Michael Robotham

by Suspect

  /Sincerely yours, Joseph O'Loughlin/

  I have thought of everything, except what this will mean to Charlie. Bobby was a victim of a decision made beyond his control. I'm doing the same thing to my daughter. My finger hovers over the send button. I have no choice.

  The e-mail disappears into the labyrinth of the electronic post office.

  Nancy thinks I'm mad, but has made my travel arrangements, booking flights to Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Paris and Frankfurt. In addition there are first-class seats on trains to Birmingham, New�castle, Glasgow, London, Swansea and Leeds. She has also managed to hire me a white Vauxhall Cavalier, which is waiting downstairs.

  Everything has been paid for with a debit card that doesn't re�quire authorization from a bank. The card is linked to a trust account set up by my father. Inheritance tax is another of his pet hates. I'm assuming Ruiz will have frozen all my accounts, but he can't touch this one.

  The lift doors open and I set out across the foyer, staring straight ahead. I bump into a potted palm and realize that I'm drifting side�ways. Walking has become a constant assortment of adjustments and corrections, like landing a plane.

  The rental car is parked outside. As I walk down the front steps of the hotel I keep expecting to feel a hand on my shoulder or to hear a shout of recognition or alarm. My fingers fumble with the keys. Black cabs are queued in front of me but one of them eases out of my way. I follow the stream of traffic, glancing in the mirrors and trying to remember the quickest way out of the city.

  Stopped at a red light, I look beyond the stream of pedestrians at the multistory car park. Three police cars are blocking the entry ramp and another is on the pavement. Ruiz is leaning against an open car door, talking on the radio. He has a face like thunder.

  As the lights change to green, I imagine Ruiz looking up and me saluting him like a World War I flying ace in a crippled plane, living to fight another day.

  One of my favorite songs is on the radio?"Jumping Jack Flash." At university I played bass guitar for a band called the Screaming Dick Nixons. We weren't as good as the Rolling Stones, but we were louder. I knew nothing about playing the bass guitar, but it was the easiest instrument to fake. Mostly my ambition was to get laid, but that only ever happened to our lead singer, Morris Whiteside, who had long hair and a crucifixion scene tattooed on his torso. He's now a senior accountant working for Deutsche Bank.

  I head west toward Toxteth, and park the Cavalier in a vacant lot, among the cinders and weeds. A handful of teenagers watch me from the shadows beside a boarded-up community hall. I'm driving the sort of fancy car they normally only see on bricks.

  I phone home. Julianne answers. Her voice sounds close, crystal clear, but already starting to shake. "Thank God! Where have you been? Reporters keep ringing the doorbell. They say you're danger�ous. They say the police are going to shoot you."

  I try to steer the conversation away from firearms. "I know who did this. Bobby is trying to punish me for something that happened a long time ago. It isn't just me. He has a list of names..."

  "What list?"

  "Boyd is dead."

  "How?"

  "He was murdered. So was Erskine."

  "My God!"

  "Are the police still watching the house?"

  "I don't know. There was someone in a white van yesterday. At first I thought D.J. had come to finish the central heating, but he's not due until tomorrow."

  I can hear Charlie singing in the background. A rush of tender�ness catches in my throat.

  The police will be trying to trace this call. With mobile phones, they have to work backward, identifying which towers are relaying the signals. There are probably half a dozen transmitters between Liverpool and London. As each one is ticked off, the search area nar�rows down.

  "I want you to stay on the line, Julianne. If I don't come back, just leave the line open. It's important." I slide the phone under the driver's seat. The car keys are still in the ignition. I close the car door and walk away, head down, retreating into the darkness, wondering if Bobby is watching me still.

  Twenty minutes later, on a railway platform that looks aban�doned and burned out, I step gratefully onto a suburban train. The carriages are almost empty.

  Ruiz will know about the ferry, train and airline bookings by now. He'll realize I'm trying to stretch his resources, but he will have to check them anyway.

  The express to London leaves from Lime Street Station. The po�lice will search each carriage, but I'm hoping they won't stay on the train. Edgehill is one stop farther, which is where I board a train to Manchester just after 10:30 p.m. After midnight I catch another, this one bound for York. I have a three-hour wait until the Great North Eastern Express leaves for London, sitting in a poorly lit ticket hall, watching the cleaners compete to do the least work.

