Bleed For Me by Michael Robotham

Author:Michael Robotham [ROBOTHAM, MICHAEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Little Brown
Published: 2010-06-09T16:00:00+00:00

26

Sitting in the departure lounge at Edinburgh Airport, I gaze out the terminal window where sheets of rain sweep across the tarmac. Men in yellow rain jackets are walking beneath the fuselage of a jet, loading luggage and food trolleys.

My flight to Bristol leaves in forty minutes. Ruiz has to wait another hour to get to London.

‘You want one of these?’ he asks, offering me a boiled sweet from a round flat tin.

‘No, thanks.’

One of the lollies rattles against the inside of his teeth. He tucks the tin into his jacket pocket. Some people have smells and some have sounds. Ruiz rattles when he walks and creaks when he bends.

I tell Ruiz about going to the minicab office and seeing an Irishman with tattoos that looked like tears. The same man had been outside the restaurant when I had lunch with Julianne.

‘How does Gordon Ellis get protection from someone like that? He’s a secondary-school drama teacher, not a gangster.’

‘He’s a sexual predator.’

‘Yeah and nobody likes a nonce. Not even hardened crims can abide a kiddie fiddler. Ellis wouldn’t last a month inside. Someone would shank him in a meal queue or hang him from the bars.’

‘Maybe the Irishman doesn’t know he’s a nonce.’

I watch a jet land in a cloud of spray and recall a patient of mine who was so scared of flying she tried to open the door of the plane and jump out. It turned out that she wasn’t scared of flying (or crashing). She was claustrophobic. Sometimes the obvious answer fits perfectly, yet it’s still wrong.

‘How is Julianne?’ asks Ruiz.

‘Fine.’

‘You’re still talking?’

‘We are.’

‘You bumping ugly?’

‘She’s started seeing someone else. An architect.’

‘Is it serious?’

‘I don’t know.’

Silence settles around us and I begin thinking about Harry Veitch. When Julianne and I were together, we used to crack jokes about Harry and the way he always insisted on tasting the wine at restaurants, describing the tannins and bouquet. Maybe I was the one who told the jokes, but I’m sure Julianne smiled.

Then I think about last night with Annie Robinson. For years I couldn’t imagine getting up the courage to show my naked body to another woman. Now it’s happened and I don’t know how to feel.

I want to ask Ruiz if it gets any easier. Marriage. Separation. Possible divorce. He’s been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. At the same time I want to avoid the subject. Live in denial.

‘On the day she left me, Julianne said that I was sad; that I’d forgotten how to enjoy life. I looked at Coop today - how he’d stopped living after his daughter disappeared, how he’d given up - and I wondered if maybe Julianne was right about me.’

‘You’re not like Coop.’

‘I keep expecting things to go back to the way they were.’

‘It won’t happen. Take it from me.’

‘You don’t think she’ll take me back?’

‘No, I’m saying it’ll never be the same.’

‘You’re still seeing Miranda.’

‘That’s not the same thing. She’s an ex-wife with benefits.’

‘Benefits?’

‘Perfect breasts and thighs that can crush a filing cabinet.

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