growing numb with the cold.

  What is he doing here? Maybe he lives nearby. Whoever killed Catherine knew the canal well: not just from a street map or a ca�sual visit. He was comfortable here. It was his territory. He knew where to leave her body so that she wouldn't be found too quickly. He fitted in. Nobody recognized him as a stranger.

  Bobby can't have met Catherine in the hotel. If Ruiz has done his job he will have shown photographs to the staff and patrons. Bobby isn't the sort of person you forget easily.

  Catherine left the pub alone. Whoever she was supposed to meet had failed to show. She was staying with friends in Shepherd's Bush. It was too far to walk. What did she do? Look for a taxi. Or perhaps she started walking to Westbourne Park Station. From there it is only three stops to Shepherd's Bush. The walk would have taken her over the canal.

  A London Transport depot is across the road. Buses are coming in and out all the time. Whoever she met must have been waiting for her on the bridge. I should have asked Ruiz which part of the canal they dredged to find Catherine's diary and mobile phone.

  Catherine was five foot six and 134 pounds. Chloroform takes a few minutes to act, but someone of Bobby's size and strength would have had few problems subduing her. She would have fought back or cried out. She wasn't the sort to meekly surrender.

  But if I'm right and he knew her, he might not have needed the chloroform?not until Catherine realized the danger and tried to escape.

  What happened next? It isn't easy carrying a body. Perhaps he dragged her onto the towpath. No, he needed somewhere private. Somewhere he'd prepared in advance. A flat or a house? Neighbors can be nosy. There are dozens of derelict factories along the canal.

  Did he risk using the towpath? The homeless sometimes sleep under the bridges or couples use them for romantic rendezvous.

  The shadow of a narrow boat moves past me. The rumble of the motor is so low that the sound barely reaches me. The only light on the vessel is near the wheel. It casts a red glow on the face of the helmsman. I wonder. Traces of machine oil and diesel were found on Catherine's buttocks and hair.

  I peer around the tree. The park bench is empty. Damn! Where has he gone? There is a figure on the far side of the church, moving along the railings. I can't be sure it's him.

  My mind sets off at a run, but my legs are left behind. I finish up doing a perfect limp fall. Nothing is broken. Only my pride hurts.

  I stumble onward and reach the corner of the church where the iron railings take a ninety-degree turn. The figure is staying on the path but moving much more quickly. I doubt if I can keep up with him.

  What is he doing? Has he seen me? Jogging slowly, I carry on, los�ing sight of him occasionally. Doubt gnaws at my resolve. What if he's stopped up ahead? Perhaps he's waiting for me. The six lanes of the Westway curve above me, supported by enormous concrete pil�lars. The glow of headlights is too high to help me.

  Ahead I hear a splash and a muffled cry. Someone is in the canal. Arms are thrashing at the water. I start running. There is the faint outline of a figure beneath the bridge. The sides of the canal are higher there. The stone walls are black and slick.

  I try to shrug off my overcoat. My right arm gets caught in the sleeve and I swing it around until it comes loose. "This way! Over here!" I call.

  He doesn't hear me. He can't swim.

  I kick off my shoes and leap. The cold slaps me so hard I swallow a mouthful of water. I cough it out through my mouth and nose. Three strokes. I'm wit
h him. I slide my arm around him from behind and pull him backward, keeping his head above the surface. I talk to him gently, telling him to relax. We'll find a place to get out. Wet clothes weigh him down.

  I swim us away from the bridge. "You can touch the bottom here. Just hold on to the side." I scramble up the stone wall and pull him up after me.

  It isn't Bobby. Some poor tramp, smelling of beer and vomit, lies at my feet, coughing and spluttering. I check his head, neck and limbs for any sign of trauma. His face is smeared with snot and tears.

  "What happened?"

  "Some sick fuck threw me in the canal! One minute I'm sleepin' and the next I'm flying." He's resting on his knees, doubled over and swaying back and forth like an underwater plant. "I tell yer it ain't safe no more. It's like a fuckin' jungle ... Did he take me blanket? If he took me blanket you can throw me back in."

