The Witness: A Novel (22 page)

It was no use interrogating that voice. She sipped her tea and tried to quell her nervousness and the myriad of questions she wanted to ask. She heard his mobile ring and saw him reach into his pocket.

“Casey.”

It was Sinclair. “Is she about? I know it’s late, but I’m just home.”

“She’s in the sitting room with me, sir.”

“Two minutes.”

Casey rose and went to the door, drawing his weapon in readiness. He admitted Sinclair and secured the door.

“I have news, Jenny. I wanted to tell you in person. Sergeant, you deserve to hear this.” He looked down at her, and the delicate lace around the high collar on her nightdress seemed to emphasise her diminutive features. “I’ve received approval for your permanent placement. If it’s acceptable to you, we’d like you to remain here.”

She blinked rapidly at him but did not speak.

He sat down across from her. “There will be a few minor changes in security and personnel, but Casey, Davies, and Sullivan will remain as your primary protection officers. You should know that all three volunteered for the duration.”

She looked at the tired man seated in front of her and felt a rush of regret that she had doubted him. “Oh,” she breathed, “I’m so sorry—I’m so grateful—Colin, thank you. I can do this. Sergeant Casey, I don’t know what to say—I can’t tell you—Colin, did you say Brian and Danny, too?”

“Yes, Jenny.” He hadn’t realised until this moment how very frightened she had been. And she’d called him Colin as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“I won’t let you down, Colin. I won’t. Sergeant Casey, I’ll do my best. I promise.” She rose to her feet. Words didn’t seem sufficient, but now that she was standing, she felt suddenly shy. Both men had risen, too, dwarfing her. She caught Colin’s hand for a moment and felt its warmth. She turned to Casey and stood on her tiptoes to give a tentative kiss to his rough cheek.

They watched her go, her limp less pronounced, her bare feet quiet on the carpeted floor. “Well done, sir,” Casey said. “Was there trouble at the top?”

“Not as much as I expected,” Sinclair acknowledged. “The biggest snag was getting you. And there’ll be periodic review. You’ll let the others know?”

“If she doesn’t first,” Casey smiled.

J
enny woke late, surprised by the slight queasy feeling in her stomach. She’d had fleeting nausea off and on for the last week, but now that she wasn’t worried about having to move, it would probably pass.

She looked up at her battle flag. Had St. George been on foot or on horseback when he slew the dragon? He’d probably had a horse, but she’d have to do it on her own two feet. And he’d had a sword. Her words would be her only weapon.

Until the trial, this flat would be her only home. She’d have to find things to do or she’d go bananas. She needed some way to quell her fear, to stop “shaking in her shoes,” as Gilbert and Sullivan put it. More music might help. Perhaps she should take up a hobby that would be time consuming, like calligraphy or sewing. She could design and produce an entire line of clothing with one sleeve larger than the other, for people to wear who had casts and didn’t have an on-the-spot alterations expert like Sergeant Casey.

Brian was reading the newspaper in the sitting room when she came out. He surprised her, responding to her thanks with a lighthearted remark. “JJ, I’m not leaving until I teach you to like Brussels sprouts.”

“Then you’ll never get away,” she laughed, warmed by the nickname.

Danny was next. She had expected a joke from him, but it wasn’t forthcoming. “I wouldn’t leave you, Sis.”

She remembered that awful night in the hospital, after the man had tried to kill her. Danny hadn’t left her then, either, and he hadn’t even known her. There was a serious commitment beneath his banter. He hadn’t joined the police for the fun and games.

Sergeant Casey was asleep, so she did her exercises after lunch. He seemed the same; in fact, all the men did. She was the only one who felt different. She watched while the three of them played poker. The terms weren’t the same in England, and that and her poor concentration had put her at a disadvantage when she played with them. At first they had staked her with pence, but they had won their money back in no time. Then they had played for matchsticks and even small pieces of chocolate candy, which she had really hated losing. When they played without her, they played for serious money.

“Did you ever know any policemen before you met us?” Danny asked.

