Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

Cray doesn’t react. She stubs out the cigarette and reaches for another. ‘You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t stop the presses, Professor.’ She flicks the bottom of the packet and a cigarette pops out. ‘Forty years ago my father changed the spelling of our surname because he didn’t want anyone knowing we were related to Ronnie and Reggie Kray. He was their first cousin. Never met them. But he didn’t want to be associated with a couple of psycho gangsters.’

‘I don’t get your point.’

‘Some links are completely harmless. It’s like six degrees of separation - we’re all linked by only a few steps.’

Ruiz reacts, ‘What sort of bullshit response—’

She cuts him off. ‘Let me finish. You’re probably right about Gordon Ellis - the man got rid of his first wife and married one of his students - but trying to tie him to Novak Brennan is stretching things too far. MI5 has been investigating Brennan for six years. They’ve infiltrated local right-wing organisations and neo-Nazi groups, surveilled meetings, bugged phones, tailed cars and taken photographs. The name Gordon Ellis has never come up.’

‘Ellis and Brennan went to university together.’

‘Fifteen years ago.’

‘What about the Crying Man?’

‘He’s your bogeyman - not mine. Stan Keating didn’t file a police report. Nobody else has complained about this guy.’

Cray takes the harshness out of her tone. ‘If Sienna Hegarty makes a statement I’ll investigate it personally. That’s a promise. But you and I both know what happens next. It’s Sienna’s word against Ellis’s, and he has an alibi. If we charge him with sexual assault, Sienna will have to give evidence. She’ll be cross-examined by his barrister. Her personal life will be scrutinised. Her character will be dissected. Wait till he gets to the murder charge she’s facing . . .

‘Don’t look at me like that, Professor, I’m giving you the good news. A word in the right ear and Ellis gets suspended and investigated by Social Services, the Education Trust and his own union. He’ll have a child protection team crawling up his arse and he’ll spend the next two years fighting his way clear of them. And even if he wins, there won’t be a school in the country that’ll risk employing him.’

Cray reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. My arm stops trembling.

‘If I were you, Professor, I’d take a step back from all this. You’re facing serious charges and you shouldn’t be talking to Sienna Hegarty. The CPS called me yesterday. You can forget doing a psych report. They’ve appointed someone else. If you really want to help Sienna, tell her to get a good lawyer and to cut the best deal she can.’

‘She needs protection.’

‘I’ll put a guard on her room.’

‘She’s suicidal.’

‘We try to prevent deaths in custody.’

Everything Cray has said makes perfect sense but still I want to rail against it. I’m all for making the best of a bad situation, but this smacks of surrender, not compromise. Lawyers can be pragmatic and so can detectives, but the victims have to live with the outcome.

As we walk away from the house I shake myself, trying to rid myself of the conversation. My worst dread is that it may be contagious.

Sunday morning, on the Spring Bank Holiday weekend. Ruiz is still asleep in the spare room. His feet are sticking out from beneath a Night Garden duvet and a pyramid of stuffed animals that collapsed during the night. I can picture him wrestling teddy bears in his sleep and subduing them with his breath.

I make coffee and breakfast. The smell wakes him and he appears downstairs wearing just his Y-fronts and a singlet.

‘I thought you’d be a boxer man,’ I tell him.

‘What’s wrong with these?’

‘They’re man briefs.’

‘They’re Y-fronts.’

‘If you say so.’

He looks at himself over his stomach. ‘I’ve always worn Y-fronts. ’

‘Good for you.’

‘They’re comfortable.’

‘I’m sure they are. A lot of body builders and cowboys wear them.’

Ruiz gives me a pitying look. ‘You’re a weird fucker.’

‘Where are you going? I got breakfast ready.’

‘I’m getting dressed.’

While we eat he talks me through what he did yesterday afternoon after we left Ronnie Cray’s farm. He began by staking out the minicab company - hoping to get a glimpse of the Crying Man.

‘He didn’t show up, but something occurred to me while I was watching the place. A lot of the drivers were picking up young women dressed to the nines - short skirts, high heels, lots of face paint. They’d drop these girls at an address and then wait for them.’

‘For how long?’

‘An hour - sometimes more.’

‘And you have a theory?’

‘Smells like sex.’

‘Escorts.’

I think back to the girl I saw waiting at the minicab office when I was showing Sienna’s photograph around. Mid-twenties and dressed to kill, yet unsmiling and cold. I’ve seen the look before in my consulting room and when I’ve lectured groups of prostitutes about staying safe on the streets.

Ruiz takes the last rasher of bacon from the pan. ‘Sienna was dropped on the same corner. Maybe it was a commercial transaction - somebody ordered a young girl and the escort service provided one - courtesy of Gordon Ellis.’

‘But what does Ellis get out of it?’

‘Money. Favours.’

‘He’s interested in schoolgirls not prostitutes.’

‘What then?’

I think about Sienna - the stolen pills, the suicide attempt - there isn’t a court in the land that will grant her bail after what’s happened. Gordon Ellis reached her once and could risk it again because Sienna is so vulnerable and easily to manipulate. She’s also his weakest link.

Ruiz licks his fingers. ‘I still don’t understand how he did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘How did Ellis get to Sienna? She was in a secure unit.’

‘Maybe he called her.’

‘Phone calls are monitored and can be traced. Visitors have to be registered.’

‘So if he didn’t call and didn’t visit . . . ?’

I run through the events in my head again. When Ray Hegarty was found dead in Sienna’s room, the only thing missing was her laptop.

‘What about her email account?’

‘The police checked her service provider.’

‘So she used someone else’s computer . . .’

Even before I finish the sentence, I realise what I’ve missed.

‘Grab your coat,’ I tell Ruiz.

‘Where we going?’

‘To see Charlie.’

Julianne answers the door and kisses Ruiz on each cheek, telling him he needs to shave. Emma squeaks in surprise and demands the big man’s undivided attention like a jealous girlfriend.

Charlie is still in bed. She won’t surface until at least eleven, citing mental fatigue and exhaustion from too much schoolwork. I send Emma upstairs to wake her.

‘What if she won’t wake up?’

‘Jump on her head,’ says Ruiz.

A few minutes later I can hear Charlie yelling at Emma. Something is thrown. Something falls with a bump.

Ruiz calls from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Front and centre, young lady, you don’t want me coming in there to get you.’

Charlie goes silent.

Ruiz resumes his seat at the kitchen table. Julianne has offered to make him breakfast and he’s going to eat a second one.

‘So I hear you’re getting a divorce,’ he says, making it sound like she’s buying a new car.

The statement lands like a rock in a still pond. Julianne looks at him suspiciously and continues cracking eggs into a bowl. ‘We’ve been separated for more than two years.’

‘You both have to consent.’