14 The Job

The Job

The young man in the hospital bed was named St John Giles, and he was a rugby eight, or rowing six or whatever at Oxford University who’d come into London for a night out. He had floppy blond hair that was stuck to his forehead with sweat.

‘I’ve already told the police what happened, but they didn’t believe me. Why should you?’ he said.

‘Because we’re the people that believe people that other people don’t believe,’ I said.

‘How can I know that?’ he asked.

‘You’re just going to have to believe me,’ I said.

Because the bed sheets covered him up to his chest there was nothing to see of his injuries, but I found my eyes drifting down towards his groin – it was like a road accident or horrific facial wart. He saw me trying not to look.

‘Believe me,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to see.’

I helped myself to one of his grapes. ‘Why don’t you tell me what happened,’ I said.

He’d been having a night out with some mates, and had gone to a nightclub round the back of Leicester Square. There he’d met a nice young woman who he’d plied with alcohol before persuading her into a dark corner for a snog. Looking back, St John was willing to admit that perhaps he might have pressed his case a little too fervently, but he could have sworn she was a willing partner, or at least not objecting too strenuously. It was a depressingly familiar story that the officers on Operation Sapphire, the Met’s Rape Investigation Unit, must get to hear all the time. At least, right up to the point where she bit his dick off.

‘With her vagina?’ I asked, just to be clear.

‘Yep,’ said St John.

‘You’re sure?’

‘It’s not the sort of thing you make a mistake about,’ he said. ‘And you’re sure it was teeth?’

‘It felt like teeth,’ he said. ‘But to be honest, after it happened I really stopped paying attention.’

‘She didn’t cut you with something, a knife or a broken bottle, perhaps?’

‘I was holding both her hands,’ he said and made a grasping gesture with his hand. It was vague but I got the gist – he’d pinned her wrists to the wall.

What a prince among men, I thought, and checked the description he’d given at an earlier interview. ‘You say she had long black hair, black eyes, pale skin and very red lips?’

St John nodded enthusiastically. ‘Sort of Japanese-looking without being Japanese,’ he said. ‘Beautiful, but she didn’t have slanty eyes.’

‘Did you see her teeth?’

‘No, I already told you …’

‘Not those teeth,’ I said. ‘The ones in her mouth.’

‘I don’t remember,’ he said. ‘Is it important?’

‘It might be,’ I said. ‘Did she say anything?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like, anything at all.’