Michael Robotham

by Suspect

  "It cramped her style if Dad took her out. Men won't flirt with a woman when her husband is standing at the same bar. By herself she had them all over her, putting arms around her waist, squeezing her ass. She stayed out all night and came home in the morning, with her knickers in her handbag and her shoes swinging from her fingertips. There was never any pretense of fidelity or loyalty. She didn't want to be the perfect wife. She wanted to /be/ someone else."

  "What about your dad?"

  I remember him taking a long while to answer. He seemed to find certain words unpalatable and be looking for others.

  "He grew smaller every day," he eventually had answered. "Dis�appearing little by little. Death by a thousand cuts. That's how I hope she dies."

  The sentence had hung in the air but the silence wasn't arbitrary. I remember feeling as though someone had reached up and put a fin�ger in front of the second hand on the clock.

  "Why did you use that term?"

  "Which one?"

  "Death by a thousand cuts."

  A crooked, almost involuntary smile had creased his face. "That's how I want her to die. Slowly. Painfully. By her own hand."

  "You want her to kill herself?"

  He hadn't answered.

  "Where is your mother now?"

  "She's dying of breast cancer. She won't have a mastectomy. She's always been proud of her breasts."

  "How do you feel about losing her?"

  "I dream about it."

  "What do you dream?"

  "That I'll be there."

  I can still picture his stare, his pale eyes like bottomless pools.

  Death by a thousand cuts. The ancient Chinese had a more lit�eral translation: One thousand knives and ten thousand pieces.

  Bobby's desire for revenge was so strong that he couldn't hold it back from me. The woman he dragged from the cab was roughly the same age and wore the same sort of clothes as his mother. She also showed a similar coldness toward her son. Is this enough to explain his actions?

  He wants his mother to die slowly and painfully, by her own hand. That's exactly how Catherine McBride died, which is why his choice of words sent a chill through me.

  I have to stop thinking about Catherine. It's Bobby who needs my help. I know I'm getting closer to understanding him, but I mustn't force pieces to fit the puzzle. The desire to understand vio�lence has built-in brutality. Don't think of the white bear.

  **12**

  The school is beautiful: solid, Georgian and covered with wisteria. The crushed-quartz driveway begins to curve as it passes through the gates and finishes at a set of wide stone steps. The parking area looks like a salesroom for Range Rovers and Mercedes. I park my Metro around the corner on the street.

  Charlie's school is having its annual fund-raising dinner and auc�tion. The assembly hall has been decked out with black-and-white balloons and the caterers have set up a marquee on the tennis courts.

  The invitation said "formal casual," but most of the mothers are wearing evening gowns because they don't get out very much. They are congregated around a minor TV celebrity who is sporting a sun-bed tan and perfect teeth. That's what happens when you send your child to an expensive private school. You rub shoulders with diplo�mats, game-show hosts and drug barons.

  I join the men congregated at the bar. Bottles of wine and beer are buried in tubs of ice and various spirits and mixers are set out on trays.

  This is our first night out in weeks but instead of feeling relaxed I'm on edge. I keep thinking about Ruiz. He doesn't believe my excuses and explanations. Julianne also thinks I'm hiding something. Why else would she ask Jock if I was having an affair? When is she going to say something?

  Ever since the diagnosis I have descended into dark moods and withdrawn from people. Maybe I'm feeling guilty. More likely it's re�gret. This is my way of disinfecting those around me. I am losing my body bit by bit. Slowly it is abandoning me. One part of me thinks this is OK. I'll be fine as long as I have my mind. I can live in the space between my ears. But another part is already longing for what I haven't yet lost.

  So here I am?not so much at a crossroads as at a cul-de-sac. I have a wife who fills me with pride and a daughter who makes me cry when I watch her sleeping. I am forty-two years old and I have just started to understand how to combine intuition with learning and do my job properly. Half my life lies ahead of me?the best half. Unfortunately, my mind is willing but my body isn't able?or soon won't be. It is de�serting me by increments. That is the only certainty that remains.

