“She withdrew that complaint. I told you that.”
My chair falls backward with a bang and I realize that I’m on my feet. The young detective is quicker than I am. He matches me for size and is bristling with intent.
Ruiz looks exultant.
Simon has hold of my arm. “Professor O’Loughlin— Joe— I advise you to be quiet.”
“Can’t you see what they’re doing? They’re twisting the facts…”
“They’re asking legitimate questions.”
A sense of alarm spreads through me. Ruiz has a motive. Simon picks up my chair and holds it for me. I stare blankly at the far wall, numb with tiredness. My left hand is shaking. Both detectives stare at it silently. I sit and force my hand between my knees to stop the tremors.
“Where were you on the evening of November thirteenth?”
“In the West End.”
“Who were you with?”
“No one. I got drunk. I had just received some bad news about my health.”
That statement hangs in the air like a torn cobweb looking for something to cling to. Simon breaks first and explains that I have Parkinson’s disease. I want to stop him. It is my business. I’m not looking for pity.
Ruiz doesn’t miss a beat. “Is one of the symptoms memory loss?”
I’m so relieved that I laugh. I didn’t want him treating me any differently. “Exactly where did you go drinking?” Ruiz presses on.
“Different pubs and wine bars.”
“Where?”
“Leicester Square, Covent Garden…”
“Can you name any of these bars?”
I shake my head.
“Can anyone confirm your whereabouts?”
“No.”
“What time did you get home?”
“I didn’t go home.”
“Where did you spend the night?”
“I can’t recall.”
Ruiz turns to Simon. “Mr. Koch, can you please instruct your client…”
“My client has made it clear to me that he doesn’t recall where he spent the night. He is aware that this does not help his situation.”
Ruiz’s face is hard to read. He glances at his wristwatch, announces the time and then turns off the tape recorder. The interview is terminated. I glance from face to face, wondering what happens next. Is it over?
The young WPC comes back into the room.
“Are the cars ready?” asks Ruiz.
She nods and holds open the door. Ruiz strides out and the younger detective snaps handcuffs onto my wrists. Simon starts to protest and is handed a copy of a search warrant. The address is typed in capital letters on both sides of the page. I’m going home.
My most vivid childhood memory of Christmas is of the St. Augustine’s Anglican School Nativity play in which I was featured as one of the three Wise Men. The reason it is so memorable is that Russell Cochrane, who played the baby Jesus, was so nervous that he wet his pants and it leaked down the front of the Virgin Mary’s blue robe. Jenny Bond, a very pretty Mary, was so angry that she dropped Russell on his head and swung a kick into his groin.
A collective groan went up from the audience, but it was drowned out by Russell’s howls of pain. The entire production disintegrated and the curtain came down early.
The backstage farce proved even more compelling. Russell’s father, a big man with a bullet-shaped head, was a police sergeant, who sometimes came to the school to lecture us on road safety. He cornered Jenny Bond backstage and threatened to have her arrested for assault. Jenny’s father laughed. It was a big mistake. Sergeant Cochrane handcuffed him on the spot and marched him along Stafford Street to the police station where he spent the night.
Our Nativity play made the national papers. VIRGIN MARY’S FATHER ARRESTED, said the headline in The Sun. The Star wrote: BABY JESUS KICKED IN THE BAUBLES!
I think of it again because of Charlie. Is she going to see me in handcuffs, being flanked by policemen? What will she think of her father then?
The unmarked police car pulls up the ramp from the underground car park and emerges into daylight. Sitting next to me, Simon puts a coat over my head. Through the damp wool, I can make out the pyrotechnics of flashguns and TV lights. I don’t know how many photographers and cameramen there are. I hear their voices and feel the police car accelerate away.
Traffic slows to a crawl in Marylebone Road. Pedestrians seem to hesitate and stare. I’m convinced they’re looking at me— wondering who I am and what I’m doing in the backseat of a police car.
“Can I phone my wife?” I ask.
“No.”
“She doesn’t know we’re coming.”
“Exactly.”
“But she doesn’t know I’ve been arrested.”
“You should have told her.”
I suddenly remember the office. I have patients coming today. Appointments have to be rescheduled.
“Can I call my secretary?”
Ruiz turns and glances over his shoulder. “We are also executing a search warrant on your office.”
I want to argue, but Simon touches my elbow. “This is part of the process,” he whispers, trying to sound reassuring.
The convoy of three police cars pulls up in the middle of our road, blocking the street in either direction. Doors are flung open and detectives assemble quickly, some using the side path to reach the back garden.
Julianne answers the front door. She is wearing pink rubber gloves. A fleck of foam clings to her hair where she has brushed her fringe to one side. A detective gives her a copy of the warrant. She doesn’t look at it. She is too busy focusing on me. She sees the handcuffs and the look on my face. Her eyes are wide with shock and incomprehension.
“Keep Charlie inside,” I shout.
I look at Ruiz. I plead with him. “Not in front of my daughter. Please.”
I see nothing in his eyes, but he reaches into his jacket pocket and finds the keys to the handcuffs. Two detectives take my arms.
Julianne is asking questions— ignoring the officers who push past her into the house. “What’s happening, Joe? What are you… ?”
“They think I had something to do with Catherine’s death.”
“How? Why? That’s ridiculous. You were helping them with their investigation.”
Something falls and smashes upstairs. Julianne glances upward and then back to me. “What are they doing in our house?” She is on the verge of tears. “What have you done, Joe?”
I see Charlie’s face peering out of the sitting room. It quickly disappears as Julianne turns. “You stay in that room, young lady,” she barks, sounding more frightened than angry.
The front door is wide open. Anybody walking by can look inside and see what is happening. I can hear cupboards and drawers being opened on the floor above; mattresses are being lifted and beds dragged aside. Julianne doesn’t know what to do. Part of her wants to protect her house from being vandalized, but mostly she wants answers from me. I don’t have any.
The detectives take me through to the kitchen where I find Ruiz peering out of the French doors at the garden. Men with shovels and hoes are ripping up the lawn. D.J. is leaning against Charlie’s swing, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looks at me through the smoke, inquisitive, insolent. A faint hint of a smile creases the corners of his mouth— as though he’s watching a Porsche get a parking ticket.
Turning away reluctantly, he lets the cigarette fall into the gravel where it continues to glow. Then he bends and slices open the plastic packing surrounding a radiator.
“We interviewed your neighbors,” explains Ruiz. “You were seen burying something in the garden.”