Michael Robotham - Suspect

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.

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."

"You didn't."

"No, but I felt like it."

"I'll be out of town for a few days. The police might ask you questions about where I am. That's why it's best if I don't tell you."

She doesn't reply.

"You can get me on my mobile. Call me please. Give Charlie an extra hug from me. I'll go now. I love you."

I hang up quickly, afraid to hear her silence.

Locking the door on my way out, I push the heavy key deep into my trouser pocket. Twice on my way down the stairs I feel for it. Instead I find Bobby's whale. I trace its shape with my fingers.

Outside an icy wind pushes me along Hanover Street toward the Albert Docks. Liverpool reminds me of an old woman's handbag full of bric-a-brac, odds and ends and half-finished packets of hard candies. Edwardian pubs squat beside mountainous cathedrals and art-deco office blocks that can't decide which continent they should be on. Some of the more modern buildings have dated so quickly that they look like derelict bingo halls only fit for the bulldozer.

The Cotton Exchange in Old Hall Street is a grand reminder of when Liverpool was the center of the international cotton trade, feeding the Lancashire spinning industry. When the exchange building opened in 1906 it had telephones, electric lifts, synchronized electric clocks and a direct cable to the New York futures market. Now it houses, among other things, thirty million records of births, deaths and marriages in Lancashire.

A strange mixture of people queue at the indexes-a class of schoolchildren on an excursion; American tourists on the trail of distant relations; matronly women in tweed skirts; probate researchers and fortune hunters.

I have a goal. It seems fairly realistic. I queue at the color-coded volumes where I hope to find the registration of Bobby's birth. With this I can get a birth certificate, which will in turn give me the names of his mother and father, and their place of residence and occupations.

The volumes are stored on metal racks, listed by month and year. The 1970s and 1980s are arranged in quarters for each year, with surnames in alphabetical order. If Bobby has told the truth about his age, I might only have four volumes to search.

The year should be 1980.1 can find no entry for a Bobby Moran or Robert Moran. I start working through the years on either side, going as far back as 1974 and forward to 1984. Growing frustrated I look at my notes. I wonder if Bobby could have changed the spelling of his name or altered it entirely by deed poll. If so, I'm in trouble.

At the front information desk I ask to borrow a phone book. I can't tell if I'm charming people with my smile or frightening them. The Parkinson's mask is unpredictable.

Bobby lied about where he went to school, but perhaps he didn't lie about the name. There are two St. Mary's in Liverpool-only one of them is a junior school. I make a note of the number and find a quiet corner in the foyer to make the call. The secretary has a Scouse accent and sounds like a character in a Ken Loach film.