Watching You (18 page)

T
he police constable standing outside Ruiz’s house has a boyish haircut and an eager expression, tipping his hat whenever someone walks by, wishing them a good afternoon. He reminds Ruiz of himself forty years ago, full of expectation and pride in the uniform.

Ruiz opens his gate and strolls up the front path.

“Detective Inspector Ruiz?”

“You can drop the rank. I’m retired.”

“I’m here to collect you, sir.”

“And who might you be?”

“PC Banks.”

“You got a first name?”

“Robert.”

“Really?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re a copper called Rob Banks?”

“It causes some merriment, sir, but I’ve learned to live with it.”

The turn of phrase makes Ruiz want to laugh but he decides not to double down on the mockery. Instead he glances at the threatening clouds and reaches into his jacket for his keys.

“Where are you going, sir?”

“This is where I live.”

“My guv wants a quiet word. He sent me to get you.”

“Tell him I’m open to house calls. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“He’s at the station, sir. He’s conducting a murder investigation.”

“Then he’ll probably want a biscuit.”

Half an hour later, the doorbell rings. Ruiz can see a figure silhouetted behind the frosted glass, shaking an umbrella. A wet strand of hair is curved against his forehead.

“I’m Detective Inspector Gennia,” says the man, hanging the umbrella across his forearm. “I believe you’re expecting me.”

Ruiz opens the door wider.

“I’m not coming inside,” says Gennia. “You wanted a personal invitation. Here I am.”

The detective is a big man who might have played rugby except his nose is too straight and his ears are too pretty. Ruiz won’t hold it against him. He recognizes something in the younger man’s face. “Have we met before?”

“You knew my mother,” Gennia replies.

“That doesn’t narrow it down a whole lot.”

“Katie Sylbert.”

Pieces fall into place. Kate Sylbert was one of the first female police officers recruited into the Flying Squad back in the eighties. She died almost thirty years ago, executing a search warrant on a drug den in Brixton. A junkie called Cullen McCurtie opened fire through the door. Later he claimed that Katie had failed to identify herself as a police officer.

“You came to the funeral,” say Gennia.

“You must have been all of ten.” Ruiz can remember a young boy standing next his mother’s open grave, holding his little sister’s hand, flinching during the three-volley rifle salute. Only a handful of female police officers have been killed in the line of duty in Britain. Katie was the second of them. She was from a police family. Her father and brother had been officers. And now there is another generation.

“How is your father?” asks Ruiz.

“He’s moved to Norfolk to be closer to my sister.”

“She’s married?”

“Three kids.”

“What about you?”

“Just one boy.”

The pleasantries have been exhausted. A car is waiting.

“You want to tell me what this is about?” asks Ruiz.

Gennia opens the car door for him. “We’re not going far.”

Fulham Public Mortuary is in Sands End at the southernmost part of the borough of Hammersmith. It used to be a solid working-class area until the property developers bought up the terraced houses and factories, replacing them with retail parks and luxury flats overlooking the Thames.

Gennia drives into a small internal courtyard behind the coroner’s court.

“I thought we were going to the station,” says Ruiz.

“Call it a detour.”

The two-story building is protected by soot-stained brick walls that are topped with jagged glass and security cameras. Ruiz can’t imagine why anyone would want to break into a morgue, but can think of a few reasons to break out. The post-mortem rooms are on the ground floor, past a swipe-card barrier, through a series of swinging doors. They follow a long corridor deeper into the building.

Ruiz glances through an open door and sees a familiar face. Dr. Gerard Noonan, a Home Office pathologist, is scrubbing his hands and forearms over a deep metal sink.

Known as “the Albino” on account of his pale skin and snow-white hair, Noonan has cut up more bodies than Wes Craven, but with far greater finesse. He’s also rumored to favor the dead over the living because they talk less, but tell him more.

Noonan wipes his hands on a paper towel.

“Vincent—not dead yet.”

“I’ll keep you posted.”

“You should consider donating your body to science.”

“I’ve seen what you do to the dead.”

“But I’d be gentle with you.”

“You really should get yourself a girlfriend.”

Noonan laughs and signs a clipboard with a flourish. He addresses Gennia. “What can I do for you, Detective Inspector?”

“The post-mortem.”

“Finished.”

“Photographs?”

“On a disk.”

