The Witness

by Naomi Kryskle

  He told Sullivan to fetch an ice cube and folded it into her fist. “Squeeze,” he said. “Focus on the cold.”

  The ice cube didn’t last long enough to make a difference. “Stand up and stamp your feet. Hard. Trample on that bastard Scott! Crush him.”

  She froze. He put his hand over her nose. “Open your mouth and breathe,” he commanded.

  She gulped the air and felt lightheaded. He eased her down on the sofa, and she began to cry.

  “We’ll leave it for now,” he said.

  Brian was there with the tea.

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

  Sinclair didn’t make it to the flat until after dinner. Jenny was awake but in bed, her form lost under the blankets. He thought about the first time he’d seen her: comatose, her body frighteningly still, her life at the mercy of the machines which maintained it. He’d wondered whether she’d be coherent when she regained consciousness, whether she’d be capable of identifying her attacker. Much had changed since then, yet much remained the same. Scott was in custody, and her physical wounds had healed, but the memory of his violations was attacking her from within. Rape was destructive. It desecrated one of the most personal, private, and potent forms of communication there was. “I hear you had a bad patch,” he said. “Better now?”

  She sat up. “I lost it, Colin. I’m so embarrassed. The guys have seen me at my worst.”

  “That’s when we can do the most good. ‘If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…’ That sort of thing.”

  “Kipling,” she said. “But there’s more to that poem. Doesn’t it say something about ‘bearing to hear the truth you’ve spoken’? I couldn’t do that. Colin, Churchill called his depression, his Black Dog. I’m worse than that—I think my fear’s a black bear. It charges at me. How will I ever face an antagonistic lawyer?”

  That had been his concern exactly. She had to be able to perform when the time came. “Fortunately,” he smiled, “that’s not on the docket today.” He paused. “Jenny, when I’m on rough ground, I open the book.” He gestured toward the Bible.

  “Whose was it, Colin?”

  “My father’s, and his father’s before him.”

  “Why doesn’t your father have it now?”

  “He died, Jenny. Of cancer. He was only fifty-six.”

  “Colin, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I’ll sit with you until you fall asleep,” he said. The soft blue fabric of her nightdress exposed nothing. Awake or asleep, she kept herself covered. He thought about the case. They’d hoped for a lead, and they’d got far more: a victim who had survived, an intelligent, believable, sympathetic woman who was willing to be a witness. Who was so fearful that she couldn’t talk about her experience.

  She whimpered, and he found it tragic that her memories allowed her no rest. She had turned on her side, and the cheek with the scar was hidden by the pillow. She looked lovely, even with her tousled hair. He was tempted to stroke her cheek, very lightly, to reassure her. He didn’t, however—it hit him like a blast of arctic air that stroking her cheek wouldn’t have been a comfort, it would have been a caress.

  He returned to his flat, but he did not sleep. He was haunted by the lovely, young, vulnerable woman upstairs and how powerless he was to help her. He hadn’t been able to protect her from Scott’s attack, and he couldn’t protect her from the tribulations—trials—that lay ahead. Knowles had advised that they reduce the pressure she felt by encouraging her to talk about what she had suffered. The men had done so, with dreadful results. He felt more for her than simple empathy, and he didn’t want to follow the orders he had given them. Damn! There was too much at stake to allow a conflict of interest with a witness to affect him.

  Witness—that was the key. His job was to ensure that she was effective in her testimony, whatever it cost her. Casey, Davies, Sullivan, himself—there were only four of them. There would be a multitude in the courtroom, the jury alone three times as large as the gathering in the protection flat. Teams of barristers and solicitors would be in attendance. The press would be a significant presence. The public gallery would be full. The individuals on her side would be outnumbered by those who were required to be objective. Scott’s defence counsel would be overtly hostile.

  He wanted to go easy on her, but he could not. He had to know if she could delineate Scott’s actions in front of others. Anything that distracted him from this course was unprofessional and unpardonable. His feelings were irrelevant. He knew what he had to do, and he had the rest of the night to nerve himself up for it.

  CHAPTER 42

  Sinclair rang Casey in the morning. “I’m going to give it a go. After breakfast. I want everyone there.”

  Jenny was apprehensive when she saw all of them in the kitchen. Sergeant Casey had been on watch all night; why wasn’t he sleeping? Why was Colin back? He was dressed for work, in a blue and gray herringbone tweed jacket with charcoal gray slacks and a blue shirt that emphasized the blue in his eyes. She felt shabby in her exercise clothes.

  Colin was strangely gentle, taking her hand as he led her into the sitting room. The others followed, Brian straddling a chair from the dining room and making it look like kindling.

  Colin didn’t ask her to say anything at first. He explained that he believed in her, in her strength and her commitment. He assured her that fear grew only in darkness; it could not defeat her if she exposed it to the light. And then he asked her to tell him about the day she’d been attacked.

  She had one objection after another, and Casey listened while Sinclair eased her past each one, his voice seductively calm. Perhaps he and Davies and Sullivan had been too quick to allow her to stop.

  “I feel like I’m at the edge of a cliff, and you’re going to push me over,” she said.

