Scrambling down the side of the bridge, I slide into the water. Sinking. Mud and sediment suck at my shoes. I reach down and almost overbalance, catching the torch before it topples into the river.
Wading to the far bank, I discover brambles growing to the water’s edge. Thorns catch on my clothes and skin. Head first. Crawling forward. I can’t hear crying any more.
Game birds flushed from the undergrowth explode into the clearing making my heart pound against the walls of my chest. Unhooking the last of the vines from my clothes, I stand and listen.
The weak moonlight is deceptive. The trees become people. Branches become limbs. An army marching through the darkness.
I can’t find her - not in the dark. I should be fitter. I should be sober. I should have better eyesight. I should take my time or I’ll walk straight past her.
The torch swings in another arc and picks up a flash of white before continuing.
Go back!
Where?
There she is! Huddled between the roots of a tree like a discarded doll. Still in her black dress. Water lapping at her bare legs. She’s on the far bank. I chose the wrong side. I’m in the river now, falling rather than jumping, wading towards her, my scrotum retracting in the cold.
‘It’s only me, Sienna,’ I whisper. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be fine.’
My fingers frozen and numb, I feel for a pulse on her neck. Her eyes are open. Flat. Cold.
I put her arm over my shoulder and slide one hand beneath her thighs and another behind her back.
‘I’m just going to pick you up now.’
She doesn’t respond. Doesn’t resist. She weighs nothing, but I’m unsteady. Carrying her back along the bank, I walk blindly because I can’t point the torch properly. All the while, I’m talking to Sienna, whispering between heavy breaths, telling her not to worry.
My ankle snags on a root, sending me sideways. At the last moment I take the impact on my shoulder, protecting Sienna’s head.
A sudden surge of panic rips the calmness. She hasn’t said a word. Hasn’t moved. She might be dead. She might never be able to tell me who did this to her.
The bridge. The arch. I have to free my arm and use a sapling to pull both of us up the bank to the edge of the road. Sienna hangs limply from my other arm, a dead weight, being pulled across the ground.
‘Stay with me, sweetheart. We’re almost there.’
One last effort, I drag her to the edge of the bridge and lever myself over the wall, holding her body to stop her tumbling back down the slope. There are torches dancing between the trees, coming towards us. Blue flashing lights decorate the sky above them.
I put Sienna down gently, cradling her head against my chest. Breathing hard.
‘I told you we’d make it.’
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t blink. Her skin is cold, but I can feel a pulse beneath my fingers.
‘There they are!’ someone yells.
A powerful light illuminates every detail of the scene. I hold up my hand to shield my eyes.
‘She needs a doctor.’
I glance down at Sienna and notice the blood. I thought it was mud on her thighs and hands, but she’s bleeding. Her eyes are open, staring blindly past me.
A paramedic crouches beside me on the bridge, taking Sienna and laying her on the tarmac with a coat beneath her head. He yells instructions to his partner. Pulse. Blood pressure. Good signs.
Another set of hands helps me to stand, holding me up, making sure I don’t fall. One of them is asking me questions.
Did I find her in the water? Was she conscious? Did she fall? Is she allergic to any drugs?
I don’t know.
‘She’s my daughter’s best friend,’ I say through chattering teeth.
What a stupid statement! What difference does that make?
Julianne’s face appears in front of me. ‘He’s shivering. Get him a blanket.’
Her arms wrap around me and I feel her warmth. She will not fail. She will not let me go.
The ambulance reverses down the hill. The back doors open. A litter slides from within. Sienna is rolled on to a spinal board and lifted on the count of three.
‘We have to take you to the hospital, sir,’ says a paramedic.
‘My name is Joe.’
‘We have to take you to the hospital, Joe.’
‘I’m all right - just out of breath.’
‘It’s a precaution. Do you know this girl?’
‘Her name is Sienna.’
‘You can ride with Sienna. Try to keep her calm.’
Calm? She’s catatonic. She’s a statue.
Wrapped in a silver trauma blanket, I’m half pushed and half lifted into the ambulance. Julianne wants to come with me, but she has Charlie and Emma to think about.
The right door closes.
‘Call me,’ she says.
The left door locks shut. A hand hammers a signal and we’re moving.
‘Did she take anything?’ asks the paramedic.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘No.’
He shines a pencil-torch in her eyes and slips an oxygen mask over her face.
The siren wails, chasing us through the darkness. Sienna is lying completely still, her limbs muddy and pale, her stomach rising and falling with each breath.
I keep seeing her in the beam of the torch - a spectral figure with her brown hair hanging in a fringe across her face. She was looking at me as though she’d seen something terrible or done something worse.
3
It has just gone midnight and the sky is a black sponge. Police vans are parked outside the Royal United Hospital and four paramedics are kicking a coffee cup around the ambulance bay, scoring goals between the bins.
My feet move unsteadily, as though unsure of the depth of the ground. Ushered through swinging doors, I follow a young triage nurse to a consulting room. She takes my wet clothes and hands me a hospital gown and a thin blue blanket.
Then I’m left alone in the small room with a bench and an examination table covered in a sheet of paper. There are no magazines to read. No televisions to watch. I find myself reading the labels on syringes and medical swabs, making words from the letters.
Forty minutes later a doctor appears. Obese and prematurely bald, he’s the sort of physician who finds the gulf between preaching and practising healthy living one dessert too far. He examines me in a perfunctory way - blood pressure, temperature, ‘say aaaaah’ . . .
Most of his questions are about Sienna. Did she take anything, did she say anything; does she have any allergies or sensitivities to medications?
‘She’s not my daughter,’ I keep repeating.
He makes a note on his clipboard.
‘She was bleeding.’
‘The blood wasn’t hers,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘The police want to talk to you. They’re waiting outside.’
The policeman is a senior constable whose name is Toltz and he writes left-handed with a cupped wrist so he doesn’t smudge his notebook.
‘What was she doing at your house?’
‘It’s not really my house. My wife and I are separated. Sienna turned up and then ran away.’
‘Why?’
‘There must have been an accident. Perhaps her boyfriend drove off the road. He could be hurt.’
‘Why your house?’
‘She’s my daughter’s friend. Her mother works nights. Sienna often stays with us.’
The senior constable doesn’t react to my sense of urgency. He wants to know where Sienna goes to school, how she knows Charlie, does she do drugs or drink alcohol?
I think about the shoplifting charge, but he’s already moved on to a new question.
‘Did you follow her into the woods?’
‘I went looking for her.’
‘Did you chase her?’
‘No.’