Michael Robotham - Suspect

Jock has gone. Even if he tells Ruiz the truth, I doubt anyone will believe him. He will be seen as a friend trying to save my hide. I cross the Franklins' garden and slip down the side path. Then I walk toward the West End, watching my shadow appear and disappear beneath the streetlights.

A black cab slows as it passes. The driver glances at me. My hand pulls at the door handle.

I just don't know where to go. I need to put my head down for a few hours. Just to sleep. I can only think of Elisa's-any port in a storm.

As the cab weaves through the streets of Netting Hill, I contemplate her reinvention from call girl to campaigner. She doesn't see herself as a visionary and she dislikes being portrayed by journalists as some sort of evangelist who rescues girls from the streets. Elisa doesn't see prostitutes as "fallen women" or victims of a harsh society.

Six months after her release from prison, she had left a message for me at the Marsden. She had an idea and wanted my opinion. I remember her coming to see me, wearing little makeup and with her hair cut short. She looked like a junior executive.

She wanted to set up a drop-in center for young girls on the streets-giving advice about personal safety, health, accommodation and drug rehab programs. She had some savings and had rented an old house near King's Cross station.

The drop-in center proved to be just the start. Soon she had set up Prostitutes Are People Too. I was always amazed at the people she could call upon for advice-judges, barristers, journalists, social workers and restaurateurs. I sometimes wondered how many were former clients. Then again, I helped her… and it had nothing to do with sex.

The "inside out" house is in darkness. The Tudor beams glisten with frost and the small light above the doorbell flickers as I push the button. It must be after midnight and I can hear the buzzer echoing in the hall. Elisa isn't home.

I know where she hides her spare key. She won't mind. I can wash my clothes and I'll make her breakfast in the morning. That's when I'll tell her that I need her alibi after all.

Thumb and forefinger pinched together, I slide the key into the lock. Two turns. I swap keys. Another lock. The door opens. Mail spills out on the rug beneath the mail flap. She hasn't been home for a few days.

My footsteps echo on the polished floorboards. The living room has the atmosphere of a boutique, with the embroidered pillows and Indian rugs. A light is flashing on her answering machine. The tape is full.

I see her legs first. She is sprawled on the Elizabethan love seat, with her ankles bound together with brown masking tape. Her torso is tilted back and her head is covered with a black plastic trash bag, secured with tape around her neck. Her hands are underneath her, tied behind her back. Her skirt is bunched up along her thighs and her stockings are laddered and torn.

In a heartbeat I am a doctor again, ripping plastic, feeling for a pulse, pressing my ear to her chest. Her lips are blue and her body is cold and stiff. Hair is stuck to her forehead. Her eyes are open, staring at me in wonder.

I feel a cold grinding in my chest as though a drilling machine is tunneling through my insides. I see it all over again, the struggle and the dying; how she fought to get free. How much oxygen is in the bag? Ten minutes at most. Ten minutes to fight. Ten minutes to die. She sucked the plastic against her mouth as she twisted and kicked. There are CD cases on the floor and a trestle table is upside down. A framed photograph is lying facedown, amid shattered glass. Her thin gold chain is broken at the clasp.

Poor Elisa. I can still feel the softness of her lips on my cheek when we said goodbye at the restaurant. She is wearing the same dark blue camisole and matching miniskirt. It must have happened on Thursday some time after she left me.

I walk from room to room, looking for evidence of forced entry. The front door was locked from the outside. He must have taken a set of keys.

On the kitchen bench is a mug with a spoon full of coffee granules coagulated like dark toffee in the base. The kettle is lying on its side and one of the dining chairs has toppled over. A kitchen drawer is open. It contains neatly folded tea towels, a small toolbox, light fuses and a roll of black trash liners. The kitchen trash can is empty, with a fresh bag inside.

Elisa's coat is hanging on the edge of the door. Her car keys are on the table, next to her purse, two unopened letters and her mobile phone. The battery is dead. Where is her scarf? Retracing my steps, I find the scarf on the floor behind the chair. A single knot is pulled tight in the center, forming a silken garrotte.

Elisa is far too careful to open the door to a stranger. Either she knew her killer or he was already inside. Where? How? The patio doors are made of reinforced glass and lead to a small brick courtyard. A sensor triggers the security lights.

The downstairs office is cluttered but tidy. Nothing obvious appears to have been taken, such as the DVD player or Elisa's laptop.

Upstairs in the second bedroom I check the windows again. Elisa's clothes are hanging undisturbed on racks. Her jewelry box, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, is in the bottom drawer of the vanity. Anyone looking would have found it soon enough.

In the bathroom the toilet seat is down. The bathmat is hanging on a drying rail, over a large blue towel. A new tube of toothpaste sits in a souvenir mug from the House of Commons. I stand on the lever of the pedal wastebasket and the lid swings open. Empty.

I'm about to move on when I notice a dusting of dark powder on the white tiles beneath the sink. I run my finger over the surface, collecting a fine gray residue, which smells of roses and lavender.

Elisa had a painted ceramic bowl of potpourri on the windowsill. Perhaps she accidentally broke it. She would have swept up the debris in a dustpan and emptied it into the wastebasket. Then she might have emptied the wastebasket downstairs, but there's nothing in the kitchen trash can.

Looking closely at the window, I see splinters of bare wood at the edges where paint chips have been lost. The window had been painted shut and forced open. Levering my fingers under the base, I manage to do the same, gritting my teeth as the swollen wood screeches inside the frame.

Peering outside, I see the sewage pipes running down the outside wall and the flat roof of the laundry ten feet below. Wisteria has grown over the brick wall on the right side of the courtyard, making it easy to climb. The pipes would give someone a foothold to reach the window.

Projecting the scene against my closed lids, I see someone standing on the pipes, jimmying the window. He hasn't come to steal or vandalize. He knocks over the potpourri as he squeezes through the opening and then has to clean up. He doesn't want it to look like a break-in. Then he waits.

The cupboard beneath the stairs has a sliding bolt. It's a storeroom for mops and brooms-big enough for someone to hide in, crouched down, staring through the gap where the hinges join the door.

Elisa arrives home. She picks up her mail from the floor and carries on to the kitchen. She drapes her coat over the door and tosses her things on the table. Then she fills the kettle and spoons coffee into a mug. One mug. He attacks her from behind-wrapping the scarf around her neck, making sure the knot compresses her windpipe. When she loses consciousness he drags her into the living room, leaving faint tracks against the grain of the rug.

He tapes her hands and feet, carefully cutting the tape and collecting any scraps that fall on the floor. Then he puts the plastic trash liner over her head. At some point she regains consciousness and sees only darkness. By then she is dying.

A jolt of rage forces my eyes open. I see my reflection in the bathroom mirror-a despairing face full of confusion and fear. Dropping to my knees, I vomit into the toilet, bashing my chin against the seat. Then I stumble out the door and into the main bedroom. The curtains are closed and the bedclothes are crumpled and unkempt. My eyes are drawn to a wastebasket. Half a dozen crumpled white tissues lie inside it. Memories swim to the surface-Elisa's weight on my thighs; our bodies together; brushing her cervix each time I moved.