‘We need to get a second opinion.’
‘This is the second opinion.’
‘When are these other tests?’
‘Wednesday at four.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I’m coming. Have you told your mother?’
‘I didn’t want to bother anyone until I was sure. It’s not as though it’s anyone’s business except mine.’
‘Do the girls know?’
‘I talked to Charlie a few days ago. I told her about the ultrasound. Emma must have been listening.’ Her voice almost breaks. She picks up her wine. Two hands. Unsteady. Sips.
Up until this moment, Julianne and I have had a nice, cosy system worked out – living separate lives in separate houses, sharing our daughters. We have had flings, woes, laughs and a Heinz-like variety of irritations, but fundamentally we’re still the same two people in slightly different orbits. Now she is trying to dismiss this as nothing – a mere trifle, another hiccup – but this is something. This is life-changing. This is epochal.
When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s I couldn’t go home and tell Julianne. Instead I slept with a woman who wasn’t my wife. It was a one-night stand that will always stand – the low point of our marriage, the low point of my life. My diagnosis had devastated me. I was dumbfounded. Distraught. How could I tell Julianne and pull the pin on our perfect life and golden future? I should have had more faith in her. Instead I went to see Elisa – an old friend and a former patient – a woman who had spent years listening to unhappy men, not as a therapist but as a prostitute.
We think we know ourselves. We imagine our reaction to such a diagnosis. We’ve seen enough movies about cancer sufferers or read anything by Nicholas Sparks. We’re supposed to pound the walls, howl at the moon, buy a Porsche, take a world cruise, write to everyone we’ve ever wronged and then sit in the dark, watching old Bob Hope and Bing Crosby movies, drinking ourselves into oblivion.
The weird thing is I slept fine after my diagnosis. No nightmares. It was only during the day that I remembered. How could I forget? Now someone I love is going to experience this. I hear myself talking to Julianne, sounding like a veteran campaigner, but I’ve never had cancer or had to endure surgery.
She grows pensive again. ‘You don’t have to stay – I feel as though I’ve tricked you into coming.’
‘You didn’t trick me.’
‘It’s just until I get out of hospital.’
‘I’m here until you ask me to leave.’
Acorns snap and pop under our feet as we walk down Mill Hill Lane to the cottage. Julianne hooks her arm into mine and we match strides.
‘I know what you’re going to do,’ she says. ‘You’ll spend all night on the Internet, trying to Google up a cure.’
‘Might do.’
‘This feels a little strange.’
‘In a good way?’
‘Like uncharted territory.’
‘That can be good.’
‘I’m glad that we’re friends.’
‘Me too.’
That night, lying alone in Emma’s bed, I hold out my hand, reaching into the darkness, and I trace Julianne’s curves in my mind, feeling her breath against my face, her heart against mine. I know her body better than my own: her knees, her elbows, her belly button and the spot behind her ear that produces a sigh when kissed. I imagine it’s my secret place that nobody else knows about, but I wonder who else has discovered it or gone looking. It doesn’t matter any more. I’m here.
13
Just before dawn, when mist hangs in the valleys like spilled milk and the air is cool and clear, four police cars arrive at a farm in the Gordano Valley, less than six hundred yards from the murder house. Tommy Garrett and his grandmother are already awake, working beneath the dangling yellow light bulbs in the milking shed. Tommy is quickly handcuffed and led to a waiting car. Doreen slaps her grandson on the back of the head and yells, ‘What did you do?’
‘N-n-nothing.’
‘Must have been something.’
While the police search the house, Tommy is taken to Clevedon Police Station on Tickenham Road. Doreen stays at the farm, complaining about the search and demanding to know who is going to clean up the mess.
I’m in London by this time. The outskirts of the capital are interminable, but once I see the dense green of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens I feel a little more well disposed towards the city, with its stone arches, soaring domes and storybook qualities with place names that belonged to Dickens and Woolf and Keats.
