The Witness: A Novel (2 page)

“Harder!” the nurse behind her said.

The tube was long, and its movement made her gag.

“All done now,” the doctor said briskly.

Jenny coughed, the pain from her ribs making her dizzy. One of the nurses slipped an oxygen mask over her nose briefly.

“Hurts,” Jenny said in a voice so raspy that she didn’t recognize it.

“Silly cow,” the nurse said, not unkindly. “Sore throat’s normal after extubation. Some water will soothe it and your dry mouth. You can rest then.”

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O
n Saturday evening, Sinclair checked in at the nurses’ station before heading to Jenny’s space. “She had a rough time today,” he was told. “She’s breathing on her own now, but it’s painful, and she’s exhausted. You’ll have better luck tomorrow if you want to have a word with her.” Still, he felt compelled to look in. Her breathing was laboured and shallow without the help of the ventilator, but he was relieved to see that the tube had been removed from her throat. He couldn’t imagine how helpless and frightened she must have felt, with something foreign inside her body. Tonight only the light on the headboard was illuminated; subdued light for a subdued spirit. He took her hand and squeezed gently, but unlike the cinema, she did not squeeze back. Taking the nurse’s advice, he headed home.

When he arrived at the hospital on Sunday afternoon, a nurse was holding Jenny in a sitting position. Jenny’s right arm was around the
nurse’s shoulders, and her legs were dangling over the edge of the bed. Her head was bowed, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. He found himself unable to watch, so he waited outside with the officer on duty until the nurse finished.

“Jenny,” he said, “I’m a detective with New Scotland Yard. Colin Sinclair.” He opened a black leather-bound folder and held out his warrant card.

He was tall, lanky. Sans the accent, he could have been a Texan. She gripped the blanket, trying to regulate her breathing to control the pain.

“I need to know your full name.”

She breathed out slowly. Her hoarse whisper was weak. “Jennifer Catherine Jeffries.”

The young woman reported missing by the Hotel La Place—they had insisted that they knew their guests, and they had been correct. He’d send a policewoman round to collect her things. “You’re an American?”

“Yes. Texas.”

Her fist was still clenched. Perhaps if he used a more formal form of address, she’d relax a bit. “Miss Jeffries, I know this is hard. Can you give me just a few more minutes? Do you know what happened to you?”

She made a writing motion in the air with her fingers. He took out his notebook and pen and held them for her.

Hurting. Stop.

Respecting a victim’s wishes was critically important. Further questions would have to wait. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll let you rest.”

When he came back in the evening, he used a gentler approach. “I want to have a word with you, but I’ll stop whenever you want me to do. I need to notify your next of kin. Can you write the information down for me?” He handed her his notebook and pen.

Bill and Peggy Jeffries,
he read.
Houston, Texas.
There was a series of numbers. “Your parents?”

She nodded.

“Thank you. I’ll ring them tonight.” He wanted desperately to know the Who, What, When, and Where, but he was constrained by the lack of privacy in the intensive care unit. He tried to keep the frustration out of his voice. “Miss Jeffries, why were you in London? Were you on holiday?”

Graduate school
, she wrote.

“Are you a student?”

Not yet,
she penned.

“How old are you?”

23
.

“No more questions for now. You’ve done very well. I want you to know that you’re safe here. We have a PC just outside.”

Her brows furrowed.

“A police constable,” he explained. “Round the clock. You don’t have to be afraid. Do you have any questions for me?”

How did I get here
?

He waited until she looked up at him. “By ambulance. You were found in an alley, wrapped in a rug.”

Her face crumpled, and her penmanship deteriorated.
He threw me away

“Who, Miss Jeffries? Can you tell me who did that to you?”

Tears came, but they were silent, and she was still. She had learnt to cry without moving. It made him angry that she couldn’t even cry without pain.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m meant to be answering your questions.” He collected his notebook. “You’re going to be all right, you know. It will take some time, but you’re going to be all right. I’ll tell your parents that when I speak with them.”

