‘You’re remarkably healthy, Superintendent. Tumultuoushormones apart. I’ll write to your GP, shall I, if you furnish my receptionist with all her details? Yours too. I can’t of course prescribe for you, unless you want a private prescription—’
‘I’d pay for it in gold bullion if you were prepared to sign it! I can’t express my thanks, Dr Roland-Thomas—’
He interrupted her with a smile that began courtly and ended grim. ‘Sufficient if you can nail – I believe that’s the term? – the unspeakable animal that so injured poor Elise.’
Was that really why she’d gone out of her way to see the consultant? Had she ever expected he could tell her anything that Penn or Kilvert hadn’t, or that wasn’t in Elise’s file? Clutching the packet of patches, she almost danced for joy. If that was what pulling rank meant, she would pull every time.
And as she danced, her phone chirruped. It didn’t recognise the caller, and for a moment she was hard put to place his voice. ‘Michael!’
‘He dropped an opened letter. Elise’s visitor. Addressed to Dr Alan Pitt. University of Kent. Any use?’
How long had that been lying about on the supposedly clean ward floor? But today she wasn’t hygiene monitor. ‘I’m on my way now!’ she declared. ‘And Michael – many thanks.’
If he was about to protest that he didn’t deserve them, she didn’t hear. Cutting him off short she called back to CID in Maidstone.
‘It’s only four – he might still be teaching. And if he isn’t, I want his home address. Yes. Dead urgent.’
She ran back to her car. It might be rush hour in Canterbury – when wasn’t it? – but she’d fight her way through the traffic like Boudicca late for a battle.
Chapter Fourteen
‘You could see from her face what an anti-climax it was, Elise. There was this top policewoman, flourishing her ID card and looking like an avenging fury, right outside my seminar-room door. No, to do her justice, she didn’t interrupt the class. In fact, she waited till the corridor was quite clear, and wasn’t at all strident. But she radiated power and energy. Such a good-looking woman, too, and so intelligent. She’s not just a graduate: it turns out she’s got a doctorate in criminology and is a visiting lecturer at a number of universities. Oh, the top ones.
‘Very quietly, she asked me if there was a room where we could talk in private. I suggested my office. My office! As if I didn’t have to share it with three other people, a room designed for two at the most. That’s the price of university expansion, Elise. Anyway, the others were either teaching or had gone home, so we were alone. Alone in that mess of paperwork and books and empty sandwich wrappings: I was so ashamed, I wanted to point out how much tidier my section of the room was than the others’. Maybe I did. Anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered if anyone had come in, because instead of an
interrogation, we had an interesting discussion.
‘She wanted to know why I visited you. That’s all. And I told her the truth, that it was because I felt morally responsible for your being in this situation. If I’d done the resuscitation routine better, I might have saved you. If, knowing I was inexperienced – heavens, one course of first aid classes, thirteen years ago! – I’d left well alone, you’d simply have slipped away into oblivion and died. Either option, I told her, would have been better than this living death, as I’m sure you’d agree.
‘No, she didn’t say a word about suspecting me of wishing to harm you. She was
au fait
with all the palaver at the time, when they’d taken my DNA and tried to prove it was I who’d inflicted those terrible sexual injuries on you. My God, what a monster, Elise. I’m not a violent man, as I’m sure you’ll have realised, and certainly not a man for heroics. But if I knew who had – who had violated you so brutally, so appallingly… Yes, I’m still lost for
‘I’d pay for it in gold bullion if you were prepared to sign it! I can’t express my thanks, Dr Roland-Thomas—’
He interrupted her with a smile that began courtly and ended grim. ‘Sufficient if you can nail – I believe that’s the term? – the unspeakable animal that so injured poor Elise.’
Was that really why she’d gone out of her way to see the consultant? Had she ever expected he could tell her anything that Penn or Kilvert hadn’t, or that wasn’t in Elise’s file? Clutching the packet of patches, she almost danced for joy. If that was what pulling rank meant, she would pull every time.
And as she danced, her phone chirruped. It didn’t recognise the caller, and for a moment she was hard put to place his voice. ‘Michael!’
‘He dropped an opened letter. Elise’s visitor. Addressed to Dr Alan Pitt. University of Kent. Any use?’
How long had that been lying about on the supposedly clean ward floor? But today she wasn’t hygiene monitor. ‘I’m on my way now!’ she declared. ‘And Michael – many thanks.’
If he was about to protest that he didn’t deserve them, she didn’t hear. Cutting him off short she called back to CID in Maidstone.
‘It’s only four – he might still be teaching. And if he isn’t, I want his home address. Yes. Dead urgent.’
She ran back to her car. It might be rush hour in Canterbury – when wasn’t it? – but she’d fight her way through the traffic like Boudicca late for a battle.
Chapter Fourteen
‘You could see from her face what an anti-climax it was, Elise. There was this top policewoman, flourishing her ID card and looking like an avenging fury, right outside my seminar-room door. No, to do her justice, she didn’t interrupt the class. In fact, she waited till the corridor was quite clear, and wasn’t at all strident. But she radiated power and energy. Such a good-looking woman, too, and so intelligent. She’s not just a graduate: it turns out she’s got a doctorate in criminology and is a visiting lecturer at a number of universities. Oh, the top ones.
‘Very quietly, she asked me if there was a room where we could talk in private. I suggested my office. My office! As if I didn’t have to share it with three other people, a room designed for two at the most. That’s the price of university expansion, Elise. Anyway, the others were either teaching or had gone home, so we were alone. Alone in that mess of paperwork and books and empty sandwich wrappings: I was so ashamed, I wanted to point out how much tidier my section of the room was than the others’. Maybe I did. Anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered if anyone had come in, because instead of an
interrogation, we had an interesting discussion.
‘She wanted to know why I visited you. That’s all. And I told her the truth, that it was because I felt morally responsible for your being in this situation. If I’d done the resuscitation routine better, I might have saved you. If, knowing I was inexperienced – heavens, one course of first aid classes, thirteen years ago! – I’d left well alone, you’d simply have slipped away into oblivion and died. Either option, I told her, would have been better than this living death, as I’m sure you’d agree.
‘No, she didn’t say a word about suspecting me of wishing to harm you. She was
au fait
with all the palaver at the time, when they’d taken my DNA and tried to prove it was I who’d inflicted those terrible sexual injuries on you. My God, what a monster, Elise. I’m not a violent man, as I’m sure you’ll have realised, and certainly not a man for heroics. But if I knew who had – who had violated you so brutally, so appallingly… Yes, I’m still lost for
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