The Witness: A Novel (18 page)

She threw the journal across the room. She’d been in London a month. Thirty days confined to a hospital room and then a small flat seemed like a long time, but legal preparations for the monster’s trial would take months. Months before she saw her family, months before she could go home! The sergeant’s voice startled her.

“Are you all right?” He took in her red eyes and pinched face. “Sounded like something fell.”

She gestured with a nod. “My journal.”

On the floor on the opposite side of the room. He retrieved it for her. She looked brittle, as if she’d been struck but the bruises had yet to appear.

She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the sound of retreating footsteps. Who would tell her parents that she wasn’t coming? She couldn’t. It would break her mother’s heart. Mr. Sinclair would have to do it. He was good at giving bad news. Mr. Sinclair—she shivered in spite of the blanket. He had been relaxed, detached even, when he spelled out the dangers she faced. She felt empty now. Like the dolls she used to play with when she was a little girl, her arms and legs moved, her eyes opened and closed, and she cried, but she had no stout heart inside to warm her. Her dolls had been very much alive in her make-believe world, with individual voices and likes and dislikes, and she had been too young to understand that they were not living beings. She had cut Annabelle’s hair—butchered it, her mother had said in exasperation—with a pair of sewing scissors, not realizing that she could never outgrow the lopsided style. Annabelle didn’t mind, she told her mother, pointing to the doll’s fixed smile. And her mother’s expression had softened, not wanting to dispel her daughter’s innocence.

“D
inner’s on.” Sergeant Casey was at her door again. Was the man omnipresent?

After dinner she continued to make additions to her book of lists.
Brian’s Recipes.
Good, but he always put too much on her plate.
Danny’s Jokes.
In her current mood, she couldn’t recall a single one. Then she began
Things I’ve Missed or Will Be Missing.
The World Series would be starting soon. In Texas the fall would bring cooler temperatures, but the leaves on the trees wouldn’t change color and drop until November. She would miss it all, as well as the family holidays that filled the autumn calendar. Family. No, she mustn’t focus on what she could not have.

She would miss Emily Mitchell’s wedding, she thought with a start. It was scheduled for late October, and she had been fitted for her bridesmaid’s dress just before she left for England. Many of her college friends would be there. She wondered which one would take her place. She tried to think of something else, besides people laughing and Emily in her new husband’s arms, welcoming his touch.

Things I’ve Missed.
Her period. How long had it been since her last one? Five weeks? More? She’d been late before sometimes, though, when she was under stress.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A
t the week’s end, Sinclair had a positive report for the investigative team. “It’s a match! Scott’s DNA. For all seven. We’ve got him bang to rights!”

“And his accomplices?” someone asked when the celebratory buzz had quieted.

“We’ve searched their flats but still can’t implicate either of them in any of the assaults. Both have been bailed.”

“How’s our witness?” The question came from DI Haas, the spare, solemn man with dark circles under his eyes who had led the investigation into Barbara Bennett’s death. She had been Scott’s first victim, and he had felt very keenly his failure to apprehend her killer in time to prevent subsequent deaths from occurring.

“Rawson’s recommendation for long-term protection upset her,” Sinclair answered. “Security’s been improved at her current location, but I have some fences to mend if she’s to stay on board.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

O
n Sinclair’s way home he resolved to rebuild Jenny’s trust before initiating any discussion of future placement. When he arrived at the flat, he found her in her room. “There’s good news on the case—forensic tests confirmed that it was Scott’s DNA in all the victims, including you. We’re standing on firm ground legally.”

She was appalled. The monster hadn’t worn a condom after all. “Will I get AIDS?”

“No, he’s clear of all that.”

But she wasn’t clear of anything. This news made her late period more ominous.

He saw her tremble. “I’ve brought something for you.” He handed her a parcel from Texas.

She thought idly about collecting the U.S. stamps; she’d taken them for granted before. Her mother had sent Jenny’s Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, several books, and a box of notepaper.

The next box was plain, the cardboard flaps folded closed. It was filled with chocolate treats. “From the officers at the Yard,” he explained. “Andrews let it slip that you liked chocolate.”

