Free Life Sentence by Judith Cutler

said, as if recapping, ‘So we have a woman in her fifties, “tarted up” for the day, but unable to conceal her regular manual work. Did you see her clothes? I know they’ll have been bagged as evidence and I can check them myself, but did they make any impression on
you
?’
    Kilvert raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re quite good at this, aren’t you?’
    Patronising bitch. Fran smiled back, encouragingly.
    ‘They were new. And they still had those little plastic threads in, the things that attach the price tags. At least the ones I saw. Blouse and jacket. I only noticed those because she had minute scratches on her neck, as if something had irritated her and she’d kept brushing at it.’
    ‘Blouse and jacket?’
    ‘Yes, as if she’d bought something new for some do she wasn’t sure about.’
    ‘Not her favourite Maxmara.’
    Kilvert didn’t notice the irony. ‘Lord, no, Eastex or some such. Brand new, as I told you. You know, the sort of thing some mums buy for little Jimmy’s graduation day.’
    ‘You think that’s where she might have been going?’
    ‘How could she? Drat,’ she added, quelling her pager, which had chosen that moment to trill. ‘RTA – serious head injuries. Have a son, I mean. When she was a virgin until she was raped?’
    As an exit line, it would take some beating.
    Fran didn’t go after her. Let the dead bury the dead. It was Kilvert’s job to save the living, and, as Mark had observed, Elise wasn’t going anywhere. In any case, she had to deal with the information so casually imparted. Poor Elise. What a way to be initiated into sex – a roadside rape. Did she need to see the gynaecologistwho’d treated her? Not, she decided, till she’d rechecked the file, which meant bearding Penn in his lair once more.

    ‘Private practice? He’s left the NHS, just like that?’
    Penn shook his head. ‘Favours us with his presence one day a week. It just happened to be his day when they asked him to see Elise. And I’m not surprised you can’t read his handwriting – not exactly the best calligraphy, is it? And all these abbreviations.’
    ‘Could you interpret?’ Fran asked humbly. She didn’t wish to wear out her welcome, but Penn was showing his sunny face again, and might add in asides more than Fran could glean from the transcript back at the office.
    ‘Let’s see if there’s an examination room free. These aren’t the sorts of conversation you’d want everyone to overhear. Yes. In here, please, Chief Superintendent.’
    ‘Fran, please. Too many syllables in the title,’ she added.
    ‘You know, I’ve always wanted a few more. Penn. I always prefer to be called Michael, but you know what people are like: Mike it has to be. And you – you’ve got a nice Christian name too. Only we’re supposed to called them first names, aren’t we?’
    Fran laughed. ‘Except mine’s my second name. I never could be doing with Belinda. Frances got me too many letters addressed to “Mr Harman”. So Fran it became.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Are you due for a break? I could shout you lunch in your canteen.’
    ‘Senior nurses are paid quite well, thank you.’
    God Almighty! What had she said this time?
    Penn’s pager bleeped. ‘You can see I’m busy. But thanks for the offer. Now, unless there’s anything else I can help you with, I must be off. Actually, maybe you should talk to Mr Roland-Thomas himself. His real name’s Thomas, but he hyphenated his Christian name to it to make it posher.’ And he was gone.
    Fran used an ironic index finger to push her jaw back up into position.

    She’d hardly settled herself in the car, pondering her next move, when her mobile rang.
    ‘Pa?’ It was a good job she hadn’t had any lunch: she could have been physically sick.
    ‘You’ll have to come down. It’s that woman. She’s stolen all my money.’

Chapter Ten
    ‘I know it’s not my usual time, my dear, but I thought it might help if I were to vary the pattern – change