by Liz Lawler
Her entire body began to shake. The big muscles in her chest and buttocks and thighs moved continuously. The head blocks and neck collar, the arm restraints and ankle stirrups visibly shook. Tears streamed down her face along with mucous from her nose and mouth, and through all of it she screamed a silent, ‘No’ as she made herself say the opposite out loud.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.’ Now he was making it difficult for her to be heard. He’d changed his mind, and the mask was now covering half her face and the liquid gas was doing its work.
‘I said yes,’ she whispered drowsily. ‘No means yes.’
Chapter two
Alex opened her eyes. She was lying on a trolley, a white sheet draped over her, and two of her colleagues calmly stared down at her. Fiona Woods, her best friend and senior nursing sister of the A & E department and Caroline Cowan, senior A & E consultant. Both wore similar expressions – reassuring ones – and warm smiles were quickly offered. She knew exactly where she was, even down to the cubicle she was in: number 9.
She could see on Fiona’s fob watch that it was nearly 2 a.m. She had been working here in the department five hours ago, showering quickly in the staff changing room, her dress hanging up, ready to wear, her make-up and perfume on. Such a short time ago, and yet so much had changed. Her life had hung in the balance. If she’d said no . . . if she’d refused . . . if she’d been braver . . .
She screwed her eyes shut, breathed deeply and slowly, and when she was ready she opened them again.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ Caroline said in her best caring voice. ‘Can you tell me what happened? Tell me what day it is, and where you think you are?’
Alex wasn’t yet able to speak about the first question. She concentrated on answering the second and third instead. ‘It’s Sunday, the thirtieth of October, and I’m in the city of Bath, in my own hospital, and in my own department.’
Caroline smiled again. ‘You are indeed, sweetie, only now, it’s the thirty-first. You gave us a fright. The storm outside has been horrendous, non-stop rain and wind. You gave us a proper scare.’ She nodded reassuringly. ‘But you’re all right. A couple of grazes to your knees and a bit of a bump on the back of your head, but otherwise you’re fine. Good job Patrick insisted the search carry on, otherwise we might be treating you for hypothermia. I’m going to suggest you stay overnight. Do a few neuro obs on you. You were pretty out of it. In a moment I’m going to call in a few others so we can check you over. Stay nice and still, and before you know it we’ll have you out of that collar.’
Tears of relief flooded Alex’s eyes and she blinked them away. Caroline’s fair eyebrows pulled together in a frown. She looked older than she was, her sturdy body and forearms strong and toned, not from clinical work but from the years she’d spent helping her husband on their farm.
‘Oh, sweetie, don’t cry. We’ll have you sitting up with a cup of tea in no time. Fiona, go round up some more bodies. Let’s get our favourite doctor sorted out quickly. None of the boys, mind,’ she warned Fiona in a friendly tone. ‘I’m sure Alex doesn’t want that lot to see her cute bum.’
Alex lay perfectly still. She felt deeply tired and was grateful for Caroline’s matter-of-fact manner and easy banter. Later she could scream. Later she could howl her head off and crumple in a heap, but for now it was better that she stay calm. She would need to be calm if she was going to be of any help to the police.
Three nurses came back into the cubicle along with Fiona Woods.
‘I’ll take the head,’ Fiona said to Caroline. The other nurses positioned themselves down one side of Alex, and each put their hands on a part of her body. Her shoulder, her hip and her leg were firmly held. Standing at the head of the table, Fiona positioned her hands either side of Alex’s head while Caroline loosened the neck collar and took away the head blocks. The senior consultant then carefully placed her hand behind Alex’s neck, and starting at the base of the skull, felt the cervical spine for any sign of tenderness or deformity.
She felt Alex wince. ‘That a bit sore?’
Alex started to nod and Fiona commanded her to stay still. ‘Hey you, you should know better than that!’ Her face was only inches away from Alex’s and she smelled of cigarette smoke. Fiona had obviously taken up the habit again. It was a shame, because she had been doing well on the patches.
