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 Epigraph
‘She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four-feet-ten in one
sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on
the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.’
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
‘Everybody lies - every day; every hour; awake; asleep; in his dreams;
in his joy; in his mourning; if he keeps his tongue still, his hands, his toes,
his eyes, his attitude, will convey deception.’
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
 Dedications
For Vivien
 Acknowledgements
Writing might be regarded as a solitary profession, but publishing
certainly is not. I am indebted to many people without whom I couldn’t
have written this novel and would have been forced to find a proper job.
Firstly I must thank my agents Mark Lucas and Richard Pine whose
thoughts and notes on the manuscript improved it immeasurably. The same
can also be said of my publisher Ursula Mackenzie and editor David
Shelley, who are among the true believers.
For their friendship and hospitality, I thank Mark and Sara Derry,
Richard and Emma Honey and Martyn Forrester, who know how much I
hate hotel rooms and how much I enjoy their company.
For their patience and love, I will always be indebted to my three
daughters Alex, Charlotte and Bella, who put up with my highs and lows,
laughing at my eccentricities. Thankfully, they take after their mother, who
keeps my feet on the ground so I can live with my head in the clouds.
Finally I make special mention of Annie Robinson, whose name appears
in Bleed for Me. Although Annie didn’t get the chance to read about her
namesake, I know that she’s partying with the angels and living in our
hearts.
 Sienna’s Diary
i should start by telling you my name, although it’s not really important.
names are just labels that we grow into. we might hate them, we might want
to change them, but eventually we suit them.
when i was very young i used to hide in the dirty laundry basket because
i liked the smell of my father’s work clothes and it made me feel closer to
him. he used to call me his ‘little red riding hood’ and would chase me
around my bedroom growling like a wolf until i collapsed into giggles. i
loved him then.
when i was eleven or twelve i took a stanley knife from my father’s shed
and pinched a roll of flesh on my inner arm before slicing it open. it wasn’t
very deep, but enough to bleed for a while. i don’t know where the idea
came from, but somehow it gave me something i needed. a pain on the
outside to match the inside.
i don’t cut often. sometimes once a week, once a month, once i went for
six months. in the winter i cut my wrists and forearms because my school
blazer will cover the marks. in the summer i cut my stomach because a one-
piece swimsuit will hide the evidence.
once or twice i’ve cut too deeply but each time i managed to fix myself,
using a needle and thread. i bet that makes you shudder but it didn’t hurt so
much and i boiled the needle first.
when i bleed i feel calm and clear-headed. it’s like the poison inside me
is dripping out. even when i’ve stopped bleeding, i finger the cuts lovingly. i
kiss them goodnight.
some are new cuts on virgin skin. others are old wounds reopened. razor
blades and stanley knives are best. they’re clean and quick. knives are
clumsy and needles don’t produce enough blood.
you want to know the reason? you want to know why someone would
bleed in secret? it’s because i deserve it. i deserve to be punished. to punish
myself. love is pain and pain is love and they will never leave me alone in
the world.
every drop of blood that flows from my veins is proof that i’m alive.
every drop is proof that i’m dying. every drop removes the poison inside me,
running down my arms, dripping off my fingers.
you think i’m a masochist.
you think i’m suicidal.
you think you know me.
you think you remember what it’s like to be fourteen.
you think you understand me.
you don’t.
i bleed for you.
 1
If I could tell you one thing about Liam Baker’s life it would be this:
when he was eighteen years old he beat a girl half to death and left her
paralysed from the waist down because she tipped a bucket of popcorn over
his head.
As defining events go, nothing else comes close for Liam, not the death
of his mother or his faith in God or the three years he has spent in a secure
psychiatric hospital - all of which can be attributed, in one way or another,
to that moment of madness in a cinema queue.
‘That moment of madness’ is the term his psychiatrist just used. Her
name is Dr Victoria Naparstek and she’s giving evidence before a Mental
Health Review Tribunal, listing Liam’s achievements as though he’s about
to graduate from university.
Dr Naparstek is a good-looking woman, younger than I expected; mid-
thirties with honey-blonde hair, brushed back and gathered in a tortoiseshell
clasp. Strands have pulled loose and now frame her features, which
otherwise would look quite elfin and sharp. Despite her surname, her accent
is Glaswegian but not harsh or guttural, more a Scottish lilt, which makes
her sound gay and carefree, even when a man’s freedom is being argued. I
wonder if she’s aware that her eyes devour rather than register a person.
Perhaps I’m being unfair.
Liam is sitting on a chair beside her. It has been four years since I saw
him last, but the change is remarkable. No longer awkward and
uncoordinated, Liam has put on weight and his glasses have gone, replaced
by contact lenses that make his normally pale blue eyes appear darker.
Dressed in a long-sleeved cotton shirt and jeans, his shoes have pointed
toes, which are fashionable and he has gelled his hair so that it pokes
towards the ceiling. I can picture him getting ready for this hearing, taking
extra care with his appearance because he knows how important it is to look
his best.
Out the window I can see a walled courtyard, dotted with potted plants
and small trees. A dozen patients are exercising, each inhabiting a different
space, without acknowledging the others’ existence. Some take a few
strides in one direction and then stop, as though lost, and start in a different
direction. Others are swinging their arms and marching around the
perimeter as though it is a parade ground. One young man seems to be
addressing an audience while another has crawled beneath a bench as if
sheltering from an imaginary storm.
Dr Naparstek is still talking.
‘In my months working with Liam, I have discovered a troubled young
man, who has worked very hard to better himself. His anger issues are
under control and his social skills are greatly improved. For the past four
months he has been part of our shared-house programme, living co-
operatively with other patients, cooking, cleaning and washing, making
their own rules. Liam has been a calming influence - a team leader.
Recently, we had a critical incident when a male resident took a hostage at
knifepoint and barricaded a door. It took five minutes for security to gain
access to the shared house, by which time Liam had defused the situation. It
was amazing to watch.’
I glance at the three members of the review tribunal - a judge, a medical
specialist and a lay person with mental health experience. Do they look
‘amazed’, I wonder. Perhaps they’re just not showing it.
The tribunal must decide if Liam should be released. That’s how the
system works. If an offender is thought to be cured, or approaching being
cured, they are considered for rehabilitation and release. From a high-
security hospital they’re transferred to a regional secure unit for further
treatment. If that goes well, they are given increasing amounts of leave, first
in the grounds of the unit and later in the local streets with an escort, and
then alone.
I am not here in any official capacity. This should be one of my half-
days at Bath University where I’ve taught psychology for the past three
years. That’s how long it’s been since I quit my clinical practice. Do I miss
it? No. It lives with me still. I remember every patient - the cutters, the
groomers, the addicts, the narcissists, the sociopaths and the sexual
predators; those who were too frightened to step out into the world and the
few who wanted to burn it down.
Liam was one of them. I guess you could say I put him here because I
recommended he be sectioned and given treatment rather than sent to a
regular prison.
Dr Naparstek has finished. She smiles and leans down to whisper
something in Liam’s ear, squeezing his shoulder. Liam’s eyes swim but
aren’t focused on her face. He is looking down the front of her blouse.
Resuming her seat, she crosses her legs beneath her charcoal-grey skirt.
The judge looks up. ‘Is there anyone else who would like to address the
tribunal?’
It takes me a moment to get to my feet. Sometimes my legs don’t do as
they’re told. My brain sends the messages but they fail to arrive or like
London buses they come all at once causing my limbs to either lock up or
take me backwards, sideways and occasionally forwards, so that I look like
I’m being operated via remote control by a demented toddler.
The condition is known as Parkinson’s - a progressive, degenerative,
chronic but not contagious disease that means I’m losing my brain without
losing my mind. I will not say incurable. They will find a cure one day.
I have found my feet now. ‘My name is Professor Joseph O’Loughlin. I
was hoping I could ask Liam a few questions.’
The judge tilts his chin to his chest. ‘What’s your interest in this case,
Professor?’
‘I’m a clinical psychologist. Liam and I are acquainted. I provided his
pre-sentencing assessment.’
‘Have you treated Liam since then?’
‘No. I’m just hoping to understand the context.’
‘The context?’
‘Yes.’
Dr Naparstek has turned to stare at me. She doesn’t seem very
impressed. I make my way to the front of the room. The linoleum floor is
shining as daylight slants through barred windows, leaving geometric
patterns.
‘Hello, Liam, do you remember me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come and sit up here.’
I place two chairs facing each other. Liam looks at Dr Naparstek, who
nods. He moves forward, taller than I remember, less confident than a few
minutes ago. We sit opposite, our knees almost touching.
‘It’s good to see you again. How have you been?’
‘Good.’
‘Do you know why we’re here today?’
He nods.
 ‘Dr Naparstek and the people here think you’re better and it’s time you
moved on. Is that what you want?’
Again he nods.
‘If you are released, where would you go?’
‘I’d find somewhere to live. G-g-get a job.’
Liam’s stutter is less pronounced than I remember. It gets worse when
he’s anxious or angry.
‘You have no family?’
‘No.’
‘Most of your friends are in here.’
‘I’ll m-m-make new friends.’
‘It’s been a while since I saw you last, Liam. Remind me again why
you’re here.’
‘I did a bad thing, but I’m better now.’
There it is: an admission and an excuse in the same breath.
‘So why are you here?’
‘You sent me here.’
‘I must have had a reason.’
‘I had a per-per-personality disorder.’
‘What do you think that means?’
‘I hurt someone, but it weren’t my fault. I couldn’t help it.’ He leans
forward, elbows on his knees, eyes on the floor.
‘You beat a girl up. You punched and kicked her. You crushed her spine.
You broke her jaw. You fractured her skull. Her name was Zoe Hegarty. She
was sixteen.’
Each fact resonates as though I’m clashing cymbals next to his ear, but
nothing changes in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘For what I d-d-did.’
‘And now you’ve changed?
He nods.
‘What have you done to change?’
He looks perplexed.
‘Hostility like that has to come from somewhere, Liam. What have you
done to change?’
 He begins talking about the therapy sessions and workshops that he’s
done, the anger-management courses and social skills training.
Occasionally, he looks over his shoulder towards Dr Naparstek, but I ask
him to concentrate on me.
‘Tell me about Zoe.’
‘What about her?’
‘What was she like?’
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Did you fancy her?’
Liam flinches. ‘It w-w-weren’t like that.’
‘You followed her home from the cinema. You dragged her off the
street. You kicked her unconscious.’
‘I didn’t rape her.’
‘I didn’t say anything about raping her. Is that what you intended to do?’
Liam shakes his head, tugging at the sleeves of his shirt. His eyes are
focused on the far wall, as if watching some invisible drama being played
out on a screen that nobody else can see.
‘You once told me that Zoe wore a mask. You said a lot of people wore
masks and weren’t genuine. Do I wear a mask?’
‘No.’
‘What about Dr Naparstek?’
The mention of her name makes his skin flush.
‘N-n-no.’
‘How old are you now, Liam?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘Tell me about your dreams.’
He blinks at me.
‘What do you dream about?’
‘Getting out of here. Starting a n-n-new life.’
‘Do you masturbate?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t believe that’s true, Liam.’
He shakes his head.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘You shouldn’t talk about stuff like that.’
‘It’s very natural for a young man. When you masturbate who do you
think about?’
 ‘Girls.’
‘There aren’t many girls around here. Most of the staff are men.’
‘G-g-girls in magazines.’
‘Dr Naparstek is a woman. How often do you get to see Dr Naparstek?
Twice a week? Three times? Do you look forward to your sessions?’
‘She’s been good to me.’
‘How has she been good to you?’
‘She doesn’t judge me.’
‘Oh, come on, Liam, of course she judges you. That’s why she’s here.
Do you ever have sexual fantasies about her?’
He bristles. Edgy. Uncomfortable.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘About her.’
‘She’s a very attractive woman, Liam. I’m just admiring her.’
I look over his shoulder. Dr Naparstek doesn’t seem to appreciate the
compliment. Her lips are pinched tightly and she’s toying with a pendant
around her neck.
‘What do you prefer, Liam, winter or summer?’
‘Summer.’
‘Day or night?’
‘Night.’
‘Apples or oranges?’
‘Oranges.’
‘Coffee or tea?’
‘Tea.’
‘Women or men?’
‘Women.’
‘In skirts or trousers?’
‘Skirts.’
‘Long or short?’
‘Short.’
‘Stockings or tights?’
‘Stockings.’
‘What colour lipstick?’
‘Red.’
‘What colour eyes does she have?’
 ‘Blue.’
‘What is she wearing today?’
‘A skirt.’
‘What colour is her bra?’
‘Black.’
‘I didn’t mention a name, Liam. Who are you talking about?’
He stiffens, embarrassed, his face a beacon. I notice his left knee
bouncing up and down in a reflex action.
‘Do you think Dr Naparstek is married?’ I ask.
‘I d-d-don’t know.’
‘Does she wear a wedding ring?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe she has a boyfriend at home. Do you think about what she does
when she leaves this place? Where she goes? What her house looks like?
What she wears to bed? Maybe she sleeps naked.’
Flecks of white spit are gathered in the corners of Liam’s mouth.
Dr Naparstek wants to stop the questioning, but the judge tells her to sit
down.
Liam tries to turn but I lean forward and put my hands on his shoulders,
my mouth close to his ear. I can see the sweat wetting the roots of his hair
and a fleck of shaving foam beneath his ear.
In a whisper, ‘You think about her all the time, don’t you, Liam? The
smell of her skin, her shampoo, the delicate shell of her ear, the shadow in
the hollow between her breasts . . . every time you see her, you collect more
details so that you can fantasise about what you want to do to her.’
Liam’s skin has flushed and his breathing has gone ragged.
‘You fantasise about following her home - just like you followed Zoe
Hegarty. Dragging her off the street. Making her beg you to stop.’
The judge suddenly interrupts. ‘We can’t hear your questions, Professor.
Please speak up.’
The spell is broken. Liam remembers to breathe.
‘My apologies,’ I say, glancing at the review panel. ‘I was just telling
Liam that I might ask Dr Naparstek out to dinner.’
‘B-b-but y-y-you’re married.’
He noticed my wedding ring.
‘I’m separated. Maybe she’s available.’
Again, I lean forward, putting my cheek next to his.
 ‘I’ll take her to dinner and then I’ll take her home. I bet she’s a
dynamite fuck, what do you think? The prim and proper ones, all cool and
distant, they go off like chainsaws. Maybe you want to fantasise about that.’
Liam has forgotten to breathe again. His brain is sizzling in an angry-
frantic way, screaming like a guitar solo.
‘Does that upset you, Liam? Why? Let’s face it, she’s not really your
type. She’s pretty. She’s educated. She’s successful. What would she want
with a sad, sadistic fuck like you?’
Liam’s eyes jitter back and forth like a shot of adrenalin has punched
straight into his brain. He launches himself out of his seat, taking me with
him across the room. The world is flying backwards for a moment and his
thumbs are in my eye-sockets and his hands squeezing my skull. I can
barely hear a thing above my own heartbeat until the sound of heavy boots
on the linoleum.
Liam is dragged off me, panting, ranting. Hospital guards have secured
his arms, lifting him bodily, but he’s still lashing out at me and screaming,
telling me what he’s going to do.
The tribunal members have been evacuated or sought refuge in another
room. I can still hear Liam being wrestled down a distant corridor, kicking
at the walls and doors. Victoria Naparstek has gone with him, trying to calm
him down.
My eyes are streaming and through closed lids I can see a kaleidoscope
of coloured stars merging and exploding. Dragging myself to a chair, I pull
out a handkerchief to wipe my cheeks. After a few minutes I can see clearly
again.
Dusting off my jacket, I pick up my battered briefcase and make my
way through the security stations and locked doors until I reach the parking
area where my old Volvo estate looks embarrassingly drab. I’m about to
unlock the door when Victoria Naparstek appears, moving unsteadily in
high heels over the uneven tarmac.
‘What the hell was that? It was totally unprofessional. How dare you
talk about what I wear to bed! How dare you talk about my underwear!’
‘I’m sorry if I offended you.’
‘You’re sorry! I could have you charged with misconduct. I should
report you to the British Psychological Society.’
Her brown irises are on fire and her nostrils pinched.
 ‘I’m sorry if you feel that way. I simply wanted to see how Liam would
react.’
‘No, you wanted to prove me wrong. Do you have something against
Liam or against me?’
‘I don’t even know you.’
‘So it’s Liam you don’t like?’
The accusation clatters around my head and my left leg spasms. I feel as
though it’s going to betray me and I’ll do something embarrassing like kick
her in the shins.
‘I don’t like or dislike Liam. I just wanted to make sure he’d changed.’
‘So you tricked him. You belittled him. You bullied him.’ She narrows
her eyes. ‘I’ve heard people talk about you, Professor O’Loughlin. They
always use hushed tones. I had even hoped I might learn something from
you today. Instead you bullied my patient, insulted me and revealed
yourself to be an arrogant, condescending, misogynistic prick.’
Not even her Scottish lilt can make this sound gay or carefree. Up close
she is indeed a beautiful woman. I can see why a man might fixate upon her
and ponder what she wears in bed and what sounds she makes in the throes
of passion.
‘He’s devastated. Distraught. You’ve set back his rehabilitation by
months.’
‘I make no apologies for that. Liam Baker has learned to mimic
helpfulness and co-operation, to pretend to be better. He’s not ready to be
released.’
‘With all due respect, Professor . . .’
Whenever anyone begins a sentence like this I brace myself for what’s
coming.
‘. . . I’ve spent the past eighteen months working with Liam. You saw
him half a dozen times before he was sentenced. I think I’m in a far better
position to judge his progress than you are. I don’t know what you
whispered to Liam, but it was completely unfair.’
‘Unfair to whom?’
‘To Liam and to me.’
‘I’m trying to be fair to Zoe Hegarty. You might not agree with me,
Doctor, but I think I just did you an enormous favour.’
She scoffs. ‘I’ve been doing this job for ten years, Professor. I know
when someone poses a danger to society.’
 I interrupt her. ‘It’s not society I’m worried out. It’s far more personal
than that.’
Dr Naparstek hesitates for a moment. I can almost picture her mind at
work - her prefrontal cortex making the connections between Liam’s words,
his stolen glances and his knowledge of her underwear and where she lives.
Her eyes widen as the real - isation reaches her amygdala, the fear centre.
The Volvo starts first time, which makes it more reliable than my own
body. As the boom gate rises, I catch a glimpse of the doctor still standing
in the car park staring after me.

The grounds of Shepparton Park School are bathed in the spring twilight
with shadows folding between the trees. Most of the buildings are dark
except for Mitford Hall, where the windows are brightly lit and young
voices are raised.
I’m early to pick up Charlie. The rehearsals haven’t finished. Slipping
through a side door, I hide in the darkness of the auditorium, gazing across
rows of empty seats to the brightly lit stage.
School musicals and dance recitals are a rite of passage for every parent.
Charlie’s first performance was eight years ago, a Christmas pageant in
which she played a very loud cow. Now she’s fourteen with bobbed hair
and dressed in a twenties flapper dress, having been transformed into Miss
Dorothy Brown, the best friend of Thoroughly Modern Millie.
I could never do it myself - tread the boards. My only theatrical
appearance was aged five in a primary school production of The Sound of
Music when I was cast as the youngest von Trapp child (normally a girl, I
know, but size rather than talent won me the part.) I was small enough to be
carried upstairs by the girl who played Liesl (Nicola Bray in year six) when
the von Trapp children sang ‘So Long, Farewell’. I was in love with Nicola
and wanted her to carry me to bed every night. That was forty-four years
ago. Some crushes don’t get crushed.
I recognise some of the cast, including Sienna Hegarty, who is in the
chorus. She desperately wanted to play the lead role of Millie Dillmount,
but Erin Lewis won the part to everyone’s surprise and Sienna had to settle
for being her understudy.
 As I watch her move about the stage, my mind goes back to the tribunal
hearing and Liam Baker. There are little pictures and big pictures at play.
The little everyday picture is that Sienna is my daughter’s best friend. The
big picture is that her older sister is Zoe Hegarty, the girl in the wheelchair,
who could once stand and dance and run, until Liam Baker’s ‘moment of
madness’, which had been coming all his life.
The music stops and Mr Ellis, the drama teacher, vaults on to the stage,
repositioning some of the dancers. Dressed in trainers and faded jeans, he’s
handsome in a geekish sort of way. A fringe of dark brown hair falls across
his eyes and he casually brushes it away.
The scene starts again - an argument between the play’s hero and
heroine. Millie plans to marry her boss even though it’s obvious Jimmy
loves her. The quarrel escalates and Jimmy grabs her, planting a clumsy
kiss.
Erin pushes him away angrily, wiping her mouth. ‘I said no tongue.’
There are whistles and catcalls from backstage and the boy bows
theatrically, milking the laughter.
Mr Ellis leaps on to the stage again, annoyed at yet another interruption.
He snaps at Sienna. ‘What are you grinning at?’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘How many times have I told you to come in on the third bar? You’re
half a step behind everyone else. If you can’t get this right, I’ll put you at
the back. Permanently.’
Sienna bows her head glumly.
The drama teacher claps his hands. ‘OK, let’s do that scene again. I’ll
play your part, Lockwood. It’s a kiss, OK? I’m not asking you to take out
her tonsils.’
Mr Ellis takes his place opposite Erin, who is tall for her age and
wearing flat shoes. The scene begins with an argument and ends when he
puts a single finger beneath her chin and tilts her face towards his,
whispering in a voice that penetrates even at the lowest volume. Erin’s
hands are by her sides. Trembling slightly, her lips part and she topples
fractionally forward as if surrendering. For a moment I think he’s going to
kiss her, but he pulls away abruptly, breaking contact. Erin looks like a
disappointed child.
‘OK, that’s it for today,’ says Mr Ellis. ‘We’ll have another rehearsal on
Friday afternoon and a full dress rehearsal next Wednesday. Nobody be
late.’
He looks pointedly at Sienna. ‘And I expect everything to be perfect.’
The cast wander off stage and the band begins packing away
instruments. Easing open a fire door, I circle a side path to the main doors
of the hall where a dozen parents are waiting, some with younger children
clinging to their hands or playing tag on the grass.
A woman’s voice behind me: ‘Professor O’Loughlin?’
I turn. She smiles. It takes me a moment to remember her name. Annie
Robinson, the school counsellor.
‘Call me Joe.’
‘We haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘No. I guess my wife does most of this.’ I motion to the school
buildings, or maybe I’m pointing to my life in general.
Miss Robinson looks different. Her clothes are tighter and her skirt
shorter. Normally she seems so shy and distracted, but now she’s more
focused, standing close as if she wants to share a secret with me. She’s
wearing high heels and her liquid brown eyes are level with my lips.
‘It must be difficult - the break-up.’
I clear my throat and mumble yes.
Her extra-white teeth are framed by bright painted lips.
Dropping her voice to a whisper, ‘If you ever need somebody to talk to .
. . I know what it’s like.’ She smiles and her fingers find my hand. Intense
embarrassment prickles beneath my scalp.
‘That’s very kind. Thank you.’
I muster a nervous smile. At least I hope I’m smiling. That’s one of the
problems with my ‘condition’. I can never be sure what face I’m showing
the world - the genial O’Loughlin smile or the blank Parkinson’s mask.
‘Well, it’s good to see you again,’ says Miss Robinson.
‘You too, you’re looking . . .’
‘What?’
‘Good.’
She laughs with her eyes. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Then she leans forward and pecks me on the lips, withdrawing her hand
from mine. She has pressed a small piece of paper into my palm, her phone
number. At that moment I spy Charlie in the shadows of the stage door,
carrying a schoolbag over her right shoulder. Her dark hair is still pinned up
and there are traces of stage make-up around her eyes.
 ‘Were you kissing a teacher?’
‘No.’
‘I saw you.’
‘She kissed me . . .’
‘Not from where I was standing.’
‘It was a peck.’
‘On the lips.’
‘She was being friendly.’
Charlie isn’t happy with the answer. She’s not happy with a lot of things
I do and say these days. If I ask a question, I’m interrogating her. If I make
an observation, I’m being judgemental. My comments are criticisms and
our conversations are ‘arguments’.
This is supposed to be my territory - human behaviour - but I seem to
have a blind spot when it comes to understanding my eldest daughter, who
doesn’t necessarily say what she means. For instance, when Charlie says I
shouldn’t bother coming to something, really she wants me to be there. And
when she says, ‘Are you coming?’ it means ‘Be there, or else!’
I take her bag. ‘The musical is great. You were brilliant.’
‘Did you sneak inside?’
‘Just for the second half.’
‘Now you won’t come to the opening night. You’ll know the ending.’
‘It’s a musical - everyone knows the ending.’
Charlie pouts and looks over her shoulder, her ponytail swinging
dismissively.
‘Can we give Sienna a lift home?’ she asks.
‘Sure. Where is she?’
‘Mr Ellis wanted to see her.’
‘Is she in trouble?’
Charlie rolls her eyes. ‘She’s always in trouble.’
Across the grounds, down the gentle slope, I can see headlights nudging
from the parking area.
Sienna emerges from the hall. Slender and pale, almost whiter than
white, she’s wearing her school uniform with her hair pulled back in a
ponytail. She hasn’t bothered removing her stage make-up and her eyes
look impossibly large.
‘How are you, Sienna?’
‘I’m fine, Mr O. Did you bring your dog?’
 ‘No.’
‘How is he?’
‘Still dumb.’
‘I thought Labradors were supposed to be intelligent.’
‘Not my one.’
‘Maybe he’s intelligent but not obedient.’
‘Maybe.’
Sienna surveys the car park, as though looking for someone. She seems
preoccupied or perhaps she’s upset about the rehearsal. Then she
remembers and turns to me.
‘Did that hearing happen today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are they going to let him out?’
‘Not yet.’
Satisfied, she turns and walks ahead of me, bumping shoulders with
Charlie, speaking in a strange language that I’m not supposed to
understand.
Although slightly taller, Charlie seems younger or less worldly than
Sienna, who loves to make big entrances and create big reactions, shocking
people and then reacting with coyness as if to say, ‘Who me?’
Charlie is a different creature around her - more talkative, animated,
happy - but there are times when I wish she’d chosen a different best friend.
Twelve months ago they were picked up for shoplifting at an off-licence in
Bath. They stole cans of cider and a six-pack of Breezers. Charlie was
supposed to be sleeping over at Sienna’s house that night but they were
going to sneak out to a party. They were thirteen. I wanted to ground
Charlie until she was twenty-one, but her remorse seemed genuine.
The girls have reached my third-hand Volvo estate, which reeks of wet
dog and has a rear window that won’t close completely. The floor is littered
with colouring books, plastic bracelets, doll’s clothes and empty crisp
packets.
Sienna claims the front passenger seat.
‘Sit with me in the back,’ begs Charlie.
‘Next time, loser.’
Charlie looks at me as though I’m to blame.
‘Maybe both of you should sit in the back,’ I say.
 Sienna wrinkles her nose at me and shrugs dismissively but does as I
ask. I can hear a mobile ringing. It’s coming from her schoolbag. She
answers, frowns, whispers. The metallic-sounding voice leaks into the
stillness.
‘You said ten minutes. No . . . OK . . . fifteen . . .’
She ends the call.
‘I don’t need a lift any more. My boyfriend is picking me up.’
‘Your boyfriend?’
‘You can drop me at Fullerton Road shops.’
‘I think you should ask your mother first.’
Sienna rolls her eyes and punches in a new number on her phone. I can
only hear one side of the conversation.
‘Hi, Mum, I’m going to see Danny . . . OK . . . He’ll drop me back. I
won’t be late. I will . . . yes . . . no . . . OK . . . see you in the morning.’
Sienna flips the mobile shut and begins rooting in her bag, pulling out
her flapper dress, which is short, beaded and sparkling.
‘Eyes on the road, Mr O, I’m getting changed.’
I tilt the rear-view mirror so I can’t see behind me as I pull out of the
parking area. Clothes are discarded, hips lifted and tights rolled down. By
the time I reach the shops, Sienna is dressed and retouching her make-up.
‘How do I look?’ she asks Charlie.
‘Great.’
‘Where is he taking you?’ I ask.
‘We’re going to hang.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Hang, you know. Chill.’
Sienna leans between the seats and adjusts the mirror, checking her
mascara. As she pushes the mirror back in place her eyes meet mine. Did I
have a girlfriend at fourteen? I can’t remember. I probably wanted one.
We’ve reached Fullerton Road. I pull up behind a battered Peugeot with
two different paint-jobs and an engine that rumbles through a broken
muffler. Three young men are inside. One of them emerges. Sienna is out
the door, skipping into his arms. Kisses his lips. Her low-waisted dress is
fringed with tassels that sway back and forth with the swing of her hips.
It looks wrong. It feels wrong.
As the car pulls away and does a U-turn, Sienna waves. I don’t respond.
I’m looking in the rear-view mirror unsuccessfully trying to read the
number plate.

Julianne answers the door dressed in jeans and a checked shirt. Her dark
hair is cut short in a new style, which makes her look younger. Sweet. Sexy.
Her loose shirt shows hollows above her collarbones and the outline of her
bra beneath.
She kisses Charlie’s cheek. It’s practised. Intimate. They are almost the
same height. Another two inches and they’ll see eye to eye.
‘What took you so long?’
‘We stopped for pizza,’ answers Charlie.
‘But I’ve kept your dinner!’
Julianne looks at me accusingly. It’s my fault.
‘I’m sorry. I forgot.’
‘You always forget.’
Charlie steps between us. ‘Please don’t fight.’
Julianne stops herself. Softens her voice. ‘Upstairs. Have a shower.
Don’t wake Emma. I just got her to bed.’
Emma is our youngest and has started school in the village, looking tiny
in her blue tunic and grey socks. Every time I see her walking out the
school gate with her friends, I think of Gulliver and the Lilliputians.
Charlie dumps her schoolbag into her mother’s arms and makes the
stairs seem steep as she goes up to her room. Julianne unzips the schoolbag
looking for school notes or reminders. She’s wearing the silver earrings I
bought her in Marrakesh.
‘I like your hair,’ I say.
‘Charlie says I look like a lesbian.’
‘That’s not true.’
She smiles and arranges the coats on the coat rack in the passage.
This is what our conversations are like since we separated. Brief. Polite.
No deeper than a puddle. We were married for twenty years. We’ve been
separated for two. Not divorced. Julianne hasn’t asked me. That’s a good
thing.
We no longer shop together, go to movies, pay bills, buy cars, book
holidays or attend dinner parties as a couple, but we still talk and do parent-
teacher nights and family birthday parties. We talked today. I made her
laugh, which is always my fallback when I’ve got nothing else. Humour
and anti-depressants are my antidotes to Mr Parkinson, who was the third
person in our marriage, the other man, who stayed with me after the
separation and now is like an unwelcome relative hanging around for the
reading of the will.
‘How’s the trial going?’ I ask.
‘They haven’t needed me yet. They’re still choosing a jury.’
Nine months ago, Julianne quit her high-flying corporate job in London,
to be closer to the girls. Now she’s working as an interpreter for the police
and the courts, occasionally getting late-night calls because victims,
suspects or witnesses have to be interviewed.
They’ve asked her to interpret at a murder trial in Bristol. Three men are
accused of firebombing a boarding house, killing a family of asylum
seekers. The newspapers have labelled it a ‘race-hate trial’ and politicians
are calling for calm.
Julianne has finished tidying the hallway. I linger, rocking on my heels,
hoping she might invite me to stay for a cup of tea and a chat. Occasionally,
she does and we spend an hour talking about the girls, planning their
weekends and itineraries. It’s not going to happen tonight.
‘I guess I’d better go.’
‘Are you going to sit outside again?’ She doesn’t make it sound like an
accusation. ‘I saw you last night.’
‘I went for a walk.’
‘You were sitting out there for two hours, on the wall, beneath the tree.’
‘It was a nice evening.’
She gazes at me curiously. ‘You don’t have to guard us, Joe.’
‘I know. It was an odd day yesterday.’
‘Why?’
‘I missed the girls.’
‘You’re seeing them most days.’
‘I know, but I still missed them.’
She gives me a melancholy smile and holds the door. I lean close and
she lets me kiss her. I hold my cheek against hers.
Stepping outside, I walk down the path and turn. Julianne is standing
motionless in the doorway, the light framing her body and creating a halo
around her head that disappears as the door closes.
 2
Home now is a small two-storey terrace in Station Road, less than half a
mile from my old life. Trains stopped running through Wellow in 1956 but
there’s still an old station building at the end of the street, which someone
has converted into a long narrow house with a covered verandah where the
platform used to be.
The tracks were ripped up long ago but it’s possible to trace the route of
the railway line to a red-brick viaduct with a grand arch, which is the
signature photograph of the village.
My terrace is darker than a cave because the windows are so small and
the rooms are full of faded oriental rugs, wobbly side tables and old-lady
furniture. Charlie and Emma have to share a bedroom when they sleep over,
but Emma often crawls into my bed with me, forcing me downstairs on to
the sofa because her core body temperature is akin to nuclear fusion. I don’t
mind the sofa. I can watch late-night movies or obscure sports that don’t
seem to have any rules.
There are three messages on my answering machine. Message one is
from Bruno Kaufman, my boss at the university.
Joseph, old boy, just reminding you about the staff meeting Thursday.
Peter Tooley wants to cut the post-grad programme. We have to fight this.
Call me.
Clunk!
Message two. Charlie:
Are you picking me up? Remember we have rehearsal. Hey, I got a joke.
There’s this tray of muffins being baked in the oven and one muffin says to
another, ‘Man, it’s getting hot in here.’ And the other muffin says, ‘Holy
shit! A talking muffin.’
She laughs like a drain.
Clunk!
Message three is from my mother, reminding me about my father’s
birthday next week.
Please don’t send him any more Scotch. I’m trying to get him to cut
down. Oh, I almost forgot, you’ll never guess who I saw in Cardiff last
week. Cassie Pritchard. You remember Cassie. We took that holiday with
the Pritchards to the Lake District when you were fourteen? You and Cassie
got on so well together . . .
(If memory serves, Cassie Pritchard pushed me out of a rowing boat and
I almost died of pneumonia.) ... the poor thing has broken up with her
husband in a messy divorce. Now she’s on her own. I have her phone
number. You should give her a call. Cheer her up. Hope the girls are well.
Send them my love.
Clunk!
I hold down the erase button. Wait for the beep. The counter resets to
zero.
I look at my watch. It’s not quite ten. There’s still time for an evening
stroll to the Fox and Badger, the village pub. Collecting my coat, I step out
the door and turn along the High Street.
A few minutes later I pull open the heavy door. Smell the beer fumes.
The pub is noisy and energetic, full of lumpy bodies and flushed faces.
Locals. Regulars. Most of them I recognise, even if I don’t know their
names.
There is a fireplace that must be ten foot wide and four feet high with a
box-shaped wood stove and newly chopped faggots stacked alongside. Side
by side above the hearth, a fox and a badger (just their heads) peer forlornly
at proceedings.
A smaller fireplace in the lounge bar has a brace of pheasants above the
hearth and a sticker that reads: ‘If it’s called the tourist season, why can’t
we shoot them?’
Half a dozen youngsters have taken over a corner of the lounge beneath
a string of fairy lights and the pheasants. Some of the girls look underage in
tight jeans and short tops. Bratz dolls grown up.
The publican, Hector, raises his eyes and pours me a Scotch. One drink
won’t hurt. I’ll start my new regime tomorrow. Show Mr Parkinson who’s
the better man.
Hector is the unofficial convenor of the local divorced men’s club,
which meets once a month at the pub. I’m not a natural joiner and, since
I’m technically not divorced, I’ve avoided most of the meetings but I do
play in the pub’s over-35s’ football team. There are fifteen of us - a number
that allows for frequent substitutions and prevents avoidable heart attacks. I
play defence. Right back. Leaving the faster men to play up front. I like to
imagine myself more in the classic European-style sweeper role, threading
precision long balls that split the defence.
We have nicknames. I am known as ‘Shrink’ for obvious reasons.
‘Hands’ is our goalkeeper - a retired pilot who had a brain tumour - and our
star striker, Jimmy Monroe, is called ‘Marilyn’ (but not to his face). They’re
a reasonable bunch of lads. None of them asks about my condition, which is
pretty obvious from some of my miskicks. After the game, we nurse our
bruises at the Fox and Badger, sharing non-confessional personal stories.
We don’t confide. We never disclose an intimacy. We are men.
I finish my drink and have another, nursing it slowly. At eleven o’clock
Hector signals last orders. My mobile is vibrating. It’s Julianne. I wonder
what she’s doing up so late.
I press the green button and try to say something clever. She cuts me
off.
‘Come quickly! It’s Sienna. Something’s wrong! She’s covered in
blood!’
‘Blood?’
‘I couldn’t make her stay. We have to find her.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘She just ran away.’
‘Call 999. I’m coming.’
I grab my coat from a wooden hook and pull open the door, breaking
into a trot as I thread my arms through the sleeves. The pavement slabs are
cracked and uneven under my feet. Turning down Mill Hill, I pick up speed,
letting gravity carry me towards the cottage in jarring strides.
Julianne is waiting outside, a torch swinging frenetically in her hand.
‘Where did she go?’
She points towards the river, her voice cracking. ‘She rang the doorbell.
I screamed when I saw her. I must have scared her.’
‘Did she say anything?’
She shakes her head.
The door is open. I can see Charlie sitting on the stairs clutching her
pillow. We gaze at each other and something passes between us. A promise.
I’ll find her.
I turn to leave.
‘I want to come,’ says Julianne.
‘Wait for the ambulance. Send Charlie back to bed.’
 I take the torch from her cold fingers and turn at the gate. The river is
hidden in the trees, eighty yards away. Swinging the torch from side to side,
I peer over the hedges and into the neighbouring field.
Reaching the small stone footbridge and a wider concrete causeway, I
shout Sienna’s name. The road - unmade, single lane, with hedgerows on
either side - leads out of the village.
Why would she run? Why head this way?
I keep thinking of when I dropped her off. The boyfriend. She skipped
into his arms. Maybe there was a car crash. He could be injured too.
The beam of the torch reflects off the evening dew and creates long
shadows through the trees. I stop on the bridge. Listen. Water over rocks; a
dog barking; others follow.
‘Sieeeeenna!’
The sound bounces off the arch of the footbridge and seems to echo
along the banks of the narrow stream. They call it a river, but in places you
can jump from one side to the other. Emma catches minnows here and
Gunsmoke cools off after chasing rabbits.
I call Sienna’s name again, feeling an awful sense of déjà vu. Two years
ago I searched this same road, looking for Charlie, calling her name,
peering over farm gates and fences. She was knocked from her pushbike
and kidnapped by a man who chained her to a sink and wrapped masking
around her head, allowing her to breathe through a rubber hose. The man
was caught and locked away, but how does a twelve-year-old recover from
something like that? How does she set foot outside her house, or look a
stranger in the eyes, or trust anyone again?
I have never forgotten the sense of panic that tore through my soft
organs like a spinning blade when I knew Charlie was missing, when I
searched and couldn’t find her.
A scurrying sound to my left. Footsteps on dead leaves. I swing the
torch back and forth. Soft crying. I listen for the sound again. Nothing.
My left arm is trembling. Swapping hands, I move the beam of light
slowly along the banks, trying to find the source of the sound, wishing it
into being, solid and visible. It came from somewhere on the far bank, in
the trees.
Scrambling down the side of the bridge, I slide into the water. Sinking.
Mud and sediment suck at my shoes. I reach down and almost overbalance,
catching the torch before it topples into the river.
 Wading to the far bank, I discover brambles growing to the water’s
edge. Thorns catch on my clothes and skin. Head first. Crawling forward. I
can’t hear crying any more.
Game birds flushed from the undergrowth explode into the clearing
making my heart pound against the walls of my chest. Unhooking the last
of the vines from my clothes, I stand and listen.
The weak moonlight is deceptive. The trees become people. Branches
become limbs. An army marching through the darkness.
I can’t find her - not in the dark. I should be fitter. I should be sober. I
should have better eyesight. I should take my time or I’ll walk straight past
her.
The torch swings in another arc and picks up a flash of white before
continuing.
Go back!
Where?
There she is! Huddled between the roots of a tree like a discarded doll.
Still in her black dress. Water lapping at her bare legs. She’s on the far
bank. I chose the wrong side. I’m in the river now, falling rather than
jumping, wading towards her, my scrotum retracting in the cold.
‘It’s only me, Sienna,’ I whisper. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. Everything’s
going to be fine.’
My fingers frozen and numb, I feel for a pulse on her neck. Her eyes are
open. Flat. Cold.
I put her arm over my shoulder and slide one hand beneath her thighs
and another behind her back.
‘I’m just going to pick you up now.’
She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t resist. She weighs nothing, but I’m
unsteady. Carrying her back along the bank, I walk blindly because I can’t
point the torch properly. All the while, I’m talking to Sienna, whispering
between heavy breaths, telling her not to worry.
My ankle snags on a root, sending me sideways. At the last moment I
take the impact on my shoulder, protecting Sienna’s head.
A sudden surge of panic rips the calmness. She hasn’t said a word.
Hasn’t moved. She might be dead. She might never be able to tell me who
did this to her.
The bridge. The arch. I have to free my arm and use a sapling to pull
both of us up the bank to the edge of the road. Sienna hangs limply from my
other arm, a dead weight, being pulled across the ground.
‘Stay with me, sweetheart. We’re almost there.’
One last effort, I drag her to the edge of the bridge and lever myself
over the wall, holding her body to stop her tumbling back down the slope.
There are torches dancing between the trees, coming towards us. Blue
flashing lights decorate the sky above them.
I put Sienna down gently, cradling her head against my chest. Breathing
hard.
‘I told you we’d make it.’
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t blink. Her skin is cold, but I can feel a
pulse beneath my fingers.
‘There they are!’ someone yells.
A powerful light illuminates every detail of the scene. I hold up my
hand to shield my eyes.
‘She needs a doctor.’
I glance down at Sienna and notice the blood. I thought it was mud on
her thighs and hands, but she’s bleeding. Her eyes are open, staring blindly
past me.
A paramedic crouches beside me on the bridge, taking Sienna and
laying her on the tarmac with a coat beneath her head. He yells instructions
to his partner. Pulse. Blood pressure. Good signs.
Another set of hands helps me to stand, holding me up, making sure I
don’t fall. One of them is asking me questions.
Did I find her in the water? Was she conscious? Did she fall? Is she
allergic to any drugs?
I don’t know.
‘She’s my daughter’s best friend,’ I say through chattering teeth.
What a stupid statement! What difference does that make?
Julianne’s face appears in front of me. ‘He’s shivering. Get him a
blanket.’
Her arms wrap around me and I feel her warmth. She will not fail. She
will not let me go.
The ambulance reverses down the hill. The back doors open. A litter
slides from within. Sienna is rolled on to a spinal board and lifted on the
count of three.
‘We have to take you to the hospital, sir,’ says a paramedic.
‘My name is Joe.’
 ‘We have to take you to the hospital, Joe.’
‘I’m all right - just out of breath.’
‘It’s a precaution. Do you know this girl?’
‘Her name is Sienna.’
‘You can ride with Sienna. Try to keep her calm.’
Calm? She’s catatonic. She’s a statue.
Wrapped in a silver trauma blanket, I’m half pushed and half lifted into
the ambulance. Julianne wants to come with me, but she has Charlie and
Emma to think about.
The right door closes.
‘Call me,’ she says.
The left door locks shut. A hand hammers a signal and we’re moving.
‘Did she take anything?’ asks the paramedic.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘No.’
He shines a pencil-torch in her eyes and slips an oxygen mask over her
face.
The siren wails, chasing us through the darkness. Sienna is lying
completely still, her limbs muddy and pale, her stomach rising and falling
with each breath.
I keep seeing her in the beam of the torch - a spectral figure with her
brown hair hanging in a fringe across her face. She was looking at me as
though she’d seen something terrible or done something worse.
 3
It has just gone midnight and the sky is a black sponge. Police vans are
parked outside the Royal United Hospital and four paramedics are kicking a
coffee cup around the ambulance bay, scoring goals between the bins.
My feet move unsteadily, as though unsure of the depth of the ground.
Ushered through swinging doors, I follow a young triage nurse to a
consulting room. She takes my wet clothes and hands me a hospital gown
and a thin blue blanket.
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
believe 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 of 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.’
‘You could have stayed inside.’
 ‘I don’t mind the cold.’
Climbing out, she shakes my hand. Holds it. Looks into my eyes. ‘You
didn’t stop earlier.’
‘I saw you were busy.’
Her hands go to the pockets of her overcoat. She’s short and round with
a wardrobe of tailored trousers and men’s shoes. Dark shadows beneath her
eyes betray her tiredness, but there’s something more.
‘I’ve come to check on the cat,’ she says.
‘Yeah. Sure.’
Eighteen months ago the DCI dropped by unexpectedly and presented
me with a box. Inside was a straw-coloured kitten, part of a litter that had
been born in her barn a few weeks earlier.
‘I have a dog,’ I said.
‘You need a cat.’
‘Why?’
‘You own a dog but you need something to own you. That’s what cats
do. She’ll boss you around. Run the place.’
The detective put the box on the floor. It contained six cans of cat food,
a bag of cat litter and two plastic dishes. Reaching inside, she pulled out the
kitten, which hung over her palm like a sock.
‘Isn’t she’s a beauty? She’ll keep you company.’
‘I don’t need company.’
‘Hell you don’t. You sleep alone. You work part-time. You’re home a
lot. I got all the stuff you need. She’s vaccinated but you might want to get
her neutered in about four months.’
She thrust the kitten at me and it clung to my sweater as if I were a tree.
I couldn’t think of what to say except, ‘It’s very thoughtful of you, Ronnie.’
‘If she’s anything like her mother, she’ll be a good ratter.’
‘I don’t have any rats.’
‘And you won’t.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Call her what you like.’
Emma named her Strawberry - ‘because she’s coloured like straw’ -
don’t ask me to explain the logic of a preschooler.
When Charlie was kidnapped, Ronnie Cray was in charge of the police
investigation. I think she blamed herself for not protecting my family. Some
tragedies forge friendships. Others are touchstones for too many bad
memories. I don’t know what I have with Ronnie. Maybe it’s a friendship.
Maybe we’re sharing the guilt.
Whatever the case, the detective has stayed in touch, calling me every
so often to ask about the cat. Occasionally, she talks about cases that she’s
working on, dropping in details she thinks might intrigue me. I don’t take
the bait.
One night she phoned from the scene of a hostage crisis where a man
had barricaded himself in a house with his ex-wife who he’d doused with
petrol. Ronnie asked for my help. I said no.
Afterwards I sat up late watching Sky News, listening to the reports on
failing banks, repossessions and market meltdowns, hoping the stories
would stay the same. I also prayed, which is bizarre because I don’t believe
in God. I’m not superstitious either, yet I crossed my fingers. I willed things
not to occur, even though that’s impossible.
I sat up all night watching the news, certain that if I maintained my vigil
nothing bad would happen. I didn’t go to bed until the sun had come up and
the beautiful TV couples were smiling brightly from their morning sofas. I
had saved another life.
Cray has stepped past me into the hallway without waiting for an
invitation. She shrugs off her coat and tosses it over the back of a chair. I
always forget how short she is until we’re standing side by side. I’m
looking at the crown of her head. Her bristled hair is pepper grey.
‘I saw you on TV the other week,’ I say. ‘You’ve been promoted.’
‘Yeah, I’m sleeping my way to the top.’ Her laugh sounds like gravel
rash. ‘How’s the shaking business?’
‘Up and down.’
‘Is that a Parkinson’s joke?’
‘Sorry.’
She’s about to light another cigarette.
‘I don’t let people smoke in the house.’
The lighter sparks in her cupped hands. ‘I appreciate you making an
exception.’ She inclines her head as she exhales. The smoke floats past her
eyes. I can’t hold her gaze.
As if on cue, Strawberry appears, walking silently into the kitchen and
sniffing at Cray’s shoes. Perhaps she can smell her mother. The DCI leans
down and scoops up the cat with one hand, studying her eyes for answers.
‘She’s getting fat.’
 ‘She’s part sloth.’
‘You’re feeding her too much.’
Cray drops Strawberry and watches her twist in the air, landing on her
feet. The cat walks to her food bowl, looks unimpressed, and saunters off to
find a suntrap.
The DCI takes a seat, ashes her cigarette in a saucer. ‘You don’t seem
very happy to see me, Professor.’
‘I know why you’re here.’
‘I need your help.’
‘No you don’t.’
The statement comes out too harshly, but Cray doesn’t react.
One part of me desperately wants to know what happened to Ray
Hegarty, why Sienna was covered in blood, why she ran . . . At the same
time I feel a swelling in my throat that makes my voice vibrate. I shouldn’t
want to do this again. The last time it cost me almost everything.
‘You know this girl.’
‘She’s a friend of Charlie’s.’
‘Did she say anything to you?’
‘No. She was too traumatised.’
‘See? You know all about this stuff.’
‘I can’t help you.’
Cray glances out the window where a swathe of sunshine has cut across
the field turning the grass silver.
‘The man who died last night was a retired detective by the name of
Ray Hegarty. He worked for Bristol CID for twenty years. He was my boss.
My friend.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She makes a quick sucking noise and her eyes glaze over. ‘I thought
Hegarty was a prick when I first met him. He didn’t want me on his team
and he did nothing to stop the bullying and cruel pranks. He gave me every
shit job he could find - the dirty bodies, death knocks, cleaning out the
drunk tank - I thought he was trying to break me or force me out, but it was
just his way of toughening me up for the bigger challenges.’
Ophidian eyes blink through the smoke and her thumb passes over her
lips. ‘He taught me everything I know. His rules. I guess I grew to respect
his achievements and then to respect the man.’
‘I’m sure you’ll work out what happened.’
 Anger in her eyes now, ‘If you’re having a mid-life crisis, Professor,
buy a Porsche and forget about it.’
‘It’s not a mid-life crisis.’
‘Then what’s your problem?’
‘You know the answer to that.’
Cray stands and hitches up her trousers. ‘In another lifetime I might
sympathise with you, but not this one. You don’t have a monopoly on
fucked-up families. I’ve got an overweight bad-tempered son who’s living
with an ex-junkie and claims to be writing a book about how his parents’
divorce screwed up his life even though I was pregnant longer than I was
married.
‘And now a man I respected is lying dead in his daughter’s bedroom
and the kid is so traumatised she’s not saying boo to a goose. So you see,
Professor, you won’t get any pity from me, but I will give you some
advice.’
Her cigarette hisses in the sink.
‘Suck it in, Princess, and put on your big-girl pants. You’re playing with
the grown-ups now.’
 5
Squeezed behind the steering wheel, the DCI sits forward so her feet
can reach the pedals. Eyes ahead. Jaw masticating gum. She drives as if
she’s travelling at speed, even though the Land Rover can’t hold fifth.
A cigarette is propped upright in her fist. She blows smoke out of the far
corner of her mouth. Speaks, giving me just the facts, the bare bones. Ray
Hegarty retired from the force eight years ago and set up a security business
- doing alarms, CCTV cameras, patrols and personal protection. He had
offices in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.
He had a meeting in Glasgow on Monday afternoon and stayed
overnight before driving to Manchester the next day. He was supposed to
stop overnight and fly to Dublin on Wednesday morning for two days of
meetings but the trip was cancelled. Instead he drove back to Bristol and
had a late lunch with a business partner.
‘Bottom line - he wasn’t expected home until Friday - not according to
his wife.’
‘Where was Helen?’
‘Working at St Martin’s Hospital in Bath. Her shift started at six.’
We pull up outside a house on the eastern edge of the village. Six
uniforms stand guard, blocking off the street. Blue-and-white crime-scene
tape has been threaded between two cherry trees and the front gate, twirling
in the breeze like old birthday decorations. A large white SOCO van is
parked in the driveway. Doors yawning. Metal boxes stacked inside.
Nearby, a forensic technician is crouching on the front path taking
photographs. Dressed in blue plastic overalls, a hood and matching boot
covers, he looks like an extra in a science-fiction movie.
Positioning a plastic evidence tag, he raises the camera to his eye.
Shoots. Stands. When he turns I recognise him. Dr Louis Preston - a Home
Office pathologist with a Brummie accent that makes him sound eternally
miserable.
‘I hear they woke you, Ronnie.’
‘I’m a light sleeper,’ she replies.
‘Were you with anyone in particular?’
‘My hot-water bottle.’
 ‘Now there’s a waste.’ The pathologist glances at me and nods.
‘Professor, long time no see.’
‘I would have waited.’
‘I get that a lot.’
Preston is famous for terrorising his pathology students. According to
one apocryphal story, he once told a group of trainees that two things were
required to conduct an autopsy. The first was no sense of fear. At this point
he stuck his finger into a dead man’s anus, pulled it out and sniffed it. Then
he invited each student to follow his lead and they all complied.
‘The second thing you need is an acute sense of observation,’ he told
them. ‘How many of you noticed that I stuck my middle finger into this
man’s anus, but sniffed my index finger?’
Urban myth? Compelling hearsay? Both probably. Anybody who slices
open dead people for a living has to maintain a sense of humour. Either that
or you go mad.
Turning back to the van, he collects a tripod.
‘I never thought I’d see Ray Hegarty like this. I thought he was bloody
indestructible.’
‘You were friends?’
Preston shrugs. ‘Wouldn’t go that far. Mutual respect.’
‘How did he die?’
‘Somebody hit him from behind and then severed his carotid artery.’
The pathologist runs a finger across his throat. ‘You’re looking for
something like a razor or a Stanley knife. It’s not in the bedroom.’
Cray helps him move a silver case. ‘When can we come inside?’
‘Find some overalls. Stay on the duck boards and don’t touch anything.’
The two-storey semi has wisteria twisting and climbing across the front
façade. No longer in leaf, the grey trunk looks gnarled and ancient, slowly
strangling the building. There are stacks of old roofing tiles beside the
garage doors.
Two things stand out about the house. It’s the sort of place that should
have had a long sweeping drive - all the proportions suggest it. Secondly,
it’s partially hidden from the road by a high wall covered in ivy. Tall trees
are visible beyond the slate roof and chimneys. The curtains downstairs are
open. Anyone approaching would have seen the lights on.
‘Was the door locked or unlocked?’
‘Open,’ says Cray. ‘Sienna ran. She didn’t bother pulling it closed.’
 Stepping on to the first of a dozen duckboards, I follow her through the
front door and along a passage.
‘Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.’
Cray looks at me. ‘Who wrote that?’
‘Oscar Wilde.’
‘Some of those Micks could write.’
Orange fluorescent evidence markers are spaced intermittently on the
stairs, distinguishing blood spots. A camera flashes upstairs, sending a pulse
of light through the railings.
I turn and study the front door. No burglar alarm. Basic locks. For a
security consultant, Ray Hegarty didn’t take many personal precautions.
‘Who lives next door?’
‘An old bloke, a widower.’
‘Did he hear anything?’
‘I don’t think he’s heard anything since the Coronation.’
‘Any sign of forced entry?’
‘No.’
‘Who had keys?’
‘Just the family members. There’s the other daughter, Zoe. She’s at
university in Leeds. She’s driving down now with her boyfriend. And
there’s Lance, who’s twenty-two. He works for a motorcycle mechanic in
Bristol. Rents his own place.’
The sitting room and dining room are tastefully furnished. Neat. Clean.
There are so many things that could be disturbed - plants in pots,
photographs in frames, books on shelves, cushions on the sofas - but
everything seems in place.
The kitchen is tidy. A single plate rests in the sink, with a cutting board
covered in breadcrumbs. Helen made a sandwich for lunch or a snack to
take to work. She left a note on the fridge for Sienna telling her to
microwave a lasagne for dinner.
Through the kitchen there is an extension that was probably a sunroom
until it was turned into a bedroom. Refitted after Zoe’s attack, it has a single
bed, a desk, closet and chintz curtains, as well as a ramp leading down to
the garden. The en suite bathroom has a large shower and handrails. On the
dresser there is a picture of Zoe playing netball, balanced on one leg as she
passes the ball.
Walking back along the hallway, I notice the door beneath the stairs is
ajar. Easing it open with my shoe, I see an overnight bag on the floor. Ray
Hegarty’s overcoat hangs on a wooden peg. He came home, hung up his
coat and tossed down his bag. Then what?
Something drew him upstairs. A sound. A voice.
Cray goes ahead of me, stepping over evidence markers as she climbs
each step without touching the banister. The main bedroom is straight
ahead. Two doors on the left lead to a bathroom and second bedroom.
Sienna’s room is off to the right. Ray Hegarty lies face down on a rug
beside her bed with his arms outstretched, head to one side, eyes open.
Blood has soaked through the rug and run along cracks in the floorboards.
His business shirt is stained by bloody handprints. Small hands.
Sienna’s room is a mess with her clothes spilling from drawers and
draped over the end of her bed, which is unmade. Her duvet is bunched
against the wall and a hair-straightening iron peeks from beneath her pillow.
I notice a shoebox, which has been customised with photographs
clipped from magazines. Someone has pulled it from beneath the bed and
opened the lid to reveal a collection of bandages, plasters, needles and
thread. It is Sienna’s cutting box and also her sewing kit.
The untidiness of the room could be teenage-induced. I have one of
those at home - messy, sullen and self-absorbed - but this looks more like a
quick ransacking. A search.
‘Is anything missing?’ I ask.
Cray answers. ‘Nothing obvious. We won’t know until we interview the
family.’
‘Where’s Helen?’
‘At the hospital with Sienna.’
Crouching beside the body, I notice blood splatters, some large and
others barely visible, sprayed as high as the ceiling. A hockey stick lies near
his right hand. Lacquered to a shine, it has a towelling grip in school
colours.
I squat motionless in the centre of the room, trying to get a sense of the
events. Ray Hegarty was hit from behind and fell forward. There are no
signs of a struggle, no defence wounds or bruises or broken furniture.
 Turning my head, I notice an oval-shaped mirror on a stand, which is
reflecting a white square of light on to the bed, highlighting the small blue
flowers stitched into the sheets.
I look at myself reflected in the mirror and can also see the door behind
me. Stepping over the body, I partially close the door and stand behind it.
Glancing towards the mirror, I can see Cray reflected in the open doorway.
Her eyes meet mine.
‘What is it?’
‘This is where they stood. The mirror told them when Ray Hegarty was
in the doorway.’
‘But there’s hardly any room.’
‘The door was half-closed.’
‘Someone small.’
‘Maybe.’
Almost immediately I remember Sienna’s face bleached by the beam of
the torch. There was something in her eyes . . . a terrible knowledge.
Louis Preston emerges from the bathroom, looking like a surgeon
preparing to operate.
‘There are traces of blood in the S-bend of the sink.’
‘Somebody cleaned up.’
‘Forensic awareness is such an important life skill,’ says Preston. ‘I
blame it on American cop shows. They’re like “how-to” guides. How to
clean up a crime scene, how to dispose of the weapon, how to get away
with murder . . .’
Cray winks at me. ‘What’s wrong, Preston, did some smart defence
lawyer punch a pretty little hole in your procedures?’
‘I got no beef with defence lawyers. Some of my best friends are bottom
feeders. It’s the juries I can’t abide. Unless they see fingerprints, fibres, or
DNA, they’ll never convict. They want the proverbial smoking gun, but
sometimes there aren’t any forensic clues. The scene is cleaned up or
washed by rain or contaminated by third parties. We’re scientists, not
magicians.’
Preston scratches his nose and looks at his index finger as though he
finds it fascinating.
Meanwhile, I wander across the landing to the bathroom. A wicker
laundry basket is tucked beneath the sink. The toilet seat is down. The
shelves above the sink are neatly arranged with toothpaste, toothbrushes
(three of them), liquid soap and mouthwash. The hand-towel beside the sink
is neatly folded and hung over the railing.
‘They tidied the place,’ I say out loud.
Cray appears behind me.
‘Make any sense?’
‘Not much.’
‘Did Ray Hegarty make many enemies in the job?’
‘We all make enemies.’
It’s not an answer.
‘Any skeletons?’
Her voice hardens. ‘He was a good copper. Straight.’
A different SOCO appears at the base of the stairs. Calls to Preston. ‘I
found a stash of porn in the shed. You want me to bag it?’
‘What sort of porn?’ asks the pathologist.
‘Magazines, DVDs ...’
‘Anything unusual?’
‘Like what?’
‘Rape scenes, violent fantasies, anything involving children.’
Cray stiffens in protest. Already she wants to safeguard Ray Hegarty’s
reputation. A murder investigation is a circus of possibilities, where the
spotlight is so fierce it reveals every blemish and flaw. The victim is also
placed on trial and sometimes they die all over again in the courtroom -
portrayed as being somehow responsible and slandered as viciously as they
were stabbed or strangled or shot.
Cray won’t let that happen. Not this time. Not to her friend.
Outside, the crowd has thinned out. A few remaining teenagers are
loitering on the far side of the lane, kicking aimlessly at dead leaves. A
young man swigs from a lurid can. His dark hair has blond streaks cut in a
ragged curtain that doesn’t so much frame his face as provide him
somewhere to hide.
My eyes rush to judgement. He looks familiar. Maybe it’s a sign that
I’ve seen too much of the world and now it is starting to repeat itself.
Then I remember where I’ve seen him. Sienna Hegarty kissed his cheek
and climbed into his car. The youth is still staring at me. A fringe of hair is
flicked from his eyes. He turns away and begins walking quickly.
I yell out to him and he runs, jinking between bystanders and parked
cars.
 Cray is still inside with Preston. I yell to the uniforms guarding the gate
but none of them reacts quickly enough to stop him. The kid is forty yards
ahead. Whippet thin, underfed, built for speed. I lose sight of him as he
passes under the arch of the old railway viaduct. By the time I reach the
same corner he’s disappeared completely.
I notice a farm track on the left. It’s the only possibility. Turning up the
twin ruts, I keep running, feeling a weight hang around my heart and lungs.
Walking hasn’t made me any fitter.
Ahead, a car engine starts, rumbling through a broken muffler. The
Peugeot accelerates out of a muddy farmyard, the back tyres snaking in the
slick puddles. He’s not slowing down. I’m caught on the grassy ridge
between the twin tracks with hedges on either side.
I raise my hand. He doesn’t stop. At the last moment I throw myself to
one side, curling my legs away from the spinning wheels.
Lying on my back, I take a deep breath and gaze at a bank of moving
clouds, listening to my heart thudding.
‘Are you all right?’ asks a voice in a slow West Country drawl. It’s
Alasdair Riordan, the farmer I saw earlier.
‘I’m fine.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Resting.’
He nods, satisfied, and turns back to his tractor.
‘Did you see that car?’ I ask.
Alasdair pulls off his woollen hat and scratches an itch on his scalp.
‘Aye, I did.’
‘It almost ran me down.’
‘Aye.’
‘You didn’t happen to get the number?’
He replaces his hat and shakes his head. ‘I’m not too good with
numbers.’
A moment later two uniforms appear. Ronnie Cray is behind them,
sweating profusely.
‘You all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘Who was in the car?’
‘Sienna’s boyfriend.’
 She registers the information like a fevered prospector. ‘You should
have left it to us.’
‘He ran. I chased.’
‘What are you - a dog?’ She looks at her muddy shoes. ‘I hope that kid
knows how to polish.’
My mobile is vibrating.
‘What happened to Sienna?’ blurts Charlie, close to tears.
‘She’s in hospital.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘She’s in shock, but I think she’ll be fine.’
I can hear playground noises in the background.
‘They’re saying that Mr Hegarty is dead. They’re saying that Sienna
killed him.’
‘We don’t know what happened.’
‘But he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I go and see Sienna?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Can I call her?’
‘No.’
She sniffles and blows her nose. Charlie rarely cries. She bottles things
up. Holds them inside. Ever since the kidnapping, I have watched her
closely, anticipating problems. Is she eating and sleeping properly? Is she
socialising normally? Sometimes I dare to hope the worst is over, but then
the nightmares will return and she cries out, clawing the air, snatching at
unseen things in the darkness. Stumbling to her room, I kneel beside her
bed, stroking her forehead and talking softly. Her eyes will open, looking
vacuously into space as though a terrible revelation about life has been
whispered in her ear.
This was my fault, my doing, and I would flay the skin from my back if
I could rewind the clock and protect her next time. I don’t want to assuage
the guilt. I want to change her memories.
 6
Midday. Wednesday. I’m walking the same brightly lit hospital
corridors, smelling the disinfectant and floor polish. Sienna’s room is still
under guard. Detective Sergeant Colin ‘Monk’ Abbott, a black Londoner, is
dozing on a chair with his legs outstretched and head resting on the wall. He
must have pulled an all-nighter. Mrs Monk won’t be happy. I met her once
at a DIY store in Bristol. She was half Monk’s size, trying to control three
young boys who were treating their father like a climbing frame.
Monk rocks to his feet. He could touch the ceiling.
‘She awake?’ asks Cray.
‘Yes, boss.’
‘She said anything?’
‘No.’
A doctor comes out of the room, his white coat unbuttoned and a
stethoscope draped around his neck. He’s young, no more than twenty-six,
lean like a greyhound, running on machine coffee and the adrenalin of
residency.
‘How is she?’ asks the DCI.
‘Physically, she’s fine.’
‘Is there a “but” in there somewhere?’
‘Her hearing and speech seem to be functioning normally and she’s
responding to visual stimuli, but her heart rate keeps surging.’
‘She’s traumatised,’ I say.
The doctor nods and scratches his initials on a form. ‘Quite possibly, but
the neurologist wants to rule out brain damage. He’s ordered a CT scan.’
Cray opens the door. Helen Hegarty is sitting beside Sienna’s bed,
holding her daughter’s hand. Tight-lipped and tired, she’s dressed in her
nurse’s uniform with the pockets of her cardigan stretched out of shape. Her
dyed hair is falling out of a kind of topknot and occasionally she reaches up
and pats it with her hand.
The detective motions her outside. Helen kisses Sienna’s forehead,
telling her she won’t be long.
‘Mrs Hegarty, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Cray. We’ve met once or
twice before.’
 ‘You were at Ray’s farewell.’
The DCI nods gently. ‘That’s right. I’m investigating his death.’
The statement seems to wash over Helen.
‘Ray was a good friend. A fine detective.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Has Sienna said anything?’
Helen shakes her head. ‘She woke about an hour ago. Her eyes opened
and she said hello, but then she fell asleep again.’
‘That’s a good sign,’ I tell her. ‘She’s probably just trying to process
things.’
Helen glances at me. ‘You’re Charlie’s dad.’
‘Yes. Call me Joe.’
Helen wipes her hands before she shakes mine. ‘Thank you for finding
her.’
Ronnie Cray motions her to a chair. Helen sits, unsure of where to put
her hands. She presses them in her lap. The detective sits next to her,
turning her body so they face each other, knees almost touching.
‘What time did you leave the house last night, Mrs Hegarty?’
‘At about a twenty to six.’
‘How long have you worked at St Martin’s?’
‘Four years.’
‘Where was Sienna when you went to work?’
‘On her way home. There was a rehearsal at school. She’s in the
musical.’ Helen looks up at me. ‘Joe was bringing her home.’
Cray turns to me for an explanation.
‘But Sienna called you,’ I say to Helen. ‘She told you that her boyfriend
was going to bring her home. I heard her talking to you.’
A sad, crumpled smile creases her face. ‘She can be such a devil.’ As
soon as the words leave her lips she regrets them. ‘I don’t mean . . . Sienna
wouldn’t do anything to hurt . . . she loved her dad.’
Cray interrupts her. ‘What do you know about this boyfriend?’
‘I haven’t met him, but I know he’s older and he drives a car.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘Danny Gardiner.’
‘How long has Sienna been seeing him?’
‘About eight months.’ Helen glances at me, looking for understanding.
‘I tried to put a stop to it because Sienna was only thirteen, but she was
always sneaking out to see him. You can’t lock them up, can you?
Sometimes I wish I could.’
‘How did Sienna meet him?’
‘Danny went to school with Lance - my son.’
‘Does he live locally?’
‘Somewhere in Bath. His mother works as a tour guide.’
The DCI presses her chin to her chest, choosing her words carefully.
‘Do you know what time Sienna got home last night?’
Helen shakes her head.
‘And you weren’t expecting your husband back?’
‘Not until Friday.’
There is a pause. I’m watching Helen’s body language, looking for signs
of outright deception or omission. Shy and unadorned, she strikes me as a
hard worker, private and uncomplicated. She must have been a beauty in
her youth, but lack of sleep and a poor diet have spun the clock forward.
A few times I’ve seen her walking through the village dressed in clothes
that might have been bought twenty years ago. She reminded me of a
factory worker during the war, when women took over men’s jobs, wearing
loose dungarees and oversized cardigans. It made her about as sexy as an
older sister, but she went about her business with a quiet acceptance.
‘Who knew your husband was coming home last night?’ asks Cray.
She shrugs.
‘Sienna?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘How did they get on - Ray and Sienna?’
‘Fine. They had their moments.’
‘Moments?’
Helen holds the cuffs of her cardigan in her closed fists. ‘You try to set
boundaries. Kids try to cross them.’
‘Did your husband ever touch Sienna inappropriately? Did he ever give
you any cause for concern?’
Helen’s face goes through a transformation from concern to amazement
and then anger.
‘Not my Ray! He wouldn’t do something like that.’
Her features have become tighter and smaller, rushing to the centre of
her face.
 ‘How dare you suggest - how dare you think . . . He hated nonces. He
put them away.’
Cray reaches out and touches Helen’s hand. ‘I’m sorry. It’s something I
had to ask.’
I know exactly what the DCI has done. Sienna is an obvious suspect
who has yet to be interviewed. With one simple question, Cray has
undermined one of her possible defences - sexual abuse. Helen might
change her mind later, but the impact of her future testimony will be
diluted, picked apart by the prosecution, made less believable.
Cray continues to talk softly, asking if Ray Hegarty had any obvious
enemies. Had he argued with anyone? Did he have any money worries?
‘We have to interview Sienna, you understand?’
Helen’s gaze drifts past me to the hospital room.
‘You can be there or you can ask someone else - another adult to be with
her. Someone like Professor O’Loughlin.’
‘My Sienna didn’t do it . . . she wouldn’t . . .’
‘Detective Sergeant Abbott is going to take you to Flax Bourton
Coroner’s Court. Somebody has to formerly identify Ray’s body. Can you
do that for me? I could ask one of your other children.’
‘No. I’ll do it.’
Monk steps forward and picks up Helen’s handbag from the floor.
From the far end of the corridor comes the sound of a commotion,
heavy boots and shouting. Lance Hegarty knocks over a young nurse who is
trying to slow him down. Wearing a scuffed leather jacket and grease-
stained jeans, his hair is shaved to black stubble that looks like a skullcap
on his pale skin.
Monk intercepts him, hooking one arm across his chest, plucking him
off his feet.
‘Get your hands off me, you black bastard!’
Helen yells, ‘Put him down!’
Monk and Cray exchange a glance. It says more than words.
The DS releases his hold and Lance wraps his arms around his mother,
stroking her hair with a tattooed hand. Then he looks at Cray, challenging
her.
‘What happened to Sienna? Did someone hurt her? Who did it?’
The DCI puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Your father is dead. I’m sorry for
your loss.’
 ‘You’re sorry?’
‘He was a fine man.’
‘He was a fucking monster!’
The words seem to detonate in the enclosed space. Helen puts her hand
on Lance’s chest. Fingers spread. Calming him.
Lance looks at her. ‘What about sis?’
Cray answers. ‘Sienna is going to be just fine.’
‘Can I see her? Is she in there?’
Before Lance can reach the door, Monk bodychecks him.
‘Get this gorilla away from me!’
The DCI rocks forward and digs a thumb into Lance’s ribs. He flinches
and whines, ‘What was that for?’
‘That’s to remind you to show some respect, son.’
Lance gives her a denigrating sneer before lowering his gaze. I watch
from the doorway as he approaches the bed. One look at Sienna and his
anger evaporates. Reaching out, he tentatively brushes his fingers across her
hand lying open-palmed on the sheet.
Sienna’s eyelids flutter.
‘Hey, kid!’
She smiles weakly. ‘You’ve never held my hand.’
‘Sure I have.’
‘When?’
‘When you were little and I took you to school.’
Sienna finds it funny and squeezes his hand tighter.
‘Did you hear about Daddy? I’m trying to be sad, but I’m not.’
 7
Three fifteen. Waiting at the school gates with dozens of mothers and
grandmothers. I’m the only male here beyond the age of Huggies. I tend to
stand apart because I’m not good at making small talk or remembering their
names. I link mothers to their children: Jasper’s mum or Sophie’s mum.
One woman approaches. Young and pretty, with short auburn hair, she
buries her hands in the pockets of a Barbour jacket, which looks two sizes
too big for her. She’s probably a nanny.
‘Hello, I’m Natasha.’
‘Joe.’
‘Your Emma and my Billy are in the same class.’
She’s not a nanny after all.
‘And you have Charlie,’ she adds.
‘How do you know Charlie?’
‘My husband teaches at Shepparton Park.’
Before I can ask her husband’s name, the school bell rings and laughter
and young voices fill the playground, jostling for their bags. It takes me a
moment to spot Emma, whose schoolbag makes her look like a turtle
walking on her hind legs.
I call her name. She raises her eyes. There’s that smile.
She holds my hand - something Charlie doesn’t do any more. I loop her
bag over my shoulder and shorten my stride.
‘How are things, Emm?’
‘Good.’
‘Learn anything to today?’
‘Mrs Graveney said we were getting a male teacher.’
‘Is that so?’
‘I thought the postman was going to teach us how to put letters in
mailboxes.’
I try not to laugh. ‘That’s a different sort of mail.’
She looks at me crossly. ‘I know that now.’
We reach the terrace and Emma changes out of her uniform into a Snow
White dress she has been wearing obsessively for the past two months. By
now the neighbours will think she’s strange, but it’s not worth arguing over.
I’m sure she’s not going to be wearing it when she accepts her Nobel Prize.
I’m more concerned about her other ‘foibles’, which is a polite way of
describing her neuroses. Last week she launched her dinner plate across the
table because a meatball ‘touched’ her macaroni. What was I thinking,
putting them on the same plate!
I have learned some remarkable things since becoming a father and I
appreciate how much there is still to learn. I know, for example, that a
pound coin can pass harmlessly through the digestive system of a four-year-
old. I know that regurgitated chicken-flavoured ramen noodles and tomato
sauce will ruin a silk carpet; that nail polish sticks to the inside of a bath
and too much beetroot turns a toddler’s urine a neon crimson colour.
There is also a mysterious person living in our house called Notme, who
is responsible for leaving wet towels on the floor, empty crisp packets on
the sofa and chucking buckets of toys around the bedroom. I got so sick of
cleaning up after Notme that I made a dummy out of old pillows, dressed it
up and hung a sign on his chest saying, ‘Notme’.
Emma thinks it’s hilarious.
When I discovered locks of her beautiful hair floating in the toilet bowl
and more evidence in her bedroom, I demanded to know who did the
cutting.
‘Not me,’ said Emma.
I looked at Charlie.
‘Well, it’s not me.’
I went to the dummy. ‘Listen, Notme, did you cut Emma’s hair?’
Emma looked on nervously.
‘Notme says he didn’t do it,’ I announced.
‘Did he really say that?’
‘Really.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Oh.’
After that she confessed and took her punishment like a five-year-old.
Charlie won’t be home for another hour. In the meantime I make Emma
a snack and listen to her sound out words on her spelling list. Then she goes
into the garden and chases Gunsmoke, wanting to tie a bonnet on his head.
The Labrador lopes, stops, waits and lopes off again.
 Julianne phones at a quarter past four. The trial has been adjourned.
She’s meeting someone for a drink and will be home at six-thirty. I listen to
her voice and imagine that by ‘home’ she means coming back to me. It’s a
nice thought, if hopelessly optimistic.
At five o’clock I turn on the news. A blonde newsreader with Bambi
eyes stares unblinkingly from the screen.
A fire investigator today described how he found five bodies in a Bristol
boarding house, three of them children, all belonging to the same family of
asylum seekers.
The camera cuts to an equally well-groomed reporter, struggling to
record a piece to camera as the wind tosses her hair.
Giving evidence at a murder trial at Bristol Crown Court, Fire Officer
Jim Sherman told the jury that the house was well alight by the time the first
fire crews arrived at the scene.
The family, who were all sleeping upstairs, were trapped by the blaze,
except for Marco Kostin, aged eighteen, who managed to climb out of a
second-floor window and jump to safety.
Fire officers discovered traces of petrol in the downstairs hallway of the
house and evidence that a fuel-filled bottle had been thrown through the
front window.
The footage changes and reveals police manning barricades and forcing
back protesters outside the court.
Amid extraordinary security, the three accused arrived at the court this
morning where they were heckled by protesters and cheered by supporters.
British National Party candidate Novak Brennan waved briefly to the crowd
as he and his fellow accused, Tony Scott and Gary Dobson, were led into
court. Scott and Dobson are former BNP activists with links to neo-Nazi
organisations. All have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and
conspiracy to commit arson with the intent to endanger life.
Emma wants to watch something else because this is ‘boring’.
‘You might see Mummy,’ I tell her.
‘Why?’
‘She was there today.’
Her brow creases and she concentrates on the TV for twenty seconds,
before announcing, ‘Nope, I can’t see her.’
Losing interest, she tries to wake Strawberry, who is curled up on a
chair.
 Charlie should be home. I try to call her mobile but get her voicemail.
Perhaps she missed the bus.
When the phone rings I’m sure it’s her. Instead a male voice asks for
‘Charlotte’s father’.
My insides seem to liquefy. Nobody ever calls her Charlotte. He’s a
constable from Bath Police Station and he begins explaining that Charlie
has been arrested for assaulting a minicab driver and failing to pay a fare.
‘There must be some mistake. She’s on her way home from school.’
‘I’m holding her student card.’ He reads her full name.
The rushing sound in my ears is partly relief. Mistakes can be rectified.
At least she’s safe.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Emma.
‘To pick up Charlie.’
I put a coat over her Snow White dress and lace up her boots. I look at
my watch. Julianne should be here soon. I decide not to call her.
Bath Police Station is in Manvers Street, just up from the railway
station. It takes fifteen minutes to drive, during which I have to field
Emma’s questions, wishing somebody could answer mine. What on earth
was Charlie doing?
I find her slouching on a plastic chair in the custody suite, schoolbag
between her knees. The only other person in the room is a middle-aged
Indian man holding a bloody handkerchief to his nose.
Charlie looks at me briefly and lowers her eyes to her scuffed shoes.
She’s been crying, but the overriding emotion is frustration rather than
sorrow.
‘What happened?’
Her answer comes in a rush.
‘I was going to see Sienna, but I didn’t have enough money. I thought I
did, but it cost too much. And then he got angry.’ She points to the Sikh cab
driver. ‘I was three pounds short. Three lousy pounds. I said I’d get him the
money. I gave him my phone number. My address. But he wouldn’t let me
go.’
The driver interrupts. ‘She called me a Paki bastard. Such a foul-
mouthed girl. Truly terrible.’ His head wobbles.
‘He had his hands all over me!’
‘She broke my nose!’
‘I hardly touched him.’
 ‘She’s a thug.’
‘And you’re a pervert!’
A policeman intervenes. Constable Dwyer has gelled red hair that
makes his head look like it’s on fire. He wants to talk to me privately. I tell
Charlie to be nice and to look after Emma. She gives me a death stare -
already accusing me of taking sides against her.
The constable explains the facts. The driver, Mr Singh, picked Charlie
up from school during last period after she phoned for a minicab. He
dropped her outside the Royal United Hospital, where Charlie couldn’t pay
the fare. According to Mr Singh, she tried to run away and he had to lock
the doors. She then assaulted him.
‘He has a security camera in his cab,’ says the constable.
‘Can I see it?’
Constable Dwyer raises a hinged section of the counter and leads me to
a desk with a computer. The wide-angle footage is grainy and poorly lit,
shot from low on the dashboard. Instead of being focused on the driver, it is
aimed at the passenger seat, revealing Charlie’s legs and a flash of her
underwear as she reaches for her seatbelt.
The PC fast forwards to the argument. I can hear Charlie offering to pay
and giving her address. When she tries to get out of the car, he locks the
doors and she panics.
‘Is he allowed to imprison her?’ I ask.
‘He can make a citizen’s arrest.’
‘She’s fourteen!’
I glance at the computer screen again. ‘That’s an odd place to put a
camera, don’t you think? What was he trying to film?’
Mr Singh overhears the remark and takes offence.
‘I’m not the criminal here!’
‘Perhaps I should look at your other CCTV tapes,’ says Dwyer.
Mr Singh puffs up in protest.
‘I want her charged. And I want my medical expenses paid . . . and
compensation for loss of earnings.’
My mobile is vibrating. It’s Julianne.
‘Where are you?’
‘We won’t be long.’
‘Is everything all right?’
What am I going to tell her?
 ‘I’m at Bath Police Station. I’ll be home soon.’
‘Where are the girls?’ Her voice has gone up an octave.
‘Charlie has been cautioned for assaulting a cab driver and failing to
pay the fare.’
Silence.
Maybe I should have said nothing.
‘It’s all right. It’s under control.’
Finally she speaks - her questions coming in a rush. When? Why? How?
‘Stay calm.’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down, Joe. Where’s Emma?’
‘She’s with me.’
Emma is sitting on Charlie’s lap, playing a clapping game. I notice the
ink stains on Charlie’s fingers. She’s been fingerprinted. That’s ridiculous.
‘What’s ridiculous?’ asks Julianne.
‘Pardon?’
‘You just said something was ridiculous.’
‘It’s nothing. Got to go.’
‘Don’t hang up on me.’
‘Bye.’
I confront PC Dwyer. ‘Why has my daughter been fingerprinted? ’
‘It’s standard procedure. We take DNA samples and fingerprints to
confirm a suspect’s identity.’
‘She’s fourteen.’
‘Age isn’t an issue.’
‘This is a joke!’
Dwyer’s amiable veneer has disappeared in a heartbeat. ‘Nobody is
laughing, sir. I ran a check on your daughter. This isn’t the first time she’s
been in trouble.’
He’s talking about the shoplifting incident. I want to tell him about the
kidnapping and how Charlie was trussed up in tape and left breathing
through a hose. No wonder she panicked when the driver locked the doors
on her. But I know Charlie is listening and I want her to forget her ordeal
rather than have it brought up again.
‘She had a formal caution last time,’ says Constable Dwyer. ‘This time
the matter will be referred to the CPS.’
Mr Singh seems happier. His nose has stopped bleeding. I fancy
punching it.
 ‘So what happens now?’
‘A court summons will be sent by post. If it doesn’t arrive, she’s in the
clear.’
I look at the driver. ‘What if I offered to pay your medical bills ... and
compensation?’
His head rocks and he points to his nose.
Dwyer recovers a remnant of his former warmth. ‘It may not go any
further, sir. Take your daughter home.’
Charlie picks up her schoolbag and I take Emma’s hand. Pushing
through the doors, we descend the steps and follow the glow of streetlights
to the car. Charlie drags her feet as though carrying bricks instead of books.
Emma has fallen into a worried silence.
‘Why didn’t you call me?’ I ask.
Charlie doesn’t raise her head. ‘Don’t blame me. If that dickhead wasn’t
so uptight . . .’
‘Mind your language.’
Emma is quick. ‘What’s a dickhead?’
‘Nobody. I’m talking to Charlie.’
We sit in silence for half a mile. Charlie finally answers.
‘I called the hospital but they wouldn’t tell me anything about Sienna.’
‘So you decided to catch a cab?’
‘I didn’t realise how much it was going to cost.’
Charlie is animated now, marshalling her arguments, defending herself.
‘There were all these stories going round school. They’re saying that
Sienna killed her Dad, that she’s been arrested, that she’s tried to commit
suicide.’
‘We don’t know what happened yet.’
She takes a deep breath. ‘I saw Sienna when she came to the cottage. I
saw the blood.’
Emma is listening intently from her booster seat. How much does she
understand?
‘I don’t think we should talk about this now.’
Charlie won’t let it go. ‘You’re treating me like a child.’
‘Maybe because you’re acting like one. You’ve been arrested. God
knows what your mother will say.’
‘Don’t tell her!’
‘It’s too late. She called me.’
 Charlie groans. ‘Now she’ll get all sad and she’ll spend days looking at
me like she’s a seal pup about to be hit with a club.’
‘She’s not that bad.’
‘Yes she is. She’s sad enough already.’
Is she sad?
Julianne is standing in the doorway of the cottage as I park the car. She
opens her arms for Emma, who runs up the path. Charlie takes longer to
retrieve her bag and open the car door.
‘We still need to talk about this.’
‘Whatever.’
I hate that word - ‘whatever’. She’s telling me I don’t understand. I’ll
never understand. I’m too old. I’m too stupid. I have no taste in clothes or
music or friends. I don’t own the right language to talk to her. I don’t dread
the same things or dream the same dreams.
I’m caught in that in-between place, unsure whether I can be a father or
a friend to Charlie, knowing I can’t be both.
Right now she is like a separate nation state seeking independence,
wanting her own government, laws and budget. Whenever I try to avoid
conflict, choosing diplomacy instead of hostility, she masses her troops at
the border, accusing me of spying or sabotaging her life.
She walks up the path and steps around Julianne, going straight upstairs
to her room.
Julianne calls out to me. ‘Did she say why?’
‘Sienna.’
‘We’ll talk about it later.’
The door closes and I sit on the low brick wall across the lane, beneath
the overhanging branches. Gazing at the cottage, I can sometimes make out
silhouettes behind the curtains. Right now Julianne is getting Emma ready
for bed. Next will come the brushing of teeth, the reading of bedtime
stories, a kiss, a hug, a thirsty summons, and one final hug before the light
is turned down.
I know the script. I know the stage directions. I no longer have a walk-
on part.
 8
It’s six thirty-five. Still dark outside. Sometimes I wake like this, aware
of a sound where no sound belongs. The terrace is old and full of
inexplicable creaks and groans, as if complaining of being neglected.
Footsteps in the attic. Branches scratching against glass.
I used to sleep like a bear, but not any more. Now I lie awake taking an
inventory of my tics and twitches, mapping my body to see what territory I
have surrendered to Mr Parkinson since yesterday.
My left leg and arm are twitching. Using my right hand, I pick up a
small white pill and take a sip of water, raising my head from the pillow to
swallow. The blue pill comes next.
After twenty minutes I take another inventory. The twitches have gone
and Mr Parkinson has been kept at bay for another few hours. Never
vanquished. Till death us do part.
At seven o’clock I turn on the radio. The news in scolding tones:
Scuffles broke out yesterday outside the trial of three men accused of
firebombing a boarding house and killing a family of five asylum seekers.
Riot police were called to quell the fighting between anti-racism protesters
and supporters of the accused, who have links to the British National Party.
Police have promised extra security when the trial resumes this morning
at Bristol Crown Court.
The second bulletin:
A decorated former detective has been brutally murdered in his home in
a village outside of Bath. DCI Ray Hegarty, who spent twenty years with
Bristol CID, bled to death in his daughter’s bedroom.
Forensic experts spent yesterday at the eighteenth-century farmhouse,
where they took bedding and carpets, while detectives interviewed
neighbours and family members. Investigators are waiting to talk to the
victim’s teenage daughter who is under police guard in hospital.
The weather forecast: patchy cloud with a chance of showers.
Maximum: 12 °C.
Gunsmoke can hear me coming down the stairs. He sleeps outside in the
laundry, an arrangement he resents because the cat sits on the windowsill
almost goading him.
 ‘A short walk today,’ I tell him.
I have work to do - a lecture at the university. Today my psychology
students will learn why people follow orders and act contrary to their
consciences. Think of the Holocaust, Abu Ghraib, black prisons and
Guantanamo Bay . . .
I make mental notes as I walk across Haydon Field. I shall tell them
about Stanley Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale
University, who in 1963 conducted one of the most famous experiments of
them all. He organised a group of volunteers to play the roles of teachers
and students and then set up an ‘electric shock’ machine. The students had
to memorise a pair of words and were ‘punished’ for any wrong answer
with a shock from the machine.
There were thirty levers, each corresponding to fifteen volts. With each
mistake, the next lever was pulled, delivering even more pain. If a teacher
hesitated they were told, ‘The experiment requires that you go on.’
The machine was a fake, of course, but the teacher volunteers didn’t
know that. Each time they pulled a new lever a soundtrack broadcast
painful groans, turning to screams at higher voltages. Finally there was
silence.
Sixty-five per cent of participants pulled levers corresponding to the
maximum 450 volts, clearly marked ‘DANGER: LETHAL’.
Milgram interviewed the volunteers afterwards, asking them why, and
was told they were just following orders. Does that sound familiar? It’s the
same excuse offered down the ages. The man in the white coat or the
military uniform is seen as a legitimate authority figure. Someone to be
believed. Someone to be obeyed.
Gunsmoke is lying in a shallow watercourse at the edge of the river
where silt has formed a beach. He drinks, pants and drinks some more.
Crossing the bridge, I walk up Mill Hill. The Labrador catches up, dripping
water from his chin. His pink tongue swings from side to side.
As I near the terrace, I see a young woman sitting in a wheelchair.
Dressed in jeans and a sweater, her dark hair is pulled back from her face
into a tight ponytail.
‘Mr O’Loughlin?’
‘Yes.’
She raises her hand to shield her eyes from the glare, but the morning
sun isn’t that strong.
 ‘I’m Zoe Hegarty.’
She looks older than nineteen, with her mother’s eyes and build.
‘Do you want to come inside?’
Zoe glances up and down the street. Shakes her head. ‘I get a bit funny
about being alone with men. No offence.’
‘None taken.’
She rolls her chair to face away from the sun, resting the wheels against
the low brick wall. Fumbling for a cigarette, she lights it apologetically.
‘Can’t smoke around Mum. She doesn’t like it.’ Turning her head, she
exhales slowly.
‘I heard about Liam’s hearing. They’re not going to release him.’
‘Not this time.’
‘But he can try again?’
‘In a year.’
Zoe nods. I wait for something more. Her hand shakes. She raises the
filter to her lips.
‘Sienna didn’t kill Daddy.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘You can tell the police.’
‘Why don’t you tell them?’
‘I have. I don’t think they’re listening.’
A car passes. She looks at it through a veil of tiredness.
‘Tell me about your father.’
She takes a deep breath. ‘It was tough being his daughter.’
‘In what way?’
‘It was like living in some Arab country with curfews and dress
regulations - home before ten, nothing above the knee.’ She holds up her
fingers. ‘I wasn’t allowed to wear nail polish, or go to parties. And how’s
this? I couldn’t wear anything red. He said only sluts wore red.’
‘What did your mother say?’
Her shoulders rise an inch and then fall.
‘Mum made excuses for him. She said he was old-fashioned.’
‘You think he was wrong?’
‘Don’t you?’ She doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘He eavesdropped on
my phone calls, opened my letters, read my diaries. I wasn’t allowed to talk
to boys or have a boyfriend. He thought I’d get pregnant or take drugs or
ruin my reputation.’
 She looks at her legs. ‘On the night Liam attacked me I wasn’t supposed
to be at the cinema. I lied to Daddy and said I was studying at a friend’s
house. After the attack, whenever he looked at me, it was like he wanted
say, “I told you so.”’
Her cigarette is almost finished. She stares at the glowing end, watching
it burn through the last of the paper.
‘Did you know that Sienna had a boyfriend?’
Zoe shrugs.
‘Did she ever mention him?’
‘No, but I guessed it.’
‘How?’
‘She seemed happier. She couldn’t tell me directly, because Daddy was
always listening in to her phone calls and reading her emails.’
‘Was Sienna sexually active?’
She hesitates, holding something back. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Why did you come here today?’
‘To tell you that Sienna didn’t do it.’
‘Did she tell you that?’
‘I just know.’
‘Was your father ever violent?’
‘He had a temper.’
‘Did he ever touch you or Sienna?’
Squeezing her eyes shut, Zoe pops them open again. ‘Would it help
her?’
Before I can respond, she adds, ‘The only reason I ask is that, in my
experience, the truth doesn’t always help people.’
‘Your experience?’
‘Yes.’
When did she become so cynical? I look again at the wheelchair and get
my answer.
Zoe takes a deep breath as if poised to push herself off a cliff.
‘It first happened when I was seven. Daddy was driving me home after I
played netball. I was wearing my pleated skirt. He bought me an ice cream.
He said it was dripping on my thighs and began wiping it off, pushing his
hand between my legs. I kept trying to hold my skirt down. He asked me if
I loved him. He said girls who loved their daddies did what they were told .
. .’
 She can’t finish the statement, but the memory shudders through her
shoulders.
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘Mummy didn’t believe me. She said I was making it up, but later I
heard them arguing. She was screaming at him and throwing things. She
broke the frame of their wedding photograph. It’s still on her dresser. You
can see where she’s patched it up with tape.
‘Later that night, Daddy came to my room, put his hand over my mouth
and nose so I couldn’t breathe. He held it there, looking into my eyes.
“That’s how easy it is,” he said. “Remember that.”
‘From then on I knew I wouldn’t be believed, so I stopped saying
anything and started trying to find ways of avoiding him. I got pretty good
at it - making sure I was never alone in the house with him, or in the car. I
stopped playing netball. I never asked to be picked up from a friend’s house
or the cinema.’
‘Did you ever tell anyone else - a teacher, a school counsellor?’
‘I told my Auntie Meaghan. She and Mum had the biggest fight. Mum
told her that I made up stories to get attention. Later she made me call
Auntie Meaghan on the phone and apologise to her for telling lies.’
I feel my breath catching. I don’t want to hear any more.
‘When I was thirteen, I said no to him. I had a knife in my hand. He
stopped touching me after that.’
‘Where is your Auntie Meaghan now?’
‘She died of cancer last July.’
Zoe lights another cigarette. She smokes quickly. Nervously.
‘Did your father ever touch Sienna?’
She closes the lighter and looks at her hands.
‘When I came out of hospital after the attack, Daddy wouldn’t look at
me. He pushed my wheelchair up to the car door and lifted me out, but
turned his face away. They set up a room for me downstairs. They had to
widen the doors and build ramps. They pushed me into the room and
expected me to be all excited, but I just looked at Daddy.
‘Before, when I was upstairs, I shared a room with Sienna. We had
bunk-beds. I was on the bottom and she was on top. We were safe there
because there were always two of us. Sienna thought it was so exciting,
having her own room, but I had to teach her to look after herself, how to
stay out of his way.’
 ‘Did he ever touch you again?’
‘No. I was a wheelchair girl. A cripple. Not even he was that sick.’
‘What about Sienna?’
‘I think she was old enough by then. He might have tried, but I think she
would have fought back.’
The cigarette glows as she inhales. ‘I sometimes wonder why people
like him have children. I think my mother wanted someone else to love -
other than my father. He was always a bully, bossing her around, making
her fetch and carry for him. A beer from the fridge. A sandwich. A
newspaper. Whenever he shouted her name she dropped everything and ran
to him like a dog wanting to please her master. And all she got in return was
ridicule and scraps of affection, yet she kept coming back. Surely you must
get sick of being treated like a dog?’
The air has grown colder around us.
Zoe crushes her cigarette against the brickwork. Raising her elbows, she
rests her hands on the wheels of her chair, rocking back and forth.
‘I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.’
‘You have to make a statement - tell the police about your father.’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘That’d just kill Mum.’
‘What about Sienna?’
‘She loved Daddy and she hated him, but she didn’t kill him.’

