He pushes me away in disgust. ‘What sort of idiot . . . you couldn’t count your balls and get the same answer twice. You’re on remand. I lodged my house as surety. You’re not allowed within a thousand fucking yards of Gordon Ellis and yet here you are - breaking the law. They can lock you up. Forget about that - they can take away my house!’
‘I’m sorry.’
He shoves me in the chest, pushing me towards the car. ‘Get in the fucking car.’
‘I didn’t think . . .’
‘Do as you’re told.’
I glance at the house. Natasha Ellis is standing at the window, holding the curtains aside. She looks like a child looking outside at a rainy day. We’ve made a mess of her garden.
Ruiz opens my car door. ‘Get inside and drive.’
‘Where?’
‘The hospital.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll follow.’
‘What were you doing here?’
‘Watching Gordon Ellis.’
I start the engine and pull away from the kerb. By the time I reach the end of the street, Ruiz’s Mercedes is in my rear mirror, a 280E with two-tone wheels and a bright red paint job. Think pride. Think joy.
My anger has subsided but the black hole survives within me, still and even, sucking in the light. Ellis can’t get away with this. He can’t destroy another life.
The air in the hospital feels dirty and recycled. Ruiz has gone to get tea at the canteen, leaving me sitting at a table, staring at spilled sugar and an old coffee ring.
Sienna is in a stable condition. Doctors have pumped her stomach to get rid of any pill fragments and given her activated charcoal to bind the drugs in her stomach and intestines, reducing the amount absorbed into her blood.
She overdosed on TCAs - antidepressants that are the drug of choice for treating depression. The lethal dose is eight times the therapeutic dose, which makes it a risky drug to have around someone like Sienna.
Shutting my eyes, I let exhaustion slide over me like a prison blanket. My mind wants to curl up and sleep. Maybe I can wake up without any blood on my hands.
Gordon Ellis did this. It was classic grooming behaviour. He drew Sienna close and then pushed her away, constantly keeping her off balance. He praised her then belittled her, withheld his affection and then doled it out in token amounts until she began to question herself. She surrendered her body and then her self-esteem. She slept with someone because he told her to. She took an overdose because he told her to. This was the ultimate demonstration of his control and of his arrogance.
Normally a predator focuses on the weak, but Ellis wanted a challenge. He chose someone adventurous and outgoing, a risk taker. He took a bright, vibrant young teenager and bent her, broke her, remade her and then broke her again.
Ruiz has returned. He puts a mug of tea in front of me and begins spooning sugar.
‘I don’t take any.’
‘You do today.’
He wants to hear the story. I start at the beginning and tell him about the funeral and visiting Sienna. As the details emerge, so do the questions. Ellis has a caravan somewhere down the coast. It could be the same caravan he had in Scotland when his wife disappeared. The police could never find it.
Sienna couldn’t remember where they went. She said that she slept most of the weekend and Gordon told her that she had food poisoning. Most likely he drugged her. He could also have drugged Natasha when he had sex with Sienna in their house. Sedatives, barbiturates, date-rape drugs, what did he use?
Ellis covered his tracks. He didn’t leave notes or send text messages or emails. When he picked Sienna up after school she had to hide beneath a blanket on the back seat and turn off her mobile. He dropped her off at her therapy sessions with Robin Blaxland and picked her up again afterwards.
Helen Hegarty appears in the canteen. She’s wearing a beige jumper and slacks. Leaving Ruiz, I make my way between the tables, standing uncomfortably as she searches her handbag for tissues.
‘How is she?’
Helen’s eyes focus past me. The skin around her mouth twitches. ‘They put her in a coma. They say it’s going to help her.’
Lance Hegarty comes out of a nearby men’s room. He shoves me into a table. Obscenities and spittle roll off his tongue. ‘Are you satisfied? You won’t be happy until she’s dead.’
Ruiz moves swiftly to intercept, stepping between us.
Lance’s lips pull back from his teeth. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
Ruiz speaks softly. ‘Lower your voice, son, and show people some respect. I’m asking you nicely.’
‘Fuck you!’
Lance swings a punch from his waist but Ruiz has been expecting it. Knocking it aside with his left arm he sinks a short sharp jab into the softness of the younger man’s belly. The anger in Lance’s eyes changes to surprise. He doubles over, winded, and Ruiz lowers him into a chair, apologising to Helen.
‘Maybe you should go,’ she says helplessly.
Lance squeaks, still trying to suck in a breath.
We retreat, leaving mother and son in the empty cafeteria. I can hear them arguing as the lift door closes behind us.
‘Other people’s families,’ mutters Ruiz.
‘What about them?’
‘They should serve as a warning.’
38
Ronnie Cray closes the barn door and drops a plank of wood into place. She’s dressed in jeans, a checked shirt and Wellingtons that are caked in mud. I hear horses inside. Smell them.
‘So this is what you do in your spare time?’
‘Yeah, I shovel horseshit.’
She wipes her hands on her jeans and then eyes Ruiz, who has never been top of her dance card.
‘Mr Ruiz.’
She’s calling him ‘mister’ for a reason - letting him know that he no longer has a police rank.
‘DCI.’
‘You’re looking older,’ she comments.
‘And you’re looking great. That’s the benefit of going braless - it pulls all the wrinkles out of your face.’
‘Now, now, children, play nice,’ I tell them.
‘I’ll be nicer if he tries to be smarter,’ says Cray.
The DCI lights a cigarette, cupping her hands around the flame. The lighter clinks shut and I catch a whiff of petrol.
‘The place is looking good,’ says Ruiz, trying not to be sarcastic.
Cray looks around. ‘It’s a dump.’
‘Yeah, but you’re doing it up.’
‘That’s one of the great traps of buying a place like this. You see all the space and get excited, imagining beautiful lawns and gardens, but then you spend every weekend removing tree stumps and rocks.’
‘When you’re not shovelling shit,’ says Ruiz.
‘Exactly.’
Cray pushes a wheelbarrow to the side of the barn and tosses a bucket of vegetable scraps to the chickens.
‘On my mother’s side I have several generations of women shaped to pull ploughs. My father’s side was a family of pen pushers - delicate as Asians. In the genetic roll of the dice, I got the agricultural build.’
She carries the bucket towards the house. ‘I guess you gentlemen better come inside.’
Scraping mud from her boots and kicking them off, she ducks through a doorway as though imagining herself to be two feet taller. The kitchen is full of French provincial furniture and has copper-bottom pots hanging from the ceiling. A tan cat stretches, circles and resettles on a shelf above the stove. This is the champion ratter that Cray told me about, Strawberry’s mother.
‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ she says, washing her hands. ‘This had better be a social call. It’s Saturday and I’m off-duty.’
Neither of us answers.
‘You want a drink?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ says Ruiz, eyeing the row of liquor bottles on top of the cupboard. ‘Scotch and a splash of water.’