Close Your Eyes

by Robotham, Michael

  The rear door is open. It leads to the lane, where Blake Lehmann is locked in a passionate kiss with a girl, who is pressed hard up against a brick wall, her tight black skirt bunched on her thighs and her white blouse unbuttoned where his hand disappears. She breaks the kiss long enough to tell him not to get her blouse dirty. They lock lips again. She pushes at his hand. ‘I got to go. I’ll be late.’

  She catches sight of me and her eyes go wide. She fights a little harder. ‘Someone’s watching.’

  ‘Let ’em,’ says Blake.

  ‘No, no, not now.’

  She pushes him away and tugs down her skirt, before adjusting the pair of glasses on the bridge of her nose, which look more like a fashion statement than vision-related. I recognise her now: Sophie Baxter, Harper’s best friend.

  Blake is dressed in skinny jeans, motorbike boots and an oil-stained T-shirt. He probably thinks he looks like James Dean or Dennis Hopper, a rebel without a cause. On second thoughts I doubt if he’s heard of either of them.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asks, his face full of angles and sharp edges.

  ‘Let’s talk about Harper Crowe.’

  ‘Are you the police?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then fuck off.’

  Sophie lets out an embarrassed squeak as though she’s stepped on a bath toy. ‘Maybe I should go.’

  ‘I also have questions for you,’ I say.

  ‘I’m late for my shift.’

  I notice the badge on her blouse for the Moon and Sixpence pub. It’s where Harper used to work.

  ‘I’ll catch up with you later,’ I say.

  ‘I’m pretty busy.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  She leaves in a hurry, her heels wobbling on the cobblestones.

  Ruiz focuses on Blake Lehmann. ‘It’s nice to see that you’ve moved on. How long did you wait?’

  The question causes barely a ripple on Blake’s pond. Turning on a tap, he begins filling a tin tub, adding a squirt of washing-up detergent that foams in the spray. Dunking bike parts into the soapy water, he begins cleaning them with a wire brush.

  ‘What did you and Harper fight about on the night she died?’ I ask.

  ‘She thought I’d forgotten her birthday.’

  ‘Had you?’

  ‘No,’ he says defensively. ‘It wasn’t until the next day. What is it with women – their birthdays are like festivals.’

  ‘Fact of life,’ says Ruiz. ‘You don’t question it.’

  Blake relaxes a little. Water sloshes from one side of the tub to the other, splashing his jeans. I ask him about that Saturday.

  ‘I was dirt-biking all day. Didn’t get home until late. Mechanical problems.’

  ‘You ride motocross?’

  ‘Nothing professional, but I got plans.’

  He holds up a dripping chrome sprocket and dunks it in the water again. ‘I turned up late – still muddy. Harper was all dolled up. She said I was taking her for granted. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go home first?’

  ‘I did. I picked up her phone.’

  ‘Why didn’t you have a shower?’

  ‘Like I said – I was running late.’ He takes a seat on a drum, rolling himself a cigarette with quiet concentration. He has small neat hands that move surely, spreading the tobacco evenly along the paper and pressing it into a cradle and then a tube. He licks it closed.

  ‘How long had you and Harper been seeing each other?’ I ask.

  ‘We hooked up on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘Weren’t you a bit old for her?’ asks Ruiz.

  ‘Six years.’

  ‘Prefer ’em young?’

  His top lip curls. ‘Yeah, I’m a cradle-snatcher.’

  ‘Was it serious?’ I ask.

  He gives me another shrug from his repertoire and examines the cigarette from every angle.

  ‘Did you meet her mother?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘How did you get on with her?’

  He flicks at a cheap disposable lighter. Many clicks. Flame. Cupping his hands, he belches smoke and picks a strand of tobacco from the tip of his tongue. ‘You don’t want the mothers to like you.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘If the mother likes you, the daughter won’t … in my experience.’

  ‘He’s right,’ says Ruiz, not being helpful.

