Close Your Eyes

by Robotham, Michael

  She turns to Julianne. ‘Did you ask him?’ she whispers.

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  They’re obviously planning something. Charlie has been particularly attentive all day, holding my hand – the left one, of course – and matching stride with me.

  What is it that I’m not being told?

  When I look back from Julianne, Charlie has already gone, her dress billowing in the breeze, pushed down by her hands.

  It’s almost lunchtime. I need food or my medication will likely go haywire and I’ll begin twerking like Miley Cyrus.

  ‘Where do you want to eat?’ I ask.

  ‘The pub,’ says Julianne, making it sound obvious. We walk through the arched stone gate and turn along St Aldate’s where the pavements are crowded with parents, prospective students, tourists and shoppers. Chinese and Japanese tour groups in matching T-shirts are following brightly coloured umbrellas.

  ‘It’s all very Brideshead Revisited, isn’t it? Sometimes I wonder if it’s more a theme park than a university.’

  ‘Has Charlie told you what she’s going to study?’ I ask.

  ‘Not a word,’ says Julianne, sounding unconcerned.

  ‘Surely there must be some rule against that. No walking on the grass – or keeping secrets from your parents.’

  ‘She’ll tell us when she’s ready.’

  Despite my reservations about her leaving home, I love the idea of Charlie going to university. I envy her the friends she’ll make and the fresh ideas she’ll hear, the discussions and debates, the subsidised alcohol, the parties, the bands and romances.

  As we approach the intersection, I hear a commotion. A protest march is converging on the high street. People are chanting and carrying placards. Pedestrians have been stopped at the corner by several police officers. Someone is beating a snare drum next to a girl playing ‘Yankee Doodle’ on a flute. A boy with pink streaks in his hair thrusts a leaflet into my hand.

  ‘What are they protesting about?’ asks Julianne.

  ‘Starbucks.’

  ‘For serving lousy coffee?’

  ‘For not paying UK tax.’

  Further along the street, I notice the Starbucks logo. One of the posters bobs past, reading, Too little, too latte.

  ‘We used to march against apartheid,’ I say.

  ‘It’s a different world.’

  The march moves on. They’re a harmless-looking bunch. I can’t imagine any of them blowing up parliament or piloting the tumbrils to the guillotines. Most of them are probably heirs to family fortunes or ancestral titles. They’ll be running the country in thirty years. God help us!

  Julianne chooses a pub by the river, which is decorated with hanging baskets of flowers and has an outside courtyard with tables overlooking the water. There are couples punting on the river, negotiating the wilting branches of willow trees and the swifter current on the outside of each bend. A rogue balloon skitters across the rippled surface and gets caught in the reeds.

  After ordering a mezze plate to share, I go to the bar and get a large glass of wine for Julianne and a soft drink for myself. We toast and clink and make small talk, which is relaxed and natural. Ever since the separation we’ve continued to communicate, phoning each other twice a week to discuss the girls. Julianne is always bright and cheerful – happier now that she’s not with me.

  As exes go, she’s one of the better ones – from all reports. Maybe it would be easier if she were a harridan or a poisonous shrew. I could have put our marriage behind me and found someone else. Instead I hang on, forever hopeful of a second chance or extra time. I’d happily go to penalties if the scores are still level.

  ‘Are you sure Charlie has a plan?’ I ask.

  ‘Did you have a plan at eighteen?’

  ‘I wanted to sleep with lots of girls.’

  ‘How did that work out?’

  ‘It was going fine until you came along.’

  ‘So I should apologise for cramping your style.’

  ‘You dented my average.’

  ‘You were a complete tail-ender. A number eleven batsman if ever I saw one.’

  ‘I managed to bowl you over.’

  ‘Now you’re mixing metaphors.’

  ‘No, I’m not – I’m an all-rounder.’

  She laughs and waves me away. It feels good to make her happy. I met Julianne at London University. I’d spent three years doing medicine despite fainting at the first sight of blood, and Julianne was a fresher in her first year studying languages. I changed direction and transferred to psychology – much to my father’s disgust. He’d expected me to become a surgeon and carry on four generations of family history. They say a chain always breaks at the weakest link.

  Our food has arrived. Julianne scoops hummus on to crusty bread and chews thoughtfully. ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ she asks, sounding nervous.

  ‘Not really, how about you?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘What about that lawyer? I can’t remember his name.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’

  She’s right. Marcus Bryant. Handsome, successful, painfully worthy – a suitor from central casting, if such an agency existed. I once made the mistake of looking him up on Google, but didn’t get past his four-year stint working for the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and his pro-bono work with death row inmates in Texas.

  There is another long silence. Julianne speaks first.

  ‘If I had my life over again, I don’t think I would have married so young.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wish I’d done more travelling.’

  ‘I didn’t stop you travelling.’

  ‘I’m not criticising you, Joe,’ she says, ‘I’m just making an observation.’

  ‘What else do you wish you’d done – had more lovers?’

