Bobby will know I’ve sent them. He won’t trust me again. He won’t trust anyone like me. His suspicions will be vindicated. He reached out for help and I betrayed him.
I know he’s dangerous. I know his fantasies are taking him somewhere terrible. But unless he keeps coming back to me I might never be able to stop him.
“Where were you on November thirteenth?” Ruiz asks.
At first I don’t hear the question. I’m still distracted by the letter and my concern for Bobby. The hesitation robs me of assuredness. The thirteenth? It was the day Jock confirmed that I had Parkinson’s disease. And it was the night I slept with a woman other than my wife.
“Detective Inspector you’ll have to excuse me but I’m not very good at remembering dates.”
“It was a Wednesday night.”
“My wife teaches a Spanish class. Normally, I’m home looking after Charlie.”
“So you were at home?”
“I assume so.”
Ruiz flips open his marbled notebook and writes something down. “Don’t look so worried, Professor. Actions speak louder than words.”
Bitterness and rancor hang in the air like the smell of smokeless coal. Ruiz is putting on his coat and walking toward the front door. My left arm is trembling. It’s now or never. Make a decision.
“When you searched Catherine’s flat— did she have a red dress?”
Ruiz reacts as though struck. He spins and takes a step toward me. “How did you know that?”
“Is the dress missing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she might have been wearing it when she disappeared?”
He doesn’t answer. He is framed in the open doorway. His eyes are bloodshot, but his stare fixed. Fingers open and close into fists. He wants to rip me apart.
“Come to my office tomorrow afternoon,” I tell him. “There’s a file. You can’t take it away. I don’t even know if it will help but I have to show it to someone.”
“I could have you arrested right now,” he snarls.
“I know. But you won’t.”
16
The blue manila folder is on the desk in front of me. It has a ribbon that twists around a flat circular wheel to seal it shut. I keep undoing it and doing it up again.
Meena glances nervously behind her as she enters the office. She walks all the way across to my desk before whispering, “There is a very scary-looking man in the waiting room. He’s asking for you.”
“That’s OK, Meena. He’s a detective.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “Oh! He didn’t say. He just sort of…”
“Growled.”
“Yes.”
“You can show him in.” I motion her closer. “In about five minutes I want you to buzz me and remind me of an important meeting outside the office.”
“What meeting?”
“Just an important meeting.”
She frowns at me and nods.
With a face like an anvil, Ruiz ignores my outstretched hand and leaves it hanging in the air as though I’m directing traffic. He sits down and leans back in the chair, spreading his legs and letting his coat flare out.
“So this is where you work, Prof? Very nice.” He glances around the room in what appears to be a cursory way, but I know he’s taking in the details. “How much does it cost to rent an office like this?”
“I don’t know. I’m just one of the partners.”
Ruiz scratches his chin and then fumbles in his coat pocket for a stick of chewing gum. He unwraps it slowly.
“What exactly does a psychologist do?”
“We help people who are damaged by events in their lives. People with personality disorders, or sexual problems, or phobias.”
“Do you know what I think? A man gets attacked and he’s lying bleeding on the road. Two psychologists pass by and one says to the other, ‘Let’s go and find the person who did this— he needs help.’ ”
His smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
“I help more victims than I do perpetrators.”
Ruiz shrugs and tosses the gum wrapper into the wastebasket.
“Start talking. How did you know about the red dress?”
I glance down at the file and undo the ribbon. “In a few minutes from now, I’m going to get a phone call. I will have to leave the office, but you are quite welcome to stay. I think you’ll find my chair is more comfortable than yours.” I open Bobby’s file.
“When you’re finished, if you wish to talk about anything, I’ll be across the road having a drink. I can’t talk about any specific patient or case.” I tap Bobby’s folder to stress the point. “I can only talk in general terms about personality disorders and how psychotics and psychopaths function. It will be much easier if you remember this.”
Ruiz presses the palms of his hands together as if in prayer and taps his forefingers against his lips. “I don’t like playing games.”
“This isn’t a game. We do it this way, or I can’t help you.”
The phone rings. Meena starts her spiel but doesn’t finish. I’m already on my way.
The sun is shining and the sky is blue. It feels more like May than mid-December. London does this occasionally— puts on a glorious day to remind people that it isn’t such a bad place to live.
This is why the English are among the world’s greatest optimists. We get one magnificent hot dry week and the memory will give us succor for an entire summer. It happens every time. Come spring we buy shorts, T-shirts, bikinis and sarongs in glorious expectation of a season that never arrives.
Ruiz finds me standing at the bar nursing a mineral water.
“It’s your round,” he says. “I’ll have a pint of bitter.”
The place is busy with a lunchtime crowd. Ruiz wanders over to four men sitting in the corner by the front window. They look like office boys but are wearing well-cut suits and silk ties.
Ruiz flashes his police badge under the level of the table.
“Sorry to trouble you, gents, but I need to commandeer this table for a surveillance operation on that bank over there.”
He motions out the window and they all turn in unison to look.
“Try to make it a little less obvious!”
They quickly turn back.
“We have reason to believe it is being targeted for an armed hold-up. You see that guy on the corner, wearing the orange vest?”
“The street sweeper?” one of them asks.
“Yeah. Well he’s one of my best. So is the shopgirl in that lingerie shop, next door to the bank. I need this table.”
“Of course.”
“Absolutely.”
“Is there anything else we can do?”
I see a twinkle in Ruiz’s eye. “Well, I don’t normally do this— use civilians undercover— but I am short of manpower. You could split up and take a corner each. Try to blend in. Look for a group of men traveling four-up in a car.”
“How do we contact you?”
“You tell the street sweeper.”
“Is there some sort of password?” one of them asks.
Ruiz rolls his eyes. “It’s a police operation not a fucking Bond movie.”
Once they’ve gone, he takes the chair nearest the window and sets his glass on a coaster. I sit opposite him and leave my glass untouched.
“They would have given you the table anyway,” I say, unable to decide if he likes practical jokes or dislikes people.
“Did this Bobby Moran kill Catherine McBride?” He wipes foam from his top lip with the back of his hand.
The question has all the subtlety of a well-thrown brick.
“I can’t talk about individual patients.”