Anatomy of a Killing

1

Present day

HMP Bellsford, Somerset

She looks like a child. A small, rawboned thing, scrunched up like a dead wasp. I’m ashamed to admit that my only feeling is a pulse of bleak relief. I don’t know what I expected, except that on my way here every grim possibility felt prescient, the knot in my stomach tightening till I was certain I was heading towards some kind of trouble. Not an ambush, necessarily, but something messy, difficult. I put my face to the viewing panel and check the cell again. Precautions have been drilled into me these past few months. Only a fool rushes in, believes what their eyes first tell them. I lost faith in my faculties a long time ago. 

But there is nobody lurking in the shadows. There is no pumped-up inmate threatening to slice my face. No howling protester, or simpering addict, nobody tearing out their own hair. There is no blood, or flung excrement, no violent screams of distress. Not even quiet sobbing. There is only Kathy, keeping watch, and the girl.

Sleeping. The only movement is the soft undulations of her breathing that now, watching her, I can make out through the clothing on her back. And it’s this, I think, that makes me pause. This, and the sport socks hanging from her ankles, the patchy gauze on the worn-out heels. The scrap of clothing, a baggy green T-shirt, that barely covers her naked backside. It’s her smallness, her quietness, the way she just lies there, clinging to her bones as if she’s buried in a wall. A child, she’s a fucking child; and still I do not move. My breath mists the glass, fear and some awful confusion taps my stomach, pulls me back from the door. I lift my palm so only the tips of my fingers touch the coated steel. I feel exposed standing here, alone on the landing, the racket of association ringing in my ears. I should go in and take a look, for the girl’s sake if nothing else. Then I hear a voice from inside; a mash of syllables. Kathy’s dry charcoal tone. I flatten my hand on the door and push.

The groaning hinges give the girl a start. She flips over on the flimsy mattress, her arms and legs jolting like the Moro reflex of a newborn.

‘Doc,’ Kathy says, standing guard by the bed. ‘Nice of you to join us.’ A cold sun in the window turns her sharp eyes into dark smudges. ‘Not much of a talker, this one. Won’t budge. Says she feels sick.’

Pressed against the wall, the girl hugs her knees and stares at me. Before I can speak, I see somebody else in her face. The terrified eyes and high cheekbones. The quivering, tucked-in chin. The likeness is so striking, I freeze on the spot while every sinew pulls at me to turn round, go back.

I should have known it could happen in a place of so many women.

Kathy steps from the window. ‘Can we get a move on?’

I turn to her ready to protest about standards and ethics — I did not sign up to this — but the words dry in my mouth. Kathy cocks her eyebrow to tell me the wait is making it worse. If I don’t do it, who will? The girl’s sick: nausea, shivering, the sweaty grey complexion. All signs of withdrawal, but also symptoms of toxic shock. I reach in my pocket for latex gloves.

‘The name’s Leck,’ Kathy says with a curt nod of introduction.

I hazard a guess at nineteen or twenty. A newbie. The fear in her eyes has less to do with what’s eating her from inside than this place that has gobbled her up.

‘I’m Liz,’ I say, perching on the edge of the mattress. At close quarters she looks less like someone I know. The snub nose, the small mouth; a name I can latch onto. 

‘Are you the doctor?’

I nod. ‘Are you tender down there, Leck?’ The hem of her T-shirt is smeared with blood from previous attempts to extract her valuable stash. Nobody calls for the doctor unless all available methods have been exhausted.

A human bark breaks out down the corridor. A shriek of catty laughter. She darts sweaty looks between Kathy and me.

‘Don’t worry,’ Kathy says, moving to the door to ward off intruders. ‘The Doc will sort you out.’ 

‘I need to check you over, Leck. Is that okay?’

She blinks, nods once. Before I get up, I take the crumpled blanket from the corner and lay it over her abdomen. There is no sparing her dignity, but the least I can do is give her the illusion of privacy. ‘Ankles together. Let your knees drop… That’s good.’ Leck follows my instructions, staring at the ceiling as I examine her.

‘You see that Dispatches programme last night?’ Kathy says behind me.

Speaking to Leck through the canyon of her legs, I gently pat her buttock. ‘Hold your hands under here… That’s it. Now tilt your hips.’ She nods with grim resolve, a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

‘You should watch it,’ Kathy says. ‘All about dodgy doctors on the make.’

Leck tenses with a sharp intake of breath. ‘Try and relax,’ I tell her, feeling the lump, a mass packed tight against her cervix. ‘Sadly, our sex organs aren’t known for their sturdiness.’

‘Eh?’ Leck says. 

‘Once we have kids, the internal bits tend to collapse.’ I talk to distract her from the procedure, but mostly to drown out Kathy’s commentary about corrupt doctors on TV. ‘Have you got children?’ I say. There’s a bumpy scar of old stitching where some junior doctor, I presume, has done a butcher’s job on her perineum.

‘Twin boys,’ Leck says, a surprising sparkle to her voice. ‘You?’

‘Breathe normally.’ With a tentative grip on the object, I tease it from the swollen cavity. ‘Pelvic floor exercises. They should do classes in here.’

Kathy grunts dismissively from the shadows.

Pulling gently to avoid it breaking, I land a dishevelled tampon on a tissue on my palm. Leck is on her elbows, peering at it with grey-faced relief.

‘No string,’ I say. Although there is clear sticking tape. The glisten of cling film through mucus-smeared cotton. ‘Toxic shock is real, you know?’

From behind me, Kathy takes the adapted tampon, and wraps it in the tissue like a dead mouse. Leck should be feeling better, but her gaze is glued to Kathy’s hand, sick at what she’s lost.