  ‘Mrs Crowe didn’t think I was good enough for Harper,’ says Blake. ‘She wanted her princess to be stepping out with a budding lawyer, or a doctor. I was beneath her. You know what she said to Harper when she first started seeing me?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘She said, “Fuck him, sweetheart, but don’t think of marrying him.” She was a snob. Thought she was better than the rest of us, the way she talked, putting on a posh accent.’

  Blake forms his lips into a puckered ‘O’ and blows three perfect smoke rings, watching them with satisfaction. ‘She was two-faced, you know. She didn’t want anyone touching Harper, but she didn’t mind putting it out herself.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Mrs Crowe could be a right cougar, coming on to me like, you know. I mean, she treated me like shit most of the time, but then she’d brush up against me, flirting her arse off.’

  ‘Elizabeth Crowe?’

  ‘Yeah. This one day I came to the house and she answered the door. She said Harper was upstairs but she didn’t step out of the way. When I tried to get past her, I swear she leaned into me and got this look on her face like she was the queen of MILFdom.’

  ‘Maybe it was accidental,’ says Ruiz.

  Blake grunts dismissively, ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police any of this?’ I ask.

  ‘Didn’t seem right – bad-mouthing Mrs Crowe.’

  ‘Tell us about the fight with Harper.’

  ‘It weren’t no fight. We had a disagreement. That’s all. I turned up late. I was dirty. She was proper vexed.’

  ‘She hit you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A witness says you had a scratch on your face.’

  ‘That was from earlier – when I was on the bike.’

  ‘According to the phone records, you tried to call Harper later that night.’

  ‘I wanted to apologise.’

  ‘Is that why you went to the farmhouse?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Police found fresh motorcycle tracks on the drive.’

  ‘They checked my bike.’

  I glance through the open door into the workshop. A handful of motorbikes are propped on stands. Others were parked out front. The office had a rack of keys. ‘Did they check all of these?’ I ask.

  He blinks at me.

  ‘I think you borrowed a bike and rode out to the farmhouse.’

  Blake discards the cigarette and stands, unfolding in a casual way, as though every limb knows where it should be. Once upright, he puts one foot at a slight angle behind the other. It is a classic position for a martial arts fighter. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’

  ‘Oh, no, son,’ says Ruiz, stepping forward. ‘I’m the one calling you a liar.’

  They eyeball each other for a few seconds and the moment passes. Blake sits again.

  ‘I didn’t do anything wrong … you’re saying I did something—’

  ‘You lied to the police about being at the farmhouse.’

  ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘That’s good to know,’ says Ruiz. ‘But you might want to come up with something a little stronger before you next talk to the police. Flesh out an excuse. Make it sound a little more plausible and a lot less whiney. You know what plausible means? Truthful.’

  ‘It is the truth.’

  ‘That’ll be a novelty for them.’

  One corner of his mouth curls upward, making him look surly rather than tough. ‘I tried to call Harper – to say I was sorry – but she wouldn’t answer. My bike had engine problems – water in the carburettor – so I
borrowed a bike and we rode out there.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘No, I meant me!’

  ‘What time was that?’ I ask.

  ‘Eleven-thirty maybe.’

  ‘What happened at the farmhouse?’

  ‘Mrs Crowe wouldn’t answer the door. I knew she was in there.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The lights were on downstairs and I could hear her breathing behind the door.’

  ‘Did you see any candles?’

  ‘Candles? No.’

  ‘You broke Harper’s window.’

  ‘I was trying to wake her by tossing gravel, but she wouldn’t come to the window.’

  ‘Was her light on?’

  ‘No. I figured she was still angry. I had Harper’s birthday present. I left it on the front step.’

  ‘What did you buy her?’

  ‘This limestone oil burner, I think it was Balinese. You put different oils in a little bowl and heat them with a candle. Makes the place smell nice. Harper liked that sort of stuff.’

  ‘The police didn’t find any present on the doorstep.’

  ‘I wrote a note with it, saying I was sorry.’ He looks aggrieved. ‘Some bastard must have stolen it.’

