Suspect (43 page)

Everything has been paid for with a debit card that doesn’t require authorization from a bank. The card is linked to a trust account set up by my father. Inheritance tax is another of his pet hates. I’m assuming Ruiz wil have frozen al my accounts, but he can’t touch this one.

The lift doors open and I set out across the foyer, staring straight ahead. I bump into a potted palm and realize that I’m drifting sideways. Walking has become a constant assortment of adjustments and corrections, like landing a plane.

The rental car is parked outside. As I walk down the front steps of the hotel I keep expecting to feel a hand on my shoulder or to hear a shout of recognition or alarm. My fingers fumble with the keys. Black cabs are queued in front of me but one of them eases out of my way. I fol ow the stream of traffic, glancing in the mirrors and trying to remember the quickest way out of the city.

Stopped at a red light, I look beyond the stream of pedestrians at the multistory car park. Three police cars are blocking the entry ramp and another is on the pavement. Ruiz is leaning against an open car door, talking on the radio. He has a face like thunder.

As the lights change to green, I imagine Ruiz looking up and me saluting him like a World War I flying ace in a crippled plane, living to fight another day.

One of my favorite songs is on the radio— “Jumping Jack Flash.” At university I played bass guitar for a band cal ed the Screaming Dick Nixons. We weren’t as good as the Rol ing Stones, but we were louder. I knew nothing about playing the bass guitar, but it was the easiest instrument to fake. Mostly my ambition was to get laid, but that only ever happened to our lead singer, Morris Whiteside, who had long hair and a crucifixion scene tattooed on his torso. He’s now a senior accountant working for Deutsche Bank.

I head west toward Toxteth, and park the Cavalier in a vacant lot, among the cinders and weeds. A handful of teenagers watch me from the shadows beside a boarded-up community hal . I’m driving the sort of ancy car they normal y only see on bricks.

I phone home. Julianne answers. Her voice sounds close, crystal clear, but already starting to shake. “Thank God! Where have you been? Reporters keep ringing the doorbel . They say you’re dangerous. They say the police are going to shoot you.”

I try to steer the conversation away from firearms. “I know who did this. Bobby is trying to punish me for something that happened a long time ago. It isn’t just me. He has a list of names…”

“What list?”

“Boyd is dead.”

“How?”

“He was murdered. So was Erskine.”

“My God!”

“Are the police stil watching the house?”

“I don’t know. There was someone in a white van yesterday. At first I thought D.J. had come to finish the central heating, but he’s not due until tomorrow.” I can hear Charlie singing in the background. A rush of tenderness catches in my throat.

The police wil be trying to trace this cal . With mobile phones, they have to work backward, identifying which towers are relaying the signals. There are probably half a dozen transmitters between Liverpool and London. As each one is ticked off, the search area narrows down.

“I want you to stay on the line, Julianne. If I don’t come back, just leave the line open. It’s important.” I slide the phone under the driver’s seat. The car keys are stil in the ignition. I close the car door and walk away, head down, retreating into the darkness, wondering if Bobby is watching me stil .

Twenty minutes later, on a railway platform that looks abandoned and burned out, I step grateful y onto a suburban train. The carriages are almost empty.

Ruiz wil know about the ferry, train and airline bookings by now. He’l realize I’m trying to stretch his resources, but he wil have to check them anyway.

The express to London leaves from Lime Street Station. The police wil search each carriage, but I’m hoping they won’t stay on the train. Edgehil is one stop farther, which is where I board a train to Manchester just after 10:30 p.m. After midnight I catch another, this one bound for York. I have a three-hour wait until the Great North Eastern Express leaves for London, sitting in a poorly lit ticket hal , watching the cleaners compete to do the least work.

I pay for the tickets with cash and choose the busiest carriage. Staggering drunkenly along the aisles, I topple into people and mumble apologies.

Only children stare at drunks. Adults avoid eye contact, hoping that I keep moving and choose somewhere else to sit. When I fal asleep leaning against a window the entire carriage lets out a silent col ective sigh.

7

The train journeys of my youth were to and from boarding school, when I’d gorge myself on bags of sweets and chewing gum, which weren’t al owed at Charterhouse.

Sometimes I think Semtex would have been more acceptable than bubblegum. One of the seniors, Peter Clavel , swal owed so much that it clogged his intestines and doctors had to remove the blockage through his rectum. Not surprisingly, gum wasn’t so popular after that.

My father’s back-to-school pep talk normal y boiled down to a seven-word warning: “Don’t let me hear from the headmaster.” When Charlie started school I promised that I’d be a different sort of parent. I sat her down and gave her a talk best saved for secondary school, or perhaps even university. Julianne kept giggling, which set Charlie off.

“Don’t be scared of math,” I finished up saying.

“Why?”

“Because a lot of girls are scared of numbers. They talk themselves out of being good at things.”

“OK,” Charlie replied, having absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

I wonder if I’m going to get to see her start secondary school. For weeks I’ve been worried about this disease denying me things. Now it pales into insignificance, when set alongside murder.

As the train pul s into King’s Cross I walk slowly through the carriages, studying the platform for any sign of the police. I fal in step with an elderly woman pul ing a large suitcase. As we reach the barrier I offer to help her and she nods grateful y. At the ticket booth, I turn to her. “Where’s your ticket, Mum?” She doesn’t bat an eyelid as she hands it to me. I give both tickets to the guard and give him a weary smile.