  The fund-raising auction takes too long. They always do. The master of ceremonies is a professional auctioneer with an actor's voice that cuts through the chatter and small talk. Each class has created two artworks?mostly brightly colored collages of individual drawings. Charlie's class made a circus and a beachscape with colored bathing huts, rainbow umbrellas and ice-cream stalls.

  "That would look great in the kitchen," says Julianne, putting her arm through mine.

  "How much is the plumbing going to cost us?"

  She ignores me. "Charlie drew the whale."

  Looking carefully I notice a gray lump on the horizon. Drawing isn't one of her strong suits, but I know she loves whales.

  Auctions bring out the best and worst in people. And the only bidder more committed than a couple with an only child is a besot�ted and cashed-up grandparent.

  I get to make one bid for the beach scene at �65. When the hammer comes down, to polite applause, it has made �700. The suc�cessful bid is by phone. You'd think this was bloody Sotheby's.

  We arrive home after midnight. The babysitter has forgotten to turn on the front porch light. In the darkness I trip over a stack of copper pipes and fall up the steps, bruising my knee.

  "D.J. asked if he could leave them there," apologizes Julianne. "Don't worry about your trousers. I'll soak them."

  "What about my knee?"

  "You'll live."

  We both check on Charlie. Soft animals surround her bed, facing outward like sentries guarding a fort. She sleeps on her side with her thumb hovering near her lips.

  As I brush my teeth, Julianne stands beside me at the vanity tak�ing off her makeup. She is watching me in the mirror.

  "Are you having an affair?"

  The question is delivered so casually, it catches me by surprise. I try to pretend I haven't heard her, but it's too late. I've stopped brushing. The pause has betrayed me.

  "Why?"

  She's wiping mascara from her eyes. "Lately I've had the feeling that you're not really here."

  "I've been preoccupied."

  "You still want to be here, don't you?"

  "Of course I do."

  She hasn't taken her eyes off me in the mirror. I look away, rins�ing my toothbrush in the sink.

  "We don't talk anymore," she says.

  I know what's coming. I don't want to go in this direction. This is where she gives me chapter and verse about my inability to com�municate. She thinks that because I'm a psychologist I should be able to talk through my feelings and analyze what's going on. Why? I spend all day inside other people's heads. When I get home the hardest thing I want to think about is helping Charlie with her mul�tiplication tables.

  Julianne is different. She's a talker. She shares everything and works things through. It's not that I'm scared of showing my feelings. I'm scared of not being able to stop.

  I try to head her off at the pass. "When you've been married as long as we have you don't need to talk as much," I say feebly. "We can read each other's minds."

  "Is that so. What am I thinking now?"

  I pretend I don't hear her. "We're comfortable with each other. It's called familiarity."

  "Which breeds contempt."

  "No!"

  She puts her arms around me, running her hands down my chest and locking them together at my waist.

  "What is the point of sharing your life with someone if you can't communicate with them about the things that m
atter?" Her head is resting against my back. "/That's/ what married couples do. It's per�fectly normal. I know you're hurting. I know you're scared. I know you're worried about what's going to happen when the disease gets worse ... about Charlie and me ... but you can't stand between us and the world, Joe. You can't protect us from something like this."

  My mouth is dry and I feel the beginnings of a hangover. This isn't an argument?it's a matter of perception. I know that if I don't answer, Julianne will fill the vacuum.

  "What are you so frightened of? You're not dying."

  "I know."

  "Of course it's unfair. You don't deserve this. But look at what you have?a lovely home, a career, a wife who loves you and a daughter who worships the ground you walk on. If that can't out�weigh any other problems then we're all in trouble."

  "I don't want anything to change." I hate how vulnerable I sound.

  "Nothing /has/ to change."

  "I see you watching me. Looking for the signs. A tremor here, a twitch there."

  "Does it hurt?" she asks suddenly.

  "What?"

