Michael Robotham

by Suspect

  Standing on tiptoes, she reaches above the stable door to get the key from its hiding place.

  The tightness in my chest returns. "What did you say?"

  "When?"

  "Just then ... 'the air was screaming in pain.' "

  "Oh, the windmills; they make such a horrible sound."

  She has the key in her hand. It is tied to a small piece of carved wood. Unconsciously, my hand flashes out and grips her wrist. I turn it over and the pressure makes her fingers open.

  "Who gave you that?" My voice is trembling.

  "Joe, you're hurting me." She looks at the key ring. "Bobby gave me that. He's the young man I've been telling you about. He fixed the stone wall and the shingles on the stable. He built the green�house and did the planting. Such a hard worker. He took me to see the windmills..."

  For a brief moment I feel myself falling, but nothing happens. It's like someone has tilted the landscape and I'm leaning into it, clutch�ing the door frame.

  "When?"

  "He stayed with us for three months over the summer..."

  "What did he look like?"

  "How can I put it politely? He's very tall, but perhaps a little overweight. Big-boned. Sweet as can be. He only wanted room and board."

  The truth isn't a blinding light or a cold bucket of water in the face. It leaks into my consciousness like a red wine stain on a pale carpet or a dark shadow on a chest X-ray. Bobby knew things about me, things I dismissed as coincidences. Tigers and Lions, Charlie's painting of the whale ... He knew things about Catherine and how she died. A mind reader. A stalker. A medieval conjurer who disap�pears and reappears in a puff of smoke.

  But how did he know about Elisa? He saw us having lunch to�gether and then followed her home. No. I saw him that afternoon. He turned up for his appointment. That's when I lost him by the canal?close to Elisa's house.

  /No comprenderas todavia lo que comprenderas en el futuro./ You don't understand yet what you will understand in the end...

  Moving suddenly, I stumble and land awkwardly on the path. Scrambling upward, I set off in a limping run toward the house, ig�noring my mother's questions about not seeing the stable.

  Bursting through the door, I ricochet off the laundry wall, upset�ting a washing basket and a box of detergent on a shelf. A pair of my mother's knickers catches on the toe of my boot. The nearest tele�phone is in the kitchen. Julianne answers on the third ring. I don't give her time to speak.

  "You said someone was watching the house."

  "Hang up, Joe, the police are trying to find you."

  "Did you see someone?"

  "Hang up and call Simon."

  "Please, Julianne!"

  She recognizes the desperation in my voice. It matches her own.

  "Did you see anyone?"

  "No."

  "What about the person D. J. chased out of the house?did he get a good look at him?"

  "No."

  "He must have said something. Was he big, tall, overweight?"

  "DJ. didn't get that close."

  "Do you have someone in your Spanish class called Bobby or Robert or Bob? He's tall, with glasses."

  "There /is/ a Bobby."

  "What's his last name?"

  "I don't know. I gave him a lift home one night. He said he used to live in Liverpool..."

  "Where's Charlie? Get her out of the house! Bobby wants to hurt you. He wants to punish me..."

  I try to explain but she keeps asking me why Bobby would do such a thing? It's the one question I can't answer.

  "Nobody is going to hurt us, Joe. The street is crawling with po�lice. One of them followed me around the supermarket today. I shamed him into carrying my shopping bags..."

  Suddenly I realize that she's probably right. She and Charlie are safer at the house than anywhere else because the police are watch�ing them ... waiting for me.

  Julianne is still talking, "Call Simon, please. Don't do anything silly."

  "I won't."

  "Promise me."

  "I promise."

  Simon's home number is written on the back of his business card. When he answers I can hear Patricia in the background. He's sleep�ing with my sister. Why does that seem strange?

  His voice drops to a whisper and I can hear him taking the phone somewhere more private. He doesn't want Patricia to hear the con�versation.

  "Did you have lunch with anyone on Thursday?"

  "Elisa Velasco."

  "Did you go home with her?"

  "No."

