The Witness: A Novel (27 page)

Would her trust in them—her unit—give her more confidence as a whole? Was it too late to teach her how to face her enemy? Battleproofing—simulating battle conditions—could offset her emotional reactions, but since her battlefield would be a courtroom, the CPS would have to handle that. Many men found ways to relax themselves before conflict began. Physical and mental relaxation were both effective, since either one affected the other.

Her state of mind was troubling. Her sessions with the shrink had provided only passing relief. Now she’d had a visceral reaction to seeing Scott on TV. She was a man overboard without a life preserver. Sinclair had promised to consult the psychiatrist, Knowles, but not to send for him this time. Combat by remote didn’t work in the military, and he didn’t think treatment by remote would either.

L
ike Casey, Davies believed in tackling problems head-on, but he was uncomfortable with Sinclair’s orders. Following a conversation with the psychiatrist, Sinclair had instructed the men to encourage Jenny to talk about her attack. Discussing her fears could relieve her inner torment, apparently. The shrink talk, they called it, and they all felt that the psychiatrist should do it, but Sinclair had not conceded. Their latenight poker game had decided it; Davies had been the biggest loser and therefore had to go first. “JJ,” he began, “you’re not the only one here who’s been afraid. Arresting thugs with weapons can be frightening. We’re trained, but that’s no guarantee that everything will go right.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You fainted the other day. It’s worrying.”

The whole conversation was worrying: his insistence that he wanted to help, the pauses while he waited for her to answer, sitting with a clean, wholesome man who wanted her to talk about her rape. She ended it as soon as she could, and he seemed glad to let it go.

Danny told her about his football injury. “I had the ball, and a larger boy ran into me and spun me round. The biggest problem I had afterward wasn’t the pain or the swelling—it was my fear of the older boys on the pitch. Talking about it helped.” He promised to listen if she wanted to talk about what scared her, but she didn’t.

Casey completed the triumvirate. “It’s not good to keep things bottled up.”

“You don’t talk about the things that happened to you.”

“They occurred in the context of missions I can’t discuss. And I’ve healed: Remembering my injuries doesn’t keep me up at night.”

“Is this POW interrogation day? If I had a rank and serial number, I’d give them to you.”

“And nothing more.”

“No.”

He couldn’t argue with her reasoning.

She was quiet during dinner, expecting a combined assault, but none came. When she left the table, Casey rang Sinclair to report that none of them had been successful in getting her to engage. “Keep at it,” Sinclair instructed.

“F
all in,” Casey told Jenny after lunch. “I want a word with you.” He led her into the sitting room where Brian and Danny waited. “We know you’re troubled. Stress shared is stress halved. Talk to us.”

Her face paled. “You’re ganging up on me!”

“We’re the safety net, love.”

“It hurts too much! I just want it to go away.”

“JJ, things like that—they don’t go away by themselves.”

“At night he comes at me. I just can’t face it in the daytime, too. Please don’t make me.”

“We know you’re upset, Sis, but at some point you’re going to have to tell about it in a courtroom. Wouldn’t it help if you’d already been through it with us?”

The room was closing in on her. The walls were the color of quicksand. “I don’t want to face things. I’d rather drink too much or spend too much money shopping or—or—run until I drop!”

“Facing it’s the only way to beat it,” Casey said.

Her chest was tight, and she couldn’t get a breath.

“Cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss, Davies,” he added.

Brian rose to his feet, and suddenly the image of the monster standing over her flashed through her mind. She began to tremble. Casey spoke to her in the voice that stopped her in her tracks, and her eyes widened, but she couldn’t answer.

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.

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

S
inclair 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.

S
inclair 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.