Michael Robotham - Suspect

I tried not to blush when she said I had passion. She laughed. She had a dark freckle on her bottom lip. I wanted to kiss it.

Five doubles later she was asleep at the bar. I carried her to a cab and took her home to my bedsit in Islington. She slept on the futon and I took the sofa. In the morning she kissed me and thanked me for being such a gentleman. Then she kissed me again. I remember the look in her eyes. It wasn't lust. It didn't say "Let's have some fun and see what happens." Her eyes were telling me, "I'm going to be your wife and have your babies."

We were always an odd couple. I was the quiet, practical one, who hated noisy parties, pub crawls and going home for weekends. While she was the only child of a painter father and interior designer mother, who dressed like sixties flower children and only saw the best in people, Julianne didn't go to parties-they came to her.

We married three years later. By then I was house-trained-having learned to put my dirty washing in the basket, to leave the toilet seat down and not to drink too much at dinner parties. Julianne didn't so much knock off my rough edges as fashion me out of clay.

That was sixteen years ago. Seems like yesterday.

Julianne pushes a newspaper toward me. There's a photograph of Catherine and the headline reads: TORTURED GIRL IS MP's NIECE.

Junior Home Office minister Samuel McBride has been devastated by the brutal murder of his 2 7-year-old niece.

The Labour MP for Brighton-le-Sands was clearly upset yesterday when the Speaker of the House expressed the chamber's sincerest condolences at his loss.

Catherine McBride's naked body was found six days ago beside the Grand Union Canal in Kensal Green, West London. She had been stabbed repeatedly.

"At this moment we are concentrating on retracing Catherine's final movements and finding anyone who may have seen her in the days prior to her death," said Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz, who is leading the investigation.

"We know she took a train from Liverpool to London on Wednesday, 13 November. We believe she was coming to London for a job interview."

Catherine, whose parents are divorced, worked as a community nurse in Liverpool and had been estranged from her family for a number of years.

"She had a difficult childhood and seemed to lose her way," explained a family friend. "Recently attempts had been made for a family reconciliation."

Julianne pours half a cup of coffee.

"It's quite strange, don't you think, that Catherine should turn up after all these years?"

"How do you mean strange?"

"I don't know." She shivers slightly. "I mean, she caused us all those problems. You nearly lost your job. I remember how angry you were."

"She was hurting."

"She was spiteful."

She glances at the photograph of Catherine. It's a shot of her graduation day as a nurse. She's smiling fit to bust and clutching a diploma in her hand. "And now she's back again. The police ask you to help identify her and then you get that strange letter from her…"

"A coincidence is just a couple of things happening simultaneously."

She rolls her eyes. "Spoken like a true psychologist."

It has been three days since I handed Ruiz the letter and I saw the look on his face that was a mixture of self-satisfaction and suspicion. He had picked up the single page and envelope by the corners and slipped each into a plastic ziplock bag.

I haven't said anything to Julianne but I think the police are watching me. An unmarked police car was parked outside the office yesterday. I saw two detectives talking to the receptionist at the front desk. At lunchtime I went Christmas shopping in Tottenham Court Road and they were there again.

A part of me felt like walking up to them and introducing myself. I wanted them to know I had found them out. Then I contemplated whether that wasn't their whole idea. They wanted me to see them.

I can't be bothered with cat-and-mouse games. It is inconceivable that I could be a suspect. Why are they wasting their time and resources on me? Yet as skeptical as I am, I feel the same imperative to explore Catherine's death. I want to empty drawers, peer under sofas and turn things upside down until I find the answers.

Bobby Moran intercepts me as I cross the lobby. He looks even more disheveled than normal, with mud on his overcoat and papers bulging from his pockets. I wonder if he's been waiting for sleep or something bad to happen.

Blinking rapidly behind his glasses, he mumbles an apology. "I have to see you."

I glance over his head at the clock on the wall. "I have another patient…"

"Please?"

I should say no. I can't have people just turning up. Meena will be furious. She could run a perfectly good office if it weren't for patients turning up unannounced or not keeping appointments. "That's not the way to pack a suitcase," she'd say and I'd agree with her, even if I don't completely understand what she means.

Upstairs, I tell Bobby to sit down and set about rearranging my morning. He looks embarrassed to have caused such a fuss. He is different today-less grounded, living in the here and now.

He is dressed in his work clothes-a gray shirt and trousers. The word Nevaspring is sewn onto the breast pocket. I write a new page for notes, struggling to loop each letter, and then look up to see if he's ready. That's when I realize he'll never be entirely ready. Jock is right-there is something fragile and erratic about Bobby. His mind is full of half-finished ideas, strange facts and snatches of conversation.

"Why did you want to see me?"

Bobby stares at a spot on the floor between his feet. "You asked me about what I dream."

"Yes."

"I think there's something wrong with me. I keep having these thoughts."

"What thoughts?"

"I hurt people in my dreams."

"How do you hurt them?"

He looks up at me plaintively. "I try to stay awake… I don't want to fall asleep. Arky keeps telling me to come to bed. She can't understand why I'm watching TV at four in the morning, wrapped in a duvet on the sofa. It's because of the dreams."

"What about them?"

"Bad things happen in them-that doesn't make me a bad person."

He is perched on the edge of the chair, with his eyes flicking from side to side.

"There's a girl in a red dress. She keeps turning up when I don't expect to see her."

"In your dream?"

"Yes. She just looks at me-right through me as though I don't exist. She's laughing."

His eyes snap wide as though spring-loaded and his tone suddenly changes. Spinning around in his chair, he presses his lips together and crosses his legs. I hear a harsh feminine voice.

"Now Bobby, don't tell lies." -"I'm not a blabbermouth."

"Did he touch you or not?" -"No."

"That's not what Mr. Erskine wants to hear." -"Don't make me say it."

"We don't want to waste Mr. Erskine's time. He's come all this way…" -"I know why he's come."

"Don't use that tone of voice with me, sweetie. It's not very nice."

Bobby puts his big hands in his pockets and kicks at the floor with his shoes. He speaks in a timid whisper, with his chin pressed to his chest.

– "Don't make me say it."

"Just tell him and then we can have dinner." -"Please don't make me say…"

He shakes his head, his whole body moves. Raising his eyes to me, I see a flicker of recognition.

"Do you know that a blue whale's testicles are as large as a Volkswagen Beetle?"

"No, I didn't know that."

"I like whales. They're very easy to draw and to carve."

"Who is Mr. Erskine?"

"Should I know him?"

"You mentioned his name."

He shakes his head and looks at me suspiciously.

"Is he someone you once met?"

"I was born in one world. Now I'm waist-deep in another."

"What does that mean?"