Rope of Sand

by C F Dunn

  I felt the surge of electric interest sweeping through the watching crowd. Briefly, Ellen’s words about the effect he had on people came back to me. Sitting there, I wondered whether it was entirely to do with his looks, or more the energy he exuded, as if he brought light with him into the room. If aware, he didn’t show it as he took the oath.

  Duffy stood to one side, making sure she didn’t obscure him from the jury.

  “Dr Lynes, you are in the unique position of being the first at the scene of the event as well as the medical practitioner who treated Emma D’Eresby immediately after the incident took place. Can you please tell the jury in what capacity it was that led you to be at the scene of the alleged – I struggle to find another word for it – crime?”

  I thought it an oddly worded question.

  “I had been at the All Saints’ dinner when I received a call to attend an emergency at the Memorial Hospital here in town, and was returning when I heard noises in the atrium. I went to investigate.”

  “Forgive me, doctor, but why interrupt your evening by going all the way to town to attend a medical emergency? Surely the hospital here has its own medical staff without having to call on your services?”

  “I am able to help out when the hospital is short-staffed, as it had been because of the seasonal flu outbreak.”

  “Yes, but on the night in question there had been no further admissions for flu, had there, so the staff were not so hard-pressed?”

  “Yes, that is so. However, the nature of the emergency required specific intervention…”

  “That only you were able to perform?”

  “In this case, yes.”

  His modesty only served to fuel the impression he gave of altruism. The crowd were rapidly warming to him.

  “Can I bring you back to when you discovered the incident – you heard noises in the atrium; what sort of noises?”

  “I heard a woman scream.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I went to investigate and I saw Professor D’Eresby and Professor Staahl in the porters’ lodge. The door was ajar.”

  “Can you describe for us exactly what you saw, doctor?”

  “Professor Staahl was standing behind Professor D’Eresby, gripping her left arm with his left hand and with his right arm across the front of her body, trapping her. He held a knife against the inside of her left wrist.”

  “Did Professor D’Eresby look as if she was enjoying herself?”

  “Objection!”

  The judge must have been suffering with her cold. She took out a man-sized hankie and blew her nose on it noisily, before regarding Horatio with baggy eyes.

  “Sustained.”

  “Can you tell the jury of your impression of Professor D’Eresby’s demeanour at the time, Dr Lynes?”

  “She looked terrified.”

  The room echoed to a low murmur. I didn’t dare look at Matthew because I could feel what he saw in his mind’s eye – my ashen face, screwed with fear and pain – and I knew how it hurt him although it wasn’t reflected in his face.

  “And at that point did Professor D’Eresby struggle or try to fight back?”

  “She was on the verge of losing consciousness, and her right arm had been fractured, so she couldn’t move without great pain.”

  “And you could see that her arm was broken from where you were standing, even through you were some way away? How?”

  “I have seen many broken arms in my career.”

  “At this juncture, what did you do?”

  “I challenged Professor Staahl; I told him to let her go.”

  “And did he?”

  “No, he did not. He pressed the knife into her wrist, causing it to bleed.”

  “He slashed her wrist?”

  “No, not at that point. Professor Staahl used the point of the knife to make an incision in Professor D’Eresby’s inside wrist.” From somewhere outside in the street, a car blared its horn and another answered, shrilly.

  “What happened then, Dr Lynes?” Duffy asked.

  “I repeated that he should let Professor D’Eresby go, but he used the knife to cut her wrist.”

  “From side to side?”

  “No, longitudinally.”

  “In your opinion and from what you witnessed that night, could the cutting of Professor D’Eresby’s wrist have been an accident?”

  Matthew turned on Staahl, his eyes as hollow and black as I knew he felt inside. “No, I believe it was an act calculated to cause pain and massive loss of blood.”

  Duffy let the enormity of what he said sink in. The jurors’ faces spoke volumes. Near the middle of the room, a sudden commotion broke out as a young man pushed past the legs of people seated next to him on the bench, his hand clamped over his mouth as he made for the door.

  “Did Professor D’Eresby at any point assent to what was being done to her?”

  “No.”

  “How did you react to what he was doing?”

  “I intervened to prevent him from killing her.”

  “Shouldn’t you have waited for the police?”

  “No, Professor Staahl still had the knife. I didn’t know what he was going to do next and Professor D’Eresby was losing too much blood to wait. I had no choice but to act.”

  “So you prevented him from hurting her any further. What then?”

  “He dropped the knife and I went to Professor D’Eresby. I had to stop the bleeding.” His brow creased as he remembered.

  “And what was Kort Staahl doing at this time?”

  Matthew raised his eyebrows. “I believe he was unconscious.”

  “You believe he was unconscious. Didn’t you know? He might have attacked again.”

  “I was more concerned with controlling the bleeding than anything else. People were arriving and I left them to deal with him. I took Professor D’Eresby to the medical centre.”

  “You didn’t wait for paramedics – you took her yourself – you carried her?”

  “Yes, there wasn’t time to wait. She was dying.”

