by Suspect
"Or maybe you're lying to me."
"No."
"First you forget to tell me things and now you want to believe one of your former patients mailed a letter to you when she'd been dead for three weeks. Were you having an affair with Catherine McBride?"
"No."
"How did she get your address?"
"I don't know. She could have looked it up. I'm in the phone book."
He runs his fingers through his hair and I see a strip of whiter skin on his ring finger where his wedding band had once been.
"I asked the pathologist about chloroform. They didn't look the first time. When someone has been stabbed that many times you don't bother looking for much else." He turns to stare at the fire�place. "How did you know?"
"I can't tell you."
"That's not the answer I want to hear."
"It was a long shot ... a supposition."
"Suppose you tell me why?"
"I can't do that."
He's angry now. His features are chiseled instead of worn down.
"I'm an old-fashioned detective, Professor O'Loughlin. I went to a local comprehensive and straight into the force. I didn't go to uni�versity and I don't read many books. You take computers. I know bugger all about them but I appreciate how useful they can be. The same is true of psychologists."
His voice grows quiet. "Whenever I'm involved in an investiga�tion people are always telling me that I can't do things. They tell me I can't spend too much money, that I can't tap particular phones or search particular houses. There are thousands of things I /cannot/ do?all of which pisses me off.
"I've warned you twice already. You deny me information that is relevant to my murder inquiry and I'll bring all of this," he motions to the room, the house, my life, "crashing down around your ears."
I can't think of a sympathetic response to disarm him. What can I tell him? I have a patient called Bobby Moran who may, or may not, be a borderline schizophrenic. He kicked a woman unconscious because she looked like his mother?a woman he wants dead. He makes lists. He listens to windmills. His clothes smell of chloroform. He carries around a piece of paper with the number 21 written on it hundreds of times?the same number of stab wounds that Cather�ine McBride inflicted on herself.
What if I say all this?he'll probably laugh at me. There is noth�ing concrete linking Bobby to Catherine, yet I'll be responsible for a dozen detectives hammering on Bobby's door, searching through his past, terrifying his fiancee and her son.
Bobby will know I've sent them. He won't trust me again. He won't trust anyone like me. His suspicions will be vindicated. He reached out for help and I betrayed him.
I know he's dangerous. I know his fantasies are taking him some�where terrible. But unless he keeps coming back to me I might never be able to stop him.
"Where were you on November thirteenth?" Ruiz asks.
At first I don't hear the question. I'm still distracted by the let�ter and my concern for Bobby. The hesitation robs me of assured�ness. The thirteenth? It was the day Jock confirmed that I had Parkinson's disease. And it was the night I slept with a woman other than my wife.
"Detective Inspector you'll have to excuse me but I'm not very good at remembering dates."
"It was a Wednesday night."
"My wife teaches a Spanish class. Normally, I'm home looking af�ter Charlie."
"So you were at home?"
"I assume so."
Ruiz flips open his marbled notebook and writes something down. "Don't look so worried, Professor. Actions speak louder than words."
Bitterness and rancor hang in the air like the smell of smokeless coal. Ruiz is putting on his coat and walking toward the front door. My left arm is trembling. It's now or never. Make a decision.
"When you searched Catherine's flat?did she have a red dress?"
Ruiz reacts as though struck. He spins and takes a step toward me. "How did you know that?"
"Is the dress missing?"
"Yes."
"Do you think she might have been wearing it when she disap�peared?"
He doesn't answer. He is framed in the open doorway. His eyes are bloodshot, but his stare fixed. Fingers open and close into fists. He wants to rip me apart.
"Come to my office tomorrow afternoon," I tell him. "There's a file. You can't take it away. I don't even know if it will help but I have to show it to someone."
"I could have you arrested right now," he snarls.
"I know. But you won't."
**16**
The blue manila folder is on the desk in front of me. It has a ribbon that twists around a flat circular wheel to seal it shut. I keep undo�ing it and doing it up again.
Meena glances nervously behind her as she enters the office. She walks all the way across to my desk before whispering, "There is a very scary-looking man in the waiting room. He's asking for you."
"That's OK, Meena. He's a detective."
Her eyes widen in surprise. "Oh! He didn't say. He just sort of..."
"Growled."
"Yes."
"You can show him in." I motion her closer. "In about five min�utes I want you to buzz me and remind me of an important meeting outside the office."
"What meeting?"
"Just an important meeting."
She frowns at me and nods.
With a face like an anvil, Ruiz ignores my outstretched hand and leaves it hanging in the air as though I'm directing traffic. He sits down and leans back in the chair, spreading his legs and letting his coat flare out.
"So this is where you work, Prof? Very nice." He glances around the room in what appears to be a cursory way, but I know he's tak�ing in the details. "How much does it cost to rent an office like this?"
"I don't know. I'm just one of the partners."
Ruiz scratches his chin and then fumbles in his coat pocket for a stick of chewing gum. He unwraps it slowly.
"What exactly does a psychologist /do/?"
"We help people who are damaged by events in their lives. Peo�ple with personality disorders, or sexual problems, or phobias."
