The Suspect

“You look like you got a question,” he says between mouthfuls.

“It’s about her name.”

“You know the drill. I’m not supposed to release details until we get a positive ID and inform the next of kin.”

“I just thought…” I don’t finish the sentence.

Ruiz takes a sip of tea and butters his toast.

“Catherine Mary McBride. She turned twenty-seven a month ago. A community nurse, but you knew that already. According to her flatmate she was in London for a job interview.”

Even knowing the answer doesn’t lessen the shock. Poor Catherine. This is when I should tell him. I should have done it straight away. Why do I have to rationalize everything? Why can’t I just say things when they enter my head?

Leaning over his plate Ruiz scoops baked beans onto a corner of toast. His fork stops in midair in front of his open mouth.

“Why did you say, ‘Poor Catherine’?”

I must have been speaking out loud. My eyes tell the rest of the story. Ruiz lets the fork clatter onto his plate. Anger and suspicion snake through his thoughts.

“You knew her.”

It’s an accusation rather than a statement. He’s angry.

“I didn’t recognize her at first. That drawing yesterday could have been almost anyone. I thought you were looking for a prostitute.”

“And today?”

“Her face was so swollen and bruised. She seemed so… so… vandalized I didn’t want to look at her. It wasn’t until I read about the scars in the postmortem report that I considered the possibility. That’s why I needed a second look at the body… just to be sure.”

Ruiz’s eyes haven’t left mine. “And when were you thinking of telling me all this?”

“I intended to tell you…”

“When? This isn’t a game of twenty questions, Professor. I’m not supposed to guess what you know.”

“Catherine was a former patient of mine. Psychologists have a duty of care not to reveal confidential information about patients.”

Ruiz laughs mockingly. “She’s dead, Professor— in case you missed that small detail. You conceal information from me again and I’ll put my boot so far up your ass your breath will smell of shoe polish.” He pushes his plate to the center of the table. “Start talking— why was Catherine McBride a patient?”

“The scars on her wrists and thighs— she deliberately cut herself.”

“A suicide attempt?”

“No.”

I can see Ruiz struggling with this.

Leaning closer, I try to explain how people react when overwhelmed by confusion and negative emotions. Some drink too much. Others overeat or beat their wives or kick the cat. And a surprising number hold their hands against a hot plate or slice open their skin with a razor blade.

It’s an extreme coping mechanism. They talk about their inner pain being turned outward. By giving it a physical manifestation they find it easier to deal with.

“What was Catherine trying to cope with?”

“Mainly low self-esteem.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“She worked as a nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital. I was a consultant there.”

Ruiz swirls the tea in his cup, staring at the leaves as though they might tell him something. Suddenly, he pushes back his chair, hitches his trousers and stands.

“You’re an odd fucker, you know that?” A five-pound note flutters onto the table and I follow him outside. A dozen paces along the footpath he turns to confront me.

“OK, tell me this. Am I investigating a murder or did this girl kill herself?”

“She was murdered.”

“So she was made to do this— to cut herself all those times? Apart from her face there are no signs that she was bound, gagged, restrained or compelled to cut herself. Can you explain that?”

I shake my head.

“Well you’re the psychologist! You’re supposed to understand the world we live in. I’m a detective and it’s beyond my fucking comprehension.”

5

As far as I can recall I haven’t been drunk since Charlie was born and my best friend Jock took it upon himself to get me absolutely hammered because apparently that is what intelligent, sensible and conscientious fathers do when blessed with a child.

With a new car you avoid alcohol completely and with a new house you can’t afford to drink, but with a new baby you must “wet the head” or, in my case, throw up in a cab going around Marble Arch.

After leaving Ruiz, I stop at a pub and have two double vodkas— a first for me. I’m trying to numb the morning’s pain. I can’t get the image of Catherine McBride out of my mind. It’s not her face I see, but her naked body, stripped of all dignity; denied even a modest pair of panties or a strategically placed sheet. I want to protect her. I want to shield her from public gaze.

Now I understand Ruiz— not his words but the look on his face. This wasn’t the terrible conclusion to some great passion. Nor was it an ordinary, kitchen-sink killing, motivated by greed or jealousy. Catherine McBride suffered terribly. Each cut had sapped her strength like a banderilla’s barbs in the neck of a bull.

An American psychologist named Daniel Wegner conducted a famous experiment on thought suppression in 1987. In a test that might have been created by Dostoevsky, he asked a group of people not to think about a white bear. Each time the white bear entered their thoughts they had to ring a bell. No matter how hard they tried, not one person could avoid the forbidden thought for more than a few minutes.

Wegner spoke of two different thought processes counteracting each other. One is trying to think of anything except the white bear, while the other is subtly pushing forward the very thing that we wish to suppress.

Catherine Mary McBride is my white bear. I can’t get her out of my head.

My office is in a pyramid of white boxes on Great Portland Street designed by an architect who must have drawn inspiration from his childhood. From ground level it doesn’t look finished and I’m always half expecting a crane to turn up and hoist a few more boxes into the gaps.

As I walk up the front steps I hear a car horn and turn. A bright red Ferrari pulls onto the pavement. The driver, Dr. Fenwick Spindler, raises a gloved hand to wave. Fenwick looks like a lawyer but he runs the psychopharmacology unit at London University Hospital. He also has a private practice with a consulting room next to mine.

“Afternoon, old boy,” he shouts, leaving the car in the middle of the pavement so that people have to step around it onto the road.

“Aren’t you worried about the parking police?”

“Got one of these,” he says, pointing to the doctor’s sticker on the windshield. “Perfect for medical emergencies.”

Joining me on the steps, he pushes open the glass door. “Saw you on the TV the other night. Jolly good show. Wouldn’t have caught me up there.”

“I’m sure you would have— ”

“Must tell you about my weekend. Went shooting in Scotland. Bagged a deer.”

“Do you bag deer?”

“Whatever.” He waves dismissively. “Shot the bastard right through the left eye.”