Bleed For Me (joseph o'loughlin)

by Michael Robotham

  ‘Did you know Sienna was cutting herself?’ I ask.

  Charlie doesn’t respond.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did she say why?’

  ‘She couldn’t really explain.’

  ‘Was she unhappy?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Staring out the window, she beats an edgy rhythm on her thigh.

  ‘How did Sienna get on with her dad?’

  ‘She said he was a Nazi.’

  ‘He was pretty strict.’

  ‘Way strict.’

  ‘Is that why she spent so much time at our place?’

  Charlie nods. We’re halfway home, driving through farmland that has been ploughed into rich brown furrows tinged with green on the ridges. Seeded. Growing.

  ‘What did you think of Mr Hegarty?’

  ‘He was OK, I guess.’

  ‘Just OK?’

  ‘Whenever I stayed at Sienna’s he got us a DVD and pizza. Sometimes he used to watch a movie with us.’

  ‘Did he ever make you feel uncomfortable?’

  ‘Like how?’

  ‘When you were staying at the house - did he ever look at you, or brush against you, or say something to you that made you feel like you didn’t want to be there?’

  Her voice drops to a whisper and something slithers south in my chest, settling at the base of my stomach.

  ‘Sienna always told me to lock the bathroom door. One night I was getting out of the shower and the doorknob turned, but the bolt was across. I asked who it was. Said I wouldn’t be long.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The doorknob turned again.’

  12

  Helen Hegarty holds the crumpled search warrant in her fist and steps aside. Heavy boots move with intent, going from room to room. Cupboards are opened, drawers pulled out, books feathered, CD cases prised open, rugs lifted . . .

  For Helen this must seem like one more indignity added to a steaming pile - a dead husband, a traumatised family, bloodstains on her floorboards, fingerprint dust on her sills . . .

  On the other side of the village, not far from the cottage, a long unbroken line of police officers shuffles across open ground. Uniformed. Silent. They call it a fingertip search, but nobody is crouching on hands and knees.

  Charlie notices.

  ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘They’re looking for something.’

  ‘What are they looking for?’

  ‘Evidence.’

  DCI Cray is on the bridge, her fist clenched around a cigarette, rasping orders. She’s dressed in a parka jacket and Wellingtons. They’re using police dogs to trace Sienna’s footsteps through the undergrowth.

  Dropping Charlie at the cottage, I go back to the Hegartys’ house where Helen has retreated outside, leaving the police searchers to do their worst. Pulling a cardigan tight around her chest, she lights a cigarette and ignores the stares of neighbours who have gathered to watch. Not embarrassed. Past caring.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’

  ‘I confiscated them from Zoe.’

  Her son Lance is prowling the garden, thinking dark thoughts. The moment I step through the gate he confronts me, chest to chest, lips curled. A Union Jack tattoo flexes on his bicep.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m just checking on your mum.’

  ‘You’re working for them.’

  ‘I don’t work for the police.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  Helen puts a hand on his forearm and the effect is remarkable. The frenetic energy drumming in his head seems to evaporate. Lance turns away. Paces the garden. Punches his thigh.

  ‘He doesn’t know what to do,’ whispers Helen. ‘He thinks he should be the man of the house . . . looking after us.’

  Something topples and breaks upstairs. She glances at the window and flinches. Then she gazes past me, as though imagining another life. Different choices.

  Upstairs she has three shelves full of self-help books like The Secret, Lose Your Friends and Find Yourself, Chasing Happiness and The Choice is Yours. Yet all this advice on forgiving herself and learning from her mistakes had simply depressed her even more with their messages of urgent hopefulness and relentless positivity.

  Pulling a crumbling tissue from her sleeve, she has to squeeze it together to wipe her nose.

  ‘Sienna didn’t like you working nights.’

  Helen shakes her head. ‘We needed the money. Ray’s new business took a while to get off the ground.’

  ‘That must have been hard.’

