Michael Robotham - Bleed For Me

‘So how long do I have?’

‘Start work now and you can update me at the end of November.’

He cocks his head, looking at me with one eye. Milo often looks at me sideways so I never see both his eyes at the same time.

‘That’s only two months.’

‘Sufficient time.’

‘But I got to work out questions. Parameters. Study groups . . .’

This is the other side of Milo’s personality - making excuses, questioning the work involved.

‘Two months is plenty of time. Show me too little and I’ll mark you down as being lazy. Show me too much and I’ll think you’re sucking up to me.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Huh?’

‘You’ve spent four years studying human behaviour. Decide if I’m lying.’

Milo pushes back his fringe. Frowns. Wants to argue.

‘I know what you’re like, Milo. You cruise. You coast. You wear that earring and that T-shirt because you see yourself as a rebel without a cause, channelling the spirit of James Dean. But let me tell you something about Dean. He was the son of a dental technician from Indiana, where he went to a posh school and studied violin and tap dancing.’

Milo looks completely bemused. I put my hand on his shoulder. Lead him to the door. ‘Start your thesis. No more excuses. Show me something by November.’

I watch him disappear along the corridor with his exaggerated slope-shouldered walk. My old headmaster at prep school, Mr Swanson (who looked like God with long white curly hair) would have barked at him, ‘It took a million years for humans to learn to walk upright, Coleman, and you’re taking us back to the trees.’

Coop Regan is sitting nervously on a chair. Dressed in a coat and tie, he has combed his oiled hair across his head and buttoned his jacket as though waiting for a job interview.

This is a completely different man to the one I met four months ago in Edinburgh, hiding away in a dark lounge watching old home movies of his missing daughter. Now clear-eyed and sober, he stands and shakes my hand firmly, holding my gaze.

‘Ah’m sorry to bother you,’ he says, in a voice ravaged by years of smoking. ‘Ah know you’re a busy man.’

‘That’s OK.’

‘We couldn’t go home without saying goodbye.’

‘Where’s Philippa?’

He motions outside. ‘Billy wanted to play. It’s a long old drive home.’

Glancing out the window, I see a young boy running through the trees, being chased by a large woman in a bright green cardigan who is shaped like a fireplug. Philippa has no chance of catching Billy, but she’ll keep on chasing as long as he keeps laughing.

‘Vincent brought us to see you,’ says Coop.

Then I notice Ruiz standing beneath a tree, which has blooms as big as his fists. Billy runs towards him and hides behind him for a moment as though his legs are tree trunks.

‘We’re going to have to watch that one - he’s cheeky like his ma used to be.’

‘You’ll do fine.’

Coop’s chest expands and he stares at his polished shoes. ‘Ah said some things to you before, when you came to see us. Ah blamed Caro for making us love her so much. Ah was going off my head.’

‘I understand.’

Coop nods. ‘Aye, Ah think you do.’

He pulls me into a hug. I can smell his aftershave and the dry-cleaning fluid on his jacket.

Releasing me, he turns and wipes his eyes. I walk him downstairs and say goodbye to Philippa, who is pink-faced and breathless, ten years younger than I remember with her bright red hair pulled back from her round face.

They wave and toot their horn, taking their grandson home. Ruiz lets his eyes wander across the grass to a group of pretty students having a picnic in the shade. For a fleeting moment I glimpse a yearning in him - a longing to be young again - but he’s not a man to look over his shoulder or contemplate what might have been.

It has been two months since I left hospital and three months since the stabbing. The stiletto blade entered beneath my ribs and travelled upwards through my spleen, aiming at my heart. Narrowly missing the chambers and aorta, it punctured my left lung, which slowly collapsed. The slenderness of the blade limited blood loss externally but filled my chest cavity. I needed three blood transfusions and two operations.

I came out of hospital on the same day that Natasha Ellis appeared in Bristol Crown Court charged with the murder of Ray Hegarty and attempted murder of Annie Robinson. These were crimes of passion and crimes of revenge. Natasha thought she was losing Gordon to another schoolgirl lover - someone just like her.

At first she denied the allegations and then tried to strike a deal after Louis Preston found her DNA on a hand-towel at the murder scene.

On that Tuesday evening, Natasha let herself into the Hegarty’s house using a key that she copied from Sienna. She hid behind the teenager’s bedroom door, looking at the reflection in the mirror so she knew exactly what moment to strike.

She was expecting Sienna, but Ray Hegarty arrived home instead. He must have heard a sound and walked upstairs into Sienna’s room. Perhaps he saw Natasha at the last moment as the hockey stick was falling.

She couldn’t risk being recognised or identified so she silenced him, cutting his throat, right to left.

Ronnie Cray said it on that first day - it had to have been someone small to hide behind the door. Somebody left-handed. Somebody who neatly folded the hand-towel in the bathroom.

The amount of blood must have surprised Natasha - how fast it flowed, how far it sprayed, covering her hands and her clothes. Minutes later Sienna came home and saw her father’s bag. She crept quietly up the stairs, wanting to avoid him, but heard a tap running in the bathroom and a toilet flushing.

Running the final steps, desperate to get into her room, Sienna tripped over her father’s body and screamed, scrambling up, leaving her handprint on his shirt. Natasha didn’t react quickly enough to stop Sienna fleeing. However, she quickly saw another away to get rid of her rival. She dropped the Stanley knife into the river close to where Sienna was discovered that night.

Did Gordon know what she’d done? Perhaps. Surely, he suspected, but in a perverse twist the crime reinforced his bond with Natasha because each had to provide an alibi for the other.

Annie Robinson proved to be another hidden danger. She was blackmailing Gordon over his affair with Sienna, extorting money and threatening to destroy his career. Natasha had killed to protect her marriage and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Spiking a bottle of wine with antifreeze, she delivered it to Annie’s flat with a gift card from a grateful cast.

Annie phoned me on the day I got out of hospital. She said that I sounded different.

‘How do I sound?’

‘Like maybe you could forgive me one day.’

She laughed nervously and kept talking.

‘I wanted to come and see you, but I didn’t know how you’d react or what your wife would say. I did a very bad thing, asking Gordon for money. I should have protected Sienna. I should have stopped it.’

There was a long pause. Maybe Annie expected me to disagree or wanted me to make her feel better. I couldn’t do it.

Then she told me about her plans to take long service leave and travel to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. She might even get to Australia.

‘I think I might like Australian men. They’re not so buttoned up.’

‘You think I’m buttoned up?’

‘No, you’re just in love with your ex.’

Novak Brennan and his co-accused go on trial next week at the Old Bailey. The hearing has been transferred to London for security reasons and the Attorney General has promised greater protection for jurors and witnesses.