Like Clockwork

25

Clare sat in her car, thinking of that scrap of material whipping back and forth on the razor wire. The girl must have escaped along the passageway and up the hill. Moving away from people, as a wounded animal would. Then Clare’s heart lurched as she saw a hand pressing on the passenger window.

‘Madame, is me, Giscard.’ Clare looked again.

‘You gave me such a fright.’ She rolled down her window. ‘We didn’t find her. I don’t know where she is.’

‘She got away,’ said Giscard, quietly. ‘I saw her.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I come back here after I see you. I watch to see if you come with the police. That is when I see her climb out the window.’

‘Where did she go?’ asked Clare.

‘I followed her but she ran when she saw me.’

‘Yes, but where did she go?’ Clare’s voice was a low, urgent mutter.

‘I followed her to Glengariff Road. There is a building site halfway down. Maybe you look there?’

‘Thank you, Giscard.’ Clare did an abrupt U-turn, driving up steep streets through sleeping mansions snug behind walls and electric fences. Alarm systems winked their red Cyclops eyes as she passed. A security guard shifted in his chair, raising his arm in a tired salute. She turned left into the late-night emptiness of High Level Road. The houses here were smaller, the security more makeshift. She stopped at the red light on Glengariff Road. The street was shrouded with trees, their branches hanging low over the pavements. The lights changed and Clare turned down the hill. The building site was on the left. Clare parked, feeling inside the cubbyhole for a torch. To her relief, it was there. She got out of her car and picked her way through the debris. The old house was gutted, the ribs of the roof eerie against the sky. Clare checked the exposed basement. It was empty. She was about to return to her car when she noticed the partially covered skip. She picked her way over to it and called softly.

‘Hello? Are you there?’ she called softly. There was silence. Clare shone her torch past broken floorboards and lumps of cement. The beam caught a pair of eyes gleaming in the dark like a terrified cat.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ said Clare. The girl shrank back into the shadows. Clare climbed into the skip and crouched next to the girl.

‘Come with me,’ said Clare. The girl shook her head, but did not resist when Clare put an arm around her and helped her to the car. She collapsed onto the seat, her long hair matted over her shoulders. Clare reached over and buckled her in. The girl winced.

‘I’m taking you to a hospital,’ she told her as she got back into her seat. She spread a coat over her. The girl’s legs were streaked with blood, her left eye swollen shut, her hand a bloodied pulp. And the familiar tattoo on her back.

‘What is your name?’ asked Clare, more to keep the girl conscious than anything else. Her shaking hands were slippery on the wheel.

‘Whitney,’ was the whispered reply.

‘Who did this to you?’

‘Nobody. Nothing happened.’ She scrabbled for the door handle with her good hand; the left one she kept cradled against her bruised body. ‘It was an accident.’

‘I won’t hurt you,’ Clare reassured her. ‘I’m taking you to see a doctor.’ Whitney fell back into her seat.

Clare drove to the emergency entrance of the private City Hospital. She half carried Whitney from the car into the admissions room. Whitney answered none of the questions put to her so Clare gave her own details and signed endless forms before Whitney could be seen by a doctor. Then Whitney was wheeled away, leaving Clare bereft in the chilly room. A night nurse brought her a cup of tea and told her that the doctor would be out soon to tell her about her daughter. Clare did not correct her about the relationship. She sipped the lukewarm tea with gratitude, exhaustion starting to bite.

Clare was almost asleep when the doctor came to find her.

‘We’ve patched her up and sedated her. I’m Erika September.’ She shook Clare’s hand. She seemed too young to be doing this work. ‘She has been very severely assaulted. The extent of her injuries points to a sexual assault perpetrated by several different people. A gang rape. There are signs of healing, though, so my guess is that this took place over a number of days.’ The doctor paused, waiting for Clare to explain. When no explanation was forthcoming she continued. ‘Whitney will need emergency trauma counselling. I have set something up for tomorrow morning. This also needs to be reported to the police.’

‘I’ll leave that to Whitney to decide,’ said Clare. Erika September turned to go back to Whitney. ‘You can see her now,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I hope she presses charges. I see too many like her.’

‘What about anti-HIV treatment?’ asked Clare as she followed the young woman down the dimly lit passage.

‘She has just had the first dose. You’ll need to monitor the treatment carefully. She must come for her follow-up.’ The doctor paused with her hand on the heavy door. She looked directly at Clare. ‘She has been assaulted over an extended period. If it was more than seventy-two hours then the medication won’t work if she is infected.’ She opened the door and stood back, letting Clare into the treatment room. Whitney lay on the high bed, curled into a tight foetal ball under the covers. She had been sponged down and dressed in a white hospital gown.

