Michael Robotham

by Suspect

"How is Arky?"

  "She reads too many magazines."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "She wants the modern fairy tale. You know all that bullshit they write in women's magazines?telling them how to have multiple or�gasms, hold down a career and be a perfect mother. It's all crap. Real women don't look like fashion models. Real men can't be cut out of magazines. I don't know what I'm supposed to be?a new age man or a man's man. You tell me! Am I supposed to get drunk with the boys or cry at sad movies? Do I talk about sports cars or this season's colors? Women think they want a man but instead they want a re�flection of themselves."

  "How does that make you feel?"

  "Frustrated."

  "Who with?"

  "Take your pick." His shoulders hunch and his coat collar brushes his ears. His hands are in his lap now, folding and unfolding a piece of paper, which has worn through along the creases.

  "What have you written?"

  "A number."

  "What number?"

  "Twenty-one."

  "Can I see it?"

  He blinks rapidly and slowly unfolds the page, pressing it flat against his thigh and running his fingers over the surface. The number "21" has been written hundreds of times, in tiny block figures, fanning out from the center to form the blades of a windmill.

  "Do you know that a dry square piece of paper cannot be folded in half more than seven times," he says, trying to change the subject.

  "No."

  "It's true."

  "What else are you carrying in your pockets?"

  "My lists."

  "What sort of lists?"

  "Things to do. Things I'd like to change. People I like."

  "And people you don't like?"

  "That too."

  Some people don't match their voices and Bobby is one of them. Although a big man, he seems smaller because his voice isn't partic�ularly deep and his shoulders shrink when he leans forward.

  "Are you in some sort of trouble, Bobby?"

  He flinches so abruptly that the legs of his chair leave the floor. His head is shaking firmly back and forth.

  "Did you get angry with someone?"

  Looking hopelessly sad, he bunches his fists.

  "What made you angry?"

  Whispering something, he shakes his head.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that."

  He mouths the words again.

  "You'll have to speak up a little."

  Without a flicker of warning he explodes. "STOP FUCKING WITH MY HEAD!"

  The noise echoes in the confined space. Doors open along the corridor and the light flashes on my intercom. I press the button. "It's OK, Meena. Everything's fine."

  A tiny vein throbs at the side of Bobby's temple, just above his right eye. He whispers in a little-boy voice, "I had to punish her."

  "Who did you have to punish?"

  He gives the ring on his right index finger a half turn and then turns it back again as if he's tuning the dial on a radio, searching for the right frequency.

  "We're all connected?six degrees of separation, sometimes less. If something happens in Liverpool or London or Australia it's all connected..."

  I won't let him change the subject. "If you're in trouble, Bobby, I can help. You have to let me know what happened."

  "Whose bed is she in now?" he whispers.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "The only time she'll sleep alone is in the ground."

  "Did you punish Arky?"

  More aware of me now, he laughs at me. "Did you ever see /The Truman Show/?"

  "Yes."

  "Well sometimes I think I'm Truman. I think the whole world is watching me. My life has been created to someone else's expecta�tions. Everything is a facade. The walls are plywood and the furniture is papier-mache. And then I think that if I could just run fast enough, I'd get around the next corner and find the back lot of the film set. But I can never run fast enough. By the time I arrive, they've built another street ... and another."

  **6**

  Muhammad Ali has a lot to answer for. When he lit the flame at the Atlanta Olympics there wasn't a dry eye on the planet. Why were we crying? Because a great sportsman had been reduced to this?a shuffling, mumbling, twitching cripple. A man who once danced like a butterfly now shook like a blancmange.

  We always remember the sportsmen. When the body deserts a scientist like Stephen Hawking we figure that he'll be able to live in his mind, but a crippled athlete is like a bird with a broken wing. When you soar to the heights the landing is harder.

  It's Wednesday and I'm sitting in Jock's office. His real name is Dr. Emlyn Robert Owen?a Scotsman with a Welsh name?but I've only ever known him by his nickname.