  His blanket is still under the bridge, piled on a makeshift bed of flattened cardboard boxes.

  "What about me teeth?"

  "I don't know."

  He curses and scoops up his things, jealously clutching them to his chest. I suggest calling an ambulance and then the police, but he wants none of it. My whole body has started to tremble and I feel like I'm inhaling slivers of ice.

  Retrieving my overcoat and shoes, I give him a soggy twenty-pound note and tell him to find somewhere to dry out. He'll proba�bly buy a bottle and be warm on the inside. My feet squelch in my shoes as I climb the stairs onto the bridge. The Grand Union Hotel is on the corner.

  Almost as an afterthought, I lean over the side of the bridge and call out, "How often do you sleep here?"

  His voice echoes from beneath the stone arch. "Only when the Ritz is full."

  "Have you ever seen a narrow boat moored under the bridge?"

  "Nah. They moor farther along."

  "What about a few weeks ago?"

  "I try not to remember things. I mind me own business."

  He has nothing to add. I have no authority to press him. Elisa lives close by. I contemplate knocking on her door but I've brought enough trouble to her doorstep already.

  After twenty minutes I manage to hail a cab. The driver doesn't want to take me because I'll ruin the seats. I offer him an extra twenty quid. It's only water. I'm sure he's had worse.

  Jock isn't home. I am so tired I can barely get my shoes off before collapsing into the spare bed. In the early hours I hear his key in the lock. A woman laughs drunkenly and kicks off her shoes. She com�ments on all the gadgets.

  "Just wait till you see what I keep in the bedroom," says Jock, triggering more giggles.

  I wonder if he has any earplugs.

  It is still dark as I pack a sports bag and leave a note taped to the microwave. Outside, a street-sweeping machine is polishing the streets. There isn't a hamburger wrapper in sight.

  On the ride toward the city I keep looking through the rear win�dow. I change cabs twice and visit two cash machines before catch�ing a bus along Euston Road.

  I feel as though I'm slowly coming out of an anesthetic. Over the past few days I have been letting details slip. Even worse, I have stopped trusting my instincts.

  I am not going to tell Ruiz about Elisa. She shouldn't have to face a grilling in the witness box. I want to spare her that ordeal, if possible. And when this is all over?if nobody knows about her?I might still have a career that can be resurrected.

  Bobby Moran had something to do with Catherine McBride's death. I'm convinced of it. If the police won't put him under the mi�croscope then it's up to me. People normally need a motive to kill, but not to stay free. I /will/ not let them send me to prison. I /will/ not be separated from my family.

  At Euston Station I do a quick inventory. Apart from a change of clothes, I have Bobby Moran's notes, Catherine McBride's CV, my mobile phone and a thousand pounds in cash. I forgot to bring a photograph of Charlie and Julianne. The one I keep at the office is from years ago. They were playing on one of those colorful adven�ture playgrounds, each putting their heads through a porthole. Char�lie's hair was much shorter and her face still had the roundness of a lollipop. Julianne looked like her teenage sister.

  I pay for the train ticket in cash. With fifteen minutes to spare, I have time to buy a toothbrush, toothpaste, a recharger for my mo�bile phone and one of those traveling towels that looks like a car chamois.

  "Do you sell umbrellas?" I ask hopefully. The shopkeeper looks at me as though I've asked for a shotgun.

  Nursing a takeout coffee, I board the train and find a double seat facing forward. I keep my bag beside me, covered by my overcoat.

  The empty platform slides past the window and the northern suburbs of London disappear the same way. The train leans on float�ing axles as it corners at high speed.

  We tear past tiny stations with empty platforms where trains no longer seem to stop. One or two vehicles are parked in the long-term car parks that look so far beyond the pale that I half expect to see a hose running from an exhaust pipe and a body slumped over a steer�ing wheel.

  My head is full of questions. Catherine applied to be my secre�tary. She phoned Meena twice, and then took a train down to Lon�don, arriving a day early.

