“You guys are French kissing.”
“What do you know about French kissing?”
“It’s when you slobber over each other.”
I rubbed my hand across Julianne’s stomach and whispered, “I want our children never to grow up.”
Our architect has arranged to meet me at the hole in the ground. The only thing left standing is the staircase, which goes nowhere. The force of the blast sent the concrete floor of the kitchen through the roof and blew the boiler into a yard two streets over. The shock wave shattered almost every window on the block and three houses have had to be demolished.
Charlie says she saw someone at a first-floor window just before the blast. Anyone on that floor would have been vaporized, say the experts, which might explain why they didn’t find so much as a fingernail or a fiber or a stray tooth. Then again, I keep asking myself, why would D.J. stick around once the gas had been turned on and the timer set to fire the boiler? He had plenty of time to get out, unless he planned this as a final act in every sense of the word.
Charlie doesn’t understand that he could have done these things. She asked me the other day if I thought he was in heaven. I felt like saying, “I just hope he’s dead.”
His bank accounts haven’t been touched in two months and nobody has seen him. There is no record of him leaving the country, applying for a job, renting a room, buying a car or cashing a check.
Ruiz has pieced together the early facts. D.J. was born in Blackpool. His mother, a sewing machinist, married Lenny in the late sixties. She died in a car accident when D.J. was seven. His grandparents (her parents) raised him until Lenny remarried. Then he fell under Bridget’s spell.
I suspect that he experienced everything Bobby did, although no two children react the same way to sexual abuse or to sadism. Lenny was the most important figure in both their lives and his death lay at the heart of everything.
D.J. finished his apprenticeship in Liverpool, becoming a master plumber. He joined a local firm where people remember him more with apprehension than fondness. He smiled a lot, but there was nothing endearing or infectious about him. At a bar one night he drove a broken bottle into a woman’s face because she didn’t laugh at the punch line of his joke.
He disappeared in the late eighties and reappeared in Thailand running a bar and a brothel. Two teenage junkies who tried to smuggle a kilo of heroin out of Bangkok, told police they had met their supplier in D.J.’s bar, but he skipped the country before anyone could link him to the bust.
He turned up in Australia, working his way down the east coast on building sites. In Melbourne he befriended an Anglican minister and became the manager of a homeless shelter. For a while he seemed to have mended his ways. No more sucker punches, broken noses or snapping ribs with his boots.
Appearances can be deceptive. The Victorian police are now investigating the disappearance of six people from the hostel over a four-year period. Many of their welfare checks were still being cashed up until eighteen months ago when D.J. appeared in the U.K. again.
I don’t know how he found Bobby, but it can’t have been too hard. Given the difference in their ages when D.J. left home, they must have been virtually strangers. Yet they discovered a shared desire.
Bobby’s fantasies of revenge were just that— fantasies— but D.J. had the experience and the lack of empathy to make them come true. One was the architect, the other the builder. Bobby had the creative vision. D.J. had the tools. The end result was a psychopath with a plan.
Many of the pieces have fallen into place as the weeks have passed. Bobby learned about our plumbing problems from my mother. She is notorious for boring people with stories of her children and grandchildren. She even showed him the photo albums and the building plans we submitted to council for the renovations.
D.J. dropped leaflets through every mailbox on the street. Each small job provided another reference and helped convince Julianne to hire him. Once inside, it was easy, although he almost came unstuck when Julianne caught him in my study one afternoon. That’s when he made up the story of disturbing an intruder and chasing him out. He’d gone into the study to check to see if anything had been taken.
Bobby goes on trial at the end of next month. He hasn’t entered a plea, but they expect it to be “not guilty.” The case, though strong, is circumstantial. None of the physical evidence puts a murder weapon in his hand— not for Catherine or Elisa or Boyd or Erskine or Sonia Dutton or Esther Gorski.
Ruiz says it will be over after that, but he’s wrong. This case will never be closed. People tried to shut this away years ago and look what happened. Ignore our mistakes and we are doomed to repeat them. Don’t stop thinking of the white bear.
The events leading up to Christmas have almost become a surreal blur. Rarely do we talk about it, but I know from experience that it will come out one day. Sometimes late at night I hear a car door slam or heavy steps on the footpath and my mind won’t be still. I have feelings of sadness, depression, frustration and anxiety. I am easily startled. I imagine people are watching me from doorways and parked cars. I can’t see a white van without trying to make out the driver’s face.
These are all common reactions to shock and trauma. Maybe it’s good that I know these things, but I would prefer to stop analyzing myself.
I still have my disease, of course. I am part of a study being conducted at one of the research hospitals. Fenwick put me onto it. Once a month I drive to the hospital, clip a card to my shirt pocket and flip through the pages of Country Life while waiting my turn.
The head technician always offers me a cheery, “How are you today?”
“Well, since you ask, I have Parkinson’s disease.”
He smiles wearily, gives me an injection and runs a few tests on my coordination, using video cameras to measure the degree and frequency of my tremors.
I know it will get worse. But what the hell! I’m lucky. A lot of people have Parkinson’s. Not all of them have a beautiful wife, a loving daughter and a new baby to look forward to.
acknowledgments
For his counsel, wisdom and sanity I thank Mark Lucas and all the team at LAW. For her belief ahead of all others, I thank Ursula McKenzie and those who took the gamble with her.
For their hospitality and friendship I thank Elspeth Rees, Jonathan Margolis and Martyn Forrester— three of many friends and family who have answered my questions, listened to my stories and shared the journey.
Finally, for her love and support I thank Vivien who had to live with all my characters and my sleepless nights. A lesser woman would have slept in the guest room.
About Michael Robotham
Before writing full-time he was an investigative journalist in Britain, Australia and the US. He is the pseudonymous author of 10 best-selling non-fiction titles, involving prominent figures in the military, the arts, sport, and science. He lives in Sydney with his wife and 3 daughters.
Also by Michael Robotham
Joseph O'Loughlin series:
1. The Suspect (2004)
2. Lost (aka The Drowning Man) (2005)
3. Shatter (aka The Sleep of Reason) (2008)
4. Bleed for Me (2010)
Novels:
The Night Ferry (2007)
Bombproof (2009)
The Wreckage (2011)
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Document authors :
Michael Robotham
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The Suspect jo-1 Page 35