  ‘That would have been nice.’

  I try to share her laugh, but instead feel melancholy.

  She responds, reaching across the table. ‘Oh, I’ve hurt you now. Don’t get sad. You were great in the sack.’

  ‘I’m not sad. It’s the medication.’

  She smiles, not believing me. ‘There must be something you’d change.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Maybe one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have slept with Elisa.’

  The admission creates a sudden vacuum and Julianne withdraws her hand, half turning away. Her gaze slips across the river to a boathouse on the far bank. For the briefest of moments her eyes seem to glisten but the sheen has gone when she turns back.

  Almost ten years ago, on the day I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease I didn’t go straight home. I didn’t buy a red Ferrari or book a world cruise or draw up a bucket list. Nor did I purchase a case of Glenfiddich and crawl into bed for a month. Instead I slept with a woman who wasn’t my wife. It was a stupid, stupid, stupid mistake that I have tried to rationalise ever since, but my excuses don’t measure up to the damage I caused.

  A single, random, foolish event can often change a life – a chance meeting, or an accident or a moment of madness. But more often it happens by increments like a creeping tide, so slowly that we barely notice. My life was altered by a diagnosis. It was never going to be a death sentence, but it has robbed me by degrees.

  ‘I apologise for prying,’ says Julianne, toying with the stem of her wine glass.

  ‘You’re allowed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I guess technically we’re still married.’

  She sips her wine, not responding. Silence again.

  ‘So what are your plans for the summer?’ she asks. ‘Going anywhere nice?’

  ‘I haven’t decided. I might pick up one of those late package deals to Florida. Palm trees. Pouting girls. Bikinis. Surgically enhanced bodies.’

  ‘You hate the beach.’

  ‘Salsa. Mambo. Cuban cigars.�
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  ‘You don’t smoke and you can’t dance.’

  ‘There you go – spoiling my fun.’

  Julianne leans forward, putting her elbows on the table. ‘I have something important to ask you.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Perhaps I should have asked sooner. I’ve thought about it for a long time, but I guess I’m a little scared of what you might say.’

  This is it! She wants a divorce. No more tiptoeing around the subject or beating around the bush. Maybe she’s going to marry Marcus and join him in America. Or she’s decided to sell the last of her father’s paintings and take a round-the-world cruise. But she hates cruises. An African safari – she’s always talked about going to Africa.

  ‘Joe?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Have you been listening?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I was telling you a story.’

  ‘You know I love stories.’

  Her eyes darken, warning me to take this seriously.

  ‘It was in the newspaper. An old woman in Glasgow lay dead inside her house for eight years. No one came to visit. Nobody raised the alarm. Her gas and electricity were cut off. Windows were broken in a storm. Mail piled up on the floor inside. But nobody came. They found her skeleton lying next to her bed. They think she fell and broke her hip and could have lived for days before she died, crying out for help, but nobody heard her. And now her family are fighting over her house. They all want a slice of her money. Makes you wonder…’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘How terrible it must be to die alone.’

  ‘We all die alone,’ I say, but regret it immediately because it sounds too flippant and dismissive. It’s my turn to reach across the table and touch her hand. She raises her fingertips and our fingers interlock. ‘We’re not responsible for other people’s mistakes. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?’

  She nods.

  ‘You’re a good father, Joe.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re too soft on the girls.’

  ‘Someone has to be the good cop.’

  ‘I’m being serious.’

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘You’re a kind man.’

  I’ve always been a kind man. I was a kind man six years ago when you left me.

  Is this leading up to some sort of apology, I wonder. Maybe she wants to give me another chance. A pearl of sweat slides from my hairline, down my spine to the small of my back.

  ‘I know we can’t have our time over again,’ says Julianne, ‘and we can’t make amends for all of our mistakes…’

  ‘You’re beginning to frighten me,’ I say.

  ‘It’s nothing that dramatic,’ she replies, solemn again. ‘What I wanted to ask is whether you’d like to spend the summer with us?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Emma and Charlie are willing to share, which means you’ll have a room to yourself.’

  ‘At the cottage?’

  ‘You said you were going to take a few weeks off. You could commute to London if you have to work. The girls really want to see more of you.’

  ‘You want me to move back in … as a guest.’

  ‘You’re not a guest. You’re their father.’

  ‘And you and I…?’

  Her head tilts slightly to one side. ‘Don’t read too much into it, Joe. I just thought it might be nice to spend the summer together.’ She withdraws her hand and looks away. Breathes out. Breathes big. ‘I know it’s short notice. You don’t have to say yes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘No, I mean, I know there’s no pressure. It sounds perfect, it really does … it’s just…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I guess I’m scared that if I spend so much time with the girls, it’s going to be hard to say goodbye again.’

  She nods.

  ‘And I might fall madly in love with you again.’

  ‘Restrain yourself.’

  I hope I’m smiling. A young couple at a nearby table laugh loudly. The girl’s voice is light and sweet and happy. I take a deep breath and hold it in my lungs.