“Wait—”

Her voice was so faint he wasn’t certain she’d spoken.

“Don’t—tell—”

“What don’t you want them to know?”

“Not—”

He followed the direction of her eyes. “I understand. I won’t mention the sexual assault.”

He went back to the Yard to bring his partner up to date. Perhaps if he waited until later in the evening to ring the Jeffries, he’d find the words he needed. He dreaded the news he’d have to give them, but Jenny was lucky: She was alive.

S
inclair waited until it was almost 1 a.m. London time before dialling the numbers Jenny had given him. He had returned to the Yard earlier in the evening, only to find his desk littered with the latest editions of the newspapers, all with headlines concerning what they called the “Carpet Killer” cases. He didn’t read them, though he was sure Andrews had.

Fortunately Jenny was insulated from the media frenzy while she was in hospital. The officers on duty had been briefed; they would keep even the most persistent reporters away. But there was so much she needed protecting from! The attack had been invasive; the emergency treatment also invasive; and the interview questions—when she was able to handle them—would be invasive as well. It was a distasteful process, asking distressed strangers to disclose so much painful, personal information.

And police interviews were only the first step: Jenny would have to deal with legal counsel, a solicitor pretrial and barristers on both sides of the case when her testimony began. It was no wonder that so many victims lost their resolve to see it through. Justice could be cruel, even to those who least deserved cruelty. He shook his head at himself. He could not ring Jenny’s parents while he was in this mood.

He decided to pay a visit to the Tank. Having a gym on the premises of the Yard offered a more constructive way for officers to deal with their stress than drinking at the bar it had previously been. He worked himself to exhaustion on the rowing machine. After a quick shower and change of clothes, he headed back to his office. He hoped Mr. Jeffries would be at home. In his experience it was easier breaking bad news to fathers than to mothers, although only marginally so.

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I
t was a difficult phone call. Mr. Jeffries had been frantic for news about his daughter but faltered upon hearing that she had been assaulted and was in intensive care. No matter how clear and simple the words, a parent’s initial reaction was confusion and disbelief. In a perverse
sort of reassurance, Sinclair repeated the information and heard the transition from shock to horror. He had heard it before, in the voices of other parents, and the long distance connection only made the sound more poignant. It was rare for a crime to affect the victim only; most had families and friends who felt the repercussions as well. Hence Sinclair preferred to notify loved ones in person with a family liaison officer present, but that was not possible in this case.

Unfortunately it would be some time before Jenny’s parents could travel to London: Their passports weren’t current. In the face of Mr. Jeffries’ agitation, Sinclair kept his voice calm. He had learnt early in his career to do nothing that would escalate a situation. He assured Mr. Jeffries that Jenny was safe and receiving the best medical care. He promised to ring again in the next day or two. It had not been difficult to avoid disclosing the exact nature of her attack.

M
onday morning found Sinclair on his way back to the hospital. He had just greeted Jenny when Dr. Walsh pushed the curtain aside. “I’d like to have a look at you,” he told her.

Feeling a traitor, Sinclair stepped outside. In a few minutes he heard a rasping cry. The privacy provided by the curtain didn’t seem sufficient. There were several more cries, muffled, a few minutes apart. How did doctors continue their treatment when what they did was hurting someone? The same way coppers did, he guessed: by focussing on the outcome. In Jenny’s case, that would mean taking a very long term view indeed.

When Dr. Walsh came out, he was smiling. “I removed the chest tube and the sutures the plastic surgeon put in. Miss Jeffries is healing beautifully. You can go in now.”

“I heard her cry out.”

“There’s a sharp pain when the chest tube is removed,” Dr. Walsh explained. “And the incision site will be tender for some time. But she’s doing well, and we’ll be transferring her out of intensive care this afternoon.”

“Not to a ward,” Sinclair said quickly. “And not on the ground floor.”

Dr. Walsh thought for a moment. “I’ll see if there’s a barrier nursing room available. That’s an isolation area—it should suit.”

