Close Your Eyes

by Robotham, Michael

  About the Author

  Michael Robotham started his career as a journalist but then became a ghostwriter, writing many bestselling autobiographies in collaboration with politicians, pop stars, psychologists, adventurers and showbusiness personalities. His thrillers have been translated into twenty-two languages and he has twice won Australia’s Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel. He was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger in 2007 and 2008 and was also shortlisted for the inaugural ITV3 Thriller Awards.

  Also by Michael Robotham

  The Drowning Man (aka Lost)

  The Night Ferry

  Shatter

  Bombproof

  Bleed for Me

  The Wreckage

  Say You’re Sorry

  Watching You

  Life or Death

  COPYRIGHT

  Published by Sphere

  ISBN: 9781405530668

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Bookwrite Pty 2015

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Sphere

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Michael Robotham

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  For all those victims of domestic violence –

  may we never close our eyes.

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to all at Little Brown Book Group UK, Mulholland in the US, Hachette Australia, Goldmann in Germany, de Bezige Bij in the Netherlands and all of my international publishers and translators. In particular I wish to thank Mark Lucas, Richard Pine, Ursula Mackenzie, Georg Reuchlein, David Shelley, Lucy Malagoni, Josh Kendall, Melissa van der Wagt, Louise Sherwin Stark, Justin Ratcliffe, Nicki Kennedy and Sam Edenborough.

  A year ago, on July 2nd, 2014, I lost one of my great champions, my Australian publisher Matt Richell, who was killed in a surfing accident at Bronte Beach in Sydney. Matt was not just a brilliant publisher but a wonderful friend, father, son, brother and husband. This book is for him.

  Finally, as always, I wish to thank my three daughters, Alex, Charlotte and Bella, along with my long-suffering wife, Vivien, who has been my designated reader, sounding board, whipping post, life coach, publicist, cajoler, flatterer, confidante and true love. Should there be a Heaven it will have a special place for the husbands, wives, partners and children of writers.

  My mother died with her head in another man’s lap. The car collided head-on with a milk tanker, which in turn crashed into an oak tree, sending acorns pinging and bouncing off the bodywork like hailstones. Mr Shearer lost an appendage. I lost my mother. Fate laughs at probabilities.

  The car was a bright red Fiesta that my mother called her ‘sexy little beast’. She bought it second-hand and had it resprayed at some back-street cutting shop my father knew about. I watched her leave that day. I stood at the upstairs window as she reversed out of the driveway and drove past the Tinklers’ house and Mrs Evans who was pruning her rose bushes and Millicent Jackson who lives on the corner with her twelve cats. I didn’t realise that my world was coming apart until later. It was as though she had taken hold of a loose thread and the further she drove away from me the more the thread unravelled like a cheap sweater, first the sleeve, then the shoulder, then the front and back until I was standing naked at the window.

  My Aunt Kate told me what happened – not the whole story, of course – nobody tells a seven-year-old that his mother died with a penis in her mouth. Those details tend to be glossed over like plot holes in a shitty movie or questions about how Santa Claus squeezes down all those chimneys in a single night. Everybody at my school knew before I did (about my mother, not Santa Claus). Some of the older boys couldn’t wait to tell me, while the girls giggled behind their hands.

  My father said nothing, not that first day or the next or any of the subsequent ones. Instead he sat in his armchair, mouthing words as though conducting some unfinished argument. One day I asked him if Mum was in Heaven.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Rotting in Hell.’

  ‘But Hell is for bad people.’

  ‘It’s what she deserves.’

  I had always assumed that Mr Shearer also went to Hell, but discovered later that he survived the crash. I don’t know if they reattached his penis. I don’t expect they cremated it with my mother. Maybe they had to make him a prosthetic one – a bionic penis – but that sounds like something from a cheap porno.

  Details like this have stayed with me while most of my other childhood memories disappeared into the long grass. My mother’s final day, in particular, is fixed in my mind, flickering against my closed eyelids, light and dark, playing on a continuous loop like an old home movie. I have protected and preserved these scenes because so little remained of my mother after my father had finished expunging her from his life and mine.

  I cling to them still, these fragments of my childhood, some real, others imagined, polished like gems and as tangible and definite to me as the world I walk through now, as solid as the trees and as cool as the sea breeze. I stand on the brow of a hill and look at the spired town, shimmering beneath shades of darkening blue. Thin wisps of cloud are like chalk marks on the cold upper air. Beyond the rooftops, past the headlands and rocky beaches and sandstone cliffs, I can make out the distant shore where fallen boulders resemble sculptures, carved and smoothed by the weather.