  "When your leg locks up or your arm doesn't swing."

  "No."

  "I didn't know that." She puts her fist in my hand and curls my fingers around it. Then she makes me turn so her eyes can fix on mine. "Does it embarrass you?"

  "Sometimes."

  "Is there any special diet you should be on?"

  "No."

  "What about exercise?"

  "It can help according to Jock, but it won't stop the disease."

  "I didn't know," she whispers. "You should have told me." She leans even closer, pressing her lips to my ear. The droplets of water on her cheeks look like tears. I stroke her hair.

  Hands brush down my chest. A zipper undone; her fingers softly caressing; the taste of her tongue; her breath inside my lungs...

  Afterward, as we lie in bed, I watch her breasts tremble with her heartbeat. It is the first time we've made love in six years without checking the calendar first.

  The phone rings. The glowing red digits say 04:30.

  "Professor O'Loughlin?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Charing Cross Hospital. I'm sorry to wake you." The doc�tor sounds young. I can hear the tiredness in his voice. "Do you have a patient named Bobby Moran?"

  "Yes."

  "The police found him lying on the walkway across Hammer�smith Bridge. He's asking for you."

  Julianne rolls over and nestles her face into my pillow, pulling the bedclothes around her. "What's wrong?" she asks sleepily.

  "Problem with a patient." I pull a sweatshirt over my T-shirt and go looking for my jeans.

  "You're not going in are you?"

  "Just for a little while."

  **13**

  At that hour of the morning it takes me only fifteen minutes to reach Charing Cross. Peering through the main doors of the hospital, I see a black janitor pushing a mop and bucket around the floor in a strange waltz. A security guard sits at the reception desk. He motions me to the accident and emergency entrance.

  Inside the Perspex swinging doors, people are scattered around the waiting room, looking tired and pissed off. The triage nurse is busy. A young doctor appears in the corridor and begins arguing with a bearded man who has a bloody rag pressed to his forehead and a blanket around his shoulders.

  "And you'll be waiting all night if you don't sit down," says the doctor. He turns away and looks at me.

  "I'm Professor O'Loughlin."

  It takes a moment for my name to register. The cogs slip into place. The doctor has a birthmark down one side of his neck and keeps the collar of his white coat turned up.

  A few minutes later I follow this coat down empty corridors, past linen carts and parked stretchers.

  "Is he OK?"

  "Mainly cuts and bruises. He may have fallen from a car or a bike."

  "Has he been admitted?"

  "No, but he won't leave until he sees you. He keeps talking about washing blood from his hands. That's why I put him in the observa�tion room. I didn't want him upsetting the other patients."

  "Concussion?"

  "No. He's very agitated. The police thought he might be a suicide risk." The doctor turns to look over his shoulder. "Is your father a surgeon?"

  "Retired."

  "I once heard him speak. He's very impressive."

  "Yes. As a lecturer."

  The observation room has a small viewing window at head height. I see Bobby sitting on a chair, his back straight and both feet on the floor. He's wearing muddy jeans, a flannel shirt and an army greatcoat.

  He tugs at the sleeves of the coat, picking at a loose thread. His eyes are bloodshot and fixed. They are focused on the far wall, as if watching some invisible drama being played out on a stage that no one else can see.

  He doesn't turn as I enter. "Bobby. It's me, Professor O'Loughlin. Do you know where you are?"

  He nods.

  "Can you tell me what happened?"

  "I don't remember."

  "How are you feeling?"

  He shrugs, still not looking at me. The wall is more interesting. I can smell his sweat and the mustiness of his clothes. There is another odor?something familiar but I can't quite place it. A medical smell.

  "What were you doing on Hammersmith Bridge?"

  "I don't know." His voice is shaking. "I fell over."

  "What can you remember?"

  "Going to bed with Arky and then ... Sometimes I can't bear to be by myself. Do you ever feel like that? It happens all the time to me. I pace around the house after Arky. I follow her, talking about myself constantly. I tell her what I'm thinking..."