Sinclair spoke with the PC on duty before rejoining Jenny. “She’s going to be moved. Stay with her. I’ll have backup for you by the start of the next shift.” The curtain was partly open, and he could see the nurse arranging Jenny’s bed. Jenny was lying flat, and she was taking careful, shallow breaths, her face tight with pain. The bandages had been removed from her face, and the intravenous drip was out also.

“Miss Jeffries, I have some good news for you. I rang your parents last night and had a word with your father. He asked me to give you a message.” He recited the lines. “It’s a bit cryptic.”

“No, they’re lines from a poem by Robert Frost. ‘But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep...’ He’s coming; I bet both of them are coming.” She tried unsuccessfully to clear her throat.

“Miss Jeffries, Dr. Walsh says you’re healing beautifully.”

He was so austere in his dark three-piece suit and tie, and the stilted way he spoke—and his clipped speech—seemed to belie his comforting words. “That’s just an expression doctors use,” she whispered. “There can’t be anything beautiful about it.”

“They did their best for you. A plastic surgeon put the stitches in your cheek. Didn’t they show you?”

“Is that supposed to be a good thing? That I had a plastic surgeon?”

The hoarseness in her voice made it sound like there was something broken inside. “It’s not bad at all,” he told her. “It’s like a wrinkle, a pink wrinkle. There’s a clear adhesive strip over it.”

She searched his face for signs of revulsion but found none.

“You’ll be pleasantly surprised,” he insisted. “And what you see now will fade and improve over time.”

She was quiet. She wanted more than speeches. She wanted the endless succession of interruptions by strangers to stop. She wanted the pain to stop. She wanted her sentence in this beneficent prison to be over.

“And there’s more,” he added. “You’re going to be moved out of intensive care this afternoon. When I see you later today, you’ll be in your own room.”

No, she thought after he left, it wouldn’t be her room. Her room was in a house in Houston, with faces she knew and voices she recognized, a place where her privacy was respected and she could shut everyone out if she wanted to.

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I
t was late afternoon before Sinclair and Andrews made their way to Middlesex Hospital, where they introduced themselves to Jenny’s new doctor, Dr. Adams, a neat trim man with a pepper-and-salt beard. Then they located her room. Sinclair was glad to see that the backup had arrived: There were now two PCs seated outside, one of them female. “You know the drill,” he said. “Check IDs on all medical personnel until you know them. I’ll be supplying you with a list of approved providers. Until then, err on the side of caution. I don’t care if someone’s offended. This girl has been through too much already for us to take any sort of chance.”

“Sir, the move from UCH was hard on her,” the WPC reported.

“I expected that,” Sinclair replied. He knocked lightly, and he and Andrews entered. “Miss Jeffries,” he began, “I’d like you to meet David Andrews. He’s a detective sergeant and will be working with me on your case.”

Sergeant Andrews opened his warrant card. He was broad, even without a uniform. Despite his friendly face, she was glad when he chose to sit in the background, letting the taller man—what was his name?—Mr. Sinclair?—take the chair next to the bed.

“Congratulations on your new address,” he said. “Are you able to
answer a few preliminary questions for us?” He knew from her medical report what had happened to her; he also had a general idea of when, based on her admission to hospital. He decided to enquire only about the Who and the Where.

She saw the sergeant take out his notebook.

“We know that someone hurt you,” Sinclair said gently. “Do you know who it was?”

She shook her head.

“Can you give us a description?”

Her voice was still hoarse. “He was tall and slim. I don’t know how tall. I was on the floor, and he was standing.” A shadow crossed her face.

“What else?”

“Blond hair. Cheekbones—high. Nose—long and narrow. Lips—thin.” She stole a quick glance at the young sergeant. He was recording everything. He looked up at her, an attentive expression on his face.

“Can you tell us anything more?” Sinclair wasn’t using his notebook.

“He had a gaunt, weathered face. Ranchers in Texas look like that, because they’ve spent so much time in the sun. And crow’s feet, maybe from squinting at the sun.”

“What colour were his eyes?”

“Gray.” She shivered. “When I close mine, I can still see him.”