Bleed For Me (joseph o'loughlin)

by Michael Robotham

Then I’m left alone in the small room with a bench and an examination table covered in a sheet of paper. There are no magazines to read. No televisions to watch. I find myself reading the labels on syringes and medical swabs, making words from the letters.

  Forty minutes later a doctor appears. Obese and prematurely bald, he’s the sort of physician who finds the gulf between preaching and practising healthy living one dessert too far. He examines me in a perfunctory way - blood pressure, temperature, ‘say aaaaah’ . . .

  Most of his questions are about Sienna. Did she take anything, did she say anything; does she have any allergies or sensitivities to medications?

  ‘She’s not my daughter,’ I keep repeating.

  He makes a note on his clipboard.

  ‘She was bleeding.’

  ‘The blood wasn’t hers,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘The police want to talk to you. They’re waiting outside.’

  The policeman is a senior constable whose name is Toltz and he writes left-handed with a cupped wrist so he doesn’t smudge his notebook.

  ‘What was she doing at your house?’

  ‘It’s not really my house. My wife and I are separated. Sienna turned up and then ran away.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There must have been an accident. Perhaps her boyfriend drove off the road. He could be hurt.’

  ‘Why your house?’

  ‘She’s my daughter’s friend. Her mother works nights. Sienna often stays with us.’

  The senior constable doesn’t react to my sense of urgency. He wants to know where Sienna goes to school, how she knows Charlie, does she do drugs or drink alcohol?

  I think about the shoplifting charge, but he’s already moved on to a new question.

  ‘Did you follow her into the woods?’

  ‘I went looking for her.’

  ‘Did you chase her?’

  ‘No.’

  Suddenly the door opens and another officer motions him into the corridor. They’re whispering and I pick up only occasional words like ‘body’ and ‘detectives’. Something terrible has happened.

  The senior constable reappears and apologises. A detective will be along shortly to interview me.

  ‘Can I go home?’

  ‘Not yet, sir.’

  ‘What about my clothes?’

  ‘They’ve been taken for analysis.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This is a murder investigation.’

  Who? Her boyfriend? Someone else? The senior constable ignores my questions and tells me to wait for the detectives. His heavy boots squeak on the polished floor as he disappears down the hallway, through a set of swinging doors that flap back and forth before settling to a stop.

  I look at my watch. It’s after one a.m. I should call Julianne. Tell her not to worry. Reaching for my phone, I can’t find a pocket. I’m wearing a hospital gown. My phone, wallet and car keys were in my jacket. Wet. Ruined.

  I passed a payphone in the accident and emergency department. I can ask Julianne to bring me some clothes.

  Pushing open the door, I try to remember which way I came in. A cleaner is mopping the corridor, pushing a bucket with his foot. I don’t want to step on his wet floor so I turn right, passing the X-ray department and radiology.

  I must be going the wrong way. I should go back. Ahead I see a police officer sitting on a chair in the corridor. He’s young - no more than a probationary constable - with blond highlights in his hair.

  ‘I’m looking for a payphone.’

  He points back the way I came.

  Glancing through an open door, I spy the same doctor that examined me earlier. He’s standing beside a bed, illuminated by a low light. Sienna looks tiny in the midst of the technology around her, like a modern-day sleeping beauty under a spell. A tube taped to her right arm snakes across the sheets and rises to a bag of fluid hanging from a chrome stand.

  ‘Can I talk to the doctor?’

  ‘Who are you?’ asks the constable.

  ‘I brought her in.’

  The obese doctor hears my voice and motions me to enter.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Sedated.’

  The tiredness in his voice seems to drain energy from the air. A monitor beeps softly. He checks the display.

  ‘She’s dehydrated and has some bruising on her legs and back but nothing explains the semi-catatonic state. There’s no sign of head injuries or internal bleeding. We’re doing a toxicological screen.’

  Sienna’s nostrils barely move as she breathes and I notice the faint tracings of blood vessels on her eyelids, which seem to flicker as she dreams. It is the face of a child on the body of a woman.

