Close Your Eyes

by Robotham, Michael

  Julianne’s eyes open and she gives me a dreamy smile, as though I’m drifting in and out of focus. Her dry lips are stuck together. They separate slowly like a zipper opening.

  ‘Did they cut off my legs?’ she asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You hear stories, don’t you – of people going into hospital and they amputate the wrong limb or cut off the wrong breast.’

  ‘Your legs look great.’

  ‘What about my breasts?’

  ‘Very perky.’

  ‘Perky?’

  ‘That’s the left one. Pinky also looks good.’

  ‘You have names for my breasts.’

  ‘Is that wrong?’

  ‘I think they call it sexual objectification.’

  ‘But that assumes that I treat them merely as sex objects, which I don’t. I love every part of you equally.’

  She tries to smile and squeezes my hand. I’m lying awkwardly half on the bed, half off.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.

  ‘Sore.’

  ‘Shall I get off?’

  ‘No, don’t move. Stay. How are the girls?’

  ‘Charlie has taken Emma swimming.’

  ‘Did you have to bribe her?’

  ‘No.’

  I can’t take my eyes from her – the way her mouth moves when she speaks, the slight careless arching of her brows, her scent. She has always been like another language that I’ve never quite managed to master.

  ‘They want to see you.’

  ‘Maybe later,’ she says, sleepily. ‘They should drug me all the time. Feels wonderful.’

  Her eyes shut and her breathing becomes shallow and steady. I climb off the bed and walk along the corridor. I try to call Charlie, but she isn’t answering her phone.

  Becca Washburn is at the nurses’ station, talking to one of her colleagues.

  ‘Has your wife woken up?’ she asks.

  ‘She’s sleeping again.’

  ‘That’s pretty normal. There’s a cafeteria downstairs. The coffee isn’t as good as up the road, but you could always have tea.’

  I tell her that I’m fine and just stretching my legs. I go back to Julianne’s room. Sitting by the window, I look across rooftops that are dotted with chimney pots and aerials. Picking up the TV remote, I turn on Sky News, muting the sound. Banner headlines roll along the bottom of the screen. Bombings. Beheadings. Threats. Refugees. A new story: Attack Victim Wakes is the headline. A photograph of Milo Coleman flashes on screen. I turn up the sound.

  ‘…psychologist found unconscious in the stairwell of a Bristol car park yesterday has woken from a coma. However, neurologists at the Royal Infirmary hold grave fears that Milo Coleman has suffered severe brain damage and may never recover his mental or physical faculties…’

  A deep sadness swells in my chest and rises to my throat. I didn’t admire or respect Milo, but of all the fools in the world – and there are many – I feel as though he is my responsibility. I would rather be dead than live like a vegetable, but I could never ask others to make that choice for me.

  ‘The lion’s gaze,’ I whisper to myself.

  Elliot Crowe didn’t kill his mother and sister. I don’t think he attacked Milo Coleman, yet someone wants to make him responsible. There are seven other known victims – different ages, genders, locations and demographics. Most have admitted to having extramarital affairs and the others might be lying, but I want to believe Maggie Dutton is telling the truth.

  The same man is responsible for all these crimes – someone who feels betrayed, marginalised or cheated, who sees the world in black and white. How did he find his victims? Internet chat rooms. Online dating services. Dogging sites. Maybe he’s a cab driver or a marriage guidance counsellor or a divorce lawyer. What do people buy their mistresses? Flowers. Lingerie. Where do they take them? Restaurants. Hotels.

  All at once I feel a surge of realisation like ice water running down my back. Every door and window in my mind seems to open and wind blows through lifting papers from desks and dust from corners and causes that tiny figure madly pedalling inside my head to stop for a moment and slap his forehead, saying, Of course, a hotel!

  He sees them come and go. He has their names or addresses or number plates. In the same breath, another detail catches and holds. When I visited Jeremy Egan’s office in Portishead he had a scale model of the Regency Hotel in Clevedon. His company is redeveloping the site – turning it into luxury apartments.

