zg_shadows | And finally, mage tat.

"Severe bruising to right side of jaw and left eye, consistent with a right-handed attacker. Abrasions suggest the presence of a ring on the third finger. Suspected fracture of right ulna. Patient complains of pain in right lower chest - order CT scan to check for internal injuries."

Alexandra clicked the stop button on the little dictaphone and returned it to her pocket. The woman in the bed looked up at her with terrified eyes. "Am I going to die?"

"No. There's no need to worry about that. But he may have broken your arm, so you'll want to be going upstairs for an X-ray. And he might have bruised your liver, so you'll be going downstairs for a CT scan right after."

"Bruised my liver?" The woman looked, if possible, even more scared, and Alexandra remembered, with a slight sigh, how much people dreaded that vague term 'internal injuries'.

"Aye. Livers don't take well to being punched. It might be bleeding a bit, and I'd like to know about it if it is. But most times it'll heal itself up in a few days, as long as you stay here in bed. Has the photographer been here yet?" she asked, as she picked up a dressing.

"No... not yet..." the woman looked slightly overwhelmed. Alexandra put down the gauze and sighed. "Right. I'll go arrange for those tests."

She might press charges. She might not. Alex had worked with the police too long to be optimistic about the chances of a prosecution. Still, she would not ask for the Lord's miracle of healing until all the evidence had been taken. Healing was not, after all, her primary duty.

"Doctor Kerr." There was an extra constable outside the little cubicle, and he stood up as she exited. "Detective Sergeant Bowles asked to see you. The husband is claiming police brutality, and he wants you to confirm that there was no unnecessary force used in the apprehension."

She'd seen him when he was brought in, frightened but unrepentant, like most bullies. Struggling pointlessly in the handcuffs, shouting to anyone who would listen that his wife had fallen down the stairs. And now, apparently, claiming that the police had done to him what he had done, countless times, to his own wife.

"X-ray and CT scan for cubicle 5," she told the nurse as she went out.

A pounding headache reminded her of how low the sun was getting, but she had time. She always had time for someone like that. The traffic melted out of her way as she drove back to the station, doing 30mph all the way.

"Doctor Kerr," DS Bowles greeted her as she walked in. "We need an excessive force exam."

"So I heard." She didn't even slow down, and DS Bowles was forced to break into a trot to catch her up.

They both paused outside the interview room. "God give me strength," Alexandra muttered, and DS Bowles nodded in agreement. He might still have nodded if he'd known what the strength was for. She opened the door and let God's strength fly away from her, to the big, scared, pathetic man sitting behind the interview table with his lawyer.

He didn't take his eyes from her as she walked in and sat down. After a moment, still not looking away, he stubbed out his cigarette and took a drink of coffee, then coughed and spat out the hot ashes that had just burned his mouth. Alex didn't smile. That would have been petty.

In another few hours, if he was lucky, he might walk free, while his wife lay in a hospital bed and hoped that the bleeding from her liver would stop without surgery.

In another few hours, if he was very unlucky, he might walk free, in this huge city where crime and violence and random death lay like iron filings on white paper, and where the mark of God's disfavour that now lay on him called them like a magnet.

And that wasn't petty at all.