My phone is ringing. It’s Ronnie Cray.

‘Busy?’
‘I’m lecturing today.’
‘This is more important.’
‘That’s as may be, but it doesn’t pay my rent.’
The DCI sounds annoyed, but she doesn’t raise her voice. Her tone
barely alters as she suggests that my Volvo might find itself clamped in the
university car park should I turn up at the campus.
‘I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.’
‘You could explain that to the clamping crew,’ she replies. ‘Those guys
love a good story. They’re born listeners.’
Why are detectives so droll?
I consider my options.
 ‘Since we’re calling in favours here, I have a small issue you might be
able to help me with.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Charlie had an altercation with a cab driver yesterday. Didn’t have the
full fare. Got into a fight.’
‘Princess Charlie?’
‘That’s the one. She was interviewed at Bath Police Station. The driver
wants to press charges.’
Cray doesn’t need the rest spelled out. She’ll make a call.
 9
The living and the dead are greeted by stainless steel: benches, basins,
scalpels and scales, disinfected and polished to a dull gleam under the
halogen lights.
Located in the basement of the new coroner’s court, the mortuary at
Flax Bourton smells like a hospital and looks like an office block. A ramp
leads down from the road to an underground parking area where Home
Office ‘meat wagons’ are parked in bays.
Pushing through swing doors, Ronnie Cray walks like a sailor in search
of a fight. A white coat leads the way along brightly lit corridors. The place
seems deserted until a cleaning lady appears wearing elbow-length rubber
gloves. I don’t want to contemplate what she’s been cleaning.
Another door opens. Louis Preston has his hands deep inside a
butterflied ribcage. Half a dozen students are gathered around him, dressed
in matching surgical scrubs and cloth caps.
‘You see that?’ Preston asks, adjusting a lamp on a retractable metal arm
above his head.
Nobody answers. They’re staring at the disembowelled body with a
mixture of awe and disgust.
Preston points and raises his eyes to theirs. Still no response.
‘What are we looking for, sir?’ one of them asks.
‘Evidence of a heart attack or otherwise.’
He waits.
Silence.
‘I swear you’re all blind. Right there! Damaged heart tissue. You don’t
always find the clot, but cardiac arrhythmia can still be the likeliest cause of
death.’
‘He suffered a heart attack,’ says one of the students.
‘You think?’
Preston’s sarcasm is lost on them.
‘Sew him up,’ he says, peeling off surgical gloves. He tosses them
overhead like he’s shooting a basketball. Rattles the bin. Scores.
‘You had something to show me,’ says DCI Cray.
‘Absolutely.’
 The pathologist leads us to a glass-walled office with a desk and filing
cabinets. Having collected a manila folder, he waves it above his head like a
tour leader and we follow him down another corridor until he stops before a
large steel door. Pulling down on the handle, he opens the door, breaking
the airtight seal with a soft hiss. Lights are triggered automatically. I feel a
breath of frigid air. Four cadavers are on trolleys beneath white sheets.
Three walls of the room have metal drawers. Bodies lie within.
Preston checks a nameplate and tugs a handle. Another hiss as the seal
breaks. Ray Hegarty slides into view on metal runners. His joints are stiff
with rigor mortis and his skin marbled by lividity.
Preston pulls on latex gloves.
‘He was knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head. The
bruising and depression on the skull match the heel of a hockey stick. The
blow was delivered in a chopping motion.’ He puts his fists together and
pretends to swing an axe.
‘Ray Hegarty fell forward. The killer stood over him, grasped his hair,
raised his head and sliced left to right. The weapon was most likely a
Stanley knife, extended about an inch, which was drawn across his neck,
severing his carotid artery and jugular vein. He bled to death within twenty
or thirty seconds.’
I gaze at the wound, a slash of crimson that begins just below his left
earlobe, cutting through muscle and cartilage.
‘They were left-handed,’ I say.
‘Most likely,’ says Preston. ‘Some people are ambidextrous.’
‘Sienna Hegarty is left-handed,’ adds Cray.
‘Could a teenager have done this?’ I ask.
‘It’s not so much a matter of strength as the sharpness of the blade,’
replies the pathologist.
‘Is there anything else?’ asks the DCI.
‘Hegarty had alcohol in his system.’
‘How much?’
‘A significant amount - it would have slowed his reaction time.’
Preston opens the folder and withdraws a forensic report.
‘We pulled forty-two full or partial prints from the house. Most of them
match with the family. We’re looking more closely at those that don’t
match. We collected fibres from the rug and the wound, and there might be
DNA from the hand-towel in the bathroom. There were old semen stains on
the daughter’s bed sheets and also on her underwear. The DNA results
won’t be back for another five days.’
I can hear Ronnie’s teeth grinding.
‘Check them against the victim. Then run them through the national
database. Tick off the boxes.’
Preston slides Ray Hegarty’s body from view and opens a folder of
crime-scene photographs. The first shows Hegarty lying face down, his
right cheek resting in a pool of blood. The image is centred on a bloody
heel print beside his right knee. The second image is a close-up of
Hegarty’s shirt showing handprints between his shoulder blades. Another
partial print was found on the right side of the doorframe.
‘The tread design on the heel matches the daughter’s jazz shoes. Size
six.’
‘Sienna wasn’t wearing any shoes when I found her,’ I hear myself say.
‘We found them in the river,’ replies Cray.
Taking the first photograph from Preston, I study the position of the
body in relation to the heel print. There is a second bloody mark on the
opposite side of the body. Not a shoeprint. A knee. ‘Somebody knelt.’
‘To cut his throat?’ asks Cray.
‘No, afterwards.’
Ronnie Cray studies the photograph and hands it back to Preston.
‘So we’re looking for a Stanley knife.’
Preston nods.
The daughter is a cutter. She had a shoebox full of bandages but no
blade, which means she hid it somewhere else or got rid of it.
She’s already convinced that Sienna was responsible.
‘I don’t think we should jump to conclusions,’ I hear myself saying.
‘Maybe it was self-defence.’
‘More like an ambush,’ says Cray. ‘She hid behind the door.’
‘Somebody hid behind the door.’
‘His blood was all over her.’
‘He was twice her size.’
‘Size had nothing to do with it.’
‘She’s fourteen.’
‘I know how old she is, Professor.’ A sharp tone. ‘I hope you’re not
making excuses because she’s your daughter’s friend.’
 ‘And I hope you’re not predisposed against her because Ray Hegarty
was your friend. He must have had enemies. You said so yourself.’
Undisguised contempt enters her gaze. I’ve gone too far. Cray doesn’t
like having her judgement questioned publicly.
Through clenched teeth: ‘Do you think I want this? I can see what’s
going to happen. I can hear the defence warming up. They’re going to trash
Ray Hegarty’s reputation. One of the best and bravest officers I ever served
with is going to be branded a nonce, a child molester. They’re going to
destroy him.’
‘What if it’s true?’
‘Bullshit! There were no defence wounds. No signs of a struggle. No
signs of rape.’
‘What about the semen on her sheets?’
‘She had a boyfriend.’
There’s no point in arguing because Cray hasn’t put a foot wrong
procedurally. Meanwhile, I’m doing exactly what I tell my students to avoid
- I’m ignoring the obvious answer. There’s only one greater sin - embracing
it.
Cray hitches up her trousers and I follow her down the corridor, noticing
the scribble of purplish veins on the back of her ankles, above her drooping
socks.
It’s cold in the underground car park. She pulls open the car door.
‘Was anything missing from the house?’ I ask.
‘A laptop.’
‘Somebody could have taken it.’
‘Or she could have left it at school.’
We’re moving. Cray has a driver, a young policewoman, who glances
nervously in the rear-view mirror.
‘Where to, boss?’
‘Trinity Road.’
 10
Freud said that our memories are a repository of traumatic past events,
but often these are merely fantasies rather than actualities. They haven’t
taken place in the real world, only in our minds, which are vast storehouses
for things that never existed and events that never happened. Sometimes I
wonder whether my memories are real. If I try to concentrate on them too
carefully, they catch in my throat and I struggle for breath.
The nightmares of my recent past involve a former soldier who was
trained to unlock secrets by torturing people - a man who knew how to
reach inside a mind and pry it apart as if opening the segments of a citrus
fruit. This is the man who took my Charlie and wrapped her in a world of
darkness.
Sometimes late at night when a car door slams or I hear footsteps on the
footpath, I push back the blankets and cross the floor, carefully opening a
corner of the curtain. I don’t expect to see Gideon Tyler waiting for me, but
I still sense he’s there. Watching. Waiting.
I know why this memory has come back to me now. It’s being here at
Trinity Road Police Station, a red-brick fortress surrounded by closing-
down sales, blighted tower blocks and crack dens. This is the last place I
saw Gideon, smiling at me with a bloody froth on his lips and his tongue
rolling across his teeth, painting them red. He challenged me to torture him,
begged me with an unearthly smile on his face. I hated this man more than
words could describe. I wanted to hurt him, I wanted him dead, but I knew
it wouldn’t save Charlie or my marriage.
The incident room is on the third floor. Most people take the stairs
because the lift moves slower than a French tractor. Ronnie Cray’s office
has no photographs. No certificates. No trophies. Instead there are files
stacked against every wall like she’s building a child’s cubby house.
Perched on the windowsill is a stuffed parrot, as forgettable as a fairground
prize, yet I wonder how she got it. Who in her life gave her such a gift?
Sitting at her desk, she squints as she reads a statement. She needs
glasses but won’t get her eyes checked because she refuses to succumb to
any sign of diminishing faculties.
 More than thirty-six hours have elapsed since Ray Hegarty was
murdered. Detectives have gone door to door in the village, while others
have tracked down family, friends and colleagues, piecing together his last
movements.
Sienna is out of hospital - waiting downstairs in an interview suite.
‘How should I do this?’ Cray asks.
I look at the coffee in my hand, the cup is rattling in the saucer. I need
both hands to hold it steady. Over the years I have had dozens of children in
my consulting room, many of them damaged, vulnerable and emotionally
traumatised, just like Sienna. Even though she may have killed, she has to
be treated like a victim, not a perpetrator.
Cray is watching me. Waiting.
‘You talk to her carefully. Slowly. Gently. She’s still an ordinary
frightened teenager. She may deny things at first. She will have tried to
block them out. But any interview will take her back through every detail.
She’ll relive what happened, and that’s going to increase her trauma.’
‘How can I avoid that?’
‘Keep the sessions short. Constantly reassure her that she’s doing well.
Be sure of your questions, know what outcome you want, but let Sienna
reveal her story in her own way. You can’t treat her like an adult and
hammer her with questions or you’ll risk pushing her into a deep
psychological breakdown.
‘Be very careful about touching her. She might be upset. You might
want to comfort her, but physical contact can be very threatening to a child
who has been abused.’
Cray interjects. ‘We don’t know that she was abused.’
‘You have Zoe’s statement.’
‘Given at her second interview - not her first.’
‘You think she’s lying?’
‘I’m just telling you the facts.’
The DCI doesn’t want to get bogged down in claims of sexual abuse.
She’s an investigator, not a judge.
I tell her to avoid asking closed questions until later in the interviews,
when the detail required is very specific. Until then, invite Sienna to
explain. If she says something inconsistent, don’t focus on it. Instead go
back later. Importantly, don’t ask the same question twice - she’ll see it as a
criticism.
 ‘What about the crime-scene photographs?’
‘Don’t show her. It’s too early.’
Cray goes over the strategy again until she’s satisfied.
‘I want you in there. She’s a minor. You’re an appropriate adult.’
‘What about her mother?’
‘She chose you.’
‘I won’t hesitate to terminate the interview if you browbeat her.’
Cray nods and gathers her notes. ‘Let’s do this.’
Sienna sits with her hands squeezed between her thighs and her eyes
fixed on the table in front of her where a can of soft drink is beading with
condensation. She’s wearing jeans and a tailored shirt with dark ballet flats
on her feet. The shadows beneath her eyes appear permanent.
When Ronnie Cray enters the interview room, Sienna looks at the
detective’s Oxford brogues, polished to a shine. I can see her wondering
what sort of woman would wear men’s shoes, ignore make-up and shear her
hair to bristle.
Cray pulls up a chair and sits directly opposite, unbuttoning her jacket.
Sienna eyes her nervously.
‘I’m going to turn on the tape recorder, Sienna. You can answer all of
my questions, some of them or none of them, it’s up to you. But if this ends
up in court and you then come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation of
what has really happened, the court can choose not to believe what you say,
because they will want to know why you didn’t give that version of events
here and now in this interview.
‘This is your opportunity to explain what happened. The interview is
being tape-recorded and any notes I take will be kept and this information
can be given to the court if needs be, whether it goes against you or in your
favour. Do you understand?’
Sienna looks at me.
‘You just have to say what you remember,’ I tell her.
‘What if I don’t remember?’
‘Do your best.’
‘OK,’ she says, reaching shakily for her drink.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ asks Cray.
She nods.
‘You have to speak, Sienna, otherwise we can’t record your answers.’
‘Daddy’s dead.’
 ‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell us about that night?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Just remember what you can.’
‘I’ve been trying, but it’s like something wiped my memory, you know,
like on those TV programmes where people say they were abducted by
aliens and given anal probes, which is pretty gross. I’m not saying I was
abducted by aliens. I don’t actually believe in little green men from outer
space, although one of the doctors at the hospital looked pretty weird. He
was fat and had a goatee. You never see fat doctors on Grey’s Anatomy or
ER and you don’t see goatees. I think goatees look like women’s lady parts,
don’t you?’
Cray looks totally perplexed. Sienna flicks her gaze from the detective’s
face to mine, still waiting for an answer.
‘I’ve never thought about it,’ I say.
‘I think about stuff like that all the time.’
‘Can we get back to what happened that night?’ asks Cray.
‘It’s like I said: I can’t remember. My mind doesn’t want to go there.
There’s a door that I’m not supposed to open, because I’m not supposed to
look. Mum used to hide my Christmas presents on the top of her wardrobe.
I wasn’t allowed to look there, but that was good stuff. This is bad.’
‘Bad?’
‘Really bad.’
DCI Cray pulls her chair forward and it makes a screeching sound.
Sienna jumps as though someone has slammed a door.
‘Let’s talk about Tuesday, Sienna. Do you remember going to school?’
‘Yes.’
‘You had rehearsals.’
Sienna’s eyes pop open. ‘I need to talk to Mr Ellis.’
‘Mr Ellis?’
‘We have a rehearsal today. And I need to get my dress cleaned.’
‘You don’t have to worry about that.’
‘If something happens to Erin Lewis, I’m her understudy. It should have
been the other way around. Erin walks like a giraffe.’ Sienna frowns. ‘That
sounds bitchy, doesn’t it? I’m trying to stop that.’
‘They’ve postponed the musical,’ I tell her.
She looks relieved.
 ‘What happened after the rehearsal?’
Sienna glances at me but doesn’t answer.
‘You met up with your boyfriend.’
‘Yes.’
‘Danny Gardiner.’
She nods.
‘How long have you known Danny?’
‘A while.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘He was in Lance’s year at school.’
‘Lance is your brother?’
‘Yeah, Danny used to hang out with Lance. Follow him around. They
were both into cars and motorbikes.’
‘Where did you and Danny go on Tuesday?’
‘For a drive.’
‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Now she’s lying.
Cray asks the question again, approaching it from a different angle.
Sienna obfuscates and becomes deliberately vague, either covering her
tracks or protecting someone.
‘Do these belong to you?’ Cray pulls a plastic bag from beneath the
table. It contains a pair of muddy jazz shoes.
Sienna nods.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ says Cray.
‘Yes,’ she answers.
‘Do you own a Stanley knife?’
Sienna shakes her head, but instinctively covers her forearms.
‘We found your box of bandages,’ I say gently. ‘You don’t have to be
embarrassed. What sort of blade do you use?’
‘It was one of Daddy’s tools. I found it in the garage.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘It should be in the box.’
‘It’s not there,’ says Cray. ‘Do you know where it is?’
She shakes her head and digs her right thumbnail into the back of her
left hand, threatening to break the skin.
‘What time did you get home on Tuesday night?’
 ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Did you see your father?’
Sienna shakes her head.
‘But he was there?’
She nods.
‘Where?’
‘In my room.’
I can almost see Sienna’s mind begin to wander. ‘I used to share a
bedroom with Zoe, but then she got paralysed and Daddy moved her
downstairs. I used to dream about having my own room, but now I wish
Zoe were still at home and we shared a room. I’d even put up with her mess
and having to share a bunk-bed. When she moved out Daddy bought me a
proper bed. He said we didn’t need a bunk-bed any more because Zoe
couldn’t climb the stairs.
‘Zoe and Lance hardly ever come home any more. Zoe lives in Leeds
with her boyfriend. I’m not supposed to tell anyone that because she doesn’t
want Daddy finding out, but I guess that doesn’t matter any more.
‘When Zoe left home she gave me her favourite pair of ear-muffs and
her Winnie the Pooh bear, which is humungous.’ She holds her palm out to
indicate how high. ‘She won him at a funfair. I can’t remember what she
had to do, but she’s pretty good at shooting baskets. She played netball
when she was at school - until the you-know-what happened. When she left
home she told me I should leave too, as soon as I could. Sooner even.’
‘Why did she say that?’
Sienna reaches towards the table and runs her finger through the ring of
condensation left by her soft drink.
‘She was looking out for me.’
‘In what way?’
‘She told me the places that were safe and weren’t safe.’
‘What places weren’t safe?’
‘In the bathroom unless the door was locked, in the car at night, in the
shed, on the sofa and even in my new room if I found myself alone.’
Cray straightens, steeling herself, knowing she has to ask the obvious
question.
‘Why weren’t they safe?’
Sienna lays her forehead on her arms and closes her eyes. ‘What did
Zoe say?’
 ‘I’m asking you. Did your father ever touch you inappropriately?’
Her voice is muffled. ‘Not for a long time.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
The DCI looks at her silently, her face tired and poached-looking under
the halogen lights.
‘Why did you stab your father?’
Sienna’s forehead rolls back and forth on her forearms. Her eyes are
closed.
‘He looked like he was asleep. I thought he was trying to scare me by
pretending.’
‘Pretending?’
‘To be dead.’
‘Why did you think he was dead?’
‘He was lying on the floor.’
‘Did he try to attack you?’
‘No.’
‘So why did you hit him?’
Sienna’s mind suddenly switches.
‘I should be sad. I’ve tried to cry. I rubbed my eyes really hard to make
them go red. I poked them to make them water. I want to be able to cry, but
I can’t feel anything.’
‘Tell me about the knife,’ continues Cray.
Sienna doesn’t seem to be listening.
‘Do you think Daddy is in Heaven? I used to talk to Reverend Malouf.
He told me God had all the answers, but I couldn’t get my head around
Jesus rising from the dead. If he came back, why didn’t he hang around and
take his show on the road? Instead he went back to Heaven and let people
forget.
‘Daddy used to tell people he was an agnostic, which isn’t the same
thing as an atheist but I don’t understand the difference. Reverend Malouf
tried to explain it to me once. He said an agnostic is someone who can’t
make up his mind and get off the fence.’
‘You’ll have to talk to us eventually. It’s for your own good,’ says Cray.
‘Why do people say things are for my own good?’ answers Sienna,
fixing her gaze on the detective. There is something in her voice, so old and
so tired, that takes Cray by surprise.
 Sienna continues, ‘Mum is crying, Lance is angry, Zoe isn’t here and
Daddy is dead. What I do or say doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes it does. We’re giving you a chance to explain.’
‘No you’re not.’
‘You’re avoiding my questions.’
‘I’m avoiding the answers. There’s a difference. You want me to
remember things, but I can’t.’
Sienna pulls her knees up towards her, holding her shins tightly. She lets
her hair tumble over her face. After a long silence, she finds a voice, small
and haunted, belonging to a younger child.
‘Do you know something? When Zoe got crippled she said she was
lucky because Daddy stopped trying to touch her. She was his favourite,
you know. The sporty one. He was proud of her.’
A groan gets trapped in her throat. Her chest convulses in a flutter of
short breaths.
‘I sometimes think that if Daddy’d had a choice, he would have wished
it was me in the wheelchair and not Zoe.’
Tears hover and her mouth opens and closes wordlessly. Suddenly she
raises her hands and presses them hard against her ears.
‘Can you hear something, Sienna?’ I ask.
‘The rushing sound.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I can’t make it go away.’
She rocks back and forth, digging her nails into her scalp. She’s
thinking about the blade. Bleeding. Clearing her mind. Finally she whispers
something. I have to lean close to hear the words. It’s a rhyme that she
repeats over and over.
‘When I was a little girl about so high,
Momma took a big stick and made me cry.
Now I’m a big girl and Momma can’t do it,
Daddy takes a big stick and gets right to it.’
 11
The team of detectives has gathered upstairs. Jackets hang on chairs and
shirtsleeves are rolled to half-mast. It’s not a big task force - a dozen at
most - mostly men, mid-thirties, ageing rapidly.
‘Twelve is a Biblical number,’ Cray tells me, when I comment on the
number. ‘The twelve days of Christmas, the twelve tribes of Israel.’
‘What about the twelve apostles?’
‘I wasn’t going to be that presumptuous.’
She picks up her notes and motions me to follow. ‘I’m lucky to have
this many.’
‘Why?’
‘Half my team is babysitting witnesses for the Novak Brennan trial.’
That name again.
‘Has someone threatened the witnesses?’
‘Precautionary measure. It’s a bloody circus - we’ve got the right-wing
extremists on the one side and refugee groups on the other. I don’t know
who’s worse.’
‘I think you do.’
She grunts. ‘Look, I’m no fan of neo-Nazis or right-wing extremists, but
we have a race problem in this country. We have home-grown terrorists
blowing themselves up. We have gangs of teenagers killing each other with
knives, Asians, blacks, whites . . .’
‘Maybe that’s a social problem, not a race problem.’
‘Makes no difference to me. I’m just sick of putting good officers in
situations where every scrote and teenage scumbag on the street has a knife
and a grudge.’
‘So where does Novak Brennan come into it?’
‘He’s a politician in search of a crowd. The ignorant, the uneducated,
the unemployable; they listen because they want to believe their miserable
lives are someone else’s fault. Novak Brennan tells them what they want to
hear.’
‘He incites hatred.’
‘He lances the boil.’
 The detectives are waiting, mostly pale and hung over. Ronnie Cray
introduces me. Suddenly, my left leg stops moving and I’m stuck in front of
the whiteboard. Staring at my feet, I concentrate on making my leg lift. It
looks like I’m stepping over a tripwire. They are all staring at me with
solemn expressions, pitying the poor bastard.
Cray takes over, beginning the briefing. I find a chair and feel their eyes
leave me. The DCI outlines developments in the investigation. Sienna’s
boyfriend has been interviewed. Danny Gardiner claims that he dropped
Sienna on a corner in Bath just before 7 p.m. but he hasn’t given police an
alibi for later that night when Ray Hegarty was murdered.
Lance and Zoe Hegarty have also been interviewed. Zoe was in Leeds,
but Lance is a possible suspect. He works as a motorcycle mechanic in
Bristol. On Tuesday afternoon he left the workshop at five, went to the pub
for an hour and then went home by himself. His flatmate was out.
‘We’re bringing Lance in again today,’ says Monk. ‘He’s an aggressive
little shit, but I don’t think he’s lying. He couldn’t hide a hard-on in baggy
jeans.’
Two hours are still missing from Ray Hegarty’s afternoon and telecom
engineers are trying to pinpoint his whereabouts using his mobile phone.
The door-to-door inquiries have thrown up several unknown vehicles in the
village in the previous few days. Two motorists also reported seeing a
blonde-haired girl in a short dress walking down Hinton Hill at about 10.15
p.m. That’s about a mile from Wellow. It could have been Sienna.
Monk picks up a spiral notebook and flips a page.
‘A month ago Helen Hegarty claims she saw someone peering into the
downstairs window, but they ran off before she could get a good look at
them. A while later she found rocks organised in a circle in the garden bed
beneath the kitchen window. The soil was compressed like someone had
been crouching there. Says she told her husband. He suspected local kids.’
‘Any of the neighbours report similar problems?’ asks Cray.
‘Nope, but one of them, Susan Devlin, says she saw Ray Hegarty
arguing with someone outside his house about a week ago. It was about ten
o’clock at night. The car had dropped Sienna home.’
‘Maybe it was the boyfriend,’ says Safari Roy, a small tanned detective
with black hair parted to reveal his scalp. Roy’s nickname came from his
lounge lizard clothes and his love of sunbeds.
 ‘He drives a Peugeot,’ replies Monk. ‘The neighbour said it was a silver
Ford Focus.’
‘Talk to her again,’ says Cray. ‘Get a better description of the driver.’
Monk nods and finally asks the question on everybody’s lips. ‘How did
it go downstairs, boss?’
The DCI looks over their heads at a weak shaft of sunlight that has
found a way through the building’s defences.
‘She says her father was dead when she arrived home.’
Glances are exchanged between the assembled.
‘Our number one priority is to find the murder weapon,’ says Cray.
‘We’re going to search the house again - every cupboard, crawlspace and
cistern; the flowerbeds, the compost bins, the incinerator. The same goes for
the river. Retrace her steps. Turn over every rock and leaf. Find the blade.’
One of the officers raises his hand.
‘Are we getting any help?’
‘I’ve got twenty-four uniforms waiting downstairs and two dog teams.
Make the time count. They turn back into plods at five o’clock.’
I look at my watch. It’s almost midday. I’ve missed my lecture but can
still get to the university and do some work. At the same moment my
mobile is singing. Julianne’s number lights up the screen.
‘How goes the trial?’ I ask.
‘We’ve been given the afternoon off.’
‘Bonus.’
‘You free for lunch? We can talk about Charlie.’
Talk is good.
She chooses an Italian restaurant, San Carlo in Corn Street, not far from
the Corn Exchange. I arrive first and take a table by the window where I
can watch for her. I order her a glass of wine.
Finally she’s here, dressed in a suede jacket, a scarf and a ribbed
sweater. The waiters fall upon her like Elizabethan courtiers. She’s a
beautiful woman. Good service is guaranteed.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she says apologetically. ‘I had to make sure Marco was
all right.’
‘Marco?’
‘My witness.’ Her brow furrows. ‘He’s nervous. I don’t know if he’s
sleeping.’
‘Where is he now?’
 ‘The Crown Prosecution Service has a safe house.’
Her new haircut is sharp just below her jawline. I feel my mind taking a
snapshot so I can study it later.
‘I’ve decided that jury trials are one big sociology experiment. You take
twelve people who don’t know each other and have nothing in common and
put them together for eight hours a day and then drip-feed them
information, telling them not to discuss the case or read the papers or do
their own research.’
‘You feel sorry for them.’
‘They saw the photographs of the fire today - three little girls and their
parents - it was horrible.’ Julianne squeezes her eyes shut as if forcing the
images to go away. They open again.
‘It’s not what I expected, you know. The trial. The defendants. Novak
Brennan doesn’t look like a monster.’
‘There are no monsters.’
‘That’s what you tell Emma.’
‘It’s true.’
‘I know, but I expected him to be different. I feel as though he’s become
familiar over this past week. I’ve seen him every day - always immaculately
dressed and polite. He nods and smiles to the court staff. He bows when the
jury enters the room. He has these long lashes like a girl and the bluest eyes.
Arctic blue. I can almost see the snow blowing across them. Makes you
wonder.’
‘About what?’
‘If he really firebombed that house . . . killed that family.’ She pauses,
searching for words. ‘The other defendants look like thugs and bovver boys,
grinning at each other and guffawing. Novak Brennan looks almost serene.
He doesn’t fidget or squirm. He hardly shows any emotion at all, except
when he glances at his sister in the public gallery. She’s been there every
day.’
‘Which way are the jury leaning?’
Julianne shrugs. ‘It’s too early to tell. So far it’s all been about the
prosecution case.’
She glances at the menu, giving me an opportunity to look at her
without making her feel self-conscious.
‘Are you staring at me again?’
‘No.’
 ‘Good. So what are we going to do about Charlie?’
‘The police aren’t going to charge her.’
Surprise on her face. ‘That’s great. What happened?’
‘Ronnie Cray sorted it out.’
‘You made some sort of deal.’
I don’t answer. Normally, Julianne would fight against the idea, but this
time she says nothing.
‘How is Sienna?’ she asks, switching her concern.
‘In a lot of trouble.’
‘Did she do it?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she had a reason.’
Our meals have arrived. In the lottery of ordering, Julianne has again
triumphed. Her choice looks healthier and more appetising. She’ll eat half
and push the rest around her plate.
‘So what are we going to do about Charlie?’ she asks between
mouthfuls.
‘She made a mistake.’
‘She broke the law! I talked to the school counsellor today and she
recommended a therapist. He has a practice in Bath.’
‘I’m a psychologist.’
Julianne puts down her fork. ‘You’re her father. I’m sure there is some
sort of conflict of interest there.’
She’s right, of course, but I still baulk at the idea of my daughter talking
to a stranger, revealing things that she wouldn’t tell her parents.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Robin Blaxland.’
‘I could check him out . . . ask about him.’
‘And not scare him off?’
‘No.’
‘We still have to punish her,’ she says.
‘I saw the video of what happened. She tried to pay the driver but didn’t
have enough money. She only panicked when he locked the doors. I think
she was frightened it was going to happen again, the kidnapping.’
‘She should never have gone to the hospital without our permission.’
‘I know. Maybe we could ground her for a few weeks.’
‘School and home.’
‘Tough but fair.’
 I like talking with Julianne like this - discussing anxieties and tiny
victories, the happenstances of family life. Her long fingers toy with the
stem of her wine glass.
‘Do you want to go to dinner on Saturday night?’ I ask.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m going out.’
‘Who with?’
‘Harry Veitch.’
My heart jerks like a hooked fish. Harry is an architect. Rich. Divorced.
One of his houses was featured on Grand Designs, which I guess makes
him a celebrity of sorts, or a ‘person of note’. He has a daughter Charlie’s
age living with her mother. I can’t remember her name.
‘How long have you been . . . ?’
‘We haven’t.’
‘So this is your first date?’
‘It’s not a date.’
There is an edge to her voice. She’s waiting for me to say something
negative. I glance at my food, no longer hungry. I didn’t see this coming.
Didn’t even contemplate it. Harry is older than I am - by at least ten years.
He’s one of those big-boned former rugby players who struggle with their
weight when they give up competing but never lose their self-belief.
Julianne speaks. ‘Harry wants to thank me for helping him choose a
colour scheme for one of his new houses.’
‘That’s nice,’ I say.
There is a long embarrassed silence. The silence of separation. Worse -
the silence of possible divorce. I can see the future flashing before my eyes.
Julianne will marry Harry ‘big-boned’ Veitch and spend her new life
choosing colour schemes for his McMansions. The girls will have a new
father. At first they won’t like him, but Harry will bribe them and make
them laugh. He’ll be jolly old Harry. Rich old Harry. Ho, ho, ho Harry. He
laughs like that: ‘Ho, ho, ho.’
‘What did you say?’ asks Julianne.
‘Nothing.’
‘You sounded like Santa Claus.’
‘Sorry. So where is he taking you?’
 ‘To a new restaurant. He knows the owner or the head chef - something
like that.’
‘What about the girls?’
‘Charlie can babysit.’
‘I’ll do it.’
Julianne arches an eyebrow. ‘Charlie’s old enough.’
‘I know.’
She reaches across the table and takes my hand. ‘You’ll have to let go
one day.’
Is she talking about the girls or herself?
‘I don’t want to let go.’
Her pupils dilate slightly and she releases my hand, folding her arms
beneath her breasts like a teenager. I’ve upset her now. She changes the
subject.
‘Charlie says you kissed Miss Robinson.’
‘She gave me a peck.’
‘On the lips?’
‘Some people peck on the lips.’
‘I’ve always found that kind of creepy,’ she says playfully. ‘It was Miss
Robinson who suggested Charlie see a therapist. Apparently, some of the
teachers are worried about her.’
‘Miss Robinson didn’t mention anything.’
‘That’s because she was flirting with you.’
The silence stretches out and is far more uncomfortable than it should
be after so many years of marriage.
‘Did Miss Robinson mention Sienna coming to see her?’
Julianne shakes her head. ‘Maybe you should ask her. Take her for a
drink.’
‘I don’t want to ask her out.’
‘She’s very pretty.’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘She’s not you.’
Julianne shakes her head and drains her wine glass. ‘This was nice, Joe.
Don’t spoil it.’
Summoning a waiter, she asks for her coat and leans towards me,
accepting a kiss - a peck on the cheek, not the lips.
 Almost in the same breath she hesitates, looking over my shoulder.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘I’m not sure.’
I follow her gaze. A man is standing on the corner, looking towards us.
Pale and blade-faced, his dark oiled hair is combed back in vertical lines
that cling to his scalp like the contours of a map. The tattoos on his
forearms have faded with age into blue and black smears, but the most
startling markings are ink lines drawn vertically down his cheeks like twin
channels for his tears that extend from his lower eyelids to his jawline.
Usually, I study people instinctively, reading their body language, their
clothes, their fleeting expressions, trying to understand who they are or
what motivates them and what they’re capable of. This time it is different. I
don’t want to notice this man. I want to look away. I want to ignore him.
Julianne is staring at him.
‘He was in court,’ she says. ‘I saw him sitting in the gallery.’
‘Today?’
‘Every day.’
The school grounds are empty apart from a gym class running around
cones on the playing fields with batches of students in the goal squares and
on the halfway line. I ask at the main office for Annie Robinson and am
directed to her office. The note pinned to the door says she’s in the hall,
painting sets for the musical.
Following a covered walkway, I pass several classrooms in the science
block. Groups of students are wearing safety glasses and stand clustered
around benches working with Bunsen burners and test tubes.
The main body of the hall is in darkness. There are lights burning
backstage. Nobody answers when I call. Climbing the side stairs, I step over
cables and paintbrushes soaking in jars. Props are leaning on sawhorses and
a large backdrop shows a Manhattan skyline with the skyscrapers in
silhouette. Modern Millie meets the Big Apple.
A dressing-room door is ajar. Racks of costumes are lined up along the
wall. A movement is reflected in the mirrors. Miss Robinson leans over a
sink sponging paint from her blouse. Her black skirt contrasts sharply with
the paleness of her skin. I can see the outline of her nipples, small and dark,
through the lace of her bra.
She looks up from the running water, studying herself in the mirror. Her
eyes meet mine. Pulling her shoulders back, she makes no attempt to cover
her breasts.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I knocked. You didn’t hear me.’
‘Obviously.’
She goes back to sponging her blouse. ‘I should have worn an old shirt,’
she explains. ‘This is my favourite blouse and now it’s ruined.’
‘Maybe you could soak it,’ I suggest.
‘Are you an expert on removing paint stains?’ She has a slight lisp when
she pronounces her ‘s’s. ‘You can come in, Joseph, I’m sure you’ve seen a
woman in a bra before.’
It sounds like a question, but I can’t think of anything to say.
Miss Robinson laughs and holds up the blouse to the light, sighing.
‘I’ve been painting the sets. I had a free period and thought I’d get it
finished today, but it might take another session.’
‘I thought the musical had been postponed.’
‘Yes, but we’re still hopeful. The show must go on - as they say.’
She slips the blouse over her arms and turns to me as she does up the
buttons.
‘So what else can I do for you today - apart from giving you a cheap
thrill?’
‘You were talking to Julianne about Charlie.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is she having problems?’
‘One of her teachers found her crying in a classroom. I thought it might
help if Charlie talked to someone.’
‘A therapist.’
‘The school recommends a very good one.’
I’m fascinated by her mouth; watching it move as she speaks. Her top
lip is shaped like a stylised bird drawn by a child. Her bottom lip is fuller. I
wonder what it would be like to kiss those lips. They have stopped moving
and are slightly parted. Her head is cocked at an angle.
‘You’re staring at me,’ she says, covering her mouth self-consciously.
‘I’m sorry. I do that sometimes.’
‘It’s very unnerving.’
‘Can I ask you something, Miss Robinson?’
‘Only if you call me Annie.’
 ‘Has Charlie talked to you about the separation? You see, she hasn’t
spoken to me or to Julianne. I thought maybe she was keeping a diary, or a
scrapbook full of angry conversations in cartoon bubbles.’
‘She didn’t say anything to me.’
‘It was just a thought.’
‘Have you asked her?’
I make a sound that could be a sigh or a murmur of agreement. ‘We
don’t have long conversations any more.’
‘Maybe you should think about the therapist.’
‘Maybe.’
Annie waits.
‘Was Sienna Hegarty seeing a therapist?’
‘I’m not allowed to talk about other students.’
Businesslike, she makes her arguments about privacy and
confidentiality. A counsellor must build trust, respect personal space,
protect confidences . . .
‘I respect all of that, Annie, but Sienna is a murder suspect. The police
think she killed her father. I know she was cutting herself. I strongly suspect
she was being sexually abused. If Sienna was seeing a therapist, the police
will want to talk to him.’
Annie lowers her eyes, no longer certain what to do.
‘Why are you here?’ she asks.
‘I’m trying to help her.’
‘Why?’
There is an accusation in her tone, a scepticism that makes her less
attractive.
‘Because I think Sienna is damaged and because she’s my daughter’s
best friend.’
‘It’s more than that.’
Her eyes are fixed on mine, searching.
‘Sienna was always at our place - staying for dinner or overnight,
spending her weekends with us. Now I think she was avoiding going home.
I should have realised.’
As the words leave my lips I realise how they echo an inner voice that
has been whispering to me ever since Zoe Hegarty’s visit. It’s as though I
have a soundtrack playing in my head, along with images of a child waking
each morning without seeing a world full of excitement and possibility. A
child who didn’t go skipping down the stairs to greet each new day; who
didn’t wear the bright, eager expression that said, ‘Hey, isn’t it great to be
alive!’
Annie steps closer, touching my shoulder. ‘You’ll go mad if you try to
blame yourself for this.’
There is a ripple in the space between us, when I imagine kissing her or
her kissing me. And I can see my hands running over her naked skin and
her small dark nipples.
She steps away, faintly abashed. Whispers. ‘Such a ghostly girl, so pale
and quiet.’
‘Was Sienna seeing a therapist?’
She nods.
‘Did her parents know?’
‘No. She wouldn’t come to see me unless I promised I wouldn’t tell
them.’
‘Did she tell you what was wrong?’
Annie shakes her head. ‘She confided in one of the other teachers,
Gordon Ellis, who urged her to talk to me.’ She looks around. ‘Gordon
should be here soon. You could talk to him.’
The school bell is sounding. Charlie will be getting out of class.
Annie turns back to the mirror, checking her hair and tugging at the
collar of her blouse.
‘I think her parents may have found out,’ she says.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Her father came to the school and made a complaint to the headmaster.’
‘What about?’
‘I’m not allowed to discuss it.’
Excited voices drift from outside, the raucous clamour of students
collecting books from lockers, preparing to go home. Annie looks at her
watch. With a flourish, she picks up her paintbrush and tin of paint, heading
back towards the stage.
‘If you talk to Sienna, will you . . . will you . . .’ She can’t think of what
to say. ‘Tell her we’re missing her.’
Charlie tosses her schoolbag in the back of the car and slides into the
passenger seat. Her cheeks are pink with the cold and strands of hair have
pulled from her ponytail. Without warning, she ducks down.
‘What’s wrong?’
 ‘Nothing.’
A boy walks in front of the car. His gelled hair sticks up at odd angles
and his trousers hang so low on his hips I can see his brand of underwear.
Bless my little x-chromosome for giving me girls.
Charlie raises her head. Checks that he’s gone. Sits up.
‘Who is he?’
‘No one.’
‘He must have a name.’
‘Jacob.’
‘Is Jacob a good or a bad thing?’
‘Drop it, Dad.’
‘So you like him?’
‘No!’
‘Then why were you hiding?’
She rolls her eyes. Clearly I don’t understand teenage love, which is
obviously more complicated than adult love.
On the drive home I try to make conversation - asking about her day -
but her answers come in single syllables. Yes. No. Good. Fine.
Finally she utters a complete sentence. ‘Did you see Sienna?’
‘Yes.’
‘How is she?’
‘As well as can be expected.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She can’t remember everything that happened.’
‘Is that amnesia?’
‘Sometimes the mind blocks things out . . . as a defence.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘Maybe not yet.’
There are so many questions I want to ask Charlie. Why was she crying
at school? What’s making her unhappy? Is it the nightmares? Why won’t
she talk to me?
‘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 hear 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.’
‘Right. Good.’ He rocks on his heels. ‘This is a little embarrassing.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you know . . . you being here.’
‘It’s still my house, Harry.’
‘Of course.’
I step to one side, allowing him in, trying to sound relaxed and friendly,
when in reality I want to take a swing at his jaw or sink my fist into his
stomach, which looks soft and flabby.
Maybe I should warn him about Julianne’s little foibles - how she likes
dunking chocolate biscuits in her tea and how she always has to wear
something blue, and that when she plays Monopoly she insists on being the
boot.
Harry hasn’t asked to see the owner’s manual. He doesn’t know that she
likes having her feet massaged and hates having her earlobes licked. That
she thinks all professional sport is manufactured drama with overpaid actors
and trying to explain the offside rule with salt and pepper shakers,
silverware and a loud voice is not going to make it any easier for her to
understand.
Why should I? Why should I give him any help at all?
Harry’s hair is neatly parted on the right and I can smell his aftershave.
‘She’s great, isn’t she?’ he says, referring to Julianne.
I can’t believe it. He wants to talk about my wife. When he’s known her
for twenty-six years and been married to her for twenty - then we can talk.
‘She shouldn’t be long,’ I say. ‘She’s just taking her medication.’
‘Medication? Is she ill?’
‘No, of course not, not really.’ I lower my voice. ‘She doesn’t like to
talk about it. Upsets her.’ I glance up the stairs. ‘You could do me a favour.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Don’t let Julianne order dessert. See if you can talk her out of it. It’s the
sugar. She craves it but she shouldn’t have any. Too much and . . .’
‘What?’
I hold a finger to my lips. ‘It’s not a big deal - just keep her away from
the dessert trolley.’
Harry nods. ‘I will. Definitely.’
He looks positively grateful, eager to help. I should feel guilty. Jealousy
is a terrible thing. I know all the psychological triggers. The fear of losing
control, the fear of loss, the fear of abandonment, neglect and loneliness . . .
But the most destructive thing about jealousy is that it kills what it values -
the love you want to save won’t survive the constraints of jealousy. There is
no entitlement. Love is either equal or a tragedy.
Julianne appears. The pashmina is wrapped around her shoulders. She
smiles at Harry and looks at me questioningly.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Fine.’
 ‘Don’t let Emma stay up to late.’
‘I won’t.’
‘That was pretty weird,’ says Charlie, appearing on the stairs again.
She’s dressed in her flannelette pyjamas, a pair so stretched at the waist
they hang on her hips. ‘Did you want to hit him?’
‘Why would I want to hit Harry?’
‘Isn’t that what boys do when they’re jealous?’
‘No, not always. Hardly ever. And I’m not jealous.’
‘So you’re OK?’
‘I’m good.’
She gives me the same sort of questioning look I got from her mother.
Leaning against the wall, I close my eyes and try not to picture Julianne and
Harry in the car, in conversation.
‘So what do you think of Harry?’ I ask.
She shrugs. ‘He’s okay, I guess. He cooks Coca-Cola-flavoured chicken
and has a cool car.’
‘Coca-Cola-flavoured chicken?’
‘It tastes better than it sounds.’ She hesitates, tugging at her bottom lip
with her front teeth. ‘He’s not a loser, Dad.’
At that moment I feel something stretch and break inside me. Not
something vital or essential, but a single strand that floats broken in the
wake of Charlie’s words.
Emma wanders out of her room. She wants a story. This will mean
reading two stories and making a third one up involving stuffed animals and
the ‘tickling spider’ that lives in my pocket.
Later, when she’s finally asleep, Charlie and I watch a movie which
isn’t age appropriate according to the British Board of Film Classification,
but a few swear words and a token fight won’t scar her emotionally. The
elephant in the room is Sienna. Charlie hasn’t mentioned her but I know she
wants to ask.
The credits are rolling. She stares at her feet.
‘Kids were talking yesterday.’
‘At school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What were they saying?’
‘That Sienna has been charged with murder.’
‘That’s true.’
 Charlie shakes her head adamantly. ‘She didn’t do it.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Yes, I do. She was scared of her dad. She didn’t like him. But she
wouldn’t kill him.’
‘People don’t always do what we expect.’
I’m thinking of Julianne and not Sienna.
Charlie hikes up her pyjamas. ‘Are you going to help her?’
‘There’s nothing I can do.’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘But you know people.’ She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her
pyjamas. Still they shine. ‘You can find the person who did it.’
‘I’m not a detective.’
I know what she’s suggesting, but she’s asking too much.
‘You’re tired. Go to bed. Get some sleep.’
I hear the stairs creak as she climbs them. She pauses on the landing,
speaking in a stage whisper.
‘Goodnight, Dad.’
 15
Perched on the edge of the Bristol Channel, surrounded by nineteen
acres of grounds and ringed by trees and an iron-spiked fence, Oakham
House is called a Regional Secure Unit. In the old days it would have been
an asylum or a special hospital, but no matter what label they assign it now,
the stigma remains.
Walton, the nearest village, is half a mile away, Bristol another ten.
That’s the one abiding feature governing the construction and placement of
any psychiatric unit - out of sight, out of mind. It has been that way for
more than two hundred years.
Sienna is sitting at a window with one leg propped on the sill, hugging
her knee, while her other leg dangles to where her toes brush the floor.
She’s wearing a dress that is too big for her and a shapeless woollen
cardigan. A strand of dark wool has pulled from the sleeve and she worries
it with her fingers, rolling it back and forth under her palm.
Condensation has misted the window. She reaches out and draws her
finger through it. Outside, the Bristol Channel is dotted with whitecaps,
which my father calls ‘white horses’, although I’ve never understood why.
I stand in the doorway of the lounge watching Sienna. Her movements
are almost exaggerated in their slowness and everything about her body
language seems to be passive and resigned.
I say hello and she rewards me with a huge smile.
‘I thought you’d come.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I just knew. I was sitting here thinking how nice it would be to talk to
someone, and here you are.’
The statement is so matter-of-fact that I can almost believe she willed
me into being. She reaches into the pocket of her cardigan and pulls out
three small fruits with dark orange skin.
‘Do you know the difference between a tangerine and a clementine?’
I shake my head.
‘Tangerines aren’t as sweet.’ She hands me one. ‘Fresh fruit is really
good for you. It will help you with that.’
 She motions at my left hand where my thumb and forefinger are pill-
rolling. I fight the urge to put the hand in my pocket.
‘So why do you shake?’
‘It’s nothing.’
Sienna looks disappointed. ‘That’s your first lie.’
‘How do you know I’m lying?’
‘I can tell.’
I press my thumb into the tangerine. The skin peels easily, filling the
room with citrus smells.
‘I want to talk about what happened the other night.’
Almost immediately I sense her mind trying to flee. No longer looking
at me, she squeezes the peel in her fist.
‘I know you’re scared.’
‘I want to go home.’
‘I know, but first you have to answer some questions. The court wants
me to prepare a psych report.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘They want to know if you’re likely to hurt yourself or hurt someone
else.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
She turns to the window again, as though frightened of missing
someone arriving.
‘I can’t make you talk to me, Sienna, which means you’re in control of
this conversation. I’m not going to get upset or irritated if you don’t say
anything. I’m not going to get angry or annoyed. The very worst that can
happen is I walk out of here and say you weren’t able to speak to me.’
I can see her visibly relax. She pops a segment of tangerine into her
mouth and crushes it between her teeth.
‘So, tell me how you’re feeling.’
‘Lonely. Homesick.’
‘You’ve been charged with the most serious crime imaginable.’
‘I didn’t do it.’
‘You told the police you wanted him dead - you wished for it.’
‘That’s not the same thing. That’s just using words.’ Her rope-like curls
sway against her cheeks. ‘Robin says I’m supposed to separate bad
memories into coloureds and whites - just like the washing - and run them
through the machine. Wash them away. Put them on a heavy wash and spin
cycle. I laughed when he told me that, but Robin makes it sound so normal.’
‘Who’s Robin?’
‘My therapist.’
Robin Blaxland. Annie Robinson arranged for Sienna to see him.
‘Did you talk to Robin about your father?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Will you talk to me?’
Again she shrugs.
I ask her to sit on the sofa, lean back and close her eyes. Breathe deeply.
‘Feel your nostrils opening slightly as you inhale. The air feels cooler as
you breathe in and warmer as you breathe out. Feel the change in
temperature. How your breath fills your lungs.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m just going to talk. If I ask you something that upsets you, or makes
you frightened, I want you to raise your right hand. Just lift your fingers a
little and I’ll know to stop. That’s our special signal.’
Sienna nods.
‘Let’s start at the beginning. Where were you born?’
‘Bristol.’
‘You’re the youngest.’
‘Yeah.’
‘How old is Zoe?’
‘Nineteen.’
‘And Lance?’
‘Twenty-two.’
Sticking to closed questions, I gently draw out her history, which takes a
long time because her answers are devoid of detail. Sienna talks about
school - her favourite subject is English, her favourite teacher is Mrs
Adelaide. I ask about other subjects and other teachers.
An odd detail emerges. An omission. She doesn’t mention Gordon Ellis,
her drama teacher, yet the musical is all she and Charlie have talked about
for months. They have sung into hair-brushes and danced in front of the
mirror.
I take her back to Tuesday and the rehearsal.
‘Do you remember getting into trouble with Mr Ellis?’
‘Yes.’
 ‘Mr Ellis was quite hard on you.’
‘I’m used to it.’
‘Do you like him?’
‘He’s OK.’
‘You babysit his little boy.’
‘Sometimes.’
‘How do you get home afterwards?’
‘He drops me.’
‘Did your father ever argue with Mr Ellis?’
Sienna’s hand rises. She doesn’t want to talk about it.
‘You don’t want to talk about your dad or Mr Ellis?’
Sienna’s hand rises again. As promised, I change the subject and ask her
instead about Danny Gardiner.
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘It was ages ago. He went to school with Lance.’
‘But you hooked up with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘When was that?’
‘Early last year.’
‘Does he pick you up after school sometimes?’
She nods.
‘Where do you go?’
‘The cinema or the mall or just for a drive.’
‘Where did you go after Danny dropped you off last Tuesday?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘You mentioned your therapist, Robin. Is that where you went on
Tuesday?’
‘No.’
‘Where then?’
Her fingers begin to rise.
‘You don’t want to tell me.’
She nods.
‘Who are you protecting, Sienna?’
‘No one.’
I back off again, asking her instead about later that night.
‘What time did you get home?’
‘About ten-thirty.’
 ‘Did someone drop you?’
‘I caught the bus to Hinton Charterhouse and walked the rest of the
way.’
Two motorists reported seeing a blonde-haired girl in a short dress
walking down Hinton Hill on the night of the murder.
‘That’s a two-mile walk.’
She doesn’t reply.
‘Were there lights on in the house?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Think back. Put yourself outside the house again. It’s late. You’re tired.
You’ve walked home. You step through the gate. What do you see?’
‘A light in the hall.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘Mum normally leaves it on.’
‘Where is your key?’
‘In my schoolbag.’
‘Can you see yourself getting the key out, unlocking the door?’
She nods.
‘You’re opening it.’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you see?’
‘I look on the phone table to see if there are any messages on the
answering machine or letters for me. Mum sometimes leaves me a note.’
‘What about this time?’
‘No.’
‘What do you see?’
‘The door under the stairs is open. Daddy’s overnight bag is inside.
Unzipped. I see his shaving gear and dirty clothes.’
‘How does that make you feel?’
‘He’s not supposed to be home until Friday.’
‘Does that bother you?’
‘I don’t like being alone with him.’
‘What else do you see?’
‘A light at the top of the stairs.’
‘What about downstairs?’
‘I can hear the TV.’
‘What are you thinking?’
 ‘If I can get to my room I’ll be OK. There won’t be a scene. I can lock
the door and go to bed and he won’t bother me.’
‘How does he bother you?’
Her fingers rise and fall. She doesn’t want to talk about it.
‘What happens next?’ I ask.
‘I creep up the stairs, trying to be quiet. The fourth step has a squeak. I
step over it.’
Her breath quickens.
‘What is it?’
‘I hear something.’
‘What do you hear?’
‘A toilet flushing, then a tap running . . . in the bathroom.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘He’s upstairs. I have to hurry.’
‘Where were you?’
‘At the top of the stairs. My room is just there. I have to be quick. I have
to get inside.’
Her hands go to her mouth.
‘What?’
‘I’m falling.’
‘Down the stairs?’
A long pause. ‘He’s lying on the floor . . . Daddy. Not moving. I’m on
top of him.’
Her whole body is shaking.
‘What do you see?’
‘Blood. Everywhere. The floor is wet. I’m sitting in it. I try to scream,
but no sound comes out. And I’m wiping my hands over and over, but I
can’t get it off.’
‘Can you hear anything?’
‘A rushing sound in my head - it’s like the wind only louder and it fills
every space and blocks out every other sound. I can’t make it stop.’
Sienna covers her ears.
‘Is there someone else in the house, Sienna?’
She’s not listening. I hold her face in my hands, making her focus on
me. ‘Is there someone in the house?’
A whisper: ‘Yes.’
‘Can you see who it is?’
 ‘No.’
Fear floods her eyes. Suddenly, she’s on her feet, trying to run. I catch
her before she can take more than two steps, wrapping my arms around her,
lifting her easily. She’s fighting at my arms, her legs pumping. Mucus
streams from her mouth and nose.
‘Shhh, it’s OK. You’re safe. You’re with me.’
Slowly the fear evaporates. It’s like watching an inflatable-pool toy
spring a leak and sag into a crumpled puddle of plastic. I put her back on
the sofa and she curls her knees to her chest, closing her eyes. Spent. Raw.
The interview has taken three hours but Sienna can tell me nothing
more. Her emotions can’t be detached from her memories. I risk
traumatising her if I keep pushing.
Whoever killed Ray Hegarty was still in the house when Sienna came
home. SOCO found blood in the S-bend of the sink. The killer was cleaning
up. Wiping the blade clean.
An intruder? A robbery gone wrong? There were no signs of forced
entry, yet Sienna’s laptop is missing. Far more expensive items were
untouched.
Ray Hegarty wasn’t expected home until Friday. Helen Hegarty worked
nights. Sienna spent most evenings alone. Whoever killed Ray Hegarty was
inside the house. Waiting.
Who were they waiting for?
 16
The journey to London takes just over two hours by car. I leave after the
morning peak and arrive before midday, pulling into a side street off
Fulham Palace Road where I’m held to ransom by a parking machine.
Walking back to the main road, I head towards the echoing shadows of
Hammersmith flyover past empty shops and ‘For Lease’ signs. London is
bleeding. It’s like a virus that is spreading from the top down. No job is
secure enough. No mortgage small enough.
London has changed in the past two years. People have changed. I
thought it would be something violent and shocking that altered this city -
an outrage like the July 7 bombings or our version of 9/11 - but it was
something else: a financial meltdown, a banking crisis triggered on the far
side of the world by poor people who couldn’t repay their loans.
As I get near the Thames I can smell the mud flats and brine. I’m
visiting a friend - a former detective inspector with the Metropolitan Police
called Vincent Ruiz, who retired five years ago.
Broad like a bear with a busted nose and booze-stained cheeks, Ruiz has
had three marriages and three divorces. World-weary and fatalistic, I
sometimes think he’s a walking, talking cliché - the heavy-drinking,
womanising ex-detective - but he’s more complicated than that. He once
arrested me for murder. I once rescued him from himself. Friendships have
flourished on less.
We’ve arranged to meet at a pub on the river, not far from where he
lives. The Blue Anchor is tucked in the shadows of Hammersmith Bridge
where patrons can watch the rowers skim across the water and tourist boats
chug west towards Hampton Court.
Whitewashed with a blue trim, the pub has nautical paraphernalia on the
walls and Van Morrison on the sound system. Ruiz is waiting at the bar.
He’s a big man with big hands. One of them is wrapped around a pint glass.
‘Professor.’
‘Vincent.’
‘A shirt like that deserves a drink.’
It’s another of Emma’s choices.
‘What would happen if I had matching trousers?’ I ask.
 ‘I’d have to make a citizen’s arrest. Don’t look at me like that - I don’t
make the rules.’
Ruiz is in a good mood, telling jokes and stories. We shoot the breeze
about family and rugby. He’s on the committee of his local rugby club,
which had a winning season.
We’ve spent a lot of meals like this but mostly when Julianne was still
with me. Ruiz would flirt with her shamelessly and call her high
maintenance, while she treated him like a naughty schoolboy who refused
to grow up.
We order. The waitress suggests the special, a vegetarian lasagne. Ruiz
tells her he didn’t fight his way to the top of the food chain to be a
vegetarian. He orders the rump steak. Medium rare. Mashed potatoes with
butter not oil. Pepper sauce on the side.
The waitress turns to me. Her name is Polly.
‘I’ll have the Ploughman’s.’
She looks relieved. Ruiz orders another beer. He’s dressed in casual
trousers and a sweatshirt. I seem to remember him making a promise when
he left the Met that he would never wear a tie again unless it was to a rugby
dinner or a funeral.
‘So how’s Julianne?’
‘She’s interpreting - working on a big trial.’
Ruiz waits for something more, sensing it, but I don’t want to talk about
Ho-ho-ho Harry Veitch.
‘So why are you really here?’
‘I need your help.’
‘You’re in trouble.’
‘No.’
I tell him about Sienna and her father, trying to keep the emotion out o
my voice by sticking to the facts. Even so, I can hear myself defending her,
putting the best possible spin on the evidence.
Ruiz keeps his head down as he listens.
‘What makes you so sure she’s innocent?’ he asks.
‘She says she didn’t do it.’
‘Everybody lies.’
‘There was somebody else in the house. They stood behind the door in
the bedroom. They were waiting.’
 He looks straight through me, keeping his thoughts to himself. ‘Any
other suspects?’
I mention Sienna’s boyfriend Danny Gardiner and her brother Lance,
who had no alibi for the night of the murder.
‘Are we talking about Sugar Ray Hegarty?’ asks Ruiz. ‘Worked out of
Bristol CID?’
‘You knew him?’
‘We helped each other out once or twice.’
‘What was he like?’
‘Old school.’
‘Fair?’
‘And hard.’
Ruiz gazes into his pint, as if saying a silent prayer. ‘Typical, isn’t it?
You survive a career like his and all the terrible shit happens after you’re
out. I remember his daughter getting crippled by that sadistic fuck - what
was his name?’
‘Liam Baker.’
‘Yeah, him.’
Ruiz wants to know the details of Ray Hegarty’s death, taking down
correct spellings and looking for inconsistencies. Sienna’s laptop is missing
and her room had been searched.
‘Anything else taken in the house?’
‘Nothing.’
I can see his mind working. What could a teenage girl have on her
computer that was worth stealing?
‘What about the son?’
‘Lance didn’t get on with his father, they were always fighting, but I
don’t think he could have done this.’
‘Why?’
‘Cutting someone’s throat is personal. It’s hands-on. It takes courage.
Anger. Lance was frightened of his old man.’
Ruiz nods.
‘You might want to take a look at a school teacher: Gordon Ellis.’
‘What’s his story?’
‘He teaches music and drama at a secondary school. Lives locally.
Married. One child. I think Sienna confided in him; she might have told him
about the abuse, but when I mentioned his name, she clammed up and
wouldn’t talk about him.’
‘You hit a raw nerve?’
‘It might be nothing. About ten days before the murder, Ray Hegarty
had an argument outside his house with someone who dropped Sienna
home. The police haven’t been able to ID the driver, but it could have been
Gordon Ellis. Sienna used to babysit for Ellis and according to Helen
Hegarty, Ray saw the two of them kissing. Sienna denied it, but Hegarty
made a complaint to the school. I don’t know if the two events are related,
but Gordon Ellis has since accused Sienna of harassing him with phone
calls.’
Ruiz pats his pockets and his coat rattles. He used to be a smoker, but
now he sucks on boiled sweets that will rot his teeth instead of his lungs.
‘Who’s heading the investigation?’
‘Ronnie Cray.’
‘She still rolling her own tampons?’
Political correctness is not one of Ruiz’s strong suits. He once told me
that being politically correct was like pretending you could pick up a dog
turd by the clean end.
‘I thought you weren’t going to help the police out any more,’ he says.
‘This is different.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Sienna Hegarty is Charlie’s best friend.’
Ruiz nods and leans back as our meals arrive. Tucking a paper serviette
into his collar, he rubs his knife and fork together and tucks in. As he chews
he mulls over the information.
‘So I’ll run a few checks. See what I can find out.’ Then he puts on a
West Country accent. ‘Maybe I’ll drive down your way and spend a few
days in your neck of the woods.’
‘I’ll tell all the single women in town what a stud you are.’
‘I believe that memo has already been sent.’
The rest of our lunch is spent swapping stories of family and trying to
outdo each other in the dysfunctional relatives stakes. In truth, whenever I
talk to Ruiz I don’t feel so badly about my own parents. His mother suffers
from dementia and lives in a nursing home. The only thing she remembers
with any clarity is the war and every embarrassing detail of Ruiz’s
childhood, which she repeats in a megaphone voice whenever he visits her.
 ‘Do our children talk about us like this?’ he asks.
‘Probably.’
My mobile is vibrating. I pull it out and stare at the screen, not
recognising the number.
‘Professor O’Loughlin?’
‘Yes.’
‘You might remember me - Dr Martinez. I treated Sienna Hegarty when
they brought her into hospital.’
A pause. In the background I can hear the sound of the hospital PA
system.
‘You asked me about a rape test and I said I couldn’t perform one
without her parents’ permission.’
‘Yes.’
‘There was evidence of rough sex, which might have been rape. And
there’s something else. She miscarried.’
The statement fizzes inside my brain like an aspirin disappearing in a
glass of water.
Dr Martinez continues, ‘She must have lost the foetus on the night she
came in.’
‘How many weeks was she?’ I can’t recognise my own voice.
‘I ran a blood pregnancy test for levels of hCG. The hormone level
doubles every two days for four weeks after conception. Given her levels
and the amount of blood we found on her clothes, I’d say she was in her
first trimester - at least four weeks, no more than ten.’
He stops talking. The silence stretches out.
‘Are you still there?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not sure if I’ve done the right thing, but since you’d asked . . .’
‘Thank you, I appreciate that.’
He’s about to hang up when something occurs to me. ‘Would she have
known?’ I ask.
‘She was late. Most women know their cycles.’
There was no evidence of a pregnancy test found at the house, but
Sienna would most likely have destroyed the test kit.
Closing the phone, I stare at the screen as the light fades. Ruiz is
watching me from the opposite side of the table.
 ‘She was pregnant,’ I whisper. ‘She miscarried on the night of the
murder.’
‘Can they do a paternity test?’
‘Not without the foetus.’
 17
Just south of Reading, I pull into a motorway service centre and park
among the long-haul trucks and tourist coaches. Hiking across the parking
lot, I enter a brightly lit lobby full of fast-food outlets and shops.
The men’s room is cavernous but I still have to queue for a urinal. The
men around me are truckers in plaid shirts or football strips hung over beer
guts. One of them hauls up his jeans and saunters off like a man who has
marked his territory.
My left hand is trembling. My bladder won’t do as it’s told. I stand and
stare at the wall. Someone has scrawled a message in marker pen above the
urinal: ‘Express Lane: five beers or less.’
Nothing is happening. The queue is getting longer.
‘Are you gonna piss or just piss me off ?’ says a trucker with a wallet
chained to his belt.
‘I’m sorry. I won’t be a moment.’
He grunts and says something to the person next to him. They laugh. It’s
not going to happen now. That’s one of the problems with my medication. I
used to piss like a racehorse. Now I squirt and dribble.
Outside the restroom I put in a call to Trinity Road Police Station.
Ronnie Cray is in a meeting. Monk answers her phone. Certain people don’t
match their voices, but Monk’s comes from deep in his chest and seems to
rumble down the line as if he’s standing in a tunnel.
‘Danny Gardiner?’
‘What about him?’
‘Did you interview him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sienna was pregnant.’
I can hear Monk exhale slowly.
‘The boss isn’t here.’
‘Can you take me?’
Monk hesitates momentarily. We’ll meet at Danny Gardiner’s house.
I have the rest of the journey to consider the implications of Sienna’s
pregnancy. I think back to the afternoon I collected her and Charlie from
school. Sienna had seemed distracted and upset. I thought she was annoyed
about the rehearsal and being made to stay behind. Even so, she skipped
into her boyfriend’s arms, kissing his lips, sliding her hand down his back.
Danny Gardiner told police that he’d dropped Sienna on a street corner
in Bath only thirty minutes later. Where did she go? Three hours are
missing from the timeline.
Danny lives with his mother in Twerton on the western outskirts of Bath
where most of the older houses are clustered around St Michael’s Parish
Church. The newer estates have encroached on to farmland and already I
see white pegs marking out more plots of land.
Monk is waiting in an unmarked police car.
‘What did Cray say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You didn’t tell her.’
‘I’m doing you a favour.’
Nobody answers the door. Monk knocks again. Then we wait. The sky
is low and grey, smelling of woodsmoke and rain.
A white hatchback pulls into a parking space ahead of us. A woman in
her fifties emerges, dressed in a tour guide’s uniform. She collects a bag of
groceries from the boot and walks to the house, cursing as she drops her
keys.
‘Mrs Gardiner?’ I ask.
‘Who wants to know?’
The door swings inwards and a long-haired dog that could have a head
at either end dances around her stockinged legs, yapping.
She turns, waiting for an answer.
‘We’re looking for Danny.’
‘He’s talked to you lot already.’
‘Not to me.’
Her blue-grey eyes examine me quickly and then settle on Monk,
gazing at him as though he’s sprouted from magic beans in her front garden.
‘Lordy, your mother must have gone cross-eyed having you. How tall?’
‘Six-four last time I measured.’
‘I think you’ve grown since then, love. You should have played
basketball.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She has stepped inside the hallway. The house smells of damp dog, air
freshener and dope. Mrs Gardiner lifts her shopping bags over the
threshold, using one hand to hold the collar of the dog.
‘I haven’t seen Danny since yesterday.’
‘His car is outside,’ says Monk.
‘Must have taken the bus,’ she replies.
‘That’s too bad. We’ll have to tow the car. Forensic boys want to pull it
apart. Tell him we’ll put it back together again . . . best we can.’
Two beats of silence follow before Danny bursts out of a bedroom,
barefoot, bare-chested, wearing low-slung jeans. Marijuana smoke wafts in
his wake.
‘Not me fucking car! I just finished paying it off.’
Danny reaches the front door and bounces off Monk’s chest.
‘The car’s fine. We just need to ask you a few questions.’
‘I answered your questions.’
‘More of them.’
‘Fuck off!’
Mrs Gardiner clips him around the ear. ‘Mind your language.’
Danny nurses the side of his head where three studs decorate the
cartilage above his ear.
‘I suppose you’d better come in then,’ says Mrs Gardiner. ‘Carry them
bags, Danny.’
We follow her along a hallway into a tired-looking kitchen, with red-
painted cupboards and a fridge that doubles as a noticeboard. She begins
unpacking her groceries while Danny pulls a bottle of soft drink from a bag.
She tells him to get a glass. He rolls his eyes.
‘What’s he done now?’ she asks Monk.
‘We want to ask him about his girlfriend.’
‘A girl? That’s all he thinks about - girls. You should see the state of his
bed sheets.’
Danny gives her a murderous look.
‘Lazy, just like his dad. Spends his time tinkering with cars. Not really a
proper job, is it?’ Mrs Gardiner sizes Monk up again. ‘How tall you say you
were, Detective?’
‘Six-four.’
‘I’ve got a job for you. Won’t take a minute.’
‘I’m needed here.’
‘Don’t take two of you to talk to Danny. Call it a community service.’
 Mrs Gardiner is halfway down the hall, motioning him to follow. Monk
glances at me, hoping to be rescued, and then reluctantly accepts his fate.
Danny relaxes now that his mother is no longer orbiting.
‘Do you remember me?’ I ask.
Danny shakes his head.
‘I saw you outside Sienna’s house last Wednesday morning.’
He screws up his face. ‘Wasn’t me.’
‘You legged it when I tried to talk to you. Almost ran me down in that
car of yours. That’s one of the problems with having a distinctive-looking
car, Danny. You think it makes a bold statement, but it sticks out like a turd
in a punchbowl.’
Danny is working his tongue around his cheek as though counting his
teeth. His hair sticks up at odd angles and I can see traces of pimple cream
dabbed on his forehead. For all his brazen defiance, he doesn’t look
particularly tough or aggressive. He has small hands. Delicate features.
‘Tell me about Sienna Hegarty.’
‘What about her?’
‘Is she your girlfriend?’
‘She’s a friend.’
‘She’s underage.’
‘So what?’
‘How old are you, Danny?’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘Don’t you know any horny girls your own age?’
‘I get my share.’
‘So why Sienna?’
‘Listen, I’m not shagging her, OK, and if she says I am then she’s a
lying cow. We’re mates.’
‘Mates?’
‘Yeah. We hang out together. I drive her around the place. Drop her off.’
‘And what do you get in return?’
He shrugs.
‘Come on, Danny, I wasn’t born yesterday. You’re trying to tell me that
you hang out with a hot-looking fourteen-year-old because she’s a mate.’
‘Yeah, well, I figured one day, you know . . .’
‘One day?’
‘She might pay out, you know. When she’s legal?’
 ‘You’re lying.’
‘No.’
‘Sienna was pregnant. You knocked her up.’
‘No fucking way!’ His voice grows shrill. ‘I just take her places. Drop
her off. I’m not shagging her. Haven’t touched her.’
‘No?’
‘It’s true.’
‘Either tell me the truth, Danny, or Detective Abbott is going to search
your room. He’ll find your hash and your porn magazines and whatever else
you’re hiding. Then he’ll take you down to the station and put you in a cell
downstairs with the drunks and the perverts and the drug addicts. Do you
know how long a night lasts in a place like that? By morning you’ll be an
old man.’
Sweat pops out on Danny’s forehead and runs down the side of his nose.
He’s trying to look like he doesn’t care, but I can see his mind working.
‘I saw you with Sienna last Tuesday. Where did you go?’
‘We drove around for a while, then I dropped her off.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Seven.’
‘Where did you drop her?’
‘In town.’
He names a street corner on Lower Bristol Road.
‘Why did she want to go there?’
Danny shrugs. ‘That’s where she told me to drop her. She had the
address on a piece of paper.’
‘And you just drove away?’
‘Yep.’ One of his feet is jiggling up and down.
‘Where did you go?’
‘A mate’s place.’
‘For how long?’
‘I kipped on his sofa. I was there all night.’
‘What’s your mate’s name?’
Danny reacts as though scalded. ‘What difference does that make? He’s
just a mate.’
Something about the response borders on panic. Danny’s eyes have
clouded over and his hands are pressed to the top of his thighs. There is
something slightly effeminate about the pose. In that instant I suddenly see
him clearly. I pull my chair closer and tell him to relax.
‘I don’t want to know your friend’s name, Danny. It’s not important.’
He visibly relaxes.
‘Sienna is a pretty girl,’ I say. ‘Did you tell your mates you were doing
her?’
Danny doesn’t answer.
‘It’s important to have a girlfriend, isn’t it? Otherwise your mates might
think you’re not interested in girls.’
He blinks at me.
‘I mean, it must be tough - being a mechanic. All those girlie calendars
in the workshop, the wolf whistles, the banter about Page Three girls; it’s a
job for blokes.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mates think you’re doing her, don’t they? They’re in awe of you.
Lucky bugger, they say, but I think Sienna just pretends to be your
girlfriend.’
Excuses clot in the back of Danny’s throat.
‘I think you arrange to pick her up and she’s all over you, putting on a
good show for your mates. That’s when you tell them you need some
privacy.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘Sure you do. You’re both trying to hide something. You have a
boyfriend . . . and so does Sienna.’
Danny leaps to his feet. His chair crashes to the floor. ‘I’M NOT
QUEER! IT’S A LIE! YOU TAKE THAT BACK!’
He’s pleading with me, his face twisting in suffering. I pick up the chair
and tell him to sit down. He slumps over his knees, staring at the floor.
‘Listen, Danny, I don’t care how many boyfriends you have. Just tell me
about Sienna.’
Pressing his lips tightly together, he contemplates what to do. He can
hear his mother laughing in the front room. He glances sidelong at the door.
‘She was seeing someone else,’ he mutters.
Who?’
‘I don’t know. I just dropped her off.’
‘Did you always drop her at the same place?’
‘No, it was different each time.’
 ‘And then what happened?’
‘I drove away.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Piss off!’
‘You were curious. It’s human nature. You didn’t just leave her. You
wanted to know who she was seeing.’
Danny chews the inside of his cheek. ‘Yeah, well, maybe once.’
‘What happened?’
‘I hung around; parked up behind some trees. I saw a car pull up and
Sienna got inside.’
‘Who was driving?’
‘An old dude.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Fuck knows!’
‘But you saw him.’
‘Not up close. He was mid-thirties, maybe older.’
Ancient.
‘What sort of car was he driving?’
‘A Ford Focus. The five-door two-litre estate. Silver.’
‘You remember the number?’
‘Yeah, I tattooed it on my foreskin so I wouldn’t forget.’
Danny laughs and decides he’s going to remember the line and use it on
his mates in the workshop.
‘Would you recognise the driver again?’
‘I’d recognise the car. I’m good with cars.’
No longer anxious, Danny picks up a butter knife and begins scraping a
speck of dirt from beneath his thumbnail. He has a habit of nodding his
head as though he’s agreeing with himself.
‘This day you watched and waited, what happened?’
‘The old dude made Sienna duck down. I figured he wanted a blowjob,
you know, but they just drove off.’
‘What about last Tuesday - did you see his car?’
‘Nah. I just dropped her.’
‘So you didn’t see the guy who picked her up?’
Danny shakes his head.
‘What were you doing at Sienna’s house next morning?’
 Danny hesitates for a beat too long. I don’t give him time to make
excuses.
‘Listen very carefully to me, Danny. I’m happy to let your secret life
stay secret, but not if you lie to me.’
He looks at me sheepishly.
‘I tried to call Sienna, but she wasn’t answering. I was driving home
from my mate’s place and I went by Sienna’s house - hoping I might see
her. Place was crawling with coppers.
‘Why did you run?’
His shoulders rise and fall. ‘I didn’t want to get involved.’
The age-old story.
Danny lets out a low, whistling breath. ‘They said her old man had his
throat cut. Never seen a dead body - not one like that. What did he look
like?’

