Bleed for Me (17 page)

‘I’m needed here.’

‘Don’t take two of you to talk to Danny. Cal it a community service.’

Mrs Gardiner is halfway down the hal , motioning him to fol ow. 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 al his brazen defiance, he doesn’t look particularly tough or aggressive. He has smal hands. Delicate features.

‘Tel 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 tel me that you hang out with a hot-looking fourteen-year-old because she’s a mate.’

‘Yeah, wel , 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 shril . ‘I just take her places. Drop her off. I’m not shagging her. Haven’t touched her.’

‘No?’

‘It’s true.’

‘Either tel me the truth, Danny, or Detective Abbott is going to search your room. He’l find your hash and your porn magazines and whatever else you’re hiding. Then he’l take you down to the station and put you in a cel 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’l 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 al 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 pul my chair closer and tel 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 tel 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. Al 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 al over you, putting on a good show for your mates. That’s when you tel 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 tel 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 tel 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, wel , maybe once.’

‘What happened?’

‘I hung around; parked up behind some trees. I saw a car pul 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 careful y 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 cal 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 fal . ‘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’l need to retrieve her messages from the phone company database and her Internet server.

‘Sienna does some babysitting for her drama teacher, Gordon El is. 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. El is 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 careful y, 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. Usual y, with a little luck, the facts fal into place and the right person goes down. And even if the system fails, detectives can normal y sleep peaceful y at night because the defendant was probably guilty of something equal y terrible. Truly innocent people very rarely go to jail. That’s the theory. It’s normal y 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 hil to the cottage and sit outside on a stone wal 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 doorbel .

Julianne opens the door a crack. ‘Hel o?’

‘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 control ing.’

‘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, fil ing me with a sense that al 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 tel 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’l 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 fal s 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.