The Suspect jo-1

by Michael Robotham

  “But you liked her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened about the care order?”

  “One magistrate agreed with the application and two claimed there was insufficient evidence to sustain the argument.”

  “So you tried to get Bobby made a ward of the court?”

  “You bet. I wasn’t letting the father anywhere near him. We went straight to the county court and got a hearing that afternoon. The papers should be all there.” She motions toward the files.

  “Who gave evidence?”

  “I did.”

  “What about Erskine?”

  “I used his report.”

  Mel is getting annoyed at my questions. “Any social worker would have done what I did. If you can’t get the magistrates to see sense, you go to a judge. Nine times out of ten you’ll get wardship.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “No.” She sounds disappointed. “They’ve changed the rules.”

  From the moment Bobby became a ward, every major decision on his welfare was made by a court instead of his family. He couldn’t change schools, get a passport, join the army or get married without the court’s permission. It also guaranteed that his father would never be allowed back into his life.

  Turning the pages of the file, I come across the judgment. It runs to about eight pages, but I scan them quickly, looking for the outcome.

  The husband and wife are each genuinely concerned about the welfare of the child. I am satisfied that they have in the past, in their own way, attempted to discharge their obligations as parents to the best of their ability. Unfortunately in the husband’s case, his ability to properly and appropriately discharge his obligations to the child has, in my view, been adversely affected by the allegations hanging over his head.

  I have taken into consideration the countervailing evidence— namely the husband’s denials. At the same time, I am aware that the child wishes to live with both his father and mother. Clearly, the weight given to those wishes must be balanced against other matters relevant to Bobby’s welfare.

  The child welfare guidelines and tests are clear. Bobby’s interests are paramount. This court cannot grant custody or access to a parent, if that custody or access would expose a child to an unacceptable risk of sexual abuse.

  I hope that in due course, when Bobby has acquired a level of self-protection, maturity and understanding, he will have an opportunity to spend time with his father. However, until that time arrives, which I see regrettably as being some time in the future, he should not have contact with his father.

  The judgment bears a court seal and is signed by Mr. Justice Alexander McBride, Catherine’s grandfather.

  Mel is watching me from the far side of the desk. “Find what you were looking for?”

  “Not really. Did you ever have much to do with Justice McBride?”

  “He’s a good egg.”

  “I suppose you’ve heard about his granddaughter.”

  “A terrible thing.”

  She spins her chair slowly around and stretches out her legs until her shoes rest on the wall. Her eyes are fixed on me.

  “Do you know if Catherine McBride had a file?” I ask casually.

  “Funny you should ask that.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve just had someone else ask to see it. That’s two interesting requests in one day.”

  “Who asked for the file?”

  “A murder squad detective. He wants to know if your name crops up in there.”

  Her eyes are piercing. She is angry with me for holding something back. Social workers don’t confide in people easily. They learn not to trust… not when dealing with abused children, beaten wives, drug addicts, alcoholics and parents fighting for custody. Nothing can be taken at face value. Never trust a journalist, or a defense lawyer, or a parent who is running scared. Never turn your back in an interview or make a promise to a child. Never rely on foster carers, magistrates, politicians or senior public servants. Mel had trusted me. I had let her down.

  “The detective says you’re a subject of interest. He says Catherine made a sexual assault complaint against you. He asked if any other complaints had ever been made.”

  This is Mel’s territory. She has nothing against men, just the things they do.

  “The sexual assault is a fiction. I didn’t touch Catherine.”

  I can’t hide the anger in my voice. Turning the other cheek is for people who want to look the other way. I’m sick of being accused of something I haven’t done.

  On the walk back to the Albion Hotel I try to put the pieces together. My stitched ear is throbbing but it helps focus my thoughts. It’s like being able to concentrate with the TV turned up full volume.

  Bobby was the same age as Charlie when he lost his father. A tragedy like that can take a terrible toll, but more than one person is needed to shape a child’s mind. There are grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, teachers, friends and a huge cast of extras. If I could call on all of these people and interview them, maybe I could discover what happened to him.

  What am I missing? A child is made a ward of the court. His father commits suicide. A sad story but not unique. Children aren’t made wards of the court anymore. The law changed in the early nineties. The old system was too open to abuse. Precious little evidence was required and there were no checks and balances.

  Bobby had shown all the signs of being sexually abused. Victims of child abuse find ways of protecting themselves. Some suffer from traumatic amnesia; others bury their pain in their unconscious minds or refuse to reflect on what has happened. At the same time there are sometimes social workers who “verify” rather than question allegations of abuse. They believe that accusers never lie and abusers always do.

  The more Bobby denied anything had happened, the more people believed it had to be true. This one cast-iron assumption underpinned the entire investigation.

  What if we got it wrong?

  Researchers at the University of Michigan once took a synopsis of an actual case involving a two-year-old girl and presented it to a panel of experts, including eight clinical psychologists, twenty-three graduate students and fifty social workers and psychiatrists. The researchers knew from the outset the child had not been sexually abused.