Over the next few minutes, while rolled onto her side in an in-line immobilisation position with her head supported in Fiona’s strong hands, the rest of her spine was checked carefully. Lastly, a moment of humiliation, especially as she knew all these people – Caroline inserted a finger into her rectum to assess sphincter tone. Then it was over and a huge smile covered Caroline’s face as Alex was rolled back.
‘You’re fine, Alex. You’re not going to need the collar. I’m going to raise you up a little and then get you that cup of tea.’ She looked at Fiona. ‘A couple of co-codamol wouldn’t do any harm.’
There was no doubt about it, Caroline Cowan was a master at keeping calm in a crisis, the pace and tone of her actions and voice just right for keeping hysteria at bay. She was giving Alex time to adjust to her situation, normalising everything as much as possible so that she would be better able to face the unpleasantness to come. Alex had always admired her, and never more so than now. She was making sure Alex was ready.
As the cubicle emptied of the other helpers, Caroline washed her hands at the sink. A spray of water splashed her green tunic and trousers, and she made light of it as she laughed and pulled paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. Even now, her small laugh was letting Alex know she was behaving naturally. It would be one step at a time. No rush. She was safe, and no one was going to get past Caroline.
‘So, sweetie, any questions?’
Alex bit hard on her bottom lip to stem the flood of tears waiting to fall. Afterwards, she promised herself. She would cry afterwards in the arms of Patrick and no one else.
‘The police. Have you called the police yet? They need to block all exits. And all theatres need to be checked first. I want the whole works: HIV check, syphilis, gonorrhoea, pregnancy – the lot. I don’t care if it takes all night. I need to know what he’s done to me.’
The reassuring expression had gone from Caroline’s face, replaced by a concerned frown.
‘Alex, what are you saying? Why do I need to call the police?’
A thumping sensation started beneath Alex’s breastbone. Her breathing came faster and louder, and her shaking limbs caused the sheet to slide off her.
Her voice, she later learned, was heard throughout the entire ward. Above all the other noises – the cries of pain and confusion and fear, the clatter of trolleys carrying treatments to the cubicles, the twenty-odd monitors beeping loudly at different times. Her voice, her words, carried over all of it.
‘Because he raped me.’
Chapter three
A rape case presented in the emergency department has a level of privacy all of its own. A protocol of silence and dignity wraps itself around the situation. The attending nurse, the doctor and the police go about their business without any other person in the department being aware of what has taken place.
In the case of Alex Taylor, there was not a person in the department that night who didn’t know what had happened, or who hadn’t heard what was alleged to have happened. Even before the examination was over there was speculation about what had really happened. The favoured opinion was that she had suffered a head injury; confusion and concussion perhaps.
In the examination room, the forensic medical examiner and the female detective constable didn’t disbelieve the distraught woman, or the rape, but they found it more than difficult to believe the rest of what she said. Only Maggie Fielding stayed neutral and objective, keeping to her professional duty of care as she completed the examination and listened to Alex Taylor’s lengthy story. She immediately answered every question put to her by Alex.
‘The coil’s in place, Alex. There’s n
o sign of it having been moved. I can see the strings, everything looks normal.’
Maggie Fielding waited for Alex’s next comment. She kept eye contact and seemed in no hurry. Maggie was a striking woman, tall, strong limbed and slim. She had magnificent chocolate-coloured hair that reached her waist when it was down.
The forensic medical examiner, who was also a GP, a New Zealander named Tom Collins, wore a permanent look of sympathy. He’d stepped out of the room while the examination took place.
Raising her bottom for the paper towel to be placed underneath, Alex’s pubic hair was combed for evidence. Then the towel, the comb and the hair were dropped in an evidence bag, sealed, signed, dated and handed to the police officer. Her fingernails were clipped and scraped into a separate bag. Hairs were taken from her head. She spat into a sputum pot, and internal swabs from her mouth, anus and vagina were obtained, and blood was drawn. Alex watched as Maggie rubbed a swab on a glass slide, knowing that it would be examined for sperm. Finally, every inch of her was examined for injury. Bruising. Tearing. Bites or teeth marks that could identify her attacker.
