I feel as though I’m slowly coming out of an anesthetic. Over the past few days I have been letting details slip. Even worse, I have stopped trusting my instincts.
I am not going to tell Ruiz about Elisa. She shouldn’t have to face a grilling in the witness box. I want to spare her that ordeal, if possible. And when this is all over— if nobody knows about her— I might still have a career that can be resurrected.
Bobby Moran had something to do with Catherine McBride’s death. I’m convinced of it. If the police won’t put him under the microscope then it’s up to me. People normally need a motive to kill, but not to stay free. I will not let them send me to prison. I will not be separated from my family.
At Euston Station I do a quick inventory. Apart from a change of clothes, I have Bobby Moran’s notes, Catherine McBride’s CV, my mobile phone and a thousand pounds in cash. I forgot to bring a photograph of Charlie and Julianne. The one I keep at the office is from years ago. They were playing on one of those colorful adventure playgrounds, each putting their heads through a porthole. Charlie’s hair was much shorter and her face still had the roundness of a lollipop. Julianne looked like her teenage sister.
I pay for the train ticket in cash. With fifteen minutes to spare, I have time to buy a toothbrush, toothpaste, a recharger for my mobile phone and one of those traveling towels that looks like a car chamois.
“Do you sell umbrellas?” I ask hopefully. The shopkeeper looks at me as though I’ve asked for a shotgun.
Nursing a takeout coffee, I board the train and find a double seat facing forward. I keep my bag beside me, covered by my overcoat.
The empty platform slides past the window and the northern suburbs of London disappear the same way. The train leans on floating axles as it corners at high speed.
We tear past tiny stations with empty platforms where trains no longer seem to stop. One or two vehicles are parked in the long-term car parks that look so far beyond the pale that I half expect to see a hose running from an exhaust pipe and a body slumped over a steering wheel.
My head is full of questions. Catherine applied to be my secretary. She phoned Meena twice, and then took a train down to London, arriving a day early.
Why did she phone the office that evening? Who answered the call? Did she have second thoughts about surprising me? Did she want to cancel? Perhaps she’d been stood up and just wanted to go out for a drink. Maybe she wanted to apologize for causing me so much trouble.
All of this is supposition. At the same time, it fits the framework of detail. It can be built upon. All the pieces can be made to fit a story, except for one— Bobby.
His coat smelled of chloroform. Bobby had machine oil on his shirt cuffs. Catherine’s postmortem mentioned machine oil. “It’s all about the oil,” Bobby told me. Did he know she had twenty-one stab wounds? Did he lead me to the place where she disappeared?
Perhaps he’s using me to construct an insanity defense. By playing “mad” he might avoid a life sentence. Instead they’ll send him to a prison hospital like Broadmoor. Then he can astound some prison psychiatrist with his responsiveness to treatment. He could be out within five years.
I’m sounding more and more like him— fashioning conspiracies out of coincidences. Whatever lies at the heart of this, I must not underestimate Bobby. He has played games with me. I don’t know why.
My search has to start somewhere. Liverpool will do for now. I take out Bobby Moran’s file and begin reading. Opening my new notebook, I make bullet points— the name of a primary school, the number of his father’s bus, a club his parents used to visit…
These could be more of Bobby’s lies. Something tells me they’re not. I think he changed certain names and places, but not all of them. The events and emotions he described were true. I have to find the strands of truth and follow them back to the center of the web.
7
The clock at Lime Street Station glows white with solid black hands pointing to eleven o’clock. I walk quickly across the concourse, past the coffee stand and closed public toilet. A gaggle of teenage girls, speaking at 110 decibels, communicate through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
It must be five degrees colder than in London, with a wind straight off the Irish Sea. I half expect to see icebergs on the horizon. St. George’s Hall is across the way. Banners snap in the wind advertising the latest Beatles retrospective.
I walk past the large hotels on Lime Street and search the side streets for something smaller. Not far from the university I find the Albion Hotel. It has a worn carpet in the entrance hall and a family of Iraqis camped on the first-floor landing. Young children look at me shyly, hiding behind their mother’s skirts. The men are nowhere to be seen.
My room is on the second floor. It is just large enough for a double bed and a wardrobe held shut with a wire hanger. The hand basin has a rust stain in the shape of a teardrop beneath the tap. The curtains will only half close and the windowsill is dotted with cigarette burns.
There have been very few hotel rooms in my life. I am grateful for that. For some reason loneliness and regret seem to be part of their decor.
I press the memory button on my mobile and hear the singsong tones of the number being automatically dialed. Julianne’s voice is on the answering machine. I know she’s listening. I can picture her. I make a feeble attempt to apologize and ask her to pick up the phone. I tell her it’s important.
I wait… and wait…
She picks up. My heart skips.
“What is so important?” Her tone is harsh.
“I want to talk to you.”
“I’m not ready to talk.”
“You’re not giving me a chance to explain.”
“I gave you a chance two nights ago, Joe. I asked you why you slept with a whore and you told me that you found it easier to talk to her than to me…” Her voice is breaking. “I guess that makes me a pretty lousy wife.”
“You have everything planned. Your life runs like clockwork— the house, work, Charlie, school; you never miss a beat. I’m the only thing that doesn’t work… not properly… not anymore.”
“And that’s my fault?”
“No, that’s not what I mean.”
“Well, pardon me for trying so hard. I thought I was making us a lovely home. I thought we were happy. It’s fine for you, Joe, you have your career and your patients who think you walk on water. This is all I had— us. I gave up everything for this and I loved it. I loved you. Now you’ve gone and poisoned the well.”
“But don’t you see— what I’ve got is going to destroy all that…”
“No, don’t you dare blame a disease. You’ve managed to do this all by yourself.”
“It was only one night,” I say plaintively.
“No! It was someone else! You kissed her the way you kiss me. You fucked her! How could you?”
Even when sobbing and angry she manages to remain piercingly articulate. I am selfish, immature, deceitful and cruel. I try to pick out which of these adjectives doesn’t apply to me, and fail. “I made a mistake,” I say weakly. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not enough, Joe. You broke my heart. Do you know how long I have to wait before I can get an AIDS test? Three months!”
“Elisa is clear.”
“And how do you know? Did you ask her before you decided not to use a condom? I’m going to hang up now.”
“Wait! Please! How’s Charlie?”
“Fine.”
“What have you told her?”
“That you’re a two-timing shit and a weak, pathetic, self-pitying, self-centered creep.”