Michael Robotham - Suspect

The ambulance pulls away. Waterbirds lift out of the reeds. They twist and turn across the pale sky. Skeletal trees stretch upward as if trying to pluck the birds from the air.

Ruiz gives me a ride to the hospital. He wants to be there when Bobby gets out of surgery. We follow the ambulance along St. Pancras Way and turn into the accident and emergency bay. My legs have seized up almost completely now that the adrenalin has drained out of them. I struggle to get out of the car. Ruiz commandeers a wheelchair and pushes me into a familiar white-tiled public hospital waiting room.

As usual the Detective Inspector gets off on the wrong foot by calling the triage nurse "sweetheart" and telling her to get her "priorities sorted." She takes her annoyance out on me, shoving her fingers between my ribs with unnecessary zeal. I feel like I'm going to pass out.

The young doctor who stitches up my lip has bleached hair, an old-fashioned feather cut and a necklace of crushed shells. She has been on holiday somewhere warm and the skin on her nose is pink and peeling.

Ruiz has gone upstairs to keep tabs on Bobby. Not even an armed guard outside the surgery and a general anesthetic is insurance enough for him to relax. Maybe he's trying to make amends for not believing me sooner. I doubt it.

Lying on a gurney, I try to keep my head still as I feel the needle slide into my lip and the thread tug at the skin. Scissors snip the ends and the doctor takes a step back, appraising her handiwork. "And my mother told me I'd never be able to sew."

"How does it look?"

"You should have waited for the plastic surgeon but I've done OK. You'll have a slight scar, just there." She points to the hollow beneath her bottom lip. "Guess it'll match your ear." She tosses her latex gloves into a bin. "You still need an X-ray. I'm sending you upstairs. Do you need someone to push you or can you walk?"

"I'll walk."

She points to the lift and tells me to follow the green line to radiology on the fourth floor. Half an hour later Ruiz finds me in the waiting room. I'm hanging around for the radiologist to confirm what I already know from viewing the X-rays: two fractured ribs, but no internal bleeding.

"When can you make a statement?"

"When they strap me up."

"It can wait till tomorrow. Come on, I'll give you a lift home."

A twinge of regret elevates me above the pain. Where is home? I haven't had time to contemplate where I'll spend tonight and the night after that. Sensing my quandary, Ruiz murmurs, "Why don't you go and listen to her? You're supposed to be good at that sort of thing." In the same breath he adds, "There's no frigging room at my place!"

Downstairs, he continues bossing people around until my chest is strapped and my stomach is rattling with painkillers and anti-inflammatories. I float along the corridor, following Ruiz to his car.

"There is one thing that puzzles me," I say, as we drive north toward Camden. "Bobby could have killed me. He had the blade at my throat, yet he hesitated. It was as though he couldn't cross that line."

"You said he couldn't kill his mother."

"That's different. He was scared of her. He had no trouble with the others."

"Well, he doesn't have to worry about Bridget anymore. She died at eight o'clock this morning."

"So, that's it. He has no one left."

"Not quite. We found his half brother. I left a message for him, telling him Bobby was in hospital."

Uneasiness washes over me, inching upward, like an incoming tide.

"Where did you find him?"

"He's a plumber in north London. Dafyyd John Morgan."

Ruiz is shouting into the two-way radio. He wants cars sent to the house. I'm shouting too-trying to reach Julianne on a mobile, but the line is engaged. We're five minutes away, but the traffic is murder. A truck has run a red light at a five-way intersection, blocking Camden Road.

Ruiz is weaving onto the pavement, forcing pedestrians to scatter. He leans out of the window. "Dumbassfuck! Dickhead! Go, go! Just fucking move!"

This is taking way too long. He has been inside my house-inside my walls. I can see him standing in my basement, laughing at me. And I remember his eyes when he watched the police digging up the garden, the lazy insolence and his half smile.

Now it makes sense. The white van that followed me in Liverpool; it was a plumber's van. The magnetic mats had been taken off the doors, making it look nondescript. The fingerprint on the stolen four-wheel drive didn't belong to Bobby. And the drug dealer who gave Sonia Dutton the adulterated Ecstasy matched the description of D.J.-Dafyyd-one in the same.

At the narrow boat, Bobby knocked on the deck before opening the hatch. It wasn't his boat. The workroom was full of tools and plumbing equipment. They were D.J.'s diaries and notes. Bobby torched the boat to destroy the evidence.

I can't sit here waiting. The house is less than a quarter of a mile away. Ruiz tells me to wait, but I'm already out of the door, running along the street, dodging between pedestrians, joggers, mothers with toddlers, nannies with prams. Traffic is backed up in both directions as far as I can see. I hit "redial" on the mobile. The line is still engaged.

There had to be two of them. How could one person have done it all? Bobby was too easy to recognize. He stood out in a crowd. D.J. had the intensity and the power to control people. He didn't look away.

When it came to the moment of truth, Bobby couldn't kill me. He couldn't make that leap, because he'd never done it before. Bobby could do the planning, but D.J. was the foot soldier. He was older, more practiced, more ruthless.

I vomit into a trash can and keep running, passing the local liquor store, the betting shop, a pizzeria, discount store, pawnbroker, bakery and the Rag and Firkin Pub. Nothing is coming quickly enough. My legs are slowing down.

I round the final corner and see the house ahead of me. There are no police cars. A white van is parked out front with the sliding side door open. Hessian sacks cover the floor…

I fall through the front gate and up the steps. The phone is off the hook.

I scream Charlie's name, but it comes out as a low moan. She is sitting in the living room, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. A yellow Post-it note is stuck to her forehead. Like a new puppy she throws herself at me, crushing her head to my chest. I almost black out with the pain.

"We were playing a game of Who Am I?" she explains. "D.J. had to guess he was Homer Simpson. What did he choose for me?"

She lifts her face to mine. The note is curling at the edges, but I recognize the small, neat block print.

I find enough air to speak. "Where's Mum?"

The urgency in my voice frightens her. She takes a step back and sees the bloodstains on my shirt and the sheen of sweat. My bottom lip is swollen and the stitches are crusted with blood.

"She's downstairs in the basement. D.J. told me to wait here."

"Where is he?"

"He's coming back in a minute, but he said that ages ago."

I push her toward the front door. "Run, Charlie!"

"Why?"

"RUN! NOW! Keep running!"

The basement door is shut and wet paper towels have been pushed into the doorjamb. There is no key in the lock. I turn the handle and gently pull it open.

Dust is swirling in the air-the sign of leaking gas. I can't yell and hold my breath at the same time. Halfway down the steps, I stop to let my eyes adjust to the light. Julianne is slumped on the floor beside the new boiler. She's lying on her side, with her right arm under her head and her left reaching out as though pointing to something. A dark fringe has fallen over one eye.

Crouching next to her, I slip my hands under her arms and drag her backward. The pain in my chest is unbelievable. White dots dance in front of my eyes like angry insects. I still haven't taken a breath, but the time is close. I take the stairs one at a time, dragging Julianne upward and sitting down heavily after each exertion. One step, two steps, three steps…