Outside: darkness. The wind has freshened and a beech tree groans in
protest from a corner of the garden where the moon is hiding in the
branches.
Monk leans on the car. ‘Get what you wanted?’
‘Sienna was seeing someone else. Somebody older. There must be
evidence: emails, text messages, letters . . . we have to search Sienna’s
room.’
‘It’s been searched,’ says Monk.
Yes, but her laptop was missing and her mobile was damaged in the
river. We’ll need to retrieve her messages from the phone company database
and her Internet server.
‘Sienna does some babysitting for her drama teacher, Gordon Ellis.
According to Helen Hegarty, Ray saw this teacher kissing Sienna in his car
when she was being dropped home. He made a complaint to the school.’
‘When was this?’
‘In the week before the murder. Ellis could be the person Ray Hegarty
was arguing with outside his house. You should find out what sort of car he
drives.’
Monk scratches his unshaven jaw with his knuckles. ‘The boss is going
to say you’re muddying the water.’
 Is that what I’m doing?
‘I’m trying to understand what happened.’
‘What if she’s guilty?’
‘What if she’s not?’
Monk seems to think carefully, as though taking a conscience vote. He’s
a family man who worries about his own children. He’s also a realist and
knows how the truth can be manipulated, ameliorated and negotiated away
at every stage of an investigation and trial. That’s the reality of modern
policing. Overworked, underpaid and unappreciated, investigators are
forced to cut corners and paint over their mistakes. Usually, with a little
luck, the facts fall into place and the right person goes down. And even if
the system fails, detectives can normally sleep peacefully at night because
the defendant was probably guilty of something equally terrible. Truly
innocent people very rarely go to jail. That’s the theory. It’s normally the
practice. Then someone like Sienna Hegarty comes along.
On the drive home I listen to PM on Radio 4, Eddie Mair analysing the
events of the day.
Jury members broke down in tears today as they were shown
photographs of a Ukrainian family including three young children who
perished in a fire-bomb attack on a Bristol boarding house.
Two of the children, Aneta and Danya Kostin, aged four and six, were
found huddled in a second-floor bedroom. Their eleven-year-old sister Vira
perished on the first-floor landing, near to where their parents’ bodies were
discovered. All were overcome by smoke after petrol was allegedly poured
through the letterbox and petrol bombs were thrown through the windows.
Neighbours told Bristol Crown Court of hearing windows breaking and
seeing a white Ford transit van leaving the scene moments before flames
were spotted on the ground floor of the building. A forensic expert also
presented fingerprint evidence linking one of the three accused, Tony Scott,
to a petrol container used in the attack . . .
I turn off the radio. Crack the window. The cold air helps me
concentrate.
Parking the car outside the terrace, I walk down the hill to the cottage
and sit outside on a stone wall in the shadows of low branches. The lights
are on downstairs. A TV flickers behind the curtains.
Something pushes me up the path. My finger hovers over the doorbell.
Julianne opens the door a crack. ‘Hello?’
 ‘Hi.’
‘Is everything OK?’
‘Fine. I just thought I’d drop by. How are you?’
‘I’m good.’
There is a pause that stretches out in my mind, becoming embarrassing.
Julianne opens the door wider. ‘Do you want to come in?’
I step past her and wait for her to close the door. She’s been watching
TV, but the sound is now turned down.
‘Where’s Charlie?’ I ask, glancing up the stairs.
‘Babysitting.’
‘Who is she looking after?’
‘A little boy in Emma’s class.’
Julianne curls up in an armchair by the fire. A book lies open on the
armrest. A cup of tea is empty on the table next to her.
‘How was your date with Harry?’ I ask.
She holds up her hand and rocks her palm from side to side. ‘So-so. I
discovered that he’s rather controlling.’
‘How?’
‘I asked for the dessert menu and he made such a fuss.’
I feel a stab of guilt. ‘That’s very odd.’
Julianne pushes hair back behind her ears. ‘I doubt you came here to
talk about Harry.’ She smiles and effortlessly takes repossession of my
heart.
‘Sienna was pregnant,’ I say, which is definitely a conversation starter.
Julianne blinks at me. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’
We’re both thinking the same thing. What if it had been Charlie? What
would we do?
Julianne grows pensive. ‘I walked past the Hegartys’ house today and I
saw the curtains closed and I started thinking about Sienna. She was always
here, Joe, staying for dinner, sleeping over, curled up on the sofa with
Charlie.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Then I started thinking about how angry
I’ve been at you, and some of the things I said.’
She raises her eyes to mine, filling me with a sense that all her
remembered anger, grief and impatience are gone.
‘We haven’t lost someone, Joe. We have two wonderful daughters.
We’re very lucky.’
 ‘I know.’
Her ocean-grey eyes are shining. ‘I don’t know if I should tell you this.’
‘What?’
‘There are nights when I miss you so much I cry myself to sleep and
other nights when I realise that loving you took every ounce of energy and
more. I didn’t have enough . . . I’ll never have enough.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’
‘Let me come back.’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m not strong enough to live with you, Joe. I’m
barely strong enough to live without you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re not always going to be here.’
A stray lock of hair falls from behind her ear. She tucks it back again.
For a moment I think she might cry. The last time I saw her tears was two
years ago, in her hospital room where rain streaked the windows and it felt
as if the clouds were crying for me.
‘I don’t love you any more,’ Julianne told me blankly, coldly. ‘Not in
the right way - not how I used to.’
‘There isn’t a right way. There’s just love,’ I said.
What do I know?
Now she’s smiling sadly at me. ‘You’re so good at analysing other
people, Joe, but not yourself.’
‘Or you.’
‘I hate it when you analyse me.’
‘I try not to. I prefer you to be a magnificent enigma.’
Julianne laughs properly this time.
‘I’m being serious,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to understand you. I don’t want
to know what you’ll do next. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to
solve the mystery.’
She sighs and shakes her head. ‘You’re a decent man, Joe, but . . .’
I stop her. No statement that begins that way is ever a harbinger for
anything good. What if she’s clearing the decks before telling me that she’s
going to marry Harry Veitch?
‘Tell me something honest,’ I say.
Julianne presses her lips into narrow unyielding lines. ‘Are you saying I
tell lies?’
 ‘No, that’s not what I meant. I just want to talk about something
important.’
‘This isn’t a necessary conversation, Joe.’
‘I like it when we talk about the girls. It makes me feel like we’re still a
family.’
‘We can’t live it over again,’ she whispers sadly.
‘I know.’
‘Do you? Sometimes I wonder.’
 18
On Tuesday afternoon I park the Volvo outside a house made of
weathered stone with a slate roof. The small square front garden is divided
by strips of grass between flowerbeds where gerberas are pushing through
the loam searching for sunlight.
Grabbing my overcoat from the passenger seat, I walk up the front path
and give the doorbell a short ring, putting on my friendliest professional
demeanour. Nobody answers. Ringing the bell again, I press my ear to the
wooden door. Canned TV laughter leaks from inside.
Retreating down the steps to the front window, I try to peer through a
gap in the curtains into the murky twilight of a living room. The TV is a
flickering square. I can just make out a blurred outline of someone sitting
on the sofa. Perhaps they didn’t hear the doorbell.
This time I knock loudly and listen for footfalls or muffled voices or the
sound of someone breathing on the other side of the door.
Nothing.
I’m about to leave when I hear a voice from the rear garden. Gordon
Ellis appears from the side of the house. He’s dressed in tracksuit bottoms
and a Harlequins rugby shirt. A fringe of chestnut hair falls across his
forehead. He brushes it aside.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi. Were you waiting long? I was out back.’
‘No, not long.’
He looks at me closely. ‘Have we met?’
‘I’m Charlie O’Loughlin’s father.’
‘Of course you are.’ He offers his hand: a killer grip. ‘Call me Gordon.’
‘Joe.’
He’s carrying a hoe, which he rests against his shoulder. ‘Charlie is a
great kid.’
‘Thank you.’
I glance at the front door. ‘I don’t want to interrupt . . . if you have a
visitor.’
‘Nope, it’s just me. Natasha has gone shopping. I was just doing some
chores. Almost finished. Do you mind if we talk out back?’
 I follow him along the side path where a rusting bicycle is propped
against the fence, alongside recycling bins. The long narrow garden has a
sandbox with toys, a vegetable patch and a small greenhouse. At the far end
there is an old stable block, now a garage, which backs on to a rear lane.
Through an open side door I notice a silver BMW convertible. Ellis
follows my gaze.
‘You’re wondering how a teacher can afford a car like that?’
‘It did cross my mind.’
‘Natasha’s family is loaded. You could say I married well.’ He looks a
little embarrassed. ‘We met at school. I didn’t know she was rich. Honest.’
He laughs and begins turning soil in the vegetable garden, swinging the
hoe over his shoulder and driving the blade into the compacted earth.
‘I’m running late with this. I should have planted a month ago.’
Glancing at the house, it looks less welcoming from this angle with
small, mean windows. From somewhere on the street-side I hear a door
close. Ellis hears it too. His eyes meet mine.
‘What can I do for you, Joe?’
‘I want to ask you about Sienna Hegarty.’
He swings the hoe again. ‘A terrible business!’
‘You were close?’
‘She’s one of my students. She’s in the musical.’
‘I saw the dress rehearsal last Tuesday. You were very hard on her.’
‘Sienna was distracted. She forgot her lines. Her timing was off. I know
what she’s capable of.’ He pauses and wipes his forearm across his
forehead. ‘You didn’t come here to discuss the musical.’
‘No.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I’m trying to help Sienna. I’m a psychologist. I’ve been asked to
prepare a psych report for the court.’
‘How can I help?’
‘I talked to Sienna a few days ago. I asked her about school - general
questions about her favourite subjects and teachers. When she listed her
teachers she left you out.’
‘You make it sound like she failed an exam.’
‘She grew agitated when I mentioned your name. She didn’t want to
talk about you. Can you think of a reason?’
‘No.’
 ‘Nothing occurs to you?’
The hoe is poised above his head with his fists gripping the handle.
‘Why are you really here, Mr O’Loughlin?’
First names have been dropped.
‘Miss Robinson the school counsellor said it was you who encouraged
Sienna to come and see her. Did Sienna tell you what was troubling her?’
Ellis relaxes a little. He takes a small packet of tissues from his pocket
and wipes the corner of his lips. Gazes past me at the treetops.
‘Sometimes you can tell when a child is struggling. Sienna was quiet.
Anxious.’
‘You saw this?’
‘It was a day last summer. We’d just started back at school after the
holidays. It was hot and nobody was wearing a sweater except Sienna,
which I thought was odd. Then I noticed a smear of blood on her palms,
which had run down from her wrist. She kept her arms folded so nobody
would see. She’d cut herself and was still bleeding.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘No. And she wouldn’t go to the infirmary. So I collected some
bandages and slipped them into her schoolbag. She didn’t say anything, but
I think she knew it was me.’
‘Did you report the incident?’
‘No, but after that I kept an eye on her. She joined the drama club. Over
time she grew to trust me. We talked.’
‘What about?’
‘She was having problems at home with her father.’
‘What sort of problems?’
‘Do I have to spell it out, Mr O’Loughlin? I encouraged Sienna to see
the counsellor. And when she didn’t want to see a therapist, I helped
convince her.’
‘She trusted you?’
‘I guess.’
‘Why was that?’
He blinks, suddenly angry. ‘Maybe I was willing to listen.’
‘Did she tell you she was being abused?’
‘No. I just knew it. You teach for long enough and you learn to
recognise the signs.’
 Resting the hoe against the fence, he picks up a rake and begins
smoothing the soil, breaking up the larger clods and creating channels for
drainage. Across the fence, a neighbour is pegging her washing, the whites,
sheets and towels.
Gordon returns her wave.
‘Sienna needed my help. I wish I could have done more.’ The words
seem to catch in his throat.
‘Did you know that Sienna was pregnant?’
Ellis pauses for a moment, the rake suspended in mid-air. Tension
ripples across his shoulders. Then he exhales and shakes his head.
‘I know she had a boyfriend.’
The neighbour has finished with her washing and is calling her dog.
‘Here, Jake, c’mon boy. C’mon, Jake.’
Ellis is staring at me now, resting the rake handle on his shoulder.
‘Did Sienna have a crush on you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You admit it?’
‘It happens.’
‘It doesn’t worry you?’
‘On the contrary - I take it as a compliment. It’s a sign that I’m doing
my job pretty damn well.’
‘Doing it well?’
‘You’ve got to understand the process of teaching. If I do my job
properly I can change the way a student thinks about himself or herself. It’s
a process of seduction, but it’s not about sexual conquest. It’s about creating
an interest and a passion where none previously existed. It’s about getting
students to want something they didn’t know they wanted.’
‘You make them fall in love with the subject?’
‘I make them feel excited, energised, provoked and challenged.’
‘So you encourage crushes?’
‘Yes, but not to feed my ego. Instead I turn the focus back on the
student. I encourage them to use their new-found curiosity and passion, to
run with it, indulge it, let it take them places . . .’
‘And what happens when a student sexualises their crush?’
‘I take a step back. Let them down gently. Sienna didn’t get a crush on
me because she wanted to be with me but because she wanted to be like me.
I brought out her best. I made her feel special. This has nothing to do with
physical attractiveness. It’s a meeting of minds.’
He makes it sound so obvious that nobody could dispute his logic. He’s
a passionate teacher, possibly a brilliant one, but what adolescent girl knows
the difference between seduction and persuasion, love and infatuation?
‘Did you know Ray Hegarty?’
‘We met once or twice.’
Ellis looks at the garden with a weary smile. ‘If I don’t get these planted
soon, we won’t have vegetables for the summer.’
A sharp gust of wind scatters his words.
‘How is Sienna?’
‘She’s traumatised.’
‘Is the baby . . . ?’
‘She miscarried.’
He nods sadly and raises his eyes to the pearl-grey sky. ‘That may have
been for the best.’
Something rises in my stomach. Burns. I swallow hard and find myself
saying goodbye, retracing my steps across the lawn to the side path.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice the garage again and the sports car.
‘What sort of car does your wife drive?’ I ask, turning to Ellis.
He gives me a wry smile. ‘Natasha’s not really interested in cars. They
just have to get her from A to B.’
‘So what does she drive?’
‘A Ford Focus.’
 19
Sometimes we know things even if we don’t know we know them.
Maybe all we have is a fluttering sensation in our stomachs or a nagging
sense of doubt or an unexplained certainty that something has happened.
Call it intuition or perception or insight. There is no sixth sense - it is a
simple mental process where the brain takes in a situation, does a rapid
search of its files, and among the sprawl of memories and knowledge it
throws up an immediate match, a first impression.
That’s why on trivia nights it’s often best to go with the first answer that
pops into our heads, because that initial thought is based upon a
subconscious cue; a knowledge that cannot be articulated or defended.
Ponder the same question for too long and our higher brain functions will
begin to demand proof.
The trick is to train your mind to pick up the cues. Trust your first
response. My gut tells me that Sienna Hegarty didn’t kill her father. My gut
tells me that she’s protecting someone. My gut tells me that Gordon Ellis
knows more than he’s letting on. My gut tells me that there was something
between them - teacher and student - a friendship that crossed a boundary.
For the past four days I have wrestled with this problem, going back
over the details of Sienna’s interview and Ellis’s reaction. Another image
keeps coming back to me: Gordon Ellis on stage during the rehearsal,
looking into the eyes of a teenage girl, putting his finger beneath her chin,
tilting her face towards his. She wanted to be kissed . . . wanted to surrender
. . . he wanted control.
I can see Ellis’s eyes travelling from the girl’s dilated pupils over her
flushed cheeks, down her exposed neck, across her under-defended body.
Was it the look of a practised manipulator or a committed teacher? Was it a
predator’s leer or a harmless piece of theatre?
It’s Saturday morning in Bath. I’m sitting in Café Medoc, overlooking
Pulteney Bridge and the riverside path running north past the Bath Library
arcade. The weir is downstream, turning brown water into foam. Ducks
paddle above the falls as if waiting for a ramp to be delivered.
Annie Robinson takes a seat and puts her brightly coloured hippy
shoulder bag at her feet. She’s wearing a quilted jacket over a shirt and thin
woollen tights.
‘I didn’t think you’d call me, Joseph O’Loughlin.’
‘Why?’
‘You looked so embarrassed when you last saw me.’
‘I wasn’t embarrassed.’
She laughs. ‘I seem to remember you didn’t know where to look.’
Coffees are ordered. Delivered. Spooning foam from a cappuccino, she
holds the spoon in her mouth.
‘You don’t give a girl much notice. Normally, I wouldn’t agree to a date
when someone rings me on the same morning. Did someone else stand you
up?’
‘It’s not really a date,’ I say, and then backtrack. ‘I mean, I wanted to
see you socially, but I didn’t think of this as one - a date, I mean . . .’
Again she laughs, her eyes dancing.
‘Don’t worry, Joseph O’Loughlin, I won’t be offended if we don’t call it
a date.’
Annie seems to find my full name amusing. ‘So tell me,’ she says,
‘since we’re two friends meeting socially - what do you do for a living?’
‘I’m a clinical psychologist and please call me Joe.’
‘Is that what your wife calls you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I shall call you Joseph. Do you have a practice?’
‘Not any more. I lecture at the university. Part-time.’
She nods as though satisfied. ‘Do you find the weekends are the
hardest?’
‘Hardest?’
‘Being alone. When I’m at work it doesn’t matter because I’m busy, but
the weekends are lonelier.’
‘How long has it been?’ I ask.
‘Three years since we separated. Ten months since the divorce. I held
out hope until the very end. How about you?’
‘No divorce yet.’
‘Oh, I thought, you know . . . I didn’t realise.’ There is a squeak in her
voice.
‘Were you always a school counsellor?’ I ask, trying to rescue her.
‘I used to teach history. My father said it was the perfect subject because
there was always more to teach.’
 ‘Even if it repeats itself?’
‘Because we never learn.’
She smiles and a dimple appears on her left cheek, but not the right.
The sun has come out. Reaching into her bag, she takes out a pair of
sunglasses.
‘That’s a very colourful bag.’
‘My ex-husband gave it to me when we were still married. It was
stuffed full of lingerie, most of which was totally obscene and not sexy at
all. Don’t even try to get me out of my good old Marks and Spencers striped
pyjamas.’
‘I wouldn’t try.’
She feigns surprise. ‘Am I that undesirable?’
‘No, that’s not what I meant. I just . . . I mean . . . I wouldn’t force you
out of them . . .’
She laughs prettily and then convinces me to share a slice of ‘death by
chocolate’ cake because a ‘true gentleman would share some of the guilt’.
‘So why did you call me, Joseph?’
‘How well do you know Gordon Ellis?’
‘Why?’
‘I’m interested.’
She licks her spoon. ‘We were at college together during teacher
training - back in the days when we were young and committed to the
cause.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Too handsome for his own good.’
She says it in such a matter-of-fact way that I feel a twinge of jealousy.
‘Is he popular?’
‘Very. Particularly with the senior girls - he sets their little hearts
aflutter. Some of the really presumptuous ones pass him notes or make
excuses to rub up against him. Gordon has to be very careful.’
‘Has he had problems?’
She looks at me doubtfully. ‘Why are you so interested?’
‘I think Sienna Hegarty has a crush on him.’
‘She wouldn’t be the first or the last.’
‘What if it went further than that?’
Annie’s head tilts to one side. ‘Sexual misconduct - are you making an
accusation?’
 ‘It’s a hypothetical question.’
‘A dangerous one. Rumours spread very quickly. Careers can be
ruined.’
‘This is just between us.’
She toys with her earring, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger.
‘The school has procedures to deal with sexual misconduct.’
‘Internal procedures?’
‘Usually. Most incidents rarely get beyond a harmless crush and
misplaced affection.’
‘And when it does?’
‘The school accepts responsibility. The teacher is quietly suspended,
sacked or transferred without any fuss.’
‘Or damaging publicity.’
Annie doesn’t disagree.
‘Maybe you don’t remember being at school, Joe, but classrooms are
like sexual petri dishes, full of hormones and sexual tension. I’ve had my
share of admirers. When I was at school I fancied Mr Deitch, who taught
English and PE. We used to go and watch whenever he was on the track
because he wore Lycra running shorts just like Linford Christie. He had an
impressive lunchbox.’
‘I get the picture.’
She laughs. ‘Did a teacher break your heart too?’
‘Miss Powell - she taught French and had done some modelling in Paris.
I saw her shopping one day and made up a story about how she’d been
buying sexy underwear. My mates were so jealous. Anyway, the story got
back to her and she sent me to see the headmaster. I had to write an essay
on why women shouldn’t be treated as sex objects.’
‘You poor boy.’
‘It wouldn’t have happened to a girl.’
Mock surprise. ‘You’re blaming me now.’
‘No. Never. But tell me, how do you guard against it - teenage crushes?’
‘I avoid meeting students outside of school or having them in my car. I
don’t play favourites. I avoid situations where I’d be alone with a particular
student. I don’t accept gifts or give them. I avoid physical contact. I leave
the classroom door open. I don’t write notes or emails that could be
misinterpreted.’
‘It’s a minefield.’
 ‘Yes and no.’
She runs a finger around the top of her coffee cup. ‘I can usually tell
when a student has a crush on me - the lovesick looks and excuses to stay
late or arrive early.’
‘And then what?’
‘I find a way of distancing myself. I let them down gently. I maintain
the boundaries.’
Annie raises her eyes and holds her gaze on mine. I can feel myself
blink and colour come to my throat.
‘Is that why you asked me here - to talk about Gordon?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘Oh well, as long as you’re paying.’ She laughs gaily. ‘You wouldn’t
even recognise Gordon if you saw photographs of him as a kid.’
‘Why?’
‘He was a real Billy Bunter. Overweight and short-sighted with crooked
teeth and a face like a pizza.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I once met his mother. She came to college to make sure he was
looking after himself. She had photographs of Gordon as a youngster.
You’ve got to give him credit for remaking himself. He lost the weight. Got
his teeth straightened. Worked out. It helped that he grew to be six-two.’
‘Did you know Natasha?’
‘Who?’
‘Gordon’s wife. She must have been around.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Gordon said they met at school. I thought she must have been around
during his college years.’
Annie shakes her head.
‘He had loads of girlfriends at college. He went out with a friend of
mine, Alison, for about three months.’
‘Did you date him?’
She shrugs. ‘He’s not really my type.’ She pauses. ‘You’re very nosy,
Joseph. Are all psychologists like that?’
‘We’re interested in people.’
‘Are you interested in me?’
‘Of course.’
 It’s the right answer. Suddenly she stands and suggests we go for a
walk. Crossing Argyle Street, we follow Grand Parade through Bath City
Park. Annie hooks her arm through mine. Her shoulder bag swings gently
against our hips. It’s nice to flirt and banter with a pretty woman. Julianne
and I used to be like this, teasing each other, making observations, righting
the wrongs of the world.
‘So what made you decide to become a counsellor?’ I ask.
‘It’s probably the same reason you became a psychologist. I wanted to
make a difference. Why did you decide to lecture?’
‘I’m not really sure. I’m not certain that psychology can be taught.’
‘Why?’
‘Clinical work is very instinctive. It’s about listening to people and
sharing the burden. Making them feel as though someone cares.’
‘What made you give it up?’
‘A really effective psychologist is someone who commits. Who goes
into the darkness to bring someone out. Years ago I told a friend of mine
that a doctor is no good to a patient if he dies of the disease, but that wasn’t
the right analogy. When a person is drowning, someone has to get wet.’
She pauses and turns to me.
‘You got tired of getting wet?’
‘I almost drowned.’
We have reached North Parade. Canal boats are moored on the opposite
bank. Someone is cooking on deck, dicing carrots and tipping them into a
bubbling pot on a gas burner.
‘Thank you for the coffee and cake, Joseph.’
‘I hope you didn’t have too far to travel. I didn’t even ask where you
lived.’
‘Are you inviting yourself home?’
‘No, not at all . . . I was just . . .’
She’s laughing at me again.
‘I’m glad that I’m such a source of amusement.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you at dinner.’ She says it quickly.
Nervously.
I take too long to answer.
‘Don’t let me push you into anything,’ she says. ‘I’m not usually this
forward.’
‘No. I mean, yes, dinner would be great.’
 ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. It’s just that I haven’t been invited to dinner by a woman
since . . . since . . .’
‘Maybe you should stop counting.’
‘Good idea.’
She pecks me on the lips.
‘So it’s dinner. How about Monday night?’
‘Sure.’
And then as an afterthought, she says, ‘About Gordon Ellis and Sienna .
. .’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll try to find out if anyone complained to the school.’
‘Thank you.’
 20
Charlie has a football game for her district team. Watching teenage girls
play a competitive team sport is completely different to watching boys.
There is no diving, feigning injury, flying elbows or cynical fouls. Body
contact tends to be completely accidental and should one of the girls get
injured twenty-one players will stand around her asking, ‘Are you OK?’
Charlie is getting less interested in football as she gets older. There
seems to be a moment in adolescence when girls abandon sport as being
either too sweaty or too much like hard work. Maybe they discover boys.
Why can’t they discover schoolwork?
I wander along the sidelines, occasionally yelling encouragement,
which Charlie hates. I’m also not allowed to dissect the game afterwards or
comment on how she played.
Julianne comes along sometimes, which is nice. She chats to the other
mothers, sipping thermos coffee and rarely following the action unless a
penalty is being taken or a goal has been scored.
She didn’t come today. I offered. She declined.
Keeping one eye on the game, I try to call Sienna’s therapist again. I’ve
left three messages. Robin Blaxland hasn’t answered any of them. He has
an office in Bath, not far from the Jane Austen centre.
I always find it ironic that Jane Austen is Bath’s most famous former
resident - yet she reportedly hated the spa town. She lived in Bath for six
years and didn’t write a word in that time, but that hasn’t stopped them
naming streets, festivals and tearooms after her.
At half-time I call Ruiz. He’s outside, puffing slightly.
‘Are you jogging?’
‘Yeah, I’m running the New York marathon.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘I’m in Scotland.’
‘Why?’
‘Gordon Ellis used to teach in Edinburgh.’
‘Is that important?’
‘Might be.’
 He’s not going to tell me anything else. That’s the thing about Ruiz -
he’s a man of few words and those ‘few’ are chosen like the boiled sweets
he carries around in his pocket.
‘I need a favour,’ I tell him.
‘I’m still working on the last one.’
‘I need a home address for a psychotherapist called Robin Blaxland. He
was treating Sienna Hegarty.’
‘Give me an hour.’
Ruiz hangs up and I go back to watching the game.
The full-time whistle signals a narrow defeat. Charlie sits on the rear
tray of the Volvo and unlaces her muddy boots. She slips tracksuit bottoms
over her shorts and puts her boots into a plastic bag.
‘You want a hot chocolate?’
‘Nope.’
‘Hungry?’
‘Not particularly.’
She examines a blister on her big toe. Her nails are painted dark purple
and she’s wearing a silver ankle bracelet.
‘That’s new.’
‘Sienna gave it to me.’
‘Why?’
‘She didn’t want it any more.’
‘It looks expensive. Where did Sienna get it?’
Charlie’s eyes fix on mine. ‘You think she stole it.’
‘I never said that.’
‘It was a year ago, Dad. One time. You want to see a receipt? I’ll ask
her.’
She turns away. Disgusted.
Nicely done, I think. Charlie is changing out of her strip on the back
seat.
‘Can I get my navel pierced?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘Erin got hers pierced last summer.’
‘That makes no difference.’
‘How about a tattoo?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘What if it’s a really small tattoo on my ankle?’
 ‘When you’re eighteen you can tattoo your entire body.’
I know she’s rolling her eyes. Holding her foot, she examines her blister
again. I have plasters in a first-aid kit. Taking off the wrapping, I get her to
hold her foot still.
‘Can I ask you about Mr Ellis?’
Charlie looks at me defensively. ‘What about him?’
‘Does he play favourites?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Does he seem to favour particular students?’
‘I guess. Some girls flirt with him.’
‘Does he flirt back?’
‘Not really.’
Charlie pulls a sock over her foot. ‘Why are you so interested in Mr
Ellis?’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘I’m not stupid, Dad. You never talk about nothing.’
Another game is about to start. The teams are warming up, doing short
sprints and passing drills.
‘What do you think of Mr Ellis?’ I ask.
‘He’s cool.’
‘What makes him cool?’
‘You can talk to him. He listens.’
‘About what?’
‘Stuff.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Stuff. Problems. It’s like he understands because he’s been there.’
We’ve all been there, I feel like saying.
‘Gordon doesn’t judge us. He doesn’t look down on us. He doesn’t treat
us like children. And if anyone has a problem, he says they should come
and see him. He’s a good listener.’
‘You call him Gordon?’
‘Yeah, he lets us, but only during drama classes.’
‘Do you ever talk to him?’
Charlie’s shoulders rise and fall. The gesture says all I need to know.
‘Was Sienna close to Mr Ellis?’
‘She used to be.’
‘What happened?’
 ‘He started picking on her. Criticising her. Saying she wasn’t trying hard
enough. Sienna didn’t seem to mind. I don’t think she cared.’
‘That surprises you?’
‘Yeah, I guess. It’s not like her.’
A whistle blasts and the game is underway. Charlie watches the action,
aware that I’m studying her profile. Normally she complains when I look at
her like this - accusing me of trying to read her mind.
‘Was Sienna seeing Mr Ellis outside of school?’
‘She used to babysit for him. He has a little boy. Billy. He’s adorable.’
Charlie doesn’t understand what I’m asking.
‘Was Mr Ellis Sienna’s boyfriend?’
Charlie’s head snaps around. ‘What gave you that idea?’
‘Sienna was seeing someone outside of school. Not the boyfriend she
claimed to have. Somebody older.’
She laughs. ‘And you think it was Mr Ellis?’
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You’re right. It’s not funny. It’s tragic. Gordon said this might happen.’
‘What might happen?’
‘He said that people sometimes make up stories because they’re jealous
or they’re hurt. It happened at his last school. He had to leave.’
‘He told you that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did he say what happened?’
‘He said one of the girls made a complaint and said that he’d kissed her.
She took it back but it was too late. The school told him he had to leave.’
Why would Gordon tell Charlie something like that?
She goes back to looking at the game.
‘Sienna was having sex,’ I say.
‘So?’
‘You knew?’
A shrug. Indifferent. ‘A lot of girls are having sex, Dad. Maybe not the
full monty, but they’re doing plenty of other stuff.’
Glancing at me sideways, she checks to see if I’m shocked. The silence
stretches out, punctuated by the scoring of a goal and celebrations on the
sidelines.
‘You want to ask me, don’t you?’ A slight smile plays on her lips. My
daughter is challenging me. Every fibre of my professional being says I
shouldn’t rise to the bait. I should end the conversation now. But a small
pilot light of parental concern flares in my chest. I have to know.
‘Are you having sex, Charlie? I don’t mind. What I mean is, I’d be a
little worried. You’re underage. Too young.’
She shakes her head. Disappointed. Proven right.
‘Can we go home now?’ she asks.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘Here’s the thing, Dad. I can say no and I could be lying or I could be
telling you the truth. That’s a fifty-fifty chance of disappointing you. Or I
could say yes and definitely disappoint you. The odds aren’t in my favour,
so I figure I’ll just say nothing.’
‘I want you to answer.’
‘And I want another horse.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘We both want something we’re not going to get.’
She tosses her ponytail over one shoulder and gazes at me resolutely.
‘I’m a good kid, Dad. Trust me.’
And that’s it - end of conversation. I drive her home, aware more than
ever before that she is her mother’s daughter and equally mysterious.
 21
Robin Blaxland lives in a semi in the shadows of St Saviour’s Church in
Bath. After dropping Charlie at the cottage I drive back into town, pulling
up outside a neat front garden, glowing under the streetlights.
I ring the bell. Three children open the door, shoulder to shoulder. The
eldest is about eight. She has glasses, milky white skin, red hair and
freckles - the Royal Flush of embarrassing attributes for a child. Her
younger brothers look alike enough to be twins.
A woman follows them down the hall, wiping her hands on an apron.
Three pregnancies past her optimum weight, she has a pretty round face and
the same red hair as her daughter.
‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m looking for your husband.’
‘Of course, just one moment. Janie, go and get your daddy.’
Janie scampers up the stairs. The two boys stare at me. One has a bruise
on his forehead and a sticking plaster above his eye.
‘You’re in the wars.’
‘He ran into a tree,’ says his brother. ‘It was sooo funny.’
‘Shush,’ says their mother.
I notice suitcases in the hallway. One of them is open and still being
packed.
‘Are you going somewhere?’ I ask.
‘Skiing. We leave in the morning.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Italy.’
‘The Dolomites?’
She mentions a resort that I haven’t heard of before.
Her husband appears on the stairs. Robin Blaxland is three sizes smaller
than his wife and is wearing braces that cross at his back and are clipped to
his trousers. He blinks at me from behind frameless glasses.
‘I’m Joseph O’Loughlin. I left messages for you. You didn’t get back to
me.’
He blinks again. ‘How did you get this address?’
I lie to him. ‘From the school.’
 ‘I didn’t know the school had my private address.’
‘Yes.’
Blink. Blink.
‘I wanted to talk about Sienna Hegarty.’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment on a patient.’
‘You heard what happened?’
‘Yes, of course, but our sessions were private. It’s a matter of patient
confidentiality.’
‘I’m preparing a psych report on Sienna for a bail hearing.’
Blink. Blink. The information is being processed.
‘You’re a psychologist?’
‘Yes.’
Finally he steps back, inviting me upstairs to his study on the first floor.
I can hear the children being called to dinner by his wife.
‘What branch of psychotherapy do you specialise in?’ I ask.
‘I studied under a Jungian.’
‘Dream analysis?’
‘Among other things. I also offer hypnotherapy and cognitive
behavioural therapy. How is Sienna?’
What should I tell him? She’s confused. Frightened.
‘She hasn’t been entirely forthcoming. There are three missing hours in
the timeline. Was she with you that afternoon?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t have to check your diary?’
‘The police have already asked me that question.’
He sits up very straight in his chair as though posing for a photograph.
‘Who organised for Sienna Hegarty to come and see you?’
‘Her school counsellor.’
‘Annie Robinson?’
‘Yes.’
‘How often did she come?’
‘Once a week.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Nearly three weeks ago. She missed our last appointment.’
‘What day was that?’
‘After school, Monday at four-thirty.’
‘Did Sienna normally come on her own?’
 ‘Yes. I think she caught the bus.’
‘What about the first time she came to your office?’
‘A male teacher brought her in. I think his name was Ellis.’
Mr Blaxland wants to cross his legs but the office is so small our knees
are almost touching. He has psoriasis on his joints. I can see the flaking skin
on his elbows below his folded shirtsleeves.
‘What did Sienna talk about?’
‘We covered all the areas of her life: her family, her friends, how she
felt about things.’
‘She was cutting herself.’
‘Yes, we were looking at different coping mechanisms.’
‘Did Sienna ever talk about her father?’
‘Of course. They didn’t get on particularly well.’
‘Did she say why?’
‘They fought. She felt he was too hard on her . . . too strict. He
frightened her. Sienna had a recurring dream in which a dark-haired man
came into her room. She didn’t see his face and sometimes he didn’t have
physical form, but she knew he represented something evil, hovering over
her.’
‘And she used the term “evil”?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘It just seems unusual.’
Was it Robin Blaxland’s terminology or Sienna’s?
‘What else can you tell me about this dream?’ I ask.
‘The most recurring feature was her belief that she was awake and
conscious, but unable to move, unable to turn on the light, or to call for
help. She talked of being “caught” in the dream and hearing a “rushing
sound” in her ears.’
‘A false awakening?’
‘Just so.’
Sienna had mentioned the ‘rushing sound’ when I spoke to her at
Oakham House.
‘Could she recognise this man?’
‘No, but it was a manipulative figure.’
‘Could the dark-haired man be her father?’
‘I don’t know if this dream figure related to a real person or even a
compilation of several real people. Perhaps it reflected some part of
Sienna’s own personality - a darker side.’
‘How often did she have these dreams?’
‘Every night, she said. Sometimes she woke and discovered her
bedroom had been ransacked. Clothes and belongings were spread across
the floor.’
‘Did she ever tell you she was being sexually abused?’
He hesitates. ‘No, but I suspected as much.’
‘You didn’t report your concerns?’
‘I had no proof,’ he says defensively.
From the chair where I’m sitting I can see along a hallway to an open
bedroom door - a child’s room with an alphabet chart on the wall and toys
spilling from a chest.
‘Did Sienna ever talk about school?’
‘Of course.’
‘What about her teachers?’
Mr Blaxland drums his fingers on his knee. ‘Nobody in particular.’
‘What about Gordon Ellis, her drama teacher?’
‘He was obviously very concerned about her.’
‘Did she talk about having a boyfriend?’
‘Yes. I got the impression he may have been a little older.’
‘Why?’
‘She talked about going away with him for the weekend. I thought it
was odd because she was so young.’
‘Did she say where?’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know if it happened. Sienna was the sort of girl who
often said things to shock me.’
‘Did you know she was pregnant?’
Genuine surprise flares in his eyes. Blink. Blink. In that moment I catch
a glimpse of something. Disquiet. Embarrassment. He had missed a truly
important detail.
‘Did you tape your sessions, Mr Blaxland?’
‘No.’
‘Did you take notes?’
‘I have always found it more useful if I concentrate completely on what
my patient is saying. I sometimes make a note afterwards.’
‘But not always?’
A slight recoil but not in his eyes. ‘No.’
 I scan his face, looking for a hint that he’s hiding something.
‘Perhaps you could make your notes available to me . . .’
‘I’ve made myself available. That should be sufficient.’
There are footsteps on the stairs. Mrs Blaxland glances through the stair
rails. ‘Your dinner is getting cold, Robin.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, rising slowly. ‘Thank you for your time.’
Collecting my coat at the front door, I pause.
‘How much?’ I ask.
‘Sorry?’
‘Your sessions - how much did you charge Sienna?’
‘My standard rate - forty-five pounds for fifty minutes.’
‘Where did she get the money?’
‘I have no idea.’
It’s after eight and the day is ending, but I feel as though I’ve
accomplished something. The temperature has dropped even further and
beads of dew have formed on the parked cars. All except one - a dark
coloured four-wheel drive parked further down the street.
The windows are tinted and I can’t see anyone inside until I fumble for
my own keys and notice a watch face illuminated on a wrist. The driver is
checking the time.
I pull out and turn right into London Road. The traffic is heavy until I
reach the outskirts of Bath. The radio is playing. Evening talkback. Brian
Noble. ‘The voice of the Lord’ is his catchphrase and sums up his general
attitude to his callers.
. . . the Home Secretary this week labelled Bristol one of the five worst
crime ‘hotspots’ in Britain, but I’m pleased to report that the Old Bill has
responded magnificently, announcing a blitz - not on crack dealers or
armed robbers, but on drivers who don’t wear seatbelts.
We have Muslim Imams in this country preaching hatred and violent
jihad, yet our police are issuing speeding tickets and seatbelt fines.
And what else are our finest doing? They’re standing outside Bristol
Crown Court failing to protect people from being pelted with eggs and
abuse.
Now whether you agree with the views of Novak Brennan or not, he
deserves to be able to walk into court without being egged by thugs and
vandals who call themselves anti-racism protesters or refugee advocates.
Shame on them . . .
 Headlights loom in my rear-view mirror. Large. Close. Flashing on high
beam. Someone in a hurry.
I slow down. Move to the side. They stay behind me. Maybe there’s
something wrong with the Volvo. The tail lights might not be working. I
could be blowing smoke. None of the warning lights are showing. My
temperature gauge is normal.
We’re bumper to bumper. I touch the brakes. He won’t back off. High-
beam lights fill my mirrors, making it hard for me to see the road.
Unconsciously, I’m accelerating, trying to pull away. A long sweeping
left-hand corner is followed by a right-hand bend where Combe Hay Lane
passes through a copse of trees. There’s nowhere to pull over.
I’m travelling too fast, gripping the wheel too tightly, my eyes smarting
at the brightness, seeing phantoms leaping from the ditches and from
behind trees. I try to remember what lies ahead. There’s a farm track on the
left with a turning circle for tractors. It’s two hundred yards away. I’ll pull
over. Let the car pass.
We’re inches apart. I touch the brakes. Indicate. I don’t want him
crashing into me. The nearside tyres leave the asphalt and dig into the softer
edges. I almost lose control and wrench the wheel to the right. The Volvo
fishtails and veers wildly across the road, heading for a ditch. I have to
correct again.
Ahead I see the approaching lights of a car. The headlights behind me
suddenly disappear. As the oncoming car passes, I see a vehicle for a brief
moment in the rear-view mirror. Big and boxy, it could be a Range Rover.
Black. Just a driver - he must have turned off his headlights.
He flicks them on again and the high beam blasts my corneas burning a
white spot that won’t go away.
The Volvo leans heavily on the bends and surges over dips. The trees
and hedges are like passing shadows. I’ve missed the farm track. There’s a
turn-off to Combe Hay a hundred yards ahead. I can’t make the turn at this
speed.
Fifty yards. Forty. I hit the brakes hard. Swing the wheel. Brace for the
impact. The Volvo skirts the far ditch but makes the turn and skids to a halt
on loose gravel. I expect to see the Range Rover shoot past, but instead it
makes the same manoeuvre, far more expertly, stopping twenty yards
behind me.
 Shouldering open the door, I scream at his idiocy, my heart pounding.
Shielding my eyes against the brightness, I take three steps towards the car.
There’s no response. The doors remain closed, the engine running.
‘What’s your problem?’ I yell.
No response.
I glance at the Volvo. Nothing appears to be wrong. The tail lights are
working.
Hesitating, I can think of a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t move any
closer. I’m alone. I’m unarmed. I don’t have a tyre iron to take out his
fucking windows.
Finally, I take a step back, reach into the car and pull out my mobile.
‘You see this? I’m calling the police.’
The waiting car rocks forward suddenly and stops. What’s he doing?
I start punching in 999, glancing at the glowing screen. At the same
moment, the car accelerates in a roar of horsepower and spinning wheels.
It’s heading straight for me.
I don’t have time to run. I throw myself across the seat and pull my legs
inside as the driver’s side door is ripped from its metal hinges with a
crunching finality.
The sudden backdraught blows dust around the interior of the Volvo.
Then there’s silence. No sound except my breathing.
I climb out and look down the empty road. My crumpled car door is
lying thirty yards away in the ditch. The Range Rover has gone. Walking
across the road, I retrieve the door, loading it in the back of the Volvo. Then
I put in a call to Ronnie Cray.
‘Sounds like something out of Duel,’ she says.
‘Duel?’
‘Spielberg’s first classic. This ordinary guy - Dennis Weaver - is driving
through the desert and he gets terrorised by this big truck that’s like the
Freddy Krueger of trucks.’
‘Are you taking this seriously?’
‘Yeah. Course. Did you get a number?’
‘No.’
‘Did you get a make?’
‘It looked like a Range Rover. Black.’
‘Did you get a description of the driver?’
‘I couldn’t see anything.’
 ‘Not much I can do. Where were you going?’
‘Home.’
‘Where were you coming from?’
‘I was talking to Sienna Hegarty’s therapist.’
‘You think it’s connected?’
‘Maybe. What do you think?’
‘It was probably just a joy-rider, winding you up.’
‘What about my car door?’
‘You’re insured. Make a claim.’
She’s about to hang up. ‘Hey, Professor, maybe you should stop asking
so many questions.’
 22
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my feet argue for a moment,
curling inwards and not wanting to press flat on the rug. I have to
concentrate, forcing my toes to the floor, then my heels. Slowly the spasms
ease and I can reach the bathroom.
The mirror is cruel this morning. I pull at the skin beneath my bloodshot
eyes and examine my tongue. For the past two nights I have had a black
Range Rover with blazing headlights chasing me in my dreams. Each time
I’ve woken with my heart pounding and my fists clenched on an imaginary
steering wheel.
Strawberry is weaving between my bare legs, nipping at my toes,
wanting to be fed. I follow her downstairs and fill her bowl, listening to the
sound of Gunsmoke beating his tail against the back door and whining with
excitement. At least one creature celebrates my getting up each morning.
The phone rings. Ruiz shouts to be heard above aircraft noise.
‘Hey, Professor, you ever wondered why when you park in a totally
empty airport car park someone always comes and parks next to you?’
‘It’s one of life’s great mysteries.’
‘Like pigeons.’
‘What’s so mysterious about pigeons?’
‘They’re always the same size. You never see baby pigeons or old-age
pigeons.’
‘You don’t get out enough.’
‘I’m just a thinker.’
The jet has passed. A boiled sweet rattles against his teeth. ‘Hey, there’s
someone I want you to meet.’
‘Where?’
‘In Edinburgh.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I’ll explain when you get here.’
A part of me wants to resist the idea. I don’t want to travel. I want to
stay close to home - particularly after what happened two nights ago - but I
set Ruiz on the scent and he wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.
‘I’ll book a flight and get back to you.’
 Firstly, I call Bill Johnson at the local garage and ask him to pick up the
Volvo and find me a new door. I tell him that I’ll leave the keys under the
seat. Hanging up, I turn on my laptop and go online to book a flight to
Edinburgh. Finally, I call Julianne and ask if I can borrow her car.
‘What’s wrong with yours?’
‘It doesn’t have a door.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s a long story.’
I can imagine her eyes rolling towards the ceiling in a well-worn
expression of un-surprise.
‘One more thing - I’m going away tomorrow. Just for the day. I won’t
be back in time to pick up Emma.’
‘I’ll get one of the other mothers to take her home.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
Fifteen minutes later, I let myself into the cottage. Breakfast dishes are
rinsed in the kitchen sink. Julianne’s car keys are on the mantelpiece. I’m
about to leave when I remember that I wanted a photograph of Sienna.
Charlie used to have one pinned to the corkboard above her desk. I hope she
won’t mind me borrowing it.
I climb the stairs and open her bedroom door, which has a ‘DO NOT
DISTURB’ sign with a note written underneath: ‘That means you, Emma!’
Given that Emma can’t read yet, it seems rather superfluous, but I’m sure
the message has been passed on orally.
Charlie’s pyjamas are pooled on her unmade bed. Her desk is near the
window. Her laptop is open. I scan the corkboard and spy a strip of
passport-sized photographs taken at a photo-booth. Charlie and Sienna are
sitting on each other’s laps, pulling funny faces. The last picture is of
Sienna leaning towards the lens as though reading the instructions, unsure if
the camera is going to flash again.
Elsewhere the noticeboard is decorated with Post-it notes, pictures,
newspaper clippings and reminders. One snapshot shows Charlie and
Sienna on a Ferris wheel at the Wessex Show. It was published on the front
page of the Somerset Standard.
Charlie’s laptop is ‘sleeping’. I press the spacebar and the hard drive
begins spinning. The screen illuminates. I know I shouldn’t be doing this. I
should respect her privacy. At the same time, I keep thinking of Sienna and
her secrets and of Charlie crying at school and of our post-game
conversation on Saturday.
Clicking open the history directory, I scan through the websites Charlie
has been ‘surfing’. Most of them I recognise: her Facebook page, iTunes,
YouTube, Twitter . . .
She has set up a profile on MSN, a message application that allows her
to communicate with friends online. There are no text conversations
recorded. Charlie must have ticked a box in the settings to delete old
messages.
I look at her Facebook page - the photo albums. There are shots of her
last school camp, a friend’s party, our weekend in the Lake District, chasing
Gunsmoke through the garden after he stole one of her trainers. Some of the
photographs make me smile. Others tug at unseen strings in my chest.
Opening a new ‘album’ I discover two photographs where I don’t
recognise the context. Charlie is lying on a large bed, playing with a young
boy. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, she is lying on her front, resting on her
elbows. The collar of the T-shirt dips open at her neck, revealing little yet I
still find it disconcerting.
The next image shows her lying on her back with the little boy balanced
on her knees. I wonder who took the shots. Someone she felt comfortable
with. Someone she trusted.
Looking at them, I can imagine Charlie as a young woman, a mother,
married with a family. It’s strange because, normally, I still picture her as
being a little girl in her Dalmatian pyjamas and red cowboy boots, putting
on ‘shows’ in the garden.
Clicking off the site, I close the lid of the laptop, sending it back to
sleep.
Shepparton Park School. Mid-morning. The headmaster Derek Stozer is
a tall, slope-shouldered man with a lumpy body and the makings of a comb-
over. I’ve only met him twice - including at a prize-giving day when he
mumbled through his formal welcome speech and made fifteen minutes last
longer than a wet weekend in Truro.
His secretary, Mrs Summers, is like an over-protective wife who dotes
on him.
‘You should have called for an appointment,’ she says. ‘He’s a very
busy man.’
‘Of course, I’m sorry.’
 ‘What’s the nature of your inquiry?’
‘It’s personal.’
She blinks at me, expecting more. I smile. She’s not happy. Leaning
across her desk, she whispers into an intercom. Eventually, I am escorted
down a carpeted corridor, past honour boards and trophy cabinets.
Derek Stozer rises from his chair and hitches his trousers before shaking
my hand.
‘Professor O’Loughlin, how can I help you? Is this about Charlotte?’
‘No.’
‘Oh?’ He gazes at me along his nose.
As soon as I mention Sienna Hegarty his mood changes and he
mumbles something that might be ‘terrible business’ or could be ‘ermine
fizziness’. He points to a chair and resumes his own.
‘I’ve been asked to examine Sienna and to prepare a psych report for the
court. In the course of interviewing her family, I became aware that Ray
Hegarty made a complaint to the school a week before he died. I believe it
related to a member of your staff. I’ve since learned that this same member
of staff has complained about harassing phone calls from Sienna.’
The headmaster doesn’t react immediately. After a moment of
reflection, he clears his throat. ‘From time to time parents and students have
issues with teachers. It’s not uncommon.’
‘Mr Hegarty claimed he saw this particular member of staff kissing his
daughter.’
There is a longer silence. Mr Stozer stands and stretches his legs,
wandering between the window and his desk, clasping his hands behind his
back.
‘Mr Hegarty was mistaken. I have talked to the member of staff
involved, who assures me that nothing untoward occurred. This member of
staff admitted failing to appreciate that a student had developed a crush on
him. It was a harmless infatuation. The member of staff immediately
distanced himself from the girl and submitted a report.’
‘Did he kiss her?’
‘No, that’s not what happened.’
‘What did happen?’
‘I am led to believe that the girl tried to kiss him. He spurned her
advances and reported the matter immediately. I was aware of the incident
before Mr Hegarty raised it with me.’
 ‘Sienna was his babysitter.’
‘And he should never have allowed this. It was a mistake. He admitted
as much. It was a failure of judgement.’
‘You investigated?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you talk to Sienna?’
‘I organised an internal review of the staff member’s actions and
performance. I delegated the task to a senior member of staff - the school
counsellor.’
‘Miss Robinson?’
‘She’s trained to talk to students about delicate issues.’
Why didn’t Annie tell me any of this?
Mr Stozer continues: ‘Sienna denied anything had happened. She said
her father was mistaken.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘Yes, Mr O’Loughlin, I believed her. And I believed Mr Ellis and I
believed Miss Robinson.’
The last statement is delivered with far more authority than I thought
Stozer capable of.
‘I don’t see what relevance any of this has,’ he adds. ‘Sienna Hegarty
was a model student. She wasn’t being bullied. She wasn’t struggling
academically. She enjoyed coming to school. She was a healthy, happy
teenager—’
‘If Sienna was so healthy and happy, why did Miss Robinson suggest
she see a therapist?’
‘Many young girls experience problems when they go through
adolescence - I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that. I’m led to believe that
Sienna Hegarty was having difficulties at home.’
‘But not at school?’
‘If you’re trying to suggest that her state of mind or her actions had
anything to do with this school, I would take serious issue . . .’
He doesn’t finish the statement but the steel in his voice seems to stiffen
his resolve. Marching to the door, he turns and says, ‘I have a staff meeting
to attend, Professor. If you have any more questions I suggest you put them
in writing to the school governors.’
When I cross the river, I don’t turn on to Wells Road but continue along
the south bank until I reach Lower Bristol Road. Keeping to the inside lane,
I drive slowly and try to pick out the signs on the cross streets.
Danny Gardiner said he dropped Sienna on the corner of Riverside
Road and Lower Bristol Road. I pull up a little past the intersection, parking
in the forecourt of a used-car dealership. A balmy wind, smelling of the
river, sends litter swirling in the gutters.
There are shops and businesses on both sides of the road - a video store,
a fish and chip shop, a British Gas showroom, a hairdresser, a florist, sex
shop, a minicab office and an off-licence. According to Danny Gardiner this
was the first time he’d ever dropped Sienna here.
‘Spare some change, guv?’
A stick-thin black man in a woollen hat holds out his hand with a
fingerless glove. Nearby is a shopping trolley of his possessions. I fumble
in my pocket. Find a pound. He looks at the coin as though it’s an ancient
artefact.
‘You lost?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘You have a good day.’
‘You too.’
Stepping around his shopping trolley, I push open the door of the hair
salon. A young woman in her mid-thirties is washing a customer’s hair in a
sink.
‘Excuse me.’
‘What do want, petal? I don’t do men’s hair.’
Moving closer, I show her a passport-sized photograph of Sienna. I’ve
folded the strip of images so that only one is showing.
‘Have you seen this girl?’
She dries her hands on a towel and studies it for a moment.
‘Who is she?’
‘A friend of my daughter’s.’
‘Is she missing?’
‘She’s in trouble. Do you work on Tuesdays? She was here a couple of
weeks ago - about six o’clock, wearing a black dress.’
The hairdresser shakes her head. ‘Don’t remember her.’
‘Thanks anyway.’
I step outside. The flags are snapping above the car dealership. Next
door at the florist shop, a dark-haired woman in jeans and a flannel shirt is
moving buckets of flowers, arranging them to best effect. I show her
Sienna’s photograph but she says that she closes early on Tuesdays.
‘Maybe you’ve seen her on other days?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she says, looking at me suspiciously.
I move from business to business, hoping somebody might remember
Sienna. She looked quite striking in her flapper dress, still wearing her stage
make-up. The sex shop is closed up, barricaded behind metal shutters. A
sign says it opens late, seven days a week.
Next comes the minicab office on the corner, which is little more than a
waiting room with half a dozen plastic chairs and a control booth behind a
plywood partition and small glass window. A woman is waiting. Dressed in
a long overcoat and high-heel shoes, she’s young. Pretty. She’s wearing too
much make-up and has lipstick on her teeth.
The controller is on the phone. Morbidly obese, he has three chins and
has to sit two feet from the desk to accommodate his stomach.
He meets my gaze. Keeps talking.
‘. . . yeah, the skinny faggot wanted three-to-one . . . yeah . . . fucking
dreaming, I told him so . . . yeah . . .’
He screws a finger into his opposite ear and examines his fingertip.
‘. . . that’s my point, Gaz, you can’t trust the fuckers . . . you got to show
them who’s boss, you know . . . otherwise someone’s gonna get seriously
fucked up . . . later, Gaz.’
He hangs up. Talks on the two-way radio.
‘. . . yeah, Stevo, it was George Street . . . number eighteen . . . bottom
buzzer.’
The controller looks past me at the young woman. ‘Five minutes, love.’
His gaze lingers on her short skirt and her rangy legs. I can almost smell his
torpid lust.
Finally, he turns to me and we reciprocally decide to hate each other.
‘I’m looking for this girl. You might have seen her a couple of weeks
ago. Tuesday, late afternoon.’
I slide the photograph through a gap in the glass security screen. The
controller holds the photograph up to the light like he’s looking at a high-
denomination banknote.
‘Who is she?’
‘A friend of mine. I’m trying to help her.’
‘A friend? How are you trying to help her?’
 ‘She’s in trouble. Have you seen her?’
I want to take the photograph back. I don’t want him touching it.
‘Can’t say I have,’ he wheezes. ‘But if you leave it with me I’ll ask
some of the drivers.’ He pushes a scrap of paper towards me. ‘Jot down
your name and number. I’ll call you if I come up with anything.
‘I can’t leave it with you. I don’t have any more photos of her.’
The obese controller has unfolded the strip of shots and now he’s
studying the pictures of Charlie and Sienna together. He runs his thumb
over Charlie’s face.
‘So who’s this other girlie?’
‘Nobody important.’
A smile extends across his face. ‘I’m sure that she thinks she’s
important.’
‘Just give it back to me.’
Again that same predatory leer. Pinching the strip of photographs
between his thumb and forefinger, he extends his arm towards me. I have to
tug it once, twice, three times before he lets it go.
A car pulls up outside, the engine running.
‘That’s your car, love,’ says the controller.
The woman rises and straightens a skirt beneath her coat, checking out
her reflection in the darkened front window. I hold the door open for her but
she doesn’t acknowledge me. It’s as though she’s trying hard not to be
noticed despite how she’s dressed.
The minicab driver gets out of the car and opens the door for her. He’s
wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a slogan on the back: ‘Happy
Hour - Half-Price Sex’.
When he turns I can see his pale, narrow face and the tattoos running
down his cheeks like black tears dripping from his chemical green eyes. It’s
the same man I saw standing outside the restaurant when I had lunch with
Julianne.
The minicab controller interrupts my thoughts. ‘He’s got a photograph.
He’s looking for a girl.’
The driver doesn’t answer, but takes a step towards me. Every instinct
tells me not to show him Sienna’s photograph, but he takes it from me,
cocking his head to one side and studying the image as though committing
her face, her hair, her budding body to memory.
 Then slowly he raises his face to mine. I can smell his aftershave and
something else, lurking beneath.
‘What’s this girl to you?’
‘It’s not important.’
‘Really? Try me.’
‘No, that’s OK.’
I reach out for the photograph.
‘Maybe you should leave this with us,’ he says. ‘I’ll keep an eye out for
her.’
As he says the words, he raises two fingers to his face and traces the
dripping tattoos down each cheek, dragging his flesh out of shape.
Something inside me shudders.
‘Forget I asked,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’
‘No bother. What’s your name?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yeah, it does. You should leave your name and number - in case she
turns up.’
He’s in front of me now. What is that smell? Reaching out, I take the
strip of photographs from his fingers, not wanting to touch him. Lowering
my gaze, I step around him and keep walking, not looking back. I don’t
want to think about this man. I don’t want to know his name or where he
lives or what he’s done.
The minicab pulls away from the kerb and accelerates along the street
past me, carrying the sad-eyed girl and the crying man. As I watch the car
turn the corner, voice inside my head is whispering that I’ve been wrong.
This is bigger and darker and more complex than I imagined.
 23
Annie Robinson opens the door. She’s wearing a yellow dress and her
hair is pinned up in a messy, casual way that probably took her an hour to
achieve. I feel the coolness of her lips on mine and can almost taste the
brightness of her lipstick.
‘You came.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘I just thought you might find an excuse.’
‘Why?’
‘I can be rather pushy. I wasn’t always, but when you’re pushing forty
and you’re a notch below Bambi in the beauty stakes, you either grab your
chances or languish in boredom listening to your girlfriends talk about
Botox injections or their latest diet.’
Her voice tails off. She pours me a glass of wine. Her glass is almost
empty. She refills it.
‘When I get nervous I talk too much - I’m doing it already.’
‘You’re being charming.’
‘I should just be indifferent. Men find indifference sexy.’
Annie looks at me for confirmation, but I don’t know how to answer
her.
‘It’s true,’ she says. ‘Why do twenty-five men in a bar always chat up
the single prettiest woman when the odds of success are so poor and she’s
probably not going to want to go home with any of them? Meanwhile every
other single woman in the bar is wondering what they have to do to get
some attention.’
Annie lives in a listed Georgian terrace converted into six flats and
backing on to the old Kent and Avon Canal in Bath. Her flat is on the
ground floor and has a walled garden with trellises and a small patio dotted
with terracotta pots.
After giving me a tour of the garden, she points to the sofa and we sit,
sipping wine. In the next breath she puts her arms around my neck and
pushes her stomach against my thigh, kissing me urgently, wetly. Next thing
she’s pressing my hand between her thighs, grinding her crotch against my
knuckles and I’m reacting like a man dying of thirst who has crawled a
hundred miles across a desert just to be here.
The kiss continues as Annie pulls me up. Standing and kicking off her
shoes, she edges me towards the bedroom. Breathlessly, we topple
backwards on to her bed and she lands on top of me with a grunt.
‘Ow!’
‘What?’
‘Your elbow.’
‘Sorry.’
Annie slips her fingers beneath the elastic of her knickers, pushing them
over her thighs. I try to negotiate the zipper of her dress.
‘My hair! It’s caught! Don’t move.’
She sits up on my thighs, reaching behind her to loosen the zip.
‘It’s jammed.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She laughs. ‘We’re hopeless.’
‘It looks a lot easier in the movies.’
‘Maybe we should start again.’
‘I’ll just use your bathroom.’
Rolling off the bed, I escape for a moment, feeling the cold tiles through
my socks. The bathroom is nicely renovated, with a wall-to-ceiling mirror.
There are shelves of shampoos, pastes, powders and moisturisers, which she
appears to be stockpiling.
I study myself in the mirror. My mouth is smudged with her lipstick.
How long has it been? Two years without sex: more of a drought than a dry
spell. I’ve crossed the Sahara. I’ve forgotten how to drink.
She’ll be under the covers now, waiting for me, which is depressing
rather than exciting. I look at my penis and wish it were bigger. I wish it
would boss me around more often and stop me rationalising things.
I’m not a perfect human being. I know more about feelings than I do
about the physical world. It’s easier for me to understand passion than to
experience it.
Annie has brought another bottle of wine and glasses to the bedroom.
She’s also wearing lingerie, lying self-consciously, trying to show herself to
best effect. I take off my clothes and lie down next to her. She doesn’t let
my doubts linger, taking my hand and pulling me next to her. Her tongue
moves against my teeth.
 Then she straddles me, squeezing me between her thighs, her breasts
against my chest. I run my hand down her back and trace a finger over her
curves. She lifts her hips, wanting me to touch her, but I glide my finger
away moving higher and then drifting lower again.
‘Don’t tease me,’ she whispers, her voice vibrating.
I let my fingers sweep across her mound and she traps my hand beneath
her, grinding her pelvis against my knuckles. Her lips are pressed to my ear,
whispering what she wants.
I feel a familiar stirring. You don’t forget. It’s like falling off a bike or
falling off a cliff or falling for someone. Even so, my lack of practice is
quickly apparent. And I mean quickly.
Annie doesn’t mind. We have all night, she says. The next time is
slower, more deliberate, less urgent, better, and for just a moment all the
loneliness and thoughts of Julianne leave my memory and the only sound in
the room is the squeak of bedsprings under our weight and the gentle slap
of Annie’s stomach against mine. I cry out involuntarily, more like a
woman than a man, lost in the smell of her hair and the beating of her heart.
I leave Annie sleeping, breathing softly. All men hope to do that. She
looks like a child curled up in the disordered bed, one arm covering her
eyes. There is a tiny mole on her shoulder blade; her upper lip more
prominent than the lower; her eyebrows are shaped; she makes a soft
humming noise as she sleeps and the soft swell of her stomach is strikingly
feminine.
Creeping through the house, dressing quietly, I let myself out. It’s an
odd feeling, having slept with someone other than Julianne, to have touched
and tasted another human being. I don’t know what I feel. Relief. Guilt.
Happiness. Loss.

