Bleed for Me (43 page)

‘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 El is is led back to a holding cel - 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 El is 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.’

48

‘His name is Carl Guilfoyle,’ says Cray, staring from her window, watching people dodge through the rain. ‘He’s original y 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 pul ed 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 stal choking on his own blood. Swal owed 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 Hol ywood 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 smel his aftershave and something else, crawling beneath.

‘Ever heard of the Aryan Brotherhood?’

‘The white prison gang.’

‘They make up one per cent of the US prison population and they commit nearly a quarter of the prison murders. That’s where Guilfoyle got his tattoos - the teardrops are supposed to signify a kil .’

‘Who?’

‘A black guy cal ed Walter Baylor. Carl shanked him in a meal queue in front of a hundred and forty-seven witnesses - and nobody saw a thing. That’s the thing with the Brotherhood.

People seem to suffer col ective amnesia and mass blindness whenever anything happens inside.’

‘Are there any links between Guilfoyle and the men on trial?’

‘The Aryan Brotherhood has been associated with Combat 18, the armed wing of a British neo-Nazi organisation cal ed Blood and Honour. The eighteen comes from the first and eighth letters of the alphabet: Adolf Hitler’s initials. C18 was formed in the early nineties as a breakaway group from the BNP after certain members became disil usioned with the party going soft on the armed struggle and focusing instead on politics.

‘This breakaway group launched a string of attacks on immigrants and ethnic minorities, but most of the ringleaders were rounded up a decade ago during an undercover operation by Scotland Yard and MI5. Some of them were serving British soldiers.

‘Tony Scott was a member of Combat 18. When it was broken up in the nineties it fractured into splinter groups, but managed to survive, linking itself with racist organisations in Russia, Germany and America.’

‘Groups like the Aryan Brotherhood?’

‘Exactly. They also set up chapters in cities like Belfast where some of the former Loyalist paramilitaries were quite sympathetic to the racist agenda.’

‘Brennan grew up in Belfast.’

‘He and Guilfoyle lived only a few streets from each other.’

Cray closes the folder and locks it in her filing cabinet.

‘So they could have known each other?’

‘MI5 has run a check on Guilfoyle. He and Brennan were on the streets of Belfast at roughly the same time, but they were never arrested together or linked.’

A WPC knocks on the office door and hands Cray a DVD. Putting the disk into a machine, The DCI presses a remote and a TV screen il uminates. She hits fast forward. Stop. Play.

‘This was taken outside Annie Robinson’s place.’

The time code on screen says 15.24.07. The blurred figure in the frame is wearing a hooded sweatshirt or a parka, walking away from the camera. It could be a man or a woman.

Carrying something.

Thirty yards along the road, the person climbs three steps and presses a buzzer. What button? Lower half. Nothing clearer. The door unlocks. Someone must have released it.

Cray presses fast-forward again. The time code says 15.26.02. The same person on the street again, head bowed, this time walking towards the camera. I can only see the hood and empty hands.

‘That’s what I hate about the morons who instal security cameras,’ says Cray. ‘They get the angles al wrong. This is next to useless.’

Rewinding, she runs through the footage again. A left hand reaches out for the buzzer. The right hand holds a waxed paper bag.

‘How far off the ground is that intercom panel?’ I ask.

‘Standard height.’

‘How tal does that make him?’

‘It depends on the focal length of the lens and how far they’re standing from the wal . A photographer could tel us.’

Pressing fast-forward, the DCI advances to the second lot of footage, taken by a different CCTV camera.

‘This was taken two blocks away on Warminster Road.’

A silver Ford Focus is on screen, heading away from the camera.

‘We can’t get a number - the plates are obscured.’

She presses eject and glances at her watch. It’s one o’clock.

‘How’s Sienna?’

‘Holding up.’

Cray turns back to the window. An unlit cigarette dangles from her fingers.

‘I want to take Sienna out of here. We’l sneak her into the Crown Court. Quietly. Let her see the jury foreman.’

‘And then what?’

The detective doesn’t answer. Maybe she doesn’t know. Shifting slowly, she grabs her coat and opens her office door.

‘First we have to cut Gordon El is loose. See where the rabbit runs.’

The hospital receptionist has a voice like an automated message.

‘Are you family?’

‘No, I’m a friend.’

‘Details are only available to family.’

‘I just want to know if she’s OK.’

‘What is the patient’s name?’

‘Annie Robinson. She was brought in last night.’

‘Her condition is listed as stable.’

I stop her before she hangs up. ‘Does she have any family?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Is there anyone with her?’

The receptionist makes a decision and her tone softens. ‘Her mother and father arrived a while back. They’re with her now.’

‘Thank you.’

Hanging up, I feel a mixture of relief and guilt. Everything I do nowadays seems to have untoward consequences. I expect my bad decisions to have downsides but even my good cal s are starting to look shaky. Smal things, details I pick up almost instinctively, are beginning to elude me. I should have recognised Sienna’s vulnerability. I should have warned Annie about Gordon El is.

Next I cal Julianne.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asks.

‘Fine.’

‘Charlie said Vincent had to bring her home.’

