Michael Robotham - Suspect

Sincerely yours,

Joseph O'Loughlin

I have thought of everything, except what this will mean to Charlie. Bobby was a victim of a decision made beyond his control. I'm doing the same thing to my daughter. My finger hovers over the send button. I have no choice.

The e-mail disappears into the labyrinth of the electronic post office.

Nancy thinks I'm mad, but has made my travel arrangements, booking flights to Dublin, Edinburgh, London, Paris and Frankfurt. In addition there are first-class seats on trains to Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow, London, Swansea and Leeds. She has also managed to hire me a white Vauxhall Cavalier, which is waiting downstairs.

Everything has been paid for with a debit card that doesn't require authorization from a bank. The card is linked to a trust account set up by my father. Inheritance tax is another of his pet hates. I'm assuming Ruiz will have frozen all my accounts, but he can't touch this one.

The lift doors open and I set out across the foyer, staring straight ahead. I bump into a potted palm and realize that I'm drifting sideways. Walking has become a constant assortment of adjustments and corrections, like landing a plane.

The rental car is parked outside. As I walk down the front steps of the hotel I keep expecting to feel a hand on my shoulder or to hear a shout of recognition or alarm. My fingers fumble with the keys. Black cabs are queued in front of me but one of them eases out of my way. I follow the stream of traffic, glancing in the mirrors and trying to remember the quickest way out of the city.

Stopped at a red light, I look beyond the stream of pedestrians at the multistory car park. Three police cars are blocking the entry ramp and another is on the pavement. Ruiz is leaning against an open car door, talking on the radio. He has a face like thunder.

As the lights change to green, I imagine Ruiz looking up and me saluting him like a World War I flying ace in a crippled plane, living to fight another day.

One of my favorite songs is on the radio-"Jumping Jack Flash." At university I played bass guitar for a band called the Screaming Dick Nixons. We weren't as good as the Rolling Stones, but we were louder. I knew nothing about playing the bass guitar, but it was the easiest instrument to fake. Mostly my ambition was to get laid, but that only ever happened to our lead singer, Morris Whiteside, who had long hair and a crucifixion scene tattooed on his torso. He's now a senior accountant working for Deutsche Bank.

I head west toward Toxteth, and park the Cavalier in a vacant lot, among the cinders and weeds. A handful of teenagers watch me from the shadows beside a boarded-up community hall. I'm driving the sort of fancy car they normally only see on bricks.

I phone home. Julianne answers. Her voice sounds close, crystal clear, but already starting to shake. "Thank God! Where have you been? Reporters keep ringing the doorbell. They say you're dangerous. They say the police are going to shoot you."

I try to steer the conversation away from firearms. "I know who did this. Bobby is trying to punish me for something that happened a long time ago. It isn't just me. He has a list of names…"

"What list?"

"Boyd is dead."

"How?"

"He was murdered. So was Erskine."

"My God!"

"Are the police still watching the house?"

"I don't know. There was someone in a white van yesterday. At first I thought D.J. had come to finish the central heating, but he's not due until tomorrow."

I can hear Charlie singing in the background. A rush of tenderness catches in my throat.

The police will be trying to trace this call. With mobile phones, they have to work backward, identifying which towers are relaying the signals. There are probably half a dozen transmitters between Liverpool and London. As each one is ticked off, the search area narrows down.

"I want you to stay on the line, Julianne. If I don't come back, just leave the line open. It's important." I slide the phone under the driver's seat. The car keys are still in the ignition. I close the car door and walk away, head down, retreating into the darkness, wondering if Bobby is watching me still.

Twenty minutes later, on a railway platform that looks abandoned and burned out, I step gratefully onto a suburban train. The carriages are almost empty.

Ruiz will know about the ferry, train and airline bookings by now. He'll realize I'm trying to stretch his resources, but he will have to check them anyway.

The express to London leaves from Lime Street Station. The police will search each carriage, but I'm hoping they won't stay on the train. Edgehill is one stop farther, which is where I board a train to Manchester just after 10:30 p.m. After midnight I catch another, this one bound for York. I have a three-hour wait until the Great North Eastern Express leaves for London, sitting in a poorly lit ticket hall, watching the cleaners compete to do the least work.

I pay for the tickets with cash and choose the busiest carriage. Staggering drunkenly along the aisles, I topple into people and mumble apologies.

Only children stare at drunks. Adults avoid eye contact, hoping that I keep moving and choose somewhere else to sit. When I fall asleep leaning against a window the entire carriage lets out a silent collective sigh.

The train journeys of my youth were to and from boarding school, when I'd gorge myself on bags of sweets and chewing gum, which weren't allowed at Charterhouse.

Sometimes I think Semtex would have been more acceptable than bubblegum. One of the seniors, Peter Clavell, swallowed so much that it clogged his intestines and doctors had to remove the blockage through his rectum. Not surprisingly, gum wasn't so popular after that.

My father's back-to-school pep talk normally boiled down to a seven-word warning: "Don't let me hear from the headmaster." When Charlie started school I promised that I'd be a different sort of parent. I sat her down and gave her a talk best saved for secondary school, or perhaps even university. Julianne kept giggling, which set Charlie off.

"Don't be scared of math," I finished up saying.

"Why?"

"Because a lot of girls are scared of numbers. They talk themselves out of being good at things."

"OK," Charlie replied, having absolutely no idea what I was talking about.

I wonder if I'm going to get to see her start secondary school. For weeks I've been worried about this disease denying me things. Now it pales into insignificance, when set alongside murder.

As the train pulls into King's Cross I walk slowly through the carriages, studying the platform for any sign of the police. I fall in step with an elderly woman pulling a large suitcase. As we reach the barrier I offer to help her and she nods gratefully. At the ticket booth, I turn to her. "Where's your ticket, Mum?"

She doesn't bat an eyelid as she hands it to me. I give both tickets to the guard and give him a weary smile.

"Don't you hate these early starts?" he says.

"I'll never get used to them," I reply, as he hands me the stubs.

Weaving my way through the crowded concourse, I pause at the entrance to WH Smith where the morning papers are stacked side by side. shrink confesses-"I KILLED CATHERINE" screams the headline in The Sun.

The broadsheets are reporting rising interest rates and a threatened strike by postal workers. Catherine's story-my story-is beneath the fold. People reach past me and pick up copies. Nobody makes eye contact. This is London, a city where people walk bolt upright with fixed expressions as though ready to face anything and avoid everything. They have somewhere else to be. Don't interrupt. Just keep moving.

Finding a rhythm to my stride, I weave my way through Covent Garden, past the restaurants and expensive boutiques. Reaching the Strand, I turn left and follow Fleet Street until the gothic facade of the Old Bailey comes into view.