Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

We’re sitting close enough for her breast to brush against my forearm.

‘Maybe those quiches are ready,’ I suggest.

Annie cocks her head, having read the signal.

‘Do you have to be somewhere?’

‘I promised I’d take Emma to the park.’

It’s a lie. Annie knows it.

‘Well, at least have something to eat.’

She leaves me in the bedroom. I keep turning the pages of the album. There are more photographs from college. Foundation Day celebrations. Theatre productions. A charity car rally with a customised VW beetle. A black-tie dinner on a bridge.

Gordon Ellis features in several more images, often in the background. One particular shot stands out because two girls are dancing in the foreground. Behind them, to one side, Ellis can be seen kissing a girl on a sofa, twisting her head towards his. Both their mouths are open, an inch apart, and he looks like a bird about to deposit food in a chick’s beak.

The glass coffee table in front of them is littered with drug paraphernalia and traces of white powder in smudged lines.

I study the girl on the sofa. Gordon’s hat obscures most of her face, but she has a small dark mole on her shoulder blade, just below her neck. I have kissed that spot. Felt her pulse quicken beneath my lips.

Annie calls from the kitchen. Taking the photograph with me, I slip it on to the table next to her plate. She glances at it but says nothing. Instead a strange transformation seems to take place. Rising from her chair, she walks around the garden, examining the shrubs and new blooms.

‘It’s not just the parties you forget,’ she says. ‘A lot of things about college are best left alone.’

‘You’re kissing Gordon Ellis.’

‘I’m snogging him, to be exact.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I dated him twice. That’s as far as it went.’

Annie sighs and her eyes grow brighter as though a generator is spinning inside her.

‘What about Novak Brennan - how much more do you know about him?’

‘He had a reputation on campus for dealing.’

‘Dealing?’

‘Hash. Ecstasy. Speed. Cocaine. Novak could get it. He was always very mysterious. People said he’d been to prison, but I don’t know if that’s true.’

Annie takes the photograph and tears it into pieces, letting the scraps fall into the garden. She keeps her face turned away from mine.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘The past is the past.’

The chemistry of our conversation has changed. Annie picks up her wine glass, her hand trembling slightly. The quiches are growing cold.

‘Sienna tried to commit suicide on Friday. She took an overdose. ’

Annie doesn’t react. Dissected by the afternoon sun, the skin on her face looks coarse and grained.

‘Is she going to be all right?’

‘She’s out of danger. Before she went to hospital she told me something that puzzled me.’

‘What was that?’

‘She said you asked her if she was seeing Gordon Ellis outside of school. It was late last year.’

Annie holds the glass to her lips for a beat. Her eyes meet mine over the rim, a private thought buried within them.

‘I heard she was babysitting for him.’

‘You suspected something?’

‘I thought it was inappropriate.’

‘But you didn’t say anything to the school or to Sienna’s parents.’

A sharper edge in her voice. ‘You think I covered it up.’

‘I think you knew. I think you protected Gordon. I want to know why.’

She puts down the wineglass. All remaining warmth has gone.

‘It’s time you left.’

‘Explain it to me, Annie.’

‘Go now or I’ll call the police.’

Taking my coat from the lounge, I walk to the front door. Annie unlocks it for me. I want to say something. I want to warn her about getting too close to Gordon Ellis because everything he touches begins to rot and perish. Suddenly she grasps my forearms through my shirt and plants a kiss on me, hard but not mean, whispering into my mouth.

‘That’s what you’re missing.’

The problem with secrets and lies is that you can never tell which is which until you dig them up and sniff. Some things are buried for safekeeping; some are buried to hide the stench; and some are buried because they’re toxic and take a long time to disappear.

Annie Robinson lies as easily as she kisses. I can still taste her. I can see her eyes beneath her fringe, awkward and sad. I see a woman ready to surrender completely - to freefall into love, if only to escape the memories of a bad marriage.

Thirty minutes later I’m almost home. My mobile is chirruping. Ruiz.

‘I’ve found the freak with the tattoos.’

‘Where?’

‘I was watching the minicab office, thinking he was never going to show, thinking I got better things to do, thinking about how I’m retired and I’m too old for this shit . . .’

‘OK, OK.’

‘Anyway, he finally turned up and picked up a girl. He took her to a hotel in Bristol. Fancy place. Dropped her off. Waited downstairs while she did her horizontal polka with some suit on a business trip. Afterwards he dropped her at a train station and drove to a gaff off the Stapleton Road - a bed and breakfast hotel called the Royal. Place needs a facelift or a bulldozer. Now he’s in a pub around the corner. I’m sitting outside.’

‘Do we know his name?’

‘Mate of mine - shall remain nameless - ran the number plate. It’s an Audi A4 registered to a Mark Conlon. Lives in Cardiff. Nameless is running a full computer check. He should have something in a few hours. You want to join me? I’m not fronting this freak alone.’

I don’t think we should front him at all.

Thirty minutes later I knock on the steamed-up window of his Mercedes. Ruiz unlocks the doors and I slide inside. Sinatra is singing ‘Fly Me to the Moon’. Takeaway wrappers litter the floor.

Ruiz offers me a cold chip.

‘I’ve eaten.’

‘Yeah, but what were you eating? Is that lipstick I see? You’ve been knobbing your schoolteacher friend while I’ve been out here freezing my bollocks off.’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Shame. Is there lipstick anywhere else?’

‘You have a one-track mind.’

‘When you get to my age it’s the only track worth playing.’

We’re outside an ugly modern pub with red-brick walls, small windows and harsh lines. Streetlights reflect from the wet black pavement. Ruiz takes a sip from a thermos mug.

‘You been inside?’

‘Not yet.’

Glancing at the pub I ponder the wisdom of this. We don’t know anything about Conlon except that he put three men in hospital and one of them now speaks through a hole in his neck.

‘Novak Brennan was supplying drugs at university. Ellis might have been one of his dealers.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Annie Robinson.’

Ruiz rolls down his window and tosses the dregs of his tea. ‘Novak always knew how to spot a gap in the market.’

The pub door opens. Light spills out. Two men step on to the pavement. Conlon is the taller of the two. He’s wearing dark jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. The second man is older with a receding hairline and a stiff military bearing. He’s dressed in a beige raincoat, carrying an umbrella like a walking stick.

Conlon glances down the street. For a moment he seems to be looking directly at us, but it’s too dark for him to see anyone inside the Merc. Conlon reacts to something. He grabs the man by the lapels and pushes him hard against the side of a car. The older man is nodding. Scared.

Conlon shoves him away and gets behind the wheel. The Audi pulls away.

‘You want to follow him?’ asks Ruiz.