  He takes a deep breath. I know what's coming.

  "Elisa was found dead at her flat. She was suffocated with a garbage bag. They're coming for you, Joe. They have a warrant. They want you for murder."

  My voice is high-pitched and shaking. "I know who killed her. He's a patient of mine?Bobby Morgan. He's been watching me..."

  Simon isn't listening. "I want you to go to the nearest police sta�tion. Give yourself up. Call me when you get there. Don't say any�thing unless I'm with you..."

  "But what about Bobby Morgan?"

  Simon's voice is more insistent. "You /have/ to do as I say. They have DNA evidence, Joe. Traces of your semen and strands of your hair; your fingerprints were in the bedroom and bathroom. On Thursday evening a cabdriver picked you up less than a mile from the murder scene. He remembers you. You flagged him down out�side the same hotel where Catherine McBride went missing..."

  "You wanted to know where I spent the night of the thirteenth? I'll tell you. I was with Elisa."

  "Well your alibi is dead."

  The statement is so blunt and honest, I stop trying to convince him. The facts have been laid out, one by one, revealing how hope�less my position is. Even my denials sound hollow.

  My father is standing in the doorway dressed in his tracksuit. Be�hind him, through the open curtains of the living room, two police cars have pulled into the drive.

  *Book Three*

  In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day. ? F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, /The Crack-up/

  **1**

  Three miles is a long way when you're running in Wellington boots. It is even farther when your socks have slipped down and gathered in a ball beneath your arches, making you run like a penguin.

  Scrambling along muddy sheep tracks and jumping between rocks, I follow a partly frozen stream cutting through the fields. In spite of the boots I manage to keep up a good pace and only occasionally glance behind me. Right now I'm doing everything automatically. If I stop for anything I'm finished.

  My childhood holidays were spent exploring these fields. I used to know every copse and hillock; the best fishing spots and hiding places. I kissed Ethelwyn Jones in the hayloft of her uncle's barn on her thirteenth birthday. It was my first kiss with tongues and I got an instant hard-on. She leaned right into it and let out a scream, biting down hard on my bottom lip. She wore braces and had a mouth like Jaws in the James Bond films. I had a blood blister on my lip for a fortnight, but it was worth it.

  When I reach the A55 I slip beneath the concrete pylons of a bridge and carry on along the stream. The banks grow steeper and twice I slide sideways into the water, breaking thin ice at the edges.

  I reach a waterfall about ten feet high and drag myself upward using tufts of grass and rocks as handholds. My knees are muddy and trousers wet. Ten minutes farther on, I duck under a fence and find a track marked for ramblers.

  My lungs have started to hurt, but my mind is clear. As clear as the cold air. As long as Julianne and Charlie are safe, I don't care what happens to me. I feel like a rag that has been tossed around in a dog's mouth. Someone is playing with me, ripping me to shreds, my family, my life, my career ... Why? This is all bullshit. It's like trying to read mirror writing?everything is back to front.

  A hundred yards on?over a farm gate?I reach the road to Llanrhos. The narrow blacktop has hedgerows down either side, broken by farm gates and potholed tracks. Staying close
to the ditch along one side, I head toward a church spire in the distance. Patches of mist have settled in the low ground like pools of spilled milk. Twice I leap off the road when I hear a vehicle coming. The second is a police van, with dogs barking from behind the mesh-covered windows.

  The village seems deserted. The only places open are a cafe and an estate agent with a BACK IN TEN MINUTES sign on the door. There are colored lights in some of the windows and a Christmas tree in the square, opposite the war memorial. A man walking a dog nods hello to me. My teeth are clenched so hard that I can't reply.

  I find a park bench and sit down. Steam is rising off my oilskin jacket. My knees are covered in mud and blood. The palms of my hands are scratched and my fingernails are bleeding. I want to close my eyes to think, but I need to stay alert.

  The houses around the square are like storybook cottages, with picket fences and wrought-iron arbors. They have Welsh names writ�ten in flowery script beside each front door. At the top of the square, white streamers are threaded through the railings of the church and soggy confetti clings to the steps.

