Michael Robotham - Suspect

"Chief Inspector Ruiz."

"Ah, the professor returns." He's reading Jock's number on a display window. "How was Liverpool?"

"How did you know?"

"A little birdie told me you needed medical treatment. Suspected assaults have to be reported. How's the ear?"

"Just a touch of frostbite."

I can hear him eating. Shoveling down a microwave curry or takeout.

"It's about time you and I had another little chat. I'll even send a car to pick you up."

"I'll have to take a rain check on that."

"Maybe we don't understand each other. At ten o'clock this morning a warrant was issued for your arrest."

I glance down the hallway toward the door and wonder how long it would take for Ruiz to have someone kick it off its hinges.

"Why?"

"Remember I said to you I'd find something else? Catherine McBride wrote letters to you. She kept copies. We found them on her computer disk."

"That's impossible. I didn't get any letters."

"But you did. She was your Florence-Florence Nightingale-your little nurse."

"There must be some mistake. This is crazy." For a moment I'm tempted to tell him everything-about Elisa and Jock and Catherine's CV. Instead of holding things back, bartering for information. "You told me the last call that Catherine made was to my office. But she must have made other calls that day. People must have called her. You must have checked those, right? You didn't just drop everything when you saw my number on the list."

Ruiz doesn't respond.

"There was someone else she knew from the Marsden. I think she was having an affair with him. And I think he contacted her that day-the thirteenth. Are you listening to any of this?"

I sound desperate. Ruiz isn't going to barter. He's sitting there with his crooked smile, thinking there's nothing new under the sun. Or maybe he's being sly. He's squeezing every drop out of me.

"You told me once you collect bits of information until two or three pieces fit. Well, I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to find out the truth."

After another age, Ruiz breaks his silence. "You're wondering if I interviewed your friend Dr. Owen about his relationship with Catherine McBride. The answer is yes. I talked to him. I asked where he was that night and, unlike you, he could give me an alibi. Shall I tell you who it was? Or perhaps if I let you stumble around for long enough, you'll trip over the truth. Ask your wife, Professor."

"What's she got to do with this?"

"She's his alibi."

The black cab drops me on Primrose Hill Avenue and I walk the last quarter mile. My mind is spinning, but a cold overwhelming current of energy has swept away my tiredness.

My vain attempts to protect people from something I don't understand have been ridiculed. Someone, somewhere is laughing at me. What a fool! All this time I've been operating under the misapprehension that tomorrow everything will be different. "Wake up and smell the roses," that's what Jock is always telling me. OK, now I get it-every day is going to get worse.

At the end of my street I pause, straighten my clothes and move quickly along the footpath, wary of uneven paving stones. The upper floors of my house are in darkness, except for the main bedroom and a bathroom light on the first landing.

Something makes me stop. On the far side of the road, in the deeper shadows of the plane trees, I see the faint glow of a wristwatch held up to a face. The light goes out. Nobody moves. Whoever it belongs to must be waiting.

Crouching behind a parked car, I move from vehicle to vehicle, peering over the hoods. I can just make out a figure in the shadows.

Someone else is sitting in a car. The glow of a cigarette end lights up his lips.

Ruiz has sent them. They're waiting for me.

I retrace my steps, keeping to the shadows, until I turn the corner of my street and double back around the block. In the next road over I recognize the Franklins' house directly behind ours.

I jump a side gate and cross their yard, staying away from the rectangles of light shining from the windows. Daisy Franklin is in the kitchen stirring something on the stove. Two cats appear and disappear from under her skirt. Perhaps there's a whole family under there.

I head for a gnarled cherry tree in the back corner of the garden and lever myself upward, swinging one leg over the fence. The other leg locks up and doesn't follow. All my weight is moving forward and I deny gravity for only a split second, flapping my arms in slow motion, before crashing headfirst into the compost heap.

Cursing, I crawl on my hands and knees, crushing snails under my palms, until I emerge from the fuchsias. Light spills out from the French doors. Julianne is sitting at the kitchen table, her newly washed hair wrapped in a towel.

Her lips are moving. She's talking to someone. I crane my neck to see who it is-leaning on a large Italian olive jar, which begins to topple until I rescue it with a bear hug.

A hand reaches across the table and the fingers mesh with hers. It's Jock. I feel sick. She pulls her hand away and slaps him on the wrist like she would a naughty child. Then she crosses the kitchen and bends to put coffee cups in the dishwasher. Jock watches her every movement. I want to stick needles in his eyes.

I've never been the jealous type, but I suddenly get a bizarre flashback to a former patient who was obsessed with losing his wife. She had a great figure and he kept imagining that men were staring at her breasts. Gradually, in his eyes, her breasts grew bigger and her tops became smaller and tighter. Her every movement seemed provocative. All of this was nonsense, but not to him.

Jock is a breast man. Both of his wives were surgically enhanced.

Why be satisfied with nature's meager bounty when you can be all that money can buy?

Julianne has gone upstairs to dry her hair. Jock fumbles in the pockets of his leather jacket. His shadow is framed in the French doors, just before he steps outside. Gravel crunches underfoot. A lighter flares. The cigar tip smolders.

I kick his legs out from under him, sending him tumbling backward, landing heavily in a shower of sparks.

"Joe!"

"Get out of my house!"

"Jesus! If there's a scorch mark on this sweater…"

"And stay away from Julianne!"

He edges away and tries to sit up.

"Why are you sneaking around out here?"

"Because the police are out front." I make it sound so obvious.

He stares at his cigar and contemplates whether to light it again.

"You had an affair with Catherine McBride. Your name is on her fucking CV!"

"Steady on, Joe. I don't know what you're…"

"You told me that you didn't know her. You saw her that night."

"No."

"You arranged to meet her."

"No comment."

"What do you mean, 'No Comment'?"

"Just that: no comment."

"This is bullshit! You arranged to meet her."

"I didn't show up."

"You're lying."

"All right, I'm lying," he says sarcastically. "Whatever you want to think, Joe."

"Quit pissing about."

"What do you want me to say? She was worth a poke. I arranged to meet her. I didn't show up. End of story. Don't preach to me. You screwed a hooker. You lost your chance to moralize."

I swing a punch but this time he's ready. He sways to one side and then sinks his shoe into my groin. The pain comes as a shock and my knees buckle. My forehead is pressed against his chest as he stops me from falling.

"None of this matters, Joe," he says, in a soft voice.

Gasping for breath, I hiss, "Of course it matters. They think I killed her." Jock helps me upright. I swat his hands away and step back. "They think I had an affair with her. You could tell them the truth."

Jock gives me a sly look. "For all I know you were poking her as well."