  20

  ‘The kid lied,’ says Ruiz, smearing a layer of English mustard on a pork pie – enough to blow the head off any normal person. He bites into the pastry, holding a cupped hand underneath to catch the crumbs. His eyes don’t even water.

  We’re sitting beneath an umbrella outside the Salthouse pub, where the tables are full of families, who are watching their pink-nosed children play on the grassy bank.

  ‘When are you going to tell the Fat Controller?’ asks Ruiz.

  I don’t answer straight away. He takes another bite of his pie.

  ‘He didn’t see any candles burning,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Blake Lehmann said there was a light on downstairs but no candles.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Nobody answered the door.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Lehmann was convinced he heard somebody inside. Forensics found blood pooled in the hallway near the front door. The killer must have been standing there.’

  Ruiz puts down his half-eaten pie. ‘You think Elizabeth and Harper were already dead.’

  ‘The killer could have been interrupted as he was cleaning up.’

  ‘Only if you believe Lehmann’s story,’ says Ruiz.

  ‘You’re right – it’s not a good look. Did you notice how he said “we” when he mentioned riding out to the farmhouse?’

  ‘Slip of the tongue.’

  ‘Or he’s covering for someone.’

  ‘Could be Sophie Baxter.’ Ruiz pushes the pie away as though no longer hungry. ‘Cases like this give me the shits.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Most murders are mundane. Tragic. Boring. Predictable. Drug addicts fight over a fix, Criminals fall out over money. Drunks argue in a bar. A wife hits her husband over the head with a frying pan. Crimes like that are usually solved within a matter of hours because the killing is unplanned. But this one – this is a rare bird. Multiple suspects, all of them with the motive and the opportunity – the ex-husband, the ex-lover, the boyfriend, the stepson, the random men she dated … it could be any of them. Then there’s something else that bugs me. Elizabeth Crowe could have had just about anyone, but she signed up to an online dating agency and was shagging strangers in parked cars.’

  ‘Sex in public is a pretty common fantasy.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, I accept that, and there was a time when I would have had sex in the middle of Wembley Stadium at half time if I could have found a willing partner, but that was before I discovered hotel porn and feather beds.’

  I try to explain the psychology of voyeurism and exhibitionism, describing how our two core instincts are survival and reproduction. We can be aroused by danger and aroused by sex and sometimes the brain doesn’t know the difference or confuses the two, and we get excited by acts of rebellion, or exhibitionism, or the fear of being caught.

  ‘What’s the strangest place you’ve ever had sex?’ he asks.

  ‘A beach in Turkey, how about you?’

  ‘A VW Beetle on the vehicle deck of a ferry to Calais.’

  ‘Tight fit.’

  ‘That’s what she said.’ He grins and picks up the pie, hungry again. ‘What about this dogging scene? Aside from STDs, aren’t people worried they’ll finish up with someone ugly.’

  ‘Orgies reduce people to their genitals and erogenous zones. Bodies are mere props.’

  I can see Ruiz struggling with the idea. Having grown up in an age when girls played hard to get and boys worked hard to woo them, he’s quite old-fashioned in his views on sex and marriage.

  ‘So you’re back with Julianne,’ he says, changing the subject.

  ‘We’re under the same roof.’

  ‘Sharing a bed?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘Same room?’

  ‘Same floor.’

  ‘You’re on the floor?’

  ‘We’re on the first floor. Separate rooms. We’re going on a date Thursday night.’

  ‘Aren’t you a bit old for dates?’

  ‘What would you call it?’

  ‘Foreplay.’

  ‘Very funny.’

  Ruiz chuckles and his eyes fold closed and I feel genuine relief for his friendship and humour. After a while I notice that his eyes are open again, watching me.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There must be a reason that she’s asked you to come back.’

  ‘Everything is fine,’ I say, aware of how hollow the statement sounds. I collect his plate and empty pint glass and stack them for the waitress. Then I check my phone for messages, aware that the silence is weighing more heavily on me than on Ruiz. Minutes pass. I frame a question in my head. I reword it silently, trying to make it sound casual and conversational. It still comes out badly.

