Bleed for Me (7 page)

‘Any sign of forced entry?’

‘No.’

‘Who had keys?’

‘Just the family members. There’s the other daughter, Zoe. She’s at university in Leeds. She’s driving down now with her boyfriend. And there’s Lance, who’s twenty-two. He works for a motorcycle mechanic in Bristol. Rents his own place.’

The sitting room and dining room are tasteful y furnished. Neat. Clean. There are so many things that could be disturbed - plants in pots, photographs in frames, books on shelves, cushions on the sofas - but everything seems in place.

The kitchen is tidy. A single plate rests in the sink, with a cutting board covered in breadcrumbs. Helen made a sandwich for lunch or a snack to take to work. She left a note on the fridge for Sienna tel ing her to microwave a lasagne for dinner.

Through the kitchen there is an extension that was probably a sunroom until it was turned into a bedroom. Refitted after Zoe’s attack, it has a single bed, a desk, closet and chintz curtains, as wel as a ramp leading down to the garden. The en suite bathroom has a large shower and handrails. On the dresser there is a picture of Zoe playing netbal , balanced on one leg as she passes the bal .

Walking back along the hal way, I notice the door beneath the stairs is ajar. Easing it open with my shoe, I see an overnight bag on the floor. Ray Hegarty’s overcoat hangs on a wooden peg. He came home, hung up his coat and tossed down his bag. Then what?

Something drew him upstairs. A sound. A voice.

Cray goes ahead of me, stepping over evidence markers as she climbs each step without touching the banister. The main bedroom is straight ahead. Two doors on the left lead to a bathroom and second bedroom. Sienna’s room is off to the right. Ray Hegarty lies face down on a rug beside her bed with his arms outstretched, head to one side, eyes open. Blood has soaked through the rug and run along cracks in the floorboards. His business shirt is stained by bloody handprints. Smal hands.

Sienna’s room is a mess with her clothes spil ing from drawers and draped over the end of her bed, which is unmade. Her duvet is bunched against the wal and a hair-straightening iron peeks from beneath her pil ow.

I notice a shoebox, which has been customised with photographs clipped from magazines. Someone has pul ed it from beneath the bed and opened the lid to reveal a col ection of bandages, plasters, needles and thread. It is Sienna’s cutting box and also her sewing kit.

The untidiness of the room could be teenage-induced. I have one of those at home - messy, sul en and self-absorbed - but this looks more like a quick ransacking. A search.

‘Is anything missing?’ I ask.

Cray answers. ‘Nothing obvious. We won’t know until we interview the family.’

‘Where’s Helen?’

‘At the hospital with Sienna.’

Crouching beside the body, I notice blood splatters, some large and others barely visible, sprayed as high as the ceiling. A hockey stick lies near his right hand. Lacquered to a shine, it has a towel ing grip in school colours.

I squat motionless in the centre of the room, trying to get a sense of the events. Ray Hegarty was hit from behind and fel forward. There are no signs of a struggle, no defence wounds or bruises or broken furniture.

Turning my head, I notice an oval-shaped mirror on a stand, which is reflecting a white square of light on to the bed, highlighting the smal blue flowers stitched into the sheets.

I look at myself reflected in the mirror and can also see the door behind me. Stepping over the body, I partial y close the door and stand behind it. Glancing towards the mirror, I can see Cray reflected in the open doorway.

Her eyes meet mine.

‘What is it?’

‘This is where they stood. The mirror told them when Ray Hegarty was in the doorway.’

‘But there’s hardly any room.’

‘The door was half-closed.’

‘Someone smal .’

‘Maybe.’

Almost immediately I remember Sienna’s face bleached by the beam of the torch. There was something in her eyes . . . a terrible knowledge.

Louis Preston emerges from the bathroom, looking like a surgeon preparing to operate.

‘There are traces of blood in the S-bend of the sink.’

‘Somebody cleaned up.’

‘Forensic awareness is such an important life skil ,’ says Preston. ‘I blame it on American cop shows. They’re like “how-to” guides. How to clean up a crime scene, how to dispose of the weapon, how to get away with murder . . .’

Cray winks at me. ‘What’s wrong, Preston, did some smart defence lawyer punch a pretty little hole in your procedures?’