I still have Julianne’s car. Her travelling make-up bag is in the pocket of
the door and I imagine I can almost smell her shampoo on the headrest.
In between the sex, Annie had told me about her divorce and how her
husband and his lawyer had stitched her up, crying poor and hiding assets.
‘I was married for six years and four months and couldn’t get pregnant,’
she told me. ‘We tried. My husband had an affair with his secretary, which
sounds so boring when I say it - like a cliché. That’s my life - a cliché.’
 ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ I said.
I wanted to ask her about Gordon Ellis. Annie knew about Ray
Hegarty’s allegations. She conducted the internal investigation, yet she
didn’t react when I mentioned Gordon and Sienna. Was it natural caution,
or confidentiality, or was she protecting a colleague?
Another bottle of wine was opened. Annie drank most of it. She
apologised for being so maudlin. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,
spilling my secrets.’
‘You don’t have to explain.’
‘Really? Are you sure?’
I wasn’t sure but I said yes and Annie continued, wanting to tell me
everything; to share her secrets, funny stories and her bad decisions. It
should have been intimate. It felt more like a therapy session.
I once had a patient who believed that the clock ran faster for her than
anyone else. She was a university student and she was convinced that her
exam time was concertinaed and that ‘her clock’ would speed up, giving her
less time, which is why she could never finish.
The same clock ran slower for other people, she said. Annie acted like
that. The world had conspired against her and she wanted me to know that it
wasn’t her fault.
 24
The flight from Bristol Airport to Edinburgh takes just over an hour and
I’m on the ground before 8 a.m. Ruiz is waiting for me in the lounge,
leafing through the pages of the Scotsman.
‘Do you think if I got enough people to vote we could get London
declared part of Scotland?’
‘Why?’
‘Well, the Scots get more of our taxes than anyone else. They’ve got
better health care, free prescriptions and no student fees. I could be a Jock,
as long as I didn’t have to eat sheep’s guts and support the Scottish rugby
team.’
‘They are pretty terrible.’
‘Total rubbish.’
He tosses the paper on a seat. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Breakfast. I’m famished. I ate Chinese last night - gave me thunderous
wind. Not even the Scots can fuck up breakfast.’
Ruiz leads me to his hire car. Something small and compact. He
continues to spout his theories on Scottish devolution as we pull into the
morning traffic and head towards Edinburgh. The sunrise is pink and misty,
leaving tentacles of fog clinging to the valleys where church spires seem to
float like islands in rivers of white.
Parking near the old city walls, Ruiz leads me through a maze of alleys
until we reach the Royal Mile. The buildings are made of slate-grey stone
and look as though they’ve risen directly from the earth.
It’s twenty years since I’ve been to Edinburgh. Julianne and I came up
for the ‘Fringe’ with a crowd of university friends. We camped in tents and
it rained for a week, but we filled our boots with satire and comedy.
Ruiz chooses a café, which looks positively medieval. Most of the
patrons are tourists carrying video cameras and city guides. Taking a table
near the window, he orders a full breakfast with extra sausages, toast and a
pot of tea.
‘Do you know what that stuff does to your arteries?’ I ask him.
‘Do you have a chart? I love charts.’
 The waitress is a big-boned Polish girl with bleached hair and a nose-
stud. I order the poached eggs on sourdough toast on her recommendation.
Ruiz looks at me as though I’ve asked to be castrated.
Once she’s gone, he takes out his battered notebook and rests it on the
table.
‘Hey, you want to hear a Scottish joke?’
‘Maybe you should avoid Scottish jokes.’
‘Nonsense. The Jocks have a great sense of humour. Look at Gordon
Brown.’
The tea arrives and he opens the silver pot and jiggles the bag
impatiently. Then he unhooks the rubber band holding his notebook
together.
‘You want to ask the questions?’
‘No, you talk.’
He starts with Ray Hegarty. His security business was solvent, the tax
returns up to date, with no major debts or lawsuits. Ray was the public face
of the company, a bona fide hero, decorated for bravery after he rescued
two children from a flooded stormwater drain.
His son, Lance, left school at sixteen, signed to play football for
Burnleigh. A knee injury ended his career before he turned eighteen.
Initially, Lance tried to find work as an assistant coach, but then he trained
as a motorcycle mechanic.
‘The kid has had some problems. Two years ago he was arrested and
deported from Croatia with twenty other hooligans after England played a
World Cup qualifier. He also has convictions for racially aggravated assault
and low-range drink driving.’
Breakfast is served. Ruiz tucks a paper napkin in the collar of his shirt
and scoops baked beans on to a corner of toast.
‘I came up with nothing on Danny Gardiner. Kid’s clean.’
‘You still haven’t told me what I’m doing here.’
Ruiz gives me a wry smile. ‘You were right about the school teacher.’
‘Gordon Ellis?’
‘Yeah, but he wasn’t always called Ellis. He used to be Gordon
Freeman, but three years ago he took his mother’s surname and became
Gordon Ellis.’
‘Is that important?’
‘It helps if you’re running away from something.’
 Ruiz is going to tell me the story in his own time. He slurps a mouthful
of tea and dabs his lips with a napkin.
‘What do you know about his wife?’
‘Natasha?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Ellis said they met at school. Childhood sweethearts.’
‘Well, he wasn’t lying.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Natasha’s maiden name is Stewart. She was thirteen when Gordon Ellis
started teaching at Sorell College. It’s a private girls’ school here in
Edinburgh.’
‘She was his student?’
‘Music and drama. I put in a call to the headmaster and set off a dozen
alarm bells. Twenty minutes later I had a plummy-voiced solicitor on the
phone telling me to ever so politely fuck off.
‘According to her school yearbook, Natasha left in year nine Gordon
Ellis transferred a year later. She claimed to be nineteen when they married,
but her proper birth certificate puts her at three years younger than that.’
‘How old is she now?’
‘Officially, she’s just turned eighteen.’
‘Maybe they hooked up after they both left the school,’ I say.
‘OK, but why lie about Natasha’s age on their marriage certificate? ’
I think back to my meeting with Natasha outside the school. She was
picking up Billy, who is Emma’s age.
‘But she has a son?’ I say.
‘Not her boy,’ replies Ruiz. ‘That’s where it gets really interesting. ’
Wiping his plate clean with a half-slice of toast, he consumes it in two
mouthfuls and finishes his tea. Then he pulls fifteen quid from his wallet.
Leaves it on the table.
‘You still haven’t told me what I’m doing here.’
‘We’re meeting a family. They’re called the Regans. They don’t live
far.’
‘Why am I meeting the Regans?’
‘They have a daughter, Carolinda, who was married to Gordon Ellis.’
‘He’s been married before?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Divorced?’
 ‘Not exactly.’
‘What then?’
‘According to Gordon Ellis, Caro packed her suitcase and took off.
Happens all the time. Some people don’t like waking up every morning and
seeing the same old face on the other pillow, day in, day out. Depresses the
shit out of them.’
‘You’re such a romantic. So why did she walk out?’
‘She escaped into the arms of a secret lover, according to Ellis, only
nobody has ever met the gentleman in question.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Caro hasn’t been seen since. She hasn’t contacted her family, hasn’t
touched her bank account, hasn’t used a credit card, or applied for welfare,
or visited a doctor, or picked up a speeding ticket, or lodged a tax return, or
travelled overseas. She hasn’t sent her kid a Christmas card or a birthday
card. Lothian and Borders Police launched an investigation, but it petered
out. They couldn’t prove Caro was dead and they couldn’t find any
evidence of foul play.’
Ruiz doesn’t have to explain the inference. People disappear all the
time. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money
and a taxi to the nearest station. Battered wives flee brutality. Children
escape abuse. Dodgy businessmen flee the auditors. Criminals change their
names and buy villas on the Costa del Sol.
Ruiz is talking and walking. We weave between narrow alleys and
lanes, passing historic pubs, tourist hotels and gift shops with racks of
postcards and shelves full of souvenirs.
Gordon Freeman (now Ellis) was born in Glasgow in 1974, the son of a
portrait painter and a nurse. His father died of lung cancer when Gordon
was fourteen. He and his mother moved to Edinburgh where he went to six
different schools in four years.
After finishing his A-levels, he studied drama at Keele University and
played some minor TV and theatre roles before turning to teaching. He
settled in Edinburgh. Married a local girl. He was handsome, popular and
well respected. And then something happened.
Ruiz has stopped outside a large slate-grey house, converted into flats,
rising so suddenly from the footpath that the building appears to be leaning
out over the street.
‘Here we are,’ he says, pressing the intercom.
 A woman’s voice answers and the door unlocks automatically. Climbing
the stairs, I hear a door open above us. She’s waiting on the landing - a
heavy-set woman in a floral dress and cardigan.
Philippa Regan wipes her hands on her dress. Her copper-tinted hair is
permed into a mess of tight curls that match the colour of her red-rimmed
eyes. She shakes us each by the hand and invites us into the kitchen,
apologising for the cold. Turning up the thermostat, she listens as the boiler
burps and groans consumptively.
‘Ah cannae get warm any more. That time of year.’
Used teabags have solidified in the sink and a dripping tap rings the
same note over and over.
She offers to make tea but doesn’t seem to have the energy. At the same
time she glances at the sitting-room door, which is slightly ajar. I can hear
the sound of a TV.
‘The professor wants to ask you a few questions about Carolinda,’ Ruiz
explains. ‘I told him that you haven’t heard from her in a long time.’
Again Mrs Regan glances at the door.
‘Do you have any children, Professor?’
‘Two. Girls.’
Her generous bust expands as she sighs. ‘Ah know my Caro is dead. Ah
know who killed her, but Coop doesn’t like me talking about it.’
She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes.
‘What happened to Caro?’
‘She didn’t come home. She went to get something for her supper and
didn’t come back. That’s what Gordon told us, the murdering bastard!’
The kitchen table shudders beneath her elbows.
‘Ah never trusted him - even when she married him. Ah could tell he
was trouble - always looking for something better. Someone better. He
treated Caro like a dog he’d rescued from the pound; expecting her to be
grateful just because he married her.’
Mrs Regan is going to say something else but the words don’t make it
past the lump in her throat. She begins again.
‘Vincent says you’re a psychologist, Mr O’Loughlin.’ She motions to
the door. ‘Talk to him. Talk to mah Coop.’
‘What would you like me to say?’
‘He’s nae sleeping and he drinks all day. Ah’m not sure what to do any
more.’
 My heart strikes a beat for every one of hers.
Over the years I have seen countless people overwhelmed by loss. Each
of us reacts differently. Some husbands and wives look straight into each
other’s eyes without needing words, while others are like strangers sitting in
a dentist’s waiting room. Some men want to beat someone so badly they
can’t walk right for a month. Others drink themselves into oblivion. Some
pretend nothing has changed.
I can picture Coop and Philippa Regan lying side by side in bed at night.
Still as corpses, peering at the ceiling and wondering if their daughter might
still be alive. That’s the great tragedy of a missing person. The dead are
farewelled, mourned and given a resting place. The missing float in a kind
of limbo, leaving family and friends to wonder and hope.
Ruiz pushes open the sitting-room door. It’s dark inside. The blinds are
drawn. ‘It’s only me, Coop, come round for a chat.’
The reply is thick with phlegm. ‘Ah’m nae in the mood.’
Mr Regan is sitting in an armchair, his tattooed forearms resting
horizontally at his sides. I can’t see his face in the gloom, but a soiled
singlet is stretched over his barrel-chest.
The flicker of a television throws shadows across the room. He’s
watching old home movies. On screen, a young girl, barely three, is playing
under a sprinkler, running in and out of the spray. The sound is turned
down.
Mr Regan raises a glass to his lips. The dark fluid turns to amber as it
passes in front of the light.
‘This is Joe O’Loughlin, he’s a friend of mine, Coop,’ says Ruiz. ‘He’s
come to ask about Carolinda. Maybe he can help.’
‘He cannae bring her back, can he?’
‘No,’ I reply, feeling a strong impulse to turn and go back down the
stairs, along the street, back to the car; as far away as possible.
Coop reaches for a bottle at his feet and refills his glass. His tattoos
seem to move in the light from the television, becoming animated and
telling stories of drunken nights, tattoo parlours and hangovers.
Ruiz takes a seat opposite him. ‘It’s early to be drinking.’
Coop doesn’t answer. I move further into the room and sit in an
armchair beside the TV. Coop gazes past me at the screen, which reflects in
his eyes.
‘I wanted to ask about Caro.’
 ‘Ah’m listening.’
‘What was she like?’
Coop takes a ragged breath and seems to hold it inside.
‘Ah wanted a wee lad,’ he says finally. ‘Ah was sure Caro were going to
be a boy. Came as a shock when she came out. Thought something had
gone wrong. “It’s a bonnie lass,” Ah said, and Philippa she says, “Are you
sure, Coop?” Ah looked again just to be certain.’
The home movie has changed and Caro is singing into a pretend
microphone, wearing one of her mother’s dresses, which keeps slipping off
her shoulders.
‘Ah watched her grow,’ says Coop. ‘Ah counted her smiles, her steps.
She were ten months old when she took her first steps from this chair to that
one where you’re sitting. She were always in a hurry. Ah couldn’t get her to
slow down. Even when she married, Caro did everything in a hurry. Didn’t
like her choice, never trusted him, but Caro loved him. Ah paid for the
wedding. Rented a posh place for the reception. Walked her up the aisle.
She were a bonnie bride.’
Coop looks at me, questioning. ‘It was mah wee girl’s wedding, but
Gordon shoved us away in a corner, treated us like dirt because we weren’t
rich or well connected.’
‘When was that?’
‘Seven years ago now,’ replies Coop. ‘Caro weren’t the same girl after
that. Gordon did something to her.’
‘What did he do?’
He shrugs. ‘Ah cannae say for certain, but he took away her smile.’
He turns his glass slowly in his hand.
‘When a bairn loses both parents they become an orphan, but they don’t
have a name for parents who lose a child.’
‘No.’
‘Sometimes Ah pray. Ah’m not very good at it. Ah pray that he didn’t
leave her body somewhere cold. Ah pray Caro’s in Heaven, which is
somewhere she believed in. Cannae say that Ah do.’
The TV screen flickers and new images appear. Caro, aged about ten,
riding on a Ferris wheel. Every time it circles close to the ground she waves
at the camera, holding her dress between her knees to stop it blowing up.
‘What’s your name?’ asks Coop.
‘Joe.’
 ‘Ever wondered, Joe, whether the pain of losing a child is equal to the
happiness of becoming a father?’
He doesn’t wait for an answer.
‘There’s nae fucking comparison. Becoming a father is about that first
step, that first smile, that first word, that first time she rides a bike or climbs
a tree or goes to school, her first dance, her first date, her first kiss. You add
all those moments together - every birthday, Christmas, every dream - and
there’s nae fucking comparison.
‘When you have a child you think your life means something, you
know. It’s not like you’ve cured cancer or captained Scotland, but you’ve
had a kid. You’ve left something behind.’
His voice has begun to shake and his chest heaves. He bites down hard
on his fist.
‘You want to know the worst thing?’ he says, struggling to get the
words out. ‘Ah’m angry with her, with Caro. Ah want to scold her, ground
her, send her to her room. Ah want to tell her she cannae go out. Ah want to
stop her growing up, leaving home, getting married.
‘Ah’m angry because she took over our lives - our day began and ended
with hers - we planned her schooling, her holidays, her future. What future?
For all that love and pain, this is what we get! What’s the fucking point?’
‘You’ll think differently one day, Coop.’
‘What should Ah be thinking?’
‘About your wife out there in the kitchen.’
He nods, looking chastened.
‘Ah used to feel guilty about loving Philippa less after Caro were born.’
‘You loved them both.’
He nods. The image changes again. Caro is grown up, sitting up in a
hospital bed, cradling a newborn baby. Hair is plastered to her forehead, but
she’s smiling through her tiredness.
‘That’s our lad, Billy,’ says Coop, motioning to the screen. ‘We don’t
get tae see him any more. Gordon will nae bring him home and he won’t let
us take Billy for a holiday. We’re his grandparents. He shouldn’t be allowed
to keep him from us.’
‘How old was Billy when Caro disappeared?’
‘Almost two. Caro dropped round to see us the day before Billy’s
birthday. She had to sneak over because Gordon didn’t like her coming
round here.’
 ‘Why?’
Coop shrugs. ‘Ah think he wanted to control her.’
‘Did she tell you that?’
‘Ah could see it.
‘When Caro disappeared, what happened?’
‘Gordon said she just up and left him. Walked out. He told the police
that Caro had a lover, but that were a lie.’
Coop’s whole body jerks and the Scotch spills over his fingertips. He
licks the liquid from his hand and wrist.
‘Did the police interview Gordon?’
‘Aye.’
‘Do you know the name of the officer in charge?’
‘Frank Casey. He’s retired now.’
The TV screen flickers and new images appear. Caro, aged about
thirteen, is riding a pony that seems impossibly large, cantering between
jumps, and she waves as she passes the camera. Coop’s whole body rocks
forward as she approaches each jump, as if he’s riding with her.
It’s the emptiness inside him that’s the hardest. The voice he’ll never
hear again. I have almost lost a child. I have almost lost a wife. I can
imagine it. I can remember each moment with a clarity that overwhelms the
senses. Words get trapped in my windpipe. Sweat prickles. Guts twist.
People who lose children have their hearts warped into weird shapes.
Some try to deny it has happened. Some pretend it hasn’t. Losing friends or
parents is not the same. To lose a child is beyond comprehension. It defies
biology. It contradicts the natural order of history and genealogy. It derails
common sense. It violates time. It creates a huge, black, bottomless hole
that swallows all hope.
We leave the flat. Ruiz walks ahead of me, fists bunched, as though
wanting to hurt somebody. I’m still thinking about what Coop said about
life leading somewhere or meaning something. Mine doesn’t. I am living in
a kind of limbo, a lull in proceedings. I am waiting for my wife to have me
back - when I should be seizing every day and living it like it could be my
last.
I’m like a guy stranded in a traffic jam, who wonders what the hold-up
is and whether anyone is hurt and if I’ll make it home in time to watch I’m
a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.
 Instead I want to be the guy who looks at a pretty woman on the
footpath and imagines making love to her; the guy who embraces life and
lives it on fast forward; the guy who kisses often, hugs shamelessly and
treats every day like the briefest of love affairs.
Why can’t I be that guy?
 25
We’re driving out of Edinburgh towards the coast. Ruiz is playing music
on the car stereo, something bluesy with rolling guitar chords that rattle the
speakers in the doors. Closing my eyes, I can picture endless fields of sugar
cane in the American South rather than bleak Scottish hillsides. Opening
them again I see the wind lifting white plumes from the waves and trees
that are bent and twisted like arthritic old men.
‘You thinking about Caro Regan?’ he asks.
‘I’m thinking about Gordon Ellis.’
‘He strike you as the killing kind?’
‘Not until now.’
My mind goes back to the murder scene. Ray Hegarty wasn’t expected
home that night. Ellis could easily have known that Helen Hegarty worked
nights and that Sienna was on her own. Knowledge and opportunity are not
enough to place him in Sienna’s room or put a weapon in his hand.
‘What are the chances?’ I say out loud.
Ruiz glances at me. ‘The chances of what?’
‘Ray Hegarty saw his daughter kissing Gordon Ellis and complained to
the school. A week later he’s dead. A coincidence?’
‘Coincidences are just God’s way of remaining anonymous.’
‘You don’t believe in God.’
‘Exactly. An affair with a schoolgirl is a motive for murder. It could
destroy his career and end his marriage. A man like that had a lot to lose.’
‘Is it enough to kill?’
‘I’ve seen people kicked to death for fifty pence and a packet of pork
scratchings.’
Forty minutes later we pull through stone gates into a shooting club.
Cyprus trees line the long drive. Flags flap noisily against flagpoles.
Workmen are erecting scaffolding around a stone clubhouse that clings to
the hillside like a limpet on a rock.
Frank Casey is mid-sixties with white wispy hair that spills from
beneath a woollen cap and the sort of wide blue eyes that deepen with age.
We watch him break open a shotgun, plug two shells in the chambers and
snap it closed again before tucking the gun against his shoulder and gazing
along the barrel.
‘Pull!’
Two clay discs launch into the air flying left to right. The shotgun leaps
in his hands and each disc disappears in a cloud of dust that disperses in the
wind.
Casey pulls yellow ear-muffs to his neck and turns, cracking the
shotgun again. Most of the shooting bays are empty.
‘Do Ah know you?’ he asks.
‘I used to be a DI in the Met. Vincent Ruiz. This is Joe O’Loughlin.’
Casey shakes our hands. ‘How long you been out?’ he asks Ruiz.
‘Five years.’
‘Ah been out two. Hypertension was going tae put me in a box. Should
have done it sooner. My wife wouldn’t agree. She’s going off her head,
having me around.’
His accent is a blend of Glaswegian and something less harsh on the ear.
Reaching into his pocket, he produces a small silver flask.
‘Fancy a wee snort?’
‘I’m good,’ says Ruiz. I shake my head.
‘Suit yourselves.’ Casey tips up the flask and swallows noisily.
‘So what can Ah do for you gentlemen?’ he asks, resting the gun over
his forearm.
‘We wanted to ask about Gordon Ellis,’ I say. ‘He used to call himself
Gordon Freeman.’
‘Aye.’ Casey studies me momentarily over the top of his flask. ‘Ah did
know a man called Gordon Freeman, but why would you want tae talk
about him?’
‘You handled the investigation into his wife’s disappearance.’
‘Aye, Ah did.’
‘We’re looking into a murder down south. A teenage girl is accused of
killing her father.’
‘And you think Gordon Freeman is involved?’
‘He’s a possible suspect.’
Casey’s eyes keep returning to Ruiz as he speaks. ‘So this is not an
official police request?’
‘No. We’re investigating this on behalf of the young girl who’s been
charged.’
 Casey presses his thumb to the centre of his forehead. ‘How old is the
wee lass?’
‘Fourteen.’
He nods knowingly. ‘Do you fish, Vincent?’
‘No.’
‘How about you, Joe?’
‘No.’
‘The thing with fish, you see, is they exhibit two drives - fear and
hunger. The large eat the small. They even eat their own - starting with
those youngsters that are nae paying attention at fish school. Know what
Ah’m saying?’
The answer is no, but I don’t want to interrupt him.
‘Gordon Freeman, or whatever he calls himself - he eats the young. He
finds the weakest and picks them off. The youngest and the prettiest and the
happiest - he devours them bit by bit.’
Two more shooters have walked down the path from the clubhouse.
They take a bay at the far end of the range and put on vests with pockets for
shotgun shells.
Casey presses his hand to his lower spine as though relieving himself of
a sharp pain in his back.
‘Gordon is the one that got away. The one Ah wish Ah’d caught.’
He glances at Ruiz, his face suddenly tired and his eyes shivering.
‘We found Caro’s car parked at the railway station. A suitcase was
missing from the house wi’ some of her clothes, but she didnae leave a note
or tell her family.
‘It took the Regans three months before anyone took them seriously. By
that time the trail had gone cold. The CCTV footage wasnae kept, so we
had tae rely on witnesses. We interviewed passengers on the trains and
filmed a reconstruction - had an actress wearing Caro’s clothes and put it on
TV - but naebody came forward.’
‘What did Gordon say?’
‘He claimed Caro was having an affair and had run off with her
boyfriend.’
‘So what do you think happened?’
‘Me? Ah think Caro Regan is dead. Mah guess is he weighted down her
body and dumped it in an abandoned pit. Countryside is dotted with them -
old silver mines and coalmines - we dinnae have a register of all of them.’
His mouth constricts to a pucker. ‘We tried to break him. We pulled him in,
followed him, pieced together his movements, but came up with fuck-all.
The bastard has ice water in his veins. He’s a genuine fucking sociopath,
you know what Ah’m saying? Clever. No remorse. Two years after she
disappeared, Gordon applied for a divorce.’
‘He had a new girlfriend.’
‘Aye.’
Casey takes another swig from his flask.
‘There’s no way Caro Regan would have left home without her son. It
was Billy’s birthday the next day. She’d bought him a rocking horse. What
mother leaves her son the day before his birthday?’
Casey closes his eyes. His eyebrows are so pale they’re almost invisible.
‘Ah didnae get to meet Caro Regan, but Ah think Ah would have liked
her. Ah talk to her sometimes, you know, in mah head. You probably think
Ah’m mental.’
‘Only if she talks back,’ I tell him.
He grins. ‘When Ah talk tae Caro, Ah ask her where she is now, but she
doesn’t know the answer. Maybe that’s what they mean by Purgatory -
trapped between Heaven and Hell. Ah knew her mother, you know. Philippa
was a fine-looking girl when she was younger. You wouldnae know it now,
but take mah word for it.’
There is a click in his throat and an exhalation of breath like he’s
blowing out a match. He raises his face to the sky. Sniffs at the air.
‘Gordon had a caravan. We found the receipt for when he bought it, but
we couldnae find it.’
‘Maybe he sold it,’ says Ruiz.
‘It’s still registered in his name.’
‘Is it important?’
Casey shrugs. ‘We turned over every rock and shook every tree.’
‘What did Ellis say?’
‘He told us he lost the ’van in a poker game. Gordon likes playing the
cards and he likes the horses. Spread betting - the work of the devil. Word is
that he skipped town owing a loan shark called Terry Spencer fifteen grand.
‘Terry is a reasonably easy-going lad, but he lost patience and sent one
of his boys looking for Ellis to remind him of his fiscal responsibilities -
know what Ah’m saying? Stan Keating took a flight down south to Bristol
and visited Ellis; roughed him up a wee bit, poured acid on his motor, the
normal stuff.
‘About a fortnight later Stan was back in Edinburgh, drinking at his
regular boozer in Candlemaker Row, when a guy turned up looking for him
- an Irishman with weird tattoos on his face. He asked after Stan, who was
sitting not twelve feet away, but the barmaid was old school and didnae say
a thing.
‘For the next hour the Irishman waited, drinking orange juice and doing
a crossword puzzle, cool as you like. Stan was watching him and making
phone calls, arranging reinforcements - two brothers, the Lewis twins, good
wit’ iron bars.
‘Eventually, the Irishman gets sick of waiting. Stan follows him outside
where the Lewis twins are waiting. “You looking for me?” he asks, taking
off his gold watch and rolling up his sleeves. The Irishman nodded. “You
got fifteen seconds tae state your business,” says Stan.
‘“You paid a visit to a school teacher.”
‘“What’s that got to do wi’ you?”
‘“You made a mistake.”
‘Stan gives a glance over his shoulder at the twins. Smiles. In that split
second he discovered the truth about the Irishman. A silver knuckleduster
spiked with half-inch nails crushed his windpipe. It was three against one.
They didnae stand a chance. The Irishman drove the knuckleduster into one
twin’s jaw and took out the other twin with a telescopic baton that broke
both his arms.
‘The fight lasted less than thirty seconds. Stan and the twins were on
their knees, foreheads bent to the ground, whimpering. Stan’s voice box
couldnae be repaired.’
The skin on Ruiz’s face flexes against the bone. ‘How did Gordon Ellis
get a friend like that?’
Frank Casey shrugs his shoulders. ‘Ah wouldnae want one.’
‘So what about Terry Spencer?’
‘He got his money eventually. Ellis’s new family probably stumped up
the cash, but that’s just a theory.’
‘And Stan Keating?’
‘He drinks in the same pub, but he don’t say much any more. Ah guess
you could call him a man of few words.’ Casey rises from the bench and
extends his hand. ‘Ah know Ah shouldnae say this, but Ah’m glad Gordon
Ellis isn’t mah problem any more. Ah hope you have more luck than we
did.’
Resting the shotgun over his shoulder, he shuffles up the cinder path to
the rest of his retirement.

It’s mid-afternoon. Bobby’s Bar has a dozen or so drinkers inside and

the nicotine-addicted at an outside table. The retired, the unemployed and
the unemployable - old men in quilted jackets with awful teeth. It’s like a
horror film: Night of the Unsmiling Granddads.
A plaque on the wall tells the story of the place. John Gray, an
Edinburgh policeman, died of tuberculosis in 1858 and was buried in the
adjacent yard. His dog, a Skye terrier called Bobby, spent the next fourteen
years guarding his master’s grave until the dog died in 1872. There’s a
statue of Bobby on a plinth outside - another monument to our desire to
erect monuments.
The barmaid tries not to react when I mention Stan Keating’s name, but
a small twitch in the corner of her mouth tells me she’s lying. Ruiz is
already ordering a pint so as not to waste the trip. He hands the barmaid a
fiver and waits for his change. Bottles of spirits are like glass organ pipes
above his head.
Collecting his pint, he joins me at a table and surveys the bar. A lurid
computer game winks and squawks in the corner trying to woo punters into
competing unsuccessfully.
‘You know the problem with banning smoking in pubs?’ he asks,
sucking an inch off the top of his Guinness.
‘What’s that?’
‘The smell.’
‘Of smoke?’
‘Of farts.’
I wait for an explanation.
‘Take a whiff of this place. Disinfectant and farts. Lager farts and
Guinness farts and cider farts. When people could smoke, you couldn’t
smell their farts. Now you can.’
‘Farts?’
‘Yeah.’
 He takes another huge swallow and wipes his mouth. Then he nods over
my shoulder. Further along the bar, one drinker sits on a stool studying a
racing guide. A cravat is wrapped around his neck, making him look like an
ageing fifties film star.
I sit on the barstool next to him. ‘I’m looking for Stan Keating.’
He doesn’t answer. His jacket has holes in the elbows and his nose is a
roadmap of broken capillaries. The racing guide is ringed with red pen
marks.
‘I wanted to talk about Gordon Ellis,’ I say. ‘Maybe you know him as
Gordon Freeman.’
The barmaid answers, ‘He can’t talk.’
I turn to her. ‘I just need to ask him a couple of questions.’
‘Good luck with that,’ she says, polishing a glass. ‘Mr Keating doesn’t
like being disturbed.’
‘Maybe he should tell me that.’
Keating reaches for his pint glass and raises it to his lips. The cravat on
his neck slips, revealing a scar that extends from his Adam’s apple down his
throat until it disappears beneath the fabric.
‘He can’t talk,’ says the barmaid, ‘unless he’s got his machine.’
‘What machine?’ asks Ruiz, who has taken a stool on the opposite side.
She holds her hand to her neck and silently moves her lips.
Keating lowers the glass and continues reading the form guide.
‘You’re not deaf, though, are you, Stan?’ says Ruiz. ‘I’ll buy you a
drink.’ He motions to the barmaid. ‘Same again.’
Keating takes his hand slowly from his pocket. I see the dull gleam of
steel as he presses a pencil-shaped device to his neck.
‘Tell them to fuck off, Brenda.’
The words have a buzzing metallic quality, like listening to a Stephen
Hawking interview without the pauses between the words.
Brenda wipes a rag along the bar. ‘You heard him, gentlemen.’
Keating lowers the device and goes back to his newspaper.
‘Maybe you don’t understand our motives,’ says Ruiz. ‘We’re
investigating Gordon Ellis. We know about his first wife. We know about
his gambling debts.’
Keating doesn’t respond. He folds the paper and looks at the clock
behind the bar.
 Ruiz tries another approach. ‘You got children, Stan? I got two. A boy
and a girl. Twins. They’re grown up now, but I still worry about them. Joe
here has two daughters. Still young. Gordon Ellis is a nonce. He preys on
schoolgirls.’
Keating shifts slightly and reaches for a glass, finishing the dregs before
placing it carefully down again.
He prods the amplifier into his neck again, aggressively this time. ‘Ah
used to sing. Nothing professional, like, just around the piano in pubs and
clubs. Ah’d warm up the crowd before the main act. Ah sung Dean Martin
stuff and Bing Crosby. Do you remember Dean Martin?’
Ruiz nods.
‘That boy could croon, drunk or sober, but he preferred to be drunk.’
Keating pauses and takes a gurgling breath. His eyes meet mine in the
mirror behind the bar. ‘Ah cannae sing nae more.’
‘Who did this to you?’
‘Go home. There’s nae point coming here.’
‘What are you afraid of?’
The statement hits a nerve and Keating’s nostrils quiver as he sucks in a
breath. His ears are like cauliflowers pressed to his scalp.
‘Fuck you,’ he says, mouthing the words silently.
At that moment the door opens and a young woman appears wearing
low-cut blue jeans, sockless trainers and a tight-fitting grey T-shirt that rides
up to show a strip of smooth abdomen. Her hair is held back with a band
and a toddler perches on her hip sucking on a biscuit.
‘Come on, Dad,’ she says. ‘I’m running late.’
Stan Keating folds his paper and turns on his bar stool, finding his feet.
His daughter is gazing at Ruiz and me. A breath of concern clouds her eyes.
Keating points to the men’s room.
‘Hurry up then,’ she says.
He pushes through a door and disappears from view. The woman talks
to Brenda behind the bar, consciously ignoring us.
‘Who did that to him?’ I ask.
She looks from my face to Ruiz and back again. ‘Are you coppers?’
‘I used to be,’ says Ruiz. ‘We’re trying to help your father.’
‘Let me guess - he won’t talk to you, so now you’re asking me?’
‘Has he ever mentioned someone called Gordon Ellis?’
‘Never heard of him.’
 She picks a sodden crumb of biscuit off her chest and wraps it in a
tissue. Shifting the toddler on her opposite hip, she tucks the tissue into the
tight pocket on her jeans. She’s not wearing a wedding ring.
‘How old is your little one?’ I ask.
She eyes me suspiciously. ‘Just gone two.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Tommy.’
‘Must be hard.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Being a single mum, looking after Tommy and keeping an eye on your
dad. Does he live with you?’
‘Yeah.’ She’s anxious now. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m trying to help a girl who’s in a lot of trouble. She’s not much
younger than you. Still at school.’
‘What’s that got to do with us?’
‘Your dad went to collect a debt from a man called Gordon Ellis and
that’s how he got hurt. We’re trying to find out who did it.’
The toddler is growing heavy in her arms. She sets him down, holding
tight to his hand. Then she looks over my shoulder towards the men’s room.
‘My dad fought in the Falklands with the Paras. Battle of Goose Green.’
‘Second Battalion?’ asks Ruiz.
She nods. ‘They gave him a medal and a piece of paper. What good is
that?’
‘He fought for his country.’
‘You know he never stops talking about it - the Falklands. Two months
out of his whole friggin life and he can’t forget it. Doesn’t want to.’ She
looks from face to face. ‘Sometimes I think he wishes he’d never come
back.’
The door to the bathrooms swings open. Stan Keating nods goodbye to
Brenda. The machine touches his neck and he looks at his daughter. ‘Let’s
go.’
I talk to her urgently. ‘Gordon Ellis preys on underage girls. I’m trying
to help one of them.’
‘That’s nothing to do with Dad.’
‘Who did this to him?’
She fingers a silver chain around her neck. ‘He’s never said.’
 Keating is already out the door. Reaching down, she picks up her little
boy whose hands go around her neck.
‘We heard it was an Irishman.’
She shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t know, but he calls him something in his sleep.’
‘What?’
She draws two fingers down her cheeks leaving white lines that fade to
pink on her smooth skin.
‘The Crying Man.’
 26
Sitting in the departure lounge at Edinburgh Airport, I gaze out the
terminal window where sheets of rain sweep across the tarmac. Men in
yellow rain jackets are walking beneath the fuselage of a jet, loading
luggage and food trolleys.
My flight to Bristol leaves in forty minutes. Ruiz has to wait another
hour to get to London.
‘You want one of these?’ he asks, offering me a boiled sweet from a
round flat tin.
‘No, thanks.’
One of the lollies rattles against the inside of his teeth. He tucks the tin
into his jacket pocket. Some people have smells and some have sounds.
Ruiz rattles when he walks and creaks when he bends.
I tell Ruiz about going to the minicab office and seeing an Irishman
with tattoos that looked like tears. The same man had been outside the
restaurant when I had lunch with Julianne.
‘How does Gordon Ellis get protection from someone like that? He’s a
secondary-school drama teacher, not a gangster.’
‘He’s a sexual predator.’
‘Yeah and nobody likes a nonce. Not even hardened crims can abide a
kiddie fiddler. Ellis wouldn’t last a month inside. Someone would shank
him in a meal queue or hang him from the bars.’
‘Maybe the Irishman doesn’t know he’s a nonce.’
I watch a jet land in a cloud of spray and recall a patient of mine who
was so scared of flying she tried to open the door of the plane and jump out.
It turned out that she wasn’t scared of flying (or crashing). She was
claustrophobic. Sometimes the obvious answer fits perfectly, yet it’s still
wrong.
‘How is Julianne?’ asks Ruiz.
‘Fine.’
‘You’re still talking?’
‘We are.’
‘You bumping ugly?’
‘She’s started seeing someone else. An architect.’
 ‘Is it serious?’
‘I don’t know.’
Silence settles around us and I begin thinking about Harry Veitch. When
Julianne and I were together, we used to crack jokes about Harry and the
way he always insisted on tasting the wine at restaurants, describing the
tannins and bouquet. Maybe I was the one who told the jokes, but I’m sure
Julianne smiled.
Then I think about last night with Annie Robinson. For years I couldn’t
imagine getting up the courage to show my naked body to another woman.
Now it’s happened and I don’t know how to feel.
I want to ask Ruiz if it gets any easier. Marriage. Separation. Possible
divorce. He’s been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. At the same time I
want to avoid the subject. Live in denial.
‘On the day she left me, Julianne said that I was sad; that I’d forgotten
how to enjoy life. I looked at Coop today - how he’d stopped living after his
daughter disappeared, how he’d given up - and I wondered if maybe
Julianne was right about me.’
‘You’re not like Coop.’
‘I keep expecting things to go back to the way they were.’
‘It won’t happen. Take it from me.’
‘You don’t think she’ll take me back?’
‘No, I’m saying it’ll never be the same.’
‘You’re still seeing Miranda.’
‘That’s not the same thing. She’s an ex-wife with benefits.’
‘Benefits?’
‘Perfect breasts and thighs that can crush a filing cabinet.’
I shake my head and laugh, which I shouldn’t because it will only
encourage him.
Instead he grows serious. ‘Do you know what makes a good detective,
Prof? We’re the suspicious ones. We believe that everybody lies. Suspects.
Witnesses. Victims. The innocent. The guilty. The stupid. Unfortunately, the
very thing that makes us good detectives makes us lousy husbands.
‘When I was married to Miranda, she put up with my moods and my
late nights and my drinking, but I know she lay awake sometimes
wondering what doors I was kicking down and what lay on the other side.
All she ever really wanted was to have me walk through her door - safe and
whole.
 ‘I think maybe she could have lived with the uncertainty if I didn’t leave
a part of myself behind every time. We’d be at a restaurant, or a dinner
party, or watching TV and she knew I was thinking about work. It got so
bad that sometimes I didn’t want to go home. I used to make up excuses and
stay in the office. That’s your problem, Joe - you can’t leave it behind.’
I want to argue with him. I want to remind him I no longer have a home
to protect or pollute, but Ruiz would just slap me around the head for being
pessimistic and defeatist. It’s one of the things I’ve noticed about him since
he retired - he’s become far more pragmatic. He can live with his regrets
because one by one he has set them to rights or laid them to rest or made
amends or accepted the things he cannot change. When you’ve been shot,
stabbed and almost drowned, every day becomes a blessing, every birthday
a celebration - life is a three-course meal occasionally seasoned with shit
but still edible. Ruiz has learned to fill his boots.
‘If you want my advice,’ he adds, ‘you need to keep getting laid.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s pretty self-explanatory.’
‘You think sex will cure me?’
‘Sex is messy, sweaty, noisy, clumsy, exhausting and exhilarating, but
even at its worst . . .’
He doesn’t finish the statement. Instead he looks at me closely. ‘So who
is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Your bit on the side.’
I want to deny it, but he grins, showing me the boiled sweet between his
teeth.
‘How did you know?’
‘I wasn’t born yesterday.’
‘Is it written on my forehead?’
‘Something like that. Who is she?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘Suit yourself.’
We lapse into silence. I’m thinking of Annie Robinson. I can still see
the freckles on her shoulders and feel her breath on my face. One arm lay
across my chest and her breasts were pressed against my ribs. I always feel
empty after sex, sad and happy at the same time.
 ‘Hey, did I tell you,’ says Ruiz, ‘I heard a guy being interviewed the
other night on one of those sex-therapy shows. The interviewer asked him
to describe in one word the worst blowjob he ever had. You know what he
said?’
‘What?’
‘Fabulous.’
Ruiz’s face splits into a mess of wrinkles and his eyes glitter. We’re
laughing again. He’s happy now.
Wind buffets the plane as it takes off and rises above the clouds. Rain
silently streaks the windows.
By the time I get home it’s after nine. The house is dark. Quiet. Opening
the front door, I turn on the hall light and walk through to the kitchen
expecting to hear Gunsmoke thumping his tail against the door.
He must be in the laundry. Perhaps he didn’t hear me. Opening the back
door, I call his name. He doesn’t come bounding down the path, licking at
my hands. The old rubber mattress he uses is unoccupied.
Retrieving a torch from the laundry, I search the yard. Maybe he dug a
hole beneath the fence or somebody could have opened the back gate.
When he was a puppy he got out of the yard and went missing for a day.
One of the neighbours found him sitting by the bus stop, waiting for Charlie
to get home from school. He must have followed her scent.
A noise. I stop moving and listen. It’s a soft whimpering sound from the
direction of the compost bin. The torch beam sweeps cautiously across the
ground and picks out something shiny in the grass. My fingers close around
it - the tag from Gunsmoke’s collar.
I call his name. The whimpering grows louder.
I see him then. His front legs are hog-tied and his neck is pinned to the
tree by an arrow that sticks out at a right angle. Torchlight gleams on his
matted fur, slick with blood.
His head lolls forward. Instead of eyes he has weeping wounds. Acid or
household cleaner has been poured across his face, dissolving fur and flesh,
blinding him permanently.
Dropping to my knees, I put my arm around his neck, cradling his head,
trying to take pressure off the arrow which is holding his body upright. How
in God’s name is he still alive?
He swings his head to the left and licks my neck. A groan deep inside
reveals how much he must be hurting.
 Gunsmoke, my dog, my walking companion, my housemate, my
hopeless guard dog . . . Why would someone want to hurt him?
Leaving him for a few moments, I go to the shed and pull out a hacksaw
from the box beneath the bench. Gently, I put my hand between the
Labrador’s body and the tree, feeling for the arrow. Then I use the hacksaw
to cut through the shaft.
Wrapping Gunsmoke in a blanket, I carry him through the house to the
car.
What car? The Volvo is still at the workshop.
On the verge of tears, I sit on the front step with the Labrador’s head on
my lap. Fumbling for my mobile, I call directory enquiries and ask for an
animal hospital. The nearest one is in Upper Wells Way, about three miles
away. I count the rings and then it clicks to an answering machine - a
recorded message gives the business hours and an emergency number.
I don’t have a pen. I repeat the number to myself, trying not to forget it.
I hear it ringing. A woman answers.
‘I need your help. Someone shot my dog.’
‘Shot him?’
‘With an arrow.’
‘Hold on, I’ll get my husband.’
I can hear her calling to him and he shouts back. Under my breath I’m
whispering, ‘Please hurry. Please hurry. Please hurry.’
‘This is Dr Bradley. Can I help you?’
I try to speak too quickly and start choking on a ball of saliva that’s
gone down the wrong way. I’m coughing in his ear.
‘Is there a problem?’ he asks again.
‘The problem is someone tortured my dog and shot him through the
neck with an arrow.’
Questions need answering. Where is the arrow now? How much blood
has he lost? Is he conscious? Are his eyes fixed and dilated?
‘I can’t see his eyes. They poured something caustic into them. He’s
blind.’
The vet falls silent.
‘Are you still there?’
‘What’s your address?’
Dr Bradley is on his way. I lean my head back on the door and wait,
feeling for Gunsmoke’s heartbeat. Slow. Unsteady. He’s in so much pain. I
should put him down, end his misery. How? I couldn’t . . .
Growing up I was never allowed to have a dog. I was away at boarding
school most of the time so my parents couldn’t see the point. I remember
one summer finding a Jack Russell cross trapped on a ledge above the
incoming tide. We’d rented a house near Great Ormes Head, overlooking
Penrhyn Bay, and after lunch one day my sisters took me for a walk to the
lighthouse.
I ran on ahead because they were always stopping to pick wild-flowers
or to look at the ships. I heard the dog before I saw it. I lay on my stomach
and peered over the edge of Great Orme, holding on to clumps of grass in
my fists. Foaming white water spilled over jagged rocks, swirling into the
crevices and evacuating them again. Grassy banks divided the crumbling
rock tiers, which dropped at irregular intervals to a narrow shingle beach.
On one of the lower tiers, I noticed a small dog, huddled on a ledge about
twenty feet above the waves. He had a white face with black markings like
a pirate patch over one eye.
I ran back to the holiday house. My father, God’s-Personal-Physician-
in-Waiting was enjoying an afternoon siesta, sleeping beneath The Times on
a hammock in the garden. He didn’t appreciate being woken, but came
grudgingly. My pleas for him to hurry washed over him like water.
The girls had gathered on the headland, talking over each other and
offering advice until my father bellowed at everyone to be quiet while he
tried to think.
Tow-ropes were collected from the garage and a harness fashioned from
an old pair of trousers. I was the lightest. I was to go down the slope. My
father wrapped the rope around his waist and sat with his back to the
headland, bracing his legs apart, digging in his heels.
‘Go down slowly,’ he said, motioning me onwards.
It wasn’t the thought of falling that scared me. I knew he wouldn’t let
go. I was more worried about the dog. Would it bite me? Would it squirm
out of my arms and fall into the waves?
The Jack Russell did none of these things. I could feel it shivering as I
opened the buttons of my shirt and pushed it inside. I yelled out and felt the
pressure on my waist. The rope dragged me upwards while I clung to tufts
of grass and used rocks as footholds.
The Jack Russell was soon tearing around our garden, chasing after
ribbons and balls. I wanted to keep him. I figured I’d earned the right. But
my father sent two of my older sisters into Llandudno where they put up
notices in the cafés and at the supermarket and the post office.
Two days later an old woman came and collected her dog, whose name
was Rupert. By then, emotionally if not technically, he belonged to me. She
offered a reward - ten pounds - but my father said it wasn’t necessary.
The woman drove away with Rupert and later she left a bag of turnips
and a marrow on our doorstep. I hated turnips. Still do. But my father made
a big point of me eating them. ‘You earned them,’ he said. ‘It’s your
reward.’
Gunsmoke’s head has dropped off my lap. His tongue touches my hand
but he doesn’t have the strength to lick it.
A van pulls into Station Street, moving slowly as it searches for a house
number. The name of the pet hospital is painted on the side, beneath a
cartoon dog with a bandaged head and a paw in a sling.
Dr Bradley opens the rear doors. Grabs his bag. The sight of Gunsmoke
catches him by surprise. Something else in his eyes: uncertainty.
He crouches next to me, puts a stethoscope on Gunsmoke’s chest.
Listens. Moves it. Listens again. His eyes meet mine, full of a sad truth. All
I need to know.
‘You couldn’t have saved him,’ he says. ‘His injuries . . . it’s best this
way.’
His hand touches my shoulder. A lump jams in my throat.
‘Do you want me to take care of the body?’
‘No. I can handle it. Thank you for coming.’
The van does a three-point turn. He waves goodbye.
Grunting with the effort, I lift Gunsmoke in my arms and carry him
through the house again, setting him down on the old rubber mattress he
uses as a bed. Then I take a shovel from the shed and clear the leaves near
the compost bin, picking out a spot between the flowerbeds.
I don’t know how long it takes to dig the grave. A couple of times I stop
and lean on the shovel. My medication is wearing off and my left side keeps
locking up, sending me sideways. I’m fine if I keep digging, but as soon as
I stop it begins to show. When the hole is deep enough, I wrap Gunsmoke in
his favourite blanket and lower him down, almost collapsing on top of him
when I overbalance.
‘Too many treats, old friend, no wonder you couldn’t catch those
rabbits.’
 I’m not a prayerful man or a believer in an afterlife for animals (let
alone humans) so there is nothing to say except goodbye before I shovel the
first clods on his body. When I finish, I scatter leaves across the turned
earth and put the shovel back in the shed. Then I go inside and pour myself
a drink and sit at the kitchen table, too tired to climb the stairs, too angry to
sleep.
 27
The cold wakes me before dawn. Stiff. Sore. Trembling. I brush my
teeth and splash hot water on my face and manage to shave. I won’t walk
this morning. It doesn’t seem right. Instead I medicate and make coffee,
sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Strawberry crunch her cat food.
If Gordon Ellis was having an affair with Sienna someone must have
known. There would have been clues: emails, text messages, handwritten
notes passed between them.
My answering machine is flashing. There are three messages.
The first is from Bill Johnson at the garage: I found a door for the Volvo
at the wrecker’s yard. It’s never going to close properly, but it should do the
job. You have to nudge it with your hip. You can pick it up any time.
Clunk!
Annie Robinson.
Hi, Joe, it’s Annie. She leaves a long thought-organising pause: I don’t
have your mobile number. I had a nice time the other night. I hope you did
too. Call me when you get home. It doesn’t matter if it’s late. Bye.
Clunk!
Message three. Annie again.
Hi, again. I looked into that thing you mentioned . . . about Gordon. I
found a few photographs from college. Hey, I was thinking about cooking
dinner tonight. I promise I really will cook this time. Seven-thirty or earlier.
You choose. Let me know if you can’t make it.
Clunk!
Just after eight, I shower and dress in casual clothes before walking up
the hill to Emma’s school. The children are arriving, muffled up against the
cold. Emma will be among the last. She sleeps like a teenager, cocooned in
a duvet, ignoring every summons. I can picture Julianne dragging her out of
bed and pulling clothes over her sleepy head.
Further along the street I see Natasha Ellis pull up in her Ford Focus.
She lifts Billy from his booster seat and slips a rucksack over his shoulders.
He’s wearing a woollen hat, pulled down over his ears, and carrying a faded
Tigger. They walk hand in hand to the gate. Natasha crouches and hugs him
and Billy solemnly hands her the soft toy. Then he turns and runs to a group
of friends.
‘Mrs Ellis?’
She turns at the sound of my voice.
‘Hello. It’s Joe, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Please call me Natasha. Nobody calls me Mrs Ellis. Makes me feel
ancient.’
‘You’re certainly not ancient.’
She laughs brightly. ‘Gordon calls me Nat - but that makes me sound
like a bug. Don’t you think?’
She’s wearing skinny-legged jeans, boots and a turtleneck sweater. Her
cheeks are blushed with the cold.
‘I was hoping we might talk.’
‘I hope there’s nothing wrong.’
‘Do you know Sienna Hegarty?’
Natasha raises her eyebrows. ‘Of course. She used to babysit for us. I
heard what happened. What a shock! I can’t believe she’d do such a thing.’
‘I’m trying to help her.’
‘That’s good. That’s the nice thing about village life - people support
each other. Don’t you think?’
Her eyes cut sideways to me and lips part slightly. She wants to leave.
My left hand is tapping against my thigh. A nervous gesture.
‘How long have you been married?’
‘Nearly two years.’
‘Happy?’
‘That’s an odd question.’
‘I’m sorry. You must miss not having your family around. You’re from
Scotland, aren’t you?’
She drops into an accent. ‘Just a wee lassie from Edinburgh.’
‘Gordon told me you were childhood sweethearts.’
She smiles fondly. ‘It’s funny really. He tells people we were at school
together, but that’s just because he wants people to think he’s younger than
he really is. He was a teacher at my school. We met up after I’d left. I saw
him at a rugby game.’
‘Gordon plays?’
‘Oh, Heavens no! Gordon isn’t the sporty type. He watches.’
 ‘You must have been very young.’
‘Eighteen.’
She’s lying to me.
‘That’s quite an age difference. What did your parents think?’
‘Oh, they love Gordon.’
‘So Billy’s not your son?’
‘No, Gordon was married before. His wife left him . . . walked out on
Billy. Gordon still can’t understand why.’
Her eyes shift from mine and she gazes along the road.
‘Did you know Ray Hegarty?’
Her face clouds with concern. ‘Not really. I might have spoken to him
on the phone when I called to arrange for Sienna to look after Billy. I don’t
know if I would have liked him, you know - is that an awful thing to say, I
mean, now that he’s dead?’
‘Why wouldn’t you have liked him?’
‘He sounded like a bully. Some of the things Sienna said . . .’
‘She talked about him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Saying what?’
Natasha’s voice drops to a whisper, ‘He was very controlling. He
wanted to choose the clothes she wore and to stop her seeing her boyfriend.
I think he used to beat her . . .’ she hesitates. ‘And there might have been
worse things. That’s why we had her babysit so often. We even let her sleep
over. Have you seen Sienna? Is she all right?’
‘Holding up.’
Natasha nods and raises her hand, brushing hair from her eyes.
‘Did you know that Ray Hegarty made a complaint to the school about
your husband?’
Colour fades in her cheeks and her features tighten. For a moment I
think she’s going to deny everything or plead ignorance, but her mind
works quickly.
‘I blame myself,’ she says.
‘Why’s that?’
‘I should have seen how close Sienna was getting to Billy . . . and to
Gordon. She had a crush on my husband. One night when Gordon dropped
her home, she tried to kiss him.’
‘Is that what Gordon told you?’
 ‘That’s what happened.’ Steel in her voice. ‘Gordon was very upset. He
told her parents and the school. She couldn’t babysit for us after that. That’s
why we use Charlie.’
‘Pardon?’
‘That’s why Charlie has been babysitting Billy. She’s lovely. Billy
adores her. Is there something wrong?’
I can’t answer her. The photographs on Charlie’s Facebook page; she
was lying on a bed playing with a small boy. Billy. I replay the scenes as
though I’m looking through the camera lens, watching my daughter, seeing
how she responds.
I’m staring at Natasha. Sometimes I don’t realise how Parkinson’s can
lock up my features, creating a living mask. It’s making her uncomfortable.
She edges away from me, moving towards her car.
‘Your husband argued with Ray Hegarty.’
A flash of anger sparks in her eyes. I can see a pulse beating in her neck
and her hands are opening and closing nervously on her car keys.
‘You’ll have to talk to Gordon.’
‘Was he home that night?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sound very sure.’
‘It was my birthday. He bought me flowers and made me dinner.’ She
unlocks her car, fumbling with the keys, almost dropping her purse.
‘Your birthday - that’s lovely. How many candles did he put on your
birthday cake?’
Her head turns and she peers at me with a cold fury that lays something
to waste inside of me. Her voice comes out in a dry rasp.
‘Stay away from my family!’
 28
Julianne and Emma turn the corner. Emma is wearing a woollen hat
with ear-flaps that tie under her chin.
Tugging at her mother’s arm, she complains that she’ll be late.
‘And whose fault is that?’ says Julianne. ‘Next time, get out of bed
when I tell you to. And get dressed . . . and eat your breakfast . . . and brush
your teeth . . . and put on your shoes.’
Emma spies me and runs into my arms. I try to lift her above my head
and get about halfway. She’s getting too big to be thrown into the air.
Julianne wants to know what’s wrong, but she doesn’t ask. She’ll wait
until Emma is in school. We both get a hug goodbye and a wave at the gate.
Emma milks every moment, turning and waving, turning and waving.
‘What’s up?’ asks Julianne.
‘I didn’t know Charlie had been babysitting for Gordon Ellis.’
The statement sounds too much like an accusation. Straight away, she
raises her defences.
‘What’s the problem?’
‘I don’t want Charlie in his house. I don’t want her alone with him.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’
‘We can’t talk here.’
Pulling her further along the street, away from the school, we stop at a
picnic table near the green, overlooking the church. A car with a blown
muffler rumbles around the corner and I feel my heart race.
‘OK. Now what’s this about?’
I tell her about my trip to Edinburgh, about Caro Regan’s disappearance
and Gordon Ellis marrying a former student, a schoolgirl, and moving
away.
‘Natasha Ellis is barely eighteen. She was sixteen when she married and
only thirteen when she met Gordon.’
‘What about Billy?’
‘He’s not Natasha’s son. Caro Regan disappeared the day before Billy’s
second birthday. That was four years ago. She hasn’t contacted her family
or tried to see Billy, or applied for welfare or withdrawn money from an
account. The police think she’s dead.’
 Julianne’s fingers rise to her face, partially concealing her mouth.
‘And they think Gordon . . . ?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does the school know?’
‘Ray Hegarty saw Gordon Ellis kissing Sienna and made a complaint to
the school, but the allegation was dismissed because Sienna denied it. I
talked to Mr Stozer on Monday but he called it a misunderstanding and a
harmless schoolgirl crush. He’s wrong. I think Gordon Ellis was sleeping
with Sienna.’
‘You said she was pregnant!’
‘Yes.’
‘You have to tell the police.’
‘I need Sienna to confirm it.’
Julianne turns her head and glances back towards the school. Her tone
softens. ‘Are you sure you’re right about this?’
‘Even if I’m wrong, I don’t want Charlie going anywhere near Ellis.’
‘Do I stop her going to school?’
‘No.’
I hesitate, not wanting to frighten her. How much should I say? Should I
tell her that someone ran me off the road - or about what happened to
Gunsmoke? This is why she left me. Every time I get involved in a case like
this the stakes become too high.
‘Are you taking your medication?’ she asks, looking at me closely.
‘Yes.’
A hand reaches towards me and her fingers brush against my cheek.
Then she steps closer and puts her arms around me, pulling my head to her
chest. I stay very quiet, listening to her heart beating. Then suddenly step
back, breaking contact with her.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asks.
‘Nothing.’
‘Have I upset you?’
‘I’m fine. I just don’t think we should . . .’
‘Should what?’
She’s waiting. I can’t look at her face.
‘Every time you touch me it feels as though you’re leaving me all over
again.’
‘That’s not my fault, Joe.’
 ‘I know.’
She looks at my expression and understands that something has altered
between us. Turning her head, she gazes at the bare limbs of the oak trees in
the churchyard.
‘I have to go. I’m due in court. You’re going to fix this.’
‘I’m going to try.’
She spins and walks away, stepping around the puddles. Perhaps it’s my
imagination, but I think I glimpse a flash of wetness in her eyes.
 29
Oakham House looks different today, blurred at the edges and bleached
into monotones like an old black-and-white film. A sea mist is shrouding
the whitecaps and obscuring where the sea meets the land. Only the pine
trees stand out darkly, bedraggled and scabrous, like a silent army massing
on the ridges, ready to invade.
I get lost trying to find the same lounge as before. Sienna is in her
favourite place, sitting on the windowsill.
Elsewhere in the same room, an overweight teenager with apple cheeks
moves between pieces of furniture, picking lint from the sofas and
rearranging the cushions. He has a leather helmet on his head, strapped
beneath his chin. Another youth is playing chess with himself, moving his
chair to the opposite side of the table before making each move.
The one cleaning reaches the game and unexpectedly picks up the white
queen, polishing it with his rag.
‘For fuck’s sake, Trevor, leave my queen alone.’
Trevor sheepishly replaces the piece and grabs another. The player tries
to retrieve it, chasing him around the table.
‘Do that again and I’ll deck you, Trevor.’
Sienna has continued staring out the window. Her shoulder blades look
like stunted wings beneath her clothes. She turns at the sound of my voice
and gives me a tired smile. Then she spends a moment watching the chase
until Trevor is cornered and surrenders the chess piece.
‘Trevor is our resident clown,’ she explains. ‘The rest of them are mad,
but he’s just an idiot.’
‘Why doesn’t he speak?’
‘He doesn’t have a tongue. He bit it off.’ She leans closer and whispers,
‘They say his entire family died in a plane crash and Trevor was the only
survivor. They found him strapped in his seat surrounded by dead people.
Imagine that. You can see what it’s done to him.’ She twirls her finger close
to her ear.
‘Why does he wear a helmet?’
‘To keep his brains from falling out.’
She makes it sound so obvious.
 Trevor goes back to dusting and rearranging pillows. Sienna swings her
legs off the windowsill and sits on a sofa.
‘Do you want to play poker? Nobody else will play with me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I always win.’
‘You sound very confident.’
‘It’s true. People try to bluff me, but I can tell.’
She separates her knees and pushes her dress between them to form a
hammock. My left arm swings of its own initiative and almost hits her.
Sienna flinches.
‘What was that?’
‘Just a tremor. No need to worry.’
‘You could be a really good poker player - all that twitching and
squirming. People wouldn’t know if you had four aces or sweet FA.’
I laugh out loud and her face brightens. Then she shrugs and tilts her
head. ‘I like you.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You’re kind of broken.’
The statement rattles something in my chest.
‘I’m not the one in here.’
Again she shrugs. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’
‘You’re too young to smoke.’
‘It’s not for me. I can swap a cigarette for other stuff.’
‘Such as?’
‘Cans of drink and chocolate bars and stuff.’
On the far side of the lounge Trevor has stopped in front of the TV and
is singing along to a commercial for a breakfast cereal.
‘I thought you said he bit off his tongue.’
Sienna looks at me sheepishly. ‘It’s a miracle.’
She quickly changes the subject. ‘Are you going to get divorced?’
‘I’m here to talk about you.’
‘Charlie wants you to get back together.’
‘I know.’
‘Why did you separate?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘The shaking business?’
‘No.’
 ‘Why?’
‘Julianne didn’t like who I’d become.’
Now the TV is showing a reporter on the steps of Bristol Crown Court.
The camera cuts to a police helicopter flying low over the courthouse and
images of police on horseback forcing back protesters.
Sienna glances at the screen. ‘Is that where I’m going?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’
‘It would help if you told the truth.’
‘The world is full of liars.’
‘That’s not an excuse.’
Her skin is so translucent I can see the veins running down her neck.
‘Did you know you were pregnant?’
Her eyes widen. Something sparks inside them. Fear. Shock. She looks
at me with unexpected coldness.
‘I’m not pregnant.’
‘But you were. The doctors can tell.’
Holding my gaze for a moment, she calculates her next move, before
slumping back on to the sofa.
‘Who was the father? I know it wasn’t Danny.’
She pulls strands of hair across her forehead and down between her
eyes.
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
‘Who are you protecting?’
‘No one.’
‘Tell me about Gordon Ellis.’
Sienna hesitates.
‘I babysit for him. Gordon has a little boy, Billy. He’s such an angel.
You should see him sleeping. He has a Tigger that he takes everywhere with
him. He’s chewed off Tigger’s tail and ears so that it looks like a genetic
mutant, but Billy guards Tigger like nobody’s business. I made Tigger a
new tail and sewed it on. Billy didn’t say a thing. It’s like he thought Tigger
had always had a tail and it had never been chewed off.’
Sienna doesn’t want to stop talking because she fears the next question.
Eventually she has to draw breath.
‘Did Gordon Ellis rape you?’
‘No!’
 ‘Was he the father?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Were you sleeping with him?’
Again she remains silent, but her reaction is one of defiance. She’s not
ashamed or embarrassed.
‘Do you love him?’
‘Yes.’ A whisper.
‘Tell me how it started.’
‘You wouldn’t understand.’
She is still toying with her hair, pulling it along her nose, making herself
cross-eyed.
‘Explain it to me.’
‘You’re going to say bad things about Gordon. I know what you’re
thinking. You think he’s done something wrong.’
‘I’m trying to help you.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re trying to break us up. You’re trying to drive him
away!’
She spits the words, turning them into accusations. Lashing out with her
foot, she kicks a chair, sending it skidding across the polished floor, where
it cannons into the wall. Sienna shrinks at the noise and looks up at me
apologetically.
‘How old are you?’
‘Forty-nine.’
‘Do you think there is a proper age for people to fall in love?’
‘I think you have to be old enough to understand what love is.’
‘My mum said that some people never understand love.’
‘That may be true, Sienna, but some relationships are wrong. Gordon
Ellis is your teacher. It’s against the law.’
She smiles to herself. ‘You don’t understand. It’s going to be all right.’
‘Why?’
‘Because love always finds a way.’
‘Where is he, this person who loves you so much? He’s left you here to
take the blame.’
‘No, he hasn’t. He’s going to rescue me.’
‘He denies having any relationship with you.’
‘He has to do that.’
‘He says you’re a foolish infatuated teenager who imagined it all.’
 ‘He has to say that.’
‘Did you know that Gordon was married once before? His first wife
disappeared. Billy’s mum. She walked out, according to Gordon, but she
hasn’t been seen since. She hasn’t contacted her parents or friends. She
hasn’t tried to see Billy. Don’t you think that’s strange?’
Sienna has fallen silent.
‘Gordon met Natasha when she was still at school. She was about your
age. He was her teacher.’
‘This is different.’
‘How is it different?’
‘He loves me.’
‘Did he tell you that?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Did he tell you that he was going to leave Natasha, but only when
you’re older?’
‘You don’t understand him.’
‘Oh, but I do. I’ve seen a lot of sexual predators.’
‘TAKE THAT BACK!’ she screams, on her feet. ‘YOU DON’T KNOW
HIM LIKE I DO. HE COULD HAVE ANY GIRL HE WANTS, BUT HE
CHOSE ME.’
Her words come in a hot rush of snot and tears.
‘NOBODY HAD EVER CHOSEN ME. NEVER. NOT ONCE.’
From the far side of the room, the chess player looks up and puts a
finger to his lips, asking for quiet. Sienna pulls a face at him and then
shrugs, her anger dissipating into a sullen silence. Resuming her seat, she
squeezes her hands between her thighs. Her narrow chest rises and falls.
‘I know exactly how he made you feel.’
She doesn’t respond.
‘Do you remember the first day he smiled at you? He wasn’t like the
other teachers. You thought he was handsome. Charming. That’s why you
blushed when he looked at you and laughed when he told you jokes. You
flirted with him. It was innocent. And he reciprocated. He asked about the
book you were reading. Talked about your acting. I bet he commented on
your curls. You said that you wanted straight hair, but he said he liked your
curls and that straight hair was boring.
‘Soon you found excuses to spend time with him, hanging back after
class or arriving early. You could talk to him. He listened. You told him
about your father, your problems at home, how lonely you felt once your
brother and sister had gone. You talked about not belonging in your family -
how you felt like you’d been adopted. Did you cry on his shoulder? Did he
tell you that he understood?’
‘Stop it,’ she whispers.
‘Pretty soon you were sneaking looks at each other in class and sharing
private jokes that none of the other students understood. Gordon left small
presents in your locker, treats that he knew you’d find. He found excuses to
brush against you and to bend over your desk in class. It felt sweet,
exciting, not at all weird or wrong.’
‘Please stop.’
‘I bet he asked about your boyfriends. Teased you. “If only I were
twenty years younger . . . ” He said you were beautiful. He made you feel
beautiful. You weren’t just another student and he wasn’t just another
teacher. It was more than that. He didn’t treat you like a child. And when he
put his hands on your shoulders, or whispered something in your ear, your
heart was beating faster than a kitten’s.’
Sienna won’t look at me now. Head bowed, I can see only the top of her
scalp and faint traces of dandruff along the parting.
‘He was grooming you, Sienna. He knew you were vulnerable.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ she groans.
‘You went to his house to babysit and you saw him with Natasha and
Billy. He drew you into the warmth of his family and you saw how close
they were. You envied what they had. You wanted to be just like Natasha.’
Her head rocks from side to side in denial.
‘And then one night Gordon kissed you and held you and told you how
much he loved you, but it had to be a secret. Nobody could know. Not yet.
Not ever. His face was close and his lips were pushing against yours. His
tongue was there, lapping at the space between your teeth. He didn’t want
sex. He took things slowly, touched you, praised you, his breath in your ear.
“You want this. You need this. You’ll like this. Nobody understands what
we have . . . Let me show you how special you are to me. And you can
show me how special I am to you.”’
A tear lands on Sienna’s clasped hands. It hovers on her knuckles and
then slides between her fingers.
‘Afterwards you felt ashamed and embarrassed, but Gordon made you
feel as though you were being prudish and uptight. When you didn’t want to
do it again, he got cold and sarcastic, but then he apologised. “You don’t
understand how much I love you,” he said. “How I’d die if you stopped
loving me.”’
Another tear slides down her cheek.
‘Soon you were meeting him after school and on weekends. Sometimes
you stayed the night when you babysat and he would sneak into your room.
Did he ever take you away?’
She gives a slight nod of the head.
‘But you had to be careful. There could be no notes or text messages or
phone calls. You always spoke face to face and you were careful not to be
seen alone. You met him that Tuesday afternoon? Where did he take you?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Why?’
‘He’ll punish me.’
‘He can’t reach you.’
She lifts her head. Eyes on mine. Flecks of gold in the brown.
‘He can always reach me.’