  Duffy let his last words hang in the air. “Thank you, Dr Lynes. I will be calling you again for your expert testimony and medical opinion.”

  Matthew remained as outwardly self-possessed and calm as when he came in, but inside he seethed in a coiling mass of conflicting emotions. I reached out to him, trying to make a connection, but he avoided me and I realized he only just maintained his composure. It’s strange, sometimes, how it’s easier to cope with your own pain than to watch someone else go through it. Although it made me queasy listening to Matthew’s account, there was nothing that I didn’t already know. There was nothing in how he recounted what he had seen – precise, factual, detached – that could possibly indicate what he went through inside and what, until now, I had never fully appreciated: it was as if a part of him had died that night.

  I looked away and found myself facing Staahl’s grey eyes. He smiled – a knowing, sly smile – and slowly licked his thin lips, leaving a trail of spittle at the side of his mouth.

  Counsel for the prosecution took his time approaching the witness stand. When at last he looked at Matthew he dropped any pretence at pleasantries, his face rock, and as cold. “I’d like to remind you that you are still under oath, Dr Lynes.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “Dr Lynes, how did you come to be passing the atrium at that time of night?”

  “I was returning from a medical emergency at the hospital.”

  “So you said, but why go past the atrium? If I understand correctly, that is the long way round to get to the dining hall from the staff car lot, is that not so?”

  “It is, but I went to change first and my office is next to the medical centre. There is a short cut from that side of the quadrangle to the main building though the cloister.”

  “The cloister? Is that not separated from the atrium by walls and a glass door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then tell me, doctor, how is it you he
ard noises, as you put it, through a wall and a heavy door?”

  “I heard Professor D’Eresby scream. A scream can carry further than many other sounds because of the frequency at which it is pitched.”

  “Thank you for the lecture, doctor…”

  “I also have excellent hearing,” Matthew added. A murmur of laughter ran across the room, but he remained watchful.

  “Did you try to strangle Kort Staahl, Dr Lynes?”

  “I had to get him away from Professor D’Eresby.”

  “Professor Staahl states that you held him off the ground with phenomenal strength and tried to strangle him.”

  “He would have killed her.”

  “You rendered him unconscious, Dr Lynes. How did you manage that if you didn’t attempt to strangle him? There were no blows to his head…”

  Duffy jumped to her feet, fuming. “Objection, Your Honour – Dr Lynes is not the subject of this trial here.”

  Horatio pursed his mouth. “Your Honour, I’m trying to establish a point.”

  The judge’s cold seemed worse; she coughed and sniffed and coughed again. “Get on with it, counsel. Objection overruled.”

  “Dr Lynes, I suggest that you misjudged the situation and overreacted, strangling Kort Staahl in your enthusiasm to act the hero and causing bodily harm to Ms D’Eresby in the process. You only ceased when Ms D’Eresby implored you to stop hurting her lover.”

  From where I sat, Matthew’s eyes appeared black.

  “No.”

  “There was no attack on Ms D’Eresby and you did not save her from a despicable act. Indeed, Ms D’Eresby was there of her own volition and it was you, by your own admission, who inflicted injury on her person by your untimely intervention.”

  Anger flashed across Matthew’s face, instantly veiled as he brought his temper under control, but Horatio had been playing to the jury and had missed the telltale signs.

  “No.”

  “No witnesses, Dr Lynes, no – other – witnesses.” He paused, gathered himself and the jury, and continued. “After the incident, you took Ms D’Eresby to the medical centre, where you treated her injuries, which you state were life-threatening. Given the nature of the injuries, I take it you had medical assistance?”

  “I did not.”

  “But surely nursing staff were on hand to assist you, even at that late hour?”

  “Yes, but I preferred to work alone; I needed to concentrate.”

  “A little unorthodox, Dr Lynes, wouldn’t you say?” He didn’t wait for Matthew to reply. “Isn’t it true that there were no other members of the medical staff to corroborate your claim as to the extent of Ms D’Eresby’s injuries?”

  “The police saw the injuries shortly after the attack, and the photographs you have seen were taken at that time.”

  “Alleged attack, Dr Lynes, the subject of which is yet to be established and is not for this court. As for the so-called injuries, the police were not medically qualified to make a judgment, were they? And you seem to be the only medical practitioner to have treated her.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “You seemed very keen to keep Ms D’Eresby away from other people. I mean, you send nursing staff away, you refuse to admit her to the Memorial Hospital, and then you remove her from the medical centre to your own rooms despite her serious condition. Why were you so keen to have her in your control, Dr Lynes?”

  “I saw no need to send Professor D’Eresby to the Memorial Hospital. All the facilities required to treat her were contained in the medical centre and she was frightened to stay in the centre itself. She was too unwell to be taken back to her own apartment, so I took her to my rooms next to the medical centre, where she would feel safe and have medical supervision.”

  “Which you undertook when nursing staff could just as well have looked after her in the centre with some medical supervision from yourself – or from any other qualified practitioner, for that matter. How noble of you to give up your time like that for a patient. Is this something you make a habit of, doctor?”