  Punching my mobile, I call Maggie Dutton. Her answering machine picks up.

  Hello, this is Maggie. Sorry I can’t come to the phone just now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you soon … wait for the beep.

  ‘If you’re there, Maggie, pick up. It’s Joe O’Loughlin. I have a question. It’s very important. Did you and your husband ever stay at the Regency Hotel in Clevedon?’

  I wait, listening, muttering, ‘Pick up! Pick up! Pick up!’

  The receiver lifts. I hear Maggie’s voice.

  ‘Did you ever stay at the Regency?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I’m trying to remember … it must have been about seven or eight months ago.’

  ‘Did you pretend to be strangers? I mean, did you and your husband act as though you were having an affair?’

  She hesitates. ‘Brendan thought it might be fun. He got me to wear a wig and short skirt. I chatted him up in the bar. Told him I was married.’ The penny drops, her voice changes. ‘Is that why I was attacked?’

  I don’t answer her question. I’m running now, down the stairs and across the foyer. I call Ronnie Cray. She can stop this. She can take the credit. They’ve charged the wrong man.

  48

  The temporary incident room is being dismantled and packed way, whiteboards wiped clean and case files put in boxes. Most of the task force has been reassigned and only half a dozen detectives remain, inputting the backlog of statements and preparing a report for the Crown Prosecution Service. The case now belongs to the lawyers who will take it to trial.

  I make an entrance, veering sideways and colliding with the furniture. People look up as I pick up a fallen chair and straighten a stack of files that have almost toppled from a desk. I nod apologetically and rattle pills into the palm of my hand, swallowing them dry.

  DI Abbott emerges from an office. Not happy. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Where’s DCS Cray?’

  ‘On her way.’

  As if on cue she arrives, throwing open doors and pushing aside chairs, acting as though she’s the one who’s been kept waiting. Bennie is behind her, hanging back because she’s unsure of her role.

  ‘What’s this about, guv?’ asks Monk.

  ‘The Professor has a theory,’ replies Cray, taking a seat and summoning the other detectives, who pull up chairs or prop buttocks on the corners of desks.

  I waste no time laying it out, putting the pieces together as they came to me, avoiding a desire to skip ahead or to let details tumble out without context. If I cannot remember a particular time or date, I don’t attempt to fill in the blanks or force the facts to fit my conclusions.

  ‘Leaving aside Milo Coleman, seven people were attacked and mutilated. Almost all admit to having an affair – but we haven’t managed to establish how they were targeted. What if they were guests at the same hotel? They arrive separately and check in, possibly using fake names and bogus addresses. It doesn’t matter when or why – it’s how he found them.’

  ‘Who?’ Monk asks.

  ‘Jeremy Egan. His company is redeveloping the old Regency Hotel in Clevedon. Last September it hosted a fitness convention where two of our victims had a one-night stand. It’s also where Maggie Dutton stayed with her husband. This links Egan to at least three victims. He was also having an affair with Elizabeth Crowe, which links him to the farmhouse murders.’

  ‘Hold on,’ says Monk. ‘Maggie Dutton denied having an affair.’

  ‘She and h
er husband stayed at the Regency pretending they’d never met.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  Bennie punches him on the shoulder. ‘It’s called role-playing.’

  One of the other detectives pipes up: ‘Naomi Meredith’s boss took her to the Regency on their first weekend together.’

  ‘That’s another one,’ I say. ‘And Egan’s wife changed her statement. He doesn’t have an alibi for the night Elizabeth and Harper Crowe were murdered.’

  Monk reacts belligerently. ‘Elliot Crowe killed his mother and sister. We found the murder weapon buried in his garden.’

  ‘Jeremy Egan could have planted it there. We also know he talked to Harper at the Salthouse pub a few hours before she died.’

  I look at Ronnie Cray, hoping for support. ‘I’m not even supposed to be here,’ she says, deferring to DI Abbott.