  The mother alleged abuse based on her discovery of a bruise on her daughter’s leg and a single pubic hair (which she thought looked like the father’s) in the girl’s nappy. Four medical examinations showed no evidence of abuse. Two lie detector tests and a joint police and Child Protection Service investigation cleared the father.

  Despite this, three-quarters of the experts recommended that the father’s contact with the daughter be either highly supervised or stopped altogether. Several of them even concluded that the girl had been sodomized.

  There is no such thing as presumed innocence in child abuse cases. The accused is guilty until proven otherwise. The stain is invisible yet indelible.

  I know all the defenses to arguments like this. False accusations are rare. We get it wrong more times than we get it right.

  Erskine is a good psychologist and a good man. He nursed his wife through MS until she died and he’s raised a lot for a research grant in her name. Mel has passion and a social conscience that always puts me to shame. At the same time, she has never made any pretense of neutrality. She knows what she knows. Gut instinct counts.

  I don’t know where any of this leaves me. I’m tired and I’m hungry. I still don’t have any evidence that Bobby knew Catherine McBride, let alone murdered her.

  A dozen steps before I reach my hotel room I know something is wrong. The door is open. A wine-dark stain leaks across the carpet, heading for the stairs. A potted palm lies on its side across the doorway. The clay pot must have broken in half when it sheared off the door handle.

  A cleaner’s cart is parked in the stairwell. It contains two buckets, mops, scrubbing brushes and a collection of wet rags. The cleaning lady is standing in the
middle of my room. The bed is upside down, littered with the remains of a broken drawer. The sink— wrenched from the wall— lies beneath a broken pipe and a steady trickle of water.

  My clothes are scattered across the sodden carpet, interspersed with torn pages of notes and ripped folders. My sports bag is crammed inside the bowl of the toilet, decorated with a turd.

  “There is nothing like having your room properly cleaned, is there?” I say.

  The cleaning lady looks at me in disbelief.

  Spearmint toothpaste spells out a message on the mirror that’s full of local flavor: GO HOME OR GET BOXED. Simple. Succinct. Precise. The hotel manager wants to call the police. I have to open my wallet to change his mind. Picking through the debris, there isn’t much worth salvaging. Gingerly, I lift a bundle of soggy papers smeared with ink. The only sheet legible is the last page of Catherine’s CV. I had read the cover letter in the office but got no farther. Glancing down the page I see a list of three character references. Only one of them matters: Dr. Emlyn R. Owen. She gives Jock’s Harley Street address and phone number.

  12

  Maintenance work, leaves on the line, signal failures, point faults… pick any one of them, they all add up to the same thing— the intercity express train will be late arriving in London. The conductor apologizes frequently over the loudspeaker, keeping everyone awake.

  I buy a cup of tea from the dining car, along with a “gourmet” sandwich, which is evidence of how culinary words can be devalued. It tastes of nothing except mayonnaise. Random thoughts keep nudging away at my tiredness. Missing pieces. New pieces. No pieces at all.

  There are little lies, so tiny that it doesn’t much matter whether you do or you don’t believe them. Other lies seem small, but have huge ramifications. And sometimes it isn’t a case of what you say but what you don’t say. Jock’s lies are always close to the truth.

  Catherine was having an affair with someone at the Marsden— a married man. She was in love with him. She reacted badly when he broke things off. On the night she died she arranged to meet someone. Was it Jock? Maybe that’s why she called my office— because he didn’t show up. Or maybe he did show. He’s not married anymore. An old flame rekindled.

  It was Jock who introduced me to Bobby. He said it was a favor for Eddie Barrett.

  Jesus! I can’t get my head around this. I wish I could go to sleep and wake up in a different body— or a different life. Any scenario would be better than this one. My best friend— I want to be wrong about him. We’ve been together from the very beginning. I used to think that sharing a delivery suite made us like brothers; nongenetic twins, who breathed the same air and saw the same bright light as we entered the world.

  I don’t know what to think anymore. He has lied to me. He’s in my house and he’s taking advantage of everything that has happened. I have seen the way he looks at Julianne, with an emotion far baser than envy.

  Everything with Jock is a contest. A duel. And he hates it most if he thinks you’re not trying because it cheapens his victories.

  Catherine would have been an easy conquest. Jock could always pick the vulnerable ones, although they didn’t excite him as much as girls who were self-assured and cool. His affairs caused two divorces. He couldn’t help himself.

  Why would Catherine have stayed in touch with someone who broke her heart? And why would she list Jock as a reference on her CV?

  Someone must have told her that I needed a secretary. It’s too big a coincidence to think she happened to answer an advertisement and discover that she was applying to work for me. Perhaps Jock had started seeing her again. He wouldn’t have to keep it a secret this time. Not unless he was embarrassed about the trouble Catherine had caused me.

  What am I missing?

  She left the Grand Union Hotel alone. Jock hadn’t turned up or perhaps he’d arranged to meet her later. No! This is stupid! Jock isn’t capable of torturing someone— forcing her to drive a knife through her own flesh. He can be a bully but he’s not a sadist.