  I am not a fast walker. I take my time, stopping and pointing out things. Sheep. Cows. Birds. Horses. I make the sounds. Sheep are such passive, apathetic creatures, don’t you think? There is no intelligence in their eyes – not like dogs or horses. Sheep are just blobs of wool, blindl
y obedient, ignorant, as gullible as lemmings.

  The footpath reaches a blind bend, hidden by the trees. This is a good place to wait. I sit with my back braced against a trunk and take an apple from my pocket, along with a blade.

  ‘Would you like a piece?’ I ask. ‘No? Suit yourself. You keep walking.’

  I don’t mind waiting. Patience is not an absence of action – it is about timing. We wait to be born, we wait to grow up and we wait to grow old … Some days, most days, I go home disappointed, but not unhappy. There will always be other opportunities. I have the patience of a fisherman. I have the patience of Job. I know all about the saints, how Satan destroyed Job’s family and his livestock and turned him from a rich man to a childless pauper overnight, yet Job refused to condemn God for his suffering.

  The breeze moves through the branches of the trees and I can smell the salt and the seaweed drying on the shingle. A sharper gust of wind blows leaves against my legs and somewhere above me a dove coos monotonously. Then a dog barks, setting off a conversation with others, back and forth, bantering or grandstanding.

  I get up and put on my mask. I slip my hand into my trousers and cup my scrotum. My penis doesn’t seem to belong to me. It looks incongruous, like a strange worm that doesn’t know if it wants to be a tail or a talisman.

  Withdrawing my hand, I sniff my fingers and lean against the tree, watching the path. This is the right place. This is where I want to be. She will be along soon, if not today then perhaps tomorrow.

  My father liked to fish. He had so little patience with most things in life, yet could spend hours staring at the tip of his rod or the float bobbing on the surface of the water, humming to himself.

  ‘Thou shall have a fishy on a little dishy,

  Thou shall have a fishy when the boat comes in.’

  1

  ‘You can’t lie on the grass,’ says a voice.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You’re on the grass.’

  A figure stands over me, blocking the sun. I can only see his outline until he moves his head and then I’m blinded by the glare.

  ‘I didn’t see a sign,’ I say, shielding my eyes, my hand glowing pinkly around the edges.

  ‘Someone stole it,’ says the university porter, who is wearing a bowler hat, blue blazer and the requisite college tie. He’s in his sixties with grey hair trimmed everywhere except his eyebrows, which resemble twin caterpillars chasing each other across his forehead.

  ‘I didn’t think Oxford suffered petty crime,’ I say.

  ‘Student high jinks,’ explains the porter. ‘Some of ’em are too bloody clever for their own good, if you’ll pardon my language, sir.’

  He offers his hand and helps me to stand. As if by magic, he produces a lint roller from his coat pocket and runs it over my shoulders and the back of my shirt, collecting the grass clippings. He takes my sports jacket and holds it open. I feel as though I’m Bertie Wooster being dressed by Jeeves.

  ‘Were you a gownie, sir?’

  ‘No. I went to university in London.’

  The porter nods. ‘It was Durham for me. More an open prison than a place of higher learning.’

  I find it hard to imagine this man ever being a student. No, that’s not true. I can picture him as an overbearing prefect at some minor boarding school in Hertfordshire in the 1960s, where he had an unfortunate nickname like Fishy Rowe or Crappy Cox.

  ‘Why can’t people lie on the grass?’ I ask. ‘It’s a lovely day – the sun is shining, the birds are singing.’

  ‘Tradition,’ he says, as though this should explain everything. ‘No walking on the grass, no sitting on the grass, no dancing on the grass.’

  ‘Or the Empire will crumble.’

  ‘Bit late for that,’ he admits. ‘Are you sure we haven’t met, sir? I’m pretty good with faces.’

  ‘Positive.’

  He snaps his fingers exultantly. ‘You’re that psychologist. I’ve seen you on the news.’ He’s wagging his finger now. ‘Professor Joseph O’Loughlin, isn’t it? You helped find that missing girl. What was her name? Don’t tell me. It’s on the tip of … the tip of … Piper, that’s it. Piper Hadley.’ He beams as though waiting to be congratulated. ‘What brings you here? Are you going to be lecturing?’

  ‘No.’

  I glance across the college lawn where coloured flags flutter above the entrances and balloons hang from windows. The university Open Day is in full swing and students are manning tables and stalls, handing out brochures to prospective undergraduates, publicising the various courses, clubs and activities. There is a Real Ale Society and a Rock Music Society and a C. S. Lewis Society; and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer/Questioning Society – a mouthful whichever way you swing.

  ‘My daughter is looking over the colleges,’ I say. ‘She and her mother are inside.’