  ‘You do what has to be done.’

  ‘Did Ray and Sienna fight a lot?’

  She shrugs. ‘They were like oil and water. One morning I came home and found her sleeping in the shed. Ray thought she’d run off.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘She was eleven.’ Helen squints and stares past me down the lane. ‘Some kids want to grow up so quickly, you know. Sienna couldn’t wait to get away.’

  ‘From Ray?’

  ‘From home.’ She looks at me miserably. ‘I tried to be a good mother, but Sienna can be a terror - bunking off school, staying out late, drinking . . . I blame the boyfriend. Ever since he came on the scene she’s stopped listening, you know. Now one of her teachers has made a complaint against her. Accused her of making nuisance phone calls.’

  ‘Which teacher?’

  ‘Mr Ellis. Teaches her drama. I told Sienna to leave the man alone.’

  ‘Why would she be calling Gordon Ellis?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Ellis have a little boy. Sienna used to babysit him, but that stopped a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ray says he saw Mr Ellis kissing Sienna one night when he dropped her home from babysitting.’

  ‘What did Sienna say?’

  ‘She said nothing happened. She said Ray was mistaken. Mr Ellis was just leaning across her to open the car door. Ray said she couldn’t babysit any more. It caused a huge row.’

  Another police car pulls up in the lane. Ronnie Cray emerges and walks quickly down the path to the front door. She signals to me, wanting me inside.

  Apologising to Helen, I follow the DCI through the house to a workshop in the back garden. An old motorcycle, partially disassembled, takes up much of the floor space. One entire wall above the workbench is hung with every tool imaginable. Beneath the bench there are clear plastic drawers containing nails, screws, brackets, nuts and bolts, as well as welding equipment and soldering irons. On the opposite wall, a series of shelves hold grease guns and cans of motoring oil. This is a proper workshop kept neatly ordered by a man who perhaps dreamed of being a craftsman but settled for something else.

  Cray sits in a tall office chair with a wonky wheel. Her feet are propped on a milk crate.

  ‘I have a hypothetical for you . . .’ She laces her fingers together on her chest. ‘Psychologists like making excuses for people.’

  ‘We explain human behaviour.’

  ‘OK, enlighten me. I can understand why a teenage girl might fight off her attacker. She might pick up a weapon. She might lash out and run off. Terrified. Traumatised. Is that true?’

  ‘It’s feasible.’

  ‘But would the same girl clean her hands in the bathroom sink and neatly fold the hand-towel? Would she then take the weapon with her and try to dispose of it by throwing it from a bridge?’

  I don’t answer. Cray doesn’t wait for me.

  ‘Seems to me that any teenage girl who did that would be pretty clear-headed. I would even call her lucid. Maybe even calculating.’

  ‘You found the blade.’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘You searched beneath the bridge before.’

  ‘We missed it the first time. I’m charging Sienna Hegarty with murder.’

  There’s no hint of triumphalism in her tone. Instead I sense an underlying sadness that her instincts had been right.

  ‘What possible motive?’ I hea
r myself say.

  ‘She wanted him dead.’

  ‘It’s that simple.’

  ‘Simple or hard, I don’t differentiate, Professor. You try to understand human behaviour. You try to explain it. Not me. I know we’re smaller than gorillas, bigger than chimps, worse than both of them and, for all our rationality, our rules and laws, our baser drives are still straight out of the jungle.’

  13

  Bristol Youth Court is a two-storey annexe in a dirty concrete building shared with the probation service and the family court. Through the vertical blinds I can see a double-decker bus rumbling past the window. The upper-deck passengers seem to float fifteen feet above the ground.

  Sienna sits with a youth justice worker, whose name is Felicity and who looks like one of those solid, organised, capable girls who achieve everything with the minimum of fuss.

  Normally so careful with her grooming, Sienna’s hair needs washing and her fingernails are bitten to the quick. Felicity whispers encouragement to her, but Sienna might not be listening. She toys with the hem of her denim skirt. I notice a scar on her knee.

