Suspect (9 page)

She motioned me to fol ow her into an alcove and then dropped the sheets. It took me a few moments to notice the sleeves of her cardigan. They were stuffed with paper towels and tissues. Blood leaked through the layers of paper and fabric.

“Please don’t let them find out,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have to go to casualty.”

“No! Please! I need this job.”

A thousand voices inside my head were tel ing me what I should do. I ignored every one of them. I sent Catherine ahead to my office, while I col ected sutures, needles and butterfly clips, bandages and antibiotic ointment. Behind drawn blinds and a locked door I stitched up her forearms.

“You’re good at this,” she said.

“I’ve had some practice.” I applied the antiseptic. “What happened?”

“I tried to feed the bears.”

I didn’t smile. She looked chastened. “I had a fight with someone. I don’t know who I wanted to punish.”

“Your boyfriend?”

She blinked back tears.

“What did you use?”

“A razor blade.”

“Was it clean?”

She shook her head.

“OK. From now on, if you insist on cutting yourself, you should use these.” I handed her a packet of disposable scalpels in a sterilized container. I also gave her bandages, Steri-Strips and sutures.

“These are my rules,” I told her. “If you insist on doing this, you must cut in one place… on the inside of your thigh.” She nodded.

“I’m going to teach you how to suture yourself. If you find that you can’t do this, then you must go to a hospital.” Her eyes were wide.

“I am not going to take the cutting option away from you, Catherine. Nor am I going to tel your superiors. But you must do everything in your power to control this. I am placing my trust in you. You can repay my faith by not harming yourself. If you weaken you
must
cal me. If you fail to do this and cut yourself, then I am not going to blame you or think any less of you. At the same time, I wil not run to you. If you harm yourself I wil not see you for a week. This is not a punishment— it is a test.” I could see her thinking hard about the ramifications. Her face stil showed fear, but her shoulders betrayed her relief.

“From now on we set limits for your self-harm and you take responsibility for it,” I continued. “At the same time we’re going to find new ways for you to cope.” I gave Catherine a quick sewing lesson using a pil ow. She made a joke about me making someone a fine wife. As she rose to leave she put her arms around me. “Thank you.” Her body sank into mine and she clung to me so tightly I could feel her heart beating.

After she had gone I sat staring at the blood-soaked bandages in the wastebasket. I was trying to work out if I was completely insane. I could see the coroner, rigid with indignation, asking me why I had given scalpels to a young woman who enjoyed slicing herself open. He would ask me if I also favored handing matches to arsonists and heroin to junkies.

Yet I could see no other way to help Catherine. A zero-tolerance approach would simply reinforce her belief that other people control ed her life and decided things for her. That she was worthless and couldn’t be trusted.

I had given her the choice. Hopeful y, before she took up the blade, she would think closely about her reasons and weigh the consequences. And she would also consider other ways that she might cope.

In the months that fol owed Catherine slipped up only once. Her forearms healed. My stitching job was remarkably neat for someone so out of practice.

The notes end there, but there’s more to the story. I stil cringe in embarrassment when I remember the details because I should have seen it coming.

Catherine started taking a little extra care with her appearance. She made appointments to see me at the end of her shift and would have changed into civvies. She wore makeup and a splash of perfume. An extra button was undone on her blouse. Nothing too obvious— it was al very subtle. She asked what I did in my spare time. A friend had given her two tickets to the theater. Did I want to go with her?

There is an old joke about psychologists being the experts you pay to ask questions your spouse asks you for nothing. We listen to problems, read the subtexts and build up self-esteem, teaching people to like who they real y are.

For someone like Catherine having a man real y listen and care about her problems was enormously attractive, but sometimes it can be mistaken for something more intimate.

Her kiss came as a total surprise. We were in my office at the Marsden. I pushed her away too suddenly. She stumbled backward and tripped, landing on the floor. She thought it was part of a game. “You can hurt me if you want to,” she said.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’ve been a bad, bad girl.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I do.” She was unzipping her skirt.

“Catherine, you’re making a mistake. You’ve misread the signs.”

The harshness in my voice final y brought her around. She stood beside my desk, with her skirt at her ankles and her blouse undone. Panty hose hid the scars on her thighs.

It was embarrassing for both of us— but more so for her. She ran out with mascara leaking down her cheeks and her skirt clutched around her waist.

She quit her job and left the Marsden, but the ramifications of that day have plagued me ever since. Hel hath no fury like a woman scorned.

8

Saturday mornings and soggy sports fields seem to go together like acne and adolescence. That’s how I remember the winters of my childhood— standing ankle-deep in mud, freezing my bol ocks off, playing for the school’s Second XV.

God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting had a bel ow that rose above the howling wind. “Don’t just stand there like a cold bottle of piss,” he’d shout. “Cal yourself a winger! I’ve seen continents drift faster than you.”

Thank goodness Charlie is a girl. She looks real y cute in her soccer gear, with her hair pul ed back and knee-length shorts. I don’t know how I managed to become coach. My knowledge of the game could fit on the back of a coaster, which is probably why the Tigers haven’t won a game al season.

You’re not supposed to count the score at this age, or keep a league table. It’s al about having fun and getting every child involved. Tel that to the parents.

Today we’re playing the Highgate Lions and each time they score the Tigers trudge back to halfway, debating who gets to kick off.

“It isn’t our strongest side,” I say apologetical y to the opposition coach. Under my breath I’m praying, “Just one goal, Tigers. Just give us one goal. Then we’l show them a real celebration.”

