Suspect (42 page)

“It’s growing inside me. God put it there.” She spoke very reverential y and rubbed her tummy.

I couldn’t fault her logic. “Let’s play a ‘what if’ game. OK? I want you to imagine that you’re bathing your baby and the telephone rings. The baby is al slippery and wet. What do you do?”

“I… I… I… put my baby on the floor, wrapped in a towel.”

“While you are on the telephone, someone knocks on the front door. Do you answer it?”

She momentarily looked unsure. “It might be the fire brigade,” I added. “Or maybe it’s your social worker.”

“I’d answer the door,” she said, nodding her head forceful y.

“It turns out to be your neighbor. Some young boys have thrown a rock through her window. She has to go to work. She wants you to sit inside her flat and wait for the glaziers to come.”

“Those little shits— they’re always throwing rocks,” Sharon said, bunching her fists.

“Your neighbor has satel ite TV: movie channels, cartoons, daytime soap operas. What are you going to watch while you’re waiting?”

“Cartoons.”

“Wil you have a cup of tea?”

“Maybe.”

“Your neighbor has left you some money to pay the glazier. Fifty quid. The job is only going to cost £45, but she says you can keep the change.” Her eyes lit up. “I can keep the money?”

“Yes. What are you going to buy?”

“Chocolate.”

“Where are you going to buy it?”

“Down the shops.”

“When you go to the shops what do you normal y take?”

“My keys and my purse.”

“Anything else?”

She shook her head.

“Where is your baby, Sharon?”

A look of panic spread across her face and her bottom lip began to tremble. Just when I thought she was going to cry, she suddenly announced, “Barney wil look after her.”

“Who’s Barney?”

“My dog.”

A couple of months later, I sat outside the delivery suite and listened to Sharon sobbing as her baby boy was swaddled in a blanket and taken away from her. It was my job to transfer the boy to a different hospital. I strapped him in a carry-cot on the backseat of my car. Looking down at the sleeping bundle, I wondered what he’d think, years from then, about the decision I had made for him. Would he thank me for rescuing him or blame me for ruining his life?

A different child has come back. His message is clear. We have failed Bobby. We failed his father— an innocent man, arrested and questioned for hours about his sex life and the length of his penis. His house and workplace were searched for child pornography that didn’t exist and his name put on a central index of sex offenders despite him never having been charged, let alone convicted.

This indelible stain was going to blot his life forever. Al his future relationships would be tainted. Wives and partners would have to be told. Fathering a child would become a risk.

Coaching a kid’s soccer team would be downright reckless. Surely this is enough to drive a man to suicide.

Socrates— the wisest of al Greeks— was wrongly convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens and sentenced to death. He could have escaped, but he drank the poison. Socrates believed that our bodies are less important than our souls. Maybe he had Parkinson’s.

I share the blame for Bobby. I was part of the system. Mine was the cowardice of acquiescence. Rather than disagree I said nothing. I went along with the majority view. I was young, just starting my career, but that is no excuse. I acted like a spectator instead of a referee.

Julianne cal ed me a coward when she threw me out. I know what she means now. I have sat in the grandstand, not wanting to get drawn into my marriage or my disease. I kept my distance, scared of what might happen. I have let my own state of mind absorb me. I was so worried about rocking the boat that I failed to spot the iceberg.

6

Three hours ago I came up with a plan. It wasn’t my first. I worked my way through about a dozen, looking at al the fundamentals, but each had a fatal flaw. I have enough of those already. My ingenuity has to be tempered by my physical limitations. This meant jettisoning anything that requires me to abseil down a building, overpower a guard, short-circuit a security system or crack open a safe.

I also shelved any plan that didn’t have an exit strategy. That’s why most campaigns fail. The players don’t think far enough ahead. The endgame is the boring bit, the mopping-up operation, without the glamour and excitement of the principal chal enge. Therefore, people get frustrated and only plan so far. From then on they imagine winging it, confident in their ability to master their retreat as skil ful y as their advance.

I know this because I have had people in my consulting room who cheat, steal and embezzle for a living. They own nice houses, send their children to private schools and play off single-figure handicaps. They vote Tory and view law and order as an important issue because the streets just aren’t safe anymore. These people rarely get caught and hardly ever go to prison. Why? Because they plan for every outcome.

I am sitting in the darkest corner of a car park in Liverpool. On the seat beside me is a waxed paper shopping bag with a pleated rope handle. My old clothes are inside it and I’m now wearing new charcoal gray trousers, a woolen sweater and an overcoat. My hair is neatly trimmed and my face is freshly shaved. Lying between my legs is a walking stick. Now that I’m walking like a cripple, I might as wel get some sympathy for it.

The phone rings. I don’t recognize the number on the screen. For a split second I wonder whether Bobby could have found me. I should have known it would be Ruiz.

“You surprise me, Professor O’Loughlin…” His voice is al gravel and phlegm. “I figured you for the sort who would turn up at the nearest police station with a team of lawyers and a PR

man.”

“I’m sorry if I disappoint you.”

“I lost twenty quid. Not to worry— we’re running a new book. We’re taking bets on whether you get shot or not.”

“What are the odds?”

“I can get three to one on you dodging a bul et.”

I hear traffic noise in the background. He’s on a motorway.

“I know where you are,” he says.

“You’re guessing.”

“No. And I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Tel me.”

“First you tel me why you kil ed Elisa.”

“I didn’t kil her.”

