Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

‘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.