The range of abilities is a wonder to behold. Take Dominic— the kid standing at ful back with his hand down his shorts holding his scrotum. Ten minutes into the game he trots to the sideline and asks me which way we’re running. I have to stop myself slapping my forehead.

Teamwork is a complete mystery, particularly to the boys who see only the bal flashing into the back of the net and the personal glory of dancing around the corner post.

At halftime we’re down four nil. The kids are sucking on quarters of orange. I tel them how wel they’re playing. “This team is undefeated,” I say, lying through my teeth. “But you guys are holding them.”

I put Douglas, our strongest kicker, in goal for the second half. Andrew, our leading goal-scorer, is ful back.

“But I’m a striker,” he whines.

“Dominic is playing up front.”

They al look at Dominic, who giggles and shoves his hand down his pants.

“Forget about dribbling, or passing, or scoring goals,” I say. “Just go out there and try to kick the bal as hard as you can.” As the game restarts I have a posse of parents bending my ear about my positional changes. They think I’ve lost the plot. But there’s a method to my madness. Soccer at this level is al about momentum. Once the bal is moving forward the whole game moves in that direction. That’s why I want my strongest kickers at the back.

For the first few minutes nothing changes. The Tigers may as wel be chasing shadows. Then the bal fal s to Douglas and he hoofs it upfield. Dominic tries to run out of the way, fal s over and brings down both defenders. The bal rol s loose. Charlie is closest. I’m muttering under my breath, “Nothing fancy. Just take the shot.” Accuse me of favoritism. Cal me biased. I don’t care. What comes next is the most sweetly struck, curling, rising, dipping, swerving shot ever sent goalward by a size-six footbal boot.

Such are the scenes of celebration that any independent observer must be convinced that we’ve won.

Shel -shocked by our new strategy, the Lions fal apart. Even Dominic poaches a goal when the bal bounces off the back of his head and loops over the goalkeeper. The Tigers beat the Lions five goals to four. Our finest endorsement comes from Julianne, who isn’t what you’d cal a dedicated footbal mum. I think she’d prefer Charlie to do bal et or to play tennis.

Looking immaculate in a long black hooded coat and Wel ingtons, she announces that she has never seen a more exciting piece of sport. The fact that she cal s it a “piece of sport” is testament to how little she watches footbal .

Parents are wrapping their children up warmly and putting muddy boots into plastic bags. As I gaze across the field I notice a man standing alone on the far side of the pitch, with his hands in the pockets of an overcoat. I recognize the silhouette.

“What brings you out so early on a Saturday, Detective Inspector? It’s not the exercise.”

Ruiz glances toward the jogging path. “There’s enough heavy breathers in this town already.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Your neighbors.”

He unwraps a hard candy and pops it into his mouth, rattling it against his teeth.

“How can I help you?”

“Do you remember what I told you at our breakfast? I said that if the victim turns out to be the daughter of someone famous I’l have forty detectives instead of twelve.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know your little nurse was the niece of a Tory MP and the granddaughter of a retired country court judge?”

“I read about her uncle in the papers.”

“I got the hyenas al over me— asking questions and shoving cameras in my face. It’s a media circus.”

I stare past him toward London Zoo. No matter how hard I try to push the thought away, Catherine’s letter keeps surfacing in my mind. I have wrestled with the implications and weighed the possibilities. Nothing is any clearer. I need more time.

Ruiz is stil talking. “You’re one of the bright boys, right? University education, postgraduate degree, consultancy… I thought you might be able to help me out on this one. I mean you knew this girl, right? You worked with her. So I figured you might have an insight into what she might be mixed up in.”

“I only knew her as a patient.”

“But she talked to you. She told you about herself. What about friends or boyfriends?”

“I think she was seeing someone at the hospital. He might have been married because she wouldn’t talk about him.”

“She mention a name?”

“No.”

“Do you think she was promiscuous?”

“No.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.”

He turns and nods at Julianne, who is suddenly beside me, slipping her arm through mine. Her hood is up and she looks like a nun.

“This is Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz, the policeman I told you about.”

Concern creases her forehead. “Is this about Catherine?” She pushes back her hood.

Ruiz looks at her as most men do. No makeup, no perfume, no jewelry and she can stil turn heads.

“Are you interested in the past, Mrs. O’Loughlin?”

She hesitates. “That depends.”

“Did you know Catherine McBride?”

“She caused us a lot of grief.”

Ruiz’s eyes dart to mine and I get a sinking feeling.

Julianne looks at me and realizes her mistake. Charlie is cal ing her. She looks over her shoulder and then turns back to Ruiz.

“How did she cause you grief?” he asks.

Julianne makes no attempt to hide her anger. “She tried to ruin our marriage.”

“Catherine didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” I say, cutting her short.

Julianne shrugs. “OK, I’l let you tel the story. I’ve promised Charlie a hot chocolate.”

Ruiz doesn’t want her to go. “Perhaps we can talk later,” he says.

Julianne nods and gives my arm a squeeze. “We’l see you at the café.”

We watch her leave, stepping graceful y between muddy puddles and patches of turf. Ruiz tilts his head to one side as though trying to read something written sideways on my lapels.

My credibility is nonexistent. Whatever I say he’s not going to believe.

Ruiz crushes the hard candy between his teeth and grinds it into sugary water. “So how did my murder victim try to ruin your marriage?”

“That’s an exaggeration. It was al a misunderstanding. Catherine made an al egation that I sexual y assaulted her under hypnosis. She withdrew the complaint within hours, but it stil had to be investigated.”