Stopping at my flat, I drag a suitcase from beneath the bed and hurriedly pack some things. When I was young my mother insisted on picking out my clothes and hanging them on the doorknob while I slept. She dressed me like Little Lord Fauntleroy in a waistcoat and tie, while my sisters looked like Hayley Mills in Pollyanna. Ever since then I’ve struggled to make choices about what I should wear, which is why my wardrobe is full of chinos and long-sleeved cotton shirts and blue blazers. I have become a creature of habit in middle-aged camouflage.
After emptying the fridge of perishables, I leave a note for Henry, downstairs, asking him to water my indoor plants and keep an eye on the place. Stowing the suitcase in the car, I drive south to Fulham, parking outside a pastel-coloured terrace house in Rainville Road less than eighty yards from the Thames. Nobody answers the doorbell. I call Ruiz on his mobile and leave a message.
The pub over the road isn’t his regular boozer. The Crabtree is far too bright and welcoming. Ruiz prefers to drink in places where punters shield their eyes when the door opens and guard their drinks as though the Chancellor of the Exchequer has rationed them. I don’t understand the attraction, but Ruiz says the cleanliness of the pipes and quality of the ales are more important than buxom barmaids and sparkling conversation. Vincent is a man of simple tastes and complex humanity, who has never tried to shake his past, because he knows that it cannot be altered. Instead he reminds me of a punch-drunk boxer who hears a bell and charges out of his corner, head down and arms swinging. The footwork has slowed, but he can still deliver a punch that will stop a tram.
I see him now, standing at the entrance to the beer garden, searching for me. I wave. He nods. Gesticulates. Do I want a drink? I shake my head. He gets himself a Guinness.
‘A little early,’ I say, as he centres the foaming pint glass on a coaster.
‘It’s a pub not a coffee shop.’
He takes a small sip and then a bigger one. Satisfied, he drains half the glass. Dressed in loose-fitting jeans, a T-shirt and a scuffed leather jacket, he has the physique of a rugby prop, straight up and down, with thinning hair and battered ears. Half his left ring finger is missing, amputated by a high-velocity bullet; and he walks with a limp because the second bullet came even closer to killing him.
We sit at a table overlooking the river. It’s low tide and gulls are fighting for scraps on the exposed mud.
‘How’s the Parkinson’s?’ he asks.
‘Like I’m always on vibrate.’
He smiles. ‘You’ve been saving that up.’
I notice a black band on his wrist. ‘What’s that?’
‘Miranda bought it for me,’ he replies.
‘What does it do?’
‘Tells me how far I’ve walked.’
‘You’re exercising?’
‘I prefer to think I’m earning my daily alcohol intake.’
Miranda is Ruiz’s ex-wife – his third – but they seem to have more sex and fewer arguments since they divorced.
‘She says I’m getting fat,’ he explains. ‘I have to do ten thousand steps a day.’
‘Ten thousand!’
‘If I walk to her house, I get a treat.’
‘Are you a man or a dog?’
‘Good question.’
‘So what’s the treat?’
‘I get to sleep over.’
‘She lives in Bayswater.’
‘Exactly.�
�
‘You could always catch the bus.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s the problem. This thing has a GPS-style widget, which means Miranda can look at her computer and see exactly how far I’ve walked. Last week I paid the kid next door to go jogging but he went too far. Miranda smelled a rat. It cost me a hundred-quid dinner to make it up to her.’
‘And you think I’m hung up on a woman!’
‘At least I’m getting laid.’
I contemplate telling him that I’m staying at the cottage for a few weeks with Julianne, but it no longer seems like something to celebrate. Ruiz swallows the rest of his Guinness, pausing to belch quietly into his fist.
‘So why are you here?’ he asks.
‘This could be a social visit.’
‘We both know that’s not true.’
I’ve known Ruiz for nearly ten years – ever since he arrested me as a murder suspect. Since then we’ve become friends and sometimes help each other out – although I suspect the ledger favours him.
‘I’m working on a case,’ I say, explaining the reasons, trying not to sound as though I’m justifying them.