The drive home is through a water-streaked windscreen beneath a sky

that looks like torn wallpaper. The wipers slap open and closed. Red tail
lights flare and fade ahead of me. My Volvo has been repaired but looks
like its been coupled together in a breaker’s yard and customised with
knocks, bangs and squeaks.
The radio playing: news on the hour.
A false rape allegation made by a teenage girl could have triggered a
firebombing in which a family of asylum seekers died, a court was told
today. A teenage girl claimed to have been abducted and sexually assaulted
by four Ukrainian men, but later admitted having made up the story
because she was frightened of getting into trouble from her parents for
staying out late.
The prosecution alleges that the firebombing of a Bristol boarding
house was a payback attack for the alleged rape. Five people died, all
members of the same family, including three sisters aged four, six and
eleven. The lone survivor, Marco Kostin, jumped to safety from a second-
floor window.
 Stacey Dobson, aged seventeen, gave evidence that she’d spent the
previous afternoon and evening with Marco Kostin, but later made up a
story of being dragged into a van and sexually assaulted by four asylum
seekers. Several men, including Marco Kostin, were arrested but
subsequently released without charge.
Twenty-four hours later, Marco Kostin’s house was firebombed while he
and his family slept. Three men, including British National Party candidate
Novak Brennan, have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and
conspiracy to commit murder with the intent to endanger life.
Brennan allegedly drove the van used in the attack and was later seen
celebrating at a bar where one of his co-accused boasted he had been to a
‘Russian barbecue’.
Parking beneath a dripping oak, I run to the door of the terrace, dodging
puddles and sheltering beneath my coat. The key turns and the door opens.
Even before I step across the threshold I sense a change. It’s not so much a
foreign smell as a variation in the air temperature or the pressure. Perhaps I
left a window open upstairs. Maybe I’m disconcerted because Gunsmoke
isn’t outside, thumping his tail against the back door.
Gently, I place my wallet and car keys on a side table and glance along
the passage to the kitchen. There are two doors off to the left. The first
opens into the lounge. Nudging it with my foot, I reach for the light switch.
Nothing is moved, missing or disrupted.
The gas fireplace has a decorative poker on a brass stand. I pick up the
polished brass bar and weigh it in my hand. Backing into the hallway, I
move to the next door, the dining room. Empty.
Again I pause and listen.
Edging along the hallway, I approach the kitchen. Through the window
I can see the vague outline of the trees in the garden and the edge of an
eighteenth-century brick millhouse next door. A flash of lightning fills in
the details. The sink, the kitchen table, three chairs . . . Why not four?
‘Come on in, Professor, it’s just me,’ says a voice. Gordon Ellis has
been sitting in darkness. He rises to his feet and swivels to face me. ‘The
door was unlocked. Hope you don’t mind.’
I’m still holding the poker in my hand. ‘I didn’t leave the door
unlocked.’
‘My mistake,’ he says. ‘I found the key under a rock. I’d be more
careful about where I hid it next time.’
 He’s wearing denim jeans and a dark shirt with faint traces of dandruff
or powder on the front. A carmine-coloured scratch weeps on his right
cheek, below a bruise. Ellis sniffs and rubs his nose with the palm of his
hand. I can see the dilation in his pupils, which are working hard to retain
the light.
‘What were you going to do with that?’ he asks, motioning to the poker.
‘Wrap it around your head.’
‘I didn’t take you for a violent man.’
‘You’re trespassing.’
His lazy half-smile slowly widens. ‘Do I frighten you?’
‘No.’
‘It’s all right to be afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid.’
Moving slowly, he carries his chair to the table. ‘Do you mind if I sit
down?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s not very polite.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to stop harassing my wife.’
‘I asked her some questions.’
‘You were out of order. I don’t want you going near her again.’
‘Does she know about Sienna Hegarty?’
Ellis closes his eyes as though meditating. ‘What’s that young girl been
saying?’
‘That you were having sex with her.’
‘She’s lying.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘She’s embarrassed and she’s angry. She tried to kiss me one night after
she babysat my boy. I pushed her away and spoke to her harshly. Maybe I
hurt her feelings.’
‘That’s not what Sienna says.’
‘Like I said, she’s lying.’
He’s a cocky bastard. I want to wipe the smug grin off his face.
‘You once told me that teaching was a process of seduction. You
seduced your students into learning. You seduced Sienna into bed.’
‘No.’
‘She was special to you.’
 ‘All my students are special.’
‘Yes, but some are more precious than others. Every once in a while, a
girl emerges from the pack and you take a special interest in her. She’s not
the best or the brightest or the most beautiful - but she has something that
makes her attractive to you. Some weakness you can exploit or an
arrogance you want to punish.’
Ellis shakes his head. ‘It’s her crush, not mine.’
‘I bet you can remember the first time you saw Sienna. You noticed her
from a distance at first - coming through the gates or walking in the
corridor. She stood out from the other girls. She was confident. Highly
sexualised. Flirtatious. At the same time there was something vulnerable
about her. Damaged. You thought maybe she was being abused at home or
bullied at school. You recognised her potential as a plaything.’
‘I recognised her potential as a drama student.’
‘Sienna didn’t even realise that she was being seductive. Young girls
often don’t. They pretend. They practise. They make mistakes.’
‘I nurtured her. I know the boundaries.’
‘That’s right. You kept telling yourself that you were just doing your
job. Pastoral care is so important. She talked about her problems at home . .
. the unwanted attentions of her father. You comforted her. Patted her knee.
Squeezed her hand.’
Ellis bristles. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’
‘You began finding ways of getting her alone - isolating her somewhere
quiet, somewhere private, somewhere you could show her how much you
cared, how you understood, how you wanted to protect her.’
‘You’re sick!’
‘You told her she was beautiful. She believed you.’
‘She’s lying. There isn’t one shred of evidence to support her story.’
‘At first I couldn’t understand how you managed to keep it a secret. And
then I remembered seeing you criticise Sienna during the rehearsal. That’s
how you removed suspicion - you picked on her, you punished her and she
played along.’
‘You’re a pervert!’
‘Oh, I’m not the sick one, Gordon. I know all about you. I know how
you did it. I know why you did it. You were the fat, four-eyed kid at school,
who got teased and bullied and ridiculed. There’s one in every playground.
What did they call you? Lard-arse? Butterball? How much toilet water did
you swallow, Gordon? How many people laughed at you?’
Ellis is no longer sitting. He’s an inch taller than I am. Younger. Fitter.
‘I bet there was one girl at school who didn’t laugh at you. She was
nice. Friendly. Pretty. She didn’t tease you. She didn’t call you names.’
‘Shut up!’
‘You really liked her, Gordon. And you thought she might like you.’
Ellis takes a step out of the shadows into the half-light spilling from the
hall. ‘I told you to shut up!’
‘One day you decided to tell her how you felt; ask her to be your
girlfriend. Did you write her a note or send her a Valentine? Then what
happened? She laughed. She told the others. She joined in the tormenting.’
Ellis rocks forward, his neck bulging and fists clenched.
‘That’s why you target the nice girls, Gordon, the popular ones, the
princesses. You’re preying on the girls who wouldn’t look at you at school
when you were overweight and short-sighted - the ones who laughed the
loudest. You want to punish them. You want to tear them apart. Living
things. Young things. I know about your first wife. I know what you did to
her. That scratch on your cheek - did Natasha get angry with you? Did she
accuse you of seducing another schoolgirl? She should know—’
‘Don’t talk about my wife!’
‘Sienna was pregnant. She was carrying the evidence inside her - the
proof. That’s why you tried to kill her.’
His eyes lock on to mine. Ropes of spittle are draining from the corners
of his mouth.
‘You’re not very good at this, are you?’ he says, laughing drily.
‘This is not a game.’
His eyes leave mine momentarily and focus on the fire poker in my fist.
His nostrils flare and partly close.
‘You want to know?’ he whispers, challenging me. ‘You really want to
know?’
‘Yes.’
A strange twisted light appears in his eyes.
‘Yeah, I fucked her. I fucked her every which way, in her pussy, in her
arse.’ He steps closer. ‘And guess what, Joe? I fucked your little darling.
Charlie was begging for it and I made her bleed. She was moaning under
me, saying, “Fuck me harder, Gordon, fuck me harder.”’
 What happened next is something that I can’t explain. My vision blurs
and the room swims. My fist is holding the poker, which swings savagely,
backstroking Ellis across the side of the head. The back of my hand scrapes
against his unshaven skin and his mouth leaves a streak of saliva across my
knuckles.
His head snaps sideways and I hit him again from the right, sending him
down. Ellis tries to curl into a ball but I beat his arms and his spine and his
kneecaps and shins. With each blow I can feel the metal bar reverberating in
my fist, sinking all the way to his bones.
‘This is for Charlie,’ I yell, ‘and this is for my dog!’
He raises his head from the floor and gazes at me uncertainly.
The poker clatters to the floor. Lifting Ellis by the front of his shirt, I
drop him to a sitting position on a chair. His bladder has opened on the
floor. My hand is streaked with his blood.
Instead of cowering, he turns his face to mine. Through bloody teeth, he
grins. ‘How do you feel?’
I don’t answer him.
He says it again. ‘I fucked your princess, how do you feel?’
I knot my fist in his hair and wrench back his head.
‘I don’t believe you.’
He smiles. ‘Yeah, you do.’
 30
The holding cell reeks of vomit and urine and sweat. It’s a smell that
can instantly transport me back to another place and time - a different police
cell scrawled with comparable pictures of genitalia and profanities aimed at
the police and homosexuals.
Sitting on a wooden bench, I lean my head against the wall, listening to
doors clanging, toilets flushing and inmates either sobering up or kicking
off incoherently down the corridor.
My skin feels dead to the touch and my chest aches as though I’m
breathing into lungs full of wet cotton. Opening and closing my right hand,
I wonder if anything is broken.
A drunk is sleeping on the bench opposite. He stole my blanket and
tucked it beneath his head, but I’m not going to fight. Now he’s snoring,
ending each breath with a long raspberry fluttering of his lips.
I don’t know the time. They took away my wristwatch, along with my
belt and shoelaces. Occasionally, there are footsteps outside and the hinged
observation flap opens. Eyes peer at me. After several seconds, the hatch
shuts and I go back to staring at the ceiling light, contemplating the bad
luck and bad choices that have brought me here. Where did it come from -
the violence that rose up inside me?
I am an intelligent, rational, civilised man, yet the blood on my shirt
says otherwise. What I did was stupid. Reckless. Wrong. Yet I don’t regret
it. I don’t feel sorry for myself. I could have killed him. I wanted to kill
him.
Taking off my shirt, I roll it into a ball and put it beneath my head,
resting my arm across my eyes.
I can hear Ronnie Cray’s voice before she arrives like an elephant
entering a phone box. I expect her to have me released. Instead I’m taken
from the holding cell to an interview suite. She pulls up a chair. ‘Were you
trying to kill him?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘You might want to rephrase that.’
‘OK. No.’
 ‘He says there was no provocation. He says you harassed his wife and
when he came to complain you attacked him.’
‘He broke into my house.’
‘There was no sign of forced entry.’
‘He found the key.’
‘He said you invited him inside.’
‘This is ridiculous! Ellis seduced Sienna Hegarty. He was grooming
other girls.’ I can’t bring myself to mention Charlie. ‘His first wife
disappeared four years ago. Her name was Caro Regan—’
‘I know all about Caro Regan,’ says Cray.
The statement silences me.
‘Don’t look so surprised, Professor, and don’t treat me like some wet-
behind-the-ears probationary constable who doesn’t know shit from
Shinola. I checked on Gordon Ellis the moment his name came up in the
Hegarty investigation. I pulled his file and I interviewed him.’
‘And what?’
‘He had an alibi. Natasha Ellis says her husband was home all evening.’
‘She’s covering for him.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I talked to Sienna. She was seeing Ellis.’
‘Did she name him?’
‘I’m naming him.’
‘You and I both know that’s not the same thing. Unless she makes a
statement, there’s nothing I can do.’
‘She’s fourteen.’
‘Teenage girls develop unhealthy infatuations with teachers all the time.
Sometimes they convince themselves it’s love. Sometimes they convince
themselves it’s reciprocated.’
‘She was pregnant. Ellis was the father.’
‘Can you prove that?’
‘No.’
‘So it’s a theory. That’s the difference between you and me, Professor. I
deal in facts and you deal in theories. We checked Ellis’s DNA against the
semen stains found on Sienna Hegarty’s sheets. No match. And you asked
DS Abbott to look at her email accounts and phone server. There wasn’t a
single email or text message either to or from Gordon Ellis. No love letters
or notes or photographs. Nobody saw them together or overheard them
talking . . .’
‘Danny Gardiner saw them.’
‘And Ellis will say he was taking Sienna to see her therapist.’
‘Ray Hegarty complained to the school.’
‘It was investigated and discounted.’
‘This is bullshit!’
Cray rises from her chair and paces the room. ‘You’re going about this
all wrong, Professor. I know that Gordon Ellis is a human toilet - maybe he
deserved a beating - but you’re too close.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Sienna is your daughter’s best friend. You’re emotionally involved.’
‘You think I’m being irrational.’
‘You just beat a man half to death.’
‘Someone ran me off the road. Someone killed my dog. Someone has
been following me.’
Even as the words come out, I realise that I’m sounding paranoid rather
than making my case.
Cray shrugs, blinks. ‘So you pissed someone off. I can see how that
might happen. You’re being charged with malicious wounding.’
‘He broke into my house!’
‘He was unarmed and you used unreasonable force.’
She turns towards the door and bangs twice.
‘You want me to tell your wife or can you handle that yourself ?’
‘Don’t do me any favours.’
My sarcasm grates on her. ‘Suit yourself. You’ll appear in court in the
morning. Get yourself a lawyer.’
The drunk is talking in his sleep, arguing with his addiction. Lying on
my wooden bench, I can taste my self-loathing. I’ve been fingerprinted,
photographed and had my buttocks pried apart in a strip search. I have
joined the faceless, uneducated and inept, locked up in a police cell,
humiliated and belittled. If ever there was a benchmark to indicate how far
my life has unravelled, this is it.
Gordon Ellis was sleeping with Sienna and Ray Hegarty found out. Did
that warrant killing him? Motives come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe
Sienna and Ellis organised the killing together. Both had reasons to want
Ray Hegarty out of the way.
 The weight of the day is like a fever and my mind keeps drifting. Every
part of me seems to ache with exhaustion, even the roots of my hair. Sleep
is a blessing.
At some point in the hours that follow, my head and arms begin jerking
uncontrollably. My medication has worn off and Mr Parkinson, a cruel
puppeteer, is tugging at my strings and twisting my body into inhuman
shapes.
Hammering on the cell door with the flat of my hand, I wait. Nobody
responds. The drunk rolls over and tells me to be quiet. I hit the door again.
I can feel my limbs jerking and my body contorting in a strange dance,
without music or any discernible rhythm. My head dips and sways, my
arms writhe, my legs twitch, moving constantly. The drunk opens one eye
and then the other. Wider. He scrambles away and stands in the corner.
Crossing himself, suddenly religious.
‘What’s wrong with you, man? You having a heart attack?’
‘No.’
‘You possessed.’
‘I have Parkinson’s.’
The hatch opens. A young constable peers into the cell.
‘He’s fucking possessed,’ yells the drunk.
‘I need my pills,’ I explain.
‘Get him out of here! He’s scaring me.’
‘I have Parkinson’s.’
The young constable tells me to sit down. ‘We’re not allowed to issue
medications.’
‘They’re prescribed . . . in my coat.’
‘Step back from the door, sir.’
‘You’ll find a white plastic bottle. Levodopa.’
‘I’ll warn you one more time, sir, step away from the door.’
With every ounce of willpower, I stop myself moving. I can hold the
pose for a few seconds, but then I start again.
‘A phone call. Let me make a phone call.’
The young constable tells me to wait. Ten minutes later he returns. I’m
allowed a call.
The first name in my head is Julianne’s, but nobody answers. Charlie’s
voice is on the recorded message. It beeps and I start to speak but realise I
don’t know what to say. I put down the receiver and call Ruiz.
 ‘What’s up, wise man? You sound like shit.’
‘I’m in jail.’
‘What did you do - forget to take back a library book?’
‘I beat up Gordon Ellis.’
I have to wait until he stops laughing.
‘I’m glad you think it’s funny.’
‘I have visions of handbags at ten paces.’
‘I need your help. My pills. The police won’t let me have them. I can’t
function.’
‘Leave it with me.’
I go back to waiting and writhing and being watched by the drunk. If I
lock my left and right ankles together I can sometimes get my legs to
remain still. But making one part of me stop means the energy finds
somewhere else to spasm.
An hour passes and the young constable unlocks the door. He has a
glass of water and my bottle of pills. I can get the tablets on my tongue, but
keep spilling the water. I swallow them dry and sit on the bench, waiting for
the jerking to subside.
‘Your lawyer is on his way,’ says the PC.
‘I don’t have a lawyer.’
‘You do now.’
Two hours pass. I’m taken upstairs to an interview suite. Even before I
arrive I recognise the profanity-laden south London accent of Eddie Barrett,
a man who can make a smile seem like an insult. Ruiz must have called
him.
Eddie is a defence lawyer with a reputation for bullying and cajoling
witnesses and juries. Years ago he earned the nickname ‘Bulldog’, which
could be due to his short body and swaggering walk, or his passionate
embrace of all things British. (He has ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ as his
ringtone and is rumoured to wear Union Jack underwear.) ‘Well, well, look
who got himself arrested - the Hugh Grant of the head-shrinking profession.
Should I call it a profession? I guess if it’s good enough for prostitutes . . .’
Like I’m in the mood for this.
Eddie reads my expression and tells me to sit down. Taking a seat
opposite, he splays his thighs like his bollocks are the size of grapefruit.
‘Let’s make this quick, Britney, I’m missing out on my beauty sleep. I hope
you didn’t make any admissions . . . sign any statements.’
 ‘No.’
‘Good. Are they treating you OK?’
I nod and glance at his watch. It’s after midnight. He must have driven
down from London.
‘OK, here’s the plan, Oprah. Your case is listed for the morning. We
won’t plead. I’ll make an application for bail, which should be a formality.
Do you have any savings?’
‘Not really.’
‘Family who can put up a surety?’
‘My parents, maybe.’
‘Good.’
Eddie starts making notes on a pad. He asks me about Julianne and the
girls, my job and whether I’m involved in any charities.
‘Have you ever been arrested?’
‘Once. It was a misunderstanding.’
Eddie rolls his eyes and scrubs out a note.
‘Can’t you get this stuff dismissed?’ I ask.
‘You didn’t piss in a phone box, Professor.’
‘He broke into my house.’
‘And you tried to remove his head.’
‘Surely we can cut a deal?’
‘In case you haven’t noticed, Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas any more.’
Eddie stands and readjusts his hanging bits before tossing his raincoat
over his arm.
‘Is that it?’
‘For now.’
‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’
‘Right now, I want to find a king-sized bed, a twelve-ounce Porterhouse
and a mini-bar. You’ll be paying for all of them.’
Picking up his briefcase, he lifts the flap and inserts the notepad before
doing up the buckle.
‘By the way, the guy you hit needed thirty stitches and a blood
transfusion. I hope he had it coming.’
 31
Bristol Crown Court looks almost whitewashed in a burst of sunshine
grinning through a gap in the clouds. Resting my forehead against the
window of the police van, I watch clusters of shivering workers smoke
cigarettes in doorways.
The van has to stop at a police checkpoint. Barricades have blocked off
either end of the street, guarded by officers in riot gear standing almost
shoulder-to-shoulder. Protesters, carrying placards and banners, have been
funnelled on to the footpath and kept well away from the entrance to the
courthouse.
Glancing ahead, I can see another group at the far end of the street
forming a makeshift honour guard for a larger prison van. Some of the
crowd are carrying political posters and placards with slogans about ‘taking
back our country’. They’re a strange mixture of shaven-headed youths with
tattoos, middle-aged men in zip-up jackets and pensioners still wearing war
medals. Among them is a woman with a baby in a sling and a grandmother
carrying a picnic basket and vacuum flask.
My eyes pick out a familiar face in the crowd. It takes me a moment to
place it. Lance Hegarty is in the front row, taunting refugee advocates and
pro-immigration protesters. The crowd surges forward, trying to follow the
prison van. The police link arms and force them back.
A woman yells, ‘We love you, Novak!’
Someone else shouts, ‘It’s a stitch-up! A state fucking conspiracy!’
TV crews and reporters record the moment, filming from the safety of
no man’s land, between the groups of protesters.
Large wooden doors swing open and the prison van pulls down a
narrow concrete ramp. The prisoners disembark and walk single file into
the bowels of the building.
I’m driven down the same ramp and forced to wait as the doors close
behind us. A police officer takes me inside to a holding cell. Other prisoners
have lawyers to talk to. I can’t see Eddie Barrett anywhere.
‘O’Loughlin,’ yells a guard. ‘You’re second up.’
Twenty minutes later I’m being led down corridors and upstairs before
emerging directly into the courtroom. The dock is set off to one side and
separated by glass partitions. Opposite is an empty jury box. Half a dozen
lawyers in black robes and horsehair wigs are standing at the bar table like
crows hovering around road kill. Eddie Barrett is not among them.
A hush falls over the courtroom as the judge arrives, climbing three
steps to the bench. The bailiff calls the courtroom to order. Judge Spencer is
in attendance, looking down from his enormous leather chair like a
headmaster who has summoned miscreants to his study. His round face is
blotched with blood vessels that break across his nose and cheeks in a
claret-coloured blush.
‘If it pleases Your Honour, my name is Mellor, I appear for the Crown.
We have an application for bail and two matters for mention. If we can
dispense with them first you can proceed with the trial.’
The judge turns to the clerk. ‘Has the jury been informed?’
‘Yes, Your Honour.’
At that moment Eddie Barrett pushes through a heavy door and
swaggers to the bar table.
‘Barrett for the accused, Your Honour.’
‘Have you had an opportunity to talk to your client, Mr Barrett?’
‘I have, Your Honour.’
Eddie’s hair is still wet from the shower and one untucked shirt-tail
flaps up and down as he pulls out a chair.
‘We’re happy to waive the reading of the charge, Your Honour, and
won’t be entering a plea at this time, but we do wish to discuss the issue of
bail.’
Nobody has addressed me or even acknowledged my presence.
Mr Mellor speaks.
‘The prosecution doesn’t object to bail, Your Honour, but we will be
seeking a substantial surety and other guarantees. This was a savage,
unprovoked assault, which has left a young school teacher with severe
facial injuries. The victim is still in hospital and may require plastic
surgery.’
Eddie is on his feet. ‘My client was defending himself and his property
after an intruder entered his house illegally.’
‘The victim was unarmed.’
‘He was trespassing.’
‘The injuries are horrific.’
‘I haven’t seen a medical report.’
 Judge Spencer interrupts. ‘You’ll get your chance to speak, Mr Barrett.’
Eddie holds up his hands in surrender, his short blunt fingers pointing to
the ceiling.
‘Carry on, Mr Mellor.’
‘Thank you, Your Honour. The prosecution will also be seeking a
protection order. The defendant has threatened and harassed Gordon Ellis
and his wife. We ask the court to order that Mr O’Loughlin not approach
either of them at their home or their places of work . . .’
Unshaven and exhausted, I can barely keep up with the arguments and
feel no emotion other than abject humiliation. Eddie Barrett is waxing
lyrical, describing me as a fine, upstanding member of the community, a
university professor, married with two daughters . . . an unblemished record
. . . close ties to the community . . . a history of public service . . . blah,
blah, blah.
No mention of the separation.
‘This is a case of a home invasion. The defendant found an intruder
hiding in his house. It was dark. He was frightened. He acted to protect
himself and his property.’
Eddie pulls out a handkerchief and waves it like a white flag. It’s a nice
touch.
‘This is an outrage. A travesty. To incarcerate a man whose privacy has
been violated. A man who has selflessly served the community . . .’
Judge Spencer raises his hand. ‘All right, Mr Barrett, you’ve made your
point. Save the speeches for the trial.’
At that moment I sense I’m being watched and glance over my shoulder.
The public gallery is deserted but there is a blind spot to the right of the
main doors, an area of shadow big enough to hide a person.
Someone pushes through the door, throwing light into the dark corner.
Julianne is watching me. Her hair is brushed back from her face, the fringe
falling diagonally across her forehead. She’s wearing a dark trouser suit she
bought when she worked in London.
I raise my hand, but she turns away and pulls open the door.
Judge Spencer has finished. Eddie Barrett signals me to the edge of the
dock.
‘Can you raise twenty thousand?’
‘That’s a lot.’
‘It could have been worse.’
 ‘Call Ruiz. He’ll know what to do.’
This time I’m placed in a different holding cell. Three men sit on
separate wooden benches against the walls. All of them are wearing suits,
but only one of them leans forward to stop the jacket from creasing.
I recognise them from photographs. The nearest is Gary Dobson. Next
to him is Tony Scott and sitting slightly apart from them is Novak Brennan.
I know what I’ve read about them. Scott is six foot tall, shaven headed, a
veteran football hooligan who has served time for assault and robbery.
Dobson is shorter, stockier and ten years younger with convictions for car
theft, drug possession and assaulting a police officer. Both men drank at the
same pub and were activists for the BNP.
Brennan was a party candidate at the recent council elections. He
narrowly missed winning a seat on Bristol City Council because the Labour
Party withdrew its candidate and urged its supporters to vote for the Liberal
Democrat, ensuring the BNP couldn’t win the contest.
Brennan looks younger in the flesh, with barely a line on his face. His
trademark thick dark hair is brushed back from his forehead and he has
laughter lines around his eyes. Unlike his fellow accused, his suit doesn’t
look like a straitjacket.
Scott and Dobson acknowledge my arrival by making eye contact.
Brennan is picking at his manicured nails, elbows on his knees. I take the
bench opposite. The walls have been recently painted. Without the graffiti I
have less to read and more time to think.
I find myself staring at Brennan. His eyes lift and meet mine, locking on
to a place inside my head. I glance away, staring at the floor.
I’m holding my breath. When I realise, I exhale too quickly.
‘How’s the trial going?’ I ask.
The three of them are staring at me now.
‘I just got bail,’ I explain. ‘I’m waiting for someone to post it.’
‘Big fucking deal,’ says Scott, shaking his head.
Brennan continues to stare at me as if he’s trying to examine my
conscience.
‘Congratulations,’ says Dobson, who seems happier to talk to someone.
‘What didn’t you do?’
He laughs.
Brennan takes a moist paper cloth from a small travel pack in his pocket
and begins carefully wiping his fingers one by one, almost polishing his
fingernails.
‘You must be getting sick of being in that courtroom,’ I say.
He raises a forefinger, signalling me to stop. ‘Do you know the first
lesson you learn in a place like this?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘You learn to keep your mouth shut just in case the person they put in
the cell with you is a snitch who’s going to claim later that he heard you say
something you didn’t say.’
His accent is slightly Irish. The North. Belfast maybe.
‘I’m not a snitch.’
‘Oh, so you brought references did you?’
‘No, I mean . . .’
‘Best you not say anything.’
I nod and he goes back to cleaning his hands.
Julianne told me that he didn’t look like a monster. I wanted to tell her
that they rarely ever do, bad people. They don’t have a rogue gene or a
tattoo on their foreheads and, despite what people seem to think, you can’t
‘see it in their eyes’.
A few minutes later Brennan, Scott and Dobson are led upstairs and
their trial resumes. Julianne will be there. Her witness gives evidence today.
The survivor.
 32
Two hours later I step outside the crown court registry office alongside
Ruiz, who posted my bail.
‘Where did you get twenty grand?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You put up your house.’
‘More fool them - it’s falling down.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
‘Just make sure you turn up for the hearing or I’ll track you down
myself and kill you.’
We’ve spent the last hour waiting for the paperwork to be approved
while I recounted what happened yesterday - first with Sienna, and then
Gordon Ellis. As I told him the story, I could see every turn in the road,
every dip and curve, every fuck-up. When I reached the point where Ellis
claimed to have slept with Charlie, I could feel the temperature rise in Ruiz.
‘It’s not true,’ he told me. ‘Charlie’s too bright for that.’
‘I know. I wish I could have been thinking more clearly at the time.
Instead I wanted to kill him.’
‘Yeah, well, don’t go publicising the fact.’
We’re standing on the steps. The street outside is empty except for
police and a handful of protesters who have stayed behind. Ruiz unscrews
the lid from his sweet tin and pops a boiled lolly on his tongue.
‘You medicated?’
‘I’m all right.’
‘You should get some sleep.’
‘I have to talk to Julianne. She’s working today. Translating.’
I glance towards the courthouse and try to push away the memory of her
watching me standing in the dock. The look she gave me. Blank. Empty.
‘Which court is she in?’
‘The Novak Brennan trial.’
Ruiz seems to taste something in his mouth that turns sour and
unpleasant. He spits the sweet into the gutter where it shatters against the
concrete.
‘What’s wrong?’
 ‘Nothing.’
‘You know Brennan?’
‘Yeah, I know him. We go way back.’
‘I just spent an hour in a holding cell with him.’
‘Then you might want to shower.’
Planting his hands in his coat pockets, Ruiz stares indolently into the
pearl-grey sky, but his gaze has turned inward, replaying past events in his
head. Clearing his throat, he begins talking about his years in Northern
Ireland when he was seconded to work with the Royal Ulster Constabulary,
monitoring intelligence on IRA terror cells operating on the British
mainland but controlled from Belfast.
‘A prostitute called Mae Grace Brennan died of a drug overdose in a
bedsit on the Antrim Road in 1972. It was just after Bloody Friday. She was
dead two days before the neighbours broke into her flat. They found Novak
and his sister living in filth. Novak was three, Rita only nine months. The
baby was so undernourished she had bleeding sores on her buttocks and
back. Novak could barely walk.
‘Brother and sister were made wards of the court and fostered. A
Methodist minister and his wife adopted them, but the die was cast early
when it came to Novak. He had behavioural problems which saw him
expelled from school and given counselling from the age of seven. When he
was ten he killed the family cat by throwing it against a wall after it
scratched him. Four years later, he beat up the minister’s wife so badly that
she had to be hospitalised.
‘The family gave up and Novak and Rita were taken back into care.
Four months later they ran away and finished up on the streets of Belfast. It
was 1983, just before I started my secondment.
‘That December the IRA set off a car bomb outside Harrods and killed
six people - three of them coppers. I knew one of them. Inspector Stephen
Dodd. He died on Christmas Eve. We were trying to trace the men
responsible and the trail led to Belfast.’
Ruiz registers the passing of a police car. The windscreen catches the
light like a camera flash and two men in uniform watch us as though we’re
middle-aged suicide bombers.
‘What happened to Novak and Rita?’ I ask.
‘They lived on the streets, in squats, deserted factories and freight cars.
Then Novak came up with a honey-trap scam. Rita used to dress up in a
short leather skirt and boob tube, wandering up Adelaide Street, drawing
attention from the johns. She lured them into a dark alley, unzipped them
and got on her knees. That’s when Novak crept forward and tapped Rita on
the shoulder, aiming a knife at their soft bits and demanding money.
‘He stole wallets, credit cards, sometimes clothes. Later he graduated to
blackmail by taking Polaroids and threatening to post them home if the john
didn’t stump up more cash. Nothing shakes money from a tree like a
photograph of an underage girl giving a married man a blowjob.
‘Soon they had plenty of cash and rented a place. Set up house. Stayed
clear of the social. It seemed like a perfect set-up.’
‘What happened?’
‘Rita attracted the wrong customer one night. A biker by the name of
Nigel Geddes plucked her off the street before Novak could intervene.
Geddes took Rita to a gang party where she was raped every which way by
at least a dozen bikers. When they discovered she was a virgin they
laughed. What were the chances, eh?
‘They dumped Rita back on the street, bleeding internally, with cigarette
burns that turned to weeping sores. Novak lost it completely. The only
constant in the shit-storm he called a life had been his little sister and he had
made a promise to himself that he’d protect her.
‘So while Rita was still in hospital, being looked after by social
workers, Novak bought himself a .25 calibre automatic handgun for eighty
quid from an IRA gunrunner called Jimmy Ferris. The Ferret.
‘I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking a kid like Novak, with
his history of violence and his hair-trigger temper, would go all Dirty Harry
and shoot a place up, but it didn’t go down like that. Novak didn’t walk into
that clubhouse guns blazing. He watched and he waited. He followed the
bikers, making a note of their faces, their routines, where they lived . . .
‘The first mark made it easy. He left a bar in Short Strand with a young
girl in tow. The pair walked into a dimly lit parking garage. By the time
Novak turned the corner, the biker had the girl on her knees.
‘It was a familiar scene. Novak tapped her on the shoulder and she
pulled back in fright. The biker opened his eyes and the pistol slipped
between his lips.
‘Novak told the girl to get lost. He waited until she disappeared before
he looked back at the biker whose shrinking wet penis was still hanging
outside his pants.
 ‘The girl heard him begging for his life. Apologising. Novak counted
down from three and pulled the trigger. Because it was a low-calibre
weapon the bullet didn’t make a clean entry and exit. Instead it ricocheted
around the inside of his skull, turning his brain to pulp.
‘Novak used the guy’s shirt to wipe the saliva and blood from the barrel
of the gun. Two hours later, he killed a second biker. This time the guy ran
into a school and hid in a toilet block. Novak found him in one of the stalls
and shot him four times, but only after he’d kicked him unconscious. Novak
slipped on the muck and left a neat handprint on the floor. That’s how the
police eventually caught him, but not before he’d killed eight more times.
‘One by one he tracked down the men who’d raped Rita. Nigel Geddes
was the last. By then Geddes knew he was being hunted so he fled to
Liverpool and changed his name, but Novak caught the ferry to Holyhead
and slept rough in the streets of Anfield for two months until he found his
man. Geddes was shooting up in a squat in Everton and Novak helped him
find a vein and then an artery. Bled him dry.
‘The police caught up with Novak when he stepped off the ferry in
Belfast. He didn’t say a word during the interviews. He wouldn’t speak to
the social workers or child psychologists. The bloody handprint saw him
charged with one of the murders, but investigators didn’t have enough
evidence to pin the others on him.
‘When Novak’s barrister stood up at the bar table, he told the jury that
Novak had been sexually assaulted by the biker, who mistook him for a rent
boy. The jury believed the story and the prosecution accepted a
manslaughter plea. Novak was still a minor so he was sent to a youth prison
and served barely four years.’
Ruiz doesn’t look at me for a reaction. Nor does he editorialise with his
own body language. This is history now. Indisputable.
The clang of metal on metal makes him turn. Across the road an
overloaded skip sits beneath a forest of scaffolding pipes. Workmen are
dismantling the framework around the Guildhall. Another pipe drops from a
height, bouncing on to the cobblestones.
‘How do you know this stuff?’ I ask.
‘Nigel Geddes was part of the IRA cell that set off the Harrods bomb.
He’d been under surveillance for nearly two years.’
‘But if you’re right - if Novak Brennan was convicted of manslaughter -
why hasn’t it come out?’
 ‘He was still a juvenile. He can’t be named. Juvenile records are sealed.
Anyone tries to publish a detail like that and they risk going to prison.’
Ruiz doesn’t sound too bothered by the fact. If anything, I sense a
grudging admiration for Novak.
‘So what’s your take on this?’ I ask.
‘The guy loved his sister.’
‘Meaning?’
‘It means Novak Brennan has the capacity to care about people, just like
the rest of us.’
‘So what happened to him afterwards?’
Ruiz shrugs. ‘He changed and he didn’t change. He studied for his A-
levels in prison and moved to England when he got released. I think he
went to university in the Midlands. Then he set about making his fortune,
using the same basic technique that he and Rita had employed, only on a
much bigger scale.’
‘He blackmailed people.’
‘He took advantage of their weaknesses.’
‘So when did Novak Brennan become a pin-up boy for the neo-Nazis? ’
Ruiz shakes his head. ‘No idea.’
‘You think he’s genuine?’
‘All politicians have an agenda.’
‘And Rita?’
‘She’s still around. Never married. Dotes on him.’
Julianne mentioned that Novak had a sister.
We push through a revolving door into the foyer of the Crown Court
where security guards are x-raying bags and searching visitors with a body
scanner. Ruiz has to unload his pockets as we pass through.
The marbled foyer is dotted with barristers and clerks. A spiral staircase
rises to the upper floors. The daily court listings are pinned on a
noticeboard behind glass. Novak Brennan is on trial in Court One. It’s the
same courtroom and the same judge that heard my bail application.
Seats in the downstairs public gallery are being kept clear. We’re
directed upstairs to a balcony area, overlooking proceedings. Ruiz slips in
behind me, easing the door closed with a trailing hand.
Below us in the courtroom, the jury is seated along one wall closest to
the witness box. On the opposite side of the room, Novak Brennan, Tony
Scott and Gary Dobson are side by side in the dock, behind a glass screen.
There are more lawyers now. Each defendant has one.
Julianne is sitting on a chair between the witness box and the jury,
looking calm and businesslike, yet I can tell she’s nervous because she’s
playing with the charms on her bracelet. Usually, when I picture her, she is
the same young woman I met in 1983 after an anti-apartheid rally in
Trafalgar Square. She is still beautiful - with a voice that can make an offer
of coffee seem like an invitation to sex - but she has changed in the past two
years. She’s grown weary. Perhaps I’m to blame for that too.
A new witness has been summoned: Marco Kostin. There is a murmur
in the courtroom, a frisson of anticipation that runs like an unseen current
from the press benches to the jury box. Every trial has a main act - the
moment when it can swing one way or the other. It could be a witness, a
piece of evidence, a brilliant closing argument or an excoriating cross-
examination. This is the main act. Marco Kostin. The survivor.
After a few moments he appears, walking with a slight pigeon-toed gait,
following the court clerk to the witness box. Tall and gangly, he seems
younger than eighteen, with large eyes and long lashes that would look
almost feminine except for his thick adult eyebrows. Putting his left hand
on the Bible, he raises his right hand and promises to tell the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but . . .
Julianne translates the oath and nods to Judge Spencer, who addresses
the jury.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I apologise for the delay this morning but there
were other cases for mention and certain points of law that had to be
addressed. This witness requires a translator because his English is limited.
I know this makes it more difficult and time-consuming, but both Miss
Scriber and Mr Hurst have agreed to keep their questions short and to give
the witness extra time to answer.’
Miss Scriber QC is a pinch-faced woman with pencil-thin eyebrows and
a body rendered featureless by her black robes. She asks Marco for his full
name and age and then asks where he was born. Occasionally Marco
answers without the need of Julianne, but mostly he waits for her to
translate each question.
Over the next twenty minutes he reveals how his father, Vasily Kostin,
had been a Soviet ‘Liquidator’ sent to clean up the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant
after the disaster in 1986. He drove a bus and helped evacuate people from
the town of Pripyet. On one of these journeys he met Olga and they married
two years later. Their first child Oles was born without a brain and lived for
only a few hours. Then came Marco and his sisters, Vira, eleven, Aneta, six
and Danya, four.
The family arrived in the UK fourteen months ago and spent two
months in an immigration detention centre before being released into the
community. The local authority provided them with housing and vouchers
for food and clothing. Marco enrolled at a language school and the family
prayed at a local church.
‘Why did you come to the UK?’ asks Miss Scriber.
‘We wanted to start a new life.’
‘What were you told?’
‘They said we couldn’t stay, but we were lodging an appeal.’
Miss Scriber brings Marco to the week of the fire.
‘How well do you know Stacey Dobson?’
‘She is a friend.’
‘Is she your girlfriend?’
Marco dips his eyebrows. ‘I see her sometimes at the bus stop. We catch
the same bus. She jokes about my English.’
‘Did she flirt with you?’
Marco looks at Julianne for a translation of ‘flirt’.
‘She is a nice girl. Friendly. I have not met many English girls.’
Marco reveals how they spent a Saturday afternoon together. They went
to the movies and then to an amusement arcade. Later he walked her home.
‘Did you kiss her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you have sex with her?’
Marco lowers his gaze and murmurs something. Embarrassed.
Miss Scriber asks the question again.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you abduct Stacey Dobson?’
‘No.’
‘Did you sexually assault her?’
‘No.’
Miss Scriber glances at her notes. ‘Have you ever met Gary Dobson?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you meet him?’
 ‘He was at the police station when I was taken there. He shouted at me.’
‘What did he shout?’
‘Bad words.’
‘Do you remember those words?’
‘He said: “You’re dead! You’re fucking dead!”’
‘Is the man who uttered those words in the court today?’
Slowly Marco raises his right arm and points towards Gary Dobson,
who sits a little straighter in the dock with a crazy beaming smile on his
face. There are cheers from the gallery. Judge Spencer calls for silence. For
a moment the jury seems more interested in what’s going on above them,
but the first question about the fire focuses their attention again.
Marco describes having dinner with his family. His mother had made
his favourite meal and they said a prayer because Marco was home after
spending the night in a police cell. After dinner Marco read a bedtime story
to his two youngest sisters and turned off the light in the girls’ bedroom.
He slept at the top of the house in a small loft room accessed by a
narrow set of stairs. Photographs of the house and a floor plan are projected
on to a white screen. Marco points out each of the bedrooms. His sisters
slept on the first floor at the rear of the house. His parents were in the main
bedroom overlooking the street.
He was woken just after midnight by the sound of breaking glass. At
first he thought someone had shattered a bottle on the footpath outside. He
looked out the window and saw a white Ford van in the street. Two men
were running. The door opened. The interior light showed a third man
behind the wheel.
‘Did you recognise this man?’
‘Yes. I had seen his photograph in the newspapers.’
‘Do you know this man’s name?’
‘Novak Brennan.’
‘Is he in the court?’
Again Marco points to the dock. Novak Brennan looks completely
relaxed, with one leg propped on the other at right angles, revealing a pale
shin beneath his trouser cuff.
‘What did you see next?’
‘The van drove away.’
‘And then?’
 Marco reaches for a glass of water, spilling a few drops. He mops up the
spill with his sleeve, concerned that he’ll get into trouble. The judge tells
him not to worry.
Miss Scriber repeats her question. ‘What did you do after you saw the
van drive away?’
‘I went back to my bed and closed my eyes, but I smelled smoke. I got
out of bed and opened my door, but there was smoke everywhere. I had to
crawl on the floor . . . feel my way down the stairs. I saw flames in the
hallway near the door. We could not get out this way.’
‘Where were your sisters?’
‘I heard them coughing. They were in a bedroom next to Mama and
Papa. I could hear windows breaking . . . my mother screaming.’
‘What did you do next?’
‘I crawled to my sisters’ room. I couldn’t find them. I kept calling and
feeling for them. Aneta was under the bed. Danya beneath the window. I
carried them. I told them not to breathe.’
‘What about Vira?’
‘She was in the hallway. I don’t know how she got out. She was calling
for Mama and Papa but I could not hear them any more.’
Marco raises his eyes. The courtroom is so quiet I can hear the tremor in
Julianne’s voice as she translates. Marco recounts how he climbed back to
the loft bedroom carrying his youngest sisters. He tried the window, but it
could only be wound open six inches. Marco held up his sisters so they
could breathe. They took turns but it wasn’t enough. Vira panicked and tried
to run downstairs.
‘I heard her fall,’ Marco says, the words catching wetly in his throat.
‘She did not answer me when I called to her. I hope she died with no pain . .
.’
A juror sobs. There’s nowhere to hide from the raw, numbing emotion
in Marco’s voice. He describes how he used a suitcase to bash at the
window, swinging it upwards into the reinforced glass until the hinges
broke and he kicked it clear. He wanted to lift Danya out on to the roof, but
the pitch was too steep.
Instead he pulled the bed beneath the window and climbed out. Leaning
back through the hole, he told Danya to lift Aneta, the four-year-old, so he
could pull her up . . . but she wasn’t strong enough.
 ‘She tried, but she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see . . . I couldn’t pull
them out. I couldn’t go back . . . Aneta called to me. Danya was on her
knees. They couldn’t breathe.’
Marco gulps a breath as if trying to help them still. Judge Spencer asks
him if he’d like a break.
Glancing along the row of seats in the gallery, I notice a woman sitting
alone, head bowed, holding something in her lap. She’s dressed in layers of
mismatched clothes with clumpy shoes and woollen tights. As she rocks
gently back in her seat, I see that she’s clutching a battered teddy bear with
a ribbon around its neck. A mascot.
Someone’s mother, I think, perhaps one of the defendants’. Brennan’s
mother died of a drug overdose, according to Ruiz, yet I can see a fleeting
resemblance in the shape of her face and her narrow lips.
The truth drops into the stillness. This must be Rita, Novak’s sister.
Strands of hair fall across her face and I find myself trying to find her
eyes in the shadows, wondering how much she remembers from the streets
of Belfast at the age of twelve. Her face has a haunted look that I’ve seen
before in children’s homes and consulting rooms. Beaten. Broken. Cautious.
Young rape victims don’t wear the soft, gentle, confident expressions that
say, ‘Isn’t it great to be me’. Instead they are eternally vigilant, but not even
that can save them from hurt. It’s in their faces.
Judge Spencer has ordered a recess. He stands and the courtroom
follows. Novak Brennan turns from the dock and makes eye contact with
Rita. Something passes between them, less of a smile than an
understanding. It’s as though Novak has touched her in some way,
squeezing her shoulder or patting her hand. Her face flushes with affection.
Novak is led away.
At the same moment a door opens in the public gallery. A man appears,
waiting for Rita. Tall with slick black hair that gleams under the overhead
lights, he’s dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, but it’s not his clothes that
make him stand out. The bones of his face are like metal scaffolding
beneath his skin and inky tears drip from his eyes and down his cheeks,
This is the man Stan Keating described. The man I saw at the minicab
office and outside the restaurant. Ruiz has seen him too. Although he
doesn’t physically react, I can almost sense him mentally stepping back and
shrinking slightly.
The door closes. They’ve gone.
Ruiz hasn’t moved.
‘You going to follow him?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘I’ll find out who he is.’
‘And then what?’
‘I’ll try to leave him alone.’
 33
I once had a patient, an actor, who invited all his family and friends for
a drink on his eighty-second birthday at a pub near Vauxhall Bridge in
London. ‘The drinks are on me,’ he said, putting money on the bar, along
with a letter addressed to the gathering.
At some point during the evening, he slipped away and a fisherman
found his body next morning floating in the Thames.
He’d written:I didn’t like the thought of spending my last years lying in
bed, surrounded by my children and grandchildren feeling they must sit by
my old wrecked body until my last gasp.So I hope you will understand and
raise a glass and give me a cheer for catching the tide tonight.
There’s something noble about an exit like that, but I doubt if I’d have
the courage or the conviction. Somebody still had to find his body and
retrieve it - strangers who didn’t deserve a shitty day.
I used to think I wouldn’t care about losing control of my body, as long
as my mind remained strong. A psychologist losing his mind is like a
painter losing his sight or a composer his hearing. You could call it a tragic
irony, but only if you believe in fate or that God has a sick sense of humour.
Right now I feel as though my mind is slipping. My emotions have been
manipulated and my reason distracted. It’s like watching a magician using
sleight of hand, cleverly drawing my attention away so that I don’t see the
‘palm’ or the ‘ditch’ or the ‘steal’.
I can make a connection between Gordon Ellis, Ray Hegarty and
Sienna, but I don’t know what glue holds them together. And where does
the Crying Man come into this, or Lance Hegarty? Someone killed my dog.
Someone ran me off the road. Gordon Ellis gave me a strange look when I
mentioned Gunsmoke. It was like he didn’t understand.
I have to go back to the beginning and question everything, but right
now I’m too tired to think. I’m dirty, unshaven, exhausted and I want a
shower. I want a bed. I want to square things with Julianne and Charlie.
Ruiz drops me at the terrace and does a three-point turn, heading back
into Bristol. Seeing Novak Brennan again has reignited something inside
him - an instinct that never leaves a detective, even a retired one.
 Opening the door of the terrace I get a flashback of last night. The
reminders are smeared across the kitchen floor - a trail of blood showing
where Gordon Ellis sat holding his head, where he pissed his pants, where
he grinned at me with his bloodstained teeth. Filling the sink with hot soapy
water, I begin mopping and rinsing, twisting the towel and watching the
pink wash run between my fingers.
The answering machine is flashing:
Bruno Kaufman:
Joe, this is beyond the pale. You’ve now missed two lectures and two
staff meetings - do you want to keep this job? Your students are complaining
that you’re not answering their emails. Call me. Have an explanation.
Clunk!
Annie Robinson:
Listen, you prick! I’m not some pimply-faced teenager sitting by the
phone. I’m old enough to deserve some respect. If you don’t want to see me,
fine! But at least have the decency to call or tell me to my face. Thanks for
nothing!
Clunk!
I wince. It’s not like I’m ducking to avoid a bullet or a rock, it’s an
internal shudder - the sort of wince you get when you spend a night with a
woman and don’t follow it up.
Annie isn’t the first woman to produce this reaction in me. That dubious
honour belongs to Brenda, a girl my parents employed to clean our house
one summer when I was home from boarding school. I saved up my pocket
money so I could look at Brenda’s breasts. She charged me fifty pence a
time and double if I wanted her to lift her skirt and pull her knickers up
tightly, leaving little to my imagination.
Brenda lived in the local village and had a brother, Jonathan, who was
my age. It was Jonathan who first told me about the mechanics of sex, but it
wasn’t until Brenda gave me a personal guided tour of female anatomy that
I believed it was possible for Tab A to fit into Slot B.
I wince when I think of Brenda because of the sadness in her eyes and
because five years later, I teased and cajoled and promised that I loved her
as she slipped her knickers down in the backseat of a car (which the ever-
willing girl had done many times before) and allowed me to lose my
virginity. Brenda wanted to be close to someone and this was the only way
she knew how.
 Annie Robinson is sweet, well-meaning, good-natured and slightly
damaged - or maybe I should say bruised. The sound of her voice makes me
wince. It tells me everything I need to know.
At three o’clock I pick Emma up from school. She has a sticker on her
jumper that says ‘Best Counter’.
‘I can count to sixty-one,’ she announces proudly.
‘That’s very good, but what comes next?’
‘Sixty-two.’
‘So you can count higher.’
‘I can, but the teacher wanted me to stop. I think she was getting bored.’
When I laugh, Emma gets cross. She doesn’t like people laughing
unless she understands why.
As soon as she gets to the terrace she goes looking for her Snow White
dress.
‘It’s in the wash,’ I tell her.
‘When will it be out of the wash?’
‘Not for a long time.’
‘You can put it in the dryer.’
‘It will shrink.’
She looks at me doubtfully and then opens the washing machine. ‘You
haven’t even started.’
‘I’ve been busy.’
Eventually she searches through the dirty washing until she finds the
dress and puts it on, ignoring the chocolate and bolognaise stains.
Charlie arrives at about four, dropping her bag in the hallway.
‘How are things?’ I ask.
‘Guess.’
She blows a strand of hair from her eyes, but doesn’t look at me.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Let me think. That’s right, my father is an idiot, that’s about it.’
‘That’s not very polite, Charlie.’
‘I was going to call you an arsehole, so “idiot” is far more polite.’
Slumping angrily on to the sofa, she picks up the remote and flicks
aggressively through the channels without taking any notice of what she’s
ignoring.
‘I can explain.’
 ‘It’s all over the school. You beat up Mr Ellis and put him in hospital.
He’s everyone’s favourite teacher - which makes me as popular as swine
flu. I’m going to have to leave school, leave the country, change my name.’
‘I think you’re overdramatising this.’
‘Am I?’ I can hear the hated tone in her voice.
‘Gordon Ellis said things about you.’
‘What things?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Yes, it does. Tell me!’
‘He said that he’d slept with you.’
‘And what - you believed him and beat him up! I babysat his little boy,
Dad. I didn’t sleep with anyone - that’s just stupid. Gordon wasn’t even
there . . .’
‘Don’t call him Gordon.’
She shoots me a look.
‘I know things about him, Charlie.’
‘And you don’t trust me - is that it?’
‘That’s not it.’
‘So what were you doing - defending my honour?’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
Charlie looks at me dismissively.
‘What’s going to happen when I bring a boyfriend home? Are you going
to beat him up too? Maybe you want to beat up my football coach - he’s a
bit of a lech. And what about the creep on the bus who’s always perving at
me? You could beat him up.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not the one who’s being ridiculous. I’m starting to understand why
Mum left you.’
The statement cuts through the hard spots, right to the soft centre where
it hurts the most. Charlie senses that she’s gone too far, but she doesn’t take
it back, which hurts even more.
Brushing past me, she pulls on her coat.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out.’
‘Where?’
‘Away from you.’
 The door closes and I tell myself that she’ll forgive me eventually and
grasp what happened. And then I realise that I don’t want her to understand.
I don’t want her to know what Gordon Ellis said and how much I wanted to
kill him. I want to stop her knowing things like that.
‘Can I watch TV?’ whispers Emma.
She’s standing in the doorway. How much did she hear?
‘Come on in, Squeak, I’ll find you something to watch.’
A few hours later I take Emma for a walk, looking for Charlie. Letting
myself into the cottage, I find her riding boots missing from the laundry.
She’s across the lane in Haydon Field where she stables her mare in the
barn.
Slipping inside, I watch as Charlie throws a quilted pad on Peggy’s
back, smoothing it down. I help her lift the saddle from the railing and set it
in place. Charlie ducks under Peggy and buckles the strap, pulling it tight.
Inserting her boot into the left stirrup, she swings herself upwards and
looks down at me.
‘I’m sorry for what I said.’
‘I deserved it.’
A braided ponytail hangs beneath her riding hat. ‘You don’t have to
worry about me and boys.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘I have a horse.’
She laughs, kicks her heels and bolts away, thundering across the field,
her hair flying and jodhpurs clinging to her young body. In every sense
she’s getting further and further away from me.
 34
Norman Mailer said there were four stages in a marriage. First the
affair, then the marriage, then children and finally the fourth stage, without
which you cannot know a woman, the divorce.
That night Julianne visits me and hands me the papers. I’ve just taken
two sedatives and drunk a large Scotch, desperate to sleep. The alcohol and
the Valium are starting to work when she appears, pushing past me at the
front door and striding into the kitchen. She spies the bottle of Scotch and it
seems to confirm her suspicions.
Calmly and dispassionately, she tells me about her decision. She wants
me to understand that she has thought this through very carefully. She might
use the term ‘long and hard’ but my mind is fuzzy. I feel as though I’m
floating on the ceiling, looking down at myself, hearing myself trying to
explain.
‘Gordon Ellis broke in here and said things about Charlie - terrible
things - I just sort of snapped.’
‘Snapped?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t snap, Joe. You never snap.’
‘I know, but this was different.’
‘Did you want to kill him?’
I hesitate. ‘Yes.’
She is quiet a long time, staring into space, her lips pressed into thin
straight lines. I keep waiting for her to speak. ‘Is that how little you think of
us?’
‘What?’
‘Is that how little we mean to you?’ I can see anger climbing into her
face. ‘You tried to kill someone. What if you’re sent to prison? What sort of
father will you be then? We’re not living in the Middle Ages, Joe, men
don’t challenge each other to duels. They don’t bash each other’s heads in.’
She flicks hair from her eyes. I can see the twin furrows above her nose.
Charlie has them, too. I want to defend myself, but the drugs have turned
my brain to treacle.
 Julianne sighs and hands me the divorce papers. ‘It’s time to move on,
Joe.’
‘What does that mean exactly?’
‘What does what mean?’
‘Moving on. You see, I don’t think we move at all. We run up and down
on the spot and the world moves under us. Days, weeks, months, pass
beneath our feet.’
‘So you’re saying we’re like hamsters on a wheel?’
‘Going nowhere.’
Julianne scoffs at this and tells me to grow up. Looking at her hands
more than my face, she asks me to sign the papers, saying something about
it being both our faults. We got engaged too young and too quickly - six
months and three days after our first date.
‘This isn’t about love any more, Joe. You joke about your Parkinson’s.
You pretend nothing has changed. But you’re sadder. You’re self-absorbed.
You obsess. You monitor every twitch and tremor. You’re like an
archaeologist piecing together his own remains, finding bits and pieces but
nothing whole. It breaks my heart.’
Her face is drifting in and out of focus. I concentrate on the tiny vein
pulsing on her neck just below where her hair curls and touches her skin.
Her heart never stops beating. Mine feels like it’s slowly breaking or
grinding to a halt like an engine without oil.
I remember our wedding day, standing at the altar, saying, ‘I do.’ After
we kissed I wanted to punch the air and yell, ‘Hey! Look at me! I got the
girl.’
On my side of the congregation were doctors and surgeons and my
mates from university. Julianne’s side was full of her hippy friends,
painters, sculptors, poets and actors. My father called them the ‘Three P’s’ -
potheads, pissheads and pill-heads.
‘Are you listening to me, Joe?’ she asks.
‘Can we talk about this tomorrow?’
‘There’s nothing else to talk about.’
‘Please? I’m exhausted. I just need to sleep.’
She nods and stands. I feel unsteady on my feet.
‘Don’t hate me, Joe.’
‘I could never do that.’
She puts some dishes in the sink and tells me to go upstairs to bed.
 ‘Stay with me,’ I ask, ‘just for a few minutes.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
My fingers touch her hair and I want to press my body against hers and
put my lips against the pulsing vein in her neck. She opens her mouth to say
something but changes her mind.
‘Stay.’
‘I have to go.’
‘Just five minutes.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why?’
‘If I stay it will only make things worse.’
‘For you or for me?’
‘For both of us.’
As she opens the door, I see Annie Robinson on the doorstep about to
ring the bell. Her eyes go wide and she rocks unsteadily on her feet.
‘Oh!’
‘I’m just leaving,’ says Julianne. ‘Annie, isn’t it?’
Annie giggles nervously. ‘I’m sorry - I laugh when I get embarrassed. It
also happens when I drink.’ She leans forward and whispers, ‘I’ve been to
the pub.’
‘That’s OK,’ says Julianne.
Annie looks at me accusingly. ‘I left messages for you.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve been really busy.’
‘Were you busy ignoring me or just beating up Gordon Ellis? I was
coming round to slap you in the face, but now I’m too drunk.’
‘I wasn’t ignoring you.’
‘Maybe I’ll just puke in your garden instead.’
Julianne looks even more uncomfortable.
Annie stumbles slightly and Julianne has to steady her. Annie
apologises. ‘Don’t mind me - I made the mistake of fucking your husband.’
Julianne flinches.
Annie giggles. ‘This is pretty surreal, isn’t it?’
That’s not the word I’d use, but I’m not going to quibble. Succumbing
to the pills and booze, I can barely keep my eyes open.
Julianne steps around Annie and hurries down the street, disappearing
quickly from sight.
‘Can I see you tomorrow?’ I ask.
 Annie’s nostrils flare and her voice changes. ‘You’re an arsehole!’
‘I’ve been told that already today - or maybe I was an idiot. I can’t
remember now. I’m just so tired.’
‘Are you still sleeping with your wife?’
‘No.’
I can’t see Annie clearly any more. She says something about feeling
ashamed and humiliated.
‘I only came round to give you some information.’
‘Information?’
‘About Gordon Ellis - we were at university together, remember? I was
looking through some of my old photographs and I found something.’
I’m reading her lips.
‘There was someone else in one of the photographs. I only recognised
him because he’s been in the papers. He was one of Gordon’s mates. They
shared a house.’
‘Who?’
‘Novak Brennan.’
 35
The South Bristol Crematorium and Cemetery is perched on a ridge
overlooking Ashton Vale where rain clouds are threatening. Umbrellas
hover above the mourners and beads of water cling to the panels of the
hearse like costume jewels stuck on a black dress.
Ray Hegarty has a guard of honour and six police pallbearers. Ronnie
Cray is among them, resplendent in her full dress uniform, sitting alongside
the Deputy Chief Constable and a handful of other top brass.
Some of the regulars from the Fox and Badger have come to pay their
respects, including Hector the publican and his daughter Susanne. The
villagers are sitting together behind Helen, while the other side of the
chapel is taken up by retired or serving police officers. Annie Robinson is
also here, looking hung-over despite the dark glasses and bright lipstick.
Helen Hegarty is just visible in the front pew, between Lance and
Sienna, who has been allowed out of Oakham House for the funeral. Zoe’s
wheelchair is partially blocking the central aisle, squeezed between the
coffin and the pews.
Watching Sienna through the bowed heads, I can tell she’s lost weight
and isn’t sleeping. She knows that people are staring at her, wondering
whether she killed her father and why she did it. Pulling her coat tighter
around her shoulders, she sinks down, trying to disappear completely.
The silence is a miasma, weighted with the inaudible breathing. I wish
someone would play some music. Anything would be better than shuffling
feet and seats creaking beneath buttocks.
High above us a tiny bell jangles once, twice, three times and the music
starts. A hymn sung by a Welsh choir, played through the sound system.
I don’t like funerals. I know how stupid that sounds, but it’s not because
of the bleedingly obvious. Whenever I come to a place like this I can’t
shake the idea that death is something that can be transmitted like a disease
or inhaled like a spore. What if it sprouts inside me like that Russian guy
who inhaled a seed and had a fir tree growing in his lungs? What if I’m
witnessing a dress rehearsal of my own fate?
When the service is over, the pallbearers carry Ray Hegarty’s coffin
through a guard of honour to the graveside. Draped in a flag, it bears a
framed photograph of a young man in a PC’s uniform, clear-eyed, square-
jawed, ready to take on the dark side.
Sienna follows the coffin, glancing up occasionally as though looking
for someone among the mourners. She makes eye contact with Annie
Robinson and looks away.
Helen Hegarty moves with sure steps and dry eyes. Perhaps she is
saving her tears for a less public occasion or has shed enough by now. Her
long hair is unpinned and I notice how grey she has become and how the
twin notches between her eyebrows have grown deeper.
The wind has sprung up, slapping the artificial grass against the side of
the coffin. Words of comfort are ripped away and carried across the
cemetery. Hats are held in place. Coats flap against knees. In a different part
of the cemetery I spy a couple crouching to replace flowers at a child’s
grave. A vase and a picture frame are cemented to the base of the headstone
to stop them blowing away. A favourite toy has been pinned beneath wire
like a butterfly in a display case.
Afterwards I intercept Ronnie Cray as she walks towards the parking
area.
‘I want to apologise for my conduct the other day.’
She doesn’t answer. Her eyes are stained by the wind.
‘I feel as though I’ve let you down,’ I add.
Still she doesn’t speak.
‘I guess this is a bad time.’
She sighs. ‘You’re one of the good guys, Professor, but you’re heading
for a serious fall. I can’t afford to be associated with someone like you.’
‘I understand.’ I feel like I’ve swallowed a bubble of air. ‘Can I just ask
you one question - is there a link between Novak Brennan and Ray
Hegarty?’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Are you suggesting Ray was bent?’
‘No.’
‘Why ask the question?’
‘I saw Lance Hegarty outside the Crown Court. He was with Brennan’s
supporters.’
‘I guess the lad is entitled to have his opinions,’ she replies. ‘Is that all
you want to ask me?’
‘Gordon Ellis went to university with Novak Brennan.’
‘That’s a statement not a question.’
 ‘Ellis got into trouble with a bookmaker. Owed him a lot of money. The
bookmaker sent someone to remind Gordon of his responsibilities. The
messenger spent three months in hospital and now talks through a hole in
his throat.’
‘Gordon Ellis beat him up?’
‘No, but I’ve seen the man who did. He’s been looking after Rita
Brennan during the trial.’
‘The sister?’
‘Yes.’
I describe the tattoos on his cheeks, like black tears. Cray seems to be
sucking on the information like it’s one of Ruiz’s sweets.
‘Is that it?’
‘I think it’s worth investigating.’
‘First you were trying to convince me that Sienna was the intended
victim. Now you’re telling me that Novak Brennan organised a hit on Ray
Hegarty. Why would he do that?’
‘I just want you to keep an open mind.’
‘Oh, I know all about keeping an open mind, Professor. Yours is so open
that all your ideas fall out. I’ve just got to be careful not to step in them.’