  I pay for the tickets with cash and choose the busiest carriage. Staggering drunkenly along the aisles, I topple into people and mum�ble apologies.

  Only children stare at drunks. Adults avoid eye contact, hoping that I keep moving and choose somewhere else to sit. When I fall asleep leaning against a window the entire carriage lets out a silent collective sigh.

  **7**

  The train journeys of my youth were to and from boarding school, when I'd gorge myself on bags of sweets and chewing gum, which weren't allowed at Charterhouse.

  Sometimes I think Semtex would have been more acceptable than bubblegum. One of the seniors, Peter Clavell, swallowed so much that it clogged his intestines and doctors had to remove the blockage through his rectum. Not surprisingly, gum wasn't so popu�lar after that.

  My father's back-to-school pep talk normally boiled down to a seven-word warning: "Don't let me hear from the headmaster." When Charlie started school I promised that I'd be a different sort of parent. I sat her down and gave her a talk best saved for secondary school, or perhaps even university. Julianne kept giggling, which set Charlie off.

  "Don't be scared of math," I finished up saying.

  "Why?"

  "Because a lot of girls are scared of numbers. They talk them�selves out of being good at things."

  "OK," Charlie replied, having absolutely no idea what I was talk�ing about.

  I wonder if I'm going to get to see her start secondary school. For weeks I've been worried about this disease denying me things. Now it pales into insignificance, when set alongside murder.

  As the train pulls into King's Cross I walk slowly through the carriages, studying the platform for any sign of the police. I fall in step with an elderly woman pulling a large suitcase. As we reach the barrier I offer to help her and she nods gratefully. At the ticket booth, I turn to her. "Where's your ticket, Mum?"

  She doesn't bat an eyelid as she hands it to me. I give both tick�ets to the guard and give him a weary smile.

  "Don't you hate these early starts?" he says.

  "I'll never get used to them," I reply, as he hands me the stubs.

  Weaving my way through the crowded concourse, I pause at the entrance to WH Smith where the morning papers are stacked side by side. shrink confesses?"I KILLED CATHERINE" screams the head�line in /The Sun/.

  The broadsheets are reporting rising interest rates and a threat�ened strike by postal workers. Catherine's story?my story?is be�neath the fold. People reach past me and pick up copies. Nobody makes eye contact. This is London, a city where people walk bolt up�right with fixed expressions as though ready to face anything and avoid everything. They have somewhere else to be. Don't interrupt. Just keep moving.

  Finding a rhythm to my stride, I weave my way through Covent Gar�den, past the restaurants and expensive boutiques. Reaching the Strand, I turn left and follow Fleet Street until the gothic facade of the Old Bailey comes into view.

  A courthouse has stood on this site for nearly five hundred years and even before that, in medieval times, they held public executions here every Monday morning.

  I take up a position across the road, tu
cked against a wall in an alley that runs down toward the Thames. There are brass plates on nearly every doorway. I glance occasionally at my watch, to give the impression of waiting for someone. Men and women in black suits and gowns glide past me, clutching box files and bundles of paper tied with ribbon.

  At half past nine the first of the news crews arrives?a camera�man and sound recordist. Others join them. Some of the stills pho�tographers carry stepladders and milk crates. The reporters stick together in the background?sipping takeout coffee, swapping gos�sip and misinformation.

  Shortly before ten, I notice a cab pull up on my side of the road. Eddie Barrett gets out first, looking like Danny DeVito with hair. Bobby is behind him, at least two heads taller but still having some�how managed to find a suit that looks too big for him.

  Both are less than fifteen feet away from me. I lower my head and blow into my hands. Bobby's overcoat pockets are bulging with paper and his eyes are watery blue. The warmth of the cab meets the coldness of the air and fogs up his glasses. He pauses to wipe them clean. His hands are steady. The reporters have spotted Eddie and are waiting for him, with cameras poised and TV lights at the ready.