  A solid, almost square man, with powerful shoulders and a bull neck, he looks more like a former boxer than a brain surgeon. His of�fice has Salvador Dali prints on the walls, along with an autographed photograph of John McEnroe holding the Wimbledon trophy. McEnroe has signed it, "You cannot be serious!"

  Jock motions for me to sit on the examination table and then rolls up his sleeves. His forearms are tanned and thick. That's how he manages to hit a tennis ball like an Exocet missile. Playing tennis with Jock is eighty percent pain. Everything comes rocketing back aimed directly at your body. Even with a completely open court he still tries to drill the ball straight through you.

  My regular Friday matches with Jock have nothing to do with a love of tennis?they're about the past. They're about a tall, slender college girl who chose me instead of him. That was nearly twenty years ago and now she's my wife. It still pisses him off.

  "How is Julianne?" he asks, shining a pencil torch into my eyes.

  "Good."

  "What did she think about the business on the ledge?"

  "She's still talking to me."

  "Did you tell anyone about your condition?"

  "No. You told me I should carry on normally."

  "Yes. /Normally!/" He opens a folder and scribbles a note. "Any tremors?"

  "Not really. Sometimes when I try to get out of a chair or out of bed, my mind says get up but nothing happens."

  He makes another note. "That's called starting hesitancy. I get it all the time?particularly if the rugby's on TV."

  He makes a point of walking from side to side, watching my eyes follow him. "How are you sleeping?"

  "Not so well."

  "You should get one of those relaxation tapes. You know the sort of thing. Some guy talks in a really boring voice and puts you to sleep."

  "That's why I keep coming here."

  Jock hits me extra hard on my knee with his rubber hammer, making me flinch.

  "That must have been your funny bone," he says sarcastically. He steps back. "Right, you know the routine."

  I close my eyes and bring my hands together?index finger to in�dex finger, middle finger to middle finger, and so on. I almost man�age to pull it off, but my ring fingers slide past each other. I try again and this time my middle fingers don't meet in the middle.

  Jock plants his elbow on the desk and invites me to arm wrestle.

  "I'm /amazed/ at how high-tech you guys are," I say, squaring up to him. His fist crushes my fingers. "I'm sure you only do this for per�sonal satisfaction. It probably has nothing to do with examining me."

  "How did you guess," says Jock, as I push against his arm. I can feel my face going red. He's toying with me. Just once I'd like to pin the bastard.

  Conceding defeat, I slump back and flex my fingers. There's no sign of triumph on Jock's face. Without having to be told I stand and start walking around the room, trying to swing my arms as though marching. My left arm seems to hang there.

  Jock takes the cellophane wrapper from a cigar and snips off the end. He rolls his tongue around the tip and licks his lips before light�ing up. Then he closes his eyes and lets the smoke leak through his smile.

  "God, I look forward to my first one of the day," he says, rolling the cigar between his forefinger and thumb. He watc
hes the smoke curl toward the ceiling, letting it fill the silence as it fills the empty space.

  "So what's the story?" I ask, getting agitated.

  "You have Parkinson's disease."

  "I already know that."

  "So what else do you want me to say?"

  "Tell me something I don't know."

  He chomps the cigar between his teeth. "You've done the read�ing. I'll bet you can tell me the entire history of Parkinson's?every theory, research program and celebrity sufferer. Come on, you tell me. What drugs should I be prescribing? What diet?"

  I hate the fact that he's right. In the past month I have spent hours searching the Internet and reading medical journals. I know all about Dr. James Parkinson, the English physician who in 1817 de�scribed a condition he called "shaking palsy." I also know it's more common in people over sixty but one in seven patients show symptoms before they turn forty. Lucky me!

  Jock ashes his cigar and leans forward. He looks more like a CEO every time I see him.

  "How's Bobby Moran doing?"

  "Not so good. He seems to have relapsed, but he's not talking to me. I can't find out what's happened."

  Jock thinks I should have stuck to "real medicine" when I had the chance instead of having a social conscience more expensive than my mortgage. Ironically, he used to be just like me at university. When I remind him of the fact he claims to have been a summer-of-love so�cialist because all the best-looking girls were left wing.

