At her sudden reaction, Ellie said, 'I'm sorry . . . , did that hurt? What am I saying? Of course it does. Here, come lie on the bed and I'll take your shoes off. Mrs. Pascoe is coming up in a few minutes to sit with you. Dr. Morris is on his way.'
Pamela lay in a daze as Ellie tended to her lip, wiped the perspiration from the girl's brow. Why was she feeling so strange, as though she was watching and listening to everything from the bottom of a well? And- 'Ellie, what happened to my lip? Why do I hurt so much? Wh-?'
'Shush, now. Don't try to talk. You're in shock. He beat you up pretty badly- that . . . that animal!'
'Wha- ow! What are you talking about? He just pulled me into the barn, and I . . . I-'
'Oh, my dear! If that's how you remember things,' Ellie said very quietly, as though on the verge of weeping, 'then perhaps that's how you should remember them. Now lay quiet. Don't try to talk. Just lie still and we'll take care of you.'
Pamela began feeling very strange: things and people moved about her, but she couldn't make sense of them. She could only stare stupidly at the front of Ellie's new uniform and wonder what had happened. Who were these people who kept intruding on her thoughts like phantom visitations, to stand or sit by her bed, who ignored her feeble protestations and took off her clothes and began prying and touching her in places they had no business to, inspecting her as though her body was no longer her own? One was a doctor- he told her so several times, as though that mere fact was supposed to be meaningful to her, but the rest looked like police men and women. She was sure she was dreaming, even when she slipped altogether from wakeful somnolence into an even deeper state of unreality. But still she heard voices, that of Theo and someone she didn't know.
THEO-- 'Have your people from CID tracked down Albert yet?'
?-- 'No. He escaped into the moor. We've got trackers out looking for him.'
THEO-- 'Damn it to hell! I should have got the others to help me restrain him.'
?-- 'Don't be a fool! The man's a ruthless killer- one or more of you might have got seriously hurt or worse. You heard what my detectives said.'
THEO-- (sighs) 'I can't believe it. He had all of us completely fooled.'
?-- 'Yes, well, he's very good at that. The last girl he murdered was in Sheffield, two