‘And where do I come into this?’
‘I need your help.’
Ruiz clears his throat, his voice gravelly. ‘Let me consult my diary.’ He licks the tip of his index finger and holds it up to the breeze. ‘I appear to be free.’
I buy him another Guinness before outlining the details of the case. On 6 June, between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., a mother and daughter were killed in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Clevedon – one stabbed, the other suffocated. There are six prime suspects: an ex-husband, his business partner, a stepson, the daughter’s boyfriend, a neighbour and one of the men who Elizabeth met through a dating agency. A second list compiled by the task force includes the names of all the registered sex offenders in the area with no alibi for the murders. A third list records everyone who had contact with Elizabeth and Harper in the preceding days – tradesmen, friends and visitors.
‘There’s another complication,’ I say. ‘Elizabeth may have invited a stranger home. She was known to frequent local dogging sites. You know what dogging is?’
‘I’m retired, not expired, Professor, but I don’t claim first-hand experience.’ Ruiz’s eyes are smiling. ‘Who’s in charge of the investigation?’
‘Ronnie Cray.’
‘How is the Fat Controller?’
‘She’s a chief superintendent now.’
‘All that hot air – she floated right to the top.’
‘Don’t be harsh.’
‘Does she know I’m coming on board?’
‘She suggested I call you.’
Ruiz knows I’m lying. ‘So what’s the brief?’
‘We go over the statements, review the investigation, see if there’s anything the police might have missed.’
‘The two of us?’
‘We’re reviewing it – not solving it.’
Ruiz drains his glass and contemplates getting another. ‘In my opinion, which I know you’ll ignore,’ he says, ‘you may have allowed your personal feelings to cloud your judgement on this one.’
‘How so?’
‘You’re pissed off that your former student is treading on your territory.’
‘It’s not my territory. He’s compromised an investigation.’
‘And trashed your name?’
‘I don’t care about Milo Coleman. I want to make sure the killer gets caught.’
‘If you say so.’
14
Early afternoon and the high-altitude clouds in the western sky have formed a pale wash that grows lighter as the sun reaches its zenith. I’m driving west along the M4 through rolling hills that are swathed in vibrant yellow. When did the wheat, barley and corn of my youth become usurped by rapeseed?
Snatches of my conversation with Julianne keep replaying in my mind. Mostly I remember the look of uncertainty in her eyes. I have known this woman for more than half my life. I have seen her frightened for a missing child or an unborn baby or a husband bleeding to death in her arms – but never for herself. This time her body testified to it and her doubts were written on her face: the reality of her mortality and fear of what lies ahead.
Passing Bristol, I glimpse the Severn Bridge with its twin pyramids of wire, spanning the estuary. Ruiz is going to join me on Monday. The following day will be the funerals of Elizabeth and Harper. Ronnie Cray has suggested I be there. Family dynamics are on display at weddings and funerals – the subtle alliances and factions and old hatreds, patched up for the day, but never far below the surface. My mother barely acknowledges her sister-in-law, who she accuses of stealing a shortbread recipe thirty-five years ago, and my father hasn’t talked to his younger brother since 1986 because of an unpaid bet on a Cup Final.
My mobile chirrups. Emma thinks it’s funny to keep changing my ringtone. Charlie’s voice echoes through the car speakers. ‘I want the truth about Mummy.’
‘I thought she talked to you.’
‘She gave me some rainbow-and-dolphins speech about everything being fine and it’s no big deal.’
‘She is going to be fine.’
‘Don’t treat me like I’m a child,’ she says angrily, and I can picture the twin frown marks etched deeply above the bridge of her nose. ‘You’re a doctor, you know about this stuff.’
‘I’m a psychologist.’
‘But you studied medicine.’
‘I didn’t finish.’
‘Stop making excuses! Ovarian cancer – that’s serious, isn’t it? I mean, it can spread. It can be … you know … it can be…’
‘She might need an operation.’
‘A hysterectomy?’