  “No, Jenny,” Sinclair responded. “I’ll not push you. I’ll catch you.”

  He seemed strong enough to catch her, his coat open, his chest broad.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  He had the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. His dark pupils were surrounded by blue, as blue as the sky had been that day. She told him about walking to Selfridge’s and the chill in the air that had made her hurry. She told him again about waking naked and sick in the dark and the icicles of fear that had pierced her.

  “I’ve been in that room,” Sinclair said. “I felt the cold, and I know how black it was. And I remember the smell.”

  “Wet and earthy, like being buried alive.”

  “Yes. It was a cellar. But I’m not there now, and neither are you. Shall we go on?”

  She mentioned the two men who turned on the light, their identities no less concealed than her future. “Death row, and my family would never know what happened to me!”

  Sinclair kept her on course, having her describe the room and her discovery of women’s jewellery. He had an agenda, Casey realised, and it wasn’t limited to alleviating her psychological pressure. He wanted the full narrative.

  “He knocked me off my feet. Then he kicked me. My legs, my stomach, my ribs. Did he aim for the places that would hurt the most?” She described the sound of Scott’s fury and how it felt. “Pain is alive, did you know that? It has a pulse, it beats, it throbs.”

  Sullivan knew the basic facts, but hearing them spoken between sobs—was this what detectives did? If so, he didn’t want to be one.

  “He used his hands, too, his fists. When he backhanded me, his ring—that sharp ring—cut me open.” She covered her face. “I’m so ashamed—I should have fought more. I realize that now. But there was so much blood, and I hurt so badly.”

  “Jenny, it wouldn’t have changed anything.”

  The morning dragged on, Sinclair inexhaustibly patient when she cried, assuring her that no one could have effectively resisted the onslaught of cruelty that had been directed at her.

  “He removed his belt. He let it swing in his hand.”

 
“Tell me what he did next, Jenny,” Sinclair said.

  “He ripped off my necklace.”

  “After that, Jenny.”

  Casey leant forward, alert for symptoms of panic. He would have welcomed an injury he could splint or suture. Psychological pain could not be anaesthetised.

  She used verbal shorthand to describe Scott forcing her legs apart, the pain she felt deep inside that did not stop because he did not stop. “It was my first time,” she wept.

  Sullivan felt ill. The room seemed darker to Davies. He had given her a nightlight, wanting her to adjust to the darkness. He should have given her a floodlight, but that was what the boss was doing.

  “When he finally pulled away, I thought he’d kill me. I wanted him to! Why didn’t he?”

  “Finish it, Jenny,” Sinclair said quietly.

  Silence, then fragments, none of them sufficient to describe Scott’s vile actions. “He—over—and—and—I can’t—no!—no!—don’t!—oh my God—”

  Casey could fill in the blanks. He sprang to his feet, stepping past Sinclair to grab her shoulders. He saw her red eyes and wet cheeks and spat the words out. “It was never an even match, Jenny! He drugged you, and he chose small women—did you know that? All his victims were small. And he’s a bloody coward, that’s why he beat you first. When you set foot in that courtroom, he’ll cringe, and I’ll be bloody glad to see it.”

  His anger shocked her into silence. She shuddered and settled.

  Sinclair stood and forced himself to move away. Job done.

  “Do you want to hear the rest?” she asked. She told them about being shy and overprotected. About not meeting the right boy—Rob—until she was in college. About how much they loved and respected each other. The pregnancy scare in her dorm that had made them cautious. The car accident. He had been killed before she had gotten the birth control prescription from the doctor. Her solo trip to London. At long last she’d been with a man, she cried, and he had been a monster.

  It was all Sinclair could do, not to go to her.

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

  Casey was still angry after Sinclair took off. Bloody senior officer hadn’t cut her any slack. He’d opened her wounds and left them to deal with the mess. Even after she’d calmed, she’d wanted to hold onto somebody. Sullivan had obliged.

  “Do you want to be reassigned now?” she asked. “Now that you know what a coward I am?”

  “Not to worry, Sis.”

  “Promise?”

  They saw to her as best they could, and Casey wished he’d had a pint or two to help him forget. It had been difficult, hearing her voice thick with remembered pain. Scott had terrorised her psychologically as well as physically. He’d made certain she was incapacitated. He’d stripped Jenny but not himself—bloody bastard had kept his shoes on. He’d broken her arm, several of her ribs. The sound made when a bone broke was unmistakable. She shouldn’t have to know such things.

  While she bathed, he stretched, breathed, ran in place. Thought about her helplessness. Her fear. Her mission. Bloody briefs would strip her in court. He didn’t know how to predict her psychological suitability for the witness-box, but she was stronger than she looked. She’d taken everything that bastard Sinclair had dished out and hadn’t quit.

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

  Sullivan wanted to break something. “Davies, if that happened to one of my sisters—I wouldn’t give a toss for the law! Scott had no weapon, mate—he didn’t intend to kill her quickly.”

  Davies agreed. Having read her statement hadn’t made it easier to hear; he would have stopped it if he could. “That bit about the necklace—she had to know when Scott took it that he meant to kill her. No wonder she doesn’t want it back.”