"Do you know what I think? A man gets attacked and he's lying bleeding on the road. Two psychologists pass by and one says to the other, 'Let's go and find the person who did this?he needs help.' "
His smile doesn't reach his eyes.
"I help more victims than I do perpetrators."
Ruiz shrugs and tosses the gum wrapper into the wastebasket.
"Start talking. How did you know about the red dress?"
I glance down at the file and undo the ribbon. "In a few minutes from now, I'm going to get a phone call. I will have to leave the of�fice, but you are quite welcome to stay. I think you'll find my chair is more comfortable than yours." I open Bobby's file.
"When you're finished, if you wish to talk about anything, I'll be across the road having a drink. I can't talk about any specific patient or case." I tap Bobby's folder to stress the point. "I can only talk in general terms about personality disorders and how psychotics and psychopaths function. It will be much easier if you remember this."
Ruiz presses the palms of his hands together as if in prayer and taps his forefingers against his lips. "I don't like playing games."
"This isn't a game. We do it this way, or I can't help you."
The phone rings. Meena starts her spiel but doesn't finish. I'm al�ready on my way.
The sun is shining and the sky is blue. It feels more like May than mid-December. London does this occasionally?puts on a glorious day to remind people that it isn't such a bad place to live.
This is why the English are among the world's greatest optimists. We get one magnificent hot dry week and the memory will give us succor for an entire summer. It happens every time. Come spring we buy shorts, T-shirts, bikinis and sarongs in glorious expectation of a season that never arrives.
Ruiz finds me standing at the bar nursing a mineral water.
"It's your round," he says. "I'll have a pint of
bitter."
The place is busy with a lunchtime crowd. Ruiz wanders over to four men sitting in the corner by the front window. They look like office boys but are wearing well-cut suits and silk ties.
Ruiz flashes his police badge under the level of the table. "Sorry to trouble you, gents, but I need to commandeer this table for a surveillance operation on that bank over there."
He motions out the window and they all turn in unison to look.
"Try to make it a little less obvious!"
They quickly turn back.
"We have reason to believe it is being targeted for an armed hold-up. You see that guy on the corner, wearing the orange vest?"
"The street sweeper?" one of them asks.
"Yeah. Well he's one of my best. So is the shopgirl in that lingerie shop, next door to the bank. I need this table."
"Of course."
"Absolutely."
"Is there anything else we can do?"
I see a twinkle in Ruiz's eye. "Well, I don't normally do this?use civilians undercover?but I am short of manpower. You could split up and take a corner each. Try to blend in. Look for a group of men traveling four-up in a car."
"How do we contact you?"
"You tell the street sweeper."
"Is there some sort of password?" one of them asks.
Ruiz rolls his eyes. "It's a police operation not a fucking Bond movie.
Once they've gone, he takes the chair nearest the window and sets his glass on a coaster. I sit opposite him and leave my glass un�touched.
"They would have given you the table anyway," I say, unable to decide if he likes practical jokes or dislikes people.
"Did this Bobby Moran kill Catherine McBride?" He wipes foam from his top lip with the back of his hand.
The question has all the subtlety of a well-thrown brick.
"I can't talk about individual patients."
"Did he admit to killing her?"
"I can't talk about what he may or may not have told me."
Ruiz's eyes disappear into a narrow maze of wrinkles and his body tenses. Just as suddenly he exhales and gives me what I suspect is a smile. He's out of practice.
"Tell me about the man who killed Catherine McBride."
The message seems to have reached him. Pushing Bobby out of my head, I try to reflect on Catherine's killer, based on what I know of the crime. I've had a week of sleepless nights thinking of little else.
"You are dealing with a sexual psychopath," I begin, unable to recognize my own voice. "Catherine's murder was a manifestation of corrupt lust."
"But there were no signs of sexual assault."
"You can't think in terms of normal rape or sex crime. This is a far more extreme example of deviant sexuality. This man is consumed by a desire to dominate and inflict pain. He fantasizes about taking, re�straining, dominating, torturing and killing. At least some of these fantasies will mirror almost exactly what happened.
"Think about what he did to her. He took her off the street or enticed her to go with him. He didn't seek a quick and violent sex�ual coupling in a dark alley and then silence his victim so she couldn't identify him. Instead he aimed to break her?to systemati�cally destroy her willpower until she became a compliant, terrified plaything. Even that wasn't enough for him. He wanted the ultimate in control, to bend someone so completely to /his/ will that she would torture herself..."
I'm watching Ruiz?waiting to lose him. "He almost succeeded, but in the end Catherine wasn't entirely broken. She still had a spark of defiance left. She was a nurse. Even with a short blade she knew where to cut if she wanted to die quickly. When she could take no more she cut the carotid artery in her neck. That's what caused the embolism. She was dead within minutes."
"How do you know that?"
"Three years at medical school."
Ruiz is staring at his pint glass, as though checking to see if it is centered properly on the coaster. The chimes of a church bell are ringing in the distance.
"The man you're looking for is lonely, socially inept and sexually immature."
"Sounds like your basic teenager."
