pleading look, then glanced back to her brother.
'She can't talk to anyone now, that must be obvious.' Edward Wickenham folded his newspaper. 'I'm arranging to take Emily home; anything that you need to speak to her about can be done from there when she has recovered. My father is, after all, a qualified doctor so there is no need to worry about my sister's care.'
Edward seemed not to notice Emily shrink with fear, but Anna did.
'Perhaps you should talk to my superior; he's still outside in the waiting room.'
Wickenham pursed his lips; he moved close to the bed and whispered to Emily. 'Don't say anything you will regret. I'll be two seconds.' He hesitated, not wanting to leave Anna alone with his sister, but then walked out.
Anna went close to the bed. Emily's voice quavered, frail. 'Please don't let them take me; they'll get me locked up. Please help me.'
'I really can't stop your brother; I have no right to do that.'
'You wanted to talk to me; I will, if you help me.'
Anna looked across to the door and then back at Emily. 'I'll see if they need to keep you in overnight. I would have thought they would automatically want to keep you in for observation.'
'Yes, yes, let me stay here.'
Anna felt uneasy leaving the girl alone, but knew she had to act quickly.
Langton was still sitting in the waiting room; when she walked in, he looked at his watch impatiently. 'There's not a lot either of us can do here. I suggest we leave and see her tomorrow.'
'Did her brother come in to talk to you?'
'No.'
Anna sat beside him. 'She's terrified of being taken home. She said they will section her, put her away. If that happens, you know we will have a hard time taking anything she says as evidence.'
'We can't stop him; they're her family.'
'Isn't there something we can do? Maybe talk to the doctors and suggest they keep her here overnight? Or at least until we've had time to talk to her: because she will talk now, I'm sure of it.'
Langton stood up and stretched his arms. 'Thing is, what do you think she knows? I mean, we know she was not at the house when Louise Pennel was there, so whatever she knows must hark back to the incest situation, which we are pretty sure went on. But it still doesn't give us any evidence connected to the murder.'
'But what if she does know something? You saw her sister was vicious enough and angry enough to try and stop her talking to me. It's worth a try getting them to keep her here and giving me a chance to see what she can give us.'
Langton yawned and looked at his watch again. 'Let me talk to the doctor but I'm not hanging around here any longer; I'm knackered.' He left the waiting room.
Anna sat for a moment before she returned to Emily's room. She was sitting up on the edge of the bed; they had put some thick pink woolly socks on her feet. The girl was skin and bone, and the white hospital-issue nightdress gaped at the back. She was still hooked up to the glucose drip and now seemed even more frail and frightened. Her hair hung in limp strands around her wan face as she stared at the floor.
Anna sat beside her. 'I've asked my superior to talk to the doctor, but there is really little we can do to keep you here if they agree to your release.'
Emily said nothing. She didn't even raise her head when the door opened and a nurse came in to take her blood pressure.
'Surely she should be kept in overnight?' Anna said to the nurse, who wound Emily's left arm in the black Velcro-tipped cloth. She slipped on the gauge and pumped, watching the dial, and then let the air hiss out.
The nurse was packing away her equipment when Edward Wickenham walked in. He gave a cold glance to Anna and said, curtly, 'You have no reason to be here with my sister. I would like you to leave, please.'
Anna wanted to say something to Emily, but she remained impassive, staring at the floor. Anna hesitated and then slowly left the room.
Outside in the corridor, Langton was ending his conversation with the doctor. Anna did not interrupt but leaned against the wall. It was almost midnight, and she was tired out. Langton gestured for her to join him, as the doctor went into Emily's room.
'I have said that we will need to question Miss Wickenham regarding a very serious incident, and quite possibly make an arrest. I do not want her removed from the hospital, blah blah!'
Anna looked to the closed door. 'Thing is, with her father being a doctor, her brother's no doubt given them a load of garbage about caring for her.'
'Yeah I know, but the doc's on our side; he thinks she should stay overnight and talk to their resident shrink.'
He shut up fast as the door to Emily's room opened and Edward and the doctor came barrelling out.
'My sister will have the best care possible. This is ridiculous; I can have her home in an hour. I can have her in bed with a private nurse in attendance. Her father is a qualified doctor!'
The young doctor closed the door. 'I am sure you have every good intention, but my patient is not, in my opinion, fit to be released this evening. Added to this, Miss Wickenham does not want to be…'
Edward interrupted him, irate. 'She's seventeen years old, for God's sake! She doesn't know what is best for her!'
'Then you must take my opinion very seriously. This is not the first suicide attempt. She has also had her stomach pumped, her blood pressure is frighteningly high and she is desperately underweight. I would say her family to date have not taken care of her health, and I am not prepared to release her into your custody this evening. Tomorrow may prove to be a different matter, subject to her recovery.'
They continued to argue for some time, moving into the small waiting room, leaving Anna and Langton standing in the corridor.
'Well, he's fighting in our corner,' Langton said.
Fifteen minutes later, Langton watched Edward Wickenham walking away, very obviously angry. He didn't even go back into Emily's room. When Langton tried to thank the doctor, he got a cool response.
'Your allegation that my patient is at risk from her family is not the reason I have insisted she remain here. Whatever questions you need answered must wait until tomorrow. Emily Wickenham is a very sick young lady, and, I would say, both mentally and physically she requires treatment.'
Langton put in a call to get a female officer stationed outside Emily Wickenham's room at the hospital. By this time, it was fifteen minutes after one. Anna drove him home; both of them were tired out. As she drew up outside his flat, only ten minutes away from her own, he rested his left hand on the handle of the car door.
'You did good work today, Travis.'
'Thank you.'
He was silent for a moment. 'How's your head feel?'
'Fine; bit of a bump, but nothing to worry about.'
Her heart flipped as with his right hand he gently rubbed the back of her head. 'A right little trooper, aren't you? Well if you want to make a late morning of it, come in at twelve, rest up.'
'Thank you, but I think I should get over to talk to Emily first thing.'
'Ah yes; tell me, why were you at her flat?'
She shrugged. 'Well, I had arranged to interview her. It was on my schedule before we went off to the Hall so I had a word with Barolli — well, he had a word with me — and I said I'd talk to her on my way home.'
'Well, cut the risk-taking from now on; you should have had someone with you. I thought you would have learned that from the last time we worked together.'
'I didn't know Justine would be there.'
'That is no excuse! Emily could have had a fucking gun with her, never mind that mad cow with a riding crop: learn to get backup organised. You are not a one-man band; we work as a team, so start thinking about being a team player.'
'Like you?'
'Exactly.'
Anna raised her eyebrows at the irony but bit her tongue.