  Both men were quiet for a moment.

  “Are your sisters virgins, Sullivan?”

  “My oldest isn’t. When her boyfriend broke it off, she thought her world had ended. He was her first.”

  Davies recalled his first time. It had been Beth’s, too. He’d fumbled a lot, but he’d got it done. “You remember your first time, Sullivan?”

  “Yeah. I was afraid she’d say no.” He paused. “I wish Jenny’d had it off with her bloke in Texas.”

  “Wish he hadn’t been killed.”

  “She’d never have come here then.”

  “Scott would still be killing.”

  “How’s she going to face him?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Why’d the boss move away when she finished telling everything?”

  “Thinking of the trial, most likely. Besides, his job was done—he got her through it.”

  “Cold-hearted bastard, isn’t he?”

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  Sinclair’s afternoon at the Yard was less than productive. His relief at Jenny’s cooperation was tempered with concern. She had required so much prompting. Prosecuting counsel would not guide her as gently as he had done. Still, it was a step forward, one they could build on. She had cried, but she had not lost focus. He was proud of her.

  Her recitation hadn’t yielded any new material, however. At least, nothing germane to the case. He was surprised that she had disclosed personal information, but he knew now what had given her the strength to send her father home: She had lost someone she had loved. Her grief was deep, and she would not put her family in peril.

  His office was quiet. It had been quiet at the protection flat, too, all the times when she had stopped and he had hoped that she would be able to continue. He remembered hearing her radio during those moments, the music punctuating the information she had found so difficult to give.

  She had never been fully loved by a man. Saying she was a virgin was more antiseptic, but now she was neither. Even more poignant was the definition of sex her mother had given her: “beautiful if it’s with the right man.”

  He had done what he set out to do—maintain his professional reserve in front of the protection team—but there was no satisfaction in it. It had been a harrowing morning for her. She had still been upset when he left. “Nothing’s private,” she had said. “The trial will come, and they will see everything, ask everything.” The men had rallied round her, but he hadn’t. Would she start calling him Mr. Sinclair again?

  CHAPTER 43

  When Sinclair arrived at the flat after dinner, Jenny was on the phone with her parents, so he took the opportunity to address the men privately. “How’s she doing? Any chat about this morning?”

  “Titbits, nothing more,” Casey said. “Told me she wished I’d been there. If I had, she’d be home now—no need for a trial.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Wanted to know if I’d ever begged for anything. I hadn’t.”

  Sinclair frowned. It didn’t sound as if her mood had improved any.

  She gave him a cautious smile when she saw him. “My mother was just asking about you.”

  “I hope you didn’t tell her what I put you through earlier today.”

  “That you made me give my statement again? No. Colin, you didn’t have a tape recorder, and you didn’t take notes, so it wasn’t official. What was it for?”

  “In the long run I believe it will help you.”

  “To remember? Colin, it just hurts.”

  “What did you remember, Jenny?”

  Did he ever stop being a policeman? “He had a birthmark. The monster did. Below his navel. Red—splotchy—like someone had spilled wine on his stomach.” She shivered. “Aren’t you going to write it down?”

  “No, Jenny. You identified him already through other means.” He waited. “Anything you’d like to add?”

  “It’s hard—remembering Rob. After he died, I went into remission from life. When I stepped on the scales, the reading hadn’t changed, but I felt heavy, as if I’d put on more weight than my bones could carry.”

  He’d felt clumsy, ungainly, after his father’s death. Focussing on
work had helped. “What did you do after that?”

  “I stayed in school, but it was hard to concentrate. I had to drop a couple classes to keep my grades from falling. I graduated a year behind schedule.”

  “And then came to London.”

  “There was nothing to keep me in Texas. I was used to making my own decisions, being independent, and I wanted a fresh start. I was planning to visit universities in the U.S., too—in New England, northern California. Different landscapes. Colder climates. I thought if I went to a new place, I could find a new me. Instead I died, sort of. What you see now is a mirage. I’m that distant spot on the highway that disappears when you get close.”

  In his flat downstairs he stood for a long time looking at the family photos on his chest of drawers. The faces in the frames smiled at him, but tonight the snaps didn’t bring solace. His father was dead. His mother now filled her days with a host of community activities. His sister had a husband and children of her own. He had kept no pictures to remind him of his marriage to Violet. The grief and loneliness in Jenny’s voice mirrored what he felt. He had given her a professional, measured response, but in his heart he knew she needed more.

  CHAPTER 44

  Jenny was puzzled. Colin had brought her a book of prayers, For Those Who Are Hurting.

  “I got it from a friend,” he explained. “A chaplain. I know you’re still struggling, and I want to help. What’s your expression? ‘Covering all the bases’? There’s a spiritual element to us.”

  She thumbed through the pages. Each prayer followed a line of Scripture. “You think I need God?”

  “He’s the best source of strength I know of.”

  “He’s the reason I’m in this mess,” she said bitterly. “He left me.”

  “I don’t believe that. God didn’t cause any of this. Things just happen. I don’t know why.”

  “I used to believe in Him, but since the attack, I’ve questioned everything. I was always taught that God was faithful, but I haven’t seen that.”