  I see Bobby lower his head. He is too tall to hide his face. Re�porters are firing questions at him. Eddie Barrett puts his hand on Bobby's arm. Bobby pulls away as though scalded. A TV camera is right in his face. Flashguns flare. He wasn't expecting this. He doesn't have a plan.

  Barrett is trying to hustle him up the stone steps and through the arches. Photographers are jostling each other and one of them sud�denly tumbles backward. Bobby is standing over him, his fist raised. Bystanders grab at his shoulders and Eddie swings his briefcase like a scythe, clearing a path in front of them. The last thing I see as the doors close is Bobby's head above the throng.

  I allow myself a fleeting smile, but nothing more. I can't afford to get my hopes up. Nearby, a gift shop window is crammed with marshmallow Santas and Christmas crackers in red and green. There are reindeer clocks with noses that glow in the dark. I use the re�flection in the glass to watch the courthouse steps.

  I can picture the scene inside. The press bench will be packed and the public gallery standing room only. Eddie loves working a crowd. He will ask for an adjournment due to my unprofessional conduct and claim his client has been denied natural justice because of my malicious allegations. A new psych report will have to be com�missioned, which could take weeks. Blah, blah, blah...

  There is always a chance the judge might say no and sentence Bobby immediately. More likely, he will grant the adjournment and Bobby will walk free?even more dangerous than before.

  Rocking back and forth on my heels, I have to remind myself of the rules. Avoid standing with my feet too close together. Con�sciously lift feet to avoid shuffling and foot drag. Don't instinctively pivot. My favorite suggestion for breaking a "frozen pose" is to step over an imaginary obstacle in front of me. I have visions of looking like Marcel Marceau.

  I walk to the end of the block, turn and come back again, never taking my eye off the photographers still milling outside the court entrance. Suddenly, they surge forward, cameras raised. Eddie must have had a car waiting. Bobby comes out in a half crouch, pushing through the melee and falling into the backseat. The car door closes as the flashguns continue firing.

  I should have seen this coming. I should have been prepared. Limping onto the road, I wave both arms and a walking stick at a black cab. It swerves out of my way and swings past, forcing a line of traffic to brake hard. A second cab has an orange beacon. The driver either stops or runs me over.

  He doesn't bat an eyelid when I tell him to follow that car. Maybe cabdrivers hear that all the time.

  The silver sedan carrying Bobby is ahead of us, sandwiched be�tween two buses and a line of cars. My driver manages to nudge into gaps and dodge between lanes, never losing touch. At the same time I notice him sneaking glances at me in the rearview mirror. He looks away quickly when our eyes meet. He is young, perhaps in his early twenties, with rust-colored hair and freckles on the back of his neck. His hands uncurl and flutter on the steering wheel.

  "You know who I am." He nods.

  "I'm not dangerous."

  He looks into my eyes, trying to find some reassurance. My face can't give him any. My Parkinson's mask is like cold chiseled stone.

  **8**

  This stretch of the Grand Union Canal is graceless and untidy, with the asphalt towpath pitted and broken. A rusting iron fence leans at a precarious angle, separating the terraced back gardens from the wa�ter. A graffiti-daubed trailer, missing a door, sits on bricks instead of wheels. A child's half-buried tricycle sprouts from a vegetable patch.

  Bobby hasn't looked over his shoulder since the car dropped him at Camley Street behind St. Pancras Station. I know the rhythm of his walk now. He passes the lockkeeper's cottage and keeps going. The gasworks cast a shadow over the abandoned factories that lie along the south bank. A redevelopment sign announces a new in�dustrial estate.

  Four narrow boats are moored against a stone wall on the curve. Three are brightly painted in reds and greens. The fourth has a tug-style bow, with a black hull and a maroon trim to the cabin.

  Bobby steps lightly on board and appears to knock on the deck. He waits for several seconds and then unlocks the sliding hatch. He pushes it forward and unlatches the door below. He steps down into the cabin, out of sight. I wait on the edge of the towpath, hidden by a bramble that is trying to swallow a fence. A woman in a gray over�coat pulls at a dog lead, dragging the animal quickly past me.