‘I got no beef with defence lawyers. Some of my best friends are bottom feeders. It’s the juries I can’t abide. Unless they see fingerprints, fibres, or DNA, they’l never convict. They want the proverbial smoking gun, but sometimes there aren’t any forensic clues. The scene is cleaned up or washed by rain or contaminated by third parties. We’re scientists, not magicians.’

Preston scratches his nose and looks at his index finger as though he finds it fascinating.

Meanwhile, I wander across the landing to the bathroom. A wicker laundry basket is tucked beneath the sink. The toilet seat is down. The shelves above the sink are neatly arranged with toothpaste, toothbrushes (three of them), liquid soap and mouthwash. The hand-towel beside the sink is neatly folded and hung over the railing.

‘They tidied the place,’ I say out loud.

Cray appears behind me.

‘Make any sense?’

‘Not much.’

‘Did Ray Hegarty make many enemies in the job?’

‘We al make enemies.’

It’s not an answer.

‘Any skeletons?’

Her voice hardens. ‘He was a good copper. Straight.’

A different SOCO appears at the base of the stairs. Cal s to Preston. ‘I found a stash of porn in the shed. You want me to bag it?’

‘What sort of porn?’ asks the pathologist.

‘Magazines, DVDs ...’

‘Anything unusual?’

‘Like what?’

‘Rape scenes, violent fantasies, anything involving children.’

Cray stiffens in protest. Already she wants to safeguard Ray Hegarty’s reputation. A murder investigation is a circus of possibilities, where the spotlight is so fierce it reveals every blemish and flaw. The victim is also placed on trial and sometimes they die al over again in the courtroom - portrayed as being somehow responsible and slandered as viciously as they were stabbed or strangled or shot.

Cray won’t let that happen. Not this time. Not to her friend.

Outside, the crowd has thinned out. A few remaining teenagers are loitering on the far side of the lane, kicking aimlessly at dead leaves. A young man swigs from a lurid can. His dark hair has blond streaks cut in a ragged curtain that doesn’t so much frame his face as provide him somewhere to hide.

My eyes rush to judgement. He looks familiar. Maybe it’s a sign that I’ve seen too much of the world and now it is starting to repeat itself.

Then I remember where I’ve seen him. Sienna Hegarty kissed his cheek and climbed into his car. The youth is stil staring at me. A fringe of hair is flicked from his eyes. He turns away and begins walking quickly.

I yel out to him and he runs, jinking between bystanders and parked cars.

Cray is stil inside with Preston. I yel to the uniforms guarding the gate but none of them reacts quickly enough to stop him. The kid is forty yards ahead. Whippet thin, underfed, built for speed. I lose sight of him as he passes under the arch of the old railway viaduct. By the time I reach the same corner he’s disappeared completely.

I notice a farm track on the left. It’s the only possibility. Turning up the twin ruts, I keep running, feeling a weight hang around my heart and lungs. Walking hasn’t made me any fitter.

Ahead, a car engine starts, rumbling through a broken muffler. The Peugeot accelerates out of a muddy farmyard, the back tyres snaking in the slick puddles. He’s not slowing down.

I’m caught on the grassy ridge between the twin tracks with hedges on either side.

I raise my hand. He doesn’t stop. At the last moment I throw myself to one side, curling my legs away from the spinning wheels.

Lying on my back, I take a deep breath and gaze at a bank of moving clouds, listening to my heart thudding.

‘Are you al right?’ asks a voice in a slow West Country drawl. It’s Alasdair Riordan, the farmer I saw earlier.

‘I’m fine.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘Resting.’

He nods, satisfied, and turns back to his tractor.

‘Did you see that car?’ I ask.

Alasdair pul s off his wool en hat and scratches an itch on his scalp. ‘Aye, I did.’

‘It almost ran me down.’

‘Aye.’

‘You didn’t happen to get the number?’

He replaces his hat and shakes his head. ‘I’m not too good with numbers.’

A moment later two uniforms appear. Ronnie Cray is behind them, sweating profusely.

‘You al right?’

‘Fine.’

‘Who was in the car?’

‘Sienna’s boyfriend.’

She registers the information like a fevered prospector. ‘You should have left it to us.’

‘He ran. I chased.’

‘What are you - a dog?’ She looks at her muddy shoes. ‘I hope that kid knows how to polish.’

My mobile is vibrating.

‘What happened to Sienna?’ blurts Charlie, close to tears.

‘She’s in hospital.’

‘Is she OK?’