  ‘When your first wife had cancer did they do any surgery?’

  ‘A double mastectomy and chemo,’ Ruiz replies.

  ‘How long afterwards – I mean, how long did she live?’

  ‘Five years from the diagnosis – the twins were twelve.’

  The silence stretches out. Ruiz is studying me, but I know he won’t ask the obvious question.

  ‘Julianne has ovarian cancer,’ I say, relieved to get it out.

  ‘What stage?’

  ‘They’re still doing the tests.’

  ‘How is she holding up?’

  ‘OK, I guess. She’s scared.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I spent the weekend researching online and talking to cancer victims from all over the place. Helsinki. Chicago. Sydney. I discovered a whole community of people who were happy to talk about their surgery, the aftermath, the percentages, the life expectancy.’

  ‘Did it help?

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know. The doctors are talking about Julianne having a hysterectomy.’

  ‘Good! They should cut it all out. Laura waited too long. She tried all these herbal cures and alternative medicines and macrobiotic diets. They should have just cut it out. Maybe things would have been…’ He doesn’t finish the statement. ‘Do the girls know?’

  ‘Some of it.’

  ‘Want my advice?’

  I nod.

  ‘Tell them everything. Don’t keep them in the dark. That’s the mistake I made with the twins. Help them understand.’

  ‘I don’t want to frighten them.’

  ‘At least tell Charlie. It helps to have someone to share it with.’

  ‘I’m sharing it with you.’

  ‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘Any time.’

  We sit opposite each other, saying nothing because words aren’t necessary. Meanwhile I imagine the cancer cells multiplying inside Julianne. She must fight them. She must prevail. I canno
t bear the thought of my life without her. The one small mercy of having Parkinson’s was the knowledge that I was likely to go first. I still hope that’s the case, because Julianne is a better person than I am. More deserving.

  Today it is too hot to walk. I take my father to the beach and he paddles back and forth in the shallows with his trousers rolled up to his knees and his shirt unbuttoned and flapping around his pigeon chest. He stares at a little boy who is playing with a plastic truck. The boy’s mother smiles at me and I try to remember if my mother ever took me to the beach.

  What do I recall about her? Her hoarse voice and husky laugh, her softness, her hugs, her dressing table with its gull-winged mirror, littered with cosmetics and hairbrushes, pins and bands and clips and ribbons. Her favourite winter coat made her look like a Russian Cossack. Her favourite film was To Catch a Thief. She loved Elvis Presley, Frankie Valli, Bobby Darin and Tom Jones. She knew how to jitterbug and do the samba, or maybe it was the rumba. I’m not good with dances.

  I have only one photograph of her. I hid it from my father. It shows her at eighteen – the age she married – already pregnant with Patrick, but not showing. She’s dancing with a group of friends at a Beatles concert in Liverpool, laughing at the camera. Young. Carefree. She has no idea of what’s coming. Death saved her from growing old.

  In the months that followed the accident I would ride my pushbike to the crematorium to visit her grave. I didn’t imagine her as a pile of ashes in a marble urn. Instead I pictured her in the dress she wore in the photograph – the one with the floral sleeves and the black drop skirt that she bought when Aunt Kate got married.

  People used to smile at me sadly when they saw me at the cemetery. Some of them were regulars, like the bald man in wellingtons, who had a family plot and spent hours pulling weeds and deadheading flowers. His mother and father and sister were already in residence, which left just enough room for him, he said, ‘when the time comes’.

  ‘How do you know when the time comes?’ I asked him.

  ‘You don’t. It just does.’

  A young married couple would visit their daughter’s grave. She died at age three. I don’t know what happened to her. I was too nervous to ask. Another regular visitor was an ancient woman who arrived in a big shiny black car with a driver who opened the door for her and carried her flowers. He would set up a chair and she would sit while he arranged the vase. She talked all the time, as though delivering a lecture to someone who should have listened the first time around.