Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

‘I want to know what’s happened to her.’

‘Answer my question, Mr Ellis.’

‘Sunday.’

‘Have you ever been to her apartment?’

Gordon stares past her, his mind in flux, racing through the possibilities. Now less sure of himself, he hesitates over his answers, fighting to keep his voice neutral.

‘My client needs to use the bathroom.’

‘Your client can hold it in,’ says Cray.

‘I want it to be noted that he was denied a toilet break.’

‘Noted.’

Ellis is slowing down his answers, giving himself time. This is what makes him so difficult to pin down. He adapts to different circumstances, changing the tempo and elements of his personality to suit the occasion. Ronnie Cray has to stay on the subject of Annie, but she’s running out questions.

‘You knew Annie Robinson at university.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you also knew Novak Brennan.’

A grin tugs at the corners of the teacher’s mouth. The spell has been broken. He’s on firm ground again. ‘We shared a house together for a while.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Was it this week?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘In the past month? Six months? Year?’

‘I don’t remember.’

Cray glances over her shoulder towards the observation window. Ellis is going to stonewall now. Every answer will be the same.

Time is called. The tape stopped. Cray emerges and walks past me. I find her outside in the secure parking lot, sitting on the steps in the sunshine.

‘This is the smoker’s corner - want to join? We’re the cool group.’

‘No thanks.’

‘We’re getting nowhere.’

‘You shook him up.’

‘He stuck to his script.’

‘Except when you mentioned Annie Robinson.’

‘You don’t think he knew?’

‘No.’

Someone like Gordon Ellis is almost defined by his sense of superiority and control. His whole persona is an act, concealing a warped but calculating mind, but for just a moment when he heard about Annie Robinson the artifice and game-playing vanished. He was out of his comfort zone.

‘I still can’t understand him,’ says Cray. ‘He’s got a beautiful young wife at home. Money. Looks. He could have any woman he wanted.’

‘He doesn’t want just any woman. Underneath his pretty-boy looks, Gordon is still an ugly, overweight kid who wears glasses and can’t get a girlfriend. He transformed himself. He exercised. Lost the weight. Went to the gym. Took vitamins. Got an education, but he never forgot how those girls belittled him at school. The pretty, confident ones. The untouchables.

‘Ellis is a narcissist, which is why he gets intensely angry if you suggest that he has a flaw. He cares about his appearance and the impression he makes. He used to hate looking at himself in the mirror, but now he does it automatically, compulsively. And he strains every fibre of his being to meet his own flawless image of himself, demeaning and seeking to destroy anyone who casts doubts on the way he sees himself.’

The DCI nods and glances at her polished shoes. ‘I’m running out of questions.’

‘That’s OK. Keep pushing him. I noticed a few things. When he lies he looks directly at you like he’s gazing into a camera. And when he gets nervous he puts his left hand in his pocket as if reaching for something. I think he normally carries some sort of lucky charm or talisman, which he keeps in that pocket. Check out the personal effects log - see what they took off him.’

Cray has forgotten to ash her cigarette, which hangs from the corner of her mouth.

‘How in glory’s name do you know shit like that?’

‘I watch people.’

‘Do me a favour. Don’t ever go looking at me. Don’t go thinking about me. Don’t watch what I do.’

‘You worried?’

She brushes fallen ash from her coat.

‘You’re a clever bastard, Professor, but there’s something you should know about menopausal women. We can experience insomnia, depression, hot flushes, fluid retention and constant PMS. It’s best not to piss us off.’

Upstairs, I take Sienna to an interview room. She’s dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and Converse trainers that squeak on the polished floor.

‘Does he know I’m here?’

‘He probably suspects.’

She takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment. ‘Is he going to hate me?’

‘What he did was wrong - you have nothing to be ashamed of.’

DS Abbott arrives with a folder of photographs. I spread them on the table - images of caravan parks and aerial photographs of the Somerset and Cornish coastline. I take the best of the prints and put them on a white board. Sienna sits watching me.

‘Remember what we said?’

She nods.

‘This is just like being an actress. You’re my leading lady.’

‘I know.’

‘Don’t be scared.’

‘I’m not.’

I look into her eyes.

‘I don’t hate him, you know. Even if he doesn’t love me any more.’

Along the corridor, Ronnie Cray leaves the interview room. Gordon Ellis is led back to a holding cell - his lawyer at his side, whispering instructions.

Sienna rubs a lock of hair between her forefinger and thumb. Gordon has reached the door.

‘So from the caravan you could see a fairground?’

‘Yes,’ says Sienna.

‘What could you see?’

‘The top of a merry-go-round with lots of coloured lights . . . and I could hear music and people laughing.’

‘What else?’

‘The sea.’

‘Could you see the beach?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you recognise it again?’

‘Sure.’

Sienna is standing at a whiteboard, pointing to a photograph.

Gordon Ellis has stopped in the passageway, waiting for Roy to unlock the next door. He hears Sienna’s voice and turns, taking in the maps and photographs. His pale eyes swim with loathing. Roy nudges him forward. The door closes.

Sienna takes a deep breath.

‘Did I do OK?’

‘You were a star.’

‘His name is Carl Guilfoyle,’ says Cray, staring from her window, watching people dodge through the rain. ‘He’s originally from Belfast, although he’s spent half his life in the States - including a dozen years in prison in Arizona for attempted murder.’

A bus rumbles by, sending up a flurry of spray.

‘We pulled his prints from the room at the Royal Hotel. He tried to wipe it clean, but we got two partials from the suitcase.’

She opens a folder on her desk. It contains a handful of photographs of Carl Guilfoyle - most of them police mugshots. The earliest, taken in his teens, shows him clear-skinned, with dark hair and a crooked mouth.

‘When was this taken?’

‘He was seventeen. He glassed a guy in a bar-fight. When the Arizona police picked him up he had a fake ID. A judge remanded him to an adult prison. That night one of the older cons tried to take advantage of a young white Irish boy in the shower block. Big mistake. They found the con in a shower stall choking on his own blood. Swallowed his tongue. To be more exact - they found it in his stomach.’

‘What happened to Guilfoyle?’

‘He got twelve years for the glassing.’

‘He was a juvenile.’

‘Doesn’t make much difference in the States.’

I study each of the photographs. It’s like watching a Hollywood make-up artist transform an actor, putting on a prosthetic mask, altering their age and features. Only Guilfoyle’s eyes have stayed the same, rimmed with a quivering energy. I remember how he looked at Sienna’s photograph, committing her face, her hair, her budding body to memory. I could smell his aftershave and something else, crawling beneath.