Bleed For Me

‘Do you remember the first day he smiled at you? He wasn’t like the other teachers. You thought he was handsome. Charming. That’s why you blushed when he looked at you and laughed when he told you jokes. You flirted with him. It was innocent. And he reciprocated. He asked about the book you were reading. Talked about your acting. I bet he commented on your curls. You said that you wanted straight hair, but he said he liked your curls and that straight hair was boring.

‘Soon you found excuses to spend time with him, hanging back after class or arriving early. You could talk to him. He listened. You told him about your father, your problems at home, how lonely you felt once your brother and sister had gone. You talked about not belonging in your family - how you felt like you’d been adopted. Did you cry on his shoulder? Did he tell you that he understood?’

‘Stop it,’ she whispers.

‘Pretty soon you were sneaking looks at each other in class and sharing private jokes that none of the other students understood. Gordon left small presents in your locker, treats that he knew you’d find. He found excuses to brush against you and to bend over your desk in class. It felt sweet, exciting, not at all weird or wrong.’

‘Please stop.’

‘I bet he asked about your boyfriends. Teased you. “If only I were twenty years younger . . . ” He said you were beautiful. He made you feel beautiful. You weren’t just another student and he wasn’t just another teacher. It was more than that. He didn’t treat you like a child. And when he put his hands on your shoulders, or whispered something in your ear, your heart was beating faster than a kitten’s.’

Sienna won’t look at me now. Head bowed, I can see only the top of her scalp and faint traces of dandruff along the parting.

‘He was grooming you, Sienna. He knew you were vulnerable.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ she groans.

‘You went to his house to babysit and you saw him with Natasha and Billy. He drew you into the warmth of his family and you saw how close they were. You envied what they had. You wanted to be just like Natasha.’

Her head rocks from side to side in denial.

‘And then one night Gordon kissed you and held you and told you how much he loved you, but it had to be a secret. Nobody could know. Not yet. Not ever. His face was close and his lips were pushing against yours. His tongue was there, lapping at the space between your teeth. He didn’t want sex. He took things slowly, touched you, praised you, his breath in your ear. “You want this. You need this. You’ll like this. Nobody understands what we have . . . Let me show you how special you are to me. And you can show me how special I am to you.”’

A tear lands on Sienna’s clasped hands. It hovers on her knuckles and then slides between her fingers.

‘Afterwards you felt ashamed and embarrassed, but Gordon made you feel as though you were being prudish and uptight. When you didn’t want to do it again, he got cold and sarcastic, but then he apologised. “You don’t understand how much I love you,” he said. “How I’d die if you stopped loving me.”’

Another tear slides down her cheek.

‘Soon you were meeting him after school and on weekends. Sometimes you stayed the night when you babysat and he would sneak into your room. Did he ever take you away?’

She gives a slight nod of the head.

‘But you had to be careful. There could be no notes or text messages or phone calls. You always spoke face to face and you were careful not to be seen alone. You met him that Tuesday afternoon? Where did he take you?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Why?’

‘He’ll punish me.’

‘He can’t reach you.’

She lifts her head. Eyes on mine. Flecks of gold in the brown.

‘He can always reach me.’

The drive home is through a water-streaked windscreen beneath a sky that looks like torn wallpaper. The wipers slap open and closed. Red tail lights flare and fade ahead of me. My Volvo has been repaired but looks like its been coupled together in a breaker’s yard and customised with knocks, bangs and squeaks.

The radio playing: news on the hour.

A false rape allegation made by a teenage girl could have triggered a firebombing in which a family of asylum seekers died, a court was told today. A teenage girl claimed to have been abducted and sexually assaulted by four Ukrainian men, but later admitted having made up the story because she was frightened of getting into trouble from her parents for staying out late.

The prosecution alleges that the firebombing of a Bristol boarding house was a payback attack for the alleged rape. Five people died, all members of the same family, including three sisters aged four, six and eleven. The lone survivor, Marco Kostin, jumped to safety from a second-floor window.

Stacey Dobson, aged seventeen, gave evidence that she’d spent the previous afternoon and evening with Marco Kostin, but later made up a story of being dragged into a van and sexually assaulted by four asylum seekers. Several men, including Marco Kostin, were arrested but subsequently released without charge.

Twenty-four hours later, Marco Kostin’s house was firebombed while he and his family slept. Three men, including British National Party candidate Novak Brennan, have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder with the intent to endanger life.

Brennan allegedly drove the van used in the attack and was later seen celebrating at a bar where one of his co-accused boasted he had been to a ‘Russian barbecue’.

Parking beneath a dripping oak, I run to the door of the terrace, dodging puddles and sheltering beneath my coat. The key turns and the door opens. Even before I step across the threshold I sense a change. It’s not so much a foreign smell as a variation in the air temperature or the pressure. Perhaps I left a window open upstairs. Maybe I’m disconcerted because Gunsmoke isn’t outside, thumping his tail against the back door.

Gently, I place my wallet and car keys on a side table and glance along the passage to the kitchen. There are two doors off to the left. The first opens into the lounge. Nudging it with my foot, I reach for the light switch. Nothing is moved, missing or disrupted.

The gas fireplace has a decorative poker on a brass stand. I pick up the polished brass bar and weigh it in my hand. Backing into the hallway, I move to the next door, the dining room. Empty.

Again I pause and listen.

Edging along the hallway, I approach the kitchen. Through the window I can see the vague outline of the trees in the garden and the edge of an eighteenth-century brick millhouse next door. A flash of lightning fills in the details. The sink, the kitchen table, three chairs . . . Why not four?

‘Come on in, Professor, it’s just me,’ says a voice. Gordon Ellis has been sitting in darkness. He rises to his feet and swivels to face me. ‘The door was unlocked. Hope you don’t mind.’

I’m still holding the poker in my hand. ‘I didn’t leave the door unlocked.’

‘My mistake,’ he says. ‘I found the key under a rock. I’d be more careful about where I hid it next time.’

He’s wearing denim jeans and a dark shirt with faint traces of dandruff or powder on the front. A carmine- coloured scratch weeps on his right cheek, below a bruise. Ellis sniffs and rubs his nose with the palm of his hand. I can see the dilation in his pupils, which are working hard to retain the light.

‘What were you going to do with that?’ he asks, motioning to the poker.

‘Wrap it around your head.’

‘I didn’t take you for a violent man.’

‘You’re trespassing.’

His lazy half-smile slowly widens. ‘Do I frighten you?’

‘No.’

‘It’s all right to be afraid.’

‘I’m not afraid.’

Moving slowly, he carries his chair to the table. ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s not very polite.’