Bleed for Me (6 page)

I walk for a mile across the fields, fol owing the old railway line, before turning and retracing boot prints on the dew-covered grass. I keep thinking about Ray Hegarty, a man I barely knew.

I once saw him drawn into a fight at the Fox and Badger. Six bikers came into the bar one Friday evening just after the rugby club raffle had been drawn. Ray had won the meat tray and was sitting with his prize. The lead biker stood over his table and asked him to move.

‘Plenty of spare seats,’ Ray replied.

The biker sized him up and liked what he saw. He was mistaken.

Leaning over the table, he casual y spat in Ray’s pint of cider. Before he had time to straighten, one of Ray’s hands had shot out and gripped him by the neck as the other smashed the pint glass and pressed the jagged base into his throat.

Calmly, Ray whispered in his ear, ‘There are six of you and one of me. Looking at those odds, I’m going to die, but here’s the thing . . . you’l be dying first.’

A thin trickle of blood ran down the biker’s neck, over his Adam’s apple, which was rising and fal ing as he swal owed. Another liquid trickled over his boots and on to the worn floorboards.

The scene stayed that way for maybe twenty minutes until the police arrived from Radstock. It made Ray a legend. Hector bolted a special plaque at the corner of the bar, which said,

‘Reserved for Ray’ and guaranteed him at least one free pint every time he dropped by.

The strange thing is, when I recal ed the altercation afterwards, picturing Ray Hegarty’s calm hostility, I found myself feeling sorry for the bikers. It was as if the odds were always stacked against them.

Turning the corner into Station Road, I spy the battered Land Rover parked out front of the terrace. Ronnie Cray is sitting behind the wheel with her eyes closed, resting her head against the doorframe.

‘Morning?’

Her eyes half open. ‘You shouldn’t leave your door key under a rock. Second place I looked. Had to use the little girl’s room. Hope you don’t mind.’

‘You could have stayed inside.’

‘I don’t mind the cold.’

Climbing out, she shakes my hand. Holds it. Looks into my eyes. ‘You didn’t stop earlier.’

‘I saw you were busy.’

Her hands go to the pockets of her overcoat. She’s short and round with a wardrobe of tailored trousers and men’s shoes. Dark shadows beneath her eyes betray her tiredness, but there’s something more.

‘I’ve come to check on the cat,’ she says.

‘Yeah. Sure.’

Eighteen months ago the DCI dropped by unexpectedly and presented me with a box. Inside was a straw-coloured kitten, part of a litter that had been born in her barn a few weeks earlier.

‘I have a dog,’ I said.

‘You need a cat.’

‘Why?’

‘You own a dog but you need something to
own
you. That’s what cats do. She’l boss you around. Run the place.’

The detective put the box on the floor. It contained six cans of cat food, a bag of cat litter and two plastic dishes. Reaching inside, she pul ed out the kitten, which hung over her palm like a sock.

‘Isn’t she’s a beauty? She’l keep you company.’

‘I don’t need company.’

‘Hel you don’t. You sleep alone. You work part-time. You’re home a lot. I got al the stuff you need. She’s vaccinated but you might want to get her neutered in about four months.’

She thrust the kitten at me and it clung to my sweater as if I were a tree. I couldn’t think of what to say except, ‘It’s very thoughtful of you, Ronnie.’

‘If she’s anything like her mother, she’l be a good ratter.’

‘I don’t have any rats.’

‘And you won’t.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Cal her what you like.’

Emma named her Strawberry - ‘because she’s coloured like straw’ - don’t ask me to explain the logic of a preschooler.

When Charlie was kidnapped, Ronnie Cray was in charge of the police investigation. I think she blamed herself for not protecting my family. Some tragedies forge friendships. Others are touchstones for too many bad memories. I don’t know what I have with Ronnie. Maybe it’s a friendship. Maybe we’re sharing the guilt.

Whatever the case, the detective has stayed in touch, cal ing me every so often to ask about the cat. Occasional y, she talks about cases that she’s working on, dropping in details she thinks might intrigue me. I don’t take the bait.

One night she phoned from the scene of a hostage crisis where a man had barricaded himself in a house with his ex-wife who he’d doused with petrol. Ronnie asked for my help. I said no.

