Close Your Eyes (3 page)

She nods.

‘You’re a good father, Joe.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re too soft on the girls.’

‘Someone has to be the good cop.’

‘I’m being serious.’

‘So am I.’

‘You’re a kind man.’

I’ve always been a kind man. I was a kind man six years ago when you left me.

Is this leading up to some sort of apology, I wonder. Maybe she wants to give me another chance. A pearl of sweat slides from my hairline, down my spine to the small of my back.

‘I know we can’t have our time over again,’ says Julianne, ‘and we can’t make amends for all of our mistakes…’

‘You’re beginning to frighten me,’ I say.

‘It’s nothing that dramatic,’ she replies, solemn again. ‘What I wanted to ask is whether you’d like to spend the summer with us?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Emma and Charlie are willing to share, which means you’ll have a room to yourself.’

‘At the cottage?’

‘You said you were going to take a few weeks off. You could commute to London if you have to work. The girls really want to see more of you.’

‘You want me to move back in … as a guest.’

‘You’re not a guest. You’re their father.’

‘And you and I…?’

Her head tilts slightly to one side. ‘Don’t read too much into it, Joe. I just thought it might be nice to spend the summer together.’ She withdraws her hand and looks away. Breathes out. Breathes big. ‘I know it’s short notice. You don’t have to say yes.’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’

‘No, I mean, I know there’s no pressure. It sounds perfect, it really does … it’s just…’

‘What?’

‘I guess I’m scared that if I spend so much time with the girls, it’s going to be hard to say goodbye again.’

She nods.

‘And I might fall madly in love with you again.’

‘Restrain yourself.’

I hope I’m smiling. A young couple at a nearby table laugh loudly. The girl’s voice is light and sweet and happy. I take a deep breath and hold it in my lungs.

Saying nothing is the wrong choice. I must make a declaration or meet her halfway. She has thrown me a lifeline. I should grab it with both hands, but I’m not sure if the lifeline is tied on to anything.

‘You don’t have to let me know straight away,’ she says defensively. Hurt.

‘No, I think I’ll come.’

Even as I utter the statement, I can hear a small alarm pinging in my head, as though I haven’t fastened the seat belt or I’ve left my keys in the ignition. It’s not much of a plan. There are bound to be repercussions. Tears.

Julianne’s lips stretch into a wide smile, showing off her teeth, wrinkling her eyes. We continue to eat, but the conversation isn’t as easy as before, the questions or the answers.

Charlie calls and arranges to meet us. She’s not far away. Outside the pub, Julianne fishes for her car keys in her soft leather shoulder bag.

‘You do understand that this is just for the summer?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t want you getting your hopes up.’

‘My hopes are exactly where you want them to be.’

Julianne turns her back to me as though she’s retrieving something secret from her bag, but she’s carrying nothing when she turns. ‘So when would you like to come?’

‘How about at the weekend?’

‘Excellent,’ she answers. ‘I guess I don’t have to give you directions.’

‘No.’

She pauses. ‘Do you feel all right, Joe?’

‘I do.’

‘There are lots of things we haven’t talked about.’

‘True.’

‘Maybe we will.’

She leans closer to kiss me. I am tempted to go for the lips, but she turns her cheek and I make do with the warm, soap-scented smell of her and the weight of her head when it rests for a moment on my shoulder.

Take heart, I tell myself, as she slips on her sunglasses.

My phone is vibrating. I fish it out of my pocket and glance at the screen. Veronica Cray is calling me. I put the phone away.

‘You should get that,’ says Julianne.

‘It can wait.’

My phone vibrates again. Same caller ID. It won’t be good news. It never is when it comes from a detective chief superintendent in charge of a serious crime squad. She won’t be calling to say I’ve inherited a fortune or picked a six-horse accumulator or won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Julianne is watching me. Waiting. I smile at her apologetically and hold up a finger, mouthing the words ‘one minute’.

‘Chief Superintendent.’

‘Professor.’

‘Can I call you back?’

‘No.’

‘It’s just that I’m—’

‘Busy, yeah, I know, so am I. I’m busier than a one-legged Riverdancer and you won’t call me back because you don’t want to talk to me. You never do because you think I want something. But just stop for a moment and consider that this could be a social call. I might be calling as a friend. I might want to chew the fat.’

