Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

I can hear the wetness in her throat as she swallows. At the same time, a shudder goes through her body like tension leaving a metal spring.

‘What happened afterwards?’

‘Gordon drove me back to his house but we couldn’t go inside because Natasha was home. He said it turned him on - knowing what another man had done to me. He took off my clothes and we had sex in the car but he was rough. He hurt me. I told him to be careful.’

‘Did you tell him you were pregnant?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He swore and shoved me away. He was yelling at me, saying I’d tricked him, saying I got pregnant on purpose. He told me to get rid of the baby. An abortion. That’s when I ran away. I ran home.’

Sienna looks at me blankly, too numb to cry. Touching her upper arm with my palm, I feel the coolness of her skin. She leans against me, pushing her face under my chin. Motionless in my arms, she remains curled up, her skirt pulled tight over her knees.

The patchwork quilt has slipped down, uncovering her feet. A dark stain runs over her right foot. It looks like a birthmark or a lesion. Then I notice that it’s shining and viscous, soaking into the sheet beneath her.

‘What have you done?’ I whisper, unhooking my arms and raising her skirt up her calves and over her knees, which are slick with blood.

Sienna’s eyes are closed as though she’s fallen asleep, but she’s still conscious.

‘Don’t tell Mum,’ she murmurs.

Twin lacerations on her inner thighs are swollen and leaking. She has cut from the edge of her panties towards her knees, probably using a razor blade wrapped in a tissue.

I glance around the room. Where did she hide her implements?

‘You need stitches.’

‘I’ll be OK.’

‘You need to go to hospital.’

‘It doesn’t matter any more.’

Her eyes are closing.

‘Have you taken something, Sienna?’

She doesn’t answer. I shake her gently. ‘Did you take something? ’

In a sing-song voice, ‘White pills, yellow pills and long green pills.’

‘Where did you get them?’

‘I stole them,’ she sings. ‘From the trolleys and from bedside tables.’

She’s talking about Oakham House.

Flinging open the door, I yell down the stairs, ‘Call an ambulance! ’

Sienna opens her eyes just long enough to give me a pitying look. ‘They’re never going to let me out now, are they?’

I grab her top sheet and rip it into bandages to wrap around her thighs. I need to know what she took. What drugs?

Sliding sideways down the wall, Sienna rests her head against a pillow and mumbles, ‘He told me not to write a note. He said too many suicides spend too much time composing letters, trying to find words. “You could die of old age, trying to write a note,” he said. “You just have to do it.”’

‘Who told you that?’

‘He said to do it like Juliet, but I couldn’t. So I did it like Romeo.’

Gordon Ellis is laughing at me, mocking me with his bloodstained teeth and reptilian smile. I keep picturing Sienna’s bloody thighs and seeing her eyes roll back into her head.

Hurting him won’t be sufficient. I want to feed him broken glass. I want to see spittle fly from the corners of his mouth. I want to see him suffer like she’s suffering.

After following the ambulance to the hospital, I continue driving. Sick. Dry-mouthed. Fists clenched on the wheel. A mantra playing in my head: ‘She’s just a kid. A child. He used her. He poisoned her mind.’

Rage consumes me. Rational thinking has been replaced by a single linear idea that runs on tracks like a bullet train, hurtling towards a single destination.

Parking the Volvo, I push open the groaning door and walk to the rear. Pulling out a tyre jack, I slam the boot closed. Sienna’s face is melting in front of me. Her eyes are closing. Her thighs are sticky.

Julianne is divorcing me. My eldest daughter thinks I’m a failure. My life’s going to shit, but I should have stopped this. I should have seen this coming. Predators like Ellis don’t stop. They never relinquish control. They invest too much time and effort in grooming a victim.

Bounding over the gate, I walk towards the house. Tunnel vision. Halfway up the path and Ruiz appears in front of me. I try to step around him but he won’t let me pass. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

Then I feel my left arm being twisted up my back, followed by the searing pain that spreads from my shoulder socket to the base of my spine. His leg swings into the back of my knees and I stagger forward crashing into a garden bed.

Ruiz falls with me, knocking the wind from my lungs. I try to roll away, but he wraps his arm around my neck in a chokehold.

‘Enough now!’ he warns me, squeezing my neck.

‘S’OK.’

‘Concede.’

‘OK.’

A bubble of exhaustion breaks inside me. Rage leaks away.

‘I’m going to let go,’ says Ruiz.

‘OK.’

His arm slips away. He pulls me up to my knees, but I don’t have the strength to stand.

‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.

‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘Sienna took an overdose. She tried to kill herself.’ I stare at my muddy hands. ‘Ellis told her to do it. He wants her dead.’

‘How?’

My throat swells. ‘I don’t know. She told me that Ellis could always reach her. I didn’t believe her.’

Ruiz drags me to my feet. ‘So you decided to confront Ellis. You came here to give him another beating - or were you gonna kill him this time?’

He pushes me away in disgust. ‘What sort of idiot . . . you couldn’t count your balls and get the same answer twice. You’re on remand. I lodged my house as surety. You’re not allowed within a thousand fucking yards of Gordon Ellis and yet here you are - breaking the law. They can lock you up. Forget about that - they can take away my house!’

‘I’m sorry.’

He shoves me in the chest, pushing me towards the car. ‘Get in the fucking car.’

‘I didn’t think . . .’

‘Do as you’re told.’

I glance at the house. Natasha Ellis is standing at the window, holding the curtains aside. She looks like a child looking outside at a rainy day. We’ve made a mess of her garden.

Ruiz opens my car door. ‘Get inside and drive.’

‘Where?’

‘The hospital.’

‘What about you?’

‘I’ll follow.’

‘What were you doing here?’

‘Watching Gordon Ellis.’

I start the engine and pull away from the kerb. By the time I reach the end of the street, Ruiz’s Mercedes is in my rear mirror, a 280E with two-tone wheels and a bright red paint job. Think pride. Think joy.

My anger has subsided but the black hole survives within me, still and even, sucking in the light. Ellis can’t get away with this. He can’t destroy another life.

The air in the hospital feels dirty and recycled. Ruiz has gone to get tea at the canteen, leaving me sitting at a table, staring at spilled sugar and an old coffee ring.

Sienna is in a stable condition. Doctors have pumped her stomach to get rid of any pill fragments and given her activated charcoal to bind the drugs in her stomach and intestines, reducing the amount absorbed into her blood.

She overdosed on TCAs - antidepressants that are the drug of choice for treating depression. The lethal dose is eight times the therapeutic dose, which makes it a risky drug to have around someone like Sienna.

Shutting my eyes, I let exhaustion slide over me like a prison blanket. My mind wants to curl up and sleep. Maybe I can wake up without any blood on my hands.

Gordon Ellis did this. It was classic grooming behaviour. He drew Sienna close and then pushed her away, constantly keeping her off balance. He praised her then belittled her, withheld his affection and then doled it out in token amounts until she began to question herself. She surrendered her body and then her self-esteem. She slept with someone because he told her to. She took an overdose because he told her to. This was the ultimate demonstration of his control and of his arrogance.