Bleed for Me (9 page)

‘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 al owed 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 al right?’

What am I going to tel her?

‘I’m at Bath Police Station. I’l 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 al right. It’s under control.’

Final y she speaks - her questions coming in a rush. When? Why? How?

‘Stay calm.’

‘Don’t tel 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 tel 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 wil 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 wil 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 bil s ... 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 fol ow the glow of streetlights to the car. Charlie drags her feet as though carrying bricks instead of books. Emma has fal en into a worried silence.

‘Why didn’t you cal 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 final y answers.

‘I cal ed the hospital but they wouldn’t tel 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, marshal ing her arguments, defending herself.

‘There were al these stories going round school. They’re saying that Sienna kil ed 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 wil say.’

‘Don’t tel her!’

‘It’s too late. She cal ed me.’

Charlie groans. ‘Now she’l get al sad and she’l 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 stil need to talk about this.’

‘Whatever.’

I hate that word - ‘whatever’. She’s tel ing me I don’t understand. I’l 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 cal s out to me. ‘Did she say why?’

‘Sienna.’

‘We’l talk about it later.’

The door closes and I sit on the low brick wal 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 wil 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. Stil dark outside. Sometimes I wake like this, aware of a sound where no sound belongs. The terrace is old and ful 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 smal white pil and take a sip of water, raising my head from the pil ow to swal ow. The blue pil 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. Til 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 bul etin:

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 windowsil almost goading him.

‘A short walk today,’ I tel him.

I have work to do - a lecture at the university. Today my psychology students wil learn why people fol ow 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 shal tel them about Stanley Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University, who in 1963 conducted one of the most famous experiments of them al . 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 pul ed, 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 pul ed a new lever a soundtrack broadcast painful groans, turning to screams at higher voltages. Final y there was silence.

Sixty-five per cent of participants pul ed 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 fol owing 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 shal ow 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 Mil Hil . 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 pul ed 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 rol s her chair to face away from the sun, resting the wheels against the low brick wal . Fumbling for a cigarette, she lights it apologetical y. ‘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 kil Daddy.’

‘Why are you tel ing me this?’

‘You can tel the police.’

‘Why don’t you tel them?’

‘I have. I don’t think they’re listening.’

A car passes. She looks at it through a veil of tiredness.

‘Tel 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 al owed 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 fal .

‘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 cal s, opened my letters, read my diaries. I wasn’t al owed 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 tel me directly, because Daddy was always listening in to her phone cal s and reading her emails.’

‘Was Sienna sexual y active?’

She hesitates, holding something back. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Why did you come here today?’

‘To tel you that Sienna didn’t do it.’

‘Did she tel 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.’