Without Consent by Kathryn Fox Read Free Book Online Page A

me after school,” she blurted, and left.
    Anya glanced at the piece of paper. On it was written the phone number for her own unit’s crisis line. Clearly, Elizabeth—if that was her real name—didn’t want to be contacted. She doubted they would ever see the woman again.

9
     
    Anya enjoyed the decor of Dan Brody’s chambers. Wall-to-wall books and the smell of leather-bound law tomes gave it an old-fashioned and authoritative feel.
    A pot of freshly brewed tea sat on a glass tray on the sideboard—Irish Breakfast by the aroma, her favorite.
    Dan returned with a matching jug of milk and bowl of sugar. No food in the room, because that inevitably left crumbs and mess, something the barrister was averse to.
    He poured two cups and fumbled with the sugar cubes. For the first time, he seemed uneasy about being with Anya, which made her feel on edge. Pulling a file from her briefcase, she wondered whether his uneasiness was because he felt awkward seeing her, or if it had something to do with his mother’s recent death.
    He put down the cup and saucer on a coaster within reach.
    “Thanks.” Anya handed him the file of the original case notes. “There’s a fair chance the eye-witness who identified him made a mistake. There is a definite possibility your client didn’t expose himself to all of those women. There’s nothing on the forensic examination I performed after his arrest to suggest he’d recently had intercourse or ejaculated.”
    Dan stirred his cup and picked up a gold fountain pen from its stand. He listened as Anya continued.
    “The prosecution could argue that he either didn’t ejaculate after exposing himself in the park or that he washed himself before they picked him up. But I can’t see how he could have washed himself that thoroughly in a public toilet.”
    “Any other possibilities?”
    “Swabs don’t always pick up the semen or saliva, given the shape of the penis. I can explain how I took the specimen to increase the yield, but they still have the very real possibility that I missed it. Where humans are involved, error is always a possibility.”
    “Precisely,” he said, drawing an exclamation mark on the legal pad.
    “There’s something else about your client that’s significant.” Anya sipped her tea and leaned back. “He has what’s known as Peyronie’s disease. If he supposedly exposed himself to all of those women, someone should have noticed.”
    “How would you define that in layman’s terms?”
    “Simple. He has scar tissue underneath the skin of his penis, which causes it to bend in a sharp curve if he has an erection.”
    The lawyer pulled a face, which she ignored.
    “If a woman was staring at his erect penis, she may well have noticed.”
    “May I ask how you know, if he didn’t have an erection when you saw him?” He paused. “Please tell me he didn’t—”
    “Dan, he told me after I declined to see his ‘party trick.’ Not many men would boast about something that made them the butt of jokes in the locker room. Besides, I didn’t just take his word for it. I couldn’t feel much scar tissue when I examined him so interviewed some of his teammates who admitted they liked to masturbate in the showers after a winning game. From what they described, he definitely has Peyronie’s disease.”
    “Anya, your conscientiousness knows no bounds.” He raised an eyebrow, and doodled more small boxes, something he did when digesting information.
    “Okay, so we know he has it. What sort of issues could arise out of your report?”
    “Apart from the deviant behavior in the showers?”
    Dan closed his eyes. “Even the innocent ones don’t make it easy.”
    “I have to say women may not be too sympathetic to a group of muscle-bound sportsmen who masturbate together, boast about each other’s sexual conquests and even ‘share’ women. They thrive in a culture of misogyny and lack the insight to see it’s not acceptable to anyone else.”
    Brody frowned.