‘She’s in shock, but I think she’l be fine.’

I can hear playground noises in the background.

‘They’re saying that Mr Hegarty is dead. They’re saying that Sienna kil ed him.’

‘We don’t know what happened.’

‘But he’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I go and see Sienna?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Can I cal her?’

‘No.’

She sniffles and blows her nose. Charlie rarely cries. She bottles things up. Holds them inside. Ever since the kidnapping, I have watched her closely, anticipating problems. Is she eating and sleeping properly? Is she socialising normal y? Sometimes I dare to hope the worst is over, but then the nightmares wil return and she cries out, clawing the air, snatching at unseen things in the darkness. Stumbling to her room, I kneel beside her bed, stroking her forehead and talking softly. Her eyes wil open, looking vacuously into space as though a terrible revelation about life has been whispered in her ear.

This was my fault, my doing, and I would flay the skin from my back if I could rewind the clock and protect her next time. I don’t want to assuage the guilt. I want to change her memories.

6

Midday. Wednesday. I’m walking the same brightly lit hospital corridors, smel ing the disinfectant and floor polish. Sienna’s room is stil under guard. Detective Sergeant Colin ‘Monk’

Abbott, a black Londoner, is dozing on a chair with his legs outstretched and head resting on the wal . He must have pul ed an al -nighter. Mrs Monk won’t be happy. I met her once at a DIY store in Bristol. She was half Monk’s size, trying to control three young boys who were treating their father like a climbing frame.

Monk rocks to his feet. He could touch the ceiling.

‘She awake?’ asks Cray.

‘Yes, boss.’

‘She said anything?’

‘No.’

A doctor comes out of the room, his white coat unbuttoned and a stethoscope draped around his neck. He’s young, no more than twenty-six, lean like a greyhound, running on machine coffee and the adrenalin of residency.

‘How is she?’ asks the DCI.

‘Physical y, she’s fine.’

‘Is there a “but” in there somewhere?’

‘Her hearing and speech seem to be functioning normal y and she’s responding to visual stimuli, but her heart rate keeps surging.’

‘She’s traumatised,’ I say.

The doctor nods and scratches his initials on a form. ‘Quite possibly, but the neurologist wants to rule out brain damage. He’s ordered a CT scan.’

Cray opens the door. Helen Hegarty is sitting beside Sienna’s bed, holding her daughter’s hand. Tight-lipped and tired, she’s dressed in her nurse’s uniform with the pockets of her cardigan stretched out of shape. Her dyed hair is fal ing out of a kind of topknot and occasional y she reaches up and pats it with her hand.

The detective motions her outside. Helen kisses Sienna’s forehead, tel ing her she won’t be long.

‘Mrs Hegarty, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Cray. We’ve met once or twice before.’

‘You were at Ray’s farewel .’

The DCI nods gently. ‘That’s right. I’m investigating his death.’

The statement seems to wash over Helen.

‘Ray was a good friend. A fine detective.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Has Sienna said anything?’

Helen shakes her head. ‘She woke about an hour ago. Her eyes opened and she said hel o, but then she fel asleep again.’

‘That’s a good sign,’ I tel her. ‘She’s probably just trying to process things.’

Helen glances at me. ‘You’re Charlie’s dad.’

‘Yes. Cal me Joe.’

Helen wipes her hands before she shakes mine. ‘Thank you for finding her.’

Ronnie Cray motions her to a chair. Helen sits, unsure of where to put her hands. She presses them in her lap. The detective sits next to her, turning her body so they face each other, knees almost touching.

‘What time did you leave the house last night, Mrs Hegarty?’

‘At about a twenty to six.’

‘How long have you worked at St Martin’s?’

‘Four years.’

‘Where was Sienna when you went to work?’

‘On her way home. There was a rehearsal at school. She’s in the musical.’ Helen looks up at me. ‘Joe was bringing her home.’

Cray turns to me for an explanation.

‘But Sienna cal ed you,’ I say to Helen. ‘She told you that her boyfriend was going to bring her home. I heard her talking to you.’

A sad, crumpled smile creases her face. ‘She can be such a devil.’ As soon as the words leave her lips she regrets them. ‘I don’t mean . . . Sienna wouldn’t do anything to hurt . . . she loved her dad.’

Cray interrupts her. ‘What do you know about this boyfriend?’

‘I haven’t met him, but I know he’s older and he drives a car.’