‘So your involvement was purely coincidental then?’
‘Exactly.But anyone would have done the same.’
The custody sergeant’s reaction suggested that he very much doubted it and for a moment Helen feared he might accuse her of being a have-a-go hero, of deliberately seeking out the encounter.Fortunately, he did no such thing, continuing with his note taking.
‘I’m assuming you had no prior acquaintance with this lady?’
‘Not at all.I don’t know why she was being attacked, what her connection to her assailants might have been, but I do know that she was savagely beaten with a bicycle chain before being bundled into the back of a white transit van.’
‘Did you get the registration number by any chance?’
Helen shook her head weakly, as another wave of nausea swept over her.
‘Make and model then?’
‘No, sorry.I’d been hit on the head, I couldn’t see anything clearly.’
Drayton nodded slowly, looking ever more doubtful, as he added:
‘I take it then that you can’t accurately describe her attackers?’
‘Not especially, it was pretty dark, though one of them definitely had facial injuries and a prosthetic eye, I think.’
‘What about the victim then?Do you know her name?’Drayton persisted.
‘Only her first name – Selima.She’s mid-twenties, black hair, brown eyes, with distinctive facial tattoos.I’m guessing she’s from central Asia, though I can’t be sure …’
‘And were there any witnesses to the attack?Other than yourself, I mean?’
Now there was no disguising the suspicion in his voice.Immediately anger flared in Helen, aggravated at the merest suggestion that she was mistaken or, even more outrageously, making the whole thing up.
‘Well, yes, actually.There’s a guy who runs a kebab shop in the parade.He was there, he certainly saw the initial attack, maybe her abduction too.’
‘Name?’
‘No idea,’ Helen replied, her tone laced with irritation.‘We didn’t exchange details.I was concussed, lying on the floor …’
In her peripheral vision, Helen noticed a couple of heads turn.She was aware she was making a scene, but that had never stopped her in the past, so she persevered:
‘… but there’s only one kebab shop on that parade.If you send someone down there now, I’m sure he’ll talk to you, confirm what I’ve said.If there’s CCTV or traffic cams, it would obviously be great to get that footage too.Should give you a clear sight of the van, perhaps even the driver too.’
Drayton paused in his typing, looking up at his former colleague with a look that was half amusement, half irritation.
‘Well, I’ll certainly write up the report and see where we go from there—’
‘I’m sorry, PC Drayton, have you listened to anything I’ve said?’
Helen knew that she was overstepping the mark here, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘I’ve reported the brutal assault and abduction of a vulnerable young woman.Someone who even now could be in grave danger.What part of that don’t you understand?’
The custody sergeant looked at her curiously for a second, a wave of anger clouding his features, before he straightened himself up to his full height.
‘The part I don’t understand, Helen,’ he replied, stressing the last word, ‘is the bit where you get to come in here, as a civilian, and tell the police how to conduct their affairs—’
‘Look, that’s not what this is abo—’
‘Ordering them to investigate a “crime”,’ Drayton continued tersely, ‘of which there appears to be very little evidence.That’s not how it works.’