Further along a corridor, a door opens. A woman emerges with red-rimmed eyes and a middleweight backside squeezed into a short skirt. Her hair has been scraped into a bun revealing unbleached roots and fiercely pink little ears. The woman spies Gennia through the glass and her mouth twists out of shape.

“You wanted this!” she screams, her whole body shaking, including breasts that seem to defy gravity and age. She jabs her finger at the detective. “You’re happy he’s dead!”

A WPC tries to lead her away. Gennia closes the vertical blinds.

“Friend of yours?” asks Ruiz.

“We found her husband floating in the Thames a week ago and last night her brother was murdered.”

“Who is she?”

The detective doesn’t answer. He takes a seat in front of the screen and his fingers flick at the keyboard. Moments later, a printer begins humming behind him.

“I am going to ask you five questions. I know the answers to most of them, so I’ll know if you’re lying. Do you know a man called Patrick Hennessy?”

“What about him?”

“Answer the question?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Yesterday morning.”

“Where?”

“Outside his address.”

“Did you threaten him?”

“I gave him some advice.”

Gennia screws up his face as though suffering from gastric reflux or piles.

“Where were you between nine and eleven last night?”

“I was having a drink with a mate.”

“Where?”

“The Duke’s Head on Lower Richmond Road.”

“I’ll need your mate’s name.”

“Why?”

Gennia ignores the question. Ruiz loses patience. “By all means ask for my help, Detective Inspector, but don’t piss on my porridge and tell me you’re cooling it down. Either you tell me what this is about or I’ll bring a lawyer in here and you can play charades with him.”

Whatever friendly connection existed between them has faded like an FM station on the drive through the Dartford Tunnel.

“What did you say to Hennessy?”

“I told him he was a parasite who feeds off problem gamblers—taking their homes, destroying their families. I said he should be scraped off the pavement with steel wool.”

“No loss to the world.”

“None whatsoever.”

Gennia places a series of printed pages on the desk, lining them up side by side. The images look like something from a torture museum. Patrick Hennessy seems to be facing one way and looking the other as if he’s wearing a mask on the back of his head. His entire skull has been twisted one hundred and eighty degrees so that it faces in the wrong direction. The hands that are taped behind his back are also directly beneath his chin.

Ruiz sits in silence. The visual impact of the images makes something shift in his stomach. There are close-ups showing Hennessy’s face, the swelling and bruises. His eyes are closed and those strange rubbery lips are peeled back in a grimace or a scream.

Gennia continues talking. “There is a service entrance via the underground parking area. We believe that somebody followed a car through the automatic gates. This person then pushed a bin full of paper and cardboard near the lift-wells and forced open the doors. The bin was set alight, triggering the smoke alarms and the sprinklers in the basement.” Pausing, he places a new sequence of pictures on the desk showing a soot-covered ceiling and a metal bin twisted and crumpled by heat.

“Residents were evacuated. The fire doors lead to the street outside. Two fire engines were at the building within eight minutes.” The next photographs show Patrick Hennessy standing with other residents at one of the evacuation points. He seems to be arguing with a fire officer, giving him the pointy finger for upsetting his evening. “The all-clear was given after thirty minutes and residents allowed to return. We believe that during that time the same person who lit the blaze took the stairs to the penthouse level.”

Another sequence of pictures is placed before Ruiz. These show a figure in a darkened stairwell, dressed in overalls with a baseball cap pulled low to hide their features. The angle of the camera doesn’t give any indication of the person’s age or gender.

Ruiz works his teeth along his bottom lip. “What’s this got to do with me?”

Gennia has one final series of photographs. These were taken with another CCTV camera situated outside the apartment block. The timeframe has changed. Ruiz recognizes himself and Hennessy, nose to nose, exchanging words.

“You see how it looks?” says the detective. “You argued with him. He’s dead.”

Ruiz scoffs. “I know fifty guys who’d give both nuts and two inches of cock to see Hennessy on a slab.”

“What did you say to him?”

“He was putting the hard word on someone to pay a debt that belonged to her husband.”

“Who?”

“A woman called Marnie Logan.”

The detective seems to chew on the name, holding Ruiz’s gaze. From somewhere deeper in the building a bone saw starts up, growing louder as it makes contact with a torso.

“Her husband was a gambler. He disappeared more than a year ago.”

“How much did he owe?”

“Thirty thousand.”

“So this Marnie Logan asked you to talk to Hennessy?”

“Indirectly.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was doing my good deed for the day.”

His sarcasm grates on Gennia. “Why didn’t she phone the police?”

