Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

Ruiz survived the bullet and the memories coming back. Some people are meant to prevail. They stay calm and collected under extreme pressure, while others panic and unravel. We each have a crisis personality - a mindset that kicks in when things go badly wrong. True survivors know when to act and when to hold back, choosing the right moment and making the right choice. Psychologists call it ‘active passiveness’ - when doing something can mean doing nothing. Action can mean inaction. This is the paradox that can save your life.

‘Ellis used an Internet chat room to reach Sienna,’ I say.

‘How did she get access to a computer?’

‘She must have borrowed one at Oakham House. It could also explain why her laptop was stolen that night.’

‘He’s covering his tracks.’

Above us the sun radiates through thin gauze-like cloud, but still seems bright enough to snap me in half. Even before I reach the house I notice the unmarked police car. DS Abbott and Safari Roy are sitting on a low brick wall, eating sandwiches from grease-stained paper bags.

Monk chews slowly, making us wait.

‘We had a complaint,’ he says. ‘Natasha Ellis says you turned up at her house on Friday. Is that true?’

Before I can answer, Ruiz interrupts. ‘It was my fault, Detective. I went to see Gordon Ellis.’

Monk looks at him doubtfully. ‘Why was that?’

‘Sienna Hegarty had taken an overdose and was in hospital. She said that Gordon Ellis had taken liberties with her.’

‘Liberties?’

Ruiz can make a lie sound noble. ‘Yes, sir. Liberties. I was angry. I may have done something I regretted if it weren’t for Joe. He stopped me and calmed me down.’

Monk’s not buying a word of it. He turns his gaze to mine. ‘So let me get this straight, Professor. The only reason you were outside Gordon Ellis’s house was to prevent a disturbance?’

Monk wants me to agree with the statement.

Ruiz pipes up, ‘That’s what happened.’

‘I’m asking the Professor,’ says the DS, waiting.

I look at Ruiz and then at Safari Roy, who is nodding his head up and down slowly.

‘Yes,’ I say, ‘that’s what happened.’

Monk opens the lid of a rubbish bin on the footpath and drops his sandwich wrapper inside.

‘Mrs Ellis must have been mistaken.’ He lets the statement hang in the air. ‘If she’d been correct we would have had to arrest you, Professor, for breaching a protection order.’

I don’t reply.

‘Sienna Hegarty is being interviewed tomorrow and we’re going to investigate her allegations. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to impede or jeopardise our inquiries.’

‘No.’

Monk seems satisfied, and signals to Safari Roy, who has dripped egg yolk on to his tie and is trying to wipe it off with a handkerchief.

An electric window glides lower.

‘Have a good day, gentlemen,’ says Monk. ‘Mind how you go.’

Annie Robinson isn’t answering. I press the intercom again and give her another few seconds before walking back to my car. A horn toots. Annie is pulling into a space. She has bags of groceries.

‘If you’re busy . . .’

‘No, you can help me carry these.’

She drapes me in plastic bags and I follow her inside. She’s wearing shrunk-tight jeans, leather boots and a concho belt that dangles below a fitted black shirt. My eyes are fixed on her denim-clad thighs as she walks ahead of me. I remember them wrapped around me and I get that feeling again.

Annie unlocks the door and leads me through to the kitchen, where she begins unpacking the bags, talking constantly.

‘I know I said I was sorry about the other night, but I really mean it. I never do things like that.’

Does she mean she never gets drunk or never knocks on a man’s door and abuses him for ignoring her?

‘It’s a little blonde of me, don’t you think?’

‘Maybe just your roots showing.’

She smiles back at me. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Sit down. Have lunch.’

She heats up two small quiches and opens a plastic bag of washed salad leaves. She’s used to cooking for one, buying prepackaged, ready-made meals.

I look around the flat.

‘This is a nice place.’

‘Rented. I couldn’t afford it otherwise. I can’t really afford it now, but I’ve spent my entire life waiting for things. I don’t do that any more. The only point of waiting is if you have something worth waiting for. That’s a good kind of waiting.’

‘I didn’t know there were different sorts of waiting.’

‘Oh, there are. That’s the mystery.’ She laughs and her thin blonde hair sways.

‘Let’s eat in the garden.’ She points through the glass doors to a small round table inlaid with blue and white tiles. She sets out two forks and knives, two plates and two napkins.

‘Do you ever think about your ex-husband?’ I ask.

She’s drizzling dressing on the salad. ‘No.’

‘Not at all?’

‘David Robinson. There you go - that’s the first time I’ve said his name in months. I did think of changing back to my maiden name when we got divorced, but I couldn’t be bothered getting a new passport and driver’s licence.’

Annie is about to light a candle. ‘Is this too much?’

‘Probably.’

‘OK, no candle.’

She opens the oven door. They’re still not ready.

‘You mentioned a photograph of Gordon Ellis and Novak Brennan.’

‘Yes. Come look.’

I follow her into the bedroom where she pulls out an old photograph album from the shelf in her wardrobe. We sit side by side on her bed, leafing through the pages.

‘That’s me there,’ she says. ‘I’m with my friend Jodie and that’s Heidi and her boyfriend Matt. You see Gordon? He’s with Alison. They went out for about three months and then he started dating Jodie. She’s the blonde. They went out for almost a year. The longest of anyone.’

Jodie’s hair is cut short and she has a long slender neck and big eyes.

‘She looks about twelve,’ I say.

Annie laughs. ‘Jodie was always getting carded when we went out.’

She turns the page. ‘There’s Gordon again.’

He is wearing a trench coat cinched at the waist, which he probably bought from a charity shop because he thought it made him look urbane and cool. Instead he looks like he’s dressed in his father’s clothes.

The photograph was taken at a party. Ellis is grinning at the camera with his arms draped around Jodie and Annie, his outspread fingers suspended above their breasts. There’s nothing wolfish about the pose, but he’s a man who knows what he wants.

‘This is the photo I was talking about,’ she says, pointing to another image taken in the same series. A person hovers at the edge of the frame, trying to avoid the camera - a younger Novak Brennan with longer hair and fewer lines. His face is partially obscured by Annie’s raised arm holding a beer glass. Only one eye is visible and the camera flash has turned it red.

‘Did you know him?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t remember him at all until I saw the picture. I think he shared a house with Gordon. They were always hanging around together.’

‘But if you were friends with Gordon . . .’

‘He dated my girlfriends, remember?’

‘Where were these taken?’

She shrugs. ‘Some party. You’re not supposed to remember them - that’s the whole point of college.’

Annie turns more pages of the album. There are photographs of a holiday in Turkey, Annie in a bikini, lying on the deck of a sailing boat. She looks good.

‘You don’t want to see these old things,’ she says, not closing the page immediately.