Bleed for Me (18 page)

What do I know?

Now she’s smiling sadly at me. ‘You’re so good at analysing other people, Joe, but not yourself.’

‘Or you.’

‘I hate it when you analyse me.’

‘I try not to. I prefer you to be a magnificent enigma.’

Julianne laughs properly this time.

‘I’m being serious,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to understand you. I don’t want to know what you’l do next. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to solve the mystery.’

She sighs and shakes her head. ‘You’re a decent man, Joe, but . . .’

I stop her. No statement that begins that way is ever a harbinger for anything good. What if she’s clearing the decks before tel ing me that she’s going to marry Harry Veitch?

‘Tel me something honest,’ I say.

Julianne presses her lips into narrow unyielding lines. ‘Are you saying I tel lies?’

‘No, that’s not what I meant. I just want to talk about something important.’

‘This isn’t a necessary conversation, Joe.’

‘I like it when we talk about the girls. It makes me feel like we’re stil a family.’

‘We can’t live it over again,’ she whispers sadly.

‘I know.’

‘Do you? Sometimes I wonder.’

18

On Tuesday afternoon I park the Volvo outside a house made of weathered stone with a slate roof. The smal square front garden is divided by strips of grass between flowerbeds where gerberas are pushing through the loam searching for sunlight.

Grabbing my overcoat from the passenger seat, I walk up the front path and give the doorbel a short ring, putting on my friendliest professional demeanour. Nobody answers. Ringing the bel again, I press my ear to the wooden door. Canned TV laughter leaks from inside.

Retreating down the steps to the front window, I try to peer through a gap in the curtains into the murky twilight of a living room. The TV is a flickering square. I can just make out a blurred outline of someone sitting on the sofa. Perhaps they didn’t hear the doorbel .

This time I knock loudly and listen for footfal s or muffled voices or the sound of someone breathing on the other side of the door.

Nothing.

I’m about to leave when I hear a voice from the rear garden. Gordon El is appears from the side of the house. He’s dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a Harlequins rugby shirt. A fringe of chestnut hair fal s across his forehead. He brushes it aside.

‘Hel o.’

‘Hi. Were you waiting long? I was out back.’

‘No, not long.’

He looks at me closely. ‘Have we met?’

‘I’m Charlie O’Loughlin’s father.’

‘Of course you are.’ He offers his hand: a kil er grip. ‘Cal me Gordon.’

‘Joe.’

He’s carrying a hoe, which he rests against his shoulder. ‘Charlie is a great kid.’

‘Thank you.’

I glance at the front door. ‘I don’t want to interrupt . . . if you have a visitor.’

‘Nope, it’s just me. Natasha has gone shopping. I was just doing some chores. Almost finished. Do you mind if we talk out back?’

I fol ow him along the side path where a rusting bicycle is propped against the fence, alongside recycling bins. The long narrow garden has a sandbox with toys, a vegetable patch and a smal greenhouse. At the far end there is an old stable block, now a garage, which backs on to a rear lane.

Through an open side door I notice a silver BMW convertible. El is fol ows my gaze.

‘You’re wondering how a teacher can afford a car like that?’

‘It did cross my mind.’

‘Natasha’s family is loaded. You could say I married wel .’ He looks a little embarrassed. ‘We met at school. I didn’t know she was rich. Honest.’

He laughs and begins turning soil in the vegetable garden, swinging the hoe over his shoulder and driving the blade into the compacted earth.

‘I’m running late with this. I should have planted a month ago.’

Glancing at the house, it looks less welcoming from this angle with smal , mean windows. From somewhere on the street-side I hear a door close. El is hears it too. His eyes meet mine.

‘What can I do for you, Joe?’

‘I want to ask you about Sienna Hegarty.’

He swings the hoe again. ‘A terrible business!’

‘You were close?’

‘She’s one of my students. She’s in the musical.’

‘I saw the dress rehearsal last Tuesday. You were very hard on her.’

‘Sienna was distracted. She forgot her lines. Her timing was off. I know what she’s capable of.’ He pauses and wipes his forearm across his forehead. ‘You didn’t come here to discuss the musical.’

‘No.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I’m trying to help Sienna. I’m a psychologist. I’ve been asked to prepare a psych report for the court.’

