Kathryn Fox - Without Consent

Melanie sat back and crossed her arms. “Why do you need photos? My doctor always draws stuff.”

“If you decide you want a police investigation, photos may be helpful. At least of your injuries.”

“Would they hide my face?”

Mary shook her head. “No, they would need to be identifiable.”

“I don’t want anyone seeing me like this. God, what if someone I know saw them?”

Anya acted quickly to reassure her. “It’s fine, only people concerned with the case will see them.”

“You mean like the Paris Hilton video?”

“It’s your choice. We don’t need to take any photos. It won’t affect anything we’ve discussed at all.”

Mary glanced at her colleague. “I’m a witness to that. No photography.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Melanie announced, standing. “Where do I go now?”

The phone in the room buzzed and Mary answered it.

“Melanie, your mother’s outside. What would you like to do?”

Tears filled her eyes. “Can she hold my hand?”

Mary moved to open the door. “Sure, if that’s what you’d like.”

Anya tore open the bag of the assault kit and began labelling the collection vials. She pretended not to notice the mother and daughter standing together.

“I’m afraid you can’t hug your daughter until we’ve collected the evidence,” Mary tactfully explained.

“I know.” The mother moved some hair out of her child’s eyes. “You’re in very good hands here.” She turned toward Anya.

She seemed familiar, but Anya couldn’t place her.

“I don’t expect you to remember,” she said. “I looked a lot different then.”

“Gloria Havelock.” Anya smiled, out of genuine respect. “Now I remember. Very clearly.”

How could she forget? It was the first time Anya had been on call for the unit, and the night she had first worked with Mary Singer. Gloria was lucky to have survived a vicious assault. Frightened for her family, the mother behaved stoically and did not want anyone knowing about the rape. Instead, she wanted them all to think she had been mugged.

“Ma, how do you know the doctor?”

Gloria turned to her daughter. “We can talk about that later. Right now, we need to look after you.”

Anya suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

What were the chances that the women were both victims of random attacks?

With Gloria waiting in the front office,Anya moved into the adjoining room and Mary laid down a fresh blue sheet on the bed. “I’ll stay if you like, or be just next door if you need me.”

“I’m all right with just the doctor,” Melanie said.

Anya closed the sliding door, locked it and placed a sheet of white paper on the floor. She opened a pack of size-five latex gloves and stretched them over her fingers.

“I’ll need you to gently take off your clothes over the paper. It’s the best chance of collecting dirt, fibers, hairs and anything else he transferred to you in the attack.”

Melanie complied. Anya helped her into a white hospital gown, observing more injuries as she tied up the back. She then folded the underwear and placed it inside a brown paper bag.

“We’ll get you a drink in a minute, but first I need you to spit into a container.”

Melanie tried her best to muster some saliva. Anya pipetted out the contents into another screw-top vial.

“I’m going to give you a tiny amount of water. I want you to swish it around your mouth and spit again.” This time, the result yielded more.

“Lastly, flossing your teeth after an assault might be a more effective way of getting DNA evidence.”

“If it helps get rid of any part of him, I’ll do it.”

With the dental floss labelled and placed in another jar, Anya began to take notes of the injuries. The face was swelling more, but there was no bagginess when she pressed it to suggest a fracture. Oval-shaped bruises on the right-hand side of Melanie’s neck were consistent with those caused by finger pressure. A thumb-sized mark on the left suggested his hand had spanned Melanie’s throat, his four fingers embedded into the flesh on her right side.

“Did he take off both gloves?” Anya asked.

“I think so. I’m not sure. I remember seeing a flash of white as he punched me. I didn’t see the hand again.”

Anya took both wet and dry swabs from the fingermark bruises, in the hope they’d uncover some of the offender’s skincells. Chances of a result were low since Melanie had been forced to have a shower, but worth the try.

The attacker had punched Melanie in the right breast, causing a large black hematoma beneath the skin. Anya measured the width and breadth of the bruises and copied the shapes in her notes. From the left breast toward the collarbone was a linear narrow bruise, consistent with the impression left by a knife blade and part of the handle. She measured the dimensions and drew them as accurately as possible.

The mark was alarmingly similar to the bruise left on another victim she had recently seen, Anya realized. The pharmacist attacked in the car park near the hospital.

Two raps on the door meant that Mary had a drink ready. Anya unlocked and opened it enough to take the foam cup for Melanie, who continued to thank her. It always amazed Anya how grateful sexual-assault victims were for even the most minor act of kindness or consideration.

Next task was to take a dry swab from under the fingernails, in case the offender’s tissue had transferred in the struggle. Anya repeated this with wet swabs and then asked if she could cut Melanie’s rather long nails, a job she didn’t enjoy. To most forensic physicians’ surprise, studies showed that swabs from beneath fingernails were more likely to yield DNA than the cut portions. Anya suspected that was due to the fact that the clippings often projectiled across the room. In the process of hunting the specimens down and recollecting them, it was hardly surprising that some of the DNA matter would be lost. So much for high-tech processes shown on shows like CSI. Reality was far more clumsy.

She opened a new pair of scissors and carefully clipped each nail before discarding the utensils in a sharps bin.

“Do you throw all the equipment away?” Melanie asked. “Is it all contaminated?”

Anya was glad the young woman had spoken. It felt more comfortable to explain procedures than endure the silence.

“Anything metal needs to be soaked, scrubbed and sterilized in an autoclave. The protocol says to soak scissors in alcohol, but when I tried that, they turned into a pile of rust, which would be great for spreading tetanus.”

Melanie offered a half-smile through a swollen cheek. “What made you want to do this kind of work?”

Anya slowly lowered the head of the bed.

“Now, I need to feel your abdomen, then it’s time to see where that bleeding is coming from.” Repositioning the pillow for comfort, Anya added, “It’s something I feel strongly about-that this job is done right and people like you get the best possible care.” After covering Melanie with a rug across her upper legs, she swabbed the area around the vagina for semen, smeared the swab onto a glass slide and replaced it in its labelled tube. “This shouldn’t hurt.” Anya noted no obvious injury to the perineal area and carefully collected the next specimen. Finally, she warmed the smallest metal speculum with running water from the adjacent sink. “You’re actually in control here, although you may not feel it. If you feel tense or it hurts, please let me know and I’ll stop straight away.” Anya walked over and stressed, “I don’t want to cause any more pain.”

Melanie gritted her teeth and her thigh muscles automatically tightened, revealing bruising of the inner thighs.