There is a pause. Elizabeth opens the door.
“I didn’t tell the police about the crystal swan.”
“I know.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m just trying to help someone.”
Ruiz waits in the lounge while Elizabeth makes tea. He notices the broken window, sealed with a sheet of plywood. The sound of a children’s TV show drifts from another room. It’s a nice place with polished floors and oriental rugs. Tasteful. Homely. The bookcase is full of holiday reads by Marian Keyes and Michael Connelly. On the mantelpiece there are several framed photographs. A wedding shot of a bride sitting on her husband’s lap. He’s tipping her back and she’s laughing.
Elizabeth North is haughty and beautiful in a cultured way, like a woman captured in a painting. She sits upright, hands on her lap, nervously appraising him.
“When are you due?”
“Three weeks. How do you know what was stolen?”
“I’ve met the person who took it.”
Ruiz tells her the story of meeting Holly and Zac. Seeing them argue. Stopping their fight. Consoling Holly. Letting her use his phone. Taking her home.
Elizabeth grows impatient. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I was drugged and robbed. I believe the same thing happened to your husband.”
Elizabeth is staring straight through him. “What does she look like-this woman?”
“Blue eyes, black hair…”
“Cut short?”
“Yes.” Ruiz knows something is wrong.
“She met him at a bar in the City.”
“How did you know?”
Rising unsteadily, Elizabeth crosses the room and stands for a moment at the broken bay window, wrestling with a thought. Anguish in her voice.
“A private detective took photographs of North leaving a bar with a girl and bringing her home.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“You were having him followed?”
“I thought he was having an affair.” Her eyes meet his, looking for understanding. “But you’re saying that he tried to help her. And she stole from us?”
“She did.”
Elizabeth sharpens her tone. “Did she do something to North? Does she know where he is?”
“No.”
“Did she sleep with my husband?”
“No.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“Yes.”
“I want to meet her.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I want to meet her.”
Ruiz isn’t an expert on human behavior like the professor, but Elizabeth is a woman on the edge of reason. Humiliated. Betrayed. Abandoned. He makes her sit, waits for the tension to leave her shoulders.
“What did your husband do for the bank?”
“He was a compliance officer.”
“Did he ever bring files home, documents, sensitive material?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”
He speaks softly. “The boyfriend I mentioned-he was tortured and murdered five days after the robbery.”
Elizabeth’s eyes are like black marbles. “My husband isn’t a killer.”
“I’m not suggesting-”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I think the people who killed Zac Osborne were looking for something that your husband had with him.”
“A notebook.”
Ruiz stops and studies her almost scientifically. Elizabeth crosses the room and picks up the phone. “You have to tell the police. You have to tell them.”
Ruiz takes the receiver from her hand. “First tell me about the notebook.”
Elizabeth shakes her head, caught between wanting to unburden herself and remembering the intruder’s last words. In the same breath she rediscovers her doubts. Why should she trust this man? How does he know about the notebook?
Elizabeth backs away. “Did he send you? Did he tell you about the notebook?”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Why are you here?”
“I’m trying to help someone.”
“That girl!”
“Not just her.”
“Get out! Get out or I’ll call the police!”
Elizabeth is screaming at him, fighting at his arms. Ruiz takes her punches on his chest, waiting until she runs down like the spring of an alarm clock. He sits her on the sofa where she grows smaller and more distant, hiding behind a fringe of hair. For a long time nothing is said. Breathless and a little dazed, Elizabeth feels embarrassed by her outburst. Exhausted.
Ruiz continues. “How long had the private detective been following your husband?”
“About a week. He made notes and took photographs.”
“Can I see them?”
Elizabeth wraps her arms around her chest as if holding someone. “I don’t have the photographs anymore.”
“Where are they?”
She rocks back and forth, her voice flat. “A man broke into the house last night. He had a gun. He took them.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
Still she rocks, empty inside. Disconnected. Once the world had seemed so rich to her, a colorful place. Now all she sees is the poverty of things. She can still taste the metal of the gun in her mouth and feel his hands on her skin.
Ruiz speaks to her calmly, getting her to repeat the story again. Each sentence takes time to form, as if she’s dictating a letter. She tells him about hiring Colin Hackett-first to follow her husband and then to find him.
“Tell me about these photographs.”
“They were of North and the woman.”
“Holly Knight.”
“Is that her name? I didn’t know. She looked very young… and pretty. Why did she choose North? She could have had anyone. Why didn’t she choose someone else?”
“I don’t know.”
Elizabeth tells him about North’s meeting in Maida Vale with Yahya Maluk and a second man. She describes going to the house in Mayfair, where Maluk denied having met North at The Warrington.
Rowan appears in the doorway. He’s peering through the dark holes of his Spiderman mask.
“Is you a policeman?” he asks.
“I used to be.”