‘How can I help?’

‘I talked to Sienna a few days ago. I asked her about school - general questions about her favourite subjects and teachers. When she listed her teachers she left you out.’

‘You make it sound like she failed an exam.’

‘She grew agitated when I mentioned your name. She didn’t want to talk about you. Can you think of a reason?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing occurs to you?’

The hoe is poised above his head with his fists gripping the handle. ‘Why are you real y here, Mr O’Loughlin?’

First names have been dropped.

‘Miss Robinson the school counsel or said it was you who encouraged Sienna to come and see her. Did Sienna tel you what was troubling her?’

El is relaxes a little. He takes a smal packet of tissues from his pocket and wipes the corner of his lips. Gazes past me at the treetops.

‘Sometimes you can tel when a child is struggling. Sienna was quiet. Anxious.’

‘You saw this?’

‘It was a day last summer. We’d just started back at school after the holidays. It was hot and nobody was wearing a sweater except Sienna, which I thought was odd. Then I noticed a smear of blood on her palms, which had run down from her wrist. She kept her arms folded so nobody would see. She’d cut herself and was stil bleeding.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘No. And she wouldn’t go to the infirmary. So I col ected some bandages and slipped them into her schoolbag. She didn’t say anything, but I think she knew it was me.’

‘Did you report the incident?’

‘No, but after that I kept an eye on her. She joined the drama club. Over time she grew to trust me. We talked.’

‘What about?’

‘She was having problems at home with her father.’

‘What sort of problems?’

‘Do I have to spel it out, Mr O’Loughlin? I encouraged Sienna to see the counsel or. And when she didn’t want to see a therapist, I helped convince her.’

‘She trusted you?’

‘I guess.’

‘Why was that?’

He blinks, suddenly angry. ‘Maybe I was wil ing to listen.’

‘Did she tel you she was being abused?’

‘No. I just knew it. You teach for long enough and you learn to recognise the signs.’

Resting the hoe against the fence, he picks up a rake and begins smoothing the soil, breaking up the larger clods and creating channels for drainage. Across the fence, a neighbour is pegging her washing, the whites, sheets and towels.

Gordon returns her wave.

‘Sienna needed my help. I wish I could have done more.’ The words seem to catch in his throat.

‘Did you know that Sienna was pregnant?’

El is pauses for a moment, the rake suspended in mid-air. Tension ripples across his shoulders. Then he exhales and shakes his head.

‘I know she had a boyfriend.’

The neighbour has finished with her washing and is cal ing her dog. ‘Here, Jake, c’mon boy. C’mon, Jake.’

El is is staring at me now, resting the rake handle on his shoulder.

‘Did Sienna have a crush on you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You admit it?’

‘It happens.’

‘It doesn’t worry you?’

‘On the contrary - I take it as a compliment. It’s a sign that I’m doing my job pretty damn wel .’

‘Doing it wel ?’

‘You’ve got to understand the process of teaching. If I do my job properly I can change the way a student thinks about himself or herself. It’s a process of seduction, but it’s not about sexual conquest. It’s about creating an interest and a passion where none previously existed. It’s about getting students to want something they didn’t know they wanted.’

‘You make them fal in love with the subject?’

‘I make them feel excited, energised, provoked and chal enged.’

‘So you encourage crushes?’

‘Yes, but not to feed my ego. Instead I turn the focus back on the student. I encourage them to use their new-found curiosity and passion, to run with it, indulge it, let it take them places .

. .’

‘And what happens when a student sexualises their crush?’

‘I take a step back. Let them down gently. Sienna didn’t get a crush on me because she wanted to be
with
me but because she wanted to be
like
me. I brought out her best. I made her feel special. This has nothing to do with physical attractiveness. It’s a meeting of minds.’

He makes it sound so obvious that nobody could dispute his logic. He’s a passionate teacher, possibly a bril iant one, but what adolescent girl knows the difference between seduction and persuasion, love and infatuation?

‘Did you know Ray Hegarty?’

‘We met once or twice.’

El is looks at the garden with a weary smile. ‘If I don’t get these planted soon, we won’t have vegetables for the summer.’

A sharp gust of wind scatters his words.

‘How is Sienna?’

