Bleed For Me

siblings who wobble on training wheels.

The Old Brewery rises abruptly from the opposite bank. The weathered brick walls are stained with bird shit and soot, yet are still preferable to modern glass and concrete. Somewhere nearer the cathedral a busker plucks the strings of a banjo and a flower seller with a brightly coloured cabin is setting out buckets of blooms, tulips and daffodils.

Ruiz hasn’t said a word. The sun radiates through a thin mesh of clouds, highlighting the grey in his hair and making him squint when he raises his eyes. His hands are big and square, no longer calloused. A boiled sweet rattles against his teeth.

‘What would you do?’ I ask.

‘Nothing.’

‘Why?’

‘You have a suicidal schoolgirl who has been sexually abused claiming that she slept with a County Court judge. She doesn’t know his name. She can’t remember the address. She’s also facing a murder charge. You have no forensic evidence or corroboration.’

‘She recognised him.’

‘You can’t stop a trial and destroy a man’s career on that sort of evidence.’

‘So what’s Cray going to do?’

‘She’s going to commit professional suicide.’

A gust of wind ripples the water and topples the tulips and daffodils in their buckets.

Ruiz continues: ‘My guess is she’ll go to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who’ll shit himself and call the Attorney General. There’ll be a full judicial inquiry, which is rare, and unless the investigation finds corroboration, Ronnie Cray can kiss her career goodbye.’

‘And the trial?’

‘They’re not going to stop an expensive, high-profile murder trial on the word of a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl.’

‘But the photographs in the suitcase . . . ?’

‘Someone took pictures of jurors - it’s not enough. You need evidence of a juror being approached or intimidated. Payments. Threats. Admissions . . .’

Ruiz stands and works the stiffness out of his back. His body looks too big for his clothes.

‘So there’s nothing we can do?’

‘Not without evidence.’

His eyes hold mine for a long time, blue-grey and uncomplicated. They seem to belong in the face of a younger man - a police constable who began his career more than thirty years ago, full of expectation and civic pride. A lot of water has passed under that bridge - violence, corruption, scandal, banalities, mediocrities, absurdities, insanities, hawks, doves, cowards, traitors, sell-outs, hypocrites and screaming nut-jobs - but Ruiz has never lost his faith in humanity.

I’m tired. Dirty. Weary of talking. My mind is full of fragments of broken lives - Ray Hegarty’s, Sienna’s, Annie Robinson’s . . . I want to go home. I want a shower. I want to sleep. I want to put my arms around my daughters. I want to feel normal for a few hours.

Ruiz drops me at the terrace and turns off the engine of the Merc, listening to the afternoon quiet and the ticking sound of the motor cooling. Ugly dark clouds are rolling in from the west, moving too quickly to bring rain.

‘I thought maybe I’d head back to London,’ he says. ‘Water the plants.’

‘You don’t have any plants.’

‘Perhaps I’ll take up gardening. Grow my own vegetables.’

‘You don’t like vegetables.’

‘I love a good Cornish pasty.’

Wrinkles are etched around his eyes and his slight jowls move with his jaw.

I ask him to hang around for another day - just to see what happens. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I like having him here. With Ruiz what you see is what you get. He’s a man of few contradictions except for his gruff exterior and gentle centre.

Ever since I was diagnosed and moved out of London, I seem to have lost touch with most of my long-time friends. They call less often. Send fewer emails. Ruiz is different. He has only known me with Parkinson’s. He has seen me at my lowest, sobbing at my kitchen table after Charlie was abducted and Julianne walked out on me. And I have seen him shot up, lying in a hospital bed, unable to remember what happened yesterday.

As I get older, friendships become harder to cultivate. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps by middle age most people have enough friends. We have a quota and when it’s filled we have to wait for someone to die or retire to get on the list.

Glancing at his watch Ruiz suggests it might be ‘beer o’clock’. He waits while I shower and change before we walk as far as the Fox and Badger where I leave him with his elbows on the bar, gazing at a pint of Guinness turning from a muddy white to a dark brown.

Emma is due out of school. Standing on my own I watch the mothers and grandmothers arrive.

‘Billy wasn’t at school today,’ says Emma, when she falls into step beside me. ‘I think he was sick.’ Then she adds, ‘I think I should be allowed more sick days, otherwise it isn’t fair.’

‘You shouldn’t want to be sick.’

‘I don’t want to be sick. I just want the sick days.’

Charlie gets home just after four. She doesn’t mention Gordon Ellis but I know his arrest must have been texted, tweeted and talked about at school. She makes herself toast and jam for afternoon tea.

‘How are you?’

‘Fine.’

‘You want to talk about anything?’

‘Nope.’

‘Are you sure?’

She rolls her eyes and goes upstairs.

At six o’clock I walk the girls down to the cottage. Julianne is home. She’s showered and changed and is cooking dinner. Her wet hair hangs out over her dressing gown.

‘I saw you today,’ she says. ‘What was Sienna doing in court?’

I don’t know how much I should tell her. Nothing is probably safest.

‘Ronnie Cray wanted to show her something.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t really tell you.’

Julianne gives me one of her looks. It reminds me of how much she hates secrets. Then she shakes it off, refusing to let me spoil her good mood.

‘Well, my job is done,’ she says, sounding pleased. ‘Marco finished testifying. He was amazing. They threw everything at him. They tried to confuse him and trick him and say he was lying. It was horrible. I hope the jury saw it. I hope they hated that lawyer for what he did.’

‘He was doing his job.’

‘Don’t defend him, Joe. I know you’re a pragmatist, but don’t defend someone like that.’

She takes Emma’s schoolbag from me. I’m standing in the kitchen, which seems to lurch suddenly and I stagger sideways. Julianne grabs me and I straighten.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. I haven’t slept.’

Mr Parkinson is shape-shifting on me, messing up my reactions to the medications. The segues between being ‘on’ and ‘off’ my meds have become shorter.

Julianne makes me sit down and begins scolding me about not taking care of myself. At the same time she fills the kettle and makes me a cup of tea.

Wanting to change the subject, I tell her about Annie Robinson, keeping one eye on the stairs in case Charlie overhears me. At six o’clock we turn on the TV to watch Gordon Ellis answering questions on the steps of Trinity