‘
Are
you calling as a friend?’

‘Of course.’

‘So you want to chew the fat?’

‘Absolutely, but since we’ve run out of things to talk about, I want you to look at something for me.’

‘I’ve retired from profiling.’

‘I’m not asking for a profile. I want your opinion.’

‘On a crime?’

‘Yes.’

‘A murder.’

‘Two of them.’

I wait, picturing the detective, who is built like a barrel with spiky, short-cropped hair and a penchant for wearing men’s shoes. She spells her surname with a ‘C’ not a ‘K’ because she doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s related to a pair of psychotic brothers, twins who terrorised London’s East End in the sixties.

I’ve known Ronnie Cray for almost seven years, ever since she watched me vomit by a roadside after a naked woman jumped to her death from the Clifton Suspension Bridge. I was supposed to talk the woman down. I failed. The events that followed cost me my marriage. Ronnie Cray was in charge of that investigation. I think she blames herself for not protecting my family, but it was nobody’s fault except mine. Since then the DCS has stayed in touch, sometimes asking for my advice on a particular case or dropping details like breadcrumbs, hoping that I might follow the trail. Now she’s a friend, although I’m never quite sure when to call someone a friend. I have so few of them.

‘Find another psychologist,’ I tell her.

‘I did. He calls himself “the Mindhunter”. Advertises his services. You must have heard of him.’

‘No.’

‘That’s odd. He says you taught him everything he knows.’

‘What!’

‘Even used your name as a reference.’

I pause. Julianne and Charlie are waiting to say goodbye.

‘Where do you want to meet?’

‘I’ll give you the address.’

The West Country roads are choked with caravans and tourist coaches that look like jammed logs on a flooded river. Already I wish I hadn’t let Cray talk me into this. She piqued my professional interest. No, she dangled the bait and sank the hook, reeling me in like a fat trout.

Someone has been using my name to open doors and gain the trust of the police. He could be a charlatan or a glory-hound or an ambulance chaser. I hate psychologists who strut around crime scenes and pontificate on TV shows, profiting from other people’s misery. Either that or they write books about particular murders, explaining how and why – which is easy in hindsight. I can’t understand how someone could gain pleasure from such work. This is not some sort of intellectual puzzle or parlour game. Someone is dead, defiled or missing. They had a family and friends and were part of a community.

My left arm is jerking on my lap. I grip the steering wheel and fight the temptation to turn the car around. I could be in London in a few hours. I could pack a suitcase and arrive at the cottage early. Show my enthusiasm.

On the outskirts of Portishead I stop and ask directions at a pub called the Albion. The door, heavy and wide, resists me and I have to lean my weight to pull it open. I see a notice pinned to the frosted glass.

Police Appeal For Assistance

DID YOU SEE ANYTHING?

Mother and daughter Elizabeth and Harper Crowe were murdered in their farmhouse near Clevedon on or about midnight Saturday 6 June.

Were you in the vicinity of Windy Hill Farm between 10 p.m. on Saturday to early Sunday morning?

Did you see anyone acting suspiciously?

Please call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111

The publican is a round, short-armed Bob Hoskins type with booze-flushed cheeks and a boxer’s nose. The place is almost empty and he’s reading a newspaper between his elbows. ‘Customer,’ he yells. A woman emerges from the cellar, her copper-coloured hair bunched high on her head with several strands plastered to her neck.

‘What can I get you, love?’

‘I’m looking for Windy Hill Farm?’

Her smile fades. ‘Are you a reporter?’

‘No.’

‘You don’t look like a copper,’ says the publican, folding the
Daily Mirror
. ‘Maybe you’re another rubbernecker. We’ve had ’em all in here. Grief tourists, amateur detectives, true-crime nutters…’

‘I’m none of those,’ I say.

‘Maybe he’s looking to buy the place,’ says the woman.

The man scoffs. ‘I wouldn’t spend a single night in that house.’

‘Since when were you so squeamish?’

‘As if you’d live there! You jump at your own shadow.’

I’ve triggered an argument and they seem to have forgotten me. I clear my throat. ‘Windy Hill Farm?’