  Welsh weddings are like Welsh funerals. They use the same cars, florists and church halls, with their ancient tea urns operated by the same ample-breasted women wearing spacious floral dresses and support hose.

  The cold leaks into my limbs as the minutes tick by. A battered Land Rover turns into the square and crawls slowly around the park. I watch and wait. Nobody is following. Stiff-legged, I stand. My sweat-soaked shirt clings to the small of my back.

  The passenger door groans with age and neglect. I slide into the seat. A large pillow of foam covers the rusting springs and torn vinyl. The engine is so badly tuned that it sets off a thousand rattles and clinks as my father struggles to find first gear.

  "Damn machine! Hasn't been driven in months."

  "What about the police?"

  "They're searching the fields. I heard them say they'd found a car at the station."

  "How did you get away?"

  "I told them I had surgery. I took the Merc and swapped it for the Land Rover. Thank God it started."

  Each time we hit a puddle, water spouts like a fountain from a hole in the floor. The road twists and turns, dipping and rising through the valley. The sky is clearing to the west and the shadows of clouds sweep across the landscape on a freshening breeze.

  "I'm in a lot of trouble, Dad."

  "I know."

  "I didn't kill anyone."

  "I know that too. What does Simon say?"

  "I should give myself up."

  "That sounds like good advice."

  In the same breath he accepts that it won't happen and nothing he can say will change things. We're driving along the Vale of Conwy toward Snowdonia. Fields have given way to sparse woodland, with thicker forests in the distance.

  The road loops through the trees and a large manor house is vis�ible on a ridge overlooking the valley. The iron gates are closed and a FOR SALE sign is propped against them.

  "That used to be a hotel," he says, without taking his eyes off the road. "I took your mother there on our honeymoon. It was very grand in those days. People came to tea dances of a Saturday after�noon and the hotel had its own band..."

  Mum has told me the story before, but I've never heard it from my father.

  "We borrowed your uncle's Austin Healey and went touring for a week. That's when I found the farmhouse. It wasn't for sale back then, but we stopped to buy apples. We were stopping quite often because your mother was sore. She had to sit on a pillow over the rough roads."

  He's giggling now and I realize what he means. This is more in�formation than I really require about my mother's sexual initiation, but I laugh along with him. Then I tell him the story of my friend Scott who knocked his new bride unconscious on a dance floor in Greece during their wedding reception.

  "How did he do that?"

  "He was trying to show her 'the flip' and he dropped her. She woke up in hospital and didn't know what country she was in."

  Dad laughs and I laugh too. It feels good. It feels even better when we stop laughing and the silence isn't awkward. Dad glances at me out of the corner of his eye. He wants to tell me something but doesn't know how to start.

  I remember when he gave me the coming-of-age speech. He told me he had something important to tell me and took me for a walk in Kew Gardens. This was such an unusual event?spending time together?that I felt my chest swell with pride.

  Dad made several attempts to start his speech. Each time he be�came tongue-tied he seemed to lengthen his stride. By the time he reached the bit about intercourse and taking precautions I was sprinting alongside him, trying to catch the words and stop my hat from falling off.

  Now he nervously drums his fingers on the steering wheel as though trying to send me the message in Morse code. Clearing his throat unnecessarily, he begins telling me a convoluted story about choices, responsibilities and opportunities. I don't know where he's going with this.

  Finally he starts telling me about when he studied medicine at university. "After that I did two years of behavioral science. I wanted to spe�cialize in educational psychology..."

  Hold on! Behavioral science? Psychology? He glances at me balefully and I realize that he's not joking.

  "My father discovered what I was doing. He was on the univer�sity board and was a friend of the vice chancellor. He made a special trip to see me and threatened to cut off my allowance."

  "What did you do?"

  "I did what he wanted. I became a surgeon."

  Before I can ask another question he raises a hand. He doesn't want to be interrupted.

