Bleed For Me

thing missing was her laptop.

‘What about her email account?’

‘The police checked her service provider.’

‘So she used someone else’s computer . . .’

Even before I finish the sentence, I realise what I’ve missed.

‘Grab your coat,’ I tell Ruiz.

‘Where we going?’

‘To see Charlie.’

Julianne answers the door and kisses Ruiz on each cheek, telling him he needs to shave. Emma squeaks in surprise and demands the big man’s undivided attention like a jealous girlfriend.

Charlie is still in bed. She won’t surface until at least eleven, citing mental fatigue and exhaustion from too much schoolwork. I send Emma upstairs to wake her.

‘What if she won’t wake up?’

‘Jump on her head,’ says Ruiz.

A few minutes later I can hear Charlie yelling at Emma. Something is thrown. Something falls with a bump.

Ruiz calls from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Front and centre, young lady, you don’t want me coming in there to get you.’

Charlie goes silent.

Ruiz resumes his seat at the kitchen table. Julianne has offered to make him breakfast and he’s going to eat a second one.

‘So I hear you’re getting a divorce,’ he says, making it sound like she’s buying a new car.

The statement lands like a rock in a still pond. Julianne looks at him suspiciously and continues cracking eggs into a bowl. ‘We’ve been separated for more than two years.’

‘You both have to consent.’

Julianne switches her gaze to me. Accusingly. ‘It’s really none of your business, Vincent,’ she says.

‘If you’re too embarrassed to talk about it . . .’

‘I’m not embarrassed.’

‘Maybe you should change the subject,’ I tell Ruiz.

‘So you don’t love him any more?’ he asks her.

Julianne hesitates. ‘I don’t love him like I used to.’

‘Jesus Christ, there’s only one sort of love.’

‘No there’s not,’ she says angrily. ‘You don’t love a child the same way as you love a husband or you love a friend or you love a parent or you love a movie.’

‘So what is it you don’t love about him?’

Julianne is beating the eggs like she wants to bruise them.

‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

Ruiz isn’t going to let up. ‘He’s still in love with you.’

‘Yes,’ says Julianne. ‘I know.’

‘And that doesn’t make any difference?’

‘It makes the world of difference. It makes it harder.’

‘I am in the room,’ I remind them.

‘Yes,’ replies Julianne. ‘Please tell Vincent to leave this alone.’

He raises his hands. ‘OK, but just answer me one thing - is it because he’s sick?’

I feel myself cringe. Julianne stiffens. It’s as though the air has been sucked out of the room and we’re sitting in a vacuum.

No longer beating the eggs, she whispers, ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Vincent, but I don’t need you to make me feel guilty. I feel guilty enough already. What sort of wife abandons her husband when he’s sick? I know that’s what people are saying behind my back. I’m a hard-hearted bitch. I’m the villain.’

‘That’s not what I said.’

‘Everyone loves Joe. He makes people feel special. He makes everyone feel as though they’re the only person in the room. I used to get so jealous - I used to wish someone would say something nasty or cruel about him. It was terrible. I hate myself for that.’

Julianne won’t look at me now.

‘You don’t know what it’s like - watching him crumble, knowing it’s going to get worse, knowing I can’t help him.’

‘You’re wrong,’ says Ruiz, softening his tone. ‘I watched my first wife die of cancer.’

‘And look what happened!’ says Julianne. ‘You ran off the rails. You abandoned the twins and went off to Bosnia. You’re still trying to make it right with them.’

The hurt flashes in Ruiz’s eyes. I never met his first wife, but I know she died of breast cancer and that Ruiz nursed her through her final weeks and months. Days after her death, he quit his job and went to Bosnia as a UN peacekeeper, leaving the twins with family. He couldn’t bear to be around anything that reminded him of Laura, including his own children.

Julianne wants to take the comment back. ‘I’m sorry, Vincent,’ she says softly. ‘I’m just trying to hold myself together - for the sake of the girls.’

Charlie appears, still in her pyjamas, her hair tousled and bed-worn.

‘Morning, Princess,’ says Ruiz. ‘Do I get a hug?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re not my girlfriend any more?’

‘As if!’

‘Maybe if I were twenty-five years younger?’

‘Try fifty.’

Everybody laughs - even Charlie, who slouches on a chair and puts her elbows on the table. ‘Why is everyone shouting?

‘We’re not shouting,’ replies Julianne. ‘We’re having a discussion. ’

Julianne asks if she wants some eggs. Charlie shakes her head.

‘Did Sienna ever use your computer?’ I ask.

‘I guess. Sometimes.’

‘Do you know what sort of stuff she was doing?’

‘Why?’

‘I’m trying to find out what sites she visited or if she sent any messages to people.’

Charlie puts two slices of bread into the toaster.

‘So you want to look at my computer?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re not spying on me?’

‘No.’

Then she shrugs. ‘I got nothing to hide.’

After she butters her toast, I follow her upstairs to her room where she munches noisily in my ear as the laptop boots up. She once described her bedroom as being ‘designer messy’, as though she dropped clothes with artistic intent.

‘Do you remember the last time Sienna used it?’

‘When she slept over.’

It was probably a week night. I search through the history directory, going back to before Sienna’s arrest. I recognise some of the sites - Facebook, Bebo and YouTube. There are some music pages and Google searches.

‘Are these your searches?’ I ask.

‘I think so.’

‘Can you see anything unusual? Something you wouldn’t have called up.’