“No,” she answered, “but when I was in Brownie Scouts—that’s Girl Scouts for younger girls, Brian—we had a field trip to a police station. They locked us in a cell, and when the door clanged shut, we all screamed. That poor officer! It hurt my ears, and I was one of the ones screaming.” She fingered some of the British coins while they talked. Sergeant Casey was winning, and he had a representative sample. All the coins had the Queen’s profile on one side.

“We have sworn allegiance to her,” Casey said.

Interesting. In the U.S., allegiance was sworn to the Constitution. “Why is the one-pound coin so much thicker than the others?”

“You can tell what it is without taking it out of your pocket,” Brian answered.

“The two-pound coin is fancier,” she observed. It was a two-tone coin with a series of capital letters around the edge: DEI GRA FID DEF REG. “I haven’t had Latin since high school, but the first one means ‘of God,’ I think.”

“No, that’s the last part,” Danny said. “REG—for Queen—comes first. Read them in reverse order, and you’ll get it.” He had folded his hand. It was between Brian and Sergeant Casey now.

“Queen—Defender—Faith or Faithful—Grace—of God,” she guessed.

“Queen, the defender of the faith, by the grace of God,” Danny said. “I had Latin, too.”

“I call you,” Brian said. Casey laid his cards down.

She watched Brian sweep up his winnings. It was amazing that those huge hands could mince onions.

E
verything about Jenny’s trip to the hospital was cloudy in her mind. It was time for her cast to be removed, Sergeant Casey said, and he wanted to give her some medication to ease her nerves. She tried to tell him she didn’t need it, but he spoke to her in his insistent voice so she swallowed the tablets as instructed. She had expected to be curious about seeing things outside, but it was long after dark when they left, and she was very sleepy. All three men were armed and dressed for cold weather; she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and huddled in the back seat. The drive seemed to take forever, and she had no idea whether the flat was a long way from the hospital or the driver had followed a very indirect route.

Colin and Sergeant Andrews were waiting at the casualty entrance. They had a wheelchair for her, and she was glad. It had been a long walk down the flights of stairs from the flat to the street, and Casey had been impatient with her. Sergeant Andrews pushed her straight through the double doors and into an examining room, the other men on either side of her.

She sat under the bright lights on the treatment table, her shoulders sagging, and waited to be called for her x-ray. The room was small, so only Colin and Sergeant Casey waited with her. The others stood watch outside.

After the radiographer had finished, she lay down. Dr. Adams’ entrance woke her. He was brisk, as usual, giving her an examination and questioning Casey about her condition at the same time. “You’re healing beautifully,” he told her, and she smiled sleepily at his stock phrase. “No need for you to tote this thing about any longer.” The saw wasn’t loud, and she found that if she closed her eyes, she didn’t worry about it cutting into her skin.

“The itching under the cast drove me crazy,” she told the doctor while he worked. She wanted to ask him if she could be pregnant, but she was never alone with him.

Then it was back to the wheelchair and into the van. She slumped against Brian. Finally they were back among the narrow streets and dark houses. “Stand by,” Casey told Davies.

“Clear,” Sullivan said.

“I can walk,” she said wearily.

“Not fast enough,” Casey said. His hand was on his gun, and his eyes scanned the street. “Take her now, Davies.”

T
ime passed slowly, and Jenny was often lonely, even in an apartment full of men. She felt more secure with them than she had at first, but her fear symptoms hadn’t abated. If anything, they were worse, coming upon her suddenly and with an intensity she had expected to fade. Sometimes she woke from a nightmare not sure where she was. And not having a period had become a nagging worry. Was there an embryo inside her, growing like a cancer? How could she find out? What would happen if she put
pregnancy test
on the grocery list?

Desperate for distraction, she suggested that they celebrate Movie Week. She asked each of them to think of his favorite movie, explaining that they could rent the video, pop popcorn, and eat chocolate bars. Danny laughed at the way she always tried to bring chocolate into everything, but the movie idea didn’t work very well. Casey said he had been away on extended missions, he wouldn’t say where, and he couldn’t remember any recent films except
Lawrence of Arabia,
which had been reissued the previous year. Brian liked the James Bond films but couldn’t think of any specific titles. Danny couldn’t think of a favourite, either, but said he’d look for
Men in Black
since he liked science fiction. Somehow an air of enthusiasm was lacking.

