Smithy stood in front of his officers who were looking at the information sheet he had passed round of all that they had gathered from the case so far
"Ok to recap, Anna Campbell was found unconscious in her home early this morning. She sustained multiple injuries including some nasty fractures and a serious head injury that was so severe that she was put in an induced coma for several hours before we could talk to her"
"Is she ok now Sarge?" one of the officers asked
"She's ok, but it's a pretty severe beating which is why we want to get the person who did this. Now we have reason to believe that the attacker was a Joshua Malley, he's got previous ranging from common assault to some pretty brutal attacks. We're proceeding with caution but we're bringing him in charge of assault. Ok let's get to it" Smithy finished and everyone jumped into action
Smithy and Mickey were leaving the station when they spotted Jake Campbell collecting his things from the custody Sergeant on duty
"Can I see Anna now?" Jake asked turning towards them
"Yeah, I'll get one of our officers to escort you down there" Smithy smiled gently
"Thanks" he mumbled "Is Anna going to be ok?"
"It was a pretty brutal assault but the Doctors think she's going to make a full recovery. But she's going to need time to recover from this both mentally and physically" Mickey said and Jake nodded
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
The officers pulled up outside a bock of flats within the Jasmine Allen estate and awaited orders from Smithy and Mickey
"Ok PC Noble and PC Stamp you go round the back in case he tries to make a run for it, the rest of you wait here in case we need back up, clear?"
"Yes Sarge" the officers chorused
Mickey and Smithy made their way to flat 28 which had a couple of broken windows and empty beer bottles littering the floor around it
"Mr Malley, open up it's the police" Mickey said hammering on the door but their was no answer
After a couple more attempts Smithy stepped forward and kicked the door in and the two of them bolted inside. They checked through the rooms and it seemed like no one was there but as they moved back towards the front of thr house they saw something rush out of one of the doors towards trying to dash past them
Smithy yelled to Mickey and they and were quick enough to stop Joshua from bolting through the open door. Smithy rugby tackled him and after avoiding a punch from the young man he managed to get him on the floor and snap the handcuffs on him
"Get of me" he snarled as Smithy pinned him to the floor
"Joshua Malley, I'm arresting you on the suspicion of the assault on Anna Campbell, you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court, anything you do say will be given in evidence. Do you understand?" Mickey reeled off the lines he'd said a thousand times before
"Get off me" he snarled again trying to head butt Smithy but Smithy was too quick for him and just pinned him down again as he called for the other officers to get him into the area car and back to Sun Hill for questioning
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Leaving Smithy to book Joshua in at the station Mickey made his way to the hospital to update Anna on what had happened. He entered the room and saw Jake sitting on the chair beside the bed talking to Anna gently who was softly crying
"It's going to be ok Anna" he soothed
"No it's not, he's going to come after me again" she sobbed
"Anna, I've come to tell you that we've arrested Joshua Malley on suspicion of assault. My colleague is questioning him now"
"Josh?" Anna said suddenly looking frightened "Jake did you tell them?"
"Anna, I had to, for your safety"
"Oh God he's going to kill me!" Anna said breaking down in tears
"Anna, we're doing everything we can to put him away but we need you help. I know you recognised Joshua from the CCTV pictures and we know that it was him who attacked you but we don't know why. So we need both of you to help us put him away from what he did to you Anna"
"No" she said shaking her head as she sobbed harder
"Please Anna" Jake said "They can help us"
"Oh like they did when mum and dad died" she said with a tone of bitterness and Jake sighed
"Jake, would you mind if I spoke to Anna on her own for a bit" Mickey said gently to Jake who nodded and stepped outside of the room
"Anna" Mickey said sitting down beside her "You need to stay calm for me, you're still very weak" he said noticing Anna's laboured breathing
Anna nodded and reached up with a bruised hand to put her oxygen mask back on her face
"Now I know you're scared but we need your help and I know that you've had bad experiences with the police in the past but you have to move on from that. You're a strong person Anna and you'll be able to get through this but you need to help us make sure that Joshua gets what he deserves"
But Anna just shook her head as silent tears rolled down her face
"Anna, we talked to Jake earlier and he told us that he loved you and you two only had each other left. Now he was very close to loosing you today and I know that seeing you like this is breaking his heart. I know he's looked after you since your parents died and now it's time for you to show him how strong you are and put Joshua away"
Anna closed her eyes for a second before sniffing back some tears and nodding in agreement to what Mickey had said
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Back at the station Smithy had started the interview with Joshua Malley
"Mr Malley do you know this woman?" Smithy asked showing him a photo of Anna Campbell
"Never seen her before in my life" he snarled
"Well that's funny because we've got you on CCTV pushing your way into Anna's house and this morning she was found nearly dead from a extremely brutal and vicious beating which left her with some extremely nasty injuries"
"No comment"
"We also know that you work as a porter at St. James' hospital where Anna Campbell works as a nurse yet you're saying to me that you've never seen her before in your life"
"No comment"
"Why did you do it Joshua?, why did you nearly beat a woman to death?"
