(2013) Looks Could Kill by David Ellis Page A

immediately recognized as old, dried blood. Emma gently put the dress and bag on the table and turned to Sylvia.
    “Sylvia, I think I understand everything. Now I want you to be brave a little longer and I’m going outside to make a phone call. Do you understand?”
    Sylvia looked up and slowly nodded.
    Emma went outside and found a phone, keeping an eye on the room where she’d left the door ajar. Sylvia seemed to be staring at the white dress.
    “Oh, hello. My name is Dr Emma Jones. I need to report a possible case of rape. Can you get some officers around immediately to the psychology outpatient clinic at the Warneford, please? Great. Thanks.”
    Two female police officers arrived at the clinic within half-an-hour. The child’s dress was put into a plastic bag and taken away for forensic examination. The police officers stayed with Sylvia for some time, but she remained in a profoundly retarded state.
    Reluctantly, Emma arranged for her to be admitted to an acute psychiatric ward and was relieved to hear that there was a bed on a female only ward. Over the course of a week or so, Sylvia gradually came out of her catatonic state. The story she gave was harrowing in the extreme: years and years of sexual abuse by her stepfather, and being passed around between various men for sex like a pass-the-parcel to be unwrapped and abused. Sylvia’s final tipping point had been a further rape the day before Emma saw her in the clinic.
    The white dress proved to have vital forensic evidence on it and the stepfather was subsequently arrested and charged with rape and kidnap. Sylvia never did say how the dress came to be in the canary yellow bag.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

September 1996
     
     
    Emma had just returned from the International Pain Symposium in Oslo and she felt encouraged by the reception given to her poster presentation entitled ‘Visualisation for modification of pain perception’. Although the study was small and hardly up to the standard of a randomised-controlled trial, the results were quite impressive and the paper itself was due to be published in the journal ‘Pain’.
    Emma dropped by the canteen to pick up a coffee to drink on her way to the wards. As she was leaving, she heard a voice call out “Dr Jones?” She turned to see where the voice was coming from and saw a good-looking man in his 40s with hair greying at the temples. She thought she vaguely recognised him but couldn’t put a name to the face. As she got closer, she realised that he was Michael Williams’s partner and the person who’d screamed at her in the coroner’s court. Her immediate reaction was to run for the exit but he motioned for her to sit down at the table.
    “Dr Jones, I’m just so sorry that I flew at you like that. I’ve felt so bad ever since. As soon as that fucking registrar stood up, I knew it wasn’t your fault. I’m really, really sorry.”
    “That’s okay, I forgive you. Grief’s a bugger really. It hits all of us,” said Emma.
    Tony put his hand across the table to hold hers.
    “Hello, what do we have here?” said a tall man with piercing blue eyes and short blonde hair. “Is my boyfriend going straight on me?”
    “No, silly,” said Tony. “This is the doctor I was telling you about: the one I said awful things about in court and made a right fool of myself.” 
    “I’ve heard a lot about you, Dr Jones,” said Fred. “And whatever Tony said to you in the court, you really helped him move on after Michael’s death.”
    Tony nuzzled Fred’s shoulder.
    “I didn’t do anything really,” said Emma.
    “It was the touch and the look that did it. So, thanks, Dr Jones,” said Tony.
    “Thank you, Tony. And I must say I really approve of your choice in men,” said Emma, looking at Fred. “It’s just a shame they don’t make them in a straight variety.”
    Tony and Fred laughed and waved her goodbye.
    What a nice couple, Emma thought, and she really did wish that a