  “No.”

  “No, well – you wouldn’t, would you, because removing a patient from a medical facility to your own rooms would be considered highly unethical. Why did you really do it, Dr Lynes?”

  “Professor D’Eresby was terrified and in a state of shock. Once her condition had stabilized, I took her where she would feel safe.”

  “And that was with you, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is the nature of your relationship with Ms D’Eresby, Dr Lynes?”

  “We are friends.”

  “Just friends,” Horatio echoed. “And would you have liked it to be more than a friendship, Dr Lynes? After all, Ms D’Eresby is a very attractive young woman, which I’m sure you would have not failed to notice.”

  “We are friends.”

  “Or was it that it suited you to have Ms D’Eresby under your control, where you could perhaps suggest to her a particular line to take when giving evidence to the police that might place you in a more favourable light given your misguidedly overenthusiastic response to what you saw? She was very vulnerable, Dr Lynes, and, given her distressed and weakened state, I suggest easily manipulated.”

  “That was not the case.”

  Duffy was beside herself. Facing Horatio, she more than made up for her lack of stature as she faced him down, but it was the judge she addressed. “Your Honour, my witness should not be subject to such an aggressive approach. Dr Lynes is not facing a charge here.”

  “That will be for the DA to decide,” Horatio slipped in as he passed close by her on his way to the prosecution table. “No other questions at this time, Your Honour.”

  My hackles rose, forgetting my own predicament in the greater anxiety of his. Despite the judge’s subsequent reprimand, Horatio had planted seeds of doubt about Matthew’s actions that evening. Would they germinate? Would they grow and flourish in the torpid imagination of some enthusiastic DA until they blossomed into a full-blown court case where he would be torn to shreds? I was given no time to dwell before it was Duffy’s turn to try to rescue the situation.

  She swung her high ponytail off her shoulder and levelled her eyes at the jury. “You have heard the evidence of Dr Lynes as the witness who discovered this young woman being allegedly attacked by Kort Staahl in a small room at the college where they work. Now Dr Lynes will give testimony in his capacity as a doctor of medicine who treated Professor D’Eresby immediately after the incident. I want to show you the severity of the damage inflicted on Professor D’Eresby. Dr Lynes…” She turned to face him. “You have given evidence that the injuries sustained by Professor D’Eresby were life-threatening. Will you please explain to the jury what happened when you reached the medical centre and the extent of the injuries you found, and why you came to such a conclusion.”

  A flip chart had been set up between the jury and the judge where both could clearly see it, and Matthew walked towards it. Several of the female jurors followed his movements from under their eyelashes. As he undid the buttons of his jacket to point to the chart more easily, one of the younger women suppressed a giggle behind her hand.

  “Professor D’Eresby sustained a significant deep laceration to the inside of her left arm, extending from her wrist here…” he pointed to the diagram, “… to near the crease of her elbow here, severing the radial artery and causing immediate and rapid blood loss. Despite reducing the flow of blood at the scene of the incident, trauma to the area was sufficient to cause continued blood loss requiring emergency surgical intervention.” My scar itched and stung under my jacket and I put my hand over it to soothe the irritation as he continued calmly, professionally. “I managed to stop the flow of blood and repaired the damage to the arterial walls. Despite replacing fluids intravenously, however, blood loss was critical at this point and Professor D’Eresby was at risk of hypovolemic shock. This occurs when there is reduced blood flow to the organs, a rapid heartbeat, and blood pressure plumme
ts, resulting in death in one or two hours.”

  I could see Staahl from the corner of my eye. He sat very still, his mouth pinched thin with morbid curiosity, yet it didn’t seem as if he felt any connection with what was being described at all, as if he had nothing to do with it.

  Duffy took a step closer to Matthew. “So at this point, Dr Lynes, was Professor D’Eresby’s condition critical?”

  “Yes. She had a less than 30 per cent chance of survival. I thought I was too late.”

  His distress was palpable. Surely it must be as clear to everyone else as it was to me? But I saw nothing in their expressions other than curiosity or admiration, even desire, and I realized with a jolt that it wasn’t his face I read, but the colours of his emotions radiating from inside him.

  “However, due to your considerable skill as a surgeon and the proximity of the medical centre, you were able to save her. Can you please describe her other injuries?”

  “Professor D’Eresby sustained a distal fracture to the radius of her right arm with substantial tissue trauma to the area surrounding the fracture. She had a puncture wound to her neck, and bruising to her throat.”

  “Do you know how she obtained the fracture?”

  “It was consistent with a sharp blow to her forearm with – or against – a hard linear object with an edge.”

  I gripped the table as the faces of the jury looked blankly at the chart. They couldn’t make the connection between the illustration and a living, breathing being.

  Use me. Use me, Matthew – show them – they can’t visualize it. Matthew…! I called to him silently, but he frowned and didn’t look at me. I leaned over to the clerk next to me. “Get Duffy to use me – show them.”