Afterwards I sat up late watching Sky News, listening to the reports on failing banks, repossessions and market meltdowns, hoping the stories would stay the same. I also prayed, which is bizarre because I don’t believe in God. I’m not superstitious either, yet I crossed my fingers. I
willed
things not to occur, even though that’s impossible.

I sat up al night watching the news, certain that if I maintained my vigil nothing bad would happen. I didn’t go to bed until the sun had come up and the beautiful TV couples were smiling brightly from their morning sofas. I had saved another life.

Cray has stepped past me into the hal way without waiting for an invitation. She shrugs off her coat and tosses it over the back of a chair. I always forget how short she is until we’re standing side by side. I’m looking at the crown of her head. Her bristled hair is pepper grey.

‘I saw you on TV the other week,’ I say. ‘You’ve been promoted.’

‘Yeah, I’m sleeping my way to the top.’ Her laugh sounds like gravel rash. ‘How’s the shaking business?’

‘Up and down.’

‘Is that a Parkinson’s joke?’

‘Sorry.’

She’s about to light another cigarette.

‘I don’t let people smoke in the house.’

The lighter sparks in her cupped hands. ‘I appreciate you making an exception.’ She inclines her head as she exhales. The smoke floats past her eyes. I can’t hold her gaze.

As if on cue, Strawberry appears, walking silently into the kitchen and sniffing at Cray’s shoes. Perhaps she can smel her mother. The DCI leans down and scoops up the cat with one hand, studying her eyes for answers.

‘She’s getting fat.’

‘She’s part sloth.’

‘You’re feeding her too much.’

Cray drops Strawberry and watches her twist in the air, landing on her feet. The cat walks to her food bowl, looks unimpressed, and saunters off to find a suntrap.

The DCI takes a seat, ashes her cigarette in a saucer. ‘You don’t seem very happy to see me, Professor.’

‘I know why you’re here.’

‘I need your help.’

‘No you don’t.’

The statement comes out too harshly, but Cray doesn’t react.

One part of me desperately wants to know what happened to Ray Hegarty, why Sienna was covered in blood, why she ran . . . At the same time I feel a swel ing in my throat that makes my voice vibrate. I shouldn’t want to do this again. The last time it cost me almost everything.

‘You know this girl.’

‘She’s a friend of Charlie’s.’

‘Did she say anything to you?’

‘No. She was too traumatised.’

‘See? You know al about this stuff.’

‘I can’t help you.’

Cray glances out the window where a swathe of sunshine has cut across the field turning the grass silver.

‘The man who died last night was a retired detective by the name of Ray Hegarty. He worked for Bristol CID for twenty years. He was my boss. My friend.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She makes a quick sucking noise and her eyes glaze over. ‘I thought Hegarty was a prick when I first met him. He didn’t want me on his team and he did nothing to stop the bul ying and cruel pranks. He gave me every shit job he could find - the dirty bodies, death knocks, cleaning out the drunk tank - I thought he was trying to break me or force me out, but it was just his way of toughening me up for the bigger chal enges.’

Ophidian eyes blink through the smoke and her thumb passes over her lips. ‘He taught me everything I know. His rules. I guess I grew to respect his achievements and then to respect the man.’

‘I’m sure you’l work out what happened.’

Anger in her eyes now, ‘If you’re having a mid-life crisis, Professor, buy a Porsche and forget about it.’

‘It’s not a mid-life crisis.’

‘Then what’s your problem?’

‘You know the answer to that.’

Cray stands and hitches up her trousers. ‘In another lifetime I might sympathise with you, but not this one. You don’t have a monopoly on fucked-up families. I’ve got an overweight bad-tempered son who’s living with an ex-junkie and claims to be writing a book about how his parents’ divorce screwed up his life even though I was pregnant longer than I was married.

‘And now a man I respected is lying dead in his daughter’s bedroom and the kid is so traumatised she’s not saying boo to a goose. So you see, Professor, you won’t get any pity from me, but I wil give you some advice.’

Her cigarette hisses in the sink.

‘Suck it in, Princess, and put on your big-girl pants. You’re playing with the grown-ups now.’

5

Squeezed behind the steering wheel, the DCI sits forward so her feet can reach the pedals. Eyes ahead. Jaw masticating gum. She drives as if she’s travel ing at speed, even though the Land Rover can’t hold fifth.