  Her lips are cracked and there are scratches on her cheek. Her hospital gown has fallen open along her thigh to her hip. I want to pull it down to protect her modesty.

  Gazing at her arms, I notice a network of fine white scars that run along the inside of her forearms. She’s a cutter. Self-harm. Self-abuse. There is more to Sienna than meets the eye; layers that are hidden from the world. Perhaps that’s why she scratches at her surface, trying to find what lies beneath.

  How much do I really know about her? She’s fourteen, pretty, with brown eyes and pale skin. She likes diet Coca-Cola, jelly cubes, scrambled eggs, Radiohead, Russell Brand, scary movies and has seen Twilight eighteen times. She’s allergic to peanuts and Simon Cowell and eats crumpets by licking the bottom where the honey leaks through.

  She obsesses over boy bands, X Factor contestants and Robert Pattinson, who she wants to marry, but only after she’s travelled the world and become a famous actress.

  A year ago she came to the terrace carrying a cardboard box. Her cat had caught a bird in the garden, which was still alive but could no longer fly. The tiny robin lay huddled in a corner of the box, its heart beating crazily.

  ‘Can’t you do something?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s too late,’ I told her.

  Sienna rested the box on her lap and ran her finger through the soft feathers on the robin’s neck until it died. I had to unhook her fingers from the box and carry it away. By the time I came back into the house Sienna had gone. She never mentioned it again. Not a word.

  I know these things because she spent so much time at our place. Sometimes it was like having a third daughter at the dinner table (and again at breakfast) because her mother worked nights and her father travelled on business and her older siblings had left home.

  These are superficial details, which tell me nothing about the real person. Occasionally I have watched Sienna and thought I could recognise some secret sadness hidden from the world. It was as if she wore a mask to protect herself - the hardest kind of mask to notice because she had woven it from the most secret parts of herself.

  When confronted with danger, people will normally fight or flee, but there is another less obvious reaction, which can be just as automatic. They freeze or close down, thinking and moving in slow motion. They shudder, they shake, they gasp, they gulp, but they cannot run or fight or scream. Something happened to Sienna - a violent event that has traumatised her.

  The fat doctor turns from the drip stand. He has a nametag. Dr Martinez.

  ‘She’s not going to wake up for another six hours.’

  ‘What about her parents?’

  ‘Her mother is coming.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you do a rape test?’

  ‘I need her permission.’

  ‘You could test her clothes.’

  He glances at the constable in the corridor. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be here.’

  Sienna’s eyes flutter momentarily and open. She stares at me without any sign of recognition.

  ‘Hello,’ I say, trying to sound reassuring.

  Her eyes close again.

  4

  A detective interviews me at four o’clock, wanting the facts, telling me nothing. He is not a familiar or reassuring face. He has a strange top lip that curls upwards when he speaks and gives the impression that he doesn’t be
lieve a word I’m saying.

  Finally, I’m given permission to go home. I call Julianne and ask her to bring me some clothes and a pair of shoes.

  ‘What happened to yours?’

  ‘The police took them.’

  She doesn’t want to leave the girls alone. Charlie didn’t fall asleep until two and then only in Julianne’s bed, curled up in a ball.

  ‘What if there’s someone running around the village stabbing people?’ asks Julianne.

  ‘It wasn’t Sienna’s blood.’

  ‘What happened to her then?’

  I can’t explain.

  She hesitates, weighing up what to do.

  ‘I’ll get Mrs Nutall to mind the girls. Give me half an hour.’

  Mrs Nutall is our next-door neighbour. She’s not technically my neighbour any more, of course, which means I don’t have to put up with her abusing me every time I leave the cottage. In her sixties and unmarried, she seems to blame me personally for every sin, snub or rebuff she has experienced at the hands of a man. The list must be very long.

  I go to the bathroom. Wash my face. Feel a disturbing weight on my shoulders. Why hasn’t Sienna’s mother turned up? Surely the police have found her by now.

