The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [8]
“It’s just a question.”
“I’ve seen too many suicides.”
“What if you were in awful pain, dying of a terrible disease?”
“There are painkillers.”
“What if your mind was failing? You had dementia and couldn’t remember your own name?”
“If I had dementia it wouldn’t matter.”
“What if you were being tortured for top secret information?”
“I don’t have any top secret information.”
“What if someone had a grenade on a bus and they were going to blow it to the sky? Would you throw your body on the grenade?”
“Where do you get these questions?”
“I think about stuff all the time; how one decision, even a small one, can change your life. I have really weird dreams. I once dreamed I had a penis. Does that make me bisexual?”
“I have no idea.”
She tops up Ruiz’s wine and begins looking through his collection of DVDs stacked on a shelf. Old films.
“Oooh, I love this one.” She holds up Philadelphia Story. “Katherine Hepburn.”
“And Cary Grant.”
“I loved him in To Catch a Thief.”
“Favorite old-time actor?”
“Alec Guinness.”
“Mine is Peter O’Toole.”
“Typical.”
“What does that mean?”
She shakes her head. “Favorite old-time actress?”
“Ingrid Berman.”
“I thought you’d say Grace Kelly. Men seem to prefer blondes.”
“Not this one.”
The room has warmed up. Holly unbuttons her jacket, letting it slip off her arms. Her blouse is edged with silver thread and beads. The fabric pushes out over her breasts and she looks more like a woman than a girl.
If Miranda could see him now, what would she say? She’d tell him to go to bed and to stop embarrassing himself.
Holly has poured him another glass of wine. How much has he had to drink? Four pints. A scotch. Three glasses of wine…
Ruiz is trying to shake the fuzziness out of his head.
“I could make a bed for you,” he says, feeling his thoughts drifting. Sliding. Spilling down the mountainside, settling in the hollows. His legs are so heavy he can’t move them.
Holly sits next to him on the sofa and puts a pillow beneath his head. He’s watching her lips move. What is she saying? It might be goodbye. It might be sorry.
3
LONDON
Sunshine crashes through the lace curtains. Ruiz opens one eye. The ceiling comes into focus, dead moths in the domed light fitting. His right nostril is grouted closed. His mouth tastes like a small animal has crawled inside and died.
Rolling on to his knees, he groans and feels his stomach lurch and gurgle. The rug has a pattern. He hasn’t noticed it before. Perhaps he’s forgotten. Another convulsion and he stumbles to the toilet, holding on to the side of the bowl.
His stomach empty, he sits against the tiled wall. Shaking. Sweating.
The events of last night—the girl, the trip home, the bottle of wine—what’s the last thing he remembers? She put a pillow beneath his head. She said she was sorry. What did she slip him?
Rinsing his mouth out under the tap, he scoops water on to his face, eyes stinging, the cold working. Looking in the mirror, he blinks through bloodshot eyes. The foul taste is in his mouth, the toxins in his system. The smell of urine in his hair, on his clothes… Someone pissed on him. The boyfriend wanted some payback.
He walks up the stairs. Drawers have been pulled out, up-ended, searched. The contents lie on the floor.
What’s missing? His camera, a police medal, an iPod Claire gave him (still in its box), some euros, his passport… He flicks through his checkbook. Two blank checks are torn from the middle. They were clever. Practiced.
He should make a list. Not touch anything. Call the police. Then what? They’ll send a car out sometime in the next two days. He’ll have to make a statement. He can hear them laughing already. The jokes. The ribbing. Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz, taken in by a girl he invited home. They’ll suspect she was a hooker or a call girl. Ruiz is paying for sex now, they’ll say, like some sad old pervert.
Another thought occurs to him. He climbs the stairs to the study. The desk has been swept clean. The pages of the manuscript are scattered on the floor. He didn’t number them.
The drawers have