“I don’t understand. Why would they do this?”

“Jenny, your case—it has an impact on everyone who works on it. This is the copper’s version of Newton’s Law: Counter each violent act with a decent one.”

The last box was glossy, with a wide ribbon tied into a bow. She hesitated.

“Jenny, I’d like you to open it. There’s no obligation involved.”

“Mr. Sinclair, you shouldn’t be bringing me gifts.”

“I should, actually,” he said, not understanding why she seemed distant still. “Your mother gave me
carte blanche
to spoil you.”

She untied the bow. Inside the box she found a pastel blanket. The colors, aqua and pale blue, reminded her of summer days at home, when the sun was so strong and the heat so withering that it bleached the landscape. The tag said “silk fleece,” but to Jenny it felt soft as cashmere and as warm. She wrapped it around her shoulders, feeling a wave of homesickness. “It has fringe,” she said, her voice breaking. “That’s so feminine.” Why was he being so nice? Would there be a new set of policemen soon? In a new place? “Mr. Sinclair, is this my life?” she asked. “This room?”

“Only for a season, Jenny.”

“It’s autumn. Will things be over that quickly?”

“I was speaking metaphorically. It’s your winter—but ‘if winter comes, can spring be far behind?’”

“Shelley,” she said, recognizing the quote. “But I think Shakespeare said it better: It’s the ‘winter of my discontent.’”

S
aturday passed quietly, the men occupied with cleaning chores. None of them seemed to mind, Brian acknowledging that there was housekeeping of some sort in every job. The sad thing was, she couldn’t tell the difference between before and after—the flat looked just as bedraggled. Why did the British call their apartments flats? Was it because the people that lived in them had a deflated existence like she did? She’d have to start a new list:
Odd English Words.
She noticed, however, that no matter when she left her room, someone was in the living room, dining room, or kitchen, perpetual as the plague.

On Sunday Brian served the traditional British meal of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. She loved the beef, but held her nose over the Brussels sprouts, accusing him of breaking his pledge to protect her.

Later in the day she watched Sergeant Casey unlock the door to the flat with a key to admit Sinclair. Brian was standing by. “Do I get a key?” she asked the sergeant.

“No key, no surprises.”

“Am I in custody, Mr. Sinclair?”

“No, Jenny. I’ll have a key made for you if you like.” He had brought a four pack of some kind of beer for the men. He opened a bottle for himself and invited her to join him at the dining room table. “I’ve something to show you,” he said, spreading out a series of postcards. “I’m going to take you armchair travelling. Every week we’ll have a new destination.”

She tried to listen between the lines. Destination?

“When you’re able to visit some of these places, you’ll be well informed. Tonight we’re going to the British Museum, since your trip there was disrupted.”

That was a kind way to put it.

“This is the façade. Typical classical design.”

It looked like the Lincoln Memorial, because of all the columns, but it was not a three-dimensional tour. What was the Lincoln Memorial without the battle scars etched in Lincoln’s face? And the sight of his massive marble hands powerless to heal his divided nation?

“Inside,” he continued, “are ninety-four separate galleries. It’s the
oldest museum in the world, I think, and covers almost two million years of culture. There are thousands of items displayed, many more than you could see in a day’s visit.”

She broke her silence. “Well, no wonder! Your navy ruled the waves, and your empire dominated the world. I never could remember all the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century explorers that sailed from here.”

“Captain Cook was one of them,” he mentioned, relieved that she was finally participating.

“No, that’s Brian,” she corrected. “He’s Captain Cook, and Sergeant Casey is Mr. Clean.”

Sinclair smiled and pointed to cards showing the Rosetta Stone, a mummified cat from Egypt, and others. “Works of art, archaeological finds, coins, drawings, manuscripts, they’re all there.”

“Thank you for showing them to me.”