  Five minutes pass. Bobby emerges and glances in my direction. He slides the hatch closed and steps ashore. Reaching into his pocket, he counts loose change in his hand. Then he sets off along the path. I follow at a distance until he climbs a set of steps onto a bridge. He turns south toward a garage.

  I return to the boat. I need to see inside. The lacquered door is closed but not locked. The cabin is dark. Curtains are drawn across the window slits and portholes. Two steps lead me down into the gal�ley. The stainless steel sink is clean. A lone cup sits draining on a tea towel.

  Six steps farther is the saloon. It looks more like a workshop than a living area, with a bench down one side. My eyes adjust to the light and I see a pegboard dotted with tools?chisels, wrenches, spanners, screwdrivers, metal cutters, planes and files. There are boxes of pipes, washers, drill bits and waterproof tape on shelves. The floor is partly covered with drums of paint, rust preventives, epoxy, wax, grease and machine oil. A portable generator squats under the bench. An old radio hangs on a cord from the ceiling. Everything has its proper place.

  On the opposite wall there is another pegboard, but this one is clear. The only attachments are four leather cuffs?two near the floor and a matching set near the roof. My eyes are drawn to the floor. I don't want to look. The bare wood and baseboards are stained by something deeper than the darkness.

  Reeling backward, I strike the bulkhead and emerge into a cabin. Everything seems slightly askew. The mattress is too large for the bed. The lamp is too large for the table. The walls are covered in scraps of paper but it's too dark for me to see them properly. I turn on a lamp and my eyes take a moment to adjust.

  Suddenly I'm sitting down. Newspaper cuttings, photographs, maps, diagrams and drawings cover the walls. I see images of Charlie on her way to school, playing soccer, singing in the school choir, shop�ping with her grandmother, on a merry-go-round, feeding the ducks. Others show Julianne at her yoga class, at the supermarket, painting the garden furniture, answering the door ... Looking closer, I recog�nize receipts, ticket stubs, soccer newsletters, business cards, photo�copies of bank statements and telephone bills, a street map, a library card, a reminder for school fees, a parking notice, registration papers for the car...

  The small bedside table is stacked high with ring-bound note�books. I take the top one and open it. Neat, concise handwriting fills each page. The left-hand margin logs the time an
d date. Alongside are details of my movements, including places, meetings, duration, modes of transport, relevance ... It is a how-to manual of my life. How to be me!

  There is a sound on the deck above my head. Something is being dragged and poured. I switch off the light and sit in darkness, trying to breathe quietly. Someone swings through the hatch into the sa�loon. He moves through to the galley and opens cupboards. I lie on the floor, squeezed between the bulkhead and the end of the bed, feeling my pulse throbbing at the base of my jaw.

  The engine starts up. The pistons rise and fall, then settle into a steady rhythm. I see Bobby's legs through the portholes and feel the boat pitch as he steps along the sides, casting off the lines.

  I glance toward the galley and saloon. If I move quickly I might be able to get ashore before he comes back to the wheelhouse. I try to stand and knock over a rectangular frame leaning against the wall. As it topples, I manage to catch it with one hand. The painting is frozen momentarily in the light leaking through the curtains: a beach scene, bathing sheds, ice-cream stalls and a Ferris wheel. On the hori�zon, Charlie's stout, gray whale.

  I fall backward with a groan, unable to make my legs obey me. They belong to someone else.

  The narrow boat rocks again as the footsteps return. He has cast off the bowline. The engine is put into gear and we swing away from the mooring. Water slides along the hull. Pulling myself upward, I ease the curtain open a few inches and lift my face to the porthole. I can only see the treetops.

  There is a new sound?a whooshing noise, like a strong wind. All the oxygen seems to disappear from the air. Fuel runs along the floor and soaks into my trousers. Varnished wood crackles as it burns. Fumes sting my eyes and the back of my throat. On my knees, I crawl down the boat into the gathering smoke.

  Pulling myself through the U-shaped galley, I reach the saloon. The engine is close by. I can hear it thudding on the far side of the bulkhead. My head hits the stairs and I climb upward. The hatchway is locked from the outside. I slam my shoulder against it. Nothing moves. My hand feels heat through the door. I need another way out.