They stop bickering and immediately begin again, this time disagreeing over the directions. She says it’s two miles, he says three.

‘Look for the flowers,’ she says definitively. ‘You can’t miss them.’

I drive on, following the coast road, crossing rolling hills and descending into swales, past white-painted cottages, farmhouses and livestock yards. Stunted trees are clinging to the ridges, bent arthritically as though crouching in expectation of future storms.

As predicted, I come to a mound of flowers and soft toys that has obscured the fence beneath. There are cards, candles and hand-painted signs. One of them reads:
Justice for Elizabeth and Harper
. Crime scene tape has been threaded between the gateposts and torn by previous vehicles. Faded and fraying, it flaps like leftover party decorations.

Turning off the road, I cross a cattle grate and drive along a rutted track with six-foot-high hedges on either side. I see nothing until I turn the next corner and a whitewashed two-storey farmhouse comes into view, tucked hard against the ridge, protected from the worst of the prevailing winds.

An unmarked police car is parked near the front gate. Ronnie Cray gets out of the passenger seat and rocks her neck from side to side, hoisting her trousers high on her waist. For some reason her spiky hair is never dyed the same colour as her eyebrows and creates the impression that she’s wearing a wig. With Cray I’m never sure if I should hug her or slap her on the back. She holds out her hand, takes my fist and pulls me into an embrace that’s brief enough to be a chest bump.

She’s accompanied by another familiar face, Colin Abbott, better known as ‘Monk’, a black Londoner who is a foot taller than his boss. Monk has been promoted since I saw him last – he’s now a detective inspector – and his tight curls are starting to grey, clinging to his scalp like iron filings on a magnet.

‘How are the boys?’ I ask. He’s got three of them.

‘They’re good,’ he says, crushing my hand. ‘The eldest is up to here –’ Monk touches his shoulder.

‘Sign him up for basketball.’

‘I would, except he inherited his mother’s hand-eye.’

‘Can’t catch?’

‘Not even a cold.’

Other pleasantries are exchanged and exhausted. Cray grows impatient. ‘Afternoon tea is over, ladies, you can gossip later.’

‘So who has been using my name as a reference?’ I ask.

‘Emilio Coleman.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Late twenties, good-looking, fancies himself. He says he studied under you.’

I think again. Emilio Coleman? Emilio? I mentored an older student called Milo through his thesis at the University of Bath. That was four, maybe five years ago. Milo was clever but lazy. He spent more time using his skills to bed undergrad students than passing his exams. I remember his first suggestion for a thesis was ‘Do loud music and excess alcohol make women more likely to have sex on a first date?’

‘So he
is
one of yours,’ says Cray, making it sound as though I’m personally responsible.

‘What did he do?’ I ask.

‘Mr Coleman offered his services to the previous SCO, using your name as a reference. He was allowed to look at statements and photographs. He then went straight to the media.’

My heart sinks. Cray continues. ‘By revealing details that were deliberately withheld from the public such as the position of the bodies, injuries and markings on the wall, he has allowed potential suspects to claim they read about the case in the papers. We also have fewer ways of weeding out the timewasters and false confessions.’ She lowers her voice. ‘This is what happens when you don’t return my calls, Professor. We get amateur fucking hour.’

‘This is hardly my fault.’

‘Yeah, well, you taught this clown.’

‘I saw him once or twice a semester.’

‘I’m not here to argue with you. I want you to make this better.’

‘How?’

‘Review the case. Look at the statements and decision-making. Tell us what we’ve missed.’

‘Are there any suspects?’

‘Too many,’ she grunts. ‘The local community thinks we’ve cocked this up. Tempers are starting to fray. There’s a public meeting tonight. I want you to be there.’

‘Why me?’

‘Let’s call it a show of friendship.’

‘That’s not my definition of friendship.’

Cray rolls back her shoulders and smiles, her eyes twinkling. ‘That’s the thing about us, Professor, we can agree to disagree and it doesn’t affect our deep and abiding bond. Come on, I’ll show you the scene.’

Detectives have a way of talking that condenses information into bullet points and dispenses with a lot of prepositions. It’s a sort of verbal shorthand that colleagues understand instinctively. Ronnie Cray launches into it now.