  Saying nothing is the wrong choice. I must make a declaration or meet her halfway. She has thrown me a lifeline. I should grab it with both hands, but I’m not sure if the lifeline is tied on to anything.

  ‘You don’t have to let me know straight away,’ she says defensively. Hurt.

  ‘No, I think I’ll come.’

  Even as I utter the statement, I can hear a small alarm pinging in my head, as though I haven’t fastened the seat belt or I’ve left my keys in the ignition. It’s not much of a plan. There are bound to be repercussions. Tears.

  Julianne’s lips stretch into a wide smile, showing off her teeth, wrinkling her eyes. We continue to eat, but the conversation isn’t as easy as before, the questions or the answers.

  Charlie calls and arranges to meet us. She’s not far away. Outside the pub, Julianne fishes for her car keys in her soft leather shoulder bag.

  ‘You do understand that this is just for the summer?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I don’t want you getting your hopes up.’

  ‘My hopes are exactly where you want them to be.’

  Julianne turns her back to me as though she’s retrieving something secret from her bag, but she’s carrying nothing when she turns. ‘So when would you like to come?’

  ‘How about at the weekend?’

  ‘Excellent,’ she answers. ‘I guess I don’t have to give you directions.’

  ‘No.’

  She pauses. ‘Do you feel all right, Joe?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘There are lots of things we haven’t talked about.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Maybe we will.’

  She leans closer to kiss me. I am tempted to go for the lips, but she turns her cheek and I make do with the warm, soap-scented smell of her and the weight of her head when it rests for a moment on my shoulder.

  Take heart, I tell myself, as she slips on her sunglasses.

  My phone is vibrating. I fish it out of my pocket and glance at the screen. Veronica Cray is calling me. I put the phone away.

  ‘You should get that,’ says Julianne.

  ‘It can wait.’

  My phone vibrates again. Same caller ID. It won’t be good news. It never is when it comes from a detective chief superintendent in charge of a serious crime squad. She won’t be calling to say I’ve inherited a fortune or picked a six-horse accumulator or won the Nobel Peace Prize.

  Julianne is watching me. Waiting. I smile at her apologetically and hold up a finger, mouthing the words ‘one minute’.

  ‘Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘Professor.’

  ‘Can I call you back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s just that I’m—’

  ‘Busy, yeah, I know, so am I. I’m busier than a one-legged Riverdancer and you won’t call me back because you don’t want to talk to me. You never do because you think I want something. But just stop for a moment and consider that this could be a social call. I might be calling as a friend. I might want to chew the fat.’

  ‘Are you calling as a friend?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So you want to chew the fat?’

  ‘Absolutely, but since we’ve run out of things to talk about, I want you to look at something for me.’

  ‘I’ve retired from profiling.’

  ‘I’m not asking for a profile. I want your opinion.’

  ‘On a crime?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A murder.’

  ‘Two of them.’

  I wait, picturing the detective, who is built like a barrel with spiky, short-cropped hair and a penchant for wearing men’s shoes. She spells her surname with a ‘C’ not a ‘K’ because she doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s related to a pair of psychotic brothers, twins who terrorised London’s East End in the sixties.

 
I’ve known Ronnie Cray for almost seven years, ever since she watched me vomit by a roadside after a naked woman jumped to her death from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. I was supposed to talk the woman down. I failed. The events that followed cost me my marriage. Ronnie Cray was in charge of that investigation. I think she blames herself for not protecting my family, but it was nobody’s fault except mine. Since then the DCS has stayed in touch, sometimes asking for my advice on a particular case or dropping details like breadcrumbs, hoping that I might follow the trail. Now she’s a friend, although I’m never quite sure when to call someone a friend. I have so few of them.

  ‘Find another psychologist,’ I tell her.

  ‘I did. He calls himself “the Mindhunter”. Advertises his services. You must have heard of him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s odd. He says you taught him everything he knows.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Even used your name as a reference.’

  I pause. Julianne and Charlie are waiting to say goodbye.

  ‘Where do you want to meet?’

  ‘I’ll give you the address.’

  2

  The West Country roads are choked with caravans and tourist coaches that look like jammed logs on a flooded river. Already I wish I hadn’t let Cray talk me into this. She piqued my professional interest. No, she dangled the bait and sank the hook, reeling me in like a fat trout.

  Someone has been using my name to open doors and gain the trust of the police. He could be a charlatan or a glory-hound or an ambulance chaser. I hate psychologists who strut around crime scenes and pontificate on TV shows, profiting from other people’s misery. Either that or they write books about particular murders, explaining how and why – which is easy in hindsight. I can’t understand how someone could gain pleasure from such work. This is not some sort of intellectual puzzle or parlour game. Someone is dead, defiled or missing. They had a family and friends and were part of a community.

  My left arm is jerking on my lap. I grip the steering wheel and fight the temptation to turn the car around. I could be in London in a few hours. I could pack a suitcase and arrive at the cottage early. Show my enthusiasm.