The Suspect

Afterward, with a dose of acetaminophen to dull the pain, I walk through the city until I reach Pier Head. The last ferry is arriving from Birkenhead. The engine makes the air throb. Lights leak toward me in a colorful slick of reds and yellows. I stare at the water and keep imagining that I can see dark shapes. Bodies. I look again and they vanish. Why do I always look for bodies?

As a child I sometimes went boating on the Thames with my sisters. One day I found a sack containing five dead kittens. Patricia kept telling me to put the sack down. She was screaming at me. Rebecca wanted to see inside. She, like me, had never seen anything dead except for bugs and lizards.

I emptied the sack and the kittens tumbled onto the grass. Their wet fur stood on end. I was attracted and repelled at the same time. They had soft fur and warm blood. They weren’t so different from me.

Later, as a teenager, I imagined that I would be dead by thirty. It was in the midst of the Cold War when the world teetered on the edge of an abyss, at the mercy of whichever madman in the White House or the Kremlin had one of those, “I-wonder-what-this-button-does?” moments.

Since then my internal doomsday clock has swung wildly back and forth much like the official version. Marrying Julianne made me hugely optimistic and having Charlie added to this. I even looked forward to graceful old age when we’d trade our backpacks for suitcases on wheels, playing with grandchildren, boring them with nostalgic stories, taking up eccentric hobbies…

The future will be different now. Instead of a dazzling road to discovery, I see a twitching, stammering, dribbling spectacle in a wheelchair. “Do we really have to go and see Dad today?” Charlie will ask. “He won’t know the difference if we don’t show up.”

A gust of wind sets my teeth chattering and I push away from the railing. I walk from the wharf, no longer worried about getting lost. At the same time I feel vulnerable. Exposed.

At the Albion Hotel the receptionist is knitting, moving her lips as she counts the stitches. Canned laughter emanates from somewhere beneath her feet. She doesn’t acknowledge me until she finishes a row. Then she hands me a note. It has the name and telephone number of a teacher who taught Bobby at St. Mary’s school. The morning will be soon enough.

The stairs feel steeper than before. I’m tired and drunk. I just want to sink down and sleep.

I wake up suddenly, breathing hard. My hand slides across the sheets looking for Julianne. She normally wakes when I cry out in my sleep. She puts her hand on my chest and whispers that everything is all right.

Taking deep breaths, I wait for my heartbeat to slow and then slip out of bed, tiptoeing across to the window. The street is empty except for a newspaper van making a delivery. I touch my ear gingerly and feel the roughness of the stitches. There is blood on my pillow.

The door opens. There is no knock. No warning footsteps. I’m positive that I locked it. A hand appears, red- nailed, long-fingered. Then a face coloured with lipstick and blusher. She is pale-skinned and thin, with short- cropped blond hair.

“Shhhhhhhh!”

A person giggles behind her.

“For fuck’s sake, will you be quiet.”

She’s reaching for the light switch. I’m standing silhouetted against the window.

“This room is taken.”

Her eyes meet mine and she utters a single shocked expletive. Behind her a large disheveled man in an ill- fitting suit has his hand inside her top.

“You scared the crap out of me,” she says, pushing his hand away. He gropes drunkenly at her breasts again.

“How did you get into this room?”

She rolls her eyes apologetically. “Made a mistake.”

“The door was locked.”

She shakes her head. Her male friend looks over her shoulder. “What’s he doing in our room?”

“It’s his room, ya moron!” She hits him in the chest with a silver diamante clutch bag and starts pushing him backward out of the room. As she closes the door she turns and smiles. “You want some company? I can piss this guy off.”

She’s so thin I can see the bones in her chest above her breasts. “No thanks.”

She shrugs and hikes up her tights beneath her miniskirt. Then the door closes and I hear them trying to creep along the hall and climb to the next floor.

For a moment I feel a flush of anger. Did I really forget to lock the door? I was drunk, maybe even partly concussed.

It is just after six. Julianne and Charlie will still be sleeping. I take out my mobile and turn it on, staring at the glowing face in the darkness. There are no messages. This is my penance… to think about my wife and daughter when I fall asleep and when I wake up.

Sitting on the windowsill, I watch the sky grow lighter. Pigeons wheel and soar over the rooftops. They remind me of Varanasi in India, where the vultures circle high over funeral pyres, waiting for the charred remains to be dumped in the Ganges. Varanasi is a sorry slum of a city, with crumbling buildings, cross-eyed children and nothing of beauty except the brightly colored saris and swaying hips of the women. It appalled and fascinated me. The same is true of Liverpool.

I wait until seven before calling Julianne. A male voice answers. At first I think I’ve dialed the wrong number but then I recognize Jock’s voice.

“I was just thinking about you,” he says in a booming voice. Charlie is in the background, saying, “Is that Dad? Can I talk to him? Please let me.”

Jock covers the receiver, but I can still hear him. He tells her to fetch Julianne. Charlie complains, but obeys.

Meanwhile, Jock is full of chummy bonhomie. I interrupt him. “What are you doing there, Jock? Is everything OK?”

“Your plumbing still sucks.”

What does he know about my fucking plumbing? He matches my coldness with his own. I can picture his face changing. “Someone tried to break in. Julianne got a bit spooked. She didn’t want to be in the house on her own. I offered to stay.”

“Who? When?”

“It was probably just some addict. He came through the front door. The plumbers had left it open. D.J. found him in the study and chased him down the street. Lost him near the canal.”

“Was anything taken?”

“No.”

I hear footsteps on the stairs. Jock puts his hand over the phone.

“Can I talk to Julianne? I know she’s there.”

“She says no.”

I feel a flush of anger. Jock tries to banter again. “She wants to know why you called her mother at three in the morning.”

A vague memory surfaces: dialing the number; her mother’s icy rebuke. She hung up on me.

“Just let me talk to Julianne.”

“No can do, old boy. She’s not feeling very well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. She’s feeling a bit off-color.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“No. She’s in good order. I’ve given her a full physical.” He’s trying to wind me up. It’s working.

“Give her the fucking phone…”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to give me orders, Joe. You’re only making things worse.”

I want to sink my fist into his hundred-sit-ups-a-day stomach. Then I hear a telltale click. Someone has picked up the phone in my office. Jock doesn’t realize.

I try to sound conciliatory and tell him that I’ll call later. He puts the phone down, but I wait, listening.