Michael Robotham - Suspect

"I don't like electric shavers."

"Why not?"

"Because I like lather."

"What is there to like about lather?"

"It's a lovely sounding word, don't you think? It's quite sexy-lather. It's decadent."

She's giggling now, but trying to look annoyed.

"People lather their bodies with soap; they lather their bodies with shower gel. I think we should lather our scones with jam and cream. And we could lather on suntan lotion in the summer… if we ever have one."

"You are silly, Daddy," says Charlie, looking up from her cereal.

"Thank you, my turtledove."

"A comic genius," says Julianne as she picks toilet paper from my face.

Sitting down at the table, I put a spoonful of sugar in my coffee and begin to stir. Julianne is watching me. The spoon stalls in my cup. I concentrate and tell my left hand to start moving, but no amount of willpower is going to budge it. Smoothly I switch the spoon to my right hand.

"When are you seeing Jock?" she asks.

"On Friday." Please don't ask me anything else.

"Is he going to have the test results?"

"He'll tell me what we already know."

"But I thought-"

"He didn't say!" I hate the sharpness in my voice.

Julianne doesn't even blink. "I've made you mad. I like you better silly."

"I am silly. Everyone knows that."

I see right through her. She thinks I'm doing the macho thing of hiding my feelings or trying to be relentlessly positive, while I'm really falling apart. My mother is the same-she's become a bloody armchair psychologist. Why don't they leave it to the experts to get it wrong?

Julianne has turned her back. She's breaking up stale bread to leave outside for the birds. Compassion is her hobby.

Dressed in a gray jogging suit, trainers and a baseball cap over her short-cropped dark hair, she looks twenty-seven, not thirty-seven. Instead of growing old gracefully together, she's discovered the secret of eternal youth and I take two tries to get off the sofa.

Monday is yoga, Tuesday is Pilates, Thursday and Saturday are circuit training. In between she runs the house, raises a child, teaches Spanish lessons and still finds time to try to save the world. She even made childbirth look easy, although I would never tell her that unless I developed a death wish.

We have been married for sixteen years and when people ask me why I became a psychologist, I say, "Because of Julianne. I wanted to know what she was really thinking."

It didn't work. I still have no idea.

I walk to work every weekday morning across Regent's Park. At this time of year, when the temperature drops, I wear nonslip shoes, a woolen scarf and a permanent frown. Forget about global warming. As I get older the world gets colder. That's a fact.

Today I'm not going to the office. Instead I walk past the boating lake and cross York Bridge, turning right along Huston Road toward Baker Street. The sun is like a pale yellow ball trying to pierce the grayness. A soft rain drifts down and clings to the leaves, as joggers slip past me, with their heads down and trainers leaving patterns on the wet asphalt. It's early December and the gardeners are supposed to be planting bulbs for the spring. Their wheelbarrows are filling with water, while they smoke cigarettes and play cards in the tool-shed.

Langton Hall is a squat redbrick building with white-trimmed windows and black downspouts. Apart from a light over the front steps, the building looks deserted. Pushing through the double doors, I cross a narrow foyer and enter the main hall. Plastic chairs are arranged in rough lines. A table to one side has a hot-water urn, beside rows of cups and saucers.

About forty women have turned up. They range in age from teens to late thirties. Most are wearing overcoats, beneath which some are doubtless dressed for work, in high heels, short skirts, hot pants and stockings. The air is a technicolor stink of perfume and tobacco.

Onstage Elisa Velasco is already speaking. A wisp of a thing with green eyes and fair hair, she has the sort of accent that makes northern women sound feisty and no-nonsense. Dressed in a knee-length pencil skirt and a tight cashmere sweater, she looks like a World War II pinup girl.

Behind her, projected onto a white screen, is an image of Mary Magdalene painted by the Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi. The initials PAPT are printed in the bottom corner and in smaller letters:

Elisa spies me and looks relieved. I try to slip along the side of the hall without interrupting her, but she taps the microphone and people turn.

"Now let me introduce the man you have really come to hear. Fresh from the front pages I'd like you to welcome Professor Joseph O'Loughlin."

There are one or two ironic handclaps. It's a tough audience. Soup gurgles in my stomach as I climb the steps at the side of the stage and walk into the circle of brightness. My left arm is trembling and I grasp the back of a chair to keep my hands steady.

I clear my throat and look at a point above their heads.

"Prostitutes account for the largest number of unsolved killings in this country. Forty-eight have been murdered in the past seven years. At least five are raped every day in London. A dozen more are assaulted, robbed or abducted. They aren't attacked because they're attractive, or asking for it, but because they're accessible and vulnerable. They are easier to acquire and more anonymous than almost anyone else in society…"

Now I lower my eyes and connect with their faces, relieved to have their attention. A woman at the front has a purple satin collar on her coat and bright lemon-colored gloves. Her legs are crossed and the coat has fallen open to reveal a creamy thigh. The thin black straps of her shoes crisscross up her calves.

"Sadly, you can't always pick and choose your customers. They come in all shapes and sizes, some drunk, some nasty-"

"Some fat," yells a bottle blond.

"And smelly," echoes a teenager wearing dark glasses.

I let the laughter subside. Most of these women don't trust me. I don't blame them. There are risks in all their relationships, whether with pimps, customers or a psychologist. They have learned not to trust men.

I wish I could make the danger more real for them. Maybe I should have brought photographs. One recent victim was found with her womb lying on the bed beside her. On the other hand these women don't need to be told. The danger is ever present.

"I haven't come here to lecture you. I hope to make you a little safer. When you're working the streets at night how many friends or family know where you are? If you disappeared how long would it take for someone to report you missing?"

I let the question drift across them like a floating cobweb from the rafters. My voice has grown hoarse and sounds too harsh. I let go of the chair and begin walking to the front of the stage. My left leg refuses to swing and I half stumble, before correcting. They glance at each other-wondering what to make of me.

"Stay off the streets and if you can't then take precautions. Operate a buddy system. Make sure someone is taking down the plate number when you get into a car. Only work in well-lit areas and organize safe houses where you can take clients rather than using their cars…"

Four men have entered the hall and taken up positions near the doors. They're clearly policemen in plain clothes. As the women realize I hear mutters of disbelief and resignation. Several of them glare angrily at me as though it's my doing.

"Everybody stay calm. I'll sort this out." I carefully swing down from the stage. I want to intercept Elisa before she reaches them.

The man in charge is easy to spot. He has a ruddy pockmarked face, a punch-worn nose and crooked teeth. His crumpled gray overcoat is like a culinary road map of stains and spills. He's wearing a rugby tie, with a silver-plate tiepin of the Tower of Pisa.