‘I got held up. Annie Robinson is in hospital . . . it’s a long story.’

There is a pause. I want her to say something, to tel me what she’s thinking. Instead she says, ‘I have to go. I’m due in court.’

I have time to make one more cal . Ruiz rattles off twenty questions, talking in a kind of police shorthand.

‘Is the dyke looking after you?’

‘She’s on our side. I need another favour.’

‘How many you got left?’

‘Keep an eye on Julianne. She’s in court today.’

‘What about the Crying Man?’

‘His name is Carl Guilfoyle. They’ve just issued a warrant for his arrest.’

The footpath outside Trinity Road has become a makeshift media centre for dozens of photographers, reporters and TV crews. There are outside broadcast vans parked in the street and takeaway coffee cups lying crumpled in the gutter.

I’m halfway across the foyer when Natasha El is appears in front of me. Dressed in black, her lips bloodless and thin, she looks like a legal secretary with her hair pul ed back severely and her eyebrows arching in complaint.

‘Why are you doing this to us?’ she demands, hatred fil ing her tiny frame.

I try to step around her. She moves with me.

‘That little bitch is lying. Gordon never touched her.’

‘Don’t make things worse, Natasha. I know what Gordon did to you.’

‘You know nothing about me.’

Twisted in anger, her face no longer pretty or pleasant.

‘I know that he groomed you as a schoolgirl. I know that he got rid of his first wife so he could marry you. I think you know it too.’

‘How dare you patronise me!’

‘I apologise if I gave that impression.’

‘It’s not an impression.’

‘I’m sorry just the same.’

‘Fuck you!’

She turns, stumbling on her high heels, before correcting herself. I have no antidote for her distress. Her life is crumbling around her and she can’t do anything except watch.

Moments later, Gordon appears, flanked by his lawyer. Natasha throws her arms around her husband’s neck and he peels them away. They have reached the main doors. The lawyer tries to cover Gordon with a coat, but the schoolteacher brushes it aside.

‘I’ve got nothing to hide,’ he mutters.

More than thirty reporters, photographers and television crews are waiting outside. Clicking shutters and camera flashes greet Gordon’s every footstep, gesture and facial expression.

When he brushes his fringe from his eyes, when he tries to smile, when he puts his arm around Natasha.

Beyond the media scrum, I see a separate crowd of bystanders who have come to watch, having heard the news on TV or radio or Twitter. Among them are girls in school uniforms.

Gordon takes a piece of paper from his pocket, smoothing it between his fingers. Clearing his throat, he smiles with a boyish shyness. The cameras respond with a fuselage of clicks and whirs.

‘Firstly I want to say that I have devoted nearly fifteen years of my life to teaching and I cherish every child that I have taught. I am being victimised here. I am being hounded. I am being punished for caring too much.’ He pauses, composing himself. ‘I have a lovely wife and a son. I would never do anything to embarrass them or hurt them.’

The quake in his voice, his sense of disbelief, the hurt in his eyes, al seem genuine.

A reporter yel s a question: ‘Did you sexual y assault a student?’

‘No.’

‘Why has she made a complaint?’

‘I think she has been coerced and coached by a psychologist who recently assaulted me and has been charged by the police. Professor Joseph O’Loughlin has launched a vendetta against me. He has threatened and harassed my wife.’

‘Why would he do that?’ asks a reporter.

‘You should ask him that.’

Another journalist shouts louder than the rest. ‘Are you standing by your husband, Mrs El is?’

Natasha nods.

‘So you’re saying this girl is lying?’

Gordon answers. ‘The girl who has made these al egations is a very troubled teenager with a history of cutting herself. She is also accused of a serious crime and could be trying to deflect attention from herself.’

‘Why would she blame you?’

‘She developed an infatuation. She stalked me.’

More questions are shouted. ‘Was she your babysitter? Did she ever travel in your car? Were you ever alone with her?

A female reporter yel s, ‘Is it true she was pregnant?’

Gordon stammers.

‘Did you try to arrange an abortion for her?’

The atmosphere has subtly altered and Gordon’s contrived façade is beginning to crack. This has become a blood sport and the hounds are baying.

A photograph appears in his hand. ‘This is my son, Bil y. He’s my joy. I love children. I would never do anything to hurt a child.’

It’s an appeal for understanding rather than a defence. In the beat of silence that fol ows it’s clear he hasn’t swayed his audience. His lawyer tries to intervene but the questions keep coming.

‘What happened to your first wife, Mr El is?’

‘Were you suspected of her murder?’

‘Why did you change your name?’

Gordon blinks at the cameras - out of words. Pushing past the photographers and reporters, he manages to cross the flagged concrete path to a waiting car. The crowd has swel ed, almost blocking the road.

‘We love you, Mr El is!’ yel s one of the teenage girls, triggering a chorus. ‘We believe you.’

Gordon stops, squares his shoulders and gives them a grateful smile. The girls squeal as though acknowledged by a film star.

The car pul s away. Photographers run alongside, shooting through the tinted windows. Natasha El is has covered her face. Gordon defiantly sticks out his jaw.

Ronnie Cray appears alongside me, lighting a cigarette and exhaling.