‘She’s traumatised.’

‘Is the baby . . . ?’

‘She miscarried.’

He nods sadly and raises his eyes to the pearl-grey sky. ‘That may have been for the best.’

Something rises in my stomach. Burns. I swal ow hard and find myself saying goodbye, retracing my steps across the lawn to the side path.

Out of the corner of my eye I notice the garage again and the sports car.

‘What sort of car does your wife drive?’ I ask, turning to El is.

He gives me a wry smile. ‘Natasha’s not real y interested in cars. They just have to get her from A to B.’

‘So what does she drive?’

‘A Ford Focus.’

19

Sometimes we know things even if we don’t
know
we know them. Maybe al we have is a fluttering sensation in our stomachs or a nagging sense of doubt or an unexplained certainty that something has happened.

Cal it intuition or perception or insight. There is no sixth sense - it is a simple mental process where the brain takes in a situation, does a rapid search of its files, and among the sprawl of memories and knowledge it throws up an immediate match, a first impression.

That’s why on trivia nights it’s often best to go with the first answer that pops into our heads, because that initial thought is based upon a subconscious cue; a knowledge that cannot be articulated or defended. Ponder the same question for too long and our higher brain functions wil begin to demand proof.

The trick is to train your mind to pick up the cues. Trust your first response. My gut tel s me that Sienna Hegarty didn’t kil her father. My gut tel s me that she’s protecting someone. My gut tel s me that Gordon El is knows more than he’s letting on. My gut tel s me that there was something between them - teacher and student - a friendship that crossed a boundary.

For the past four days I have wrestled with this problem, going back over the details of Sienna’s interview and El is’s reaction. Another image keeps coming back to me: Gordon El is on stage during the rehearsal, looking into the eyes of a teenage girl, putting his finger beneath her chin, tilting her face towards his. She wanted to be kissed . . . wanted to surrender . . .

he wanted control.

I can see El is’s eyes travel ing from the girl’s dilated pupils over her flushed cheeks, down her exposed neck, across her under-defended body. Was it the look of a practised manipulator or a committed teacher? Was it a predator’s leer or a harmless piece of theatre?

It’s Saturday morning in Bath. I’m sitting in Café Medoc, overlooking Pulteney Bridge and the riverside path running north past the Bath Library arcade. The weir is downstream, turning brown water into foam. Ducks paddle above the fal s as if waiting for a ramp to be delivered.

Annie Robinson takes a seat and puts her brightly coloured hippy shoulder bag at her feet. She’s wearing a quilted jacket over a shirt and thin wool en tights.

‘I didn’t think you’d cal me, Joseph O’Loughlin.’

‘Why?’

‘You looked so embarrassed when you last saw me.’

‘I wasn’t embarrassed.’

She laughs. ‘I seem to remember you didn’t know where to look.’

Coffees are ordered. Delivered. Spooning foam from a cappuccino, she holds the spoon in her mouth.

‘You don’t give a girl much notice. Normal y, I wouldn’t agree to a date when someone rings me on the same morning. Did someone else stand you up?’

‘It’s not real y a date,’ I say, and then backtrack. ‘I mean, I wanted to see you social y, but I didn’t think of this as one - a date, I mean . . .’

Again she laughs, her eyes dancing.

‘Don’t worry, Joseph O’Loughlin, I won’t be offended if we don’t cal it a date.’

Annie seems to find my ful name amusing. ‘So tel me,’ she says, ‘since we’re two friends meeting social y - what do you do for a living?’

‘I’m a clinical psychologist and please cal me Joe.’

‘Is that what your wife cal s you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I shal cal you Joseph. Do you have a practice?’

‘Not any more. I lecture at the university. Part-time.’

She nods as though satisfied. ‘Do you find the weekends are the hardest?’

‘Hardest?’

‘Being alone. When I’m at work it doesn’t matter because I’m busy, but the weekends are lonelier.’

‘How long has it been?’ I ask.

‘Three years since we separated. Ten months since the divorce. I held out hope until the very end. How about you?’

‘No divorce yet.’

‘Oh, I thought, you know . . . I didn’t realise.’ There is a squeak in her voice.

‘Were you always a school counsel or?’ I ask, trying to rescue her.