A cigarette is propped upright in her fist. She blows smoke out of the far corner of her mouth. Speaks, giving me just the facts, the bare bones. Ray Hegarty retired from the force eight years ago and set up a security business - doing alarms, CCTV cameras, patrols and personal protection. He had offices in Bristol, Birmingham and Manchester.

He had a meeting in Glasgow on Monday afternoon and stayed overnight before driving to Manchester the next day. He was supposed to stop overnight and fly to Dublin on Wednesday morning for two days of meetings but the trip was cancel ed. Instead he drove back to Bristol and had a late lunch with a business partner.

‘Bottom line - he wasn’t expected home until Friday - not according to his wife.’

‘Where was Helen?’

‘Working at St Martin’s Hospital in Bath. Her shift started at six.’

We pul up outside a house on the eastern edge of the vil age. Six uniforms stand guard, blocking off the street. Blue-and-white crime-scene tape has been threaded between two cherry trees and the front gate, twirling in the breeze like old birthday decorations. A large white SOCO van is parked in the driveway. Doors yawning. Metal boxes stacked inside.

Nearby, a forensic technician is crouching on the front path taking photographs. Dressed in blue plastic overal s, a hood and matching boot covers, he looks like an extra in a science-fiction movie.

Positioning a plastic evidence tag, he raises the camera to his eye. Shoots. Stands. When he turns I recognise him. Dr Louis Preston - a Home Office pathologist with a Brummie accent that makes him sound eternal y miserable.

‘I hear they woke you, Ronnie.’

‘I’m a light sleeper,’ she replies.

‘Were you with anyone in particular?’

‘My hot-water bottle.’

‘Now there’s a waste.’ The pathologist glances at me and nods. ‘Professor, long time no see.’

‘I would have waited.’

‘I get that a lot.’

Preston is famous for terrorising his pathology students. According to one apocryphal story, he once told a group of trainees that two things were required to conduct an autopsy. The first was no sense of fear. At this point he stuck his finger into a dead man’s anus, pul ed it out and sniffed it. Then he invited each student to fol ow his lead and they al complied.

‘The second thing you need is an acute sense of observation,’ he told them. ‘How many of you noticed that I stuck my middle finger into this man’s anus, but sniffed my index finger?’

Urban myth? Compel ing hearsay? Both probably. Anybody who slices open dead people for a living has to maintain a sense of humour. Either that or you go mad.

Turning back to the van, he col ects a tripod.

‘I never thought I’d see Ray Hegarty like this. I thought he was bloody indestructible.’

‘You were friends?’

Preston shrugs. ‘Wouldn’t go that far. Mutual respect.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Somebody hit him from behind and then severed his carotid artery.’ The pathologist runs a finger across his throat. ‘You’re looking for something like a razor or a Stanley knife. It’s not in the bedroom.’

Cray helps him move a silver case. ‘When can we come inside?’

‘Find some overal s. Stay on the duck boards and don’t touch anything.’

The two-storey semi has wisteria twisting and climbing across the front façade. No longer in leaf, the grey trunk looks gnarled and ancient, slowly strangling the building. There are stacks of old roofing tiles beside the garage doors.

Two things stand out about the house. It’s the sort of place that should have had a long sweeping drive - al the proportions suggest it. Secondly, it’s partial y hidden from the road by a high wal covered in ivy. Tal trees are visible beyond the slate roof and chimneys. The curtains downstairs are open. Anyone approaching would have seen the lights on.

‘Was the door locked or unlocked?’

‘Open,’ says Cray. ‘Sienna ran. She didn’t bother pul ing it closed.’

Stepping on to the first of a dozen duckboards, I fol ow her through the front door and along a passage.

‘
Tread lightly, she is near

Under the snow,

Speak gently, she can hear

The daisies grow.
’

Cray looks at me. ‘Who wrote that?’

‘Oscar Wilde.’

‘Some of those Micks could write.’

Orange fluorescent evidence markers are spaced intermittently on the stairs, distinguishing blood spots. A camera flashes upstairs, sending a pulse of light through the railings.

I turn and study the front door. No burglar alarm. Basic locks. For a security consultant, Ray Hegarty didn’t take many personal precautions.

‘Who lives next door?’

‘An old bloke, a widower.’

‘Did he hear anything?’

‘I don’t think he’s heard anything since the Coronation.’