“Jenny, they’re yours to use as you please. However, there’s one more thing I’d like to do with them.” He leant two of the postcards together, then, separating the two slightly at the top, placed a third card across them. Two more cards were set on top of the flat card, and yet another across their top. The third level was not stable, and all the cards ended up in a pile. “Trust is like that, isn’t it? It’s easy to topple if you’re not careful.” He caught her eye. “I’d like you to accept, if possible, that there’s a difference between a man and his job.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did your father ever have to give low marks to a student? Perhaps to a student he liked? It may have been necessary, but I don’t imagine he enjoyed doing it.” His voice was very soft. “I don’t like having to tell a husband that he’ll never again be able to embrace his beloved, because someone has murdered her; or a parent, that his child will never see adulthood. I don’t like telling a father and mother that they shouldn’t visit their frightened, injured daughter or telling the daughter that her loneliness and isolation will continue. At times like that, justice seems a very cold mistress indeed.”

She felt a warm flush come over her cheeks. She couldn’t look at him.

He continued in the same gentle tone. “The mistress of justice is often shown blindfolded, to demonstrate her impartiality, I suppose. However, the blindfold also keeps her from seeing the heartbreak that the pursuit of her ideal sometimes causes. Jenny, violent crime leaves no winners in its wake. That is one of the reasons I am so angered by it and so dedicated to its eradication.”

“I’ve been blaming the messenger for the message,” she confessed. “I should know better. I’m sorry.”

“Look at me, Jenny. My name is Colin Thomas Dowding Sinclair.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s a lot of names.”

“Only one more than Jennifer Catherine Jeffries,” he pointed out. “And I’m only asking you to use one of them, if you will, and to be in composition with me, not opposition to me.”

Then she chose: Sinclair. “Are you talking about my next placement?”

“Jenny, that’s only one of the issues we’ll have to face in the days ahead. I’m simply suggesting that there is no conflict of interest between us. We both value honesty, is that correct?”

She nodded.

“You want very much to be safe, and I want to keep you that way.”

She was silent.

“I believe justice is precious. We don’t see it in every case. And it’s worth fighting for, in spite of the cost.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but it’s hard.”

“It’s easier when you’re not alone.”

“I will be. I could be.”

“Jenny, I’m in charge of your case. You’ll always be able to reach me.”

Lincoln’s hands rested on the arms of his chair. Mr. Sinclair’s hand was open, outstretched—smaller than Lincoln’s but perhaps more able to mend the rift between them. She placed her hand across his and watched his fingers close over hers. “I’m sorry—Colin,” she forced herself to say.

He smiled. “Well done.”

Later, when she thought about their conversation, she realized that he’d essentially called her a spoiled brat, but he had done it with gentleness and eloquence. She had been unfair to him, and he had responded by assuming that she had a better nature and appealing to it. She started a new list in her mind,
My Shortcomings,
and envisioned the first entry:
Rudeness to Mr. Sinclair.
No,
Colin
. He was asking her to act as a mature adult—not an unreasonable request—and he had done it with grace and not anger.

S
till concerned about Jenny’s frame of mind, Sinclair decided to consult a psychiatrist. He had just arrived at the well-furnished reception room when a tall, slim man in his fifties opened an interior door and invited him in. “Mr. Sinclair? I’m Theodore Knowles.”

Sinclair gave him the file he had brought. It contained a copy of Jenny’s fact sheet, formal statement, and medical record, with her name blacked out everywhere it had appeared. “I’m a detective chief inspector with the Metropolitan Police. The file you’re holding belongs to the key witness in the Crown’s case against Cecil Scott. Dr. Gerald West at the Yard referred me to you.”

“Gerry won’t be seeing her?”

“He’s contracted to treat the police community, not civilians.”

“Then I trust she has not received any psychological counselling so far?”

“That’s correct,” Sinclair said.

“You’ll give me a few minutes to familiarise myself with this material?”

Sinclair nodded.

Shock and sorrow crossed Knowles’ face as he read. “He stripped her of her clothes, her defences, her sexual innocence—and in his final act, of her femininity, by raping her the second time the way a man rapes a man. He broke her, and then he discarded her.” He sighed, leaning forward to return the file to Sinclair. “I’ve just made a few notes—medications prescribed, details of injuries that could have a psychological consequence, that sort of thing. May I know her name for the purpose of our discussion? I understand that security is a concern; I won’t record it.”