The funeral is over. Mourners are blown back to their cars by the wind.
No wake has been planned. Ronnie Cray and her colleagues will no doubt
retire to a watering hole and raise a glass to Ray Hegarty - swapping
anecdotes about him and contemplating their own mortality.
Sienna is being allowed home for a few hours. Her chaperone is a
mental health nurse with gelled hair, stovepipe jeans and a skinny black tie.
His name is Jay Muller and his handshake - a brief pressure and release -
tells me nothing.
‘Call me Jay,’ he says. ‘You’re a psychologist?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re doing the report on Sienna?
‘That’s right.’
Jay claps his hands together as though he’s won a guessing game. I ask
him how Sienna has been coping.
 He leans closer, about to share his professional opinion. ‘Sleep is the
problem. False awakenings. She dreams of waking up only she can’t move
or make a sound. She describes being trapped in her body, unable to call out
or press the emergency bell. Then there’s the “screaming” in her head.’
‘Screaming?’
‘It’s more like a rushing sound, she says, but it’s deafening.’
‘Has she mentioned her father?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Can I see her today?’
Jay has a habit of picking at the corners of his lips as though scraping
away food encrusted there. ‘I got no problem with that, as long as Mrs
Hegarty agrees. I’m taking Sienna back to Oakham House at six.’
On the far side of the parking area, Lance Hegarty leans against the side
of a black limousine, smoking a cigarette. Sienna is somewhere inside
behind tinted glass while Helen and Zoe are outside the chapel saying
goodbye to the Deputy Chief Constable.
Walking up the slope towards Sienna, I prepare to confront Lance. The
last time I saw him he was hurling abuse outside the Crown Court.
‘You’ve got some damn nerve, coming here,’ he says, stepping in front
of me and pushing his face into mine. His eyes are flecked with tiny red
veins. ‘You’re working for the police.’
‘Wrong.’
‘You got her locked up.’
‘I’m trying to get her out.’
Lance spits a gob of phlegm near my shoe.
‘I saw you yesterday,’ I tell him. ‘You were outside the Crown Court. I
didn’t have you pegged as a neo-Nazi thug.’
‘I’m a patriot.’
‘The last refuge of the scoundrel.’
Lance doesn’t understand the reference. ‘You know nothing about me.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. You left school at sixteen and signed to
play football for Burnleigh, but a knee injury ended your career. Two years
ago you were arrested and deported from Croatia after a World Cup
qualifier. Seven months ago you bashed a Pakistani student because you
saw him kissing a white girl. You’re a thug, Lance. And you’re a racist. I
know you’re angry. You’re pissed off that you couldn’t protect your sisters
from your father. You’re angry at yourself because you didn’t stand up to
him, the bully, the abuser. But what frightens you most, Lance, is the
nagging little voice in your ear that keeps saying you’re just like him.’
Blood rises. Fingers close into fists.
‘I’m nothing like my father.’
For a moment I think he’s going to hit me, but the car window glides
down. Sienna’s eyes have a strangely androgynous cast. White headphones
are plugged into her ears, leaking a tinny hiss.
‘We need to talk,’ I say.
She nods her head to the beat of the music. ‘I’m sick of talking.’
‘I still have questions.’
‘Nothing matters any more.’ Her voice is flat, almost devoid of
emotion.
The window is gliding up. Unless I say something now, I’ll lose the
opportunity.
‘I have a message from Charlie.’
The window stops. Sienna pulls the earphones from her ears. ‘Is she
OK?’
‘She misses you.’
‘I miss her too.’ Her tongue flicks out and withdraws, moistening her
bottom lip. ‘Tell her I’m sorry.’
‘You could tell her yourself.’
Sienna pushes the earbuds back into place, flooding her mind with
music. The window glides to a close.
Helen Hegarty has finished saying her goodbyes. The compassion and
sympathy have worn her down and I can almost see her mask slipping as
she pushes Zoe’s wheelchair towards the car. She wants this day to finish.
‘I was hoping I might drop round to the house . . . to talk to Sienna.’
‘She’s only home for a few hours.’
‘I know.’
Helen glances at the limousine and sighs, ‘She won’t talk to me. Maybe
she’ll talk to you.’
I help Zoe into the car, lifting her easily. She puts her arms around my
neck, holding me tightly, making it easier for me to carry her. She sits
alongside Sienna, taking her hand. Sienna doesn’t react.
Having folded the wheelchair and placed it in the boot, I watch the
limousine being driven away, stunned by how much misfortune can befall
one family. A crippled daughter. A slain father. A racist son. A child
charged with murder. There is no truth in the cliché that luck evens itself
out. Maybe in games of chance, but not in real life.
An arm slips through mine, hooking around my elbow. It is such a
familiar touch that I expect to see Julianne.
‘I’m so sorry about last night,’ says Annie Robinson. ‘I shouldn’t have
turned up like that. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘It’s not your fault.’
‘You didn’t call me.’
‘I didn’t call a lot of people.’
‘You’re angry.’
‘It’s been a difficult few days.’
She brushes her cheek against mine. ‘Come and see me. I’ll show you
the photograph of Gordon and Novak Bennan.’
 36
Helen Hegarty unlatches the front door and I follow her through to a
kitchen that smells of sugar and citrus peel. She is making jam. Saucepans
bubble on the stove and sterilised jars rest upside down on dishcloths on the
table.
The steam has straightened strands of her hair, which are plastered to
her forehead. She wipes her hands and glances at the ceiling. ‘Sienna is
upstairs. She’s packing some things.’
‘You’re on your own?’
‘Zoe and Lance have gone into town.’
I climb the stairs and tap gently on Sienna’s bedroom door.
‘Don’t come in,’ she says, sounding startled.
‘It’s me.’
‘Can you come back later?’
‘No. I’ll wait.’
Pressing my ear to the door panel, I hear drawers being closed and a
window opening.
‘I really don’t want to talk to you today.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not feeling well.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s talk about it.’
‘I’m getting changed. Won’t be a minute.’
The door eventually opens and Sienna spins away from me, crawling on
to her bed and sitting against the wall, drawing up her knees and tugging
her dark skirt tight over them. The room is tidier than I remember. The
bloodstained rug has gone and the floorboards have been scrubbed clean.
Walking to the window, I glance outside, wondering if someone might
have been with her. The garden is below. Sienna used to brag to Charlie
about climbing out the window and shimmying down the rainwater pipe
while her parents thought she was studying upstairs. A gnarled cherry tree
has been cut back so its branches don’t scrape against the wall.
‘It must have been tough today.’
Her shoulders rise and fall.
‘You thought he might come, didn’t you?’
 She doesn’t answer.
‘Mr Ellis was never going to come, Sienna. He says you made it all up.’
No answer.
‘Now he’s complained to the school that you’ve been harassing him. He
wants you suspended.’
Sienna tilts her face and glares at me. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Behind her head I notice a torn strip of wallpaper curling like a roll of
parchment. Beneath is an older layer with nursery rhyme characters. Little
Bo Peep is visibly searching for her lost flock.
‘I don’t want to fight with you, Sienna. I just want to understand. ’
‘You can’t. You’re too old. You don’t know what it’s like to . . . to . . .’
‘Be in love?’
‘Yes.’
‘I know you believe your feelings, Sienna. You believe he loved you.
Tell me how it started.’
‘And then you’ll leave me alone?’
‘If you help me understand.’
‘Remember I told you how I got the scar on my leg?’ she whispers.
‘Malcolm Hogbin dared me to climb a tree and I fell out.’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Ellis was the first teacher to reach me. He carried me to the
infirmary and got me a blanket and called the ambulance. Then he sat
talking to me and told me really lame jokes until it arrived. “Don’t laugh or
it’ll hurt more,” he said, and he wouldn’t let me look at my leg because the
bone was sticking out. I remember wondering if he saw me fall. My dress
flew up which meant he probably saw more of me than he should have, but
having Mr Ellis see my underwear didn’t creep me out like I thought it
might.
‘They had to put metal pins in my leg and I was in plaster for three
months. Mr Ellis signed my cast. He drew a bird and signed his name.
‘“Why a bird?” I asked him.
‘“Because birds can fly, which you obviously can’t.”
‘I remember looking at his long fingers as he signed his name. He had
such nice hands. And when he talked he had this deep round voice that
rolled out of his mouth and burst in my ears. He said I could call him
Gordon, but only when we were alone.’
‘You started to babysit Billy?’
 She nods and smooths her skirt over her knees. Her bruised-looking
eyes now look sleepy.
‘I missed six weeks of school, but Gordon helped me catch up. I know
you think he’s done something wrong, but it wasn’t like that. He made me
feel lovely. Grown up. Special.’
‘How old were you when he made you feel grown up?’
‘We were just sitting in his car and he put his finger beneath my chin.
Suddenly his lips were right there, pushing against mine.’
She won’t look at me. Her forehead is resting on her knees.
‘I knew about sex. Lance kept magazines in his room and I once saw
him and Margo Langdon going at it like nobody’s business in Simpson’s
barn. Margo was on her back and Lance had his pants down and his
backside was going up and down on top of her. I remember because Lance
started whimpering and shaking and that’s when Margo turned her head and
she looked straight at me.’
‘How old were you when you had sex with Gordon?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘That’s against the law.’
‘Juliet was only thirteen when she fell in love with Romeo. Gordon told
me that.’
‘Romeo wasn’t forty.’
‘That doesn’t matter. True love doesn’t wait.’
She says it defiantly, parroting the words that I’m sure Gordon
whispered in her ear when he took her.
‘I wish you could understand,’ she explains. ‘You don’t know how
wonderful he makes me feel. He could have had any girl he wanted, but he
chose me.’
‘He’s married.’
‘He was going to leave Natasha when I finished school. He doesn’t love
her. He loves me!’
I produce a photograph from my pocket, holding it between my thumb
and forefinger.
‘Remember I told you that Gordon had been married before? Her name
is Carolinda Regan. Everyone called her Caro. She’s Billy’s proper mother.
Nobody has seen her in three years.’
‘What about Natasha?’
 ‘Gordon met her at school - just like he met you. She was about your
age.’
Sienna chews at her bottom lip leaving a carmine mark that slowly
fades. Hugging her knees more tightly, she grimaces as though in pain. Her
bare feet are tucked beneath the bedspread.
‘You told me that Gordon took you away for a weekend. Where?’
‘I don’t know exactly. It was during the summer. Natasha was in
Scotland visiting her folks.’
‘Where was Billy?’
‘He came with us. We took him for a trip to the seaside. Gordon has a
caravan. I told Mum that I was spending the night with Charlie.’
‘This caravan - is it near the beach?’
‘I think so. I can’t remember much of anything. The whole weekend is a
blur. I know we left on Friday afternoon and I can remember coming home.
Gordon said I slept most of the time. He said it was food poisoning.’
‘Is that the only time you went away?’
She nods. He eyelids are half closed. She forces them open.
‘Did anyone ever see you with Gordon outside of school?’
‘I don’t think so. Mostly we stayed in the car or went somewhere
private. Sometimes I slept over when I was babysitting. I stayed in the spare
room, which is next to where Billy sleeps. Gordon would sneak in and
spend a few hours with me.’
‘What about Natasha?’
‘She was sleeping. I was scared she might wake up, but Gordon said
that wouldn’t happen.’
‘Why?’
‘He mentioned something about sleeping pills.’
Sienna’s skin has grown ashen and beads of sweat prickle on her upper
lip.
‘Did you ever tell anyone about Gordon?’
‘He made me promise.’
‘Did anyone suspect - someone at school, a friend?’
Her head rocks from side to side and then stops. ‘Miss Robinson asked
me.’
‘What did she ask you?’
‘If I was spending time with Gordon outside of school.’
‘When was this?’
 ‘Late last year.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me where you went on that Tuesday - after Danny dropped you in
town.’
Sienna shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
‘Did you meet up with Gordon? Did he take you somewhere?’
Sienna’s line of vision sweeps past me as though watching something
terrible approaching. Something she has to escape from. She wants to run
but I need her here. Gently gripping her shoulders, I make her meet my
gaze.
‘You don’t have to be frightened, Sienna. I’m going to protect you.’
‘I didn’t kill Daddy.’
‘Show me. Prove it to me. Where were you?’
Tears hover at the edges of her eyelids.
‘With Gordon,’ she whispers.
‘Gordon says he wasn’t with you. He’s given a statement to the police.
He has an alibi. Natasha has backed him up.’
‘They’re lying.’
‘He’s letting you take the blame, Sienna. Just tell me where you went
after Danny dropped you off.’
‘Gordon wanted me to do something for him.’
‘What was that?’
Her mouth opens, but she can’t bring herself to tell me. I wait and she
tries again. The words come slowly and then in a rush as though she wants
them gone, forgotten, buried.
‘Gordon said he was in trouble, but I could help him. I just had to do
this one thing for him and everything would be OK. I’d prove myself. He’d
know I was the one. Then we could be together.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘What did he want?’
She shakes her head, embarrassed, ashamed.
‘I had to visit someone and do what he asked.’
She puts the heel of her hand against her forehead. There are patches of
colour on her throat as if someone has wrapped an invisible rope around her
neck.
 ‘What did you have to do?’
‘I had to sleep with him,’ she whispers.
There is a tingling in my chest like a heated wire is being pressed
against my heart.
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know his name - some old guy who lived in a big house.’ Her
voice starts to break. ‘I was dropped off and picked up later.’
‘Who dropped you off?’
‘Gordon and another man.’
‘Another man?’
‘His eyes looked like they were bleeding.’
‘Where did they take you?’
‘I don’t know. It was a big house. Old. It smelled funny.’ She rocks
forward, breathing through her mouth. ‘It was horrible. I had to have . . . I
had to let him . . . he did things to me. Gordon said it would prove how
much I loved him.’
I can hear the wetness in her throat as she swallows. At the same time, a
shudder goes through her body like tension leaving a metal spring.
‘What happened afterwards?’
‘Gordon drove me back to his house but we couldn’t go inside because
Natasha was home. He said it turned him on - knowing what another man
had done to me. He took off my clothes and we had sex in the car but he
was rough. He hurt me. I told him to be careful.’
‘Did you tell him you were pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He swore and shoved me away. He was yelling at me, saying I’d
tricked him, saying I got pregnant on purpose. He told me to get rid of the
baby. An abortion. That’s when I ran away. I ran home.’
Sienna looks at me blankly, too numb to cry. Touching her upper arm
with my palm, I feel the coolness of her skin. She leans against me, pushing
her face under my chin. Motionless in my arms, she remains curled up, her
skirt pulled tight over her knees.
The patchwork quilt has slipped down, uncovering her feet. A dark stain
runs over her right foot. It looks like a birthmark or a lesion. Then I notice
that it’s shining and viscous, soaking into the sheet beneath her.
 ‘What have you done?’ I whisper, unhooking my arms and raising her
skirt up her calves and over her knees, which are slick with blood.
Sienna’s eyes are closed as though she’s fallen asleep, but she’s still
conscious.
‘Don’t tell Mum,’ she murmurs.
Twin lacerations on her inner thighs are swollen and leaking. She has
cut from the edge of her panties towards her knees, probably using a razor
blade wrapped in a tissue.
I glance around the room. Where did she hide her implements?
‘You need stitches.’
‘I’ll be OK.’
‘You need to go to hospital.’
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
Her eyes are closing.
‘Have you taken something, Sienna?’
She doesn’t answer. I shake her gently. ‘Did you take something? ’
In a sing-song voice, ‘White pills, yellow pills and long green pills.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘I stole them,’ she sings. ‘From the trolleys and from bedside tables.’
She’s talking about Oakham House.
Flinging open the door, I yell down the stairs, ‘Call an ambulance! ’
Sienna opens her eyes just long enough to give me a pitying look.
‘They’re never going to let me out now, are they?’
I grab her top sheet and rip it into bandages to wrap around her thighs. I
need to know what she took. What drugs?
Sliding sideways down the wall, Sienna rests her head against a pillow
and mumbles, ‘He told me not to write a note. He said too many suicides
spend too much time composing letters, trying to find words. “You could
die of old age, trying to write a note,” he said. “You just have to do it.”’
‘Who told you that?’
‘He said to do it like Juliet, but I couldn’t. So I did it like Romeo.’
 37
Gordon Ellis is laughing at me, mocking me with his bloodstained teeth
and reptilian smile. I keep picturing Sienna’s bloody thighs and seeing her
eyes roll back into her head.
Hurting him won’t be sufficient. I want to feed him broken glass. I want
to see spittle fly from the corners of his mouth. I want to see him suffer like
she’s suffering.
After following the ambulance to the hospital, I continue driving. Sick.
Dry-mouthed. Fists clenched on the wheel. A mantra playing in my head:
‘She’s just a kid. A child. He used her. He poisoned her mind.’
Rage consumes me. Rational thinking has been replaced by a single
linear idea that runs on tracks like a bullet train, hurtling towards a single
destination.
Parking the Volvo, I push open the groaning door and walk to the rear.
Pulling out a tyre jack, I slam the boot closed. Sienna’s face is melting in
front of me. Her eyes are closing. Her thighs are sticky.
Julianne is divorcing me. My eldest daughter thinks I’m a failure. My
life’s going to shit, but I should have stopped this. I should have seen this
coming. Predators like Ellis don’t stop. They never relinquish control. They
invest too much time and effort in grooming a victim.
Bounding over the gate, I walk towards the house. Tunnel vision.
Halfway up the path and Ruiz appears in front of me. I try to step around
him but he won’t let me pass. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear what he’s
saying.
Then I feel my left arm being twisted up my back, followed by the
searing pain that spreads from my shoulder socket to the base of my spine.
His leg swings into the back of my knees and I stagger forward crashing
into a garden bed.
Ruiz falls with me, knocking the wind from my lungs. I try to roll away,
but he wraps his arm around my neck in a chokehold.
‘Enough now!’ he warns me, squeezing my neck.
‘S’OK.’
‘Concede.’
‘OK.’
 A bubble of exhaustion breaks inside me. Rage leaks away.
‘I’m going to let go,’ says Ruiz.
‘OK.’
His arm slips away. He pulls me up to my knees, but I don’t have the
strength to stand.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Sienna took an overdose. She tried to kill herself.’ I stare at my muddy
hands. ‘Ellis told her to do it. He wants her dead.’
‘How?’
My throat swells. ‘I don’t know. She told me that Ellis could always
reach her. I didn’t believe her.’
Ruiz drags me to my feet. ‘So you decided to confront Ellis. You came
here to give him another beating - or were you gonna kill him this time?’
He pushes me away in disgust. ‘What sort of idiot . . . you couldn’t
count your balls and get the same answer twice. You’re on remand. I lodged
my house as surety. You’re not allowed within a thousand fucking yards of
Gordon Ellis and yet here you are - breaking the law. They can lock you up.
Forget about that - they can take away my house!’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shoves me in the chest, pushing me towards the car. ‘Get in the
fucking car.’
‘I didn’t think . . .’
‘Do as you’re told.’
I glance at the house. Natasha Ellis is standing at the window, holding
the curtains aside. She looks like a child looking outside at a rainy day.
We’ve made a mess of her garden.
Ruiz opens my car door. ‘Get inside and drive.’
‘Where?’
‘The hospital.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll follow.’
‘What were you doing here?’
‘Watching Gordon Ellis.’
I start the engine and pull away from the kerb. By the time I reach the
end of the street, Ruiz’s Mercedes is in my rear mirror, a 280E with two-
tone wheels and a bright red paint job. Think pride. Think joy.
 My anger has subsided but the black hole survives within me, still and
even, sucking in the light. Ellis can’t get away with this. He can’t destroy
another life.
The air in the hospital feels dirty and recycled. Ruiz has gone to get tea
at the canteen, leaving me sitting at a table, staring at spilled sugar and an
old coffee ring.
Sienna is in a stable condition. Doctors have pumped her stomach to get
rid of any pill fragments and given her activated charcoal to bind the drugs
in her stomach and intestines, reducing the amount absorbed into her blood.
She overdosed on TCAs - antidepressants that are the drug of choice for
treating depression. The lethal dose is eight times the therapeutic dose,
which makes it a risky drug to have around someone like Sienna.
Shutting my eyes, I let exhaustion slide over me like a prison blanket.
My mind wants to curl up and sleep. Maybe I can wake up without any
blood on my hands.
Gordon Ellis did this. It was classic grooming behaviour. He drew
Sienna close and then pushed her away, constantly keeping her off balance.
He praised her then belittled her, withheld his affection and then doled it out
in token amounts until she began to question herself. She surrendered her
body and then her self-esteem. She slept with someone because he told her
to. She took an overdose because he told her to. This was the ultimate
demonstration of his control and of his arrogance.
Normally a predator focuses on the weak, but Ellis wanted a challenge.
He chose someone adventurous and outgoing, a risk taker. He took a bright,
vibrant young teenager and bent her, broke her, remade her and then broke
her again.
Ruiz has returned. He puts a mug of tea in front of me and begins
spooning sugar.
‘I don’t take any.’
‘You do today.’
He wants to hear the story. I start at the beginning and tell him about the
funeral and visiting Sienna. As the details emerge, so do the questions. Ellis
has a caravan somewhere down the coast. It could be the same caravan he
had in Scotland when his wife disappeared. The police could never find it.
Sienna couldn’t remember where they went. She said that she slept most
of the weekend and Gordon told her that she had food poisoning. Most
likely he drugged her. He could also have drugged Natasha when he had sex
with Sienna in their house. Sedatives, barbiturates, date-rape drugs, what
did he use?
Ellis covered his tracks. He didn’t leave notes or send text messages or
emails. When he picked Sienna up after school she had to hide beneath a
blanket on the back seat and turn off her mobile. He dropped her off at her
therapy sessions with Robin Blaxland and picked her up again afterwards.
Helen Hegarty appears in the canteen. She’s wearing a beige jumper and
slacks. Leaving Ruiz, I make my way between the tables, standing
uncomfortably as she searches her handbag for tissues.
‘How is she?’
Helen’s eyes focus past me. The skin around her mouth twitches. ‘They
put her in a coma. They say it’s going to help her.’
Lance Hegarty comes out of a nearby men’s room. He shoves me into a
table. Obscenities and spittle roll off his tongue. ‘Are you satisfied? You
won’t be happy until she’s dead.’
Ruiz moves swiftly to intercept, stepping between us.
Lance’s lips pull back from his teeth. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
Ruiz speaks softly. ‘Lower your voice, son, and show people some
respect. I’m asking you nicely.’
‘Fuck you!’
Lance swings a punch from his waist but Ruiz has been expecting it.
Knocking it aside with his left arm he sinks a short sharp jab into the
softness of the younger man’s belly. The anger in Lance’s eyes changes to
surprise. He doubles over, winded, and Ruiz lowers him into a chair,
apologising to Helen.
‘Maybe you should go,’ she says helplessly.
Lance squeaks, still trying to suck in a breath.
We retreat, leaving mother and son in the empty cafeteria. I can hear
them arguing as the lift door closes behind us.
‘Other people’s families,’ mutters Ruiz.
‘What about them?’
‘They should serve as a warning.’
 38
Ronnie Cray closes the barn door and drops a plank of wood into place.
She’s dressed in jeans, a checked shirt and Wellingtons that are caked in
mud. I hear horses inside. Smell them.
‘So this is what you do in your spare time?’
‘Yeah, I shovel horseshit.’
She wipes her hands on her jeans and then eyes Ruiz, who has never
been top of her dance card.
‘Mr Ruiz.’
She’s calling him ‘mister’ for a reason - letting him know that he no
longer has a police rank.
‘DCI.’
‘You’re looking older,’ she comments.
‘And you’re looking great. That’s the benefit of going braless - it pulls
all the wrinkles out of your face.’
‘Now, now, children, play nice,’ I tell them.
‘I’ll be nicer if he tries to be smarter,’ says Cray.
The DCI lights a cigarette, cupping her hands around the flame. The
lighter clinks shut and I catch a whiff of petrol.
‘The place is looking good,’ says Ruiz, trying not to be sarcastic.
Cray looks around. ‘It’s a dump.’
‘Yeah, but you’re doing it up.’
‘That’s one of the great traps of buying a place like this. You see all the
space and get excited, imagining beautiful lawns and gardens, but then you
spend every weekend removing tree stumps and rocks.’
‘When you’re not shovelling shit,’ says Ruiz.
‘Exactly.’
Cray pushes a wheelbarrow to the side of the barn and tosses a bucket
of vegetable scraps to the chickens.
‘On my mother’s side I have several generations of women shaped to
pull ploughs. My father’s side was a family of pen pushers - delicate as
Asians. In the genetic roll of the dice, I got the agricultural build.’
She carries the bucket towards the house. ‘I guess you gentlemen better
come inside.’
 Scraping mud from her boots and kicking them off, she ducks through a
doorway as though imagining herself to be two feet taller. The kitchen is
full of French provincial furniture and has copper-bottom pots hanging from
the ceiling. A tan cat stretches, circles and resettles on a shelf above the
stove. This is the champion ratter that Cray told me about, Strawberry’s
mother.
‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ she says, washing her hands. ‘This had
better be a social call. It’s Saturday and I’m off-duty.’
Neither of us answers.
‘You want a drink?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ says Ruiz, eyeing the row of liquor bottles
on top of the cupboard. ‘Scotch and a splash of water.’
‘I’m offering wine.’
The DCI pulls an open bottle from a shelf and cleans two wine-glasses
with a paper towel.
‘How about you, Professor?’
‘I’m OK.’
Ronnie is not the most social of women, which could have something to
do with her low regard for people and even lower expectations. Most of her
life is a mystery to me, although I know she was married briefly and has a
grown-up son. She doesn’t hide the fact that she’s gay, but neither is it open
for discussion. I suspect there have been women in her life who got under
her skin and into her heart, but now she seems to be closed off, anchored to
her memories like a lone sailor who looks out of place on dry land and is
only happy on her own.
Lighting another cigarette, she sucks hard into her lungs as if concerned
that fresh air without tobacco smoke might damage her health.
‘Sienna Hegarty overdosed yesterday afternoon,’ I tell her.
‘Where did she get the pills?’
‘She stole them from the meds trolley at Oakham House.’
Cray glances at my left hand. My thumb and forefinger are brushing
together, rolling an imaginary pill between them.
‘That’s not why you’re here.’
‘I talked to Sienna. She admitted sleeping with Gordon Ellis when she
was only thirteen. She was pregnant with his child.’
‘Will she make a statement?’
 ‘Yes, I think so. There’s something else: Gordon Ellis organised to meet
Sienna on the afternoon Ray Hegarty died.’
‘Natasha Ellis gave him an alibi.’
‘And you believe her?’
‘No, but it means that we have to prove otherwise.’
‘Danny Gardiner dropped Sienna on a corner on the Lower Bristol
Road, near a minicab office. From there she was taken to an address - she
can’t remember the location - and Ellis gave her instructions.’
‘What sort of instructions?’
‘She had to sleep with someone.’
Cray looks at me incredulously. ‘He pimped her!’
‘Gordon Ellis told her it was the final proof that she loved him.’
Cray wipes her face with her sleeve and wrinkles her nose as though
smelling an odour rising from her armpit. ‘Who was the john?’
‘She doesn’t remember the address and she didn’t get a name.’
‘So we just have her word for it?’
I borrow a piece of paper and a pen and begin jotting down names and
drawing lines between them. Sienna, Gordon Ellis, Caro Regan, Novak
Brennan and the Crying Man - all of them can be linked by one or more
acts of extreme violence.
Cray doesn’t react. She stubs out the cigarette and reaches for another.
‘You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t stop the presses, Professor.’ She flicks
the bottom of the packet and a cigarette pops out. ‘Forty years ago my
father changed the spelling of our surname because he didn’t want anyone
knowing we were related to Ronnie and Reggie Kray. He was their first
cousin. Never met them. But he didn’t want to be associated with a couple
of psycho gangsters.’
‘I don’t get your point.’
‘Some links are completely harmless. It’s like six degrees of separation
- we’re all linked by only a few steps.’
Ruiz reacts, ‘What sort of bullshit response—’
She cuts him off. ‘Let me finish. You’re probably right about Gordon
Ellis - the man got rid of his first wife and married one of his students - but
trying to tie him to Novak Brennan is stretching things too far. MI5 has
been investigating Brennan for six years. They’ve infiltrated local right-
wing organisations and neo-Nazi groups, surveilled meetings, bugged
phones, tailed cars and taken photographs. The name Gordon Ellis has
never come up.’
‘Ellis and Brennan went to university together.’
‘Fifteen years ago.’
‘What about the Crying Man?’
‘He’s your bogeyman - not mine. Stan Keating didn’t file a police
report. Nobody else has complained about this guy.’
Cray takes the harshness out of her tone. ‘If Sienna Hegarty makes a
statement I’ll investigate it personally. That’s a promise. But you and I both
know what happens next. It’s Sienna’s word against Ellis’s, and he has an
alibi. If we charge him with sexual assault, Sienna will have to give
evidence. She’ll be cross-examined by his barrister. Her personal life will
be scrutinised. Her character will be dissected. Wait till he gets to the
murder charge she’s facing . . .
‘Don’t look at me like that, Professor, I’m giving you the good news. A
word in the right ear and Ellis gets suspended and investigated by Social
Services, the Education Trust and his own union. He’ll have a child
protection team crawling up his arse and he’ll spend the next two years
fighting his way clear of them. And even if he wins, there won’t be a school
in the country that’ll risk employing him.’
Cray reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. My arm stops
trembling.
‘If I were you, Professor, I’d take a step back from all this. You’re
facing serious charges and you shouldn’t be talking to Sienna Hegarty. The
CPS called me yesterday. You can forget doing a psych report. They’ve
appointed someone else. If you really want to help Sienna, tell her to get a
good lawyer and to cut the best deal she can.’
‘She needs protection.’
‘I’ll put a guard on her room.’
‘She’s suicidal.’
‘We try to prevent deaths in custody.’
Everything Cray has said makes perfect sense but still I want to rail
against it. I’m all for making the best of a bad situation, but this smacks of
surrender, not compromise. Lawyers can be pragmatic and so can
detectives, but the victims have to live with the outcome.
As we walk away from the house I shake myself, trying to rid myself of
the conversation. My worst dread is that it may be contagious.
 39
Sunday morning, on the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. Ruiz is still
asleep in the spare room. His feet are sticking out from beneath a Night
Garden duvet and a pyramid of stuffed animals that collapsed during the
night. I can picture him wrestling teddy bears in his sleep and subduing
them with his breath.
I make coffee and breakfast. The smell wakes him and he appears
downstairs wearing just his Y-fronts and a singlet.
‘I thought you’d be a boxer man,’ I tell him.
‘What’s wrong with these?’
‘They’re man briefs.’
‘They’re Y-fronts.’
‘If you say so.’
He looks at himself over his stomach. ‘I’ve always worn Y-fronts. ’
‘Good for you.’
‘They’re comfortable.’
‘I’m sure they are. A lot of body builders and cowboys wear them.’
Ruiz gives me a pitying look. ‘You’re a weird fucker.’
‘Where are you going? I got breakfast ready.’
‘I’m getting dressed.’
While we eat he talks me through what he did yesterday afternoon after
we left Ronnie Cray’s farm. He began by staking out the minicab company
- hoping to get a glimpse of the Crying Man.
‘He didn’t show up, but something occurred to me while I was watching
the place. A lot of the drivers were picking up young women dressed to the
nines - short skirts, high heels, lots of face paint. They’d drop these girls at
an address and then wait for them.’
‘For how long?’
‘An hour - sometimes more.’
‘And you have a theory?’
‘Smells like sex.’
‘Escorts.’
I think back to the girl I saw waiting at the minicab office when I was
showing Sienna’s photograph around. Mid-twenties and dressed to kill, yet
unsmiling and cold. I’ve seen the look before in my consulting room and
when I’ve lectured groups of prostitutes about staying safe on the streets.
Ruiz takes the last rasher of bacon from the pan. ‘Sienna was dropped
on the same corner. Maybe it was a commercial transaction - somebody
ordered a young girl and the escort service provided one - courtesy of
Gordon Ellis.’
‘But what does Ellis get out of it?’
‘Money. Favours.’
‘He’s interested in schoolgirls not prostitutes.’
‘What then?’
I think about Sienna - the stolen pills, the suicide attempt - there isn’t a
court in the land that will grant her bail after what’s happened. Gordon Ellis
reached her once and could risk it again because Sienna is so vulnerable and
easily to manipulate. She’s also his weakest link.
Ruiz licks his fingers. ‘I still don’t understand how he did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘How did Ellis get to Sienna? She was in a secure unit.’
‘Maybe he called her.’
‘Phone calls are monitored and can be traced. Visitors have to be
registered.’
‘So if he didn’t call and didn’t visit . . . ?’
I run through the events in my head again. When Ray Hegarty was
found dead in Sienna’s room, the only thing missing was her laptop.
‘What about her email account?’
‘The police checked her service provider.’
‘So she used someone else’s computer . . .’
Even before I finish the sentence, I realise what I’ve missed.
‘Grab your coat,’ I tell Ruiz.
‘Where we going?’
‘To see Charlie.’
Julianne answers the door and kisses Ruiz on each cheek, telling him he
needs to shave. Emma squeaks in surprise and demands the big man’s
undivided attention like a jealous girlfriend.
Charlie is still in bed. She won’t surface until at least eleven, citing
mental fatigue and exhaustion from too much schoolwork. I send Emma
upstairs to wake her.
‘What if she won’t wake up?’
 ‘Jump on her head,’ says Ruiz.
A few minutes later I can hear Charlie yelling at Emma. Something is
thrown. Something falls with a bump.
Ruiz calls from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Front and centre, young lady,
you don’t want me coming in there to get you.’
Charlie goes silent.
Ruiz resumes his seat at the kitchen table. Julianne has offered to make
him breakfast and he’s going to eat a second one.
‘So I hear you’re getting a divorce,’ he says, making it sound like she’s
buying a new car.
The statement lands like a rock in a still pond. Julianne looks at him
suspiciously and continues cracking eggs into a bowl. ‘We’ve been
separated for more than two years.’
‘You both have to consent.’
Julianne switches her gaze to me. Accusingly. ‘It’s really none of your
business, Vincent,’ she says.
‘If you’re too embarrassed to talk about it . . .’
‘I’m not embarrassed.’
‘Maybe you should change the subject,’ I tell Ruiz.
‘So you don’t love him any more?’ he asks her.
Julianne hesitates. ‘I don’t love him like I used to.’
‘Jesus Christ, there’s only one sort of love.’
‘No there’s not,’ she says angrily. ‘You don’t love a child the same way
as you love a husband or you love a friend or you love a parent or you love
a movie.’
‘So what is it you don’t love about him?’
Julianne is beating the eggs like she wants to bruise them.
‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
Ruiz isn’t going to let up. ‘He’s still in love with you.’
‘Yes,’ says Julianne. ‘I know.’
‘And that doesn’t make any difference?’
‘It makes the world of difference. It makes it harder.’
‘I am in the room,’ I remind them.
‘Yes,’ replies Julianne. ‘Please tell Vincent to leave this alone.’
He raises his hands. ‘OK, but just answer me one thing - is it because
he’s sick?’
 I feel myself cringe. Julianne stiffens. It’s as though the air has been
sucked out of the room and we’re sitting in a vacuum.
No longer beating the eggs, she whispers, ‘I know what you’re trying to
do, Vincent, but I don’t need you to make me feel guilty. I feel guilty
enough already. What sort of wife abandons her husband when he’s sick? I
know that’s what people are saying behind my back. I’m a hard-hearted
bitch. I’m the villain.’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘Everyone loves Joe. He makes people feel special. He makes everyone
feel as though they’re the only person in the room. I used to get so jealous -
I used to wish someone would say something nasty or cruel about him. It
was terrible. I hate myself for that.’
Julianne won’t look at me now.
‘You don’t know what it’s like - watching him crumble, knowing it’s
going to get worse, knowing I can’t help him.’
‘You’re wrong,’ says Ruiz, softening his tone. ‘I watched my first wife
die of cancer.’
‘And look what happened!’ says Julianne. ‘You ran off the rails. You
abandoned the twins and went off to Bosnia. You’re still trying to make it
right with them.’
The hurt flashes in Ruiz’s eyes. I never met his first wife, but I know
she died of breast cancer and that Ruiz nursed her through her final weeks
and months. Days after her death, he quit his job and went to Bosnia as a
UN peacekeeper, leaving the twins with family. He couldn’t bear to be
around anything that reminded him of Laura, including his own children.
Julianne wants to take the comment back. ‘I’m sorry, Vincent,’ she says
softly. ‘I’m just trying to hold myself together - for the sake of the girls.’
Charlie appears, still in her pyjamas, her hair tousled and bed-worn.
‘Morning, Princess,’ says Ruiz. ‘Do I get a hug?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re not my girlfriend any more?’
‘As if!’
‘Maybe if I were twenty-five years younger?’
‘Try fifty.’
Everybody laughs - even Charlie, who slouches on a chair and puts her
elbows on the table. ‘Why is everyone shouting?
‘We’re not shouting,’ replies Julianne. ‘We’re having a discussion. ’
 Julianne asks if she wants some eggs. Charlie shakes her head.
‘Did Sienna ever use your computer?’ I ask.
‘I guess. Sometimes.’
‘Do you know what sort of stuff she was doing?’
‘Why?’
‘I’m trying to find out what sites she visited or if she sent any messages
to people.’
Charlie puts two slices of bread into the toaster.
‘So you want to look at my computer?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’re not spying on me?’
‘No.’
Then she shrugs. ‘I got nothing to hide.’
After she butters her toast, I follow her upstairs to her room where she
munches noisily in my ear as the laptop boots up. She once described her
bedroom as being ‘designer messy’, as though she dropped clothes with
artistic intent.
‘Do you remember the last time Sienna used it?’
‘When she slept over.’
It was probably a week night. I search through the history directory,
going back to before Sienna’s arrest. I recognise some of the sites -
Facebook, Bebo and YouTube. There are some music pages and Google
searches.
‘Are these your searches?’ I ask.
‘I think so.’
‘Can you see anything unusual? Something you wouldn’t have called
up.’
Scrolling through the history directory, she runs her finger down the
screen. One site comes up regularly: Teenbuzz.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s a chat room. Loads of my friends use it.’
‘Sienna?’
‘Sure.’
‘What’s your username?’
She looks at me sheepishly. ‘Madforyou.’
‘What about Sienna’s?’
‘She’s Hippychick.’
 The site has a variety of different chat rooms with names like ‘Just
Friends’, ‘Young at Heart’ and the ‘Chillout Room’. Some are forums on
music, movies or relationships, but all come with a list of warnings,
advising users not to give out personal contact details, addresses or to use
their real names.• You are strongly advised to NEVER meet anyone that
you know just from the Internet.• Predatory, threatening, harassing and
illegal behaviour will not be tolerated. The police will be contacted and
offenders prosecuted.
‘How often did Sienna use the chat room?’
‘Pretty much every day.’
Charlie can see where I’m going with this. ‘It’s really safe, Dad. We’re
not stupid - we’re not going to tell people where we live. We just chat.’
‘Did Sienna have any favourite people she chatted with?’
Charlie falters. ‘I guess.’
‘Who?’
‘There was this one guy, Rockaboy.’
‘What do you know about him?’
She shrugs. ‘They used to meet.’
‘Where?’
‘In a private chat room.’
‘They were alone?’
‘Chill out, Dad, it’s not like you can get pregnant typing messages to
someone.’
‘Did you ever chat to this Rockaboy?’
Charlie brushes hair away from her eyes. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Did he say anything about himself?’
‘You’re not supposed to do that.’
‘He must have given some clues.’
She sits cross-legged on her bed, balancing her plate on her knee. ‘He
likes some of the indie bands like Arctic Monkeys and The Kooks. He
doesn’t like school very much.’
‘Did he like the same music as Sienna?’
Charlie frowns. ‘How did you know that?’
‘What about his favourite subject at school?’
‘Drama.’
Feeling uncomfortable, Charlie changes the subject. ‘Are you coming
Tuesday night?’
 ‘Where?’
‘To the school musical.’
‘I thought it was postponed.’
‘Mr Ellis has decided to go ahead. We’re giving one performance only.
Jodie Marks is going to play Sienna’s role. Do you think Sienna is going to
mind?’
Charlie doesn’t know about the suicide attempt and I’m not going to tell
her. It can be something else she blames me for later.
‘Can I go see her?’ she asks.
‘Not today.’
Side by side we walk up the hill, filling the silence with our breathing.
Ruiz limps slightly on his shorter leg - the legacy of a high-velocity bullet
that tore through his upper thigh leaving a four-inch exit hole. A second
bullet amputated his wedding finger. That was five years ago when he was
found floating in the Thames, bleeding out, without any memory of the
shooting.
Ruiz survived the bullet and the memories coming back. Some people
are meant to prevail. They stay calm and collected under extreme pressure,
while others panic and unravel. We each have a crisis personality - a
mindset that kicks in when things go badly wrong. True survivors know
when to act and when to hold back, choosing the right moment and making
the right choice. Psychologists call it ‘active passiveness’ - when doing
something can mean doing nothing. Action can mean inaction. This is the
paradox that can save your life.
‘Ellis used an Internet chat room to reach Sienna,’ I say.
‘How did she get access to a computer?’
‘She must have borrowed one at Oakham House. It could also explain
why her laptop was stolen that night.’
‘He’s covering his tracks.’
Above us the sun radiates through thin gauze-like cloud, but still seems
bright enough to snap me in half. Even before I reach the house I notice the
unmarked police car. DS Abbott and Safari Roy are sitting on a low brick
wall, eating sandwiches from grease-stained paper bags.
Monk chews slowly, making us wait.
‘We had a complaint,’ he says. ‘Natasha Ellis says you turned up at her
house on Friday. Is that true?’
 Before I can answer, Ruiz interrupts. ‘It was my fault, Detective. I went
to see Gordon Ellis.’
Monk looks at him doubtfully. ‘Why was that?’
‘Sienna Hegarty had taken an overdose and was in hospital. She said
that Gordon Ellis had taken liberties with her.’
‘Liberties?’
Ruiz can make a lie sound noble. ‘Yes, sir. Liberties. I was angry. I may
have done something I regretted if it weren’t for Joe. He stopped me and
calmed me down.’
Monk’s not buying a word of it. He turns his gaze to mine. ‘So let me
get this straight, Professor. The only reason you were outside Gordon Ellis’s
house was to prevent a disturbance?’
Monk wants me to agree with the statement.
Ruiz pipes up, ‘That’s what happened.’
‘I’m asking the Professor,’ says the DS, waiting.
I look at Ruiz and then at Safari Roy, who is nodding his head up and
down slowly.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘that’s what happened.’
Monk opens the lid of a rubbish bin on the footpath and drops his
sandwich wrapper inside.
‘Mrs Ellis must have been mistaken.’ He lets the statement hang in the
air. ‘If she’d been correct we would have had to arrest you, Professor, for
breaching a protection order.’
I don’t reply.
‘Sienna Hegarty is being interviewed tomorrow and we’re going to
investigate her allegations. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to impede or
jeopardise our inquiries.’
‘No.’
Monk seems satisfied, and signals to Safari Roy, who has dripped egg
yolk on to his tie and is trying to wipe it off with a handkerchief.
An electric window glides lower.
‘Have a good day, gentlemen,’ says Monk. ‘Mind how you go.’
 40
Annie Robinson isn’t answering. I press the intercom again and give her
another few seconds before walking back to my car. A horn toots. Annie is
pulling into a space. She has bags of groceries.
‘If you’re busy . . .’
‘No, you can help me carry these.’
She drapes me in plastic bags and I follow her inside. She’s wearing
shrunk-tight jeans, leather boots and a concho belt that dangles below a
fitted black shirt. My eyes are fixed on her denim-clad thighs as she walks
ahead of me. I remember them wrapped around me and I get that feeling
again.
Annie unlocks the door and leads me through to the kitchen, where she
begins unpacking the bags, talking constantly.
‘I know I said I was sorry about the other night, but I really mean it. I
never do things like that.’
Does she mean she never gets drunk or never knocks on a man’s door
and abuses him for ignoring her?
‘It’s a little blonde of me, don’t you think?’
‘Maybe just your roots showing.’
She smiles back at me. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Sit down. Have lunch.’
She heats up two small quiches and opens a plastic bag of washed salad
leaves. She’s used to cooking for one, buying prepackaged, ready-made
meals.
I look around the flat.
‘This is a nice place.’
‘Rented. I couldn’t afford it otherwise. I can’t really afford it now, but
I’ve spent my entire life waiting for things. I don’t do that any more. The
only point of waiting is if you have something worth waiting for. That’s a
good kind of waiting.’
‘I didn’t know there were different sorts of waiting.’
‘Oh, there are. That’s the mystery.’ She laughs and her thin blonde hair
sways.
 ‘Let’s eat in the garden.’ She points through the glass doors to a small
round table inlaid with blue and white tiles. She sets out two forks and
knives, two plates and two napkins.
‘Do you ever think about your ex-husband?’ I ask.
She’s drizzling dressing on the salad. ‘No.’
‘Not at all?’
‘David Robinson. There you go - that’s the first time I’ve said his name
in months. I did think of changing back to my maiden name when we got
divorced, but I couldn’t be bothered getting a new passport and driver’s
licence.’
Annie is about to light a candle. ‘Is this too much?’
‘Probably.’
‘OK, no candle.’
She opens the oven door. They’re still not ready.
‘You mentioned a photograph of Gordon Ellis and Novak Brennan.’
‘Yes. Come look.’
I follow her into the bedroom where she pulls out an old photograph
album from the shelf in her wardrobe. We sit side by side on her bed,
leafing through the pages.
‘That’s me there,’ she says. ‘I’m with my friend Jodie and that’s Heidi
and her boyfriend Matt. You see Gordon? He’s with Alison. They went out
for about three months and then he started dating Jodie. She’s the blonde.
They went out for almost a year. The longest of anyone.’
Jodie’s hair is cut short and she has a long slender neck and big eyes.
‘She looks about twelve,’ I say.
Annie laughs. ‘Jodie was always getting carded when we went out.’
She turns the page. ‘There’s Gordon again.’
He is wearing a trench coat cinched at the waist, which he probably
bought from a charity shop because he thought it made him look urbane and
cool. Instead he looks like he’s dressed in his father’s clothes.
The photograph was taken at a party. Ellis is grinning at the camera with
his arms draped around Jodie and Annie, his outspread fingers suspended
above their breasts. There’s nothing wolfish about the pose, but he’s a man
who knows what he wants.
‘This is the photo I was talking about,’ she says, pointing to another
image taken in the same series. A person hovers at the edge of the frame,
trying to avoid the camera - a younger Novak Brennan with longer hair and
fewer lines. His face is partially obscured by Annie’s raised arm holding a
beer glass. Only one eye is visible and the camera flash has turned it red.
‘Did you know him?’ I ask.
‘I didn’t remember him at all until I saw the picture. I think he shared a
house with Gordon. They were always hanging around together.’
‘But if you were friends with Gordon . . .’
‘He dated my girlfriends, remember?’
‘Where were these taken?’
She shrugs. ‘Some party. You’re not supposed to remember them - that’s
the whole point of college.’
Annie turns more pages of the album. There are photographs of a
holiday in Turkey, Annie in a bikini, lying on the deck of a sailing boat. She
looks good.
‘You don’t want to see these old things,’ she says, not closing the page
immediately.
We’re sitting close enough for her breast to brush against my forearm.
‘Maybe those quiches are ready,’ I suggest.
Annie cocks her head, having read the signal.
‘Do you have to be somewhere?’
‘I promised I’d take Emma to the park.’
It’s a lie. Annie knows it.
‘Well, at least have something to eat.’
She leaves me in the bedroom. I keep turning the pages of the album.
There are more photographs from college. Foundation Day celebrations.
Theatre productions. A charity car rally with a customised VW beetle. A
black-tie dinner on a bridge.
Gordon Ellis features in several more images, often in the background.
One particular shot stands out because two girls are dancing in the
foreground. Behind them, to one side, Ellis can be seen kissing a girl on a
sofa, twisting her head towards his. Both their mouths are open, an inch
apart, and he looks like a bird about to deposit food in a chick’s beak.
The glass coffee table in front of them is littered with drug
paraphernalia and traces of white powder in smudged lines.
I study the girl on the sofa. Gordon’s hat obscures most of her face, but
she has a small dark mole on her shoulder blade, just below her neck. I have
kissed that spot. Felt her pulse quicken beneath my lips.
 Annie calls from the kitchen. Taking the photograph with me, I slip it on
to the table next to her plate. She glances at it but says nothing. Instead a
strange transformation seems to take place. Rising from her chair, she walks
around the garden, examining the shrubs and new blooms.
‘It’s not just the parties you forget,’ she says. ‘A lot of things about
college are best left alone.’
‘You’re kissing Gordon Ellis.’
‘I’m snogging him, to be exact.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I dated him twice. That’s as far as it went.’
Annie sighs and her eyes grow brighter as though a generator is
spinning inside her.
‘What about Novak Brennan - how much more do you know about
him?’
‘He had a reputation on campus for dealing.’
‘Dealing?’
‘Hash. Ecstasy. Speed. Cocaine. Novak could get it. He was always
very mysterious. People said he’d been to prison, but I don’t know if that’s
true.’
Annie takes the photograph and tears it into pieces, letting the scraps
fall into the garden. She keeps her face turned away from mine.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘The past is the past.’
The chemistry of our conversation has changed. Annie picks up her
wine glass, her hand trembling slightly. The quiches are growing cold.
‘Sienna tried to commit suicide on Friday. She took an overdose. ’
Annie doesn’t react. Dissected by the afternoon sun, the skin on her face
looks coarse and grained.
‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘She’s out of danger. Before she went to hospital she told me something
that puzzled me.’
‘What was that?’
‘She said you asked her if she was seeing Gordon Ellis outside of
school. It was late last year.’
Annie holds the glass to her lips for a beat. Her eyes meet mine over the
rim, a private thought buried within them.
‘I heard she was babysitting for him.’
 ‘You suspected something?’
‘I thought it was inappropriate.’
‘But you didn’t say anything to the school or to Sienna’s parents.’
A sharper edge in her voice. ‘You think I covered it up.’
‘I think you knew. I think you protected Gordon. I want to know why.’
She puts down the wineglass. All remaining warmth has gone.
‘It’s time you left.’
‘Explain it to me, Annie.’
‘Go now or I’ll call the police.’
Taking my coat from the lounge, I walk to the front door. Annie unlocks
it for me. I want to say something. I want to warn her about getting too
close to Gordon Ellis because everything he touches begins to rot and
perish. Suddenly she grasps my forearms through my shirt and plants a kiss
on me, hard but not mean, whispering into my mouth.
‘That’s what you’re missing.’
 41
The problem with secrets and lies is that you can never tell which is
which until you dig them up and sniff. Some things are buried for
safekeeping; some are buried to hide the stench; and some are buried
because they’re toxic and take a long time to disappear.
Annie Robinson lies as easily as she kisses. I can still taste her. I can see
her eyes beneath her fringe, awkward and sad. I see a woman ready to
surrender completely - to freefall into love, if only to escape the memories
of a bad marriage.
Thirty minutes later I’m almost home. My mobile is chirruping. Ruiz.
‘I’ve found the freak with the tattoos.’
‘Where?’
‘I was watching the minicab office, thinking he was never going to
show, thinking I got better things to do, thinking about how I’m retired and
I’m too old for this shit . . .’
‘OK, OK.’
‘Anyway, he finally turned up and picked up a girl. He took her to a
hotel in Bristol. Fancy place. Dropped her off. Waited downstairs while she
did her horizontal polka with some suit on a business trip. Afterwards he
dropped her at a train station and drove to a gaff off the Stapleton Road - a
bed and breakfast hotel called the Royal. Place needs a facelift or a
bulldozer. Now he’s in a pub around the corner. I’m sitting outside.’
‘Do we know his name?’
‘Mate of mine - shall remain nameless - ran the number plate. It’s an
Audi A4 registered to a Mark Conlon. Lives in Cardiff. Nameless is running
a full computer check. He should have something in a few hours. You want
to join me? I’m not fronting this freak alone.’
I don’t think we should front him at all.
Thirty minutes later I knock on the steamed-up window of his
Mercedes. Ruiz unlocks the doors and I slide inside. Sinatra is singing ‘Fly
Me to the Moon’. Takeaway wrappers litter the floor.
Ruiz offers me a cold chip.
‘I’ve eaten.’
 ‘Yeah, but what were you eating? Is that lipstick I see? You’ve been
knobbing your schoolteacher friend while I’ve been out here freezing my
bollocks off.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Shame. Is there lipstick anywhere else?’
‘You have a one-track mind.’
‘When you get to my age it’s the only track worth playing.’
We’re outside an ugly modern pub with red-brick walls, small windows
and harsh lines. Streetlights reflect from the wet black pavement. Ruiz takes
a sip from a thermos mug.
‘You been inside?’
‘Not yet.’
Glancing at the pub I ponder the wisdom of this. We don’t know
anything about Conlon except that he put three men in hospital and one of
them now speaks through a hole in his neck.
‘Novak Brennan was supplying drugs at university. Ellis might have
been one of his dealers.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Annie Robinson.’
Ruiz rolls down his window and tosses the dregs of his tea. ‘Novak
always knew how to spot a gap in the market.’
The pub door opens. Light spills out. Two men step on to the pavement.
Conlon is the taller of the two. He’s wearing dark jeans and a hooded
sweatshirt. The second man is older with a receding hairline and a stiff
military bearing. He’s dressed in a beige raincoat, carrying an umbrella like
a walking stick.
Conlon glances down the street. For a moment he seems to be looking
directly at us, but it’s too dark for him to see anyone inside the Merc.
Conlon reacts to something. He grabs the man by the lapels and pushes him
hard against the side of a car. The older man is nodding. Scared.
Conlon shoves him away and gets behind the wheel. The Audi pulls
away.
‘You want to follow him?’ asks Ruiz.
The older man is walking towards us.
‘Wait! I want to see who this is.’
Reaching below the dash, Ruiz pops the bonnet. Climbing out, he
unhooks the latch and the bonnet hinges open. The man has almost reached
us. The streetlight reflects from his bald patch and his umbrella clicks on
the pavement with each second step.
‘Hey, guv, you wouldn’t happen to have any jumper leads?’ asks Ruiz.
‘I can’t get a spark out of this thing.’
The man barely pauses. Looking flustered and feverish, he mumbles a
reply and keeps walking. He’s in his fifties with a solitary band of greying
hair that warms the top of his ears. I know him from somewhere.
‘Is there a garage nearby?’ asks Ruiz.
The man stops and turns. ‘Perhaps you should call the AA.’ His accent
is public school. Genteel. Erudite.
‘Not a member,’ says Ruiz. ‘Always thought it was a waste of money.
Isn’t that the way?’
‘Quite,’ says the man, turning again. His eyes meet mine. I see no hint
of recognition.
‘Well, you have a nice evening,’ says Ruiz.
His umbrella swings and clicks as he walks away.
Ruiz shuts the bonnet and slides back behind the wheel.
‘Now there’s a turn-up.’ He glances in the rear-view mirror.
‘You recognised him.’
‘Didn’t you?’
That’s the thing about Ruiz: he doesn’t forget. He has a memory for
names, dates, places and faces - for the victims and perpetrators - going
back ten, twenty, thirty years.
‘I know I’ve seen him somewhere,’ I say.
‘You saw him on Thursday.’
And then I remember . . . Bristol Crown Court . . . he was sitting in the
front row of the jury box. The foreman.
Ruiz has found my father’s birthday present - the bottle of Scotch I
forgot to wrap or to send. He cracks the lid and pours a generous amount
over ice before settling the bottle on a table in the lounge where it can keep
him company.
We sit opposite each other, listening to the ice melting. Ruiz once told
me that he didn’t talk politics any more, or read newspapers, or watch the
News at Ten. One of his ex-wives had accused him of opting out of public
debate. Ruiz told her that he’d served his tour of duty. He’d manned the
barricades against outraged pacifists, anti-globalisation protesters, poll-tax
rioters and hunt saboteurs. He had fought the good fight against the violent,
corrupt, treacherous, hypocritical, cowardly, deviant and insane. Now it was
time for others to take up the battle because he had given up trying to save
or change the world. He simply wanted to survive it.
‘What did we just see?’ I ask.
‘We saw evidence of jury tampering.’
‘Maybe it was a chance meeting?’
‘It’s against the law to approach a member of a jury.’
‘He’s one of twelve.’
‘He’s the foreman!’
‘Yeah, but he’s not Henry Fonda and this isn’t Twelve Angry Men. You
need ten jurors for a majority verdict.’
‘What about a hung jury? You need three.’
‘Maybe they have three.’
‘So there’s a retrial and they do it all again with a different jury. That
doesn’t help Novak.’
‘So what do you suggest?’ I say.
‘We have to tell someone.’
‘The judge?’
Ruiz almost chokes. ‘You’re joking. He’ll abort the trial. That poor kid
giving evidence will have to go through it all again.’
‘Maybe he’ll just dismiss the foreman. The jury can still deliberate.
Eleven is enough.’
Ruiz stares at the fireplace. ‘Maybe we should talk to a lawyer.’
He gives Eddie Barrett a call. Puts him on speakerphone. It’s a bank
holiday Monday and somebody is going to pay for Eddie’s fifteen minutes -
probably me. His voice comes through like a foghorn.
‘You two bumboys are getting a reputation. You’re like Elton and David
without the wedding. I thought you’d retired, Ruiz.’
‘On holidays.’
‘Try Benidorm next time, or Jamaica. Get yourself some black bootie.
What do you want?’
‘I got a hypothetical,’ says Ruiz.
‘I hate fucking hypotheticals. Don’t you fairies ever deal with real
situations?’
‘We weren’t boy scouts like you, Eddie.’
‘Dib fucking dob. What’s your hypothetical?’
 Ruiz pitches the question: ‘You’re at trial. You discover the foreman of
the jury meeting up with an acquaintance of the defendant. This particular
acquaintance has a history of violence. And this particular defendant has a
history of getting away with murder. What do you do?’
‘Am I the defence or the prosecution?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Sure it fucking matters.’
‘You’re neutral.’
‘Could it be an accidental meeting?’
‘Doubtful.’
Eddie sucks air through his teeth. ‘The trial is probably fucked but the
judge might just cut the foreman loose. Warn the jury. Keep going.’
‘So you’d tell the judge?’
‘Nah, I’d tell the police.’
‘Will you help us?’ I ask.
Eddie laughs. ‘Now there’s a fucking hypothetical!’
 42
Tuesday morning, sunny and warm - the forecast said rain. The roads
are quiet on the drive to Bristol. Ruiz has one hand on the wheel and an
elbow propped on the window.
His contact in the Met got back to him overnight. The name Mark
Conlon threw up one match - a bank manager from Pontypool who lost his
licence four years ago for drink-driving. Five ten. Brown hair. No tattoos.
He’s not the Crying Man. The plates on the Audi were either stolen or
copied. We’re back to square one. Maybe Ronnie Cray will have more luck.
We decide to breakfast near Queen’s Square in a modern place full of
chrome furniture and hissing steam. The waitresses are Romanian girls in
short black skirts, who slip outside for cigarettes while it’s quiet. Ruiz
orders a fried egg and bacon sandwich (‘On proper bread not that
sourdough shit’). He flicks through the paper. The Novak Brennan trial is
still page one.
Marco Kostin will resume giving evidence today. I can picture him in
the witness box with hyper-real clarity, every tremor and blink and turn of
his head. The cross-examination is still to come and three barristers will be
queuing up to pick holes in his story.
The door opens. A tangle-footed teenager comes in wearing cycling
gear. Multicoloured. A courier. He talks to a Romanian waitress. Kisses her
lips. Young love.
‘I got a strange feeling about yesterday,’ says Ruiz.
‘Which bit of yesterday are we talking about?’
‘When I was following the freak with the tattoos, I stayed well behind
him. I wanted to make sure he didn’t know he was being tailed. When he
dropped off the pavement princess. When he picked her up. When he went
to the shithole hotel. I stayed out of sight.’
‘What’s so strange about that?’
‘It’s probably nothing.’ Ruiz shrugs. ‘I just got an impression that
maybe he knew I was there. Once or twice he seemed to slow down, like he
didn’t want the lights to change and for me to miss them.’
‘He knew he was being followed?’
 ‘That’s what it seemed like.’ Ruiz pushes his plate away. ‘Maybe we
should check out his gaff before we talk to Cray. We could take a run over
to the hotel; have ourselves a sticky.’
‘What about the trial?’
‘It’s not going to end today.’
On the street outside, Ruiz drops a coin into a busker’s hat and keeps
walking, crossing the pedestrian precinct. We pull out of the underground
car park, passing over the floating harbour to Temple Circus where we turn
north along Temple Way. Taking the exit at Old Market Street, we pass
close by Trinity Road Police Station on our way to Easton.
Stapleton Road has notices stuck to power poles warning against kerb
crawling and drug dealing. It’s early and the crack whores and street dealers
are still in their coffins. We park in Belmont Street around the corner from
the mosque. A Muslim woman with letterbox eyes waddles past us, pushing
a pram. She could be seventeen or seventy-five.
The Royal Hotel is a crumbling three-storey building with metal bars on
the lower windows. An old black man sits in the sunshine on the front steps.
His hands are dotted with liver spots and they shake slightly, not with
Parkinson’s but some kind of palsy. He’s reading a newspaper, holding it at
arm’s length. An unwrapped sandwich rests half-eaten on a brown paper
bag.
‘Morning,’ says Ruiz, ‘beautiful day.’
The cleaner blinks and shields his eyes with a hand. ‘You right about
dat, mon.’
‘You taking a break?’
‘Been cleanin’ since first ting.’
Ruiz sits on the steps. ‘I’m Vincent and this is Joe.’
The old man nods. ‘Dey call me Clive.’
‘Like Clive Lloyd.’
‘Well, he from Guyana and I’m from Jamaica, but dat’s close enough.’
His chuckle sounds like he’s playing a bassoon.
Folding his newspaper casually, he takes another mouthful of his
sandwich, wondering why two white men are interested in talking to a hotel
cleaner when most people treat him like he’s invisible.
Ruiz raises his face to the sun and closes his eyes. ‘I’m a former police
officer, Clive, and we’re looking for a man with dark hair, slicked back, and
tattoos on his face like he’s crying black tears.’
 The old cleaner reacts as though he’s been scalded. He gets up from the
steps and shakes his head so that his thin frame quivers.
‘Don’ talk to me about dis biznezz.’
‘Why not?’
‘The Lord gonna call his chillun home before dat man bring anyting
good to dis world.’
‘Is he staying here?’
‘He’s got himself a room. Don’ know if he sleeps in it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Don’ see him much. I mind my own biznezz.’
‘But you clean his room?’
Clive shakes his head. ‘He don’ want no cleaning. He puts a sign on his
door says, no cleaning. Suits me. Dem pay me by de hour not de room.’
The cleaner taps the newspaper against his thigh. ‘Well, I better be
gettin’ back to work.’
‘The man with the tattoos - do you know his name?’
‘No, mon.’
‘You ever talk to him?’
Clive shakes his head, his forehead full of creases. ‘Mon like that, don’
wanna talk to someone like me. He don’ like my colour.’
‘What gave you that impression?’
‘Couple of black kids were breaking into his motor. Dey was running
away, but he caught dem. Made one of dem boys eat dog shit. Made him
kneel on de ground and chow down. Never see dat before. D’other boy
won’ be eating solids for a while. His mama gonna be feeding him strained
bananas.’
Swallowing drily, he leans down to rewrap his sandwich, no longer
hungry.
‘You’ve been very helpful,’ says Ruiz, shaking the cleaner’s hand. Clive
looks at the ten-pound note in his palm. Closes his fingers. Opens them
again just to be sure.
‘Maybe you could do one more thing for us,’ says Ruiz. ‘This guy must
have signed something. You could show us the hotel register.’
Clive pockets the money, putting it deep inside his jeans, and then
glances up and down the street before shepherding us into a tired-looking
reception room with faded wallpaper and worn carpet. The register is a long
rectangular book with ink stains on the cover. Opening the pages, he runs a
knobbly finger down the room numbers.
Room 6. Paid for in cash, a month in advance. A signature rather than a
name - but he included the registration number for the Audi.
It doesn’t help us.
Clive closes the book, sliding it into a desk drawer. ‘Well, I got work to
do.’
‘You should clean Room 6,’ says Ruiz.
The old cleaner looks horrified. ‘Don’ you be tinking like dat.’
‘Like what?’
‘Tinking I’m gonna open up dat mon’s room.’
Ruiz tilts his chin to the ceiling and sniffs. ‘You smell that?’
Clive raises his chin. ‘Don’ smell nothing.’
‘Smoke,’ says Ruiz.
‘There ain’t no smoke.’
Ruiz vaults up the crazy network of stairs runs between the floors. He
stops on the first landing. ‘Definitely smoke; coming from one of the
rooms. Might be a fire.’
The cleaner drags himself up to the same level. Ruiz is outside No. 6.
‘I think we should call the fire brigade and evacuate this place.’
Clive is shaking his head back and forth. ‘No, no, no, don’t be doing
dat, mon.’
Ruiz touches the door. ‘Feels a little warm. Maybe you should open up -
just to be sure.’
‘Get away with you.’
‘You ever heard of something called probable cause, Clive? It means
you have the right to enter if you think there’s a good reason.’
‘But there ain’t no fire!’
‘You don’t know that for certain.’
The keys jangle on the cleaner’s belt. He looks at us sadly and shakes
his head in surrender.
The key turns and the door opens into gloom. Ruiz reaches for the light
switch. The bed hasn’t been slept in and the curtains are drawn. There’s a
wardrobe with double doors and a mirror in between. A side table next to
the bed, a suitcase pushed under the springs. I can hear a dripping sound,
which might be outside the walls or within.
 Ruiz is moving through the room, opening the wardrobe and the
drawers, peering beneath the bed. There is a strange smell to the place that
tightens the nostrils and crimps the lips.
‘Ain’t nuttin here, mon.’ says Clive. ‘Let’s go.’
Somewhere below I hear a door open. I glance over the railing, down
the stairs, but can’t see anyone. At that moment a pigeon takes off from the
window ledge, battering its wings against the glass. My heart takes off as
well.
‘Maybe we should leave,’ I say.
Ruiz has pulled the suitcase from under the bed. He uses a handkerchief
on the handle and covers his fingers as he slips each latch, lifting the lid,
exposing the contents.
There are folders of newspaper clippings and photographs. Street
scenes. Faces. Headlines. I recognise Bristol Crown Court. Protesters are
waving placards and banners. Police are shown confronting the crowd,
pushing them back. A face is circled with red marker pen: a woman in a
grey jacket with an ID card around her neck. Police are allowing her
through a checkpoint. I recognise her. Another juror.