Maggie Fielding stepped away and Tom Collins was called back in. Only a few weeks ago, Alex had stood in the same spot as Maggie, beside the same man as he drew blood from a woman who had been attacked by her boyfriend. They had then shared the same status – both professionals, both doing their duty as they documented and photographed the multiple bruises. This time, as far as he was concerned, she was a victim and he was the professional doing his job and trying his hardest to hide the fact that he knew her personally.
‘Do you think we could go through this one more time?’ the female officer asked.
She had quietly identified herself as Laura Best and told Alex she was sorry this had happened and that it wasn’t necessary to address her formally, Laura would do. Except that now Laura didn’t look quite so sympathetic. Her freckled face was less open. She looked a bit impatient. All four of them had been in the private exam room for more than an hour, and the heat and stale air was closing in on them.
Laura flicked back several pages of her notebook and began reading. ‘You remember walking through the car park, feeling a blow on the back of your neck and then a gag at your mouth and possibly a smell of gas. You then woke up in an operating theatre, found yourself strapped down, your legs up in stirrups, and a pretend surgeon present.’
‘I don’t know if he was a pretend surgeon,’ Alex angrily snapped. ‘I said he was dressed as a surgeon.’
Laura briefly pursed her lips before continuing. ‘He then threatened to staple your lips together, showed you a tray of instruments, and said he’d removed your coil while he catheterised you and then went on to tell you he was going to do an operation on you, a vulvec— ’ She struggled to say the word.
‘A vulvectomy,’ Alex answered impatiently. ‘Yes and yes and yes to all of it.’
‘He then asked you a question, which made you think that he intended to rape you. After which you say he anaesthetised you.’
‘Yes.’
‘The next memory you have is of waking here in your own department.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you can’t describe him or recognise his voice.’
‘No. I told you the theatre lights were blinding me. I saw a surgical mask and I could see he was wearing a surgical gown. But his voice . . . it was like he spoke through a speaker system, like he wasn’t beside me. English, but then he also sounded a bit American.’
‘So this English and American doctor did all this to you? Hmm . . . forgive me, Dr Taylor, if I sound dense or perhaps insensitive, but you left here at 9.30 p.m. and you were found in the car park at 1.30 a.m.’
‘What difference does that make?’
‘These big needles – orange ones you say were inserted in you – they were in both arms. Surely there’d be puncture marks?’
‘You’re not hearing me. You haven’t listened to what I said. They were there. I saw them. That was obviously a part of his plan to fool me into believing I had been injured. To fool me into believing I was incapable of moving. The whole thing was designed to make me think I was defenceless so that I . . . so that I agreed to let him do what he wanted.’
A small smile curved the young officer’s lips. She looked at Tom Collins and Maggie Fielding. Alex saw them each make brief eye contact with one another. They were sending messages with their eyes and she was being excluded. This was a private club where only the professionals were allowed – not the victims.
‘This would scare me if this was a movie,’ Laura Best almost tittered.
Anger drove Alex off the cushioned trolley and she stood in her bare feet and a hospital gown a foot away from Officer Best. ‘Well it’s not a fucking movie, so take that smirk off your face. I didn’t fucking dream this up! I was attacked. I was abducted, and if I hadn’t agreed to what he wanted I’d be fucking dead in a morgue right now.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. We’re not saying this didn’t happen,’ she said, including Tom Collins and Maggie Fielding in this statement. ‘We’re just trying to understand. Your underwear and your shoes were in place. Every button on your dress was done up.’
And then she said what she was really thinking, what had obviously been going on in her mind all through this interview. ‘Your colleagues tell me you had a difficult day.’
Alex’s head whipped up at the careful tone.
