The Suspect

violence create broken sequences of questions and send my mind whirling. I promised Eddie Barrett a psych report. It has to be finished before Bobby’s next court appearance. At the same time, as I go over the notes again, I can feel myself looking for echoes of Catherine’s life. Could they have met at some point?

According to Bobby his father had been in the air force and trained as a mechanic. He was too young for the war, which didn’t bother him because of his pacifist views. He was also a Marxist and would take Bobby on a bus from Kilbum to Hyde Park most Sundays so he could heckle the lay preachers on their packing-crate pulpits.

Every childhood has a mythology that materializes around it and Bobby’s was no different. He told stories of riding on the handlebars of his father’s bicycle and being taken to football games where he sat on his father’s shoulders.

He described getting caught in a soccer riot between rival fans, when police on horseback charged the crowd. His father wrapped him in a coat and carried him to safety.

“I knew that nothing was ever going to knock him down, not even those horses,” Bobby had said.

“What happened to your father?”

“It wasn’t his fault,” he had replied.

“Did he abandon you?”

Suddenly he had exploded out of his chair. “You know nothing about my father!” On his feet, sucking air between clenched teeth, he raged, “You’ll never know him! People like you destroy lives. You thrive on grief and despair. First sign of trouble you’re there, telling people how they should feel. What they should think. You’re like vultures!”

Just as suddenly the outburst had dissipated. He wiped away white flecks of spit from his mouth and looked at me apologetically. Then he had filled a glass with water and waited with a strange calm for my next question.

We moved on to his mother, whom he hadn’t seen in more than six years. The change in his tone had been startling.

“Let me describe my mother to you,” he had said, making it sound like a challenge. “She was a grocer’s daughter. She grew up in a corner shop— having her nappies changed right next to the cash register. By the time she was four, she could tote up a basket of groceries, take the cash and hand back the correct change.

“Every morning and afternoon, as well as Saturdays and public holidays, she worked in that shop. And she read the magazines on the rack and daydreamed about escaping and living a different life. When Dad came along— dressed in his air force uniform— he said he was a pilot. It’s what all the girls wanted to hear. A quick shag behind the social club at RAF Marham and she was pregnant with me. She found out he wasn’t a pilot soon enough. I don’t think she cared… not then. Later it drove her crazy. She said she married him under false pretenses.”

“But they stayed together?”

“Yeah. Dad left the air force and got a job working as a mechanic fixing buses for London Transport. Later he became a conductor on the number 96 to Piccadilly Circus. He said he was a ‘people person,’ but I think he also liked the uniform. He used to ride his bike to the depot and home again.”

Bobby had lapsed into silence, perhaps reliving the memories. Prompted by gentle questions, he had revealed how his father was an amateur inventor, always coming up with ideas for time-saving devices and gadgets.

“My mother said he was wasting his time and their money. One minute she’d be calling him a dreamer and laughing at all his ‘stupid inventions’ and the next she’d be saying he didn’t dream big enough and that he lacked ambition.”

Blinking rapidly he had looked at me with his odd pale eyes as though he’d forgotten his train of thought. Then he remembered.

“She was the real dreamer, not Dad. She saw herself as a free spirit, surrounded by boring mediocrity. And no matter how hard she tried she could never live a Bohemian lifestyle in a place like Hendon. She hated the place— the flat-front houses with their pebbledash facades, the net curtains, cheap clothes, greasy spoon cafes and garden gnomes. Working-class people talk about ‘looking after our own,’ but she scoffed at that. She could see only smallness, insignificance and ugliness.”

“How would you describe your relationship with her?” I had asked, watching his face twist in frustration.

“She’d get dressed up and go out most nights. I used to sit on the bed and watch her get ready. She’d try on different outfits— modeling them for me. She let me zip up the back of her skirts and smooth her stockings. She called me her Little Big Man.

“If Dad wouldn’t take her out, she went by herself— to the pub, or the club. She had the sort of wicked laugh that told everyone she was there. Men would turn their heads and look at her. They found her sexy even though she was plump. Pregnancy had added pounds that she had never managed to shed. She blamed me for that. And when she went dancing or laughed too hard she sometimes wet her pants. That was my fault too.”

This last comment had been delivered through gritted teeth. His fingers picked at the loose skin on the back of his hands, twisting it painfully, as though trying to tear it off. His body humbled, he began again.

“It cramped her style if Dad took her out. Men won’t flirt with a woman when her husband is standing at the same bar. By herself she had them all over her, putting arms around her waist, squeezing her ass. She stayed out all night and came home in the morning, with her knickers in her handbag and her shoes swinging from her fingertips. There was never any pretense of fidelity or loyalty. She didn’t want to be the perfect wife. She wanted to be someone else.”

“What about your dad?”

I remember him taking a long while to answer. He seemed to find certain words unpalatable and be looking for others.

“He grew smaller every day,” he eventually had answered. “Disappearing little by little. Death by a thousand cuts. That’s how I hope she dies.”

The sentence had hung in the air but the silence wasn’t arbitrary. I remember feeling as though someone had reached up and put a finger in front of the second hand on the clock.

“Why did you use that term?”

“Which one?”

“Death by a thousand cuts.”

A crooked, almost involuntary smile had creased his face. “That’s how I want her to die. Slowly. Painfully. By her own hand.”

“You want her to kill herself?”

He hadn’t answered.

“Where is your mother now?”

“She’s dying of breast cancer. She won’t have a mastectomy. She’s always been proud of her breasts.”

“How do you feel about losing her?”

“I dream about it.”

“What do you dream?”

“That I’ll be there.”

I can still picture his stare, his pale eyes like bottomless pools.

Death by a thousand cuts. The ancient Chinese had a more literal translation: One thousand knives and ten thousand pieces.

Bobby’s desire for revenge was so strong that he couldn’t hold it back from me. The woman he dragged from the cab was roughly the same age and wore the same sort of clothes as his mother. She also showed a similar coldness toward her son. Is this enough to explain his actions?

He wants his mother to die slowly and painfully, by her own hand. That’s exactly how Catherine McBride died, which is why his choice of words sent a chill through me.

I have to stop thinking about Catherine. It’s Bobby who needs my help. I know I’m getting closer to understanding him, but I mustn’t force pieces to fit the puzzle. The desire to understand violence has built-in brutality. Don’t think of the white bear.

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