Phillip Martinez looks up as the door opens, eyes on mine, caught between hope and trepidation.
“Have they found my Emily?”
“Not yet.”
He closes his eyes, shows his long lashes, a picture of misery; a man marooned on a desert island, waiting for rescue. As the air shifts, I catch a whiff of his sweat dried in his clothes.
“Do you remember me?” I ask, sitting opposite him.
“Of course.” He watches me cautiously. “Should I call you Professor or Doctor?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“You trained for a while. Three years of medicine.”
“How did you know that?”
Martinez allows himself to smile. “You have talked to my daughter three times. In your wildest dreams did you imagine that I wouldn’t check up on you?”
“That’s very diligent.”
“I am always diligent, Professor. I am the senior scientist at one of the biggest research institutes in Europe. I have a staff of twenty and a budget of thirteen million pounds. Don’t mistake me for a stupid man.”
“I would never do that.”
He leans back, satisfied with his first salvo.
“We got off to a bad start,” I say. “I won’t lie to you if you don’t lie to me.”
“I haven’t yet,” he says.
“You lied about why you came back from America. You were accused of falsifying data on treatments for cancer and were publicly rebuked by your peer reviewers.”
Martinez barely moves a muscle. His glossy avid eyes remind me of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
I keep pushing. “Two journal articles were published under your name. You took research funds under false pretences. You had to pay the money back.”
His jaw flexes and his eyes glaze over.
“In your wildest dreams, Mr. Martinez, did you imagine that I wouldn’t check up on you?”
There it is-his breaking point. He rocks forward in his chair, his lips peeled back, canine teeth bared.
“How dare you,” he spits. “How dare you insult me and question my ethics. Look at you! You’re diseased! You’re only functioning because of the drugs that people like me have discovered and tested. Your condition is getting worse-eating away at your nerves, robbing you of balance, movement, speech and eventually your mind. One day, not so many years from now, you’ll be a jerking, shitting, quivering sack of bones, unable to walk or talk or feed yourself. Instead of insulting my reputation, you should be praying I find a cure. You should be begging for my help, you pompous, self-righteous schmuck. You need people like me.”
Watching spit fly from his mouth, I recognize a classic narcissist, a perfectionist governed by his own ego and sense of worth, someone who cannot accept anyone who questions the carefully crafted, flawless image he has manufactured of himself. He will destroy the messenger, rather than hear the message.
He leans back, fire still burning inside him. He wants me to apologize. Expects it.
I give him that much. “I’m sorry, Mr. Martinez. I didn’t mean to question your professional integrity.”
He waves his hand dismissively.
“Can I ask you some questions?”
He nods.
“Does the name George mean anything to you?”
“Why?”
“It’s a simple enough question.”
“It’s a nickname. When we first married my wife called me Gorgeous George. She thought I looked like some wrestler who was big in the fifties. We both had curly hair.”
“How did you get the bruise on your face?”
He touches the side of his head. “I told the police. Emily threw a plate at me because I wouldn’t give in to her blackmail.”
“Why would she blackmail you?”
“She wanted to spend Christmas with her mother. I told her no. She threatened to accuse me of molesting her unless I gave in.”
“She doesn’t like living with you.”
“We disagree on certain things.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t believe in coddling children, Professor. I will not become a slave like other parents. I am not a servant, chauffeur and secretary to my daughter. Other parents pamper and create monsters. Driving them everywhere, fulfilling their every wish-birthday parties, ballet, football practice, piano, violin, tennis; Ritalin if they’re hyperactive, Prozac if they’re depressed, antibiotics if they sniffle. Not me. I am a parent, not a best friend or confidant… and certainly not a slave.”
“Congratulations. You’re father of the year.”
He doesn’t react.
“Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
“I drove to London.”
“What time did you arrive?”
“I don’t know. It was quite late, nine, maybe ten o’clock. You can ask the landlady at the hostel. She wouldn’t let me see my wife.”
The drive to London takes less than two hours. He had ample time to snatch Piper, clean up the basement and hide her somewhere before driving to the capital.
“How do you explain your stationmaster turning up at the scene?”
