Page 89 of The Final Vow

‘But why the big fuss? Why all the extra security? Violent encounters in Moulsford, if not a daily occurrence, can’t be so rare that you need to change all your protocols. All I’ve seen here is a bully picking on the wrong victim. I suspect she’ll be more circumspect next time.’

‘That’s all you saw, is it, Sergeant Poe? I think we’d better watch it again.’

Doctor Gray pressed play. ‘Don’t focus onwhythe assault happened, focus onwhathappened.’

Poe leaned in and studied the attack again. It was brutal and premeditated and over quickly. Maybetooquickly. He frowned and asked Doctor Gray to rewind to the exact moment of the bite.

Poe was a veteran police officer. He was used to seeing bite injuries. They weren’t restricted to dangerous dogs and unruly toddlers. Bites were common during street fights, a primitive response to chaotic and violent situations. The nose and ears were common targets. So were the neck and cheeks. Hands and arms all got bitten. But outside of Hollywood and Mike Tyson fights, you couldn’t just bite off someone’s nose, ear, finger or lip. The body wasn’t designed that way. Body parts could betornoff, but the way Bethany had chomped on her victim’s ear and come away with it in her mouth wasn’t natural.

‘What am I missing?’ he said. ‘How did she bite off Veronica’s ear so cleanly?’

Doctor Gray opened a file and removed a photograph. He handed it to Poe.

‘That’s how,’ he said.

Chapter 75

‘Before she attacked Veronica, Bethany spent a week filing down her incisors with disposable nail files,’ Doctor Gray said. ‘She did this until they were razor thin.’

Poe stared at the photograph in horror. Tried to imagine the pain Bethany must have endured to turn her teeth into cutting weapons. The pain she must still be enduring. Most people had eight incisors. Four on the upper jaw, four on the lower; the teeth at the front of the mouth that people used to cut food as they bit into it. Bethany had filed hers until the ends were thinner than paper. No wonder she’d been able to bite off Veronica’s ear so easily.

‘What happened to the ear?’ Poe asked.

‘Bethany ate it.’

‘Sheateit?’

‘Bethany isn’t a cannibal, Sergeant Poe,’ Doctor Gray said. ‘She ate the ear so it couldn’t be reattached. She told me later that Veronica wouldn’t be bothering Clara for her reading glasses any more. That she couldn’t wear glasses when she only had one ear.’

Poe looked at the photograph again. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered.

‘Now do you understand why the Home Office was willing to fund all this additional security?’ Doctor Gray said. ‘Clara and Bethany have rights. We are not able to perform surgery without her consent.’

‘She won’t allow you to fix her teeth?’

‘Absolutely not. And that means we are legally obliged to let her keep her weapons.’

‘Which must make treating her problematic.’

‘It does.’

‘The additional security is to ensure she isn’t given access to anything else she can improvise into a weapon?’ Poe said.

‘If she’s willing to do this to her teeth, can you imagine what else she’s capable of?’

Poe couldn’t. He said as much.

‘Now, before I let you in to see Clara, our legal department has drafted this waiver, a release of liability,’ Doctor Gray said.

‘Why?’

‘When the logistics of managing this new, weaponised Bethany became apparent, the Home Office authorised special measures. Guards as well as medical staff. A unique, ultra-secure interview room. It was designed by an American who specialises in the no-human-contact wings on supermax prisons. We call it the Rubicon.’

‘What’s the problem with it?’

‘I didn’t say therewasa problem.’

‘Then why the liability waiver?’