  Nobody ever dies of Parkinson's disease. You die with it. That's one of Jock's trite aphorisms. I can just see it on a bumper sticker because it's only half as ridiculous as "Guns don't kill people, people do."

  I spend a week convincing myself that I don't have this disease and then Jock clouts me around the head and tells me to wake up and smell the flowers.

  My reaction normally comes under the heading "Why me?," but after meeting Malcolm on the roof of the Marsden I feel rather chas�tened. His disease is bigger than mine.

  I began to realize something was wrong about fifteen months ago. The main thing was the tiredness. Some days it was like walking through mud. I still played tennis twice a week and coached Char�lie's soccer team. But then I started to find that the ball didn't go where I'd intended it to anymore and if I took off suddenly, I tripped over my own feet. Charlie thought I was clowning around. Julianne thought I was getting lazy. I blamed turning forty.

  In hindsight I can see that the signs were there. My handwriting had become even more cramped and buttonholes had become ob�stacles. Sometimes I had difficulty getting out of a chair and when I walked down stairs I held on to the handrails.

  Then came our annual pilgrimage to Wales for my father's sev�entieth birthday. I took Charlie walking on Great Ormes Head, over�looking Penrhyn Bay. At first we could see Puffin Island in the distance, until an Atlantic storm rolled in, swallowing it like a gigan�tic white whale. Bent against the wind, we watched the waves crashing over rocks and felt the sting of the spray. Charlie said to me, "Dad, why aren't you swinging your left arm?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Your arm. It's just sort of hanging there."

  Sure enough, it was flopping uselessly by my side.

  By the next morning my arm seemed to be OK. I didn't say any�thing to Julianne and certainly not my parents. My father?a man awaiting the summons to be God's personal physician?would have castigated me for being a hypochondriac and made fun of me in front of Charlie. He has never forgiven me for giving up medicine to study behavioral science and psychology.

  Privately, my imagination was running wild. I had visions of brain tumors and blood clots. What if I'd had a minor stroke? Was a major one coming? I almost convinced myself that I had pains in my chest.

  It was another year before I went to see Jock. By then he too had noticed something was wrong and was watching me more closely.

  There are no diagnostic tests for Parkinson's. An experienced neurologist relies on observation, looking for the tremors, stiffness, impaired balance and slowness of movement. The disease is chronic and progressive. It is not contagious, nor is it usually inherited. There are lots of theories. Some scientists blame free radicals reacting with neighboring molecules and causing damage to tissue. Others blame pesticides or some other pollutant in the food chain. Genetic factors haven't been entirely ruled out either.

  The truth is, it could be a combination of all?or none?of these things.

  Perhaps I should be grateful. In my experience of doctors (and I grew up with one) the only time they give you a clear, unequivocal diagnosis is if you're standing in the surgery with, say, a glue gun stuck to your head.

  **7**

  On the walk home across Regent's Park, I cross Primrose Hill Bridge and peer over the side at the canal. A lone narrow boat is moored against the towpath and mist curls from the water like wisps of smoke.

  Catherine's body was found beside the Grand Union Canal about three miles from here. I watched the TV news last night and listened to the radio this morning. There was no mention of her mur�der. I know it's just morbid curiosity, yet a part of me feels as though I'm a part of it now.

  A soft rain slips down and clings to my jacket as I start walking again. The Post Office Tower is etched against the darkening sky. It is one of those landmarks that allows people to navigate a city. Streets will disappear into dead ends or twist and turn without rea�son, but the tower rises above the eccentricities of urban planning.

  I like this view of London. It still looks quite majestic. It's only when you get close up that you see the decay. But then again, I guess you could say the same about me.

  In real estate terms we live in purgatory. I say this because we haven't quite reached the leafy nirvana of Primrose Hill; yet we've climbed out of the graffiti-stained, metal-shuttered shit hole that is the southern end of Camden Town.

