“It’s not that easy.”
“Is it because of your wife?”
“No. She knows.”
Elisa shrugs her shoulders, neatly summing up her views on marriage. As a cultural institution she has nothing against it because it always provided some of her best customers. Married men were preferable to single men because they showered more often and smelled better.
“So what’s stopping you from telling the police?”
“I wanted to ask you first.”
She laughs at how old-fashioned that sounds. I feel myself blush.
“Before you say anything, I want you to think very carefully,” I tell her. “I am in a very difficult position when I admit to spending the night with you. There are codes of conduct… ethics. You are a former patient.”
“But that was years ago.”
“It makes no difference. There are people who will try to use it against me. They already see me as a maverick because of my work with prostitutes and the TV documentary. And they’re lining up to attack me over this… over you.”
Her eyes flash. “They don’t need to know. I’ll go to the police and give a statement. I’ll tell them you were with me. Nobody else has to find out.”
I try to muster all the kindness I have left, but my words still sting. “Think for a moment what will happen if I get charged. You will have to give evidence. The prosecution will try everything they can to destroy my alibi. You are a former prostitute. You have convictions for malicious wounding. You have spent time in jail. You are also a former patient of mine. I met you when you were only fifteen. No matter how many times we tell them this was just one night, they’ll think it was more…” I run out of steam, stabbing my fork into my half-finished bowl of pasta.
Elisa’s lighter flares. The flame catches in her eyes, which are already blazing. I have never seen her come so close to losing her poise. “I’ll leave it up to you,” she says softly. “But I’m willing to give a statement. I’m not afraid.”
“Thank you.”
We sit in silence. After a while she reaches across the table and squeezes my hand again. “You never told me why you were so upset that night.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Is your wife
“Yes.”
“She is lucky to have you. I hope she realizes that.”
6
As I open the office door I’m aware of a presence in the room. The chrome-faced clock above the filing cabinet shows half past three. Bobby Moran is standing in front of my bookcase. He seems to have appeared out of thin air.
He turns suddenly. I don’t know who is more startled.
“I knocked. There was no answer.” He drops his head. “I have an appointment,” he says, reading my thoughts.
“Shouldn’t that be with your lawyer? I heard you were suing me for slander, breach of confidentiality and whatever else he can dredge up.”
He looks embarrassed. “Mr. Barrett says I should do those things. He says I could get a lot of money.”
He squeezes past me and stands at my desk. He’s very close. I can smell fried dough and sugar. Damp hair is plastered to his forehead in a ragged fringe.
“Why are you here?”
“I wanted to see you.” There is something threatening in his voice.
“I can’t help you, Bobby. You haven’t been honest with me.”
“Are you always honest?”
“I try to be.”
“How? By telling the police I killed that girl?”
He picks up a smooth glass paperweight from my desk and weighs it in his right hand, then his left. He holds it up to the light.
“Is this your crystal ball?”
“Please, put it down.”
“Why? Scared I might bury it in your forehead?”
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“After you.” He points to my chair. “Why did you become a psychologist? Don’t tell me. Let me guess… A repressive father and an overprotective mother. Or is there a dark family secret? A relative who started howling at the moon so they locked her away?”
I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing how close he is to the truth. “I’m not here to talk about me.”
Bobby glances at the wall behind me. “How can you hang that diploma? It’s a joke! Until three days ago you thought I was someone completely different. Yet you were going to stand up in court and tell a judge whether I should be locked up or set free. What gives you the right to destroy someone’s life? You don’t know me.”
Listening to him I sense that for once I am talking to the real Bobby Moran. He lobs the paperweight onto the desk where it rolls in slow motion and drops into my lap.
“Did you kill Catherine McBride?”
“No.”
“Did you know her?”
His eyes lock onto mine. “You’re not very good at this, are you? I expected more.”
“This is not a game.”
“No. It’s more important than that.”
We regard each other in silence.
“Do you know what a serial liar is, Bobby?” I ask eventually. “It is someone who finds it easier to tell a lie rather than the truth, in any situation, regardless of whether it is important or not.”
“People like you are supposed to know when someone is lying.”
“That doesn’t alter what you are.”
“All I did was change a few names and places— you got the rest of it wrong all by yourself.”
“What about Arky?”
“She left me six months ago.”
“You said you had a job.”
“I told you I was a writer.”
“You’re very good at telling stories.”
“Now you’re making fun of me. Do you know what’s wrong with people like you? You can’t resist putting your hands inside someone’s psyche and changing the way they view the world. You play God with other people’s lives…”
“Who are these ‘people like me’? Who have you seen before?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bobby says dismissively. “You’re all the same. Psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, tarot card readers, witch doctors…”
“You were in hospital. Is that where you met Catherine McBride?”
“You must think I’m an idiot.”
Bobby almost loses his composure, but recovers himself quickly. He has almost no physiological response to lying. His pupil dilation, pore size, skin flush and breathing remain exactly the same. He’s like a poker player who has no “tells.”
“Everything I’ve done in my life and everyone I have come into contact with is significant; the good, the bad
