‘I didn’t kill Daddy.’
‘Show me. Prove it to me. Where were you?’
Tears hover at the edges of her eyelids.
‘With Gordon,’ she whispers.
‘Gordon says he wasn’t with you. He’s given a statement to the police. He has an alibi. Natasha has backed him up.’
‘They’re lying.’
‘He’s letting you take the blame, Sienna. Just tell me where you went after Danny dropped you off.’
‘Gordon wanted me to do something for him.’
‘What was that?’
Her mouth opens, but she can’t bring herself to tell me. I wait and she tries again. The words come slowly and then in a rush as though she wants them gone, forgotten, buried.
‘Gordon said he was in trouble, but I could help him. I just had to do this one thing for him and everything would be OK. I’d prove myself. He’d know I was the one. Then we could be together.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘What did he want?’
She shakes her head, embarrassed, ashamed.
‘I had to visit someone and do what he asked.’
She puts the heel of her hand against her forehead. There are patches of colour on her throat as if someone has wrapped an invisible rope around her neck.
‘What did you have to do?’
‘I had to sleep with him,’ she whispers.
There is a tingling in my chest like a heated wire is being pressed against my heart.
‘Who was he?’
‘I don’t know his name - some old guy who lived in a big house.’ Her voice starts to break. ‘I was dropped off and picked up later.’
‘Who dropped you off?’
‘Gordon and another man.’
‘Another man?’
‘His eyes looked like they were bleeding.’
‘Where did they take you?’
‘I don’t know. It was a big house. Old. It smelled funny.’ She rocks forward, breathing through her mouth. ‘It was horrible. I had to have . . . I had to let him . . . he did things to me. Gordon said it would prove how much I loved him.’
I can hear the wetness in her throat as she swallows. At the same time, a shudder goes through her body like tension leaving a metal spring.
‘What happened afterwards?’
‘Gordon drove me back to his house but we couldn’t go inside because Natasha was home. He said it turned him on - knowing what another man had done to me. He took off my clothes and we had sex in the car but he was rough. He hurt me. I told him to be careful.’
‘Did you tell him you were pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He swore and shoved me away. He was yelling at me, saying I’d tricked him, saying I got pregnant on purpose. He told me to get rid of the baby. An abortion. That’s when I ran away. I ran home.’
Sienna looks at me blankly, too numb to cry. Touching her upper arm with my palm, I feel the coolness of her skin. She leans against me, pushing her face under my chin. Motionless in my arms, she remains curled up, her skirt pulled tight over her knees.
The patchwork quilt has slipped down, uncovering her feet. A dark stain runs over her right foot. It looks like a birthmark or a lesion. Then I notice that it’s shining and viscous, soaking into the sheet beneath her.
‘What have you done?’ I whisper, unhooking my arms and raising her skirt up her calves and over her knees, which are slick with blood.
Sienna’s eyes are closed as though she’s fallen asleep, but she’s still conscious.
‘Don’t tell Mum,’ she murmurs.
Twin lacerations on her inner thighs are swollen and leaking. She has cut from the edge of her panties towards her knees, probably using a razor blade wrapped in a tissue.
I glance around the room. Where did she hide her implements?
‘You need stitches.’
‘I’ll be OK.’
‘You need to go to hospital.’
‘It doesn’t matter any more.’
Her eyes are closing.
‘Have you taken something, Sienna?’
She doesn’t answer. I shake her gently. ‘Did you take something? ’
In a sing-song voice, ‘White pills, yellow pills and long green pills.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘I stole them,’ she sings. ‘From the trolleys and from bedside tables.’
She’s talking about Oakham House.
Flinging open the door, I yell down the stairs, ‘Call an ambulance! ’
Sienna opens her eyes just long enough to give me a pitying look. ‘They’re never going to let me out now, are they?’
I grab her top sheet and rip it into bandages to wrap around her thighs. I need to know what she took. What drugs?
Sliding sideways down the wall, Sienna rests her head against a pillow and mumbles, ‘He told me not to write a note. He said too many suicides spend too much time composing letters, trying to find words. “You could die of old age, trying to write a note,” he said. “You just have to do it.”’
‘Who told you that?’
‘He said to do it like Juliet, but I couldn’t. So I did it like Romeo.’
37
Gordon Ellis is laughing at me, mocking me with his bloodstained teeth and reptilian smile. I keep picturing Sienna’s bloody thighs and seeing her eyes roll back into her head.
Hurting him won’t be sufficient. I want to feed him broken glass. I want to see spittle fly from the corners of his mouth. I want to see him suffer like she’s suffering.
After following the ambulance to the hospital, I continue driving. Sick. Dry-mouthed. Fists clenched on the wheel. A mantra playing in my head: ‘She’s just a kid. A child. He used her. He poisoned her mind.’
Rage consumes me. Rational thinking has been replaced by a single linear idea that runs on tracks like a bullet train, hurtling towards a single destination.
Parking the Volvo, I push open the groaning door and walk to the rear. Pulling out a tyre jack, I slam the boot closed. Sienna’s face is melting in front of me. Her eyes are closing. Her thighs are sticky.
Julianne is divorcing me. My eldest daughter thinks I’m a failure. My life’s going to shit, but I should have stopped this. I should have seen this coming. Predators like Ellis don’t stop. They never relinquish control. They invest too much time and effort in grooming a victim.
Bounding over the gate, I walk towards the house. Tunnel vision. Halfway up the path and Ruiz appears in front of me. I try to step around him but he won’t let me pass. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
Then I feel my left arm being twisted up my back, followed by the searing pain that spreads from my shoulder socket to the base of my spine. His leg swings into the back of my knees and I stagger forward crashing into a garden bed.
Ruiz falls with me, knocking the wind from my lungs. I try to roll away, but he wraps his arm around my neck in a chokehold.
‘Enough now!’ he warns me, squeezing my neck.
‘S’OK.’
‘Concede.’
‘OK.’
A bubble of exhaustion breaks inside me. Rage leaks away.
‘I’m going to let go,’ says Ruiz.
‘OK.’
His arm slips away. He pulls me up to my knees, but I don’t have the strength to stand.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask.
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Sienna took an overdose. She tried to kill herself.’ I stare at my muddy hands. ‘Ellis told her to do it. He wants her dead.’
‘How?’
My throat swells. ‘I don’t know. She told me that Ellis could always reach her. I didn’t believe her.’
Ruiz drags me to my feet. ‘So you decided to confront Ellis. You came here to give him another beating - or were you gonna kill him this time?’