  ‘How did that happen?’ I ask.

  ‘It was on my twelfth birthday. I fell out of a tree.’

  ‘Was it broken?’

  ‘In three places. I don’t remember the falling part. It was in the playground at school.’

  ‘At Shepparton Park?’

  ‘Yeah. A boy called Malcolm Hogbin dared me to climb a tree. Malcolm Hogbin spent most of year seven calling me names and scrawling graffiti on my locker.’

  ‘So you took the dare?’

  ‘Pretty stupid, huh?’

  She picks at her fingernails.

  Felicity leans closer and whispers. ‘So you understand what’s going to happen today? They’re going to read the charges and then your lawyer will ask for bail. The magistrates might ask you some questions. Speak clearly. Hold your head up.’

  ‘Then can I go home?’

  ‘They have to decide.’

  ‘But I want to go home.’

  ‘Mr D’Angelo will talk to them.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to that other place.’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  Sienna looks at me for support. Her whole body reacts with a start when a court usher calls her name. She holds her stomach, as though about to vomit. Taking her arm, I lead her into a room that looks more like an office than a court. The tables, benches and chairs are all on the same level and a large flat-screen TV dominates one wall, opposite a coat of arms.

  Helen Hegarty is sitting in the front row next to Lance. Zoe’s wheelchair is partially blocking the central aisle. Sienna gives her a little wave and a smile.

  Three magistrates sit side by side at a large oak table, dressed in layman’s clothes. Two women and a man, they look more like librarians than court officials.

  Sienna takes a seat beside Mr D’Angelo, her solicitor, who seems to know everyone in the room, chatting to the prosecutor and the court clerk as though swapping stories about their plans for the weekend.

  The charges are read aloud, mentioning Ray Hegarty’s full name and giving the time, date and place of his death. The word ‘murdered’ brings a sob from Helen, who is somewhere behind me. Sienna seems to be shrinking under the gaze of the magistrates. I keep thinking of Alice in Wonderland meeting the Queen of Hearts.

  ‘Is your name Sienna Jane Hegarty?’

  She nods.

  ‘And your date of birth is twelfth September 1995?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you live at home with your mother?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you understand the charge?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You can sit down now, Sienna.’

  Then the lawyers start putting their arguments for and against bail. The prosecutor has bright red lipstick and monotone clothes. She wants Sienna kept in ‘secure accommodation’ because of her history of ‘self-abuse’. Mr D’Angelo argues that she should be allowed home because of her age and her previous good record. Sienna’s head swings from side to side as if she’s watching a ball hit back and forth across a net.

  The middle magistrate - the only man - has skin the colour of putty and a wheezing voice.

  ‘Do you want to go back to school, Sienna?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘What are your favourite subjects?’

  ‘English and drama.’

  ‘If you couldn’t go back to school, what would you do?’

  Sienna shrugs. ‘Whatever I was told.’

  The magistrates smile.

  ‘Do you help your mum around the house?’ asks the female magistrate on the right.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Do you do any of the cooking?’

  ‘Not really.’

  The magistrate glances at a piece of paper in her hands. ‘You’ve been charged with a very serious offence, Sienna.’

  ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘That’s not what we’re here for today.’

  ‘But I didn’t—’

  Mr D’Angelo puts his hand on Sienna’s shoulder and she flinches as though scalded. ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ he tells her.

  ‘But I want them to know.’

  ‘That happens another day.’

  ‘Why can’t it be now?’

  The magistrates confer, speaking in whispers that are barely audible above the hum of the air conditioning.

  The senior magistrate announces their decision. Because of Sienna’s history of self-harm she is to be remanded to a youth psychiatric care unit until a proper assessment can be made of her mental state.

  Mr D’Angelo stands. ‘Professor Joseph O’Loughlin, a clinical psychologist, is in court today. He knows the accused. Perhaps he could be heard?’