Movie Week was followed by War Week, Jenny regretting her movie idea. She was disturbed by all the scenes of men dying violent deaths. The blood on screen reminded her of her own wounds, and her dreams reflected her distress. The monster was standing over her, his hands on his belt, his face a dreadful mixture of anger and anticipation. He struck her, and she screamed. She woke suddenly. She was in her bed at the flat, and Sergeant Casey was there. She hugged Colin’s blanket to her chest. “Sergeant Casey, did you ever think you were going to die?”

He didn’t reply.

“People probably think that when you’re dying, the fear blocks everything else. Or the pain. But it doesn’t override everything.”

He was still quiet.

“It ought to be a gift, a good thing, that you still have senses left when you’re close to death. Maybe if you’re dying in the arms of someone who loves you, it is a gift. Maybe seeing with such intensity that it will last forever—”

“Get to it, Jenny.” It was The Voice, but throttled back.

“It’s still so vivid. I had never really begged for anything in my life, the way I begged him to stop. But he didn’t. All my senses went into overdrive. It was cold in that room, but my blood was warm. I felt his fingers digging into my thighs. He needed to trim his nails; they were sharp. The salt from my tears made the cut on my cheek sting. I remember his smell, not of his aftershave, but of his sweat.”

“And in hospital?”

“It was the
same.
Another small room. Another violent man. I was in pain, and I couldn’t get away. It happened very fast at first. I saw his eyes, cold and hard, darker than walnuts—I screamed—I saw the syringe—Danny hit him with his nightstick. Then—then—” She choked on her words.

“Steady on, Jenny.”

“His hand was on my throat, and time slowed down. He had large pores on his face and a network of blood vessels under his skin. He was trying to squeeze the life out of me, and it was an eternity before Danny pulled him off.” She brushed her fingers across her cheeks. A terrible fear gripped her chest. What did he think of her now? She shouldn’t have said anything.

“It was bitterly cold,” he said quietly. “Windy as hell. There were four of us. I was the team medic. We’d almost made it to the extraction point. We’d been moving fast, and we were well tired. My Bergen—my pack—was heavy, and my sides hurt from the exertion. One of my mates—behind me—was hit. I turned to grab him. Took a couple rounds in my thigh. Laid it open.”

The scar he had shown her. The fear in her chest rose, and a single sob escaped her.

“I fell backward, onto the frame of my pack. There was steam rising from the wound in my leg, and the grains of sand that blew against my skin felt like needles. I had a cramp in my calf I couldn’t relieve, because I couldn’t straighten my leg or bend my ankle.”

“Who took care of you?”

“I did, until I passed out. I slipped out of my pack and managed to get my kit. It was a nasty, dirty wound.”

“What happened to the other man?” She held her breath.

Casey paused. “He should’ve been quicker.”

“Oh, God.” She felt her stomach turn over. “How did you—does it ever go away?”

“Not completely, no. It gets better, but there’s no quick fix.” He frowned at her expression. “Are you all right?”

“My stomach feels funny.”

He’d drowned his sorrows in a pub sharing countless pints with a mate, but he couldn’t offer that to her. “Time for tea.”

This whole nation would suffer terminal withdrawal without tea. She took Colin’s blanket with her into the kitchen and watched him heat the water. “How do you keep going?”

“Focus on the mission. And always keep training. Sometimes on
long missions you have to work to keep the edge.”

“Is that why you brought me those weights?”

“I’m changing the purpose of your exercises—from physical therapy to physical readiness.”

“Promise? You’re not just tormenting me?”

“Physical conditioning prepares you for mental challenges. You’ll have to be alert in court. In order to be ready then, you need to start now.”

He filled their cups. The warmth melted the shards of ice in her chest and soothed her stomach. “Did you learn all this in the Royal Marines?”

“Much of it. My medical training began there.”

“Was it hard, what you had to do?”

“They kept us busy.”

Typical Sergeant Casey understatement. “Were you ever afraid?”

“We called it apprehension,” he smiled.

“Why did you leave?”