Ronnie Cray doesn’t want to meet us at Trinity Road. This is unofficial,

off the record, deniable. She chooses a snooker club in the old part of the
city where the buildings look like compacted teeth and sacks of rubbish
have stained the footpaths. The baize tables are upstairs and I can hear balls
being racked up and broken.
Cray is waiting at a table in the bar, nursing a cup of tea. She glances at
me, then at Ruiz, her eyes neutral, then picks up her cup and takes a sip.
‘I thought you’d gone back to London,’ she says to Ruiz.
‘Still sightseeing.’
A long bar runs down one side of the room, most of it in darkness
except for a plasma TV screen showing sporting highlights. The exposed
beams are decorated in old Christmas tinsel and squashed paper bells.
We start at the beginning, telling Cray about seeing the jury foreman
being roughed up outside a pub.
‘He met with the guy I told you about - the Crying Man - the one who’s
been sitting in the public gallery during the trial, chaperoning Novak
Brennan’s sister.’
Cray doesn’t react. Her short-cropped hair is sprinkled with grey and the
lines on her face seem deeper today.
‘You approached the foreman of the jury?’
‘Yes. No. Not really.’
‘Do you know how many laws you’ve broken?’
‘We had to be sure.’
Somewhere above us a cue ball cannons into the pack. The sound
echoes like a shot. Cray looks like she’s suddenly developed a toothache.
‘Tell me again why you were following this guy?’
‘Sienna remembered him. On the night Gordon pimped her out - there
was a second man in the car. He drove her to the address.’
‘You’re sure it’s the same man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where does the Hegarty girl come into this?’
‘What if she had to sleep with someone involved in the case? She’s
underage.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘Gordon Ellis and Novak Brennan knew each other in college. They
shared a house. They could have stayed in touch.’
‘Yeah, but Ellis’s name has never come up in the intelligence files.’
Ruiz interrupts. ‘He used to call himself Freeman. He took his mother’s
surname after his first wife disappeared.’
Cray grunts dismissively, not convinced. Her eyes come back to mine.
‘The names and addresses of jurors are kept secret. They’re protected and
after each trial they’re destroyed.’
‘This wasn’t a coincidence.’
Her voice drops to a whisper. ‘So you’re saying Brennan rigged the jury
ballot?’
‘Maybe he got hold of their names or he had them followed home. The
trial has been going for weeks.’
Cray’s forearms are pressed flat on the table. ‘You’re talking about jury
tampering. Conspiracy. Bribing an officer of the court. Brennan has been in
custody for eight months. Every call and letter is monitored. Even if he got
to one juror, it won’t do him any good. He needs ten to get an acquittal.’
I glance at Ruiz. He pulls a dozen photographs from his jacket. Slides
them between her forearms. The DCI doesn’t look down. For a brief
moment I think she might simply stand and walk out. Her eyes stay fixed on
mine, clouding.
Finally she lowers her gaze. Her face remains empty of expression but I
see her throat swallow drily and her chest rise briefly against her shirt.
‘The red circles identify members of the jury,’ I say.
Cray’s eyes cut sideways to me, her lips parting slightly. ‘Should I ask
how you got these?’
‘They were in a suitcase under a bed in a hotel room. The Royal. It’s off
Stapleton Road. This guy had photographs, a list of witnesses, newspaper
cuttings, maps - serious research.’
‘What guy?’
Ruiz answers: ‘The Crying Man. He took the room three weeks ago.
Paid cash. Signed in under a false name.’
Colour has died in Cray’s cheeks. Her next statement is almost an
intelligible whisper. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this.’
‘What are you going to do?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘You have to tell the CPS,’ says Ruiz.
Anger flares in her eyes. ‘For starters - I’m not taking my orders from
you!’
It comes out in a hiss. Pale lumpy faces turn from the TV. Cray pivots
forward on her elbows.
‘This trial has been a circus. It’s cost millions. I’m not just talking about
crowd control and protecting witnesses. If it collapses there’ll be an
absolute shit-storm and I want more than just a few photographs before I
light that fuse.’
She collects the prints. Straightens the edges. Turns them face down.
Already I can see her mind calculating her next move. She’s going to either
stake out the Royal Hotel or seal it off and send in a SOCO team looking
for fingerprints and DNA.
She glances at the red neon clock glowing above the bar: 11.46. It could
be a.m. or p.m.
‘What about Sienna?’
‘We collected her from hospital at nine o’clock this morning. She’s
being interviewed now.’
The DCI raises her cup again, balancing it between the fingers of both
hands. Her tea has grown cold.
 ‘Ray Hegarty was a good copper. Maybe he was a lousy father. If that
girl killed him, she’ll face a jury. Right now I’m giving her the benefit.’
 43
A buzzer sounds, echoing in the night air, encouraging the audience
indoors where students are acting as ushers and handing out programmes.
The curtains are closed in the auditorium but occasionally the fabric bulges
with movement and a face peers through a gap, bright-eyed, excited.
The band are tuning instruments and whispering to each other, while
Gordon Ellis moves in the glow of the footlights, issuing last-minute
instructions and calming first-night nerves. His face is still swollen, with
one eye almost closed, but he’s wearing dark glasses and stage make-up to
hide the damage.
I shouldn’t be here. According to the protection order, I can’t go within
a thousand yards of Ellis or his wife. But I’m not missing Charlie’s big
night and I’m not letting that bastard be alone with her.
Peering around a pillar, I can see Julianne in conversation with Harry
Veitch. Laughing. Emma is in between them, but keeps crawling on to
Julianne’s lap to get a better view. I wonder if Julianne realises that Harry
has a lumpy head from this angle. Big and lumpy.
The lights are dimming. Voices fade to silence. The band strikes up and
the curtain sweeps aside, rattling on rails. The entire cast appears, marching
back and forth across the stage, dressed as commuters on a busy New York
street. Millie, the small-town girl from Kansas, has arrived in Manhattan.
Although I don’t miss a moment of Charlie on stage, the show seems
strangely muted compared to the rehearsal I watched three weeks ago. The
music and staging are the same, but it doesn’t have the same energy or
excitement. Maybe Sienna is the missing ingredient.
Nobody else seems to notice. There is a standing ovation and three
curtain calls. Two girls drag a reluctant director into the spotlight, tugging at
his arms. Reaching the front of the stage, Gordon Ellis bows theatrically,
touching the floor with his fingertips, before rising again with his arms
outstretched, ushering the cast to join him in another bow. He puts his arms
around the nearest two girls. Charlie is one of them. I can taste the bile in
the back of my throat.
The curtain slides closed. The auditorium lights come up.
 Outside, stepping clear, I look for Julianne. She’s chatting to some of
the other mothers. Harry is hovering, looking for someone to talk to. I try to
avoid his gaze but he’s seen me.
‘What a show, eh? Utterly brilliant.’
He’s wearing boating shoes and one of those thermal skiing vests that
zip up to his throat.
‘It started as a film, you know.’
‘What did?’ I ask.
‘Thoroughly Modern Millie. Julie Andrews played the lead. It also had
Mary Tyler Moore in it. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and
won best musical score.’
I should have guessed - Harry is an expert on Hollywood musicals.
‘The score was written by Elmer Bernstein, not to be confused with
Leonard Bernstein - they weren’t even related, but they were given
nicknames on Broadway. One of them was West Bernstein and the other
East Bernstein.’
Harry laughs.
Maybe he’s gay.
Having finished his anecdote, he smiles at me. Apparently it’s my turn
to add something to the conversation but I can’t think of anything to say.
After a long pause he suggests that we should play a round of golf some
time. I could come to his club.
‘I don’t play golf,’ I remind him.
‘Of course. Tennis?’
‘Not much these days.’
Harry tugs at his earlobe. After another long silence he closes the gap
between us and whispers, ‘Do you think the two of us can ever finish up
being friends?’
He asks the question so earnestly I feel a pang of sympathy for him.
‘I don’t think so, Harry.’
‘Why’s that, do you think?’
‘Because all we have in common is Julianne and eventually, if we
become friends, you’ll feel it’s all right to talk about her with me and it’s
one thing to lose her and another thing completely to discuss her like she’s a
shared interest.’
Harry tugs harder at his earlobe. ‘You made her very sad, you know.’
‘I also made her happy for twenty years.’
 ‘I guess people change.’
Jesus wept!
‘I’m going to try to make her happy,’ he announces.
I can feel my arm hairs prickle and a chill run down my spine.
Irrespective of his size and physical condition, I want to hit Harry now. I
seem to be developing a taste for it.
‘I don’t want there to be any ill-feeling,’ he says, completely ignoring
all the signs, my body language, my tone of voice, my fingers curling into
fists. Then he mentions something about not treading on toes and there
being no winners or losers.
A guttural sound springs from my throat.
‘Pardon?’ he asks.
‘I said that’s bullshit.’
‘Oh!’
His eyes widen.
‘Let’s face it Harry, you don’t give a flying fuck about my toes or my
feelings.’ I’m talking through gritted teeth, trying not to attract attention.
‘You like trophies. You have a trophy house full of trophy cabinets full of
your golf trophies and your squash trophies and your framed thank you
letter from Margaret Thatcher for donating to the cause. Now you want my
wife.’
Harry blinks at me, completely lost for words. The colour rises from his
neck to his face. I want to go on. It takes every bit of my willpower to stop
saying what I want to say. I want to tell him that he’s not Frank Lloyd
Wright or Norman Foster and that designing some telemarketing
millionaire’s ski chalet at Val d’Isere is not going to get him a knighthood,
just like pulling his trousers up high doesn’t make him look thinner and
gelling his hair doesn’t make him look younger and the chunky silver
bracelet is gangster chic rather than evidence that he’s comfortable wearing
jewellery.
I want to tell him these things but I don’t, because I’m not even
interested in hating Harry the way I should. I’m not truly angry. I’m sad and
I’m lonely and I’m fed up with not being able to help people who need me.
Julianne appears beside him.
‘Wasn’t that terrific?’
‘Brilliant,’ I reply.
Emma lets go of her hand and comes to me.
 ‘I wonder what happened to Annie Robinson,’ says Julianne, looking at
me. ‘She did all the sets and costumes and didn’t turn up.’
‘Maybe she had something more important,’ I say, but I can’t convince
myself.
‘Charlie is going to the cast party.’
‘Will Gordon Ellis be there?’
‘It’s just for the kids. One of the mothers is getting them pizza. Can you
pick her up later?’
She gives me the address. ‘I told her eleven o’clock. I know she’s
supposed to be grounded, but she was so good tonight and I don’t have the
heart to play the bad cop on this one.’
‘I wanna go with Daddy,’ announces Emma.
‘No, sweetheart, we’re going home in Harry’s car.’
‘I want to go home with Daddy.’
Julianne tries to convince her that Harry has a really nice car. ‘It has
leather seats and that lovely smell, remember?’
Harry puts his hand on her head. ‘I’ll open the sunroof, if you’d like.’
Emma twists away and swings her arm. One of her fists collides with
Harry’s groin. His body jack-knifes and he sucks in a painful breath. Still
doubled over, he groans - or at least it sounds like a groan from a distance,
but up close he clearly says, ‘Fuck me!’
Emma hears it too. ‘Harry said a bad word.’
Julianne tells her to apologise.
‘But, Mummy, it was a really really bad word.’
‘Tell Harry you’re sorry.’
‘It was an accident.’
‘I know it was an accident, but you should still say that you’re sorry.’
Harry still can’t straighten completely. ‘It’s OK. It doesn’t matter.’
‘He said the f-u-c-k word,’ says Emma.
‘Don’t you ever say that!’ responds Julianne.
Emma points at Harry. ‘What about him?’
‘He didn’t mean it.’
‘He should get in trouble too.’
Harry interrupts. ‘Just let her go with her father.’
‘No,’ argues Julianne. ‘This is about setting boundaries. Emma has to
learn to do as she’s told.’
Emma clutches her stomach. ‘I feel sick. I think I’m going to vomit.’
 ‘Nonsense,’ says Julianne, who is fully aware of Emma’s dramatic
displays of hypochondria (and even more dramatic feats of projectile
vomiting).
‘Maybe she should go in Joe’s car,’ says Harry, thinking of the Lexus
and his leather seats. ‘He could drop her home.’
Julianne fires a look at him.
Meanwhile, Emma drops to the ground and launches one of her famous
‘you’ll-have-to-drag-me-out-of-here’ tantrums. Julianne does her best to
ignore her, but Emma’s limbs seem to liquefy and she’s impossible to pick
up.
We’re not so much drawing a crowd as dispersing it - driving parents
towards their cars.
Julianne looks at me. ‘Please just leave.’
‘What have I done?’
‘Nothing, but you’re making things worse.’
The last thing I hear is Harry muttering under his breath. ‘For fuck’s
sake, why couldn’t she just go with her father’ - and seeing Julianne give
him her death stare.
I almost feel sorry for him. Harry’s chances of getting lucky tonight just
disappeared with the flying pigs.
Annie Robinson’s mobile is turned off and she isn’t answering her
landline. I drive the familiar roads, trying to come up with reasons why she
would have missed the musical. She should have been on stage, taking her
bow.
I try her home number again. After eight rings the answering machine
clicks in.
Hi, sorry we missed you. Leave us a message after the beep.
She’s a single woman living alone, which explains the ‘we’ and ‘us’.
Beep!
‘Annie, it’s, Joe. I’ve been at the school. I thought I’d see you tonight . .
.’ I pause, hoping that she might pick up. ‘The show was great . . . really
good. And the sets were terrific . . . If you’re there, Annie, talk to me . . . I
hope everything is all right . . . call me when you get this . . .’
Pulling into Annie’s road, I see her car parked in front of her building.
She doesn’t answer the intercom. I press the buttons on either side but
nobody answers. Walking back to the street, I follow the footpath until I
find a small alley leading between the houses to the canal. Picking my way
along the grassy bank, I count the houses until I come to her walled garden.
Hoisting myself up, I clamber over the wall, landing heavily on a
climbing rose bush. Thorns catch on my clothes and I have to untangle the
vines. The blue-and-white tiled table is still on the terrace. The two chairs
are tilted so as not to collect rainwater.
Pressing my face to the sliding glass door, I peer into the dark lounge
and open-plan kitchen. I can see a neon clock blinking on the oven. The
only other light is leaking from beneath Annie’s bedroom door. It seems to
shimmer and cling to the floor. Why is that? Water. The room is flooded.
I should stay outside. Phone the police. What if Annie has slipped over?
She could be hurt or bleeding. I bang on the glass door and shout her name.
This is crazy. I should do something. Picking up the nearest chair, I
swing it hard against the door. It doesn’t shatter. I try again. Harder. The
pane vibrates and disintegrates in a mosaic of crumbling glass.
The living room is undisturbed. An IKEA catalogue lies open on the
sofa. Annie’s shoes are under the coffee table. To the left the kitchen
benches are wiped clean. Cups and plates rest on the draining rack. A shiny
paper gift bag sits on the counter next to a bottle of wine. Open. Half drunk.
Water covers the floor. It’s coming from the bedroom. I knock on the
door and call Annie’s name. Turning the handle, I push it open. A bedside
light is on. Discarded clothes are bunched on the floor beside a wicker
basket. A matching set of knickers and bra. Mauve. Fresh clothes are laid
out on the bed, chosen for tonight.
I remember the bathroom from my night with Annie. White-tiled, it
smells of perfume and potpourri. A frosted glass screen shields the bathtub
and running taps. Flower petals have spilled over the edge and blocked the
drain on the floor.
Annie is lying in the overflowing tub with one hand draped over the
edge and a broken wine glass beneath it. Blood and vomit stain the water.
She’s alive. Convulsing.
Hooking my arms beneath hers, I struggle to lift her. Water sloshes over
my clothes. I get her to her knees, all the while talking - telling her to hold
on. Telling her it will be OK.
Half dragging her to the bed, I lay her on her side, pulling a duvet over
her nakedness. Then I call three nines. Ambulance. Police. Name. Address.
Number.
 ‘I think she’s been poisoned,’ I tell the dispatcher.
‘What did she consume?’
‘I don’t know. It could have been in the wine.’
‘Is she inebriated?’
‘No . . . I don’t think so . . . I’m not sure.’
‘What is her approximate height and weight?’
‘What?’
‘Her height and weight.’
‘Oh, ah, she’s five-six. Maybe nine stone.’
‘Did you have any of the wine, sir?’
‘No, I found her.’
‘Don’t touch the container.’
I go to the hallway and unlock the front door. Annie’s car keys and
purse are sitting in a bowl. A light blinks on her answering machine. He
counter says ‘2’.
I press ‘play’.
The first message is from a woman.
Hi, dear, it’s your mum. I guess you’re out! Penny is pregnant again.
Isn’t she clever? Poor dear is sicker than a parrot. It must be a boy. They
always make you suffer. Give her a call and cheer her up.
Clunk!
Message two.
Annie, it’s Joe, I’ve been at the school. I thought I’d see you tonight . . .
I press stop. Silence.
Back in the bedroom, I put my arms around Annie and listen to her
shallow breathing. Her eyes are closed. What do I know about poisons? I
did three years of medicine, but it wasn’t high on the agenda. Never induce
vomiting if they’re convulsing - I remember that much. Fat lot of good . . .
Annie’s eyes are open. The skin around her lips is burned and raw. Her
stomach is bloated and hard.
‘I knew you’d come back.’
 44
Just gone ten. Dozens of people are standing on the footpath - residents,
neighbours and passers-by - wearing dressing gowns, anoraks and woollen
hats. A blue flashing light seems to strobe across their faces.
Four police cars are parked outside the row of terraces, alongside two
ambulances and a scene-of-crime van. I’m standing in wet clothes beside
one of the squad cars, unwilling to sit inside because it makes me look like
a suspect. The detectives told me to wait. A police constable has been
assigned to watch me. He is standing less than twenty feet away with his
back to the onlookers and his eyes trained on me.
‘Why you all wet, petal?’ asks a voice. It belongs to a short black
woman wearing the dark green uniform of a paramedic. She has a nametag
pinned to her chest, ‘Yvonne’.
‘I found her in the bath,’ I say in a daze.
Yvonne raises an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t want anyone finding me in the
bath.’
She laughs and her whole body shakes. ‘She’s white, right? You don’t
live in a place like this unless you’re white or you’re trying to act white.
Know what I’m saying?’
‘Not really.’
Yvonne tilts her wide shiny face up at me. ‘Are you OK, petal? You
want to sit down? I can get you a blanket. How about some oxygen?’ She
motions to the ambulance.
‘I’m OK.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She blows her nose on a tissue and glances at the
onlookers. ‘You know what they’re thinking?’ she asks.
‘No.’
‘They’re wondering what’s happening to the world. That’s what they
always say when the TV camera is shoved in their faces. “You just don’t
expect it, do you? Not where you live. This is a nice neighbourhood. It
makes you wonder what the world is coming to, blah, blah, blah. . . .” Isn’t
that what they say?’
‘Yes.’
 The front door opens and two paramedics appear wheeling a collapsible
metal trolley. Annie is strapped to the frame with an IV in her arm, the bag
held above her head.
‘That’s my ride,’ says Yvonne. ‘You take care now.’
The trolley slides into the ambulance and the doors close on Annie
Robinson. I can smell her on my hands - the sweet-as-sugar school
counsellor, with her bright red lipstick and her liquid brown eyes. Annie
told me that nobody ever thought she was beautiful back in her schooldays
but she’d blossomed into marriage and then become a pretty divorcée.
I wish Ruiz were here . . . or Ronnie Cray. I left my mobile in my car.
It’s just down the street. I can call them. Someone has to pick up Charlie.
The sandy-haired constable intercepts me before I reach the Volvo.
‘What are you doing, sir?’
‘I’m just getting my phone.’
‘You were told not to move, sir.’
‘I just need to make a call.’
‘Step back to the police car, sir.’
One hand on his belt, he looks at me with cold indifference.
I adopt a voice that says I’m glad to co-operate in any way I can. I’ll
write a letter of commendation telling his superiors about his
conscientiousness, if he’ll just let me get my phone.
Unfortunately, my left arm swings of its own initiative. It looks like a
Nazi salute and I have to grab it with my right hand.
‘Did you threaten me, sir?’
‘No.’
‘Are you mocking me?’
‘No, of course not, I have Parkinson’s disease.’
The tremors are seguing into jerkiness. My medication is wearing off.
Using every bit of my concentration, I make a vain attempt to establish a
single constant physical pose.
‘I’m Professor Joseph O’Loughlin. I have to call my daughter. I’m
supposed to pick her up . . . My phone is in my jacket . . . on the front seat.
You can get it for me. Here are the keys.’
‘Don’t approach me, sir. Put your hands down.’
‘They’re just car keys.’
The crowd are now focused on us. My apparent innocence has been
transformed into suspicion and guilt.
 ‘Just take my keys, get my phone and let me talk to my daughter.’
‘Take a step back, sir.’
He’s not going to listen. I try to take a step back, but my
neurotransmitters are losing their juice. Instead of retreating, I lurch
forwards. In a heartbeat an extendable baton lengthens in the officer’s fist.
He swings it once. I can hear it whistle through the air. It strikes me across
my outstretched arm and my car keys fall.
The pain takes a moment to register. Then it feels as though bones are
broken. In almost the same breath, my legs lose contact with the earth and
I’m forced to my knees and then on to my chest. His full weight is pressed
into my back, forcing my face into the cement.
‘Just relax, sir, and you won’t get hurt.’
With one cheek pressed to the cement, I can see the police cars and
forensic vans and the watching crowd. Sideways. The spectators are
wondering if I’m the one - the prime suspect. They want to be able to tell
their friends tomorrow that they saw me get arrested, how they looked into
my eyes and they knew I was guilty.
Louis Preston is talking to one of his techs. I shout his name. He turns
and blinks.
‘Louis, it’s me, Joe O‘Loughlin.’
The constable tells me to be quiet.
‘I know Dr Preston,’ I mutter. ‘He’s the pathologist.’
This time he comes towards us, dressed in his blue overalls. Tilting his
head, he looks down at me.
‘What are you doing, Professor?’
‘I’m being sat on.’
‘I can see that.’
Preston looks at the officer. ‘Why are you sitting on Professor
O‘Loughlin?’
‘He tried to escape.’
‘Escape to where exactly?’
The constable takes a moment to recognise the sarcasm.
‘Let him up, Officer. He’s not going to run away.’
I get to my feet, but my legs suddenly lock and I pitch forwards. Mr
Parkinson is assuming control. The pills are in my coat . . . with my phone.
Preston grabs hold of my forearm. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Annie Robinson is a friend of mine. I called this in.’
 ‘When did you see her last?’
‘Yesterday. Lunchtime.’
Preston looks back towards the terrace. ‘I have work to do.’
‘Just get my pills for me and my phone. They’re in my coat.’ I motion
towards the car.
Preston takes my keys. When he reaches the Volvo, he snaps on a
rubber glove and makes a point of opening the rear door, reaching over the
seat to get my coat. The inference is clear.
He brings the bottle to me, but not my mobile.
Taking two pills, I swallow them dry and watch as the two detectives
head our way. One has a haircut where the sides of his head are buzzed
almost bald.
Preston peels off the glove. ‘Be extra careful, Professor, these guys
aren’t your friends.’
 45
Two detectives, little and large, a Detective Sergeant Stoner and his boss
Wickerson who looks like a US marine. It’s gone eleven. I’m supposed to
pick up Charlie but they won’t let me make a call.
‘She’s fourteen. She’s waiting for me. If something happens to her I’ll
personally make sure you spend the rest of your careers briefing lawyers.’
‘Is that a threat, sir?’
‘No, I’m way past making threats. I’ve asked you nicely. I’ve begged.
I’ve appealed to your common sense. Just let me make a call. She needs to
get home.’
Stoner and Wickerson discuss the matter privately. Finally, I’m handed
a phone. I call Ruiz.
‘Want to hear something interesting?’ he says.
‘Not now.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I’m with the police. I need you to pick up Charlie.’
I tell him about Annie Robinson and my arrest. ‘Just get Charlie. Make
sure she gets home.’ I give him the address.
‘I’m on it.’
Stoner takes the phone and escorts me to an interview room. I’m left
there, sitting in my wet clothes, drinking machine coffee that could be
reclassified as a form of torture alongside water boarding and sleep
deprivation.
My mind keeps drifting back to Annie’s flat and the open bottle of wine,
the gift bag; the thank you card on the counter. Someone tried to poison her.
Why?
Annie knew about Gordon Ellis and Sienna. She was asked to
investigate by the school but failed to raise the alarm. Friendship can’t
explain a decision like that. I think back to Annie’s flat - the expensive
perfumes and designer handbags in her wardrobe. She complained about
getting stitched up in her divorce settlement.
When I asked her how she could afford such a nice flat she told me that
she refused to wait for things any more. Perhaps she’d found a way to
supplement her income. Blackmail can turn a profit.
 Half twelve and the detectives reappear, offering me their apologies. For
a moment I think I’m going to be released but they each take a seat. A tape
recorder is switched on. Stoner is wearing suspenders over his white shirt
like some yuppie trader from the eighties.
‘Run through the story for us again, Joe,’ he says, sounding like we’re
old friends.
I tell them about the school musical and Annie not showing up and how
I tried to call her.
‘So you went round to her place?’
‘Yes. I saw her car. I thought she must be home but she didn’t answer
the bell.’
‘So you climbed the back fence?’
‘I was worried.’
‘When my friends aren’t home, I don’t climb over their fences and
smash their patio doors.’
‘I saw water leaking under her bedroom door.’
‘You said there were no lights on.’
‘There was one in the bedroom.’
‘And you could see water?’
‘Yes.’
This is how it continues. Every detail is examined and picked over:
what rooms I entered, what I touched, when I saw Annie last. Then we go
back to the beginning again. Stoner is playing the hard arse while
Wickerson wants to be my best friend, smiling, offering me encouragement,
winking occasionally. At other times he looks bemused, almost doleful, like
he’s listening to an impaired person.
Stoner stands and moves behind me so that I have to turn my head to
keep eye contact with him. He’s not a complex man. Keeps it simple. Talks
slowly.
‘Tell us again how you know Annie Robinson?’
‘She’s a friend. She teaches at my daughter’s school. We’ve met a few
times socially.’
‘So she’s not your girlfriend?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re not sleeping with her?’
‘Once.’
‘Really?’
 Stoner makes it sound like a telling confession. They’re not listening to
me.
‘Tell us what you put in the wine.’
‘I didn’t touch it.’
‘Did she say no to you, Joe? Was it some sort of date-rape drug?’
‘No.’
‘Are we going to find your semen on those bed sheets?’
Wasted words. Wasted time. They should be talking to Gordon Ellis.
After an hour of questioning, the detectives take a break. I’m left in the
interview suite trying to put the pieces together. How does Novak Brennan
come into this? The trial, the jury, the Crying Man - I have fragments of a
story, photographs without a narrative.
There are raised voices in the passageway. Ronnie Cray comes through
the door like she wants to widen it with her hips.
‘I’ve got to hand it to you, Professor. When you step in shit, you just put
on your wellies and jump right in over your head.’
Stoner and Wickerson are behind her, protesting.
Cray looks at me: ‘Have you made a statement, Professor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is there anything else you want to add?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Get your coat.’
Wickerson is having none of it. ‘You can’t just barge in here. This man
is still being questioned.’
‘Take it up with the Chief Constable,’ says the DCI. ‘Give him a call.
He loves getting woken at two a.m.’
She’s walking as she talks, ushering me in the direction of the charge
room. Stoner says something under his breath that ends with, ‘too ugly to
get laid’.
Cray stops and turns slowly, fixing him with a stare. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No, ma’am.’ He gives her a mocking smile.
‘Sure I do. Derek Stoner. Deadly Derek. You’re a ladies’ man. You
dated one of the WPCs at Trinity Road. Sweet thing. She told me you had a
pencil dick and couldn’t find a clitoris with a compass and a street
directory.’ Cray pauses and winks at him. ‘Guess only one of us made her
scream.’
Moments later we’re outside. Monk is behind the wheel.
 ‘Where are we going?’ I ask.
‘Trinity Road,’ she answers. ‘Sienna Hegarty gave us a statement.
We’re arresting Gordon Ellis at dawn.’
‘You’re going to charge him?’
‘We’re going to talk to him, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.’
‘Why?’
‘Ellis has been through this before - the police interviews, the searches,
the covert surveillance - when it comes to being a suspect, he’s a fucking
expert.’
 46
Sienna is curled up on a camp bed in Cray’s office, lying with her head
in shadow covered by a thin blanket. A woman PC watches over her, sitting
beneath a reading light, a magazine open on her lap.
‘Tell me if she wakes.’
A nod. She goes back to reading.
Most of the incident room is in darkness except for a pool of brightness
like a spotlight on a stage. Cray hands me a transcript and tapes of Sienna’s
interview.
‘We can’t corroborate her story. There are no emails, notes or phone
calls. Nobody saw them together except for Danny Gardiner, and he only
puts them in a car. We’ve tracked both their mobiles. Apart from at the
school, we can’t put Sienna and Ellis within fifty yards of each other.’
‘Gordon made her turn her phone off. What about the chat-room
conversations?’
‘We’re getting the transcripts. Even if they show Sienna was coerced,
we still have to prove that Ellis created this “Rockaboy” persona. We’ve got
a search warrant for his home and office but I doubt if we’ll find any
computers.’
Cray’s eyes continue to search my face. ‘Tell me how Annie Robinson
comes into this.’
‘I think she was blackmailing Gordon Ellis over his affair with Sienna.’
‘Evidence?’
‘Annie knew about the relationship but she didn’t tell the school or
Sienna’s parents.’
‘She was protecting a colleague.’
‘It was more than that. She’s living beyond her means. Expensive
clothes. Shoes. Her flat. She also lied about dating Gordon Ellis at college.’
‘And Novak Brennan?’
‘He and Ellis shared a house together at university. Brennan was
supplying drugs to half the campus, according to Annie. Ellis was one of his
dealers.’
‘That was years ago.’
 ‘They say the friends you make at university are the ones you keep for
life.’
‘You think Ellis sent her the wine?’
‘I don’t know. It seems too clumsy.’
‘Clumsy?’
‘He doesn’t make many mistakes.’
‘Maybe he panicked.’
‘Somehow I doubt it.’
Cray stands, stretches her arms and rolls her head from side to side.
‘We’re running out of time, Professor. We can’t prove that Gordon Ellis
groomed Sienna. We can’t prove he slept with her. And we can’t prove he
got her pregnant. Unless Annie Robinson can corroborate Sienna’s story,
Ellis is going to walk out of here with a spring in his step and a hard-on for
more schoolgirls.’
I look at the clock. I have just a few hours to come up with an interview
strategy. I need to know everything I can about Gordon Ellis - his history,
his friends, his relationships . . . I need to know about his state of mind, his
personality, the light and shade of his existence. I have to walk through his
mind, see the world through his eyes; discover what excites him and what
he fears most.
Finding a quiet corner, I sit down at a desk and begin listening to the
tapes of Sienna’s police interview. Fast-forwarding and playing excerpts, I
listen to Sienna explaining how she was groomed by her favourite teacher,
wooed with kindness and compliments. Eventually, the relationship became
a physical one and they would rendezvous in Gordon’s car after school,
parking in lay-bys and quiet lanes, always somewhere different.
Occasionally, he took her to cheap motorway hotels or organised for her to
stay overnight when she babysat Billy. Gordon would slip into her bed
during the night, getting a thrill out of taking her while his wife lay
sleeping.
I was worried because I lost an earring. It was Mum’s favourite pair. I
thought it might have slipped down the sofa or been in the bed. Gordon got
really angry because Natasha found it in the main bedroom and accused
him of sleeping with me. She wouldn’t let me babysit after that. Mum went
crazy looking for the earring. She turned our house upside down. You won’t
tell her, will you?
 Monk tells her no. He asks if she kept any notes, photographs or gifts
from Gordon.
He said I couldn’t tell anyone.
But you must have kept something - a memento.
What’s a memento?
Something to remind you, like a souvenir.
No, not really. I used to write a diary on my computer, but I used
different names.
Where is the computer now?
It was stolen . . . when Daddy got . . . when he died.
The interview switched to the day of Ray Hegarty’s murder. After
Danny Gardiner dropped Sienna on a street corner in Bath she waited for
Gordon Ellis. He arrived with another man and they made her lie down on
the back seat.
What did the other man look like?
I wasn’t supposed to see his face.
But you did.
Yes. He had black tears coming from his eyes.
Tattoos?
Yes.
Do you know his name?
No.
What did Gordon tell you?
Sienna hesitates. Faltering. He said I had to have sex with someone. I
asked him why and he said I had to prove how much I loved him.
‘But you know I love you,’ I said.
‘Prove it one more time.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
‘You’ll do it anyway.’
‘What if he’s ugly?’
‘Close your eyes and think of me.’
Monk asks her about the drive, which took longer than fifteen minutes
but less than an hour, according to Sienna. When the car pulled up, Gordon
told her to brush her hair and put on fresh make-up. She was wearing her
black flapper dress from the musical.
Gordon took me to the door and knocked. A man answered.
What did he look like?
 Old - maybe fifty - he had a red face.
What colour hair?
He didn’t have much hair. He offered me a glass of champagne. I made
a mistake and told him I was too young. Then I remembered that Gordon
had said I wasn’t to tell him my age. ‘How young?’ the man asked. I lied
and said I was eighteen.
‘You’re shivering. Are you cold?’
‘No.’
‘Have you done this before?’
‘No.’
Then he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed my dress down my
arms. I tried to cover myself, but he said I shouldn’t be ashamed . . .
Sienna began to weep and Monk suspended the interview, announcing
the time. There is a pause in the recording and I hear his voice again -
commencing a new session.
At that moment I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye. Sienna
is awake. Sleepy.
‘What are you listening to?’ she asks.
‘Your interview.’
She lowers her eyes. Embarrassed.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Like an elephant sat on my chest.’
I pull up a chair. She hugs her knees. ‘Pretty stupid, huh?’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘Are they going to arrest him?’
‘Yes.’
The WPC brings her a cup of tea. Sienna nurses it in both hands,
warming her fingers. I can barely recognise the girl I first met. Her sassy,
in-your-face attitude and confidence have been stripped away.
How will she recover from this? It’s possible. She’s intelligent and
sensitive. With the right role models and advice she can still make
something of her life. Otherwise she’s going to end up in the arms of some
wife beater or abuser who will recognise that Ray Hegarty and Gordon Ellis
have done all the hard work in breaking her spirit.
I ask her about the house she visited. The man she had to sleep with.
She hesitates, not wanting to go over it again.
 ‘Remember what we did before? If you don’t want to answer a question,
all you have to do is raise your right hand, just your fingers. It’s our special
signal.’
Sienna nods.
‘What do you remember about the house?’
‘It had lots of old stuff. Furniture. Antiques, maybe. And one of those
big clocks that bongs every hour. It was bonging when he was . . . when he
was . . . you know.’
‘He took you upstairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were there paintings on the walls?’
‘Dead people in frames.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘A dressing gown. And he had on a pair of those half slippers like my
grandad wears. They flap up and down when you walk.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘He was nice. He asked my name. When I told him he said, “I don’t
suppose that’s your real name.” I knew I should have made one up.’
‘Did he tell you his name?’
‘No.’
Sienna is looking at me, gauging my reaction, wanting to know whether
I think less of her now.
‘At first I thought he was just lonely, you know, like old and on his own,
but then I found out he was married.’
‘How?’
‘I opened one of the wardrobes. I saw dresses and shoes. And I think he
might have had a daughter my age because once he called me by a different
name.’
‘What name?’
‘Megan.’
I know I could get more details from Sienna if I took her back to that
night and did a proper cognitive interview, getting her to concentrate on the
sounds, the smells, the images. But what would it cost her? I’d risk
traumatising a girl who had been through enough.
Instead I choose another event: her weekend away with Gordon Ellis. It
was in the autumn, not long after they went back to school.
 ‘Danny picked me up from school and dropped me at a lay-by on the
A26. Gordon wanted to make sure nobody saw us together, so he made me
lie down in the back seat under a blanket.
‘Where was Billy?’
‘He was next to me in his booster seat. He thought it was a game, like
peek-a-boo.’
‘Did Gordon say where you were going?’
‘To the seaside; I think he said the caravan was in Cornwall.’
‘That’s a long way.’
Sienna shrugs.
I quiz her about the drive, but she can’t remember any road signs or
place names. At one point Gordon said he was hungry and they stopped for
fish and chips. He made Sienna wait in the car and took Billy with him.
‘I want you to close your eyes and think back. You’re in the car alone.
Remember how it smelled and what you were wearing. You were excited.
Anxious. Nervous perhaps. Gordon has gone to get the fish and chips.
You’re waiting. What can you remember?’
‘There was a Lily Allen song on the radio.’
‘That’s good.’
‘And I forgot to tell Gordon to get me ketchup. I don’t like vinegar on
my chips.’
‘Did you go and tell him?’
‘No. He told me to stay in the car.’
‘What about your mobile?’
‘He made me turn it off.’
‘What did you see outside?’
‘A picture-framing shop . . . another place with salamis in the window.’
‘What else?’
‘There was a pub over the road with a sign outside. It said, “Dogs
Welcome.” I laughed and showed it to Gordon because I kept thinking of
these dogs going in and ordering drinks at the bar.’ She opens her eyes and
looks at me. ‘I don’t suppose that’s much use.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
I take her over the rest of the journey, plucking out small, often random
details. She recalls certain songs on the radio and a billboard advertising a
golf course and the smell of a poultry farm.
‘After that I guess I just fell asleep.’
 ‘For how long?’
She screws up her face in concentration. ‘Gordon said I had food
poisoning.’
‘You must have woken up at some point.’
‘Gordon said I’d been sick on my clothes, which is why he took them
off. “I brought pyjamas,” I told him, but he said I was sick on those too.’
‘You were naked?’
Sienna blushes and the details turn to dust in my mouth.
‘Tell me about the caravan?’
Her forehead furrows. ‘It had a bed and a little sink and a table that
folded away.’
‘Did it have curtains?’
‘They were black and they were taped down.’
‘Did you ever manage to look outside?’
‘I woke up during the night. I was so thirsty. At first I was frightened
because I couldn’t remember where I was and it was so dark.’
‘Where was Gordon?’
‘He must have gone out. My head was really heavy. I hooked my
fingers beneath the tape on the windows and lifted a corner. I could see
coloured lights and hear music. Kids were yelling. It was a fairground. It
made me think of when I was eleven and we went to Blackpool. Lance won
me a panda on the shooting gallery and I kissed a boy from Maidstone who
Mum said was my cousin but he was just a friend of the family.’
Sienna smiles shyly.
‘This fairground, what rides could you see?’
‘I think it had a merry-go-round. I could see the coloured lights on the
canopy. Is that important?’
‘It might be.’
 47
The first pale suggestion of dawn has appeared on the horizon as a faint
grey smudge. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the real dark night of the soul is
always three o’clock in the morning, but that’s not right. The darkest part of
the night is just before dawn when we wake and peer through the curtains
and wonder where the world has gone.
Headlights appear and disappear on the M32. A rubbish truck is
reversing into an alley. A shift worker hurries along the footpath. The day
begins.
Visiting the bathroom, I squeeze the last urine from my bladder and take
another few pills, before going in search of Ronnie Cray. I find her pacing
the vehicle lock-up with an unlit cigarette in her lips. Like an obsessive
compulsive, she is full of tics and routines. She taps the cigarette against her
wrist and sucks it again.
The Novak Brennan trial resumes this morning. I haven’t asked her
what she’s going to do about the photographs and the jury foreman.
‘So what have you got?’ she asks expectantly. I feel an acid surge in my
stomach.
‘Ellis isn’t going to crack. He’s been here before - in police custody,
under suspicion, interrogated - he won’t be tricked into making admissions.
He believes he got away with murdering his first wife, which makes him
cleverer than the police.’
I glance at my notes. Scrawled at the top of the page I have the name:
Gordon Ellis Freeman.
Age: thirty-six.
Above average intelligence.
Forensically aware.
Technologically confident.
A practised manipulator and predator who uses a high degree of
planning and has the ability to execute those plans.
His motivation isn’t particularly sexual. His satisfaction comes from the
hunt rather than the conquest. Bending a young girl to his will. Having her
fall in love with him. Offering herself to him unconditionally.
 Cray is opening the hinged lid of her lighter and shutting it with a flick
of her wrist.
‘You can call Ellis a nonce or a pervert or a paedophile, but that doesn’t
explain him. Unless you can grasp the intense pleasure he gets from taking
an underage girl and using her as the culmination of his fantasies, you’ll
never understand him. Sienna was the punctuation mark for a perfect
statement.’
I pause and wait. The detective is still listening.
‘You have to explore his account of events in fine detail. Don’t let him
waffle or prevaricate. Ask direct questions; seek times, dates and places.
Woven together in the right way, he might slip up.’
‘But you don’t believe he will?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me when the good news is coming,’ she mutters.
‘Sienna is his weak link - the one element he can’t control. Right now,
Ellis thinks nobody will believe Sienna because she’s a murder suspect and
she’s only fourteen, but he’s worried. That’s why he tried to silence her.
‘Remember the caravan? When his wife disappeared the police couldn’t
find it. Ellis told them he’d lost it in a poker game, but that’s not true. He
hid it from them or he’s managed to get another one.’
‘Why does he need a ’van?’
‘He needs somewhere isolated, somewhere he can be alone with his
victims so he can savour the experience and make it last. Sienna went with
him willingly, yet he still drugged her because he didn’t want her knowing
the location. He also wanted to do things to her against her will.’
A vein in Cray’s temple is pulsing with her heartbeat. ‘You think he
took souvenirs?’
‘Photographs. Maybe videos. He blacked out the windows of the van,
which suggests he could have a darkroom.’
The DCI splays open her hand and wipes dirt off the heel of her palm
with the tips of her fingers.
‘How do we find it?’
‘We don’t.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We have to convince Gordon that we’re getting close. Make him
believe we’re unlocking his secret. He can’t afford to have us find the
caravan. He’ll have to act.’
 For the next fifteen minutes I outline a plan - just the bare bones. Most
of the decisions can’t be made until I see how Ellis reacts. The more
pressure he’s put under, the more likely he is to make a mistake.
‘I want you to tip off the media,’ I tell Cray. ‘Turn his arrest into a
public event. A schoolteacher arrested over sex abuse allegations - the
tabloids will be baying for his blood.’
‘He’ll accuse us of victimising him.’
‘Let him complain. Bring him through the front doors in the full glare of
the TV lights. Make him run the gauntlet. Show him how society reacts to
child molesters.’
‘Then what?’
‘Take him through Sienna’s statement. Every time, date and place. The
one thing you don’t mention is the caravan. Leave it out completely. He’s
going to wonder how you can have so much detail - but not that one.’
‘And then what?’
‘Leave the rest to me.’
***
The arrest warrant is served at 6 a.m. by a dozen detectives who push
past Natasha Ellis and move quickly through the house. Gordon is made to
wait in his underwear, shivering in a hallway. An hour later he’s handcuffed
and led outside to a police car in front of his neighbours.
The siren sounds all the way to Trinity Road where a crowd of
photographers, reporters and TV crews record his arrival. Blinking into the
bright lights and flashguns, Gordon looks stunned by the speed of his
changing circumstances.
They say a cruel story runs on wheels and this one has every hand oiling
them as they turn. The arrest makes all the morning news bulletins on TV
and radio, destined to be the defining story of the day, triggering talkback
phone-ins and coffee-room discussions.
Gordon Ellis is told to stand in front of a height chart holding a
whiteboard with his name and date of birth.
‘Look up.’
He raises his eyes and the flashgun fires.
‘Turn to the right.’
Pulling his shoulders back, he lifts one hand and smooths down his hair.
The camera flashes again. His stitches are barely visible beneath his
hairline, but one of his eyes is bruised and yellow.
 Ellis was given time to dress before he left the house. The school
teacher chose carefully - aware of what impression he wanted to make:
spectacles instead of contacts, a business shirt, blue blazer and jeans. Smart
casual. Studious. Relaxed.
The formal interviews begin just before nine. Ronnie Cray and Safari
Roy enter the room with a dozen ring-bound folders. Ellis had wanted a
lawyer from Scotland but was told to find someone closer. He settled on a
short, stocky solicitor with the sort of nonchalant smile and cocky
demeanour that irritates detectives.
Throughout the early exchanges, Ellis seems to be enjoying the
attention. This is a game and he’s playing it like a professional who’s been
forced to compete in the lower leagues.
‘Sienna Hegarty says you slept with her,’ says Cray.
‘She’s lying.’
‘Why would she lie?’
Ellis sighs wearily and shakes his head. ‘She’s trying to punish me.
Can’t you see that? She thinks I shunned her. She mistook my kindness for
something more and now she wants to destroy me.’
‘We’re going to find her DNA in your home and your car.’
‘She babysat my boy. I drove her home.’
‘You had sex with her.’
‘She tried to kiss me and I pushed her away. Hurt her feelings.’
Cray consults her notes. ‘Is that why you told Professor O’Loughlin that
you “fucked her every which way”?’
Ellis laughs acidly. ‘And you believe him! The man who did this to me.’
He pulls back his fringe, showing the bloody criss-cross pattern of stitches
on his scalp.
‘He calls himself a psychologist but his mind is in the sewer. Let me tell
you what he does - he looks in his own head and his own heart and he sees
perversion and sickness. Then he claims other people think like he does.’
The tone has suddenly changed. Instead of belligerence and sarcasm,
Ellis adopts a whining tone, demanding that his interrogators see things his
way. It’s like watching an illegal arrival trying to talk his way through
Immigration without the language to explain himself. He groans. He
grimaces. He puffs out his cheeks.
Partly this is feigned, but some of his persecution complex is genuine.
Like many men who abuse their power over women, Ellis seems to carry
some ancient sense that he’s the real victim. He’s been misunderstood. Led
astray. Others are to blame.
‘Why did you kill Ray Hegarty?’
‘You must be joking.’
‘He saw you and Sienna together.’
‘He was sexually abusing his daughter. I was trying to help her.’
‘How exactly were you doing that?’
‘I took her to see a therapist. She didn’t want her parents knowing.’
‘Why you?’
‘I know this may surprise you, Detective, but I’m a caring, committed
teacher. The only mistake I made was caring too much. I should have
recognised the signs. I should have seen she was developing a crush on me.’
‘You groomed her.’
‘No.’
‘You drugged her.’
‘No.’
The lawyer interrupts. ‘My client has answered these questions.’
‘Your client is so full of shit his eyes are brown.’ Cray changes tack.
‘Annie Robinson knew you were having an affair?’
Ellis hesitates. ‘What’s she got to do with this?’
‘She knew the truth.’
Ellis reacts, stabbing his finger across the table. ‘What has that bitch
said to you?’
‘I’m asking the questions, Mr Ellis.’
‘She’s lying. She threatened to destroy my career unless . . .’
‘Unless what?
‘Unless I gave her ten thousand pounds.’
The lawyer puts a hand on Ellis’s shoulder, wanting him to stop. They
whisper. Nod. Ellis composes himself, sitting straighter.
Cray asks him the question again. ‘Why did you pay Annie Robinson
ten thousand pounds?’
‘She was blackmailing me.’
‘If you weren’t having an affair with Sienna Hegarty, why did you pay
her a thing?’
‘Because I knew she could ruin me. Even without proof she could have
me investigated and suspended.’
‘So you poisoned her?’
 ‘What?’
‘You put anti-freeze in a bottle of wine and tried to kill her.’
Anger turns to outright surprise. Ellis looks at Cray and Safari Roy and
then his lawyer. ‘What are these clowns talking about?’
His lawyer wants the interview suspended. Ellis shouts over him, ‘What
do you mean, anti-freeze? What’s happened to her? Where is she?’
Cray continues, ‘When did you last see Annie Robinson?’
‘I want to know what’s happened to her.’
‘Answer my question, Mr Ellis.’
‘Sunday.’
‘Have you ever been to her apartment?’
Gordon stares past her, his mind in flux, racing through the possibilities.
Now less sure of himself, he hesitates over his answers, fighting to keep his
voice neutral.
‘My client needs to use the bathroom.’
‘Your client can hold it in,’ says Cray.
‘I want it to be noted that he was denied a toilet break.’
‘Noted.’
Ellis is slowing down his answers, giving himself time. This is what
makes him so difficult to pin down. He adapts to different circumstances,
changing the tempo and elements of his personality to suit the occasion.
Ronnie Cray has to stay on the subject of Annie, but she’s running out
questions.
‘You knew Annie Robinson at university.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you also knew Novak Brennan.’
A grin tugs at the corners of the teacher’s mouth. The spell has been
broken. He’s on firm ground again. ‘We shared a house together for a
while.’
‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Was it this week?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘In the past month? Six months? Year?’
‘I don’t remember.’
 Cray glances over her shoulder towards the observation window. Ellis is
going to stonewall now. Every answer will be the same.
Time is called. The tape stopped. Cray emerges and walks past me. I
find her outside in the secure parking lot, sitting on the steps in the
sunshine.
‘This is the smoker’s corner - want to join? We’re the cool group.’
‘No thanks.’
‘We’re getting nowhere.’
‘You shook him up.’
‘He stuck to his script.’
‘Except when you mentioned Annie Robinson.’
‘You don’t think he knew?’
‘No.’
Someone like Gordon Ellis is almost defined by his sense of superiority
and control. His whole persona is an act, concealing a warped but
calculating mind, but for just a moment when he heard about Annie
Robinson the artifice and game-playing vanished. He was out of his
comfort zone.
‘I still can’t understand him,’ says Cray. ‘He’s got a beautiful young
wife at home. Money. Looks. He could have any woman he wanted.’
‘He doesn’t want just any woman. Underneath his pretty-boy looks,
Gordon is still an ugly, overweight kid who wears glasses and can’t get a
girlfriend. He transformed himself. He exercised. Lost the weight. Went to
the gym. Took vitamins. Got an education, but he never forgot how those
girls belittled him at school. The pretty, confident ones. The untouchables.
‘Ellis is a narcissist, which is why he gets intensely angry if you suggest
that he has a flaw. He cares about his appearance and the impression he
makes. He used to hate looking at himself in the mirror, but now he does it
automatically, compulsively. And he strains every fibre of his being to meet
his own flawless image of himself, demeaning and seeking to destroy
anyone who casts doubts on the way he sees himself.’
The DCI nods and glances at her polished shoes. ‘I’m running out of
questions.’
‘That’s OK. Keep pushing him. I noticed a few things. When he lies he
looks directly at you like he’s gazing into a camera. And when he gets
nervous he puts his left hand in his pocket as if reaching for something. I
think he normally carries some sort of lucky charm or talisman, which he
keeps in that pocket. Check out the personal effects log - see what they took
off him.’
Cray has forgotten to ash her cigarette, which hangs from the corner of
her mouth.
‘How in glory’s name do you know shit like that?’
‘I watch people.’
‘Do me a favour. Don’t ever go looking at me. Don’t go thinking about
me. Don’t watch what I do.’
‘You worried?’
She brushes fallen ash from her coat.
‘You’re a clever bastard, Professor, but there’s something you should
know about menopausal women. We can experience insomnia, depression,
hot flushes, fluid retention and constant PMS. It’s best not to piss us off.’
Upstairs, I take Sienna to an interview room. She’s dressed in jeans, a
sweatshirt and Converse trainers that squeak on the polished floor.
‘Does he know I’m here?’
‘He probably suspects.’
She takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment. ‘Is he going to hate
me?’
‘What he did was wrong - you have nothing to be ashamed of.’
DS Abbott arrives with a folder of photographs. I spread them on the
table - images of caravan parks and aerial photographs of the Somerset and
Cornish coastline. I take the best of the prints and put them on a white
board. Sienna sits watching me.
‘Remember what we said?’
She nods.
‘This is just like being an actress. You’re my leading lady.’
‘I know.’
‘Don’t be scared.’
‘I’m not.’
I look into her eyes.
‘I don’t hate him, you know. Even if he doesn’t love me any more.’
Along the corridor, Ronnie Cray leaves the interview room. Gordon
Ellis is led back to a holding cell - his lawyer at his side, whispering
instructions.
Sienna rubs a lock of hair between her forefinger and thumb. Gordon
has reached the door.
 ‘So from the caravan you could see a fairground?’
‘Yes,’ says Sienna.
‘What could you see?’
‘The top of a merry-go-round with lots of coloured lights . . . and I
could hear music and people laughing.’
‘What else?’
‘The sea.’
‘Could you see the beach?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you recognise it again?’
‘Sure.’
Sienna is standing at a whiteboard, pointing to a photograph.
Gordon Ellis has stopped in the passageway, waiting for Roy to unlock
the next door. He hears Sienna’s voice and turns, taking in the maps and
photographs. His pale eyes swim with loathing. Roy nudges him forward.
The door closes.
Sienna takes a deep breath.
‘Did I do OK?’
‘You were a star.’
 48
‘His name is Carl Guilfoyle,’ says Cray, staring from her window,
watching people dodge through the rain. ‘He’s originally from Belfast,
although he’s spent half his life in the States - including a dozen years in
prison in Arizona for attempted murder.’
A bus rumbles by, sending up a flurry of spray.
‘We pulled his prints from the room at the Royal Hotel. He tried to wipe
it clean, but we got two partials from the suitcase.’
She opens a folder on her desk. It contains a handful of photographs of
Carl Guilfoyle - most of them police mugshots. The earliest, taken in his
teens, shows him clear-skinned, with dark hair and a crooked mouth.
‘When was this taken?’
‘He was seventeen. He glassed a guy in a bar-fight. When the Arizona
police picked him up he had a fake ID. A judge remanded him to an adult
prison. That night one of the older cons tried to take advantage of a young
white Irish boy in the shower block. Big mistake. They found the con in a
shower stall choking on his own blood. Swallowed his tongue. To be more
exact - they found it in his stomach.’
‘What happened to Guilfoyle?’
‘He got twelve years for the glassing.’
‘He was a juvenile.’
‘Doesn’t make much difference in the States.’
I study each of the photographs. It’s like watching a Hollywood make-
up artist transform an actor, putting on a prosthetic mask, altering their age
and features. Only Guilfoyle’s eyes have stayed the same, rimmed with a
quivering energy. I remember how he looked at Sienna’s photograph,
committing her face, her hair, her budding body to memory. I could smell
his aftershave and something else, crawling beneath.
‘Ever heard of the Aryan Brotherhood?’
‘The white prison gang.’
‘They make up one per cent of the US prison population and they
commit nearly a quarter of the prison murders. That’s where Guilfoyle got
his tattoos - the teardrops are supposed to signify a kill.’
‘Who?’
 ‘A black guy called Walter Baylor. Carl shanked him in a meal queue in
front of a hundred and forty-seven witnesses - and nobody saw a thing.
That’s the thing with the Brotherhood. People seem to suffer collective
amnesia and mass blindness whenever anything happens inside.’
‘Are there any links between Guilfoyle and the men on trial?’
‘The Aryan Brotherhood has been associated with Combat 18, the
armed wing of a British neo-Nazi organisation called Blood and Honour.
The eighteen comes from the first and eighth letters of the alphabet: Adolf
Hitler’s initials. C18 was formed in the early nineties as a breakaway group
from the BNP after certain members became disillusioned with the party
going soft on the armed struggle and focusing instead on politics.
‘This breakaway group launched a string of attacks on immigrants and
ethnic minorities, but most of the ringleaders were rounded up a decade ago
during an undercover operation by Scotland Yard and MI5. Some of them
were serving British soldiers.
‘Tony Scott was a member of Combat 18. When it was broken up in the
nineties it fractured into splinter groups, but managed to survive, linking
itself with racist organisations in Russia, Germany and America.’
‘Groups like the Aryan Brotherhood?’
‘Exactly. They also set up chapters in cities like Belfast where some of
the former Loyalist paramilitaries were quite sympathetic to the racist
agenda.’
‘Brennan grew up in Belfast.’
‘He and Guilfoyle lived only a few streets from each other.’
Cray closes the folder and locks it in her filing cabinet.
‘So they could have known each other?’
‘MI5 has run a check on Guilfoyle. He and Brennan were on the streets
of Belfast at roughly the same time, but they were never arrested together or
linked.’
A WPC knocks on the office door and hands Cray a DVD. Putting the
disk into a machine, The DCI presses a remote and a TV screen illuminates.
She hits fast forward. Stop. Play.
‘This was taken outside Annie Robinson’s place.’
The time code on screen says 15.24.07. The blurred figure in the frame
is wearing a hooded sweatshirt or a parka, walking away from the camera.
It could be a man or a woman. Carrying something.
 Thirty yards along the road, the person climbs three steps and presses a
buzzer. What button? Lower half. Nothing clearer. The door unlocks.
Someone must have released it.
Cray presses fast-forward again. The time code says 15.26.02. The same
person on the street again, head bowed, this time walking towards the
camera. I can only see the hood and empty hands.
‘That’s what I hate about the morons who install security cameras,’ says
Cray. ‘They get the angles all wrong. This is next to useless.’
Rewinding, she runs through the footage again. A left hand reaches out
for the buzzer. The right hand holds a waxed paper bag.
‘How far off the ground is that intercom panel?’ I ask.
‘Standard height.’
‘How tall does that make him?’
‘It depends on the focal length of the lens and how far they’re standing
from the wall. A photographer could tell us.’
Pressing fast-forward, the DCI advances to the second lot of footage,
taken by a different CCTV camera.
‘This was taken two blocks away on Warminster Road.’
A silver Ford Focus is on screen, heading away from the camera.
‘We can’t get a number - the plates are obscured.’
She presses eject and glances at her watch. It’s one o’clock.
‘How’s Sienna?’
‘Holding up.’
Cray turns back to the window. An unlit cigarette dangles from her
fingers.
‘I want to take Sienna out of here. We’ll sneak her into the Crown
Court. Quietly. Let her see the jury foreman.’
‘And then what?’
The detective doesn’t answer. Maybe she doesn’t know. Shifting slowly,
she grabs her coat and opens her office door.
‘First we have to cut Gordon Ellis loose. See where the rabbit runs.’
The hospital receptionist has a voice like an automated message.
‘Are you family?’
‘No, I’m a friend.’
‘Details are only available to family.’
‘I just want to know if she’s OK.’
‘What is the patient’s name?’
 ‘Annie Robinson. She was brought in last night.’
‘Her condition is listed as stable.’
I stop her before she hangs up. ‘Does she have any family?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Is there anyone with her?’
The receptionist makes a decision and her tone softens. ‘Her mother and
father arrived a while back. They’re with her now.’
‘Thank you.’
Hanging up, I feel a mixture of relief and guilt. Everything I do
nowadays seems to have untoward consequences. I expect my bad decisions
to have downsides but even my good calls are starting to look shaky. Small
things, details I pick up almost instinctively, are beginning to elude me. I
should have recognised Sienna’s vulnerability. I should have warned Annie
about Gordon Ellis.
Next I call Julianne.
‘Is everything OK?’ she asks.
‘Fine.’
‘Charlie said Vincent had to bring her home.’
‘I got held up. Annie Robinson is in hospital . . . it’s a long story.’
There is a pause. I want her to say something, to tell me what she’s
thinking. Instead she says, ‘I have to go. I’m due in court.’
I have time to make one more call. Ruiz rattles off twenty questions,
talking in a kind of police shorthand.
‘Is the dyke looking after you?’
‘She’s on our side. I need another favour.’
‘How many you got left?’
‘Keep an eye on Julianne. She’s in court today.’
‘What about the Crying Man?’
‘His name is Carl Guilfoyle. They’ve just issued a warrant for his
arrest.’
The footpath outside Trinity Road has become a makeshift media centre
for dozens of photographers, reporters and TV crews. There are outside
broadcast vans parked in the street and takeaway coffee cups lying
crumpled in the gutter.
I’m halfway across the foyer when Natasha Ellis appears in front of me.
Dressed in black, her lips bloodless and thin, she looks like a legal secretary
with her hair pulled back severely and her eyebrows arching in complaint.
 ‘Why are you doing this to us?’ she demands, hatred filling her tiny
frame.
I try to step around her. She moves with me.
‘That little bitch is lying. Gordon never touched her.’
‘Don’t make things worse, Natasha. I know what Gordon did to you.’
‘You know nothing about me.’
Twisted in anger, her face no longer pretty or pleasant.
‘I know that he groomed you as a schoolgirl. I know that he got rid of
his first wife so he could marry you. I think you know it too.’
‘How dare you patronise me!’
‘I apologise if I gave that impression.’
‘It’s not an impression.’
‘I’m sorry just the same.’
‘Fuck you!’
She turns, stumbling on her high heels, before correcting herself. I have
no antidote for her distress. Her life is crumbling around her and she can’t
do anything except watch.
Moments later, Gordon appears, flanked by his lawyer. Natasha throws
her arms around her husband’s neck and he peels them away. They have
reached the main doors. The lawyer tries to cover Gordon with a coat, but
the schoolteacher brushes it aside.
‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ he mutters.
More than thirty reporters, photographers and television crews are
waiting outside. Clicking shutters and camera flashes greet Gordon’s every
footstep, gesture and facial expression. When he brushes his fringe from his
eyes, when he tries to smile, when he puts his arm around Natasha.
Beyond the media scrum, I see a separate crowd of bystanders who have
come to watch, having heard the news on TV or radio or Twitter. Among
them are girls in school uniforms. Gordon takes a piece of paper from his
pocket, smoothing it between his fingers. Clearing his throat, he smiles with
a boyish shyness. The cameras respond with a fuselage of clicks and whirs.
‘Firstly I want to say that I have devoted nearly fifteen years of my life
to teaching and I cherish every child that I have taught. I am being
victimised here. I am being hounded. I am being punished for caring too
much.’ He pauses, composing himself. ‘I have a lovely wife and a son. I
would never do anything to embarrass them or hurt them.’
 The quake in his voice, his sense of disbelief, the hurt in his eyes, all
seem genuine.
A reporter yells a question: ‘Did you sexually assault a student?’
‘No.’
‘Why has she made a complaint?’
‘I think she has been coerced and coached by a psychologist who
recently assaulted me and has been charged by the police. Professor Joseph
O’Loughlin has launched a vendetta against me. He has threatened and
harassed my wife.’
‘Why would he do that?’ asks a reporter.
‘You should ask him that.’
Another journalist shouts louder than the rest. ‘Are you standing by
your husband, Mrs Ellis?’
Natasha nods.
‘So you’re saying this girl is lying?’
Gordon answers. ‘The girl who has made these allegations is a very
troubled teenager with a history of cutting herself. She is also accused of a
serious crime and could be trying to deflect attention from herself.’
‘Why would she blame you?’
‘She developed an infatuation. She stalked me.’
More questions are shouted. ‘Was she your babysitter? Did she ever
travel in your car? Were you ever alone with her?
A female reporter yells, ‘Is it true she was pregnant?’
Gordon stammers.
‘Did you try to arrange an abortion for her?’
The atmosphere has subtly altered and Gordon’s contrived façade is
beginning to crack. This has become a blood sport and the hounds are
baying.
A photograph appears in his hand. ‘This is my son, Billy. He’s my joy. I
love children. I would never do anything to hurt a child.’
It’s an appeal for understanding rather than a defence. In the beat of
silence that follows it’s clear he hasn’t swayed his audience. His lawyer
tries to intervene but the questions keep coming.
‘What happened to your first wife, Mr Ellis?’
‘Were you suspected of her murder?’
‘Why did you change your name?’
 Gordon blinks at the cameras - out of words. Pushing past the
photographers and reporters, he manages to cross the flagged concrete path
to a waiting car. The crowd has swelled, almost blocking the road.
‘We love you, Mr Ellis!’ yells one of the teenage girls, triggering a
chorus. ‘We believe you.’
Gordon stops, squares his shoulders and gives them a grateful smile.
The girls squeal as though acknowledged by a film star.
The car pulls away. Photographers run alongside, shooting through the
tinted windows. Natasha Ellis has covered her face. Gordon defiantly sticks
out his jaw.
Ronnie Cray appears alongside me, lighting a cigarette and exhaling.
‘He acted like a rock star and they treated him like a scumbag. That’s
how life balances itself out.’
‘You briefed the reporters.’
‘I couldn’t possibly comment.’
 49
There are three unmarked cars and two motorcycles following Gordon
Ellis. Neither too old nor too new, the vehicles blend in with the traffic and
constantly change positions.
Safari Roy is two-up in the lead vehicle, dressed like a businessman on
his way home from work. Car two is a Land Rover Discovery, half a block
behind, driven by a woman officer who looks like a typical mother on a
school run. There is also a tradesman’s van, a motorcycle courier and a
minibus.
Gordon Ellis will expect the police to follow him, but this fact won’t
ease his anxiety. He’ll still look over his shoulder and study the vehicles
and faces of the drivers. Each time he’ll see a different car and a different
face. Nobody familiar. Nothing out of place.
‘It’s costing a fortune,’ says Cray, as she watches coloured dots on a
computer screen - each one representing a different surveillance team. I
have to swap vehicles and personnel every twelve hours.’
‘How long have you been given?’
‘Forty-eight hours. He has to make a move by then.’
‘He will.’
We’re being driven down Newgate Street past Castle Park. The narrow
harbour slides by, sluggish and brown. A handful of boats are tied up along
a dock, most of them moored permanently and painted with advertising.
Sienna is next to me, wearing a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes.
Leaning her head against the window, she watches joggers dressed in Lycra
circling the paths and mothers pushing children on tricycles with handles.
Most are wrapped in waterproof jackets and look tired of waiting for the
warmer weather to arrive. That’s the way it is with Bristol. In winter it’s full
of weary, pinch-faced urbanites, but come the summer they grow a smile.
The car pauses at a police checkpoint and we wait for the plastic
barricade to be pulled aside. The Crown Court precinct is quiet. Most of the
protesters have dispersed but a token few are sitting on the steps of the
Guildhall, outnumbered by police officers.
We walk Sienna through the main entrance and the security screening.
The clock in the foyer has just gone two. Court One is due back in session.
 Taking Sienna upstairs, we push through the doors. She slides on to a
bench seat in the public gallery. Her baseball cap is pulled even lower. Rita
Brennan is two rows in front of us. Ruiz is off to the side. He glances at me
and barely nods.
In the main body of the courtroom, Novak Brennan, Gary Dobson and
Tony Scott are sitting in silence in the dock. Julianne waits at her
microphone and Judge Spencer has his head down, tapping the keys of a
laptop. His silver horsehair wig gleams under the hanging lights.
A door opens at the side of the court. The jury enters in single-file,
moving to their usual seats. The foreman sits nearest the judge.
Cray whispers to Sienna. ‘Tell me if you recognise any of them.’
Sienna raises her eyes, looking from face to face. She shakes her head.
‘What about the guy in the front row, far left?’
She leans forward. Studies him. Shakes her head again.
‘Are you sure?’
A nod.
Cray looks at me.
Marco Kostin is being recalled to the witness box. He shuffles this time,
less confident than I remember. Diminished. The light has washed out of his
eyes and his skin is blotchy and damp.
Novak Brennan’s barrister, Mr Hurst, QC, has a narrow, choleric face
with small busy eyes. Pacing back and forth in front of the jury box, he
makes eye contact with individual jurors who seem to look down or away.
He turns to the witness box.
‘Before the break, Mr Kostin, you were describing the house. You said
you were sleeping when you heard the sound of glass breaking. Is that
correct?’
Julianne translates the question.
Marco nods and answers in a hoarse voice.
‘If you were sleeping, how are you certain it was glass breaking that
woke you?’
‘I heard it more than once.’
‘How many times did you hear it?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘You’re not sure. I see.’ Mr Hurst exchanges a look with the jury. ‘Are
you sure you went to the window?’
‘Yes.’
 ‘From the second floor you claim to have seen my client sitting behind
the wheel of a van. How far do you think that was?’
Marco looks from Julianne to Mr Hurst. He doesn’t understand the
question.
‘What was the distance between you and the van? Fifty feet . . . a
hundred feet . . . more?’
Marco blinks and his mouth flexes uncertainly.
Mr Hurst: ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to use metres?’
‘From the second floors,’ says Marco. ‘I don’t know how far this is -
maybe ninety feets.’
‘Ninety. You don’t seem very sure.’
‘I did not measure it.’
There is a sprinkling of laughter in the courtroom. Mr Hurst allows
himself a brief smile.
‘It was dark - after midnight, in fact. You must have remarkable
eyesight.’
‘I see OK.’
‘You told the police that you couldn’t see the number plate on the van
because it was too dark.’
Marco hesitates. ‘I don’t understand?’
‘Did you tell police it was too dark to see the number plate?’
‘It was in shadow.’
‘It was too dark - yes or no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yet you could see my client through a dirty second-floor window from
ninety feet away in the dead of night?’
‘There was a light inside the van when the door opened.’
‘You told police there were three men?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why couldn’t you identify the others?’
‘I did not see them clearly.’
‘Because it was dark?’
‘Yes.’
Mr Hurst exchanges another look with the jury.
‘Had you seen Mr Brennan anywhere before?’
‘I had seen his picture.’
‘Where was that?’
 ‘In the newspaper.’
‘During the council elections. You probably saw his campaign posters
and his leaflets.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that why you picked him out of a police line-up?’
‘I recognised him, yes.’
‘You don’t agree with his politics or his policies, so you decided to
punish him.’
‘No.’
‘Who told you to identify him?’
Marco looks at Julianne, not understanding. She explains the question.
He shakes his head.
Mr Hurst braces both his hands on the bar table on either side of a legal
pad. ‘You came to this country as an asylum seeker, is that correct?’
‘We applied for asylum.’
‘Yes, but when you first arrived you told immigration officers that you
were tourists.’
‘Yes.’
‘And that was a lie.’
Marco looks at Julianne and then at the judge. Mr Hurst prompts him
again.
‘You lied to immigration officers?’
‘I did as my father told me.’
‘Have you been promised anything for testifying at this trial?’
‘Promised?’
‘What is your immigration status now?’
‘I have been allowed to remain here for four years.’
‘So you can stay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Isn’t it also true that you’ve been approached by a newspaper and
offered money for your story.’
‘Objection!’ says Miss Scriber, quick to her feet. ‘Mr Hurst has already
suggested Mr Kostin’s immigration status has influenced his evidence. Now
he’s suggesting that he’s seeking to profit from these circumstances.’
Mr Hurst looks affronted. ‘I’m simply trying to establish whether this
witness has any ulterior motives that may influence his testimony.’
Marco’s eyes move back and forth, trying to follow their arguments.
 Judge Spencer intervenes. ‘Unless you intend to introduce evidence of a
conspiracy, Mr Hurst, you’re on very shaky ground. Perhaps you should
choose another line of questioning.’
Sitting next to me, I feel Sienna suddenly stiffen. Her fists are clenched
and the muscles in her jaw, shoulders and her arms have seized up, locking
her into a statue-like pose. She’s not even blinking. Nothing moves except
for the fingers of her right hand, which flutter up and down on her thigh. It’s
our signal.
Slowly her head turns and her eyes meet mine. Wide. Scared. She turns
back to the courtroom and I follow her gaze across the bar table to the lone
bewigged figure sitting above everyone else, tapping at his laptop.
Ronnie Cray pulls Sienna outside and into a consulting room, almost
kicking the door open and leaning hard against it, making sure it’s closed.
‘You’re sure?’
Sienna nods.
Cray’s lips peel back. ‘Shit!’
Sienna flinches.
‘It’s not you,’ I tell her. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’
‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’
The DCI wants to pace but the room isn’t big enough. She wants to
smoke. She wants to dump this box of vipers on someone else.
Pulling me aside, she whispers angrily. ‘What in glory’s name do I do?
Who do I tell? He’s a Crown Court judge!’
‘You have to stop the trial.’
‘Only he can do that!’ Cursing, she spins away and tries to pace again.
‘I need to think. I need to talk to some people. Take advice. A judge! A
fucking judge!’
She looks at Sienna. ‘You have to be sure, one hundred per cent, do you
understand?’
Sienna nods.
Cray opens her mobile and shuts it again. ‘Come on - I’ve got to get out
of here.’
Too agitated to wait for the lift, she walks down the curving staircase.
Ruiz intercepts me on the landing.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I can’t talk. Wait for me.’
 Minutes later we’re outside. Monk is behind the wheel. Cray doesn’t
say a word to him. She’s trying to work out what to do . . . where to go . . .
what happens next.
Opening her mobile, she stares at the screen. It can’t be in a phone call.
It’s not secure enough. She flips it closed.
‘I’m going to Portishead,’ she says. ‘I need to see the Chief Constable.’
She looks at Sienna. ‘You need to tell him everything.’ Then she
addresses me. ‘Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Not a word.’
‘What about Ellis?’
‘He’s our problem now.’
 50
Ruiz is sitting quietly, letting me talk. We’re sharing a wooden bench in
Castle Park, overlooking the upper reaches of the floating harbour. Ducks
and gulls dot the water, waiting to be fed by toddlers in strollers and older
siblings who wobble on training wheels.
The Old Brewery rises abruptly from the opposite bank. The weathered
brick walls are stained with bird shit and soot, yet are still preferable to
modern glass and concrete. Somewhere nearer the cathedral a busker plucks
the strings of a banjo and a flower seller with a brightly coloured cabin is
setting out buckets of blooms, tulips and daffodils.
Ruiz hasn’t said a word. The sun radiates through a thin mesh of clouds,
highlighting the grey in his hair and making him squint when he raises his
eyes. His hands are big and square, no longer calloused. A boiled sweet
rattles against his teeth.
‘What would you do?’ I ask.
‘Nothing.’
‘Why?’
‘You have a suicidal schoolgirl who has been sexually abused claiming
that she slept with a County Court judge. She doesn’t know his name. She
can’t remember the address. She’s also facing a murder charge. You have no
forensic evidence or corroboration.’
‘She recognised him.’
‘You can’t stop a trial and destroy a man’s career on that sort of
evidence.’
‘So what’s Cray going to do?’
‘She’s going to commit professional suicide.’
A gust of wind ripples the water and topples the tulips and daffodils in
their buckets.
Ruiz continues: ‘My guess is she’ll go to the Director of Public
Prosecutions, who’ll shit himself and call the Attorney General. There’ll be
a full judicial inquiry, which is rare, and unless the investigation finds
corroboration, Ronnie Cray can kiss her career goodbye.’
‘And the trial?’
 ‘They’re not going to stop an expensive, high-profile murder trial on the
word of a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl.’
‘But the photographs in the suitcase . . . ?’
‘Someone took pictures of jurors - it’s not enough. You need evidence
of a juror being approached or intimidated. Payments. Threats. Admissions
. . .’
Ruiz stands and works the stiffness out of his back. His body looks too
big for his clothes.
‘So there’s nothing we can do?’
‘Not without evidence.’
His eyes hold mine for a long time, blue-grey and uncomplicated. They
seem to belong in the face of a younger man - a police constable who began
his career more than thirty years ago, full of expectation and civic pride. A
lot of water has passed under that bridge - violence, corruption, scandal,
banalities, mediocrities, absurdities, insanities, hawks, doves, cowards,
traitors, sell-outs, hypocrites and screaming nut-jobs - but Ruiz has never
lost his faith in humanity.
I’m tired. Dirty. Weary of talking. My mind is full of fragments of
broken lives - Ray Hegarty’s, Sienna’s, Annie Robinson’s . . . I want to go
home. I want a shower. I want to sleep. I want to put my arms around my
daughters. I want to feel normal for a few hours.