Ruiz draws deeply on a cigarette. He’s smoking again. I feel a curious sense of achievement. “Why would I kil Elisa? That’s where I spent the night on the thirteenth of November. She was my alibi.”

“That’s unfortunate for you.”

“She wanted to give a statement, but I knew you wouldn’t believe her. You’d drag up her past and humiliate her. I didn’t want to put her through it al again…” He laughs the way Jock often does, as though I’m soft in the head.

Talking over the top of him, I try to keep the desperation out of my voice. I tel him to go back to the beginning and look for the red edge.

“His name is Bobby Morgan— not Moran. Read the case notes. Al the pieces are there. Put them together…”

He’s not listening to me. It’s too big for him to comprehend.

“Under different circumstances I might admire your enthusiasm, but I have enough evidence already,” he says. “I have motive, opportunity and physical evidence. You couldn’t have marked your territory any better if you’d pissed in every corner.”

“I can explain…”

“Good! Explain it to a jury! That’s the beauty of our legal system— you get plenty of chances to state your case. If the jury doesn’t believe you, you can appeal to the High Court and then the House of Lords and the European Court of Human sodding Rights. You can spend the rest of your life appealing. It obviously helps pass the time when you’re banged up for life.” I press the “end cal ” button and turn off the phone.

Leaving the car park, I descend the stairs and emerge on street level. I dump my old clothes and shoes in a trash can, along with the travel bag and the soggy scraps of paper from my hotel room. As I head along the street, I swing my cane in what I hope is a jaunty, cheerful way. The shoppers are out and every store is bedecked with tinsel and playing Christmas carols. It makes me feel homesick. Charlie loves that sort of stuff— the department store Santas, window displays and watching old Bing Crosby movies set in Vermont.

As I’m about to cross the road, I spot a poster on the side of a newspaper van: MANHUNT FOR CATHERINE’S KILLER. My face is underneath, pinned beneath the plastic ties. Instantly I feel like I’m wearing a huge neon sign on my head with the arrow pointing downward.

The Adelphi Hotel is ahead of me. I push through the revolving door and cross the foyer, fighting the urge to quicken my stride. I tel myself not to walk too quickly or hunch over. Head up.

Eyes straight ahead.

It’s a grand old railway hotel, dating back to a time when steam trains arrived from London and steamships left for New York. Now it looks as tired as some of the waitresses, who should be at home putting curlers in their hair.

The business center is on the first floor. The secretary is a skinny thing cal ed Nancy, with permed red hair and a red cravat around her neck that matches her lipstick. She doesn’t ask for a business card or check if I have a room number.

“If you have any questions, just ask,” she says, keen to help.

“I’l be fine. I just need to check my e-mails.” I sit at a computer terminal and turn my back to her.

“Actual y, Nancy, you could do something for me. Can you find out if there are any flights to Dublin this afternoon?” A few minutes later she rattles off a list. I choose the late-afternoon shuttle and I give her my debit card details.

“Can you also see about getting me to Edinburgh?” I ask.

She raises an eyebrow.

“You know what head offices are like,” I explain. “They can never make a decision.”

She nods and smiles.

“And see if there’s a sleeper available on the Isle of Man ferry.”

“The tickets are nonrefundable.”

“That’s OK.”

In the meantime, I search for the e-mail addresses of al the major newspapers and gather the names of news editors, chief reporters and police roundsman. I start typing an e-mail using my right hand, pressing one key at a time. I tuck my left hand under my thigh to stop it trembling.

I start with proof of my identity— giving my name, address, National Insurance number and employment details. They can’t think this is a hoax. They have to believe that I am Joseph O’Loughlin— the man who kil ed Catherine McBride and Elisa Velasco.

It is just after 4:00 p.m. Editors are deciding the running order for stories in the first edition. I need to change tomorrow’s headlines. I need to knock Bobby off his stride— to keep him guessing.

Up until now he’s always been two, three, four steps ahead of me. His acts of revenge have been bril iantly conceived and clinical y executed. He didn’t simply apportion blame. He turned it into an art form. But for al his genius, he is capable of making a mistake. Nobody is infal ible. He kicked a woman unconscious because she reminded him of his mother.

To whom it may concern:

This is my confession and testament. I, Joseph William O’Loughlin, do solemnly, sincerely and truly affirm that I am the man responsible for the murder of Catherine
McBride and Elisa Velasco. I apologize to those who grieve at their loss. And for those of you who thought better of me, I am genuinely sorry.

I intend to give myself up to the police within the next 24 hours. At that point I will not seek to hide behind lawyers or to excuse the suffering I have caused. I will not claim
there were voices inside my head. I wasn’t high on drugs or taking instructions from Satan. I could have stopped this. Innocent people have died. My every hour is long
with guilt.

I list the names, starting with Catherine McBride. I put down everything I know about her murder. Boyd Cossimo is next. I describe Rupert Erskine’s last days; Sonia Dutton’s overdose; the fire that kil ed Esther Gorski and crippled her husband. Elisa comes last.

I do not plead any kind of mitigation. Some of you may wish to know more about my crimes. If so, you must walk in my shoes, or find someone who has done so. There is
such a person. His name is Bobby Moran (aka Bobby Morgan) and he will appear at the Central Criminal Court in London tomorrow morning. He, more than anyone,
understands what it means to be both victim and perpetrator.

Sincerely yours,

Joseph O’Loughlin

I have thought of everything, except what this wil 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 Vauxhal Cavalier, which is waiting downstairs.