He hesitates. “Isn’t it obvious? Somebody planted it there. They’re trying to frame me.”
“Who would do that?”
He shrugs. “It’s happened before. That business with the falsified test results-somebody sabotaged my experiments. I was set up.”
“Why?”
“To discredit me, of course.” He makes it sound so obvious. “Medical research is full of venal people: rivals jealous of my success, trying to steal my funding, scared they might be beaten to a breakthrough that could be worth billions of dollars.”
“You don’t really believe a rival would try to frame you for kidnapping and murder.”
He shrugs dismissively. “This is a waste of time. I had nothing to do with the Bingham Girls. Never met them. I wasn’t living in Abingdon when they went missing.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd, you finding a letter from Piper among Emily’s things?”
“I was searching her room.”
“Why?”
“I was looking for drugs.”
“You think she’s using?”
“Like I said-I’m diligent.”
“You search your daughter’s room; do you read her emails?”
“Yes, as it happens.” He laughs at my surprise. “You don’t agree with my methods?”
“No.”
“When your daughter is sucking on a crack pipe in some filthy council estate, you can come and ask for my advice on parenting.”
“Where is Piper Hadley?”
“I have no idea.”
“Where is Emily?”
“She’s with her mother.”
He holds my gaze defiantly. “I didn’t take those girls. You people can plant whatever evidence you like, but it won’t make me guilty.”
Michael Robotham
(2012) Say You're Sorry
T he key turns in the lock.
The door opens. George is wearing a dressing gown and carrying a tray with a sandwich and a mug of tea. He puts the tray on a table beside my head. I stare at the steam, watching it twist and curl into nothingness.
My left wrist is handcuffed to the metal bedhead. I use the other to pull the bedclothes around me, but I can’t reach the sheet. I must have kicked it off when I was sleeping.
“You should drink something.”
There is a long silence. My chest tightens and I can’t breathe. George sits next to me and puts his hand near my leg, telling me to stay calm. His hand slides closer until his fingers brush against my thigh.
“You shouldn’t have run away. I want you to say you’re sorry.”
I don’t answer him.
His hand touches my skin where my pajama top and the trousers meet.
“Did you hear me, Piper?”
“Yes.”
“Say you’re sorry.”
I shake my head.
He strikes on my blind side, the punch sinking deep into my stomach, where he twists his fist under my ribs until I imagine that every organ has been ruptured and the blood and bile are spilling into my chest. I cannot breathe. He waits.
“Say you’re sorry.”
I blink again. The next blow lifts my body off the bed, holding me against the wall, convulsing.
“Say you’re sorry.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I sob, trying to breathe.
I’m sorry you’re a sad sadistic prick. I’m sorry I didn’t stab you through the eye. I’m sorry I didn’t crush your skull with the brick. I’m sorry I can’t scratch your eyes out. I want to scream these things, but none of the words come out. Instead, I crumple to the bed and curl into a ball.
“That’s better,” he says. “Now we can be friends again.” He cradles me, rocking me back and forth, stroking my hair. “Would you like to meet Emily?”
I try to pull away, but he grips me harder.
“You didn’t… you promised me.”
“Why should I keep my promises to you?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Where is she?”
He smiles. “We’ll save that surprise for another day.”
Pushing himself away from the bed, he goes to the window. “Shall I tell you what it looks like outside?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s Christmas-do you want to know what sort of day it is?”
“OK.”
“It’s overcast, but we might get some sun later.”
“Describe something else.”
“What?”
“Anything.”
“I can see a church steeple and a park. Some kid is riding a new bicycle.”
“It must have been a present.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“I don’t watch many movies.”
“What about TV?”
“I like Strictly Come Dancing, but it’s not on over Christmas.”
“Do you watch EastEnders?”
“No.”
He looks genuinely sorry. Reaching into his pocket, he produces two white pills.
“I have to go out for a while. I’ll be back later. These will help you sleep. You shouldn’t have them on an empty stomach.”
“I don’t think I can eat anything.”
“When you’re stronger we’ll start all over again. It will be just like old times.”