Ruiz drops me at the terrace and turns off the engine of the Merc,
listening to the afternoon quiet and the ticking sound of the motor cooling.
Ugly dark clouds are rolling in from the west, moving too quickly to bring
rain.
‘I thought maybe I’d head back to London,’ he says. ‘Water the plants.’
‘You don’t have any plants.’
‘Perhaps I’ll take up gardening. Grow my own vegetables.’
‘You don’t like vegetables.’
‘I love a good Cornish pasty.’
Wrinkles are etched around his eyes and his slight jowls move with his
jaw.
I ask him to hang around for another day - just to see what happens.
Maybe I’m being selfish, but I like having him here. With Ruiz what you
see is what you get. He’s a man of few contradictions except for his gruff
exterior and gentle centre.
Ever since I was diagnosed and moved out of London, I seem to have
lost touch with most of my long-time friends. They call less often. Send
fewer emails. Ruiz is different. He has only known me with Parkinson’s. He
has seen me at my lowest, sobbing at my kitchen table after Charlie was
abducted and Julianne walked out on me. And I have seen him shot up,
lying in a hospital bed, unable to remember what happened yesterday.
As I get older, friendships become harder to cultivate. I don’t know why
that is. Perhaps by middle age most people have enough friends. We have a
quota and when it’s filled we have to wait for someone to die or retire to get
on the list.
Glancing at his watch Ruiz suggests it might be ‘beer o’clock’. He waits
while I shower and change before we walk as far as the Fox and Badger
where I leave him with his elbows on the bar, gazing at a pint of Guinness
turning from a muddy white to a dark brown.
Emma is due out of school. Standing on my own I watch the mothers
and grandmothers arrive.
‘Billy wasn’t at school today,’ says Emma, when she falls into step
beside me. ‘I think he was sick.’ Then she adds, ‘I think I should be allowed
more sick days, otherwise it isn’t fair.’
‘You shouldn’t want to be sick.’
‘I don’t want to be sick. I just want the sick days.’
Charlie gets home just after four. She doesn’t mention Gordon Ellis but
I know his arrest must have been texted, tweeted and talked about at school.
She makes herself toast and jam for afternoon tea.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘You want to talk about anything?’
‘Nope.’
‘Are you sure?’
She rolls her eyes and goes upstairs.
At six o’clock I walk the girls down to the cottage. Julianne is home.
She’s showered and changed and is cooking dinner. Her wet hair hangs out
over her dressing gown.
‘I saw you today,’ she says. ‘What was Sienna doing in court?’
I don’t know how much I should tell her. Nothing is probably safest.
 ‘Ronnie Cray wanted to show her something.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t really tell you.’
Julianne gives me one of her looks. It reminds me of how much she
hates secrets. Then she shakes it off, refusing to let me spoil her good
mood.
‘Well, my job is done,’ she says, sounding pleased. ‘Marco finished
testifying. He was amazing. They threw everything at him. They tried to
confuse him and trick him and say he was lying. It was horrible. I hope the
jury saw it. I hope they hated that lawyer for what he did.’
‘He was doing his job.’
‘Don’t defend him, Joe. I know you’re a pragmatist, but don’t defend
someone like that.’
She takes Emma’s schoolbag from me. I’m standing in the kitchen,
which seems to lurch suddenly and I stagger sideways. Julianne grabs me
and I straighten.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I haven’t slept.’
Mr Parkinson is shape-shifting on me, messing up my reactions to the
medications. The segues between being ‘on’ and ‘off’ my meds have
become shorter.
Julianne makes me sit down and begins scolding me about not taking
care of myself. At the same time she fills the kettle and makes me a cup of
tea.
Wanting to change the subject, I tell her about Annie Robinson, keeping
one eye on the stairs in case Charlie overhears me. At six o’clock we turn
on the TV to watch Gordon Ellis answering questions on the steps of
Trinity Road.
‘I can’t believe he really did it,’ says Julianne. ‘And I let Charlie babysit
for him.’
‘You weren’t to know.’
She shivers slightly and her shoulder brushes mine.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I ask.
‘What’s that?’
‘Judge Spencer - what’s he been like?’
She looks at me oddly. ‘Where did that come from?’
‘Do you think he’s favouring one side or the other?’
 ‘Why?’
‘It’s just a question.’
She studies me momentarily, knowing that I’m holding something back.
‘He’s a grumpy old sod, but he seems pretty fair. He’s very nice to the
jury. I think he feels sorry for them. It’s a pretty horrible case . . . seeing
those photographs of burnt bodies.’
‘Has he disallowed any evidence?’
‘I don’t get to hear the legal arguments.’
‘What happens now?’
‘The prosecution has finished. The defence begins calling witnesses
tomorrow.’ Julianne turns down the volume. ‘I just hope they get found
guilty and Marco can get on with the rest of his life.’
‘What is he going to do?’
‘He wants to go to London. Friends have offered to put him up and help
find him a job. He’s applied for university but that’s not until the autumn.’
For a few moments we sit in silence. Julianne picks at lint from the
sleeve of her sweater.
‘Would you like to have dinner with us?’ she asks. ‘Or maybe you’d
prefer to go home and sleep?’
‘No.’
She stands and pirouettes away from me before I try to read anything
into the invitation. Summoning the girls, she serves dinner and we sit
together at the table like a proper family, or like proper families in TV
commercials for Bisto and frozen vegetables. It feels familiar. The familiar
is what I crave.
It cannot last, of course. Charlie has homework. Emma has bedtime.
Julianne says I can read Emma a story but I fall asleep halfway through it.
An hour later, Julianne shakes me awake, holding her finger to my lips.
The dishwasher is humming as I come downstairs. The TV turned down
low.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said about the divorce,’ I say.
Julianne closes her eyes and opens them again, looking in an entirely
different direction. She elevates her face. ‘And?’
‘I think you think it’s going to change things, but you don’t get rid of
baggage, you take more on.’
‘You might be right.’ She doesn’t want an argument.
‘Do you want to remarry?’
 ‘No.’
‘So why?’
‘I don’t feel married any more.’
‘I do.’
Julianne pushes bracelets up her forearm. ‘Do you know your problem,
Joe?’
I know she’s going to tell me.
‘You want everything to seem perfect and to seem happy and you’re
willing to let “seem” equal “be”.’
Her admonishment is intimate and so laced with melancholy it leaves
me nothing to say.
‘You don’t have to go home,’ she says. ‘You can sleep on the sofa.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re exhausted and some nights I get a little scared on my
own.’
‘Scared?’
She slips her hand down my forearm and hooks her fingers under my
palm. ‘I can have bad dreams too.’
My head is vibrating. The sensation comes and goes every few seconds.
Opening my eyes, it takes me a moment to recognise my surroundings. I am
on the sofa in the cottage.
I remember Julianne giving me a pillow and blankets, watching the
news and feeling a sense of helplessness. Problems in Gaza, global
warming, the credit crisis, ozone holes, soaring unemployment, casualties in
Iraq and Afghanistan . . .
I don’t remember turning off the TV or the hallway light. Julianne must
have decided not to wake me. I do remember dreaming of Annie
Robinson’s breasts encased in a lace bra.
The vibrations begin again. My mobile phone is wedged between my
head and the armrest of the sofa.
I press green. It’s Ronnie Cray.
‘Where are you?’
‘What is it?’
‘Ellis is on the move.’
My mind is issuing orders. My feet take a little longer to obey.
Navigating through the darkened house, splashing water on my face, lacing
my shoes. Suddenly, all thumbs, I can’t make the loops and knot the laces.
 Julianne appears at the top of the stairs in a thin cotton night-dress. The
light behind her paints her body in a silhouette that would make a bishop
break his vows.
‘What is it?’ she asks.
‘Go back to bed. I have to go.’
‘This is what I don’t like, Joe.’
‘I know.’
Two unmarked police cars are waiting outside. Monk holds open a rear
door. Ronnie Cray is inside, talking on her mobile. She hasn’t been to sleep
since yesterday.
We travel in silence along Wellow Road towards Radstock and then take
a series of B-roads heading west. Kieran the tech is sitting in the front
passenger seat, fiddling with an earpiece and tapping on a keyboard. The
surveillance vehicles are colour-coded dots on a satellite map displayed on
a laptop screen.
Safari Roy over the two-way: ‘Mobile One: We’re two back, keeping
visual. He’s indicating right . . . turning on to the B3135.’
‘Copy that.’
Another voice: ‘Mobile Three: I’m two miles ahead on the A39. I can
take over at Green Ore.’
Sunrise is an hour away. Cray looks at her watch. ‘How soon can we get
a chopper in the air?’
‘Forty minutes,’ says Kieran.
We push on through the ink-dark night, listening to the radio chatter and
watching the grid lights of larger towns that dot the landscape. Still heading
roughly west, we pass through Cheddar and Axbridge and dozens of small
villages that appear and disappear, each looking the same.
Gordon Ellis is heading for the North Somerset coast. Every so often he
pulls over and waits or doubles back for several miles before turning and
resuming his journey. He’s making sure that he’s not being followed,
perhaps checking number plates. Safari Roy gets worried and drops back
further. A tracking device on the Ford Focus will keep us in touch as long
as Ellis stays with the vehicle.
The eastern horizon is now a yellow slash and the treetops on the high
ground are changing colour. The helicopter is in the air but still half an hour
away. It’s another call-sign in the chorus of chatter and static on the radio.
 Ellis seems to be slowing down, still turning at every roundabout and
doubling back. He’s on the A38, passing under the M5. At the next
roundabout he takes the second exit on to Bridgewater Road and after half a
mile turns left towards Berrow and the coast. The landscape is flat and
windswept, broken only by occasional villages and the Mendip Hills in the
south.
Kieran points to a satellite image that shows clusters of white boxes
along a six-mile beach stretching from Burnham-on-Sea to Brean Down.
Caravan sites, chalet parks and holiday cabins are like miniature
communities set out in grid pattern with narrow tarmac roads dividing the
squares.
The tailing cars are all within a mile of each other as we follow the
Coast Road through small villages touched now by a morning sun that
paints the cottages in pastel colours and turns fields a brighter green.
There are caravan parks on both sides of the road, along the beachfront
and spread in neat rows across fields that were once farmland. Some of the
caravans have small gardens, washing lines and faded awnings. Others look
closed up and packed away for the winter.
‘Is there a fairground near any of them?’ asks Cray.
‘Brean Leisure Park.’ Kieran points to the satellite image on screen,
which shows up as a series of circles, spiders and snake-like rides, flattened
of perspective by the angle of the camera.
The green dot on the screen continues along the Coast Road for another
five hundred yards before turning left into a shopping centre. Ellis slowly
circles the deserted car park and pulls up near a pathway leading from the
shops to the beach.
He waits, sitting behind the wheel, watching the entrance. A motorbike
passes and disappears along the road. One of ours. The other surveillance
teams are hanging back.
The sun has risen above a torn ridge of clouds, bleaching the whitecaps.
We’ve stopped moving and parked at the entrance to the fairground, where
the rides are tethered and silent. I can hear flags and canvas beating out a
rhythm in the breeze.
Minutes pass. The engine ticks over. Cray’s nerves are like guitar
strings. I want to ask her about the court case. What did she decide to do?
It’s not a subject we can talk about openly.
 A woman is walking towards us with her dog. She has tight pink
leggings and a mass of dyed black hair that matches the colour of her
poodle. Crossing the road, she looks at us suspiciously.
Safari Roy on radio:
‘Target’s moving. He’s out of the car. Taking something from the boot . .
. It’s a petrol container. He’s on foot.’
‘Where?’
‘Heading down the beach track.’
‘Stay put. He could double back.’
‘Mobile Two: I have visual contact.’
‘Don’t get too close.’
Cray is sick of looking at dots on a screen. She wants to be outside, on
foot, closer.
‘Mobile One: Target’s on the beach.’
‘Mobile Two: I’ve lost visual . . . no, I see him again.’
‘Copy that.’
‘Mobile Three: I’m staying at the car.’
‘Where’s the chopper?’ asks Cray.
Kieran answers, ‘Eight minutes away.’
‘You still with him, Roy?’
‘I got him.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘He’s cutting over the dunes, back towards the road. You should see him
in about ten . . . five . . .’
‘Mobile Two: He’s walking between ’vans.’
Cray over the radio: ‘Nobody move until he identifies the van.’ Then
she taps Monk on the shoulder. ‘Get us closer.’
Pulling on to the Coast Road, we travel a hundred yards and turn into a
driveway. The other cars are closing in, sealing off the entrances to the
caravan park. I catch a brief glimpse of Ellis about sixty yards away,
walking between caravans. A hooded sweatshirt covers his head. One hand
is in the pocket of his dark jeans. The other holds an orange petrol
container. He stops, crouching on his haunches, scanning the park, but his
gaze returns to a particular ’van.
Cray has an earpiece nestled in the shell of her ear. ‘Wait for my word.’
I can feel the tightness in my scalp . . . in my bladder. Cray is out of the
car, making a scuttling dash to a low brick wall. She peers over the top.
 For ten minutes nobody moves. I keep trying to fit Sienna’s
recollections into the real world. She could see the canopy of a merry-go-
round, yet the leisure park is a hundred yards away.
Ellis straightens and reaches into his pocket. Something’s wrong. It’s
too easy.
‘It’s not the van,’ I whisper to Cray.
She looks at me.
‘It’s not in the right place. Sienna’s statement.’
‘Maybe he moved it.’
‘Or he knows you’re here.’
‘Bullshit! We were careful.’
‘Sienna didn’t see Billy that night she woke. Ellis could have a second
van. He’s going to lead you to the wrong one.’
The DCI is staring at me. ‘I can’t let him get inside. What if he has a
weapon? I can’t risk a siege situation.’
Ellis is only feet away from the door of the van.
‘It’s not the one.’
I can hear Cray grinding her teeth. She presses her radio. ‘Hold your
positions. Nobody move.’
Ellis has reached the door. He motions to put a key in the lock and then
turns, skipping across the narrow tarmac road, disappearing from view.
Safari Roy: ‘Mobile One, I’ve lost visual contact.’
‘Mobile Two, I can’t see target.’
‘Does anyone have a visual?’ asks Cray, growing agitated.
The answers come back negative. Cursing, she makes a decision. She
wants the park sealed off, locked down, nobody in or out.
Running in a low crouch, I return to the car and ask Kieran to bring up
the satellite image again. Studying the layout, I run my finger in a rough
circle around the screen.
‘Where are you going?’ asks Kieran.
‘For a walk.’
My left leg is jerking and my arms don’t swing in unison, but it’s good
to be outside, moving. Following the main road, I walk past Brean Leisure
Park and then vault a low brick wall, heading in the direction of the beach.
There are caravans on either side of the narrow road and more down cross-
streets. Occasionally, I turn and look for the canopy of the merry-go-round.
 I take out my mobile and punch Cray’s number. Almost in the same
heartbeat, I see Gordon Ellis emerge from a row of trees about forty yards
away. In a half-run he disappears behind a shower block and emerges again,
stopping at the last caravan.
Without waiting, he unscrews the lid from the petrol can and begins
dousing the walls and windows, swinging the plastic container in long arcs
that send liquid as high as the roof.
‘Hello, Gordon.’
He turns, holding the petrol can at arm’s length. His other hand reaches
behind his back and produces a pistol from beneath his sweatshirt. It must
have been tucked into his belt, nestled against his spine.
‘I assume you’re not alone,’ he says.
‘No.’
‘So you brought the police.’
‘You did that all by yourself.’
I can see him calculating the odds, pondering an escape route. There is a
movement in the scrubby hedge behind him. Safari Roy is hunkered down,
talking on his radio, summoning back-up.
‘You’re different from the others,’ says Ellis.
‘What others?’
‘The police. They want to know how, but you want to know why.
You’re desperate to know. You want to know if I was abused as a child; if I
was buggered by some uncle or the Parish priest. Did I lose my mother?
Did I wet the bed? Did she make me sleep in soiled sheets? You think there
has to be cause and effect - and that’s your weakness. There’s nothing to
understand. I’m a hunter. It’s how we all started. It’s how we all survived.
It’s how we evolved.’
‘Some of us have evolved a bit further than others.’ I want to keep
moving to stop my legs from locking up. ‘Tell me something, Gordon. Were
you grooming Charlie?’
He gives me a crocodile smile. ‘What did you do to that poor girl? She’s
a timid little kitten.’
‘She’s had a rough few years.’
He nods. ‘I can tell. I thought somebody had got to her first.’
That same smile again. He’s goading me.
Almost in the same breath, I hear Cray’s voice over a megaphone,
demanding that he put the gun down and raise his hands above his head.
Ellis swings around and hurls the petrol container in my direction, where it
bounces end over end.
He turns and puts a key into the lock. Behind him I can see Safari Roy
emerge from cover, running hard, his gun drawn. Cray is yelling, ‘Move!
Move!’
The van door swings open and the air seems to wobble like God is
shaking the camera. I see a puff of dirty smoke, grey like the sea, and then
feel the pressure wave created by the bomb. Gordon Ellis is blown
backwards, like the scene is playing in reverse, speeded up.
The caravan disintegrates from within - windows shooting outwards, the
roof lifting off, walls splintering into a jigsaw of flying debris - a sink, a
toilet, cupboard doors, plastic, stainless steel, reels, spindles - blasting
across the park, tumbling to earth.
A hail of metal fragments, nails or ball bearings that must have been
packed around the explosives, are sent hurtling outwards, punching holes
through fibreglass and flesh.
Knocked from her feet, Ronnie Cray picks herself up. Running. Her hair
wet with blood. A nail embedded in her shoulder. She yells into her radio,
deafened by the blast and unable to moderate her voice. She wants
paramedics.
Ellis had a darkroom. The explosion has ignited the chemicals on the
inside and the petrol on the outside creating an orange ball that boils up and
evaporates in a wave of smoke and debris. Scraps of photographs, torn
paper, twisted negatives and scorched contact sheets are carried by the
breeze, clinging to branches and shrubs, skipping across the grass.
Two caravans are burning - one on its side and the other pocked like a
Swiss cheese. Roy is lying between them. Monk gets to him first. He
signals to me. The front of Roy’s shirt is soaked in blood. I rip it off and see
half a dozen puncture wounds. Two of the nails are still embedded in his
chest.
Someone hands me a first-aid kit. I pull out bandages and dressing,
instructing Monk what to do. Roy is conscious and cracking jokes to
Ronnie Cray.
‘Hey, boss, I’m taking a few weeks off. I’m going to buy ten boxes of
condoms and work my way through them.’
‘You’d be better off buying ten lottery tickets,’ she replies.
‘You think I’m that lucky?’
 ‘I think you’re that unlucky.’
Crouching next to me, she pulls the nail from her shoulder and squeezes
a bandage beneath her bra strap.
‘He should be OK,’ I say, looking around for more wounded. The
nearest caravan has had its side ripped away. Gordon Ellis is lying in the
wreckage. One arm is reaching out for something while the other is only a
spike of bone jammed into a wall.
The skin on his face has been peeled away and one eye is a bloody hole.
I look at his chest, which has been crushed by the blast. He’s dying. He can
go in seconds or a few hours, but he’s going.
I tell him to hold on, the paramedics are coming, a helicopter . . .
His one good eye is staring at me and words bubble in his throat. ‘You
have a fatal curiosity.’
‘I’m not the one who’s dying.’
His tongue appears, licking at the blood on his lips. Can he taste death?
‘Who did this?’
He sucks in a ragged breath and coughs.
‘I wasn’t useful any more.’
He’s talking about Novak Brennan.
‘Why were you helping him?’
‘Novak collects people.’
‘He blackmails them?’
‘He’s a hard man to refuse.’
Ellis grimaces. His teeth are like pieces of broken ceramic sticking from
his gums.
‘What about Ray Hegarty?’
‘The girl must have killed him.’
‘No. There was someone else in the house that night waiting for Sienna.
You wanted to silence her.’
‘Why would I bother? I owned her.’
I can hear sirens in the distance, getting closer. His blood is running
between my fingers, over my hands. Ebbing away.
Something brushes my shoulder - a scorched photograph, blown by the
breeze from the roof of the caravan. A black-and-white image of a naked
girl, snap-frozen, my daughter’s best friend, with her arms bound to her
ankles and her body, arched backwards. Exposed. Obscene. Unconscious.
I look at Ellis.
 I look at my hands.
I walk away.
Rotors flash in the sunshine, beating the air, pushing it aside. Faces
appear at the windows of the air ambulance. A door slides open and
paramedics sprint across the swirling sand, their hair flattened by the
downdraught.
Ronnie Cray is yelling orders and barking into her mobile. Scotland
Yard is sending a team from Counter Terrorism Command and the Bomb
Squad, while Louis Preston has also been summoned.
The blades of the chopper are spinning more slowly. Safari Roy and
Gordon Ellis are strapped to litters and I watch them being carried to the
helicopter. There’s room for one more. Cray looks nervously at the
rumbling chopper. ‘You go with them. I hate those things.’
‘What about your shoulder?’
‘I’m fine. I’m needed here.’
The last of the litters is lifted into the chopper.
‘Why booby-trap the van?’ she asks.
‘Ellis had become a liability. He was attracting too much unwanted
attention.’
‘So Brennan ordered this?’
‘He’s tying up loose ends.’
‘Did Ellis say anything about Ray Hegarty?’
‘He says he didn’t kill him.’
Cray doesn’t look at me, but I know what she’s thinking.
‘What about the trial? Are you going to stop it?’
‘That’s not your concern.’
‘Ruiz says it could cost you your career.’
‘It might not come to that.’
She pauses and gazes past me along the beach to where a wooden
lighthouse on stilts seems to be trapped between the waves and the shore.
The daylight is behind her.
‘Do you have a lot of friends, Professor?’
‘Not too many. How about you?’
‘Same. Why do you think that is?’
‘I know too much about people.’
‘And you don’t like what you see?’
‘Not a lot.’
 She nods judiciously. ‘Decency is badly undersold.’ Her eyes are
jittering with light and her lips move uncertainly. ‘I went to see Judge
Spencer last night. I showed him a photograph of Sienna. I was sure he was
going to deny it. I thought that underneath the robes and wig he’d prove to
be just another lawyer who knows how to play the game - deny, deny, deny
or say nothing at all.’
Cray runs a hand through her bristled hair. Dust and debris cling to her
palm.
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he didn’t know she was only fourteen. He uses an escort
agency occasionally when his wife is away. Same old story - lust, desire and
the lure of forbidden fruit.’
‘What’s he going to do?’
She shakes her head. ‘Hopefully, the right thing.’
She points towards the chopper. The engines are revving and the rotors
accelerating. A helmeted co-pilot gives a thumbs-up.
‘You’d better go.’
Fine sand blasts against my trousers and my face as I run in a crouch
and hoist myself on board. Seconds later my stomach lurches and the tail of
the helicopter lifts. We leave the earth and swiftly rise, watching caravans
shrink to the size of toy building blocks and the roads become black
ribbons.
Higher still, we’re above the whitecaps and rocky shore, higher than the
Mendip Hills and the patchwork fields, where everything is bathed in
lustrous sunshine that makes a mockery of all that is dark about the day.
 51
Frenchay Hospital on the northern outskirts of Bristol was built in the
grounds of a former Georgian mansion, a sanatorium for children with TB
back in the 1920s, when lung diseases were as Welsh as male voice choirs.
Little of the old seems to remain. The A&E is decorated in primary
colours with modular furniture, cushions and even bean-bags. The Intensive
Care Unit is on the ground floor, along a wide corridor that squeaks beneath
the rubber-soled shoes of the nurses.
There have been too many hospitals lately and the smell seems to stick
to the inside of my nostrils, reminding me of my childhood. I grew up
around places like this, one of a long line of surgeons until I broke the
mould and quit medicine in my third year. My father, God’s-personal-
physician-in-waiting, has only just forgiven me.
The metal doors swing open and a small Asian woman appears. Dressed
in green surgical scrubs, she has a short hair, a round face and teeth as white
as brand-new. Her name is Dr Chou and she has a Birmingham accent and
honey-coloured eyes.
‘The detective is out of any danger. We removed fragments from his
bowel, but his other major organs seem to have escaped serious damage.
We’re going to X-ray him again to make sure we haven’t missed any
shrapnel.’
She consults a clipboard. ‘I can’t give you similar news about Gordon
Ellis.’
She begins listing the extent of his injuries, but most of the details wash
over me except for her final statement: ‘Basically we can’t stop the
bleeding. X-rays also show there is a nail embedded in his spine and he has
no sensation below the neck.’
She pauses, wanting to be sure that I understand what she’s saying.
‘Right now he’s on life support and receiving constant blood
transfusions. We’re going to wait for his wife to get here before we turn off
the machines.’
A rotund priest with a shining dome emerges from the ICU, searching
for someone to comfort. He spies a T-shirted teenager in the corner who
holds up a magazine as if he wishes it were a force field. Elsewhere, a waif-
like couple huddle together as if conserving body heat. The boy has a ring
through his eyebrow and the girl has a dozen studs in her ears.
‘I’d like to see him,’ I say.
‘Mr Ellis won’t be able to speak to you.’
‘I know.’
After scrubbing my hands, I follow Dr Chou through a heavy noiseless
door. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the semi-darkness. Only the beds
are brightly lit, as though under interrogation by the machines. Gordon Ellis
lies on a trolley bed with metal sides. His eyes are bandaged over and his
mouth and nose are hidden beneath a mask. Blood is leaking through the
bandages on his chest and arms.
For a moment I think he might already be dead, but I see his chest move
and the mask fog with condensation and then clear again.
Dr Chou lays a cool finger on my wrist. She has to leave. I stand away
from the bed, not wanting to move any closer. Machines hum. Blood
circulates. Tubes, wires and probes snake across the sheets and twist above
his body leading to plastic pouches or monitors.
An intensive care nurse is perched on a padded stool amid the machines.
She regards me with genial acquiescence, wondering why I’m standing in
the half-darkness. She doesn’t understand what I’ve witnessed or
comprehend the questions I still have.
Novak Brennan must have known about Gordon’s fondness for
underage girls and his ability to groom them. He also may have known
about the caravan - Ellis’s perverted chamber of secrets.
Blackmailing Ellis was the easy part. Corrupting a County Court judge
was more challenging. Court appointments are published in advance of a
trial, which gave Novak time to investigate Judge David Spencer and
discover his penchant for prostitutes, particularly young, innocent-looking,
fresh-faced girls. Sienna Hegarty fitted the bill - she was underage, a
schoolgirl. Gordon could provide her.
There were thousands of photographs amid the wreckage of the caravan,
mostly of young girls, bound and gagged, suffering various indignities.
How many other victims were there? Perhaps Natasha was one of them.
And what of Caro Regan? Coop and Philippa may never learn the truth their
daughter’s fate unless the wreckage of the caravan yields some clues.
The ICU nurse speaks to me. ‘You can sit down if you’d like.’
 She has a northern accent and eyes that shine green, reflecting the neon
display panels at her fingertips.
‘I didn’t really know him,’ I reply.
I wished him dead. I almost killed him.
‘I don’t know any of them,’ she says, ‘but I keep talking. I tell them
about the weather and what’s on TV. Sometimes I read to them.’ She holds
up a tattered romance novel.
‘I’m sure you have a nice reading voice.’
‘Thank you.’
She moves around the bed and reattaches the piece of tape holding a
tube against Gordon’s forearm. ‘Was he a good man?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I guess not.’ She blinks at him sadly. ‘Sometimes I wonder how much
control we have over what happens to us, or if our lives are simply a chain
reaction. One crash after another.’
Walking along the corridor, I push through the doors into the A&E
department. A handful of people are standing below a TV on a pillar. I
catch a glimpse of the news banner rolling across the lower screen: RACE
HATE TRIAL ABANDONED.
A reporter is standing outside Bristol Crown Court.
The trial of Novak Brennan, Gary Dobson and Tony Smith was
abandoned in controversial circumstances today amid allegations of jury
tampering and corruption.
In a morning of high drama, Judge David Spencer told the court that a
member of the jury had complained of being approached and threatened by
a third party outside the court. Judge Spencer announced that the risk of
intimidation was too great for him to ignore. He excused the five women
and seven men of the jury, before ordering that the three defendants be
retried at a later date.
Lawyers for Novak Brennan and his fellow accused immediately applied
for bail, arguing their clients had already spent eight months in custody . . .
My mobile is vibrating.
‘Did you hear the news?’ asks Julianne. She’s speaking from
somewhere outdoors.
‘I just heard.’
‘Poor Marco.’
‘Have you talked to him?’
 ‘I’m meeting him in a few minutes. I’m taking him shopping before he
catches the train to London.’
‘How is he?’
‘I don’t think he really understands. I thought jury tampering only
happened in the movies.’
‘You’ll have to explain it to him.’
‘Maybe you can help me.’
I hesitate and she picks up something in my voice. ‘You knew! That’s
why you asked me about the judge.’
I don’t reply, which simply confirms her suspicions.
‘What happened, Joe?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
Before she can ask me another question she interrupts herself: ‘There’s
Marco. I’d better go.’
I don’t get a chance to say goodbye. I want to ring straight back and
hear her sweet voice.
A cab has pulled up outside the main doors. Natasha Ellis emerges,
clutching Billy’s hand. The young boy is wearing his school uniform and
has Tigger tucked under his arm. Natasha doesn’t acknowledge the cab
driver as she pays. Her eyes are bloodshot and she seems to be moving from
memory, unable to process what’s happened.
Dr Chou collects her while a nurse takes Billy to a play area with toys
and colouring books. I stand for a long while watching him leaning over a
drawing, furiously moving his pencil.
Twenty minutes later Natasha reappears, wiping her eyes and struggling
to focus. Billy begins telling her about the drawing. She nods and tries to
listen but struggles to hold on to his words. She sees me and a new emotion
ignites within her.
Spinning to confront me, her left hand swings from the waist, striking
me across the face, raking her nails across my cheek. The slap echoes
through the waiting room and my eyes swim.
Her face contorts in grief and rage. ‘You did this!’
I touch my cheek where her nails have broken the skin. My thumb and
forefinger slide together, lubricated by a droplet of blood.
She tries to hit me again, but this time I catch her by the wrist and hold
her until I feel her energy dissipate and her shoulders sag. Having
surrendered, she lets me take her to a chair where she stares blankly at the
far wall, taking short, sharp breaths.
‘Is there someone I can call?’ I ask. ‘What about your parents?’
Natasha shakes her head.
‘I can get a victim support officer.’
She doesn’t reply.
‘Or I could call a friend . . . You really shouldn’t be alone right now.’
Taking a deep breath, she looks at me imploringly.
‘Why couldn’t you leave us alone? We were fine. Happy. Don’t you see
it was her fault? She was to blame.’
I don’t reply and hatred blooms in her chest again. ‘You’re no different
from Gordon - he was besotted with that little slut. She fooled everybody,
but not me. I found her earring in the bedroom. Gordon tried to lie about it,
but I’m not stupid. I knew what he was doing with her.
‘I followed them one day. Gordon borrowed my car and picked her up
after school. He took her to Bradford-on-Avon and bought her an ice cream.
They were sitting by the river. I watched him feed it to her. She opened her
mouth and he teased her, pulling the spoon away from her lips and offering
it again.’
Natasha wipes her eyes. ‘Gordon said I was being paranoid about
Sienna. He said my jealousy made me ugly. He said he still loved me but I
had to stop smothering him . . . If that little tart hadn’t tried to steal him . . .’
The moment passes and she shrinks away, diminished.
‘What happened to his first wife?’
Natasha doesn’t look at me. ‘She ran away.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘Gordon said he wouldn’t lie to me.’
‘You’ve seen what he’s done.’
Her eyes meet mine, clouding.
‘He’s not a monster. He loved me.’
 52
Outside in the weak sunshine, looking across the hospital grounds, I
watch a mower creating verdant strips of green on the turf, light green and
dark green. A curtain of rain is hanging above the horizon as though unsure
whether to spoil the day. It creates a strange light that might please a painter
or a photographer, but there’s nothing I find comforting or appealing about
the scene.
I touch my cheek again. The scratches are weeping. Natasha Ellis struck
me with her left hand, unleashing all her grief and fury. She has lost her
husband. Lost the life she fought so hard to protect. This is the detail I
failed to notice. I didn’t comprehend how far she’d go to save her marriage.
The sins she’d overlook. The risks she’d take.
I have a missed call on my mobile. Ruiz. I call him back.
‘Have you heard?’ he asks. ‘They abandoned the trial.’
‘I just saw the news on TV.’
‘Looks like Ronnie Cray pulled it off. Does she still have a job?’
‘Far as I know.’
He asks about last night and why I didn’t come back to the terrace.
‘I stayed with Julianne.’
‘Really?’
‘Nothing happened. I slept on the sofa.’
‘Maybe she wanted you to storm her bedroom and ravish her.’
Do people ‘ravish’ each other any more?
I tell him about the booby-trapped caravan and my helicopter flight to
the hospital with Gordon Ellis.
‘So he’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about Caro Regan?’
‘Maybe the debris will yield some clues.’
Ruiz is silent for a time, thinking about Coop and Philippa Regan and
their mausoleum-like flat in Edinburgh and their funereal existence,
wondering what happened to their daughter.
‘Where are you now?’ he asks.
‘Frenchay Hospital.’
 ‘You need a lift?’
‘If you’re offering.’
‘I should have been a minicab driver.’
‘More money.’
‘Better hours.’
He hangs up and I walk across the road, feeling the turf beneath my
shoes. I am closer to understanding things now. I know why Ray Hegarty
was murdered, why Annie Robinson was poisoned and why Sienna was
framed.
Not everything makes sense. If there’s an exception to every rule, then
that rule itself must have an exception. Novak Brennan tried to corrupt a
judge. Sway a jury. Secure a verdict. Yet so much of it depended upon
factors that he could never fully control. A majority verdict to acquit
required ten jurors - a huge ask. By blackmailing a judge the only thing he
could completely guarantee was the collapse of the hearing and a retrial
with a new jury and a new judge. Novak must have known this.
I glance towards the hospital and see my reflection cast back at me from
the doors. I am a man standing alone in a field. Some things we have to do
alone. Birth. Death. Sitting in a witness box . . .
Uneasiness washes over me, inching upwards, lodging in my throat.
Fumbling for my phone I call Julianne. Her number is engaged. I start over.
This time she answers.
‘Where’s Marco?’ I ask.
‘He went to buy me a present.’
‘Does he have a number?’
‘He doesn’t have a phone.’
She’s at Broadmead Shopping Centre, which is fifteen minutes away.
Julianne senses my fear. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You have to find him. Get him out of there.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s not safe. Find him and call me.’
Ruiz has pulled up outside the hospital. I try to run but suddenly freeze
and stare helplessly at my legs, telling them to move. I direct all of my
concentration to just my left leg, telling it to step forward. It must be like
watching a man step over an invisible obstacle. Once I get a degree of
momentum, I’ll be fine. One leg will follow the other. Walk and then run.
 I pull open the passenger door and tumble inside, telling Ruiz to drive,
telling him that Julianne’s in danger. Without hesitation, he accelerates,
weaving between cars, demanding answers.
We’re on the M32. Middle lane. Passing the concrete towers, shuttered
shops, factories, pawnshops and ‘For Lease’ signs. There are hookers
walking up and down Fishponds Road: women who are women and men
who are women and crack-heads who will be anything you want.
‘When you were following Carl Guilfoyle - you said it was strange, you
said he seemed to know he was being tailed. Maybe we were meant to find
the photographs.’
Ruiz looks at me askance and back to the road.
‘Why?’
‘Novak couldn’t guarantee an acquittal, but he could guarantee what
happened today.’
‘You’re saying he wanted the trial abandoned?’
‘He needed more time.’
‘More time for what?’
‘To silence Marco Kostin.’
‘I thought he was under police guard.’
‘He was until this morning.’
Traffic lights. Amber then red. Ruiz brakes heavily.
My mobile chirrups. Julianne.
‘I’ve seen him.’
‘Marco?’
‘No, the man with the black tears.’
My heart lurches.
‘I saw him outside WHSmith.’
‘Was he following you?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t find Marco.’
I tell her to stay calm. ‘I’m going to hang up now and call the police.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Where were you going to meet Marco?’
‘At Brasserie Blanc.’
‘Go there. Sit outside. Somewhere public.’
My heart is banging in my ribs. Cray’s number is engaged. I try again.
Monk answers. I tell him to get the boss. It’s an emergency.
The DCI replaces him.
 ‘Carl Guilfoyle is going after Marco Kostin. They’re both at Broadmead
Shopping Centre.’
‘Is anyone with Marco?’
‘Julianne is looking for him. We’re almost there.’
‘Don’t approach Guilfoyle. Get them out of there.’
The lights are green. Ruiz accelerates. Seventy miles an hour. Chasing
tail lights and leaving them behind.
My mind is zigzagging ahead, like a small furry creature darting
through undergrowth, following a scent, switching direction, moving away
from me. We’re going too slowly.
Ruiz leans on the horn as we get caught in traffic on the Old Market
Roundabout. He swings across two lanes, braking hard, the tyres
screeching. We almost sideswipe a lorry and he wrenches the wheel,
correcting twice. The pine-scented air-freshener swings violently from the
mirror.
We’re in Quakers Friars. Ruiz pulls over. Hazard lights flashing. I’m
already out the door and running across the flagstones, dodging pedestrians,
shoppers, office workers.
Julianne is standing alone outside the restaurant in her buttoned-up
trench coat and the boots she bought in Milan. Nearby there are children
running in and out of water jets that spout like molten silver from the slick
pavers.
‘We were supposed to meet here,’ she says, wide-eyed, anxious.
‘Where did you see him last?’
‘In Merchant Street.’
‘How long ago?’
‘He should have been back by now.’
Ruiz arrives. We’ll split up and search. Somebody should stay here in
case Marco turns up: Julianne.
‘Call if you see him.’
I start moving, my scalp itchy and damp. There are hundreds of shops
over almost six blocks and three levels - department stores, boutiques,
speciality shops, restaurants and cafés - the biggest retail centre in Bristol.
As long as Marco stays somewhere public. As long as he’s in the open . . .
Weaving through the crowd, I keep looking at the faces, expecting to
see Marco or Carl Guilfoyle. There are too many people. He could walk
right past me and I might not see him.
 Pushing through the doors of BHS, I jog up the escalator and weave
between racks of clothes. The window overlooks the intersection of
Broadmead and Merchant Street.
I scan the crowd. Young mums with prams, joggers in Lycra shorts, a
hooded youth with a skateboard, an elderly couple, hunched arthritically,
moving in slow motion. A juggler in a clown’s hat has drawn an audience
by tossing coloured balls in the air and bouncing them off the pavement.
There are so many people, a sea of moving heads. That’s when I see
Marco on the edge of the crowd watching the juggler. He’s wearing a red
baseball cap and carrying a glossy carrier bag.
Retreating down the escalator, through the automatic doors, I emerge on
street level. A toddler runs under my feet. Half catching him as I fall, I
bounce up and spin around, planting the boy on his feet. His mother gives
me a foul-mouthed tirade, but I’m looking past her for Marco.
I can’t see him. He was on the far side of the square. Pushing through
the crowd, I look for his red baseball cap. In the periphery of my vision I
catch sight of Julianne. What’s she doing? She must have seen Marco too.
Suddenly, someone collides with me from the front on my right-side
and continues walking. I glimpse his features - the marks on his cheeks,
more like scars than tattoos, as though his face has been sewn together from
discarded pieces of skin.
I can hear my breath escaping as I watch his right hand slip into his coat
pocket. He moves away. I know I have to chase him. Stop him. Instead I
feel an overwhelming sense of fatigue. One step. Two steps. Three steps.
What’s happening?
I glance down. A red plume spreads out from my ribs down to my
trousers. The blade slipped in so easily that I didn’t feel it enter beneath my
ribs, rising towards my heart and into my lungs.
I’m staggering, falling to my knees, frantically trying to stay upright.
My head keeps bobbing and weaving but it’s not one of Mr Parkinson’s
cruel jokes. The pain has arrived, a dull throbbing, growing in intensity,
screaming at me to stop. It’s as if someone has driven a heated metal rod
into my chest and is jerking it from side to side.
My shirt is sodden, sticking to my body. I look up and around,
frightened. Through the forest of legs, I can’t see Marco. Maybe he’s gone.
Maybe he’s running. Julianne must be close. I see her first. They’re
together.
 In that instant, I recognise Guilfoyle’s hooded sweatshirt. His right hand
comes out of his pocket. The blade is flush against his forearm. He’s
moving at pace through the crowd.
I try to yell, but it comes out as a groan. Guilfoyle is only a few paces
away, passing Marco on his knife-hand side, his arm in motion, using his
momentum to drive the blade beneath his ribs, aiming for the heart.
At that moment a girl in a pink skirt and candy-striped leggings loses
her helium balloon. Marco spins on one foot and tries to catch the trailing
string. The blade slides through his shirt and into his flesh, but the angle is
wrong.
Guilfoyle knows it. The speed of the thrust has carried him two paces
from Marco and he turns. Julianne has seen him. She screams, open-
mouthed, terrified. Head down, hands in his pockets, Guilfoyle carries on,
pushing through the crowd.
Marco drops to his knees, holding his side. I can’t see him any more.
People are stepping around me and over me. A woman trips over my legs
and almost falls. She has tight blue jeans and a huge arse. Another face,
upside down. Her husband - he’s wearing an AC/DC T-shirt.
‘Are you all right?’ he asks.
I can’t answer.
‘That’s blood!’ says his wife.
‘He’s been shot,’ says someone else.
‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’
‘Who shot him?’ asks another voice.
‘It could have been a sniper.’
‘A sniper! Where?’
‘There’s a sniper!’
It’s like watching a rock being thrown into a tranquil pond, rippling
outwards. People scatter. Yelling. Running. Falling down. Dragging
children. Fighting to get away. There are cries and yells and scuffles.
Now I see Julianne clearly. She’s safe. I feel a quickening torque of my
heart. She takes off Marco’s shirt. Blood is leaking over the waistband of
his underwear and jeans.
At the far end of Merchant Street a black Range Rover pulls up. Carl
Guilfoyle jumps into the passenger seat. I glimpse a woman behind the
wheel. Rita Brennan.
 Ruiz is charging after them. He runs like a front-rower with his head
down and knees lifting, everything happening below the waist. He grabs the
driver’s door and pulls it open. Rita Brennan accelerates and the door
swings out and back in again. Ruiz grabs at the wheel and wrenches it
down. Moments later I hear the crunch of metal on metal but can’t see what
happened.
There are police sirens. Growing louder.
The pain in my chest is overtaking every other sense. My fingers are
cold, my skin clammy. Nothing feels like it is happening to bring help.
Where are the paramedics? Someone get a doctor.
Julianne looks up and sees me. I wish I could smile bravely, but I’m
scared and I’m shaking.
She’s with me now. Kneeling.
‘Where?’
I lift my arm. She can see the puncture wound below my rib cage. The
hole seems to be breathing. She takes off her trench-coat and presses it to
the spot.
‘That’s going to stain,’ I tell her.
‘I’ll soak it.’
Straddling me, she presses her fingers against my ribs, keeping pressure
on the wound. Her eyes are shining. She’s not supposed to cry.
‘I need you to stay awake, Joe.’
‘I’m just closing my eyes for a second.’
‘No, you stay awake.’
‘You were right,’ I tell her. ‘I should have protected you and Charlie.’
She shakes her head as a signal that I’m not supposed to talk about this
now.
‘How’s Marco?’
‘He’s going to be OK.’
My heart is no longer battering. It’s slowing down.
‘I’m just going to have a little rest.’
‘Don’t! Please.’
‘Sorry.’
Julianne lowers her head to my chest and it feels like we’ve slipped
back through the years since we separated and she’s listening to the same
heartbeat that serenaded her to sleep for twenty years.
‘Don’t be angry with me,’ she whispers.
 ‘I’m not angry.’
My lips are pressed into her dark hair.
I remember the last time we made love. I had come home late and
Julianne was asleep or only half awake. Naked. She rolled on top of me in
the darkness, performing the ritual half-blind, but practised. Rising and
descending inch by inch, accepting my surrender. I thought at the time that
it didn’t feel like make-up sex or new-beginning sex. It was goodbye sex, a
dying sigh drawing colour from the embers.
If that has to be the last time then I can live with that, I think, opening
my eyes again.
‘Charlie is going to be OK,’ I say.
Julianne raises her face to look at me. ‘I know. It just makes me a little
sad because you two are so alike.’
‘You think she’s like me?’
‘I know you both too well.’
She runs her finger down my right cheek, tracing the scratches.
‘Who did this to you?’
‘The woman who killed Ray Hegarty.’
‘It wasn’t Sienna.’
‘No.’
 Epilogue
I have a student waiting to see me outside my office. His name is Milo
Coleman and I’m supposed to be overseeing his psychology thesis, which
would be a lot easier if I had something to oversee.
Milo, one of my brighter students, has spent the past four months trying
to decide the subject of his thesis. His most recent suggestion was to pose
the question whether loud music in bars increased alcohol consumption.
This only slightly bettered a proposal that he study whether alcohol made a
woman more or less likely to have sex on a first date.
I told him that while I appreciated how diligently he would research
such a subject, I doubted if I could get it past the university’s board of
governors.
Opening my office door, I don’t find him waiting on the row of chairs in
the corridor. Instead he’s chatting to Chloe, an undergrad student who
answers the phones in the psychology department. Milo is dressed in a
James Dean T-shirt, low-slung jeans and Nike trainers. Chloe likes him. Her
body language says so - the way her shoulders pull back and she plays with
her hair.
‘When you’re ready, Milo,’ I announce.
Chloe gives him a look that says, Next time.
‘Professor O’Loughlin, how’s it hanging?’
‘It’s hanging just fine.’
‘I heard about you being stabbed and I was, like, shocked, you know. I
mean, that’s a heavy scene.’
‘Yes, Milo, very heavy.’
He takes a seat opposite my desk, leans forward, elbows on his knees. A
long fringe of hair falls across one eye. He brushes it aside, tucking it
girlishly behind his ear. Smiling quietly. Beaming.
‘I think I’ve got it: the big idea.’
‘Hit me with it.’
‘Well, I went to see a comedy night last week and I was watching this
black dude telling jokes, really edgy stuff, racist, you know. He’s telling
nigger jokes and all these white people in the audience are laughing and
cheering. I got to wondering what effect racial humour has on prejudice.’
 Milo looks at me nervously. Expectantly. Hopefully.
‘I think it’s a great idea.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. How are you going to do it?’
Milo gets to his feet, pacing the room while he lays out his ideas for a
cognitive study involving an audience and a series of questions. He’s
energised. Animated.
‘So how long do I have?’
‘Start work now and you can update me at the end of November.’
He cocks his head, looking at me with one eye. Milo often looks at me
sideways so I never see both his eyes at the same time.
‘That’s only two months.’
‘Sufficient time.’
‘But I got to work out questions. Parameters. Study groups . . .’
This is the other side of Milo’s personality - making excuses,
questioning the work involved.
‘Two months is plenty of time. Show me too little and I’ll mark you
down as being lazy. Show me too much and I’ll think you’re sucking up to
me.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Huh?’
‘You’ve spent four years studying human behaviour. Decide if I’m
lying.’
Milo pushes back his fringe. Frowns. Wants to argue.
‘I know what you’re like, Milo. You cruise. You coast. You wear that
earring and that T-shirt because you see yourself as a rebel without a cause,
channelling the spirit of James Dean. But let me tell you something about
Dean. He was the son of a dental technician from Indiana, where he went to
a posh school and studied violin and tap dancing.’
Milo looks completely bemused. I put my hand on his shoulder. Lead
him to the door. ‘Start your thesis. No more excuses. Show me something
by November.’
I watch him disappear along the corridor with his exaggerated slope-
shouldered walk. My old headmaster at prep school, Mr Swanson (who
looked like God with long white curly hair) would have barked at him, ‘It
took a million years for humans to learn to walk upright, Coleman, and
you’re taking us back to the trees.’
Coop Regan is sitting nervously on a chair. Dressed in a coat and tie, he
has combed his oiled hair across his head and buttoned his jacket as though
waiting for a job interview.
This is a completely different man to the one I met four months ago in
Edinburgh, hiding away in a dark lounge watching old home movies of his
missing daughter. Now clear-eyed and sober, he stands and shakes my hand
firmly, holding my gaze.
‘Ah’m sorry to bother you,’ he says, in a voice ravaged by years of
smoking. ‘Ah know you’re a busy man.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘We couldn’t go home without saying goodbye.’
‘Where’s Philippa?’
He motions outside. ‘Billy wanted to play. It’s a long old drive home.’
Glancing out the window, I see a young boy running through the trees,
being chased by a large woman in a bright green cardigan who is shaped
like a fireplug. Philippa has no chance of catching Billy, but she’ll keep on
chasing as long as he keeps laughing.
‘Vincent brought us to see you,’ says Coop.
Then I notice Ruiz standing beneath a tree, which has blooms as big as
his fists. Billy runs towards him and hides behind him for a moment as
though his legs are tree trunks.
‘We’re going to have to watch that one - he’s cheeky like his ma used to
be.’
‘You’ll do fine.’
Coop’s chest expands and he stares at his polished shoes. ‘Ah said some
things to you before, when you came to see us. Ah blamed Caro for making
us love her so much. Ah was going off my head.’
‘I understand.’
Coop nods. ‘Aye, Ah think you do.’
He pulls me into a hug. I can smell his aftershave and the dry-cleaning
fluid on his jacket.
Releasing me, he turns and wipes his eyes. I walk him downstairs and
say goodbye to Philippa, who is pink-faced and breathless, ten years
younger than I remember with her bright red hair pulled back from her
round face.
 They wave and toot their horn, taking their grandson home. Ruiz lets his
eyes wander across the grass to a group of pretty students having a picnic in
the shade. For a fleeting moment I glimpse a yearning in him - a longing to
be young again - but he’s not a man to look over his shoulder or
contemplate what might have been.
It has been two months since I left hospital and three months since the
stabbing. The stiletto blade entered beneath my ribs and travelled upwards
through my spleen, aiming at my heart. Narrowly missing the chambers and
aorta, it punctured my left lung, which slowly collapsed. The slenderness of
the blade limited blood loss externally but filled my chest cavity. I needed
three blood transfusions and two operations.
I came out of hospital on the same day that Natasha Ellis appeared in
Bristol Crown Court charged with the murder of Ray Hegarty and
attempted murder of Annie Robinson. These were crimes of passion and
crimes of revenge. Natasha thought she was losing Gordon to another
schoolgirl lover - someone just like her.
At first she denied the allegations and then tried to strike a deal after
Louis Preston found her DNA on a hand-towel at the murder scene.
On that Tuesday evening, Natasha let herself into the Hegarty’s house
using a key that she copied from Sienna. She hid behind the teenager’s
bedroom door, looking at the reflection in the mirror so she knew exactly
what moment to strike.
She was expecting Sienna, but Ray Hegarty arrived home instead. He
must have heard a sound and walked upstairs into Sienna’s room. Perhaps
he saw Natasha at the last moment as the hockey stick was falling.
She couldn’t risk being recognised or identified so she silenced him,
cutting his throat, right to left.
Ronnie Cray said it on that first day - it had to have been someone small
to hide behind the door. Somebody left-handed. Somebody who neatly
folded the hand-towel in the bathroom.
The amount of blood must have surprised Natasha - how fast it flowed,
how far it sprayed, covering her hands and her clothes. Minutes later Sienna
came home and saw her father’s bag. She crept quietly up the stairs,
wanting to avoid him, but heard a tap running in the bathroom and a toilet
flushing.
Running the final steps, desperate to get into her room, Sienna tripped
over her father’s body and screamed, scrambling up, leaving her handprint
on his shirt. Natasha didn’t react quickly enough to stop Sienna fleeing.
However, she quickly saw another away to get rid of her rival. She dropped
the Stanley knife into the river close to where Sienna was discovered that
night.
Did Gordon know what she’d done? Perhaps. Surely, he suspected, but
in a perverse twist the crime reinforced his bond with Natasha because each
had to provide an alibi for the other.
Annie Robinson proved to be another hidden danger. She was
blackmailing Gordon over his affair with Sienna, extorting money and
threatening to destroy his career. Natasha had killed to protect her marriage
and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Spiking a bottle of wine with
antifreeze, she delivered it to Annie’s flat with a gift card from a grateful
cast.
Annie phoned me on the day I got out of hospital. She said that I
sounded different.
‘How do I sound?’
‘Like maybe you could forgive me one day.’
She laughed nervously and kept talking.
‘I wanted to come and see you, but I didn’t know how you’d react or
what your wife would say. I did a very bad thing, asking Gordon for money.
I should have protected Sienna. I should have stopped it.’
There was a long pause. Maybe Annie expected me to disagree or
wanted me to make her feel better. I couldn’t do it.
Then she told me about her plans to take long service leave and travel to
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. She might even get to Australia.
‘I think I might like Australian men. They’re not so buttoned up.’
‘You think I’m buttoned up?’
‘No, you’re just in love with your ex.’
Novak Brennan and his co-accused go on trial next week at the Old
Bailey. The hearing has been transferred to London for security reasons and
the Attorney General has promised greater protection for jurors and
witnesses.
Marco Kostin will be the star witness again. Julianne visited him twice
in hospital before he was taken to a safe house. I don’t know if they’re
going to offer him a new identity after the trial, but I wouldn’t blame him
for going back to Kiev or trying to start a new life somewhere else.
 I have my own court date to contend with. Not as a defendant, thank
goodness, the charges against me were dropped. Instead I’m to give
evidence against Carl Guilfoyle, who faces two counts of attempted murder,
as well as perverting the course of justice and jury tampering. Rita Brennan
will be tried alongside him as an accomplice.
The murder of Gordon Ellis is still an ongoing investigation, but Ronnie
Cray has Guilfoyle in her sights. She has recommended Safari Roy for a
Police Bravery Award, but refused to accept a nomination for herself. The
scar on her shoulder will serve as a trophy.
Meanwhile, Judge David Spencer stepped down from the bench very
quietly during the summer. There was a paragraph in The Times Law
Reports and a small article in the Guardian, but no judicial inquiry or police
investigation. He retired with his reputation and pension intact, although a
separate diary entry mentioned that he’d separated from his wife of forty
years. That can be punishment enough.
The collapse of the so-called race-hate trial was a big news story for a
week as the experts and commentators debated again whether trial by jury
is an outdated system, akin to asking the ignorant to understand the
incomprehensible and decide the unknowable.
I don’t know the answer, but if I were on trial for my life, I would rather
put my fate in the hands of twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty
than one judge who may have an agenda. Jurors can be colossally ignorant
and easily bewildered by the sophistry of lawyers, but I’ll take my chances
with the ordinary man and woman because they can tell the difference
between justice and the law.
I see Helen Hegarty occasionally in the village, but she still keeps to
herself, rarely smiling. She no longer works nights and Zoe has moved
home, deferring her university course for a year. Sienna has started at a new
school in Bath, but she and Charlie still see each other, one of them
struggling to reclaim her childhood while the other is desperate to grow out
of hers.
I used to want to stop Charlie growing up. I sought to hold on to the girl
who watched Lord of the Rings with me and liked her pizza with extra
pepperoni and made fun of the fact that Julianne couldn’t catch a ball. Now
I have a more realistic vision of the future, one that isn’t based on a
pathological desire to protect my children from people like Gideon Tyler
and Gordon Ellis and Liam Baker; as well as bad boyfriends, ignorant
bosses, cruel comments, drunk maniacs and intolerant bigots.
Parenthood is a lot like being a trapeze artist, knowing when to let go
and watch your child tumble away in mid-air, reaching out for the next
rung, testing herself. My job is to be here when she swings back, ready to
catch her and to launch her into the world again.
Lately, I’ve become more optimistic that Charlie will be OK. She’ll
weather adolescence and a divorce (if it comes to that), and I’ll be around to
see her graduate from university, collect the Nobel Prize, fall in love, marry
and be blissfully happy.
When I lie awake in the morning, inventorying my tics and twitches,
waiting for my medication to click in, I sometimes think of all the things I
haven’t done yet. I haven’t slept with a movie star or climbed Kilimanjaro
or learned a language other than schoolboy French. I haven’t written a book
or run a marathon or swum with dolphins.
Mr Parkinson will not kill me, but I will die with him unless the race for
a cure beats his unrelenting progress. Some people think news like this
would change their attitude towards life. They have fantasies of self-
transformation, of climbing mountains or jumping out of planes.
Not me. You won’t catch me running with the bulls in Pamplona or
searching for the source of the Amazon. I’d rather a mundane end than a
gloriously brave or stupid one.
In the meantime, I am going to tremble and twitch and spasm into
middle age. It’s not that I don’t feel the aching pain of loss. When I see
footage of myself from six years ago, standing tall, fighting fit - images of a
younger, healthier me - I do feel angry. My strength, balance and dexterity
have been compromised. I am half the man I was, searching for the rest.
Maybe I’ll move back to London. Maybe I’ll learn to dance. Maybe I’ll
be the guy I dream of being, holding the line on the life that I promised
myself.
Some nights I still sit outside the cottage, watching over my family,
seeing their shadows behind the curtains - it’s the best show in town and I
still have a pretty good seat.
Raising children, I’ve decided, is a lot sadder than I expected. Seeing
them grow up brightly and vividly is tempered by the knowledge that each
year brings another share of lasts. The last time I push my daughter on a
swing. The last time I play the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. The last time I
read a bedtime story.
If I could give my daughters one piece of advice I would tell them to
make the most of the first times - their first kiss, their first date, their first
love, the first smile of their first child . . .
There can be only one.

***
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