  I hardly know Helen. We have spoken once or twice to arrange sleepovers for the girls and nodded to each other at the petrol station or in the aisle of the supermarket. Normally, she’s dressed in cargo pants and old sweaters and seems in a hurry. I’ve met her husband, Ray Hegarty, a few times in the Fox and Badger. He is an ex-copper, a detective who earned a medal for bravery, according to Hector. Now he runs a security company and travels a lot.

  Zoe was attacked six months before we arrived in the village and Liam Baker had already been convicted of GBH when I was asked to do a pre-sentence report. Some people in the village were angry that he didn’t go straight to prison, but most were just happy to be rid of him.

  Thirty minutes later, Julianne arrives and waits for me to change.

  ‘I tried to call Helen,’ she says, adjusting my collar and doing up the buttons I’ve missed. ‘Nobody is answering.’

  ‘She’s probably at work.’

  My left arm and leg are twitching involuntarily.

  ‘What about your medication?’

  ‘At home.’

  She holds my hand, making it go still. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  In the car, watching the sunrise. Hills lost in the morning mist. The drive from Bath to Wellow takes only fifteen minutes. We have lived in the village for three and a bit years, having moved out of London at Julianne’s suggestion. Cheaper houses. Good schools. More room. It made sense. It makes less sense now that we’re not together.

  The locals are friendly enough. We chat over the tops of cars at the petrol station and queue for milk and bread at Eric Vaile’s shop. They’re decent, conservative, obliging people, but I’ll never be one of them. Being single doesn’t help. Marriage is a passport to respectability in a small village. My visa has been revoked.

  The sun is fully up. The cottages and terraces of Wellow seem whitewashed and scrubbed clean. It reminds me of where I grew up - a pit village in the foothills of Snowdonia - although it wasn’t so much whitewashed as coated in coal dust and full of mining families with lung diseases.

  ‘Can we drive past the Hegartys’ place?’

  Julianne glances at me, hesitantly, her sharp fringe touching one eyebrow.

  ‘It won’t take a minute.’

  She turns the corner and heads down Bull’s Hill. Ahead of us there are police cars, five of them. Two of them unmarked but sprouting radio aerials. They are parked outside Sienna’s house, almost blocking the road. In the midst of them I notice a familiar rust-streaked Land Rover. It belongs to Detective Chief Inspector Veronica Cray, head of the Major Crime Investigation Unit. MCIU.

  They must have called her at home. Woken her. There are some supermodels who won’t get out of bed for less than ten thousand pounds. DCI Cray doesn’t stir unless someone is dead, defiled or missing.

  Julianne’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

  ‘Can we stop?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want to know what happened.’

  She shakes her head.

  At that moment Ronnie Cray emerges from the house and lights a cigarette. Through exhaled smoke her eyes meet mine. Diffident. Unsurprised.

  We’re past the house now. Julianne drives on.

  ‘You should have stopped.’

  ‘Don’t get involved, Joe.’

  ‘But this is Sienna’s family.’

  ‘And the police will handle things.’

  There is an edge to her voice. A warning. We’ve been down this road before. We’ve had this argument. I lost.

  Three minutes later we pull up outside the terrace. The engine idles and she takes a deep breath.

  ‘I’m going to let Charlie stay home from school today.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’

  Softening, she tells me to get some sleep and to call her later.

  ‘I will.’

  Even before I pull out my keys I hear Gunsmoke whining and pawing at the back door. Walking along the passage to the kitchen, I unlock the side door and step into the garden, where the Labrador leaps and cavorts around my thighs, licking at my hands.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home,’ I say, rubbing his ears.

  He frowns at me. I swear. Then he dashes to the rear gate. The rabbits are waiting. Don’t I want to chase them? Hurry up.

  First I need to shower and take my pills - the white one and the blue one. When the twitches are gone, I can hold my hand steady on the razor and lace up my boots. Buttons will find buttonholes and zippers will close easily. The body tremors are under control, although occasionally my left arm will launch itself upwards in my own Mexican wave.