  Monk gets to his feet, giving nothing away. He walks to his desk, opens a drawer and takes out his badge. Then he picks up his coat from a chair.

  ‘All right, let’s take another swing at Jeremy Egan … see if he blinks.’

  Late afternoon and dark clouds, humped and bruised, are moving across the sky with surprising speed, giving the impression that the Earth is spinning at a faster rate. The wind has picked up. First come little gusts and then stronger ones that sing in the rigging of yachts moored in the marina and make the trees sway like drunken dancers.

  Charlie still isn’t answering her phone. Maybe she’s cross at me for making her look after Emma. Two police cars pull up in front of the building site, beneath a billboard displaying an artist’s impression of the finished development: Regency Apartments. High plywood fences, dotted with posters and stained by graffiti, surround the construction area.

  Nobody answers our knock at the site office, but high on the scaffolding we hear nail-guns firing and tiles being cut. Ladders lead between the floors of the old hotel, which is now draped in plastic sheets to prevent debris from falling on the road.

  ‘Looks as though we’re climbing,’ says Monk.

  ‘I’m not good with heights,’ I say.

  ‘Tough.’

  We pass a workplace safety sign that says all visitors must have hard hats and high-visibility vests. Monk goes up first and I follow. There are no windows on the first level, just empty wooden frames, waiting for the glaziers. Inside I can see kitchens being fitted out, the appliances still wrapped in plastic and resting on wooden pallets.

  A workman looks up from a circular saw. He lets the machine idle and takes off his mask.

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Egan,’ yells Monk.

  The workman points upstairs. We climb. The saw starts up again. I glance down and see the workman flip open his phone.

  On the next level the apartments are nearer to completion. One of them has been decorated and furnished, perhaps for display purposes. There are sheets on the unmade bed and dirty clothes on the floor. I notice a half-empty glass of milk and a ham and lettuce sandwich on the kitchen bench.

  A gust of wind makes the scaffolding shudder. It’s not the wind. There’s someone outside. Monk crosses the open-plan living area and opens the sliding door. He discovers Jeremy Egan hanging from the lower edge of the balcony, trying to shimmy sideways so he can drop to the apartment below.

  Monk is quicker. He leans over the framed glass screen and snaps one handcuff around Egan’s right wrist, attaching it to the lowest railing, trapping him between floors.

  ‘I can’t hang on,’ yells Egan.

  ‘Then let go,’ answers Monk.

  ‘I’ll break my bloody wrist.’

  ‘Possibly,’ says Monk, ‘but at least you’re wearing a hard hat.’

  Egan’s fingers slip a little further off the edge. He tries to readjust and only makes it worse.

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘First tell me why you were trying to run from the police.’

  ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This build is six months behind because of bad weather. I took out bridging finance, but I stopped making the payments.’

  ‘And that’s the only reason?’ asks Monk.

  ‘Yes.’

  Egan falls and swings on one cuffed wrist, screaming in pain. Monk bends over the glass and unlocks the cuffs, grabbing the architect and hauling him on to the balcony, where he collapses, breathing hard.

  Lightning streaks through the sky and pushes a bony finger into the sea. One. Two. Three. Thunder.

  Egan rubs at this wrist, sulking, ‘I’m not talking to you without my lawyer.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk. You can listen,’ says Monk, who turns to me. ‘It’s your show, Professor.’

  I pull up a chair. Egan is still sitting on the ground with his back to the glass.

  ‘You bought the Regency Hotel three years ago and kept it running,’ I say.’

  ‘Yeah, so?’ he replies.

  ‘It took you two years to get planning permission to do the conversion, which is why money became an issue.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with you?’ asks Egan, taking off his hard hat and smoothing his fringe.

  ‘Do you know someone called Maggie Dutton?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about Naomi Meredith, or Gabrielle Sallis or Matthew Blair?’

  ‘I don’t know any of them.’

  ‘They all stayed at the Regency when it was still a hotel. Some time afterwards they were attacked and choked unconscious, bound with masking tape and had the letter “A” carved into their foreheads by someone who accused them of committing adultery.’