"No. He isn't a teenager. He's older. A lot of young men start out like this, but every so often one emerges who blames someone else for his loneliness and his sexual frustration. This bitterness and anger grow with each rejection. Sometimes he'll blame a particular person. Other times he will hate an entire group of people."
"He hates all women."
"Possibly, but I think it's more likely he hates a particular sort of woman. He wants to punish her. He fantasizes about it and it gives him pleasure."
"Why did he choose Catherine McBride?"
"I don't know. Perhaps she looked like someone he wanted to punish. He may have been driven by opportunity. Catherine was available so he changed his fantasy to incorporate her looks and the clothes she wore."
"The red dress."
"Perhaps."
"Could he have known her?"
"Quite possibly."
"Motivation?"
"Revenge. Control. Sexual gratification."
"I take my pick?"
"No, it's all three."
Ruiz stiffens slightly. Clearing his throat he takes out his marbled notebook.
"So who am I looking for?"
"Someone in his thirties or forties. He lives alone, somewhere private, but surrounded by people who come and go?a boarding house perhaps or a trailer park.
"He may have a wife or a girlfriend. He is of above average in�telligence. He is physically strong, but mentally even stronger. He hasn't been consumed by sexual desire or anger to the point of los�ing control. He can keep his emotions in check. He is forensically aware. He doesn't want to be caught.
"This is someone who has managed to successfully separate areas of his life and isolate them completely from each other. His friends, family and colleagues have no inkling of what goes on inside his head.
"I think he has sadomasochistic interests. It's not the sort of thing that springs out of nowhere. Someone must have introduced him to it?although probably only a mild version. His mind has taken it to a level that far outstrips any harmless fun. His self-assurance is what amazes me. There were no signs of anxiety or first-time nerves..."
I stop talking. My mouth has gone slack and sour. I take a sip of water. Ruiz is gazing at me dully, sitting up straighter and occasion�ally writing notes. My voice rises above the noise again.
"A person doesn't suddenly become a fully fledged sadist over�night?not one this skillful. Organizations like the KGB spend years training their interrogators to be this good. The degree of control and sophistication were remarkable. These things come from experience. I don't think he started here."
Ruiz turns and stares out of the window, making up his mind. He doesn't believe me.
"This is bullshit!" he rumbles.
"Why?"
"None of it sounds like your Bobby Moran."
He's right. It doesn't make sense. Bobby is too young to have this degree of familiarity with sadism. He is too erratic and changeable. I seriously doubt that he has the mental skills and malevolence to dominate and control a person like Catherine so completely?the physical size, yes, but not the psychological strength. Then again, Bobby has constantly surprised me and I have only scratched the sur�face of his psyche. He has held details back from me or dropped them like a trail of bread crumbs on a fairy-tale journey.
Fairy tales? That's what it sounds like to Ruiz. He's on his feet threading his way to the bar. People hurriedly step out of his way. He has an aura like a flashing light that warns people to give him space.
I'm already beginning to regret this. I should have stayed out of it. Sometimes I wish I could turn my mind off instead of always looking and analyzing. I wish I could just focus on a tiny square of the world, instead of watching how people communicate and the clothes they wear, what they put in their shopping carts, the cars they drive, the pets they choose, the magazines they read and the
TV shows they watch. I wish I could stop looking.
Ruiz is back again with another pint and a whiskey chaser. He rolls the liquid fire around in his mouth as if washing away a bad taste.
"You really think this guy did it?"
"I don't know."
He wraps his fingers around the pint glass and leans back.
"You want me to look at him?"
"That's up to you."
Ruiz exhales with a rustle of dissatisfaction. He still doesn't trust me.
"Do you know why Catherine came down to London?" I ask.
"According to her flatmate she had a job interview. We found no correspondence?she probably had it with her."
"What about phone records?"
"Nothing from her home number. She had a mobile, but that's missing."
He delivers the facts without comment or embellishment. Catherine's history matches with the scant details she gave to me during our sessions. Her parents had divorced when she was twelve. She hooked up with a bad crowd, sniffing aerosols and doing drugs.
At fifteen she spent six weeks in a private psychiatric hospital in West Sussex. Her family kept it quiet for obvious reasons.
Becoming a nurse had seemed to be the turning point. Although she still had problems, she managed to cope.
"What happened after she left the Marsden?" I ask.
"She moved back to Liverpool and got engaged to a merchant seaman. It didn't work out."
"Is he a suspect?"
"No. He's in Bahrain."
"Any other suspects?"
Ruiz smiles wryly. "All volunteers are welcome." Finishing his drink, he gets to his feet. "I have to go."
"What happens next?"
"I get my people digging up everything they can on this Bobby Moran. If I can link him to Catherine I'll ask him very politely to help me with my inquiries."
"And you won't mention my name?"
He looks at me contemptuously. "Don't worry, Professor, your in�terests are paramount in my concerns."
**17**
My mother has a pretty face with a neat upturned nose and straight hair that she has worn in the same uniform style?pinned back with silver clips and tucked behind her ears?for as long as I can remem�ber. Sadly, I inherited my father's tangle of hair. If it grows half an inch too long it becomes completely unruly and I look like I've been electrocuted.
