The Whole Truth

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

13.15

‘More fizz, anyone? Dad – how about you? You’re not even driving, so no excuses.’

Stephen Sheldon smiles up at his daughter, hovering behind him with the bottle in her hand. ‘Oh, go on then. Only good thing about being as old as the hills is not caring about bloody government drinking guidelines.’

His wife shoots him a dry but benevolent look; they both know he has to be careful about his health but it’s his birthday and she’s going to cut him some slack.

Nell Heneghan leans across and fills his glass. ‘Seventy isn’t old, Dad. Not these days.’

‘Tell that to my joints,’ he says with a quick laugh, as Nell moves on round the table topping people up.

I reach for Alex’s hand under the table and I can feel the thin fabric of her dress slipping against her damp thigh. God only knows what it must be like to be thirty-five weeks pregnant in these temperatures. There are dots of perspiration along her upper lip and a thin little frown line between her brows the others probably can’t see. I was right: this has been too much for her. I did say we didn’t have to do it – that no one would expect her to, especially in this weather, and Nell had offered to step in – but Alex insisted. She said it was our turn, that it wasn’t fair on her sister to ask her to do it two years running. But that wasn’t the real reason. She knows it; I know it. As her pregnancy advances, Alex’s world contracts; she’s barely leaving the house now, and as for a twelve-mile drive to Abingdon, forget it. I told Nell it’s because she’s anxious about the baby, and she’d nodded and said she’d felt like that herself at this stage, and it was only natural for Alex to be apprehensive. And she’s right. Or at least she would be, if that’s all it was.

Outside in the garden, Nell’s kids are playing football with their dog, taking it in turns doing penalty kicks. They’re eleven and nine, the kids. Jake would be twelve now. No longer a little boy, but not quite yet anything else. Sometimes, before Alex got pregnant again, I’d catch myself fantasizing about how they’d have been together, him and his cousins. Jake was never much interested in sport, but would he be out there anyway, if he was here now? Part of me hopes he’d have done it to be kind, or to please his mother, or because he liked dogs, but there’s another part that would want him as surly and uncooperative as any other twelve-year-old. I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s only too easy to start beatifying a child who’s no longer there.

Audrey Sheldon catches my eye now and we exchange a look; kind on her part, slightly self-conscious on mine. Alex’s parents understand better than anyone what we went through when we lost Jake, but Audrey’s sympathy is like her lemon cheesecake – nice, but there’s only so much of it I can take. I get to my feet and start collecting plates. Nell’s husband, Gerry, makes a half-hearted attempt to help me but I clap him chummily on the shoulder and push him firmly back down in his seat.

‘You brought all the food. My turn now.’

Alex gives me a grateful smile as I collect her dessert plate. Her father’s been badgering her gently to ‘eat up’ for the last ten minutes. Some things about parenthood never die. My mother does the same to me. In twenty years’ time I’ll be doing it myself. God willing.

Out in the kitchen, Nell is stacking the dishwasher, and though she’s doing it all wrong I resist the impulse to intervene as I know it’ll just piss her off; Alex says dishwashers are like barbecues – men just can’t stop themselves muscling in. Nell smiles when she sees me. I like her, I always have. As bright as her sister, and just as forthright. They have a good life, she and Gerry. House (detached), skiing (Val d’Isère), dog (cockerpoo allegedly, but judging by the size of those paws there’s at least a quarter polar bear in there). He’s an actuary (Gerry, not the dog) and if I’m honest I find Dino a good deal more interesting, but the only person I’ve ever said that to is myself.

Nell is looking at me now, and I know exactly what that particular look means. She wants to Have A Word. And being Nell, she pitches straight in. Just like her sister.

‘I’m a bit worried about her, Adam. She doesn’t look well.’

I take a deep breath. ‘I know what you mean, and this bloody heat isn’t helping, but she’s getting regular check-ups. Far more than most women in her position do.’

But most women in her position haven’t been hospitalized for high blood pressure and ordered to take complete bed rest.

Nell leans back against the worktop and reaches for a tea towel, wiping her hands. ‘She hardly ate a thing.’

‘I’m trying, really –’

‘And she looks completely exhausted.’

She’s frowning at me. Because whatever this is, it has to be my fault, right? Out in the garden Ben scores a goal and starts running around the grass with his T-shirt over his head. Nell glances over at them, then fixes her eyes back on me.