  Egan lets out a ragged groan. He rises and walks slowly to the sofa, putting his hard hat on his knees.

  ‘You think I’m a sadist?’ he asks quietly.

  ‘I think you’re the link between all the victims – you and this hotel.’

  ‘You’re right. I am a link, but not because I own this place.’ He pauses rubbing at his wrist. ‘At least you solved one mystery.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Monk.

  Egan lifts his chin and pushes back his fringe, revealing the scar on his forehead. Pink. Puckered. Unmistakable.

  Lightning flashes and thunder seems to peel away from the earth and rise into the clouds.

  ‘When?’ I ask.

  ‘A year ago.’

  ‘Is that why you and Elizabeth Crowe stopped seeing each other?’

  ‘One of the reasons.’ He pats down his fringe, covering his forehead again.

  I have more questions, wanting to know when and where, but Monk has already found his feet and is walking towards the door. ‘We’re sorry to trouble you, Mr Egan.’

  ‘But I have more questions,’ I say.

  ‘No, we’re done here.’

  Every sound is heightened, every emotion magnified. I hear feathery laughter, car doors slamming, sandals being slapped together and the hiss of water washing over shingle. The girls are leaving the beach, walking along the path. They’re twenty yards ahead of me. Alone. Arguing.

  Until now the air had been so still that it barely registered against my skin, but now stronger gusts are whipping through the trees, dotting the sea with whitecaps and sending waves thudding against the rocks. Strands of Charlie’s hair flatten and then stand, drawn by the electricity in the air.

  The younger girl has run ahead. Charlie is carrying two beach towels and a cloth shoulder bag. The sketchbook peeks from inside.

  She turns. ‘Are you following me?’

  ‘No, I’m looking for you.’

  Some girls her age avoid eye contact, but she looks directly at me, confident, yet wary. Perspiration gleams on her top lip.

  ‘I’ve just come from the nursing home. They said you had some photographs.’

  ‘I found the old man in the drawing,’ she says. ‘The lady at reception recognised him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘She remembered a girl coming to sketch him.’

  She reaches into the p
ocket of her denim shorts and produces two photographs. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No,’ I say, without bothering to look.

  ‘But the lady at the nursing home said he’d gone for a walk.’

  ‘She made a mistake. He doesn’t live at the nursing home.’

  My tone of voice makes her flinch. Her sister has turned back and joined us. She scratches at an insect bite on her leg and eyes me suspiciously.

  ‘And who might you be?’ I ask, trying to smile.

  ‘This is Emma,’ answers Charlie.

  The light has changed. To the west I have lost sight of the pier, cloaked by the coming storm. Fat drops are beginning to rattle the leaves and dot the dusty path.

  ‘You’re not going to get back in time,’ I say. ‘I know a place we can shelter.’

  ‘We’ll be OK,’ says Charlie. ‘I like storms.’

  ‘You’ll get drenched.’

  ‘Can I have the photographs back?’ she asks.

  ‘I think you should leave them with me. Are there any others?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You should also give me Harper’s sketchbook and forget about the old man.’

  She’s backing away from me now, holding her sister by the shoulder. ‘You know her name.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said Harper’s name.’

  ‘You must have mentioned it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here. You should have let bygones be bygones.’

  ‘What is a bygone?’ asks Emma.

  ‘Something that should be left in the past,’ I say, tearing the Polaroid photographs into pieces and tossing them into the wind like confetti.

  Lightning rips opens the sky in a jagged tear and the crack of thunder is almost simultaneous, rattling bones, branches and rocks. Emma screams. Charlie steps in front of her, shielding her from me. She glances from side to side, looking for an escape. I’m blocking the path.

  A strange feeling fills me now, excitement rather than fear. This girl could be the architect of my undoing. She could bring my two worlds crashing together and I will be trapped in between.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asks again.

  ‘I’m nobody important.’

  ‘How do you know about Harper?’