‘In what way?’
‘It was like living in some Arab country with curfews and dress regulations - home before ten, nothing above the knee.’ She holds up her fingers. ‘I wasn’t allowed to wear nail polish, or go to parties. And how’s this? I couldn’t wear anything red. He said only sluts wore red.’
‘What did your mother say?’
Her shoulders rise an inch and then fall.
‘Mum made excuses for him. She said he was old-fashioned.’
‘You think he was wrong?’
‘Don’t you?’ She doesn’t wait for me to answer. ‘He eavesdropped on my phone calls, opened my letters, read my diaries. I wasn’t allowed to talk to boys or have a boyfriend. He thought I’d get pregnant or take drugs or ruin my reputation.’
She looks at her legs. ‘On the night Liam attacked me I wasn’t supposed to be at the cinema. I lied to Daddy and said I was studying at a friend’s house. After the attack, whenever he looked at me, it was like he wanted say, “I told you so.”’
Her cigarette is almost finished. She stares at the glowing end, watching it burn through the last of the paper.
‘Did you know that Sienna had a boyfriend?’
Zoe shrugs.
‘Did she ever mention him?’
‘No, but I guessed it.’
‘How?’
‘She seemed happier. She couldn’t tell me directly, because Daddy was always listening in to her phone calls and reading her emails.’
‘Was Sienna sexually active?’
She hesitates, holding something back. ‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Why did you come here today?’
‘To tell you that Sienna didn’t do it.’
‘Did she tell you that?’
‘I just know.’
‘Was your father ever violent?’
‘He had a temper.’
‘Did he ever touch you or Sienna?’
Squeezing her eyes shut, Zoe pops them open again. ‘Would it help her?’
Before I can respond, she adds, ‘The only reason I ask is that, in my experience, the truth doesn’t always help people.’
‘Your experience?’
‘Yes.’
When did she become so cynical? I look again at the wheelchair and get my answer.
Zoe takes a deep breath as if poised to push herself off a cliff.
‘It first happened when I was seven. Daddy was driving me home after I played netball. I was wearing my pleated skirt. He bought me an ice cream. He said it was dripping on my thighs and began wiping it off, pushing his hand between my legs. I kept trying to hold my skirt down. He asked me if I loved him. He said girls who loved their daddies did what they were told . . .’
She can’t finish the statement, but the memory shudders through her shoulders.
‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘Mummy didn’t believe me. She said I was making it up, but later I heard them arguing. She was screaming at him and throwing things. She broke the frame of their wedding photograph. It’s still on her dresser. You can see where she’s patched it up with tape.
‘Later that night, Daddy came to my room, put his hand over my mouth and nose so I couldn’t breathe. He held it there, looking into my eyes. “That’s how easy it is,” he said. “Remember that.”
‘From then on I knew I wouldn’t be believed, so I stopped saying anything and started trying to find ways of avoiding him. I got pretty good at it - making sure I was never alone in the house with him, or in the car. I stopped playing netball. I never asked to be picked up from a friend’s house or the cinema.’
‘Did you ever tell anyone else - a teacher, a school counsellor?’
‘I told my Auntie Meaghan. She and Mum had the biggest fight. Mum told her that I made up stories to get attention. Later she made me call Auntie Meaghan on the phone and apologise to her for telling lies.’
I feel my breath catching. I don’t want to hear any more.
‘When I was thirteen, I said no to him. I had a knife in my hand. He stopped touching me after that.’
‘Where is your Auntie Meaghan now?’
‘She died of cancer last July.’
Zoe lights another cigarette. She smokes quickly. Nervously.
‘Did your father ever touch Sienna?’
She closes the lighter and looks at her hands.
‘When I came out of hospital after the attack, Daddy wouldn’t look at me. He pushed my wheelchair up to the car door and lifted me out, but turned his face away. They set up a room for me downstairs. They had to widen the doors and build ramps. They pushed me into the room and expected me to be all excited, but I just looked at Daddy.
‘Before, when I was upstairs, I shared a room with Sienna. We had bunk-beds. I was on the bottom and she was on top. We were safe there because there were always two of us. Sienna thought it was so exciting, having her own room, but I had to teach her to look after herself, how to stay out of his way.’
‘Did he ever touch you again?’
‘No. I was a wheelchair girl. A cripple. Not even he was that sick.’
‘What about Sienna?’
‘I think she was old enough by then. He might have tried, but I think she would have fought back.’
The cigarette glows as she inhales. ‘I sometimes wonder why people like him have children. I think my mother wanted someone else to love - other than my father. He was always a bully, bossing her around, making her fetch and carry for him. A beer from the fridge. A sandwich. A newspaper. Whenever he shouted her name she dropped everything and ran to him like a dog wanting to please her master. And all she got in return was ridicule and scraps of affection, yet she kept coming back. Surely you must get sick of being treated like a dog?’
The air has grown colder around us.
Zoe crushes her cigarette against the brickwork. Raising her elbows, she rests her hands on the wheels of her chair, rocking back and forth.
‘I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.’
‘You have to make a statement - tell the police about your father.’
Zoe shakes her head. ‘That’d just kill Mum.’
‘What about Sienna?’
‘She loved Daddy and she hated him, but she didn’t kill him.’
My phone is ringing. It’s Ronnie Cray.
‘Busy?’
‘I’m lecturing today.’
‘This is more important.’
‘That’s as may be, but it doesn’t pay my rent.’
The DCI sounds annoyed, but she doesn’t raise her voice. Her tone barely alters as she suggests that my Volvo might find itself clamped in the university car park should I turn up at the campus.
‘I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.’
‘You could explain that to the clamping crew,’ she replies. ‘Those guys love a good story. They’re born listeners.’
Why are detectives so droll?
I consider my options.
‘Since we’re calling in favours here, I have a small issue you might be able to help me with.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Charlie had an altercation with a cab driver yesterday. Didn’t have the full fare. Got into a fight.’
‘Princess Charlie?’
‘That’s the one. She was interviewed at Bath Police Station. The driver wants to press charges.’
Cray doesn’t need the rest spelled out. She’ll make a call.
9
The living and the dead are greeted by stainless steeclass="underline" benches, basins, scalpels and scales, disinfected and polished to a dull gleam under the halogen lights.
Located in the basement of the new coroner’s court, the mortuary at Flax Bourton smells like a hospital and looks like an office block. A ramp leads down from the road to an underground parking area where Home Office ‘meat wagons’ are parked in bays.
Pushing through swing doors, Ronnie Cray walks like a sailor in search of a fight. A white coat leads the way along brightly lit corridors. The place seems deserted until a cleaning lady appears wearing elbow-length rubber gloves. I don’t want to contemplate what she’s been cleaning.