‘When was it taken?’ I ask.
‘A few months ago. Helen sent it from Greece. We had to organise a new passport for her- in her maiden name.’
‘Would you mind if I borrowed this?’
‘Why?’
‘Sometimes it helps me to understand a crime if I have a photograph of the victim.’
‘Is that what you think she is?’
‘Yes. She was the first.’
Ruiz hasn’t said anything since we left the lawyer’s office. I’m sure he has an opinion but he won’t share it until he’s ready. Maybe it’s a legacy of his former career but there’s an aura of no-place and no-time about him that releases him from the normal rules of conversation. Saying that, he’s noticeably mellowed since he retired. The forces within him have found equilibrium and he’s made peace with whatever patron saint looks after atheists. There’s a patron saint for everything else, so why not for non-believers?
Everything about this case has shimmered and shifted with emotion and grief. It’s been hard to focus on particular details because I’ve spent so much time dealing with immediate concerns such as Darcy, worrying what’s going to happen to her. Now I want to take a step back in the hope I can see things in some sort of context, but it’s not easy to let go from the face of a mountain.
I can understand why Bryan and Claudia Chambers were so angry and inhospitable when we visited their estate. Gideon Tyler has stalked them. He has followed their cars, opened their mail and left obscene souvenirs.
The police couldn’t stop the harassment, so the Chambers gave up co-operating and took their own security measures, organising round-the-clock protection with alarms, motion sensors, intercepts and bodyguards. I can understand their reasoning, but not Gideon’s. Why is he still looking for Helen and Chloe, if that’s what he’s doing?
There is nothing artless and spur-of-the-moment about Gideon. He is a bully, a sadist and the control freak who has carefully and systematically set out to destroy his wife’s family and to kill each of her friends.
It wasn’t purely for pleasure- not in the beginning. He was looking for Helen and Chloe. Now it’s different. My mind goes back to Christine Wheeler’s mobile phone. Why did Gideon keep it? Why not dispose of her mobile or leave it in Christine’s car? Instead he took it back to Patrick Fuller’s flat, where Patrick’s sister unwittingly used the mobile to order a pizza. It almost brought his plans unstuck.
Gideon bought a charger. Police found the receipt. He charged the battery so he could look at the phone’s memory. He thought it might lead him to Helen and Chloe. It’s the same reason he broke into Christine Wheeler’s house during her funeral and opened the condolence cards. He must have hoped that Helen would turn up to the funeral or at the very least send a card.
What does Gideon know that we don’t? Is he delusional or in denial or does he have some insight or information that has escaped everyone else? What good is a secret if no one else knows of its existence?
Ruiz has parked the Merc in a multi-storey behind the law courts. He unlocks the door and sits behind the wheel, staring over the rooftops where gulls wheel in spirals like sheets of newspaper caught in an updraft.
‘Tyler thinks his wife is still alive. Any chance he’s right?’
‘Next to none,’ he answers. ‘There was a coronial inquest and a maritime board of inquiry.’
‘You got any contacts in the Greek police?’
‘None.’
Ruiz is still motionless behind the wheel, his eyes closed as if listening to the slow beat of his own blood. We both know what has to be done. We need to look at the ferry sinking. There must be witness statements, a passenger manifest and photographs… Someone must have talked to Helen and Chloe.
‘You don’t believe Chambers.’
‘It was one half of a sad story.’
‘Who has the other half?’
‘Gideon Tyler.’
49
Emma is awake, mewling and snuffling in the grip of a dream. I slip out of bed half-asleep and go to her bed, cursing the coldness of the floor and stiffness of my legs.
Her eyes are squeezed tightly shut and her head rocks from side to side. Reaching down, I put my hand on her chest. It seems to cover her entire ribcage. Her eyes open. I pick her up and hold her against me. Her heart is racing.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart. It was only a dream.’
‘I saw a monster.’
‘There are no monsters.’
‘It was trying to eat you. It eated your arm and it eated one of your legs.’
‘I’m fine. Look. Two arms. Two legs. Remember what I told you? There are no monsters.’
‘They’re just make believe.’
‘Yes.’
‘What if he comes back?’
‘You have to dream about something else. How about this- you dream about your birthday parties, fairy bread and jelly beans.’
‘Marshmallows.’
‘Yes.’
‘I like marshmallows. The pinks ones, not the white ones.’
‘They taste the same.’
‘Not to me.’
I set her down and tuck her in and kiss her on the cheek.
Julianne is in Rome. She left on Wednesday. I didn’t get a chance to see her. By the time I arrived home from the Fernwood Clinic, she’d already gone.
I talked to her last night on the phone. Dirk answered her mobile when I called. He said Julianne was busy and would call back. I waited over an hour and called again. She said she didn’t get my message.
‘So you’re working late,’ I said.
‘Nearly finished.’
She sounded tired. The Italians had changed their demands, she said. She and Dirk were redrafting the entire deal and approaching the major investors again. I didn’t understand the details.
‘Will you still be coming home tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you still want me to come to the party?’
‘If you want to.’ It wasn’t an enthusiastic affirmative. She asked about the girls and about Imogen and Ruiz, who went back to London yesterday. I told her everything was fine.
‘Listen. I have to go. Give my love to the girls.’
‘I will.’
‘Bye.’
Julianne hung up first. I held on, listening, as if something in the silence was going to reassure me that everything was fine and by tomorrow she’d be home and we’d have a wonderful weekend in London. Only it didn’t feel OK. I kept picturing Dirk in her hotel room, answering her mobile, sharing a room service breakfast. I’ve never had these thoughts before, never doubted, never fretted; and now I can’t tell if I’m being paranoid (because Mr Parkinson will do that to you every time) or whether my suspicions are justified.
Julianne has changed, but then so have I. When we first met, she sometimes asked me if there was something caught in her teeth or wrong with her clothes because people were staring at her. She had so little sense of her own beauty that she didn’t recognise the attention it garnered.