“Maybe she knows how the system works. A complaint is lodged. A record is kept. Fuck-all happens.” Ruiz gets to his feet, buttoning his jacket.

“I didn’t give you permission to leave,” says Gennia.

The statement seems to ignite something between the two men. Ruiz’s gaze turns inwards. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Detective Inspector. I was doing your job before you were popping pimples and wanking over your mum’s Littlewoods catalogue. When I couldn’t solve a crime, I didn’t cut corners, bend rules, or fit people up. You think I’m good for this? Gather your evidence and lay a charge. Until then, I’m going home.”

Hailing a cab outside, Ruiz slumps in the back seat, closing his eyes against the images of violence. Maybe it was easier to handle such things when he was on the job. He remembers a retirement party for his first station sergeant—warmed-up sausage rolls and cloudy beer at a pub in Wapping. Ducking outside for a cigarette, he found the sergeant sitting on a low brick wall.

“What am I going to do now?” he asked.

“I thought you had it all planned—the caravan, touring…”

“Yeah, but now it frightens me. I feel as though I rushed through life, trying to save time, and now I’ve got too much of it. I want to give it back, do it over, only more slowly.” He looked at Ruiz. “Remember that, son. The total of a man’s days eventually become a circle not a sum. And when it’s all over and you’re back where you started, you’ll wish you did it slower.”

J
oe O’Loughlin stands on the footpath, studying the address. Large well-established trees have created a green tunnel to the front door, making it look like a fairytale cottage in a forest instead of a semi-detached house in West London. A brief shower has passed and the sunshine returned. Walking across a layer of wet leaves and husks, he stops at a brightly painted red door and presses his thumb against the doorbell.

Shapes move behind the frosted glass. The door opens and an elderly man blinks at him over the wire rims of his spectacles. Dr. Sterne is dressed in baggy trousers, a short-sleeve shirt, and sleeveless woolen jumper that stretches over his belly. His wife is a hoverer, making small talk as they negotiate the narrow hallway and find a neat study overlooking the back garden where a man is raking leaves and trimming the hedges.

The weather is discussed. Traffic. Tea and biscuits are offered. The doctor talks to his wife sweetly. They are good together. Joe can imagine them finishing each other’s sentences until one of them dies and their conversations will be forever left hanging.

Joe scrutinizes his surroundings. The study had seemed small at first glance because of the dark salmon walls and the amount of furniture: a desk, filing cabinets, bookcases, and a TV. Medical journals and texts are stacked on a side table, along with microcassettes around a micro-recorder. Framed citations and certificates hang on the walls.

“I hope you don’t mind,” says the doctor, packing the bowl of a polished wooden pipe. He presses down the tobacco with the discolored ball of his thumb. “It’s my one vice. Angie won’t let me smoke in any other room.”

Joe notices a photograph behind the desk. It shows Dr. Sterne standing thigh-deep in water, casting a rod. The fishing line shimmers like a golden thread as it curls through the soft light. There are other pictures of a boy, growing into a teenager and then a man.

“That’s my son, Roy,” says Dr. Sterne. “He’s grown now, of course. He’s around today…working in the garden.”

“He lives at home?”

“No. He’s a very successful IT consultant. Has his own business. He comes back to help with the lawn and keep his mother happy.”

Tucking the pouch of tobacco in a drawer, he lights the pipe and deposits the spent match into an ashtray, watching the wisp of smoke rise from the blackened tip.

“I really shouldn’t be talking to you without Marnella’s permission. I told her husband the same thing.”

“You said it was last summer.”

“Late July, I think.”

The doctor makes a popping sound as he sucks on the pipe and then bites the stem as he talks. “After Daniel visited me, I went looking for Marnie’s file. That’s what I didn’t mention over the phone.” He motions to a filing cabinet on the far side of the room. “That’s where I kept all my clinical notes, including Marnie Logan’s file. I don’t know how long it’s been missing. We had a burglary about six years ago. They took most of the usual things—electronics, cash, jewelry—but I didn’t even think about the possibility of a file being stolen until you mentioned the break-in at your office.”

“And now?”

Dr. Sterne shrugs. “I can’t remember ever misplacing a file, let alone losing one. I don’t know what to think.”

“When did you last see the notes?”

“It would have been a decade ago. Under health guidelines they should have been destroyed after twenty years.”

“Why didn’t you?”