  "My career was mapped out for me. I had my placements, tenures and appointments handed to me. Doors were opened. Pro�motions were approved..." His voice drops to a whisper. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm proud of you. You stuck to your guns and did what you wanted. You succeeded on your own terms. I know I'm not an easy man to love, Joe. I don't give anything in re�turn. But I /have/ always loved you. And I will always be here for you."

  He pulls off the road into a turnout and leaves the engine run�ning as he gets out and retrieves a bag from the backseat. "This is all I managed to bring," he says, showing me the contents. There is a clean shirt, some fruit, a thermos, my shoes and an enve�lope stuffed with �50 notes.

  "I also picked up your mobile."

  "The battery is dead."

  "Well, take mine. I never use the damn thing."

  He waits for me to slide behind the wheel and tosses the bag on the passenger seat.

  "They'll never miss the Land Rover ... not for a while. It's not even registered."

  I glance at the bottom corner of the windscreen. A beer bottle label is stuck to the glass. He grins. "I only drive her around the fields. Decent run will do her good."

  "How will you get home?"

  "Hitchhike."

  I doubt if he's thumbed a ride in his entire life. What do I know? He's been full of surprises today. He still looks like my father, but at the same time he's different.

  "Good luck," he says, shaking my hand through the window. Maybe if we'd both been standing it would have been a hug. I like to think so.

  I wrestle the Land Rover into gear and pull onto the asphalt. I can see him in the rearview mirror, standing at the edge of the road. I remember something he told me when my favorite aunt died and I was hurting inside.

  "Remember, Joseph, the worst hour of your life only lasts for sixty minutes."

  The police will track me on foot along the stream. The roadblocks will take longer to organize. With any luck I will be outside any cor�don they throw up. I don't know how much time this gives me. By tomorrow my face will be all over the newspapers and on TV.

  My mind seems to be speeding up as my body slows down. I can't do what they expect. Instead I have to bluff and double bluff. This is one of those he-thinks-that-I-think-that-he-thinks scenarios, where each participant is trying to guess the other's nex
t move. I have two minds to consider. One belongs to a deeply pissed off policeman who thinks I've played him like a fool and the other to a sadistic killer who knows how to reach my wife and daughter.

  The engine of the Land Rover cuts out every few seconds. Fourth gear is almost impossible to find and, when I do, I have to hold it in place with one hand on the gearstick.

  I reach over the backseat and feel for the mobile phone. I need Jock's help. I know I'm taking a risk. He's a lying bastard, but I'm running out of people to trust.

  He answers and fumbles the phone. I can hear him cursing. "Why do people always call when I'm taking a piss?" I picture him trying to balance the phone under his chin and zip up his fly.

  "Have you told the police about the letters?"

  "Yeah. They didn't believe me."

  "Convince them. You must have something from Catherine that can help prove you were sleeping with her."

  "Yeah. Sure. I kept Polaroids so I could show my wife's divorce lawyers."

  God, he can be a smug bastard. I don't have time for this. Yet I'm smiling to myself. I was wrong about Jock. He's not a killer.

  "The patient you referred to me, Bobby."

  "What about him?"

  "How did you meet him?"

  "Like I told you?his solicitor wanted neurological tests."

  "Who suggested my name?was it you or Eddie Barrett?"

  "Eddie suggested you."

  Rain has started spitting down. The wipers have only one speed?slow.

  "There is a cancer hospital in Liverpool called the Clatterbridge. I want to know if they have any record of a patient by the name of Bridget Morgan. She may be using her maiden name, Bridget Aherne. She has breast cancer. Apparently, it's well advanced. She might be an outpatient or be in a hospice. I need to find her."

  I'm not asking as a favor. He either does this or our long associa�tion is irredeemably ended. Jock fumbles for an excuse but can't find one. Mostly he wants to run for cover. He has always been a coward unless he can physically intimidate someone. I won't give him the chance to wheedle out. I know that he's lied to the police. I also have too many details about the assets he kept hidden from his ex-wives.