‘Whitney,’ said Clare, bending close to her. ‘It’s Clare. I brought you here.’ There was no response from the girl. Clare touched her arm but Whitney flinched as if Clare’s cool fingers were a branding iron. Clare did not remove her hand from Whitney’s arm. She felt the flesh recoil instinctively at her touch, and then slowly relax again when no hurt followed.

‘Whitney,’ she whispered into her ear, ‘how do you feel?’ The girl curled up even tighter. ‘Who did this to you?’

‘Nobody.’ Her voice was cracked, broken with her body. ‘It was just an accident. Nobody.’ Clare traced the girl’s delicate shoulder blades under the gown. A yellow ooze had seeped through, staining the starched cotton.

‘What’s this?’ she asked Dr September, who was standing on the other side of the bed.

‘It’s burn ointment.’ Erika September had grown up on a farm. She felt certain that Whitney had been burnt with a branding iron – just as her father had marked each year’s new batch of heifers. ‘There are cigarette burns on her hands and thighs too.’

Clare’s stomach contracted. ‘Whitney,’ she tried once more. ‘Can we call the police in the morning?’ Whitney shook her head. ‘Where is your family? Can I phone your mother?’ Again just a shake of her head.

Dr September took Clare by the arm and moved her towards the door. ‘It won’t work. I see more and more of these “accidents”. She won’t report anything. I am sure she is terrified that whoever did this to her will do it to her mother, her little sister. Or to her all over again. That is what they will have told her.’ Dr September’s voice dropped. ‘We have collected all the samples for analysis. So, if by some miracle she does press charges, we’ll have evidence.’

‘I’ll come and see how she is in the morning,’ said Clare. ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

‘Her body will heal, she’s young. It’s the rest of her that I’m not so sure of,’ said Dr September, looking back at Whitney.

Clare picked up the pathetic heap of clothes, the cheap skirt, the torn black T-shirt with its jaunty white swoosh. She hung up the long coat Whitney had been wearing when Clare had found her. A small, shiny crucifix earring clattered to the floor. She picked it up and reached into the pocket of her jeans. The earrings made a perfect pair. She closed her hand around them and left the hospital, flicking open her phone the minute she was in her car. Riedwaan answered. He hadn’t been sleeping, and there was a sharp edge to his voice.

‘I found her,’ she said.

‘Where?’ Riedwaan asked.

‘Hiding in a skip on a building site in Glengariff Road. I took her to the City Park.’

‘How did you know she was there?’ asked Riedwaan.

‘Giscard saw her escape and followed her up the hill. He told me.’

‘And you didn’t think of calling me?’ Silence stretched tautly between them.

‘I thought that it might be better for her if a woman fetched her,’ said Clare eventually.

‘Did she tell you what happened?’

‘Not a word,’ said Clare, ‘but I found her earring. It matches the one I found in the room.’

‘No chance of her reporting this?’

‘I doubt it. The doctor is good, though. She collected what evidence she could.’

‘Why do bastards like Kenny ever get let out of jail?’ Clare could hear the rage crackle in Riedwaan’s voice.

‘What is his background?’ Clare asked.

‘Kenny McKenzie?’ said Riedwaan. ‘Kenny worked for Kelvin Landman years ago when he still lived on the Flats. He was released from Pollsmoor recently, where he was very upwardly mobile in the 28s prison gang. His parole officer said that he had gone through an extensive skills-training process, and that he was now only going to be an asset to our community.’

‘Working with Landman, do you think?’ asked Clare.

‘Hard to tell. Kelvin Landman seems to have gone so squeaky clean you’d swear he was going to run in the next election.’ Riedwaan paused. ‘You on your way home now?’

‘I was. Shall I come over?’ Clare’s voice was tentative.

Riedwaan knew what it cost her to ask him this, but still he answered, ‘I think I need to sleep now, Clare.’ He heard the sharp inhalation of breath, and felt perversely happy that he had hurt her. ‘Bastard,’ he muttered to himself. He picked up his whiskey glass. He would feel like shit tomorrow. But what was new?

Clare blinked quickly a couple of times, even though there were no tears, and drove home. Too exhausted to change her clothes, she just kicked off her shoes and collapsed into bed. The duvet was comforting but sleep took a long time to come. When she did finally fall asleep, her dreams were haunted by the battered girl.