The doctor pauses, trying to decide how much to say. He swivels toward the window. Roy emerges from the trees, pushing a wheelbarrow. His hair is cut close to his skull, which seems to bob above his shoulders as though it belongs to a bigger person. Propping the barrow near a flowerbed, he begins spreading mulch around the base of the roses.

“What I’m going to tell you is highly privileged information. I’m doing this because you’re a fellow mental health professional who is treating Marnella. Do you understand?”

Joe nods.

“You have to be very careful about using any of this information without her permission.”

“Of course.”

Satisfied, the doctor leans back and closes his eyes for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Marnella was rather unique,” he says, sounding almost in awe of her. “She came to me when she was eight. She lived with us for a while, became part of the family. She and Roy were very close.”

“She lived in
this
house?”

“When she wasn’t at the hospital or allowed to go home, I often brought her here. It meant she was closer to the unit in case of relapses.”

“Relapses?”

Nursing his pipe, he peers through the curling smoke, as though summoning the details from the spirits. “I was the senior consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Mildred Creak unit in London—an in-patient facility for children with behavioral problems.”

Joe had heard of it.

“Marnie spent nearly four years at the unit as an in-patient, but came home with me on holidays and weekends. She was a pretty little thing. She liked old-fashioned dresses and wore ribbons in her hair. But she was also very difficult. Abusive. Violent.”

“What was the cause?”

“Before she arrived, she had seen a dozen different therapists and psychiatrists who had diagnosed her with everything from PTSD to schizophrenia. Over time I became less convinced by these conclusions. I thought her problems stemmed from her mother’s death.” Dr. Sterne looks up. “I’m sure Marnie has told you about it?”

“She said her mother died in a traffic accident.”

“Did she go into the details?”

“No.”

Dr. Sterne nods and uncrosses his legs. He brushes a strand of tobacco from his lap into the palm of his hand and carries it to the window where he releases it like it’s a butterfly.

“Her car ran off the road, hit a tree, and crashed into a swollen stream,” he says, blinking sadly. “Marnie’s mother wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and was thrown clear. She was heavily pregnant, possibly in labor. Marnie was also in the car, strapped in a booster seat. Police think somebody pulled her free, but nobody ever came forward.

“Her mother gave birth before anyone could reach her. Marnie must have helped to deliver the baby, but mother and newborn died during the night. Marnie was found lying next to their bodies the following morning.” He stares at the roses, which look like they’re rusting in the sunshine. “It was a terrible thing for a child to endure, truly awful.

“Marnie was very young. For the first few years she seemed to cope with the tragedy. Her father remarried. Marnie started school. Then her behavior began to change. Her father and stepmother took in foster children, whom Marnie seemed to resent. She tried to sell one little boy at a car boot sale and put another in a tumble drier. She set fire to her bedroom. She stole a car.

“There were similar problems at school. Her swearing and sexual precociousness set off warning bells. She drew lewd images of a teacher and was accused of molesting a girl in her class. Marnie denied it. I thought she was lying at first, but slowly I came to have qualms.”

“You thought the school was mistaken?”

“Not exactly.” Dr. Sterne relights his pipe, shaking the match. “No doubt you’re aware of dissociative identity disorder.”

“Split personality.”

Dr. Sterne nods. “The condition is rare and often misdiagnosed. It involves the existence of two or more separate personality states within one person. Each ‘alter’ has a distinctly different way of thinking, feeling, and behaving.”

“And you’re suggesting…?”

“I know it for a fact: Marnie had a separate personality.”

“And you
met
this alter?”

“Eventually, yes. Perhaps I should have realized sooner. Marnie complained of having blackouts and missing periods of time. Some lasted a matter of minutes and others for hours. She couldn’t remember anything of these fugues—not where she’d been or who she’d spoken to. On one occasion, aged eleven, she escaped from the clinic and I called the police. She turned up, covered in blood. She had no scratches or cuts and she couldn’t tell us the circumstances. It’s still a mystery.”

The doctor pauses, aware of how his story is being received. “I know you’re finding this hard to believe, Professor. Trust me, so did I. Such a rare condition—such a landmark case…”

“This other personality—”

“Would you like to hear him? I taped some of our sessions. I still have the recordings.” He steps around his desk and goes to the side table and the pile of microcassettes. Reading the labels, he discards them one by one until he finds the one he wants.