  At last his eyes focus on me. Haunted. Hollow. I have seen the look before. One of my other patients, a fireman, is condemned to keep hearing the screams of a five-year-old girl who died in a blaz�ing car. He rescued her mother and baby brother but couldn't go back into the flames.

  Bobby asks, "Do you ever hear the windmills?"

  "What sound do they make?"

  "It's a clanking metal noise, but when the wind is really strong the blades blur and the air starts screaming in pain." He shudders.

  "What are the windmills for?"

  "They keep everything running. If you put your ear to the ground you can hear them."

  "What do you mean by everything?"

  "The lights, the factories, the railways. Without the windmills it all stops."

  "Are these windmills God?"

  "You know nothing," he says dismissively.

  "Have you ever seen the windmills?"

  "No. Like I said, I hear them."

  "Where do you think they are?"

  "In the middle of the oceans; on huge platforms like oil rigs. They pull energy from the center of the Earth?from the core. We're us�ing too much energy. We're wasting it. That's why we have to turn off the lights and save power. Otherwise we'll upset the balance. Take too much out from the center and you have a vacuum. The world will implode."

  "Why are we taking too much energy?"

  "Turn off the lights, left right, left right. Do the right thing." He salutes. "I used to be right-handed but I taught myself to use my left ... The pressure is building. I can feel it."

  "Where?"

  He taps the side of his head. "I've tapped the core. The apple core. Iron ore. Did you know the Earth's atmosphere is proportion�ately thinner than the skin of an apple?"

  He is playing with rhymes?a characteristic of psychotic lan�guage. Simple puns and wordplay help connect random ideas.

  "Sometimes I have dreams about being trapped inside a wind�mill," he says. "It's full of spinning cogs, flashing blades and hammers striking anvils. That's the music they play in hell."

  "Is that one of your nightmares?"

  His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. "Some of us know what's happening."

  "And what is that?"

  He rears back, glaring at me. His eyes are alight. Then a peculiar half smile pas
ses over his face.

  "Do you know it took a manned spacecraft less time to reach the moon than it did for a stagecoach to travel the length of England?"

  "No. I didn't know that."

  He sighs triumphantly.

  "What were you doing on Hammersmith Bridge?"

  "I was lying down, listening to the windmills."

  "When you came into the hospital you kept saying that you wanted to wash the blood off your hands."

  He remembers, but says nothing.

  "How did you get blood on your hands?"

  "It's normal enough to hate. We just don't talk about it. It's nor�mal enough to want to hurt people who hurt us..."

  He's not making any sense.

  "Did you hurt someone?"

  "You take all those drops of hate and you put them in a bottle. Drop, drop, drop ... Hate doesn't evaporate like other liquids. It's like oil. Then one day the bottle is full."

  "What happens then?"

  "It has to be emptied."

  "Bobby, did you hurt someone?"

  "How else do you get rid of the hate?" He tugs at the cuffs of his flannel shirt, which are stained with something dark.

  "Is that blood, Bobby?"

  "No, it's oil. Haven't you been listening to me? It's all about the oil."

  He stands and takes two steps toward the door. "Can I go home now?"

  "I think you should stay here for a while," I say, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

  He eyes me suspiciously. "Why?"

  "Last night you suffered some sort of breakdown, or memory lapse. You might have been in an accident or had a fall. I think we should run some tests and keep you under observation."

  "In a hospital?"

  "Yes."

  "In a general ward?"

  "A psych ward."

  He doesn't miss a beat. "No fucking way! You're trying to lock me up."

  "You'll be a voluntary patient. You can leave anytime you want to."

  "This is a trick! You think I'm crazy!" He's yelling at me. He wants to storm out, but something is keeping him here. Maybe he has too much invested in me.

  I can't legally hold him. Even if I had the evidence I don't have the power to section or detain Bobby. Psychiatrists, medical doctors and the courts have such a prerogative, but not a humble psycholo�gist. Bobby's free to go.