“Is it Mickey?” she yelled at me.
I pulled her to one side, trying to calm her down. “We don't know yet.”
“You found something?”
“A towel.”
“Mickey's towel?”
“We won't know until—”
“Is it Mickey's towel?”
She read the answer in my eyes and suddenly broke free, running toward the trench. I pulled her back before she reached the edge, wrapping my arms around her waist. She was crying then, with her arms outstretched, trying to throw herself into the hole.
There was nothing I could say to comfort her—nothing that would ever be able to comfort her.
Afterward, I walked her up to the chapel, waiting for a police car to take her home. We sat outside on a stone bench beneath a poster on the noticeboard, which said, CHILDREN ARE THE HOPE OF THE WORLD.
Where! Show me! You can want them, worry about them, love them with all your being, but you can't keep them safe. Time and accidents and evil will defeat you.
Somewhere in the restaurant kitchen a tray of glasses shatters on the floor. Diners pause momentarily, perhaps in sympathy, and then conversations begin again. Joe looks across the table, inscrutable as ever. He'll say it's the Parkinson's mask but I think he enjoys being impenetrable.
“Why the hair dye?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“You said there were traces of hair dye on the towel. If Howard snatched Mickey off the stairs and killed her in his flat, why bother dyeing her hair?”
He's right. But the towel might have been stained earlier. Rachel could have colored her hair. I didn't ask her. I can see Joe filing the information away for future reference.
My main course has arrived but I'm no longer hungry. The morphine is doing this to me—ruining my appetite. I roll the spaghetti around a fork and leave it resting on the plate.
Joe pours another glass of wine. “You said you had doubts about Howard. Why?”
“Oddly enough, it's because of something you once said to me. When we first met and I was investigating the murder of Catherine McBride, you gave me a profile of her killer.”
“What did I say?”
“You said that sadists and pedophiles and sexual psychopaths aren't born whole. They're made.”
Joe nods, impressed either by my memory or by the quality of his advice.
I try to explain. “Until we found Mickey's towel, the case against Howard was more wishful thinking than hard evidence. Not a single complaint had ever been made against him by a parent or a child in his care. Nobody had ever called him creepy or suggested he be kept away from children. There were thousands of images on his computer, but only a handful of them could be classed as questionable and none of them proved he was a pedophile. He had no history of sexual offenses, yet suddenly he appeared, a full-fledged child killer.”
Joe peers at the wine bottle wrapped in raffia. “Someone can fantasize about children but never act. Their fantasy life can be rich enough to satisfy them.”
“Exactly, but I couldn't see the progression. You told me that deviant behavior could be almost plotted on the axis of a graph. Someone begins by collecting pornography and progresses up the scale. Abduction and murder are at the very end.”
“Did you find any pornography?”
“Howard owned a trailer that he claimed to have sold. We traced the location using gas and dry-cleaning receipts. It was at a campground on the South Coast. He paid the fees annually in advance. Inside there were boxes of magazines mostly from Eastern Europe and Asia. Child pornography.”
Joe leans forward. His little gray cells are humming like a hard drive.
“You're describing a classic grooming pedophile. He recognized Mickey's vulnerability. He became her friend and showered her with praise and presents, buying her toys and clothes. He took her photograph and told her how pretty she looked. Eventually, the sexual part of the ‘dance' begins, the sly touches and play wrestling. Non-sadistic pedophiles sometimes spend months and even years getting to know a child, conditioning them.”
“Exactly, they're extremely patient. So why would Howard invest all that time and effort into grooming Mickey and then suddenly snatch her off the stairs?”
Joe's arm trembles as if released from a catch. “You're right. A grooming pedophile uses slow seduction not violent abduction.”
I feel relieved. It's nice to have someone agree with me.
Joe adds a note of caution. “Psychology isn't an exact science. And even if Howard is innocent—it doesn't bring Mickey back to life. One fact doesn't automatically change the other. What happened when you told Campbell about your doubts?”
“He told me to put my badge down and act like a real person. Did I think Mickey was dead? I thought about the blood on the towel and I said yes. Everything pointed to Howard.”
“You didn't convict him—a jury did.”
Joe doesn't mean to sound patronizing but I hate people making excuses for me. He drains his glass. “This case really got to you, didn't it?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I think I know why.”
“Leave it alone, Professor.”
He pushes the wineglasses to one side and plants his elbow in the center of the table. He wants to arm wrestle me.
“You don't stand a chance.”
“I know.”
“So why bother?”
“It'll make you feel better.”
“How?”
“Right now you keep acting as though I'm beating up on you. Well, here's your chance to get even. Maybe you'll realize that this isn't a contest. I'm trying to help you.”
Almost immediately my heart feels stung. I notice the bitter yeasty odor of his medication and my throat constricts. Joe's hand is still waiting. He grins at me. “Shall we call it a draw?”
As much as I hate admitting it, Joe and I have a sort of kinship—a connection. Both of us are fighting against the “bastard time.” My career is coming to a close and his disease will rob him of old age. I think he also understands how it feels to be responsible, by accident or omission, for the death of another human being. This could be my last chance to make amends; to prove I'm worth something; to square up the Great Ledger.
17
It's dark by the time a black cab drops me at Ali's parents' place. She opens the door quickly and closes it again. A dustpan and brush rest on the floor amid broken pieces of pottery.
“I had a visitor,” she explains.
“Keebal.”
“How did you know?”
“I can smell his aftershave—Eau de Clan. Where are your parents?”
“At my Aunt Meena's house—they'll be home soon.”
Ali gets the vacuum cleaner, while I dump the broken pottery in the trash can. She's wearing a sari, which seems to own her as much as she owns it. Scents of cumin, sandalwood and jasmine escape from the folds.
“What did Keebal want?”
“I'm being charged with breaching protocols. Police officers on leave are not allowed to undertake private investigations or carry a firearm. There's going to be a hearing.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't worry about it.”
“No, this is my fault. I should never have asked you.”
She reacts angrily. “Listen. I'm a big girl now. I make my own decisions.”
“I think I should leave.”
“No! This is not some glorious career I'm risking. I take care of ambassadors and diplomats, driving their spoiled children to school and their wives on shopping trips to Harrods. There's more to life.”
“What else would you do?”