Smithy and Mickey pulled up outside Anna's house after a short drive from the hospital. The house that they had found the Anna Campbell in was nothing out of the ordinary from the outside. It was just a typical terraced house you would find in any part of London. Even the street the house was in looked calm, quiet and serene, so why would anyone want to brutally hurt a woman who just seemed like any other citizen of London?
They ducked under the police tape cordoning off the area and walked up the steps to the house, nodding their greetings at the Crime Scene Examiners and stepped inside the house. Inside, the house bared evidence of an argument and in the sitting room, where Anna had been found was the most convincing evidence. Furniture was knocked over and there were papers strewn across the floor, a glass vase lay cracked in many pieces on the floor and in the centre was a deep red stain where Smithy had found the young woman when he had first arrived.
Smithy sighed loudly and turned to Mickey "Has she got any previous?"
"I checked and she's perfectly clean and she doesn't seem the type to get into any trouble"
"Have you done a background check?"
"Yeah, it gave us a little more insight but not much. The victim was one Anna Campbell aged twenty-two; she works as a nurse at St Hughes Hospital"
"What about family?" Smithy said thinking hard
"Parents are dead; they died in a car crash when she was ten. She was raised in foster care after that but she does have a brother…" Mickey checked the piece of paper he was holding then continued "…His name is Jake and he's twenty-eight"
"Has he got previous?"
"Yeah, he was arrested on suspicion of GBH after a man was attacked and beaten in a bar but no charge was brought"
Mickey stopped and looked up at Smithy who was looking around the room. He pulled on some gloves and started to look through some of the papers and objects scattered across the floor. Among them were a few books and Cd's but nothing to suggest any reason why an average woman like that would be attacked. The house looked pretty tidy on a normal day and as Mickey looked around he could see holiday photos stuck in a montage on the wall. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he spotted something wedged behind the cushion of a chair. He leant forward and picked up the object. In his hand he held a small but battered mobile phone. He switched it on and flicked through the text messages. They were all pretty normal ones except one particular one. He turned and read it out to Smithy.
"This is your last warning, no more second chances" he finished
"Well that defiantly sounds like a threat" Smithy sighed "What about the last number dialled?"
Mickey pressed a few more buttons and then heaved a sigh "Emergency services"
"So she was trying to phone for help" Smithy concluded
"Do you think she knew her attacker?"
"Probably, since there were no signs of forced entry"
"So we can rule out random attack" Mickey said writing it down and looking grim
He looked around the house once more before saying to Smithy "I'll phone this into the Guv. And you go and question the neighbours and see if they can tell us any more about Anna"
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Twenty minutes later and Mickey was back at the hospital, he'd phoned the information back to the station and now two officers were standing guard outside Anna's room in case anyone tried to finish off the attack. Mickey passed into the room and found the Doctor waiting for him
"Any change?" Mickey asked looking hopeful
"Not just yet" the doctor said "We've checked her over for injuries and it was just as well your Sergeant found her when he did"
"Why's that?"
"This is a very brutal beating. She's got a very serious head wound, numerous broken ribs, a broken collar bone, a fractured arm and a fractured leg and some pretty nasty internal injuries. She lost a lot of blood but we've managed to stabilise her and she should make a full recovery"
Mickey looked down at the young woman, she had wires sticking out of her left right and centre. Her chest was rising and falling as the ventilator pushed air into her lungs and when he looked at her face he sighed. She had cuts and bruises all across her face, she had a split lip and the beginnings of a black eye, the top of her head was covered by a compression bandage and she had a nay gash across her cheek that had been stitched up but still looked pretty sore.
"She worked as a nurse here didn't she?" Mickey asked looking up at the Doctor
"Yes, she did though not on this department. She worked in one of the surgical wards"
"Did you ever work with her?"
"No but from what I've hear she's a lovely girl and a very good nurse" the Doctor said "Do you know who did this to her?"
"Not yet but we're looking into it" Mickey said
"She never had any enemies as far as I knew" the Doctor added
"What makes you say that?"
"Believe me, I've been a doctor for a long time and I know what it looks like if someone really wants to inflict pain on another human and this was a pretty brutal attack from what I can work out"
Mickey nodded and thanked the Doctor before he left the room; he turned to Pc Tony Stamp and Pc Will Fletcher who were guarding her room
"Make sure anyone who comes in this room is licensed to be there" and the two officers nodded
"How serious is it?" Will asked
"She has some pretty bad injuries but they stabilized her" Mickey said looking grim
"Is she conscious yet?" Tony asked gently and Mickey shook his head
"She's still in the induced coma but the Doctor thinks she will come out of it soon but she's got a pretty bad head injuries not to mention the rest so I don't know how much we'll get out of her when she is awake" Mickey finished
The officers nodded and Mickey walked out of the hospital to update Smithy on Anna's condition. He heard Smithy's shock reaction when he reeled of how much damage had been done to Anna
"This is pretty serious then" Smithy's voice came from the phone
"Yeah it looks like someone really wanted to hurt her. The Doctor said it's one of the worst he's seen for a while"
"We need to find who did this and fast" Smithy said "Or else Anna could still be in a lot of danger"