  ‘Excellent,’ says the porter. ‘Has she been offered a place?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say, trying to sound informed. ‘I mean, I think so, or she might still take a gap year.’ In truth, I have no idea. The porter frowns and his eyebrows begin to crawl, dipping and bowing above his eyes.

  My body chooses that moment to freeze and I’m caught in a classic James Bond crouch, without the gun of course, my face rigid and body locked in place like I’m a playing a game of musical statues.

  ‘Everything all right?’ asks the porter when I jerk back into motion. ‘You went all stiff and scary.’

  ‘I have Parkinson’s.’

  ‘Tough break. I have gout,’ he says, as though the two conditions are somehow comparable. ‘My doctor says I drink too much and my eyesight is getting worse. I have trouble distinguishing between a pub sign and a house fire.’

  Two teenagers are chasing each other across the grass. The porter yells at them to stop. He touches his bowler hat and wishes me the best of luck before he takes off in pursuit, swinging his arms as though doing a quick march on a parade ground.

  The midday tour of the college is finishing. I look around for Charlie and Julianne among the crowds of people spilling from the doors and wandering along the paths. I hope I haven’t missed them.

  There they are! Charlie is chatting to a student – a boy, who points to something over her shoulder, giving her directions. He tosses a non-existent fringe out of his eyes and types her number into his mobile phone. Another boy leans down and whispers in his ear. They’re checking my daughter out.

  ‘She’s not even a fresher yet,’ I mutter to myself.

  Julianne is picking up brochures from a table. She’s wearing white linen trousers and a silk blouse, with a pair of red sunglasses perched on her head. She doesn’t look so different from when we first met almost thirty years ago – tall and dark-haired, a little more muscular, athletic although curvaceous. Estranged wives shouldn’t look this good; they should be unappealing and sexless, with belly fat and drooping breasts. I’m not being sexist. Ex-husbands should be the same – overweight, balding, going to seed …

  Charlie has chosen a loose-fitting dress and Doc Martens, a combination that doesn’t come as a surprise. Mother and daughter are almost the same height, with the same full lips, thick eyelashes and a widow’s peak on their foreheads. My daughter has the more inquisitive face and is prone to sarcasm and occasional profanities, which I can live with unless she utters them in front of Emma, her younger sister.

  Eleven weeks from now, Charlie will be leaving home for university. She was interviewed for a place at Oxford last December – as well as at three other universities – and I know she received offers in January, but she hasn’t revealed which one she accepted or what she might study. Lately I have caught myself hoping that she’s flunked her A-levels exams and will have to retake them. I know that’s a terrible thing for a father to wish, although I suspect I’m not the first.

  Charlie spots me and waves. She breaks into a trot like a pedigree dog at Crufts. Likening my teenage daughter to a dog is not very PC or paternal, but Charlie has many
other fine canine traits, not least of them loyalty, intelligence and sorrowful brown eyes.

  Julianne puts her arm through mine. She walks slightly up on her toes, resembling a ballet dancer. Always has done.

  ‘So what have you been up to?’ she asks.

  ‘Chatting to the locals.’

  ‘Was that a college porter?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘It’s nice to see you making friends.’

  ‘I’m that sort of guy.’

  ‘Normally you appraise people rather than befriend them.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘You remind me of a mechanic who can’t look at the car without wondering what’s under the bonnet.’

  Julianne smiles and I marvel at how she can make a criticism sound remarkably similar to a compliment. I was married to this woman for twenty-two years and we’ve been separated for six. Not divorced. They say hope springs eternal, but I sense that I may have excavated that particular well and found it to be bone dry.

  ‘So what do you think?’ I ask Charlie.

  ‘It’s like Hogwarts for grown-ups,’ she replies. ‘They even wear gowns to dinner.’

  ‘What about a sorting hat and floating candles?’

  She rolls her eyes.

  I don’t know what’s more out-of-date, Harry Potter or my jokes.

  ‘There’s a band playing down by the river,’ says Charlie. ‘Can I go?’

  ‘Don’t you want to have lunch?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘We should talk about university,’ I say.

  ‘Later,’ she replies.

  ‘Have you accepted an offer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  She holds out her arms. ‘I’ll give you one guess.’

  ‘But what are you going to study?’

  ‘Good question.’

  Charlie is teasing me. Keeping her own counsel. I will be the last to know unless fatherly advice or money is needed, when suddenly I will become the fount of all wisdom and master of the wallet.

  ‘Where are we going to meet?’ asks Julianne.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ replies Charlie, holding out her open palm towards me. I pretend to look elsewhere. Her fingers make a curling gesture. I take out my wallet and, before I can count the notes, she has plucked a twenty from my fingers and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Daddy.’