  The magistrates confer again briefly.

  ‘Professor O’Loughlin can prepare a psych report. How long does he need?’

  Mr D’Angelo turns and leans on the back of his chair, whispering, ‘You willing to do this?’

  ‘I think I’ve just been volunteered.’

  ‘How long do you need?’

  ‘Three weeks.’

  The magistrates agree and re-list Sienna’s case at the Crown Court. Sienna turns to me. ‘Can I go home?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They want to send you to a hospital.’

  ‘I’ve been to hospital.’

  ‘This one is different. They’re worried you might harm yourself.’

  Sienna shakes her head.

  ‘So I can’t go home?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  She grabs my wrist. ‘Don’t let them lock me up. You have to tell them. I didn’t do it.’

  14

  Julianne has her dinner tonight with Harry Veitch. I’m looking after the girls. I shower and shave and search for a clean shirt. Eventually I’m forced to settle on something Emma bought me for Father’s Day, which makes me look like Willy Wonka.

  Julianne opens the door. ‘You really are having a mid-life crisis.’

  ‘I ran out of shirts.’

  ‘What about the washing machine?’

  ‘I forgot to turn it on.’

  ‘How you doing for underwear?’

  ‘My days-of-the-week boxers will last me till Monday.’

  She steps back and checks herself in the hallway mirror. She’s wearing a mid-length skirt and boots with a white blouse and the earrings - black pearls on silver clasps. I bought them for her thirtieth birthday.

  ‘You don’t have to babysit.’

  ‘I know. I miss them.’

  ‘I thought you might want to spy on me.’

  She gives the mirror her Mona Lisa smile, which annoys me.

  ‘Unless I’m cramping your style,’ I say. ‘You might want to bring Harry back. I could leave early . . .’

  She’s not going to rise to the bait. Reapplying her lipstick in the mirror, she makes a popping sound. That’s one
of the things I have always loved about Julianne - she abides by the philosophy that the important thing about lipstick is not the colour but to accept God’s final word on where your lips end.

  ‘How is the trial?’ I ask.

  ‘They seem to waste so much time arguing over what evidence is admissible and not admissible. The jury gets sent out. The judge makes a ruling. Then they troop back in again.’

  She adjusts her hair. ‘Stacey Dobson gave evidence yesterday. She’s the sister of Gary Dobson - one of the accused. The day before the firebombing she made a complaint to the police that she’d been raped. She said four men had lured her into a van and taken her to a house. They were asylum seekers and she named Marco Kostin.’

  ‘And they raped her?’

  ‘No, she made it all up. She and Marco were sweet on each other. They’d been out a few times.’

  ‘Why would she make up a story like that?’

  ‘Stacey thought she was going to get into trouble for staying out late. Her parents were angry. They called the police and Stacey was too frightened to recant. Eventually she told the truth, but Marco’s house was firebombed the next night.’

  ‘As payback.’

  ‘That’s what the prosecution is arguing.’

  Julianne notices Charlie sitting at the top of the stairs and quickly changes the subject. ‘The girls have eaten. There are leftovers if you’re hungry.’ Raising her voice slightly, ‘Charlie should be doing her homework.’

  She glances up the stairs again. Empty now.

  A car pulls up outside. Harry drives a black Lexus, which he replaces every year. Julianne grabs her handbag but stops before she reaches the door.

  ‘My pashmina - I left it on the bed.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘No, I’ll go.’

  She hurries upstairs while I watch Harry get out of his car and adjust his trousers, touching his hair. The Lexus lights up from every corner as the central locking engages.

  He rings the doorbell. I don’t want to talk to him but Julianne hasn’t returned.

  ‘Harry.’

  ‘Joseph.’

  A touch of concern appears in his eyes, like a slight fever.

  ‘Julianne won’t be a moment. She’s getting something upstairs.’