Bleed for Me (4 page)

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 stil time for an evening strol to the Fox and Badger, the vil age pub. Col ecting my coat, I step out the door and turn along the High Street.

A few minutes later I pul open the heavy door. Smel the beer fumes. The pub is noisy and energetic, ful 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 smal er fireplace in the lounge bar has a brace of pheasants above the hearth and a sticker that reads: ‘If it’s cal ed 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 dol s grown up.

The publican, Hector, raises his eyes and pours me a Scotch. One drink won’t hurt. I’l 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 technical y not divorced, I’ve avoided most of the meetings but I do play in the pub’s over-35s’ footbal team. There are fifteen of us - a number that al ows 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 bal s 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 cal ed

‘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.’

‘Cal 999. I’m coming.’

I grab my coat from a wooden hook and pul 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 Mil Hil , I pick up speed, letting gravity carry me towards the cottage in jarring strides.

Julianne is waiting outside, a torch swinging frenetical y in her hand.

‘Where did she go?’

She points towards the river, her voice cracking. ‘She rang the doorbel . 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 pil ow. We gaze at each other and something passes between us. A promise. I’l 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 smal 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 vil age.

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 fol ow.

‘Sieeeeenna!’

The sound bounces off the arch of the footbridge and seems to echo along the banks of the narrow stream. They cal 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 cal Sienna’s name again, feeling an awful sense of déjà vu. Two years ago I searched this same road, looking for Charlie, cal ing 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, al owing 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 wal s 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’l 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 dol . Stil 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, fal ing 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. Al the while, I’m talking to Sienna, whispering between heavy breaths, tel ing 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 tel me who did this to her.

The bridge. The arch. I have to free my arm and use a sapling to pul both of us up the bank to the edge of the road. Sienna hangs limply from my other arm, a dead weight, being pul ed 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 wal , 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 yel s.

A powerful light il uminates 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 yel s 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 fal . One of them is asking me questions.

Did I find her in the water? Was she conscious? Did she fal ? Is she al ergic 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 wil not fail. She wil not let me go.

The ambulance reverses down the hil . The back doors open. A litter slides from within. Sienna is rol ed 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 al 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.

‘Cal 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 stil , her limbs muddy and pale, her stomach rising and fal ing 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 fol ow 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 smal 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 al ergies 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 real y 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 fol ow her into the woods?’