  In the six years since I was diagnosed, I have come to an understanding with Mr Parkinson. I no longer deny his existence or imagine that I’m the stronger man. Recognising this truth was a humbling experience - like bowing to a higher power.

  My condition is not advanced yet, but every day is a balancing act with my medication, requiring meticulous timing. Too much Levadopa and I’m rocking, dipping and diving, incapable of crossing a room without visiting every corner. Too little and I grind to a stuttering halt like an engine without oil.

  Exercise is recommended, which is why I walk every morning. Shuffle rather than stride. Not in all weathers. I avoid the rain. Dragging a sweater over my head, I step outside and pull the door shut. A tractor rumbles up Mill Hill Lane pulling a box trailer. The driver is Alasdair Riordan, a local farmer. His forearms are vibrating on the wheel.

  ‘Did you hear the news?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Ray Hegarty is dead. They say his wee girl stabbed him. Fancy that, eh?’

  Breath glides out of him in a pale cloud. He shakes his head and releases his foot from the clutch, jerking into motion. This passes as the longest conversation I’ve ever had with Alasdair Riordan - a man of few words and fewer thoughts.

  Gunsmoke has already disappeared down the hill, doing forward reconnaissance through the undergrowth, sniffing at trees and holes in the ground. When I reach the bridge I see the police tape laced around tree trunks and snaking along the banks of the river. I remember finding Sienna and carrying her this far. It seems like weeks ago. It was less than twelve hours.

  In a field on the far side, Gunsmoke lopes after a skittering rabbit that is far too nimble, jinking left and right before disappearing down a hole. He did once catch a rabbit, which seemed to surprise him so much that he let it go again. Maybe he’s opposed to blood sports, which would make him a curiosity in these parts.

  Occasionally, he comes back to me, loping down the hill, pink tongue flapping, awaiting instructions. He gazes up at me as though I am the wisest of the wise. If only my children were so in awe of my intelligence. Reassured, he takes off again, sniffing at every cowpat and clump o
f grass.

  Gunsmoke has made the past couple of years easier. He doesn’t judge me like I judge myself. He’s gets me out of bed. Makes me exercise. Eats my leftovers. Babysits Emma and initiates conversations with people.

  I walk for a mile across the fields, following the old railway line, before turning and retracing boot prints on the dew-covered grass. I keep thinking about Ray Hegarty, a man I barely knew.

  I once saw him drawn into a fight at the Fox and Badger. Six bikers came into the bar one Friday evening just after the rugby club raffle had been drawn. Ray had won the meat tray and was sitting with his prize. The lead biker stood over his table and asked him to move.

  ‘Plenty of spare seats,’ Ray replied.

  The biker sized him up and liked what he saw. He was mistaken.

  Leaning over the table, he casually spat in Ray’s pint of cider. Before he had time to straighten, one of Ray’s hands had shot out and gripped him by the neck as the other smashed the pint glass and pressed the jagged base into his throat.

  Calmly, Ray whispered in his ear, ‘There are six of you and one of me. Looking at those odds, I’m going to die, but here’s the thing . . . you’ll be dying first.’

  A thin trickle of blood ran down the biker’s neck, over his Adam’s apple, which was rising and falling as he swallowed. Another liquid trickled over his boots and on to the worn floorboards.

  The scene stayed that way for maybe twenty minutes until the police arrived from Radstock. It made Ray a legend. Hector bolted a special plaque at the corner of the bar, which said, ‘Reserved for Ray’ and guaranteed him at least one free pint every time he dropped by.

  The strange thing is, when I recalled the altercation afterwards, picturing Ray Hegarty’s calm hostility, I found myself feeling sorry for the bikers. It was as if the odds were always stacked against them.

  Turning the corner into Station Road, I spy the battered Land Rover parked out front of the terrace. Ronnie Cray is sitting behind the wheel with her eyes closed, resting her head against the doorframe.

  ‘Morning?’

  Her eyes half open. ‘You shouldn’t leave your door key under a rock. Second place I looked. Had to use the little girl’s room. Hope you don’t mind.’