“I had been seeing Marnie for almost a year with little progress. To control her anxiety I was teaching her deep relaxation techniques, but it was difficult with a child her age. She was lying on the sofa and I asked her to close her eyes and let her body relax and concentrate on my words…Marnie rarely could sit still for more than half a minute, but this time the world seemed to fade away and I thought she’d fallen asleep.” He presses the play button. “Maybe this will give you some idea.”

Without warning, a deep howl fills the room like an animal in pain.

“You’re not going to take her away from me. Who do you think you are? I’ve spent years looking after her. She’s mine.”

Joe looks at Dr. Sterne. “Who is that?”

“Marnie.”

“But that sounds nothing like…”

“I know, I know. You should have seen her—her whole posture changed, her back arched off the couch as though some creature had become trapped inside her and was trying to rip out of her chest. The muscles in her face twisted and her jaw seemed to lengthen. I thought it was a seizure. I was reaching for the phone.”

They listen to the tape again. Dr. Sterne is trying to communicate with the “alter.”

“So tell me about yourself—do you have a name?”

“Fuck off! I’m not going to talk to you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Protecting my property.”

“Are you talking about Marnie?”

“She belongs to me.”

“Why her? What’s so special about Marnie?”

“I chose her.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s mine.”

“Nobody owns Marnie. She has come to me for help…”

“She doesn’t need your help! You’re trying to fuck with her head.”

Listening to the tape, Joe is almost convinced that two men are arguing. Marnie’s voice is harsh and guttural, as though she’s speaking with her head inside a tin bucket. Joe struggles to picture a child making these sounds, particularly a nine-year-old girl.

A dissociation as dramatic as this one normally manifests itself in a person with a history of being abused or someone under extreme stress. The mind reacts by splitting off, creating a separate alternative personality, a different part of themselves to deal with the trauma. This fracturing can be so deep and fundamentally complete, there isn’t a crack or wedge in the wall between the divided aspects of personality. Neither half will recognize the other or know of his or her existence.

The tape is still running. A string of invective fills the room.

“Bastard! Arsehole! Cunt! Leave her alone. I found her first. She’s mine.”

Dr. Sterne is trying to talk to Marnie’s “alter,” pushing back against “him.”

“What sort of man are you, preying on a young girl? Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, you arrogant prick, I can crush you. I can crush her.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because she’s weak and stupid.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Look at her, always crying and whining about her mother. It’s pathetic!”

Dr. Sterne turns off the tape. “It’s more of the same,” he says, almost apologetically. “I didn’t always manage to talk to Malcolm.”

“Malcolm?”

“That was his name.” Dr. Sterne swaps the microcassette tape for another one. “I was twice Marnie’s size, yet still this voice could intimidate me. He called me a dirty old man and a pedophile. He punched me…not just once. He was out of control. I had to force Marnie’s arms behind her back. Then I did something I’m not proud of. I slapped her. I have never hit a child…or a patient.” He looks at Joe, hoping for understanding. “When Marnie returned to me,” he holds up his fingers, putting the phrase in inverted commas, “she had no memory of the incident. She was exhausted but bore no outward signs of having had been controlled or influenced by another personality. Of course, I questioned her, but she appeared to be completely unaware of Malcolm’s existence.

“Clearly a case like this was extremely rare. If I’d been a younger and more ambitious man I might have published a paper, but I’m afraid I have little time for therapists and psychiatrists who treat unusual cases as opportunities to advance their careers. Instead, I focused on helping Marnie. Rather than trying to reach
her,
I tried to reach
him.
I spoke to Malcolm maybe two dozen times over the next three years, picking up clues. Initially, I put him at fifteen, possibly sixteen, but later I realized he was older. Uncouth. Wild. He swore and scratched his crotch and spat on the floor. He talked about sex incessantly.” Dr. Sterne lowers his voice. “He asked about my secretary and wanted to know if I was sleeping with her. He didn’t seem to like women very much.”

“Was Marnie being abused?”

“I have no evidence of that.”

“What about her father?”

“He doted upon her.”

“And the rest of her family?”

“I met the new Mrs. Logan many times and don’t doubt that she loved her stepdaughter. They were a very caring selfless couple who looked after foster children, dozens over the years.”

“Could one of the children have abused Marnie?”

“She made no complaints.”

“Then why did she
need
Malcolm?”

“I think he arrived when Marnie watched her mother miscarry and bleed to death. She lay with those bodies all night. God knows how she survived, but somehow Malcolm helped her cope.”

The tape is still running.