"No comment"
"Then again it's not the first time you've beaten someone up like this is it?" Smithy said flicking through a file "Last year a Mr Marks had to have 20 stitches after you glassed him in the face. Mr Brown suffered two broken ribs after you punched him in an unprovoked attack and the list goes on and one but this attack on Anna is your worst yet. See now Anna is lying in hospital with a badly fractured arm and leg, her ribs are almost all broken and her collar bone is badly fractured as well, not to mention the very serious head injury and the numerous lacerations inflicted on her body" Smithy said trying to control the anger inside of him "So I ask again, why did you do it Joshua?"
"No comment" he sneered
Smithy angrily shoved the chair back and stormed out of the room yelling at one of the officers to shove him back in the cells
…………………………………………………………………………………………
A short time later he was back down at the hospital and was speaking to Mickey outside of Anna's room
"Where's Jake?" Smithy asked
"I got him to go home for a bit to rest up" Mickey said
"How's Anna?" Smithy said looking in the room where the doctor was talking to her
"Still suffering from her injuries, the doctor's patching her up now but she's still very weak"
Just then the Doctor came out of Anna's room to speak to the two officers
"How's she doing?"
"As I told you before, this was a brutal attack. We've set and plastered the broken bones but the fractures were very nasty. We've done fresh x-rays and found that her arm has been broken in five places and her leg in three. As for her internal injuries, we think we've stabilised her for the time being but I am worried about the broken ribs. And her head injury, we're still quite worried about, we've done scans and we're waiting for the results to come back"
"How bad do you think it is?" Mickey asked looking worried
"Anna is still very weak; if her breathing gets any worse we're going to have to intubate her"
"We need to get talk to her, is it ok if we go in?" and the Doctor nodded
"But keep her calm" he said as the officers walked in.
The room was silent apart from the steady beeping of machinery monitoring Anna. One of her arms was set in a cast that encased the whole of her arm and her leg was also plastered in a bulky cast. Her other arm was in a sling to support her collar bone and her head had some fresh bandages on but she looked paler now.
"How're you feeling Anna?"
"Sore" she said wheezing slightly
"Mickey said you've agreed to make a statement" and she nodded as they sat down "Well let's start from the beginning then. How do you know Joshua?"
"When our parents died, social services put us in foster care. We were sent to live with a couple who already had a son of their own"
"Was that Joshua?" and Anna nodded "How old were you all at the time"
"I was ten, Jake was sixteen and I think Joshua was eighteen. Joshua hated me and Jake from the moment we arrived there. He was always trying to get us into trouble and his parents believed him over us. They believed Joshua was this perfect little cherub but he was far from it" Anna said as her breathing got more and more shallow
"Do you know why he attacked you?"
"Revenge" Anna coughed
"What for?" Smithy asked softly
"When…h…him and Jake…..they….got into..t..trouble" Anna wheezed heavily
"What kind of trouble Anna?"
But at the point Anna passed out and the monitors started beeping wildly and Doctor's and nurses flooded the room. Mickey and Smithy waited outside hoping that Anna would be ok.
After a few minutes the Doctor came out to see them
"Is she ok?" Smithy asked
"We've had to intubate her because she was struggling to breathe on her own; we've sedated her to do this so I'm afraid you're not going to be able to talk to her. Her injuries are holding her back at the moment I'm sorry"
Mickey and Smithy nodded as the watched the machinery pump air into Anna's limp body and they wondered if they would ever find out the secret to Anna's world.