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2.
Sometime later, I sat in a wheelchair and talked to two policemen. The older of the two did most of the speaking. He wanted to know if prior to the attack I had laid a hand on the young men, or assaulted them in any way.
“Absolutely not,” I replied. “I mean, I was trying to stop them from robbing the girl. But all I did was stand up. The next thing I knew, they were punching me. I wouldn’t have had time to assault them, even if I had wanted to.”
The older policeman nodded. “That’s no different from the statement of the witness.”
“Was she hurt? The girl?”
“No.”
“I was afraid she might have been raped.”
“She wasn’t hurt. They took her bag, but we recovered it when we arrested them.”
“You caught them?”
I must have sounded surprised, because the younger policeman seemed to take offense.
“We do catch people sometimes,” he said, with a little heat in his voice.
The older policeman continued. “When they jumped off at the next station, they’d been captured five different times on CCTV before they even reached street level. In fact, two of them we were able to track on camera right to the doors of their homes. They won’t be getting away with this; you can rest assured of that.”
“What about my bag?” I asked. “I had a bag. Did you recover that too?”
The older policeman frowned. “A bag?”
“Yes. With a brass clasp. It had papers inside.”
The younger policeman started checking through his notepad. “I don’t have any record of a bag with a brass clasp,” he said. “It wasn’t with you in the carriage.”
“And I don’t remember seeing any of them carrying a second bag on the CCTV,” the older policeman added. “But we will look into it.”
“It’s very important I find the bag,” I said. “I need it for my work.”
“You shouldn’t be worrying about your work for the moment,” the older policeman said.
“You will try to find it, though? It had my wallet inside and it was full of papers and . . .”
“If I may,” said the older policeman. “I think you should put all thought of work and papers out of your head. Your most important job right now is to get yourself better.” He smiled at me. “Out of this hospital and back home.”