Without Consent by Frances Fyfield

step of the heavy woman who had somewhere learnt to dance, a grace and economy of movement which also cast doubts on her own bitter self-deprecation. She did not seem a person who accepted defeat lightly, nor one who had looked at her world without issuing a challenge. If anything, she would be obsessive about making the best of what she had, Helen guessed; not today, perhaps, but on other days. She felt uncomfortingly obtrusive, warning bells telling her to leave because Anna was right to resent the presence of anyone who could not mend her fractured self-esteem, least of all someone who did not want to try. Am I a man’s woman or a woman’s woman? Helen asked herself, remembering teenage years in which she had eschewed the company of either sex, but especially the female, for the sole unspoken reason that they were the ones most likely to expose her deficiencies. She had been a beautiful reserved child, features which,taken together, had isolated her so much she had envied the big, fat, fearless and competitive girl who led the class and was the doyen of all their opinions. Anna could have been one of the same kind, who took her bulk and her dimples and turned them into virtues, moved on to another popular persona. Becoming one of the boys; something Helen had never been.
    â€˜You would suit lace,’ Anna said, her face suddenly breaking into a grin which did indeed show dimples, hollowed into the cheeks, bunching the flesh of her face into a picture of good nature. ‘You could get away with lace and ribbons. Rose tells me you’re getting married.’ She could deflect conversation away from herself with suspicious ease, Helen observed; she did it as to the manner born. They could quite easily have sat as they were and discussed the wedding garments.
    â€˜I hate lace, ribbons, buckles and bows,’ Helen said. ‘And Rose tells me you were attacked and can’t talk about it. Can’t, won’t. Rose talks a lot, about other people.’
    â€˜So does my aunt. I didn’t swear her to secrecy. Obviously not,’ Anna said, quick to defend Rose. ‘I’ve been dripping on people, that’s all. I shouldn’t have. Rose is too young and too happy, it isn’t fair.’
    She leant back in her chair, which creaked under considerable rather than formidable weight. Shapely weight, as if all her proportions were exaggerated. Not fat, simply too much. Not a lady for wearing Lycra, that was all.
    Helen liked her. She had liked her on first sight. For all her reserve, she could fall into instant and profound liking and, all of a sudden, it was imperative to help. She put to one side the thought of Bailey’s terse phone call with the newsabout Ryan; also the daily cases which made it seem that rape was an epidemic, sexual assault an everyday occurrence which she judged by a set of well-established, horribly objective criteria. The questions here were different.
    Anna Stirland shrugged and let out a sigh.
    â€˜I’m a nurse,’ she said. ‘A midwife. A competent caring person with professional skills. I’ve been wiping bums since childhood.’ She hesitated. ‘In other words, I’m one of nature’s sensible people and I’m ashamed of how I’ve dealt with this so far. And yes, I can talk to you; I have to. Perhaps you could regard it as a piece of dictation. Take it down like a lawyer. That way it might make sense.’
    â€˜I shan’t fall into a fit of the vapours,’ Helen said.
    â€˜Because you’ve heard it all before?’ Anna asked mildly. ‘You haven’t, you know. I bet you haven’t.’
    A t six-thirty in the evening, Detective Sergeant Ryan was formally suspended from duty, denied access to his office and instructed to go home and await the result of enquiries. His own detective chief inspector did this with Todd as witness, Bailey lurking on the sidelines. Ryan looked as if they were sending him out