Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

‘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.’

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.’