  I’m going around in circles. What do I know to be true? He knew Catherine. He knew about her self-harm. He lied about knowing her.

  A touch of fear passes across my consciousness like a slight fever. Julianne would have said that someone had walked across my grave.

  Euston Station on a cold clear evening. The taxi queue stretches along the footpath and up the steps. On the ride to Hampstead, watching the red digits climb on the meter, I formulate a plan.

  The doorman at Jock’s mansion block has gone home for the evening, but the caretaker recognizes my face and buzzes me through to the foyer.

  “What happened to your ear?”

  “Insect bite. Infected.”

  The internal staircase is stained deep mahogany and the stair rods gleam brightly as they reflect light from the chandeliers. Jock’s flat is in darkness. I open the door and notice the blinking red light of the alarm. It isn’t armed. Jock has trouble remembering the code.

  I leave the lights off and walk through the flat until I reach the kitchen. The black-and-white marble tiles are like a giant chessboard. The light above the stove illuminates the floor and lower cabinets. I don’t know why I’m frightened of turning on the overhead lights. I guess this feels more like a break-in than a house call.

  First I try the drawer beneath the phone looking for some evidence that he knew Catherine— an address book or a letter or an old telephone bill. I move to the wardrobe in the main bedroom where Jock has his shirts and suits and ties arranged by color. A dozen shirts, still wrapped in plastic, are set out on separate shelves.

  At the back of the wardrobe I find a box full of hanging files, including one for bills and invoices. The most recent phone bill in a clear plastic sleeve. The service summary provides a breakdown of STD and international calls as well as calls to mobiles.

  Scanning the first list I look for any numbers with O151 as the prefix— the code for Liverpool. I don’t have any of Catherine’s numbers.

  Yes I do! Her CV!

  I pull the still-damp pages from my jacket and spread them carefully on the rug. The ink has run into the corners, but I can still read the address. I compare the numbers with the phone bill, running down the calls made on the thirteenth of November. The numbers jump out at me— two calls to Catherine’s mobile. The second was at 5:24 p.m. and lasted for just over three minutes— too long for it to be a wrong number and long enough to make a date.

  Something doesn’t make sense. Ruiz has Catherine’s phone records. He must know about these calls.

  Ruiz’s card is in my wallet, but it has almost turned to pulp after my swim in the canal. At first I get his answering machine, but before I can hang up a gruff voice curses the technology and tells me to wait. I can hear him trying to turn the machine off.

  “Chief Inspector Ruiz.”

  “Ah, the professor returns.” He’s reading Jock’s number on a display window. “How was Liverpool?”

  “How did you know?”

  “A little birdie told me you needed medical treatment. Suspected assaults have to be reported. How’s the ear?”

  “Just a touch of frostbite.”

  I can hear him eating. Shoveling down a microwave curry or takeout.

  “It’s about time you and I had another little chat. I’ll even send a car to pick you up.”

  “I’ll have to take a rain check on that.”

  “Maybe we don’t understand each other. At ten o’clock this morning a warrant was issued for your arrest.”

  I glance down the hallway toward the door and wonder how long it would take for Ruiz to have someone kick it off its hinges.

  “Why?”

  “Remember I said to you I’d find something else? Catherine McBride wrote letters to you. She kept copies. We found them on her computer disk.”

  “That’s impossible. I didn’t get any letters.”

  “But you did. She was your Florence— Florence Nightingale— your little nurse.”

  �
��There must be some mistake. This is crazy.” For a moment I’m tempted to tell him everything— about Elisa and Jock and Catherine’s CV. Instead of holding things back, bartering for information. “You told me the last call that Catherine made was to my office. But she must have made other calls that day. People must have called her. You must have checked those, right? You didn’t just drop everything when you saw my number on the list.”

  Ruiz doesn’t respond.

  “There was someone else she knew from the Marsden. I think she was having an affair with him. And I think he contacted her that day— the thirteenth. Are you listening to any of this?”

  I sound desperate. Ruiz isn’t going to barter. He’s sitting there with his crooked smile, thinking there’s nothing new under the sun. Or maybe he’s being sly. He’s squeezing every drop out of me.

  “You told me once you collect bits of information until two or three pieces fit. Well, I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to find out the truth.”

  After another age, Ruiz breaks his silence. “You’re wondering if I interviewed your friend Dr. Owen about his relationship with Catherine McBride. The answer is yes. I talked to him. I asked where he was that night and, unlike you, he could give me an alibi. Shall I tell you who it was? Or perhaps if I let you stumble around for long enough, you’ll trip over the truth. Ask your wife, Professor.”

  “What’s she got to do with this?”

  “She’s his alibi.”

  13

  The black cab drops me on Primrose Hill Avenue and I walk the last quarter mile. My mind is spinning, but a cold overwhelming current of energy has swept away my tiredness.

  My vain attempts to protect people from something I don’t understand have been ridiculed. Someone, somewhere is laughing at me. What a fool! All this time I’ve been operating under the misapprehension that tomorrow everything will be different. “Wake up and smell the roses,” that’s what Jock is always telling me. OK, now I get it— every day is going to get worse.