  The mortgage is huge and the plumbing is dodgy, but Julianne fell in love with the place. I have to admit that I did too. In the sum�mer, if the breeze is blowing in the right direction and the windows are open, we can hear the sound of lions and hyenas at London Zoo. It's like being on safari without the minivans.

  Julianne teaches Spanish to an adult education class on Wednes�day evenings. Charlie is sleeping over at her best friend's house. I have the place to myself, which is normally OK. I reheat some soup in the microwave and tear a French loaf in half. Charlie has written a poem on the white board, next to the ingredients for banana bread. I feel a tiny flicker of loneliness. I want them both here. I miss the noise, the banter.

  Wandering upstairs, I move from room to room checking on the "work in progress." Paint pots are lined up on the windowsill and the floors are covered in old sheets that look like Jackson Pollock can�vases. One of the bedrooms has become a storeroom for boxes, rugs and bits of cat-scratched furniture. Charlie's old pram and high chair are in the corner, awaiting further instructions. And her baby clothes are sealed in plastic tubs with neat labels.

  For six years we've been trying for another baby. So far the score stands at two miscarriages and innumerable tears. I don't want to go on?not now?but Julianne is still popping vitamin pills, studying urine samples and taking temperature readings. Our lovemaking is like a scientific experiment with everything aimed at the optimum moment of ovulation.

  When I point this out to her she promises to jump my bones reg�ularly and spontaneously as soon as we have another baby.

  "You won't regret a single moment when it happens."

  "I know."

  "We owe it to Charlie."

  "Yes."

  I want to give her all the "what ifs," but can't bring myself to do it. What if this disease accelerates? What if there is a genetic link? What if I can't hold my own child? I'm not being mawkish and self-obsessed. I'm being practical.

  A cup of tea and a couple of biscuits aren't going to fix this prob�lem. This disease is like a distant train, hurtling through the darkness toward us. It might seem like a long way
off, but it's coming.

  Julianne has left the day's mail on my desk in the study. Anything addressed to us both has already been opened. She's paid the bills and replied to the Christmas cards. Anything inviting us to get into greater debt is filed in the wastebasket.

  At the bottom of the pile is a small square envelope made from recycled paper. The edges are discolored and worn. Slicing open the top I find a single page with a floral design on the border. I don't rec�ognize the handwriting. Within a few lines, I realize that the letter is for someone else. I check the envelope again. My name. My address. It's a love letter, of sorts, written by someone called Florence to someone with my initials.

  /DearJ.O., /

  /I know you said not to write but I'm afraid of seeing you or speaking to you. I'm afraid you might reject me again and I couldn't bear it. /

  /I realize we can't be together, but it's important for me to say how I feel. I wish I could do it in person, lying in your arms. At an�other time, in another place, things might have been different; we could have shared so much. I haven't given up hope. /

  /Sorry if I've caused you grief. I never meant to hurt you. I love you and always will. I promise. You are unforgettable. /

  /Yours forever, Florence/

  The postmark is partially smudged. Pulling a magnifying glass from the drawer, I hold the envelope under the lamp. It was posted in Liverpool, but I can't read the date. My name is on the envelope, but the contents mean nothing to me.

  My first posting after finishing my training was with the Merseyside Health Authority. That was fourteen years ago and I still regard Liverpool as a place that I escaped from. I found nothing charming about the snub-nosed ferries, mill chimneys and Victorian statues. Instead I saw a modern-day plague city full of sad-eyed children, long-term unemployed and mad poor people. They crowded my waiting room every day and if it hadn't been for Julianne I might have drowned in their misery.

  At the same time I'm grateful because Liverpool taught me where I belong. For the first time London felt like home. And ever since then, as much as I moan about congestion charges, crowded Tube trains and the ubiquitous queues, I have never once felt any de�sire to leave the capital.

  So who is Florence and why is she writing to me? The idea that I might have a secret admirer is a little perturbing, especially now. She writes of being "rejected again." Catherine McBride came from Liverpool. The idea is absurd, of course, and I'm about to move on when I turn the page over and notice a telephone number.