‘No more than usual. It’s always a difficult day in A & E, or haven’t you noticed?’
‘More so than usual, is my understanding. Unless of course it’s every day you lose a baby?’
‘I . . . I . . . She was already dead when the ambulance brought her in. There was nothing we could do for that baby!’
‘I think Alex has had enough,’ Maggie Fielding cut in. ‘She needs to rest. And DC Best, next time you have a case such as this I think it would be appropriate to have a more senior officer present, or at least one trained in sexual offences, as I’m sure you’ll be told when you report back.’
Maggie Fielding was not Alex’s favourite person at the best of times. She was a brilliant gynaecologist, but her manner was usually brusque. Right now Alex was glad of her presence.
‘I want Patrick. Where’s Patrick? I need him here!’
Maggie Fielding nodded. ‘He’s here. He’s waiting outside.’
‘Well I want him! Patrick,’ she hollered. ‘Patrick!’
In Patrick’s arms she finally wept. In between incoherent cries she told him of her night. He was explosive in his shock, demanding that Laura Best find this man. He demanded she get more police in and asked why he hadn’t seen a posse of them searching the hospital yet. It was only Alex that managed to keep him from running into the night to search for the man, her grip on his hands unwilling to let go, her need for him to stay finally getting through. In his arms she was finally safe and finally soothed enough to sleep.
Chapter four
Laura Best stood next to Patrick Ford. Despite the night he’d spent at his girlfriend’s bedside he still looked well-groomed and fresh. He was ready to question her again, judging by the intensity of his gaze. Well he could wait; it was her turn. She didn’t get a chance to take a statement from him last night, between him challenging her to find this man dressed as a surgeon and his need to comfort his girlfriend.
They’d just walked around the car park, and he’d shown her where he and a security guard had found the doctor and where he’d been parked. Only a few cars away, and yet he hadn’t seen her. His explanation for this was understandable. He’d arrived, waited a short while, then gone into the department to look for her, only to be told she’d left fifteen minutes earlier. He decided she must have got a taxi to his place because he was late to pick her up, so he’d returned home before coming back to the hospital to begin a search.
‘Why were you late?’ Laura asked him.
Patrick Ford shrugged. ‘I wasn’t, really. What I mean is I wasn’t late
considering how long I normally wait for her. She’s never on time coming out of the place. I finished surgery – I’m a vet – a bit late, about five or ten minutes, but I wasn’t unduly worried because like I said, Alex is always late. I got here about nine forty, maybe nine forty-five.’
‘And at what time did you come back again to start looking for her?’
‘Probably eleven. It takes me twenty minutes each way to get home and back again. I hung around at home for about a quarter of an hour to see if she’d turn up.’
Laura was surprised. ‘So how come it took so long to find her?’
‘Ineptness would be a good term to use,’ he replied irritably. ‘We only initially searched between the cars. We then wasted time searching the hospital, checking wards to see if she was with a patient. Even when we found her, she wasn’t obviously visible, lying beneath the trees, because it’s pitch black at night over there.’
‘How is she this morning? Has she said anything further?’
He shook his head. ‘She’s sleeping.’
‘Do you have any ideas about what happened?’
His head lifted in surprise. ‘What do you mean?’
She gave a slight shrug. ‘Just any thoughts you might have had about last night?’
‘Are you telling me you don’t believe her?’’ His tone was challenging. ‘I don’t know what to think. I’m shocked by what I’ve heard. But I haven’t for a second doubted what Alex has told me.’ He stared at her intently. ‘I take it you’ve searched for this man? You’ve at least checked out her story?’
Laura nodded her head purposefully. ‘Absolutely. Yes. We’ve searched all the theatres, the grounds, and talked to theatre staff. And now, of course, you and I have just seen where you found her. The branches above her were heavily shaken in the wind. There’s debris and bits of branch, some quite heavy, all around where she lay. She had a bump on her head and she was knocked out.’