Michael Robotham - Suspect

Fairy tales? That's what it sounds like to Ruiz. He's on his feet threading his way to the bar. People hurriedly step out of his way. He has an aura like a flashing light that warns people to give him space.

I'm already beginning to regret this. I should have stayed out of it. Sometimes I wish I could turn my mind off instead of always looking and analyzing. I wish I could just focus on a tiny square of the world, instead of watching how people communicate and the clothes they wear, what they put in their shopping carts, the cars they drive, the pets they choose, the magazines they read and the TV shows they watch. I wish I could stop looking.

Ruiz is back again with another pint and a whiskey chaser. He rolls the liquid fire around in his mouth as if washing away a bad taste.

"You really think this guy did it?"

"I don't know."

He wraps his fingers around the pint glass and leans back.

"You want me to look at him?"

"That's up to you."

Ruiz exhales with a rustle of dissatisfaction. He still doesn't trust me.

"Do you know why Catherine came down to London?" I ask.

"According to her flatmate she had a job interview. We found no correspondence-she probably had it with her."

"What about phone records?"

"Nothing from her home number. She had a mobile, but that's missing."

He delivers the facts without comment or embellishment. Catherine's history matches with the scant details she gave to me during our sessions. Her parents had divorced when she was twelve. She hooked up with a bad crowd, sniffing aerosols and doing drugs.

At fifteen she spent six weeks in a private psychiatric hospital in West Sussex. Her family kept it quiet for obvious reasons.

Becoming a nurse had seemed to be the turning point. Although she still had problems, she managed to cope.

"What happened after she left the Marsden?" I ask.

"She moved back to Liverpool and got engaged to a merchant seaman. It didn't work out."

"Is he a suspect?"

"No. He's in Bahrain."

"Any other suspects?"

Ruiz smiles wryly. "All volunteers are welcome." Finishing his drink, he gets to his feet. "I have to go."

"What happens next?"

"I get my people digging up everything they can on this Bobby Moran. If I can link him to Catherine I'll ask him very politely to help me with my inquiries."

"And you won't mention my name?"

He looks at me contemptuously. "Don't worry, Professor, your interests are paramount in my concerns."

My mother has a pretty face with a neat upturned nose and straight hair that she has worn in the same uniform style-pinned back with silver clips and tucked behind her ears-for as long as I can remember. Sadly, I inherited my father's tangle of hair. If it grows half an inch too long it becomes completely unruly and I look like I've been electrocuted.

Everything about my mother denotes her standing as a doctor's wife, right down to her box-pleated skirts, unpatterned blouses and low-heeled shoes. A creature of habit, she even carries a handbag when taking the dog for a walk.

She can arrange a dinner party for twelve in the time it takes to boil an egg. She also does garden parties, school fetes, church jamborees, charity fund-raisers, bridge tournaments, rummage sales, walkathons, christenings, weddings and funerals. Yet for all this ability, she has managed to get through life without balancing a checkbook, making an investment decision or proffering a political opinion in public. She leaves such matters to my father.

Every time I contemplate my mother's life I am appalled by the waste and unfulfilled promise. At eighteen she won a mathematics scholarship to Cardiff University. At twenty-five she wrote a thesis that had American universities hammering at her door. What did she do? She married my father and settled for a life of cultivating convention and making endless compromises.

I like to imagine her doing a Shirley Valentine and running off with a Greek waiter, or writing a steamy romantic novel. One day she is going to suddenly toss aside her prudence, self-discipline and correctness. She will go dancing barefoot in daisy fields and trekking through the Himalayas. These are nice thoughts. They're certainly better than imagining her growing old listening to my father rant at the TV screen or read aloud the letters he's written to newspapers.

That's what he's doing now-writing a letter. He only reads The Guardian when he stays with us, but "that red rag" as he refers to it, gives him enough material for at least a dozen letters.

My mother is in the kitchen with Julianne discussing tomorrow's menu. At some stage in the previous twenty-four hours it was decided to make Sunday lunch a family get-together. Two of my sisters are coming, with their husbands and solemn children. Only Rebecca will escape. She's in Bosnia working for the UN. Bless her.

My Saturday morning chores now involve moving a ton of plumbing equipment from the front hallway into the basement. Then I have to rake the leaves, oil the swing and get two more bags of coal from the local garage. Julianne is going to shop for the food, while Charlie and her grandparents go to look at the Christmas lights in Oxford Street.

My other chore is to buy a tree-a thankless task. The only truly well-proportioned Christmas trees are the ones they use in advertisements. If you try to find one in real life you face inevitable disappointment. Your tree will lean to the left or the right. It will be too bushy at the base, or straggly at the top. It will have bald patches, or the branches on either side will be oddly spaced. Even if you do, by some miracle, find a perfect tree, it won't fit in the car and by the time you strap it to the roof rack and drive home the branches are broken or twisted out of shape. You wrestle it through the door, gagging on pine needles and sweating profusely, only to hear the maddening question that resonates down from countless Christmases past: "Is that really the best one you could find?"

Charlie's cheeks are pink with the cold and her arms are draped in polished paper bags full of new clothes and a pair of shoes.

"I got heels, Dad. Heels!"

"How high?"

"Only this much." She holds her thumb and forefinger apart.

"I thought you were a tomboy," I tease.

"They're not pink," she says sternly. "And I didn't get any dresses."

God's-personal-physician-in-waiting is pouring himself a scotch and getting annoyed because my mother is chatting with Julianne instead of bringing him some ice. Charlie is excitedly opening bags.

Then she suddenly stops. "The tree! It's lovely."

"So it should be. It took me three hours to find."

I have to stop myself telling her the whole story about my friend from the Greek deli in Chalk Farm Road, who told me about a guy who supplies trees to "half of London" from the back of a three-ton truck.

The whole enterprise sounded pretty dodgy, but for once I didn't care. I wanted to get a flawless specimen and that's what it is-a pyramid of pine-scented perfection, with a straight trunk and perfectly spaced branches.

Since getting home I have been wandering back and forth to the sitting room, marveling at the tree. Julianne is getting slightly fed up with me saying "Isn't that a great tree?" and expecting a response.

God's-personal-physician-in-waiting is telling me his solution to traffic congestion in central London. I'm waiting for him to comment on the tree. I don't want to prompt him. He's talking about banning all delivery trucks in the West End except for designated hours. Then he starts complaining about shoppers who walk too slowly and suggests a fast- and slow-lane system.

"I found a tree today!" I interject, unable to wait. He stops abruptly and looks over his shoulder. He stands and examines it more closely, walking from side to side. Then he stands back to best appreciate the overall symmetry.