‘We won’t know until she sees the oncologist on Wednesday. They might have to take out her ovaries or uterus. Then she’ll probably need a few rounds of chemotherapy.’
‘Oh, crap!’
‘What?’
‘Freya’s dad had chemo. He had a brain tumour.’
‘A lot of people have chemo.’
‘He died.’
‘That’s not going to happen to Mum.’
‘How do you know? You’re not a doctor!’ Her voice is breaking. ‘That’s why she asked you to come back, isn’t it? She’s afraid she’s going to die.’
‘No.’
‘Why then?’
‘She knew she might need an operation.’
‘Well, it’s not fair,’ says Charlie. ‘It’s not fair on you and it’s not fair on us.’
‘It’s not fair on her,’ I say.
Charlie sniffles.
‘We have to be strong,’ I tell her.
‘I’m scared.’
‘She’s scared too.’ There is a long silence. I can hear her chewing on her bottom lip. ‘Are we good?’
She sighs, and blows her nose. ‘Yep, we’re good.’
The minicab office takes up the front room of a pebble-dashed terrace in Old Street, Clevedon. A banner sign hangs from the first-floor windows, drooping at one corner. The waiting room has two plastic chairs and a low table where a dozen glossy magazines are curling with age. The dispatcher is sitting at a desk that is pushed up against a doorway to form a makeshift counter. She has ketchup-coloured hair and a mole on her top lip that seems to lift off like a fly and settle again every time she talks.
‘You want a car, love?’
‘I’m looking for one of your drivers – Dominic Crowe.’
‘He’s on the road.’
‘When is he due back?’
‘Unless you book him, I can’t be certain.’
The sign above her head says: Anywhere in Clevedon for £3.50.
‘I’ll book him.’
‘Where do you want to go?’
‘I’ll tell him when he gets here.’
She flicks on the radio. ‘Hey, Nic, got a fare waiting at the office.’ She meets my gaze and keeps talking. ‘He asked for you by name? … Didn’t say … Skinny, my age, curly hair … doesn�
��t look like one … You want me to ask? … OK, I’ll tell him…’
She turns to me. ‘He’ll be ten minutes. Are you a reporter?’
‘No.’
‘We’ve had lots of reporters in here. Some of them lie.’
‘I’m not a reporter.’
I can see her finger hovering over the button of the two-way, itching to spread the latest bit of news. Smiling politely, I pick up a magazine and read about how Kate Middleton is losing her baby weight and getting back into shape. Who’d be a princess?
A few minutes later a car pulls up outside.
‘That’s your ride,’ says the woman.
Dominic Crowe gets out and opens the rear door. Tall and loose-limbed with a shock of dark hair, he has Harper’s high forehead and sharp cheekbones beneath a five o’clock shadow.
‘I’ll sit up front,’ I tell him.
He shuts one door and opens another. ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Show me the sights.’
‘That’s not how it works. I drop you somewhere and you pay me.’
‘How far will twenty quid get me?’
‘I’m not giving you a blow job, if that’s what you mean. So what’s this about?’
I tell him the truth. He doesn’t get annoyed or try to avoid the subject. If anything he seems grimly accepting. ‘I’ve been interviewed three times already. Surely you can find some better use for your time.’
‘I’m a psychologist – I ask different questions.’
He smiles wryly. ‘Yeah, well, I probably need my head read; I was married to that woman for twenty-four years.’
He gets behind the wheel and we drive down Chapel Hill and along Lindon Road until we reach Clevedon Pier. He pulls into an angled parking space overlooking the rocky beach where swaths of mud and shingle have been exposed by the outgoing tide. I can see people walking along the pier, stopping to read the name plaques on the benches.
‘It falls forty-seven feet,’ he says.
‘What does?’
‘The tide – they say it’s the second highest in the world.’ He lowers the window and rests his elbow outside, before motioning to the pier. ‘About forty years ago the outward spans collapsed when the legs failed. It took years of haggling, but eventually it was rebuilt.’
Close Your Eyes Page 10