“Don’t you hate these early starts?” he says.

“I’l never get used to them,” I reply, as he hands me the stubs.

Weaving my way through the crowded concourse, I pause at the entrance to WH Smith where the morning papers are stacked side by side. SHRINK CONFESSES— “I KILLED CATHERINE” screams the headline in
The Sun
.

The broadsheets are reporting rising interest rates and a threatened strike by postal workers. Catherine’s story— my story— is beneath the fold. People reach past me and pick up copies. Nobody makes eye contact. This is London, a city where people walk bolt upright with fixed expressions as though ready to face anything and avoid everything. They have somewhere else to be. Don’t interrupt. Just keep moving.

Finding a rhythm to my stride, I weave my way through Covent Garden, past the restaurants and expensive boutiques. Reaching the Strand, I turn left and fol ow Fleet Street until the gothic façade of the Old Bailey comes into view.

A courthouse has stood on this site for nearly five hundred years and even before that, in medieval times, they held public executions here every Monday morning.

I take up a position across the road, tucked against a wal in an al ey that runs down toward the Thames. There are brass plates on nearly every doorway. I glance occasional y at my watch, to give the impression of waiting for someone. Men and women in black suits and gowns glide past me, clutching box files and bundles of paper tied with ribbon.

At half past nine the first of the news crews arrives— a cameraman and sound recordist. Others join them. Some of the stil s photographers carry stepladders and milk crates. The reporters stick together in the background— sipping takeout coffee, swapping gossip and misinformation.

Shortly before ten, I notice a cab pul up on my side of the road. Eddie Barrett gets out first, looking like Danny DeVito with hair. Bobby is behind him, at least two heads tal er but stil having somehow managed to find a suit that looks too big for him.

Both are less than fifteen feet away from me. I lower my head and blow into my hands. Bobby’s overcoat pockets are bulging with paper and his eyes are watery blue. The warmth of the cab meets the coldness of the air and fogs up his glasses. He pauses to wipe them clean. His hands are steady. The reporters have spotted Eddie and are waiting for him, with cameras poised and TV lights at the ready.

I see Bobby lower his head. He is too tal to hide his face. Reporters are firing questions at him. Eddie Barrett puts his hand on Bobby’s arm. Bobby pul s away as though scalded. A TV

camera is right in his face. Flashguns flare. He wasn’t expecting this. He doesn’t have a plan.

Barrett is trying to hustle him up the stone steps and through the arches. Photographers are jostling each other and one of them suddenly tumbles backward. Bobby is standing over him, his fist raised. Bystanders grab at his shoulders and Eddie swings his briefcase like a scythe, clearing a path in front of them. The last thing I see as the doors close is Bobby’s head above the throng.

I al ow myself a fleeting smile, but nothing more. I can’t afford to get my hopes up. Nearby, a gift shop window is crammed with marshmal ow Santas and Christmas crackers in red and green. There are reindeer clocks with noses that glow in the dark. I use the reflection in the glass to watch the courthouse steps.

I can picture the scene inside. The press bench wil be packed and the public gal ery standing room only. Eddie loves working a crowd. He wil ask for an adjournment due to my unprofessional conduct and claim his client has been denied natural justice because of my malicious al egations. A new psych report wil have to be commissioned, which could take weeks. Blah, blah, blah…

There is always a chance the judge might say no and sentence Bobby immediately. More likely, he wil grant the adjournment and Bobby wil walk free— even more dangerous than before.

Rocking back and forth on my heels, I have to remind myself of the rules. Avoid standing with my feet too close together. Consciously lift feet to avoid shuffling and foot drag. Don’t instinctively pivot. My favorite suggestion for breaking a “frozen pose” is to step over an imaginary obstacle in front of me. I have visions of looking like Marcel Marceau.

I walk to the end of the block, turn and come back again, never taking my eye off the photographers stil mil ing outside the court entrance. Suddenly, they surge forward, cameras raised.

Eddie must have had a car waiting. Bobby comes out in a half crouch, pushing through the melee and fal ing into the backseat. The car door closes as the flashguns continue firing.

I should have seen this coming. I should have been prepared. Limping onto the road, I wave both arms and a walking stick at a black cab. It swerves out of my way and swings past, forcing a line of traffic to brake hard. A second cab has an orange beacon. The driver either stops or runs me over.

He doesn’t bat an eyelid when I tel him to fol ow that car. Maybe cabdrivers hear that al the time.

The silver sedan carrying Bobby is ahead of us, sandwiched between two buses and a line of cars. My driver manages to nudge into gaps and dodge between lanes, never losing touch.

At the same time I notice him sneaking glances at me in the rearview mirror. He looks away quickly when our eyes meet. He is young, perhaps in his early twenties, with rust-colored hair and freckles on the back of his neck. His hands uncurl and flutter on the steering wheel.

“You know who I am.”

He nods.

“I’m not dangerous.”

He looks into my eyes, trying to find some reassurance. My face can’t give him any. My Parkinson’s mask is like cold chiseled stone.

8

This stretch of the Grand Union Canal is graceless and untidy, with the asphalt towpath pitted and broken. A rusting iron fence leans at a precarious angle, separating the terraced back gardens from the water. A graffiti-daubed trailer, missing a door, sits on bricks instead of wheels. A child’s half-buried tricycle sprouts from a vegetable patch.