Michael Robotham - Suspect

"He's a lying bastardl He got the engraving wrong on the wedding bands. He misspelled Arky's name, but he said it was my mistake. He said I gave him the wrong spelling. The bastard wanted to charge me extra."

"What did you do?"

"I smashed the glass on his counter."

"How?"

"With my fist."

He holds up his hand to show me. Faint yellow-and-purple bruising discolors the underside.

"What happened then?"

He shrugs and shakes his head. That can't be all. There has to be something more. He talked of punishing "her"-a woman. It must have happened after he left the shop. He was on the street, angry, his brain boiling.

"Where did you first see her?"

He blinks at me rapidly. "Coming out of a music store."

"What were you doing?"

"Queuing for a taxi. It was raining. She took my cab."

"What did she look like?"

"I don't remember her."

"How old was she?"

"I don't know."

"You say that she took your cab-did you say anything to her?"

"I don't think so."

"What did you do?"

He flinches.

"Was she with anyone else?"

He glances at me and hesitates. "What do you mean?"

"Who was she with?"

"A boy."

"How old was he?"

"Maybe five or six."

"Where was the boy?"

"She was dragging him by the hand. He was screaming. I mean, really screaming. She was trying to ignore him. He dropped like a dead weight and she had to drag him along. And this kid just kept screaming. And I started wondering, why isn't she talking to him? How can she let him scream? He's in pain or he's frightened. Nobody else was doing anything. It made me angry. How could they just stand there?"

"Who were you angry at?"

"All of them. I was angry at their indifference. I was angry at this woman's neglect. I was angry with myself for hating the little boy. I just wanted him to stop screaming…"

"So what did you do?"

His voice drops to a whisper. "I wanted her to make him stop. I wanted her to listen to him." He stops himself.

"Did you say anything to her?"

"No."

"What then?"

"The door of the cab was open. She pushed him inside. The kid was thrashing his legs. She gets in after him and turns back to get the door. Her face is like a mask… blank… you know. She swings her arm back and bang! She elbows him right in the face. He crumples backward…"

Bobby pauses and then seems about to continue. He stops himself. The silence grows. I let it fill his head-working its way into the corners.

"I dragged her out of the cab. I had hold of her hair. I drove her face into the side window. She fell down and tried to roll away, but I kept kicking her."

"Did you think you were punishing her?"

"Yes."

"Did she deserve it?"

"Yes!"

He's staring directly at me-his face as white as wax. At that moment I have an image of a child in a lonely corner of a playground, overweight, freakishly tall, the owner of nicknames like Jellyass and Lardbucket; a child for whom the world is a vast and empty place. A child seeking to be invisible, but who is condemned to stand out.

"I found a dead bird today," Bobby says, absentmindedly. "Its neck was broken. Maybe it was hit by a car."

"It's possible."

"I moved it off the path. Its body was still warm. Do you ever think about dying?"

"I think everyone does."

"Some people deserve to die."

"And who should be the judge of that?"

He laughs bitterly. "Not people like you."

The session overruns but Meena has already gone home to her cats. Most of the nearby offices are locked up and in darkness. Cleaners are moving through the corridors, emptying wastebaskets and chipping paint off the baseboards with their carts.

Bobby has also gone. Even so, when I stare at the darkened square of the window, I can picture his face, soaked in sweat and spotted with the blood of that poor woman.

I should have seen this coming. He is my patient, my responsibility. I know I can't hold his hand and make him come to see me, but that's no consolation.

Bobby was close to crying when he described being charged, but he felt more sorry for himself than for the woman he attacked.

I struggle to care about some of my patients. They spend ninety quid and gaze at their navels or whine about things they should be telling their partners instead of me. Bobby is different. I don't know why.

At times he seems totally incapacitated by awkwardness, yet he can startle me with his confidence and intellect. He laughs at the wrong places, explodes unexpectedly and has eyes as pale and cold as blue glass.

Sometimes I think he's waiting for something-as though mountains are going to move or all the planets will line up. And once everything is in place he'll finally let me know what's really going on.

I can't wait for that. I have to understand him now.

At five I'm outside trying to push against the tide of people washing toward the underground stations and bus stops. I walk toward Cavendish Square and hail a cab as it starts to rain again.

The desk sergeant at Holborn Police Station is pink-faced and freshly shaven, with his hair slicked down over his bald crown. Leaning on the counter, he dunks biscuits into a mug of tea, spilling crumbs onto the breasts of a page-three girl.

As I push through the glass door, he licks his fingers, wipes them down his shirt and slides the newspaper under the counter. He smiles and his cheeks jiggle.

I show him a business card and ask if I could possibly see the charge sheet for Bobby Moran. His good humor disappears.

"We're very busy at the moment-you'll have to bear with me."

I look over my shoulder. The charge room is deserted except for a wasted teenage boy in torn jeans, trainers and an AC/DC T-shirt, who has fallen asleep on a wooden bench. There are cigarette burns on the floor and plastic cups copulating beside a metal wastebasket.

With deliberate slowness, the sergeant saunters toward a bank of filing cabinets on the rear wall. A biscuit is stuck to the backside of his trousers and the pink icing is melting into his rump. I allow myself a smile.

According to the charge sheet Bobby was arrested in central London eighteen days ago. He pleaded guilty at Bow Street Magistrate's Court and was bailed to appear again on December 24 at the Old Bailey. Malicious wounding is a Section 20 offense-assault causing grievous bodily harm. It carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail.

Bobby's statement is typed over three pages, double-spaced, with the corrections initialed in the margins. He makes no mention of the little boy or his argument with the jeweler. The woman had jumped the queue. For her troubles, she suffered a fractured jaw, depressed cheekbone, broken nose and three busted fingers.

"Where do I find out about the bail conditions?"

The sergeant leafs through the file and runs his finger down a court document.

"Eddie Barrett has the brief." He grunts in disgust. "He'll have this downgraded to actual bodily harm quicker than you can say ring-a-ding-ding."

How did Bobby get a lawyer like Eddie Barrett? He's the best-known defense solicitor in the country, with a genius for self-promotion and the ability to produce the perfect sound bite on the courthouse steps.

Eddie made his name a few years back by spearheading a class action against the Maastricht Treaty to stop the British government from ditching the pound. During the case he took to wearing Union Jack waistcoats and was rumored to have a tattoo of Her Majesty above his heart. Another rumor said he had no heart.

"How much was the bail?"

"Five grand."

Where would Bobby find that sort of money?

I glance at my watch. It's still only five thirty. Eddie's secretary answers the phone and I can hear Eddie shouting in the background. She apologizes and asks me to wait. The two of them shout at each other. It's like listening to a domestic fight. Eventually, she comes back to me. Eddie can give me twenty minutes.