  Why did she phone the office that evening? Who answered the call? Did she have second thoughts about surprising me? Did she want to cancel? Perhaps she'd been stood up and just wanted to go out for a drink. Maybe she wanted to apologize for causing me so much trouble.

  All of this is supposition. At the same time, it fits the framework of detail. It can be built upon. All the pieces can be made to fit a story, except for one?Bobby.

  His coat smelled of chloroform. Bobby had machine oil on his shirt cuffs. Catherine's postmortem mentioned machine oil. "It's all about the oil," Bobby told me. Did he know she had twenty-one stab wounds? Did he lead me to the place where she disappeared?

  Perhaps he's using me to construct an insanity defense. By play�ing "mad" he might avoid a life sentence. Instead they'll send him to a prison hospital like Broadmoor. Then he can astound some prison psychiatrist with his responsiveness to treatment. He could be out within five years.

  I'm sounding more and more like him?fashioning conspiracies out of coincidences. Whatever lies at the heart of this, I must not un�derestimate Bobby. He has played games with me. I don't know why.

  My search has to start somewhere. Liverpool will do for now. I take out Bobby Moran's file and begin reading. Opening my new notebook, I make bullet points?the name of a primary school, the number of his father's bus, a club his parents used to visit...

  These could be more of Bobby's lies. Something tells me they're not. I think he changed certain names and places, but not all of them. The events and emotions he described were true. I have to find the strands of truth and follow them back to the center of the web.

  **7**

  The clock at Lime Street Station glows white with solid black hands pointing to eleven o'clock. I walk quickly across the concourse, past the coffee stand and closed public toilet. A gaggle of teenage girls, speaking at 110 decibels, communicate through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

  It must be five degrees colder than in London, with a wind straight off the Irish Sea. I half expect to see icebergs on the horizon. St. George's Hall is across the way. Banners snap in the wind adver�tising the latest Beatles retrospective.

  I walk past the large hotels on Lime Street and search the side streets for something smaller. Not far from the university I find the Albion Hotel. It has a worn carpet in the entrance hall and a family of Iraqis camped on the first-floor landing. Young children look at me shyly, hiding behind their mother's skirts. The men are nowhere to be seen.

  My room is on the second floor. It is just large enough for a dou�ble bed and a wardrobe held shut with a wire hanger. The hand basin has a rust stain in the shape of a teardrop beneath the tap. The curtains will only half close and the windowsill is dotted with cigarette burns.

  There have been very few hotel room
s in my life. I am grateful for that. For some reason loneliness and regret seem to be part of their decor.

  I press the memory button on my mobile and hear the singsong tones of the number being automatically dialed. Julianne's voice is on the answering machine. I know she's listening. I can picture her. I make a feeble attempt to apologize and ask her to pick up the phone. I tell her it's important.

  I wait ... and wait...

  She picks up. My heart skips.

  "What is so important?" Her tone is harsh.

  "I want to talk to you."

  "I'm not ready to talk."

  "You're not giving me a chance to explain."

  "I gave you a chance two nights ago, Joe. I asked you why you slept with a whore and you told me that you found it easier to talk to her than to me..." Her voice is breaking. "I guess that makes me a pretty lousy wife."

  "You have everything planned. Your life runs like clockwork?the house, work, Charlie, school; you never miss a beat. I'm the only thing that doesn't work ... not properly ... not anymore."

  "And that's my fault?"

  "No, that's not what I mean."

  "Well, pardon me for trying so hard. I thought I was making us a lovely home. I thought we were happy. It's fine for you, Joe, you have your career and your patients who think you walk on water. This is all I had?us. I gave up everything for this and I loved it. I loved you. Now you've gone and poisoned the well."

  "But don't you see?what I've got is going to destroy all that..."

  "No, don't you dare blame a disease. You've managed to do this all by yourself."

  "It was only one night," I say plaintively.

  "No! It was someone else! You kissed her the way you kiss me. You fucked her! How could you?"

  Even when sobbing and angry she manages to remain piercingly articulate. I am selfish, immature, deceitful and cruel. I try to pick out which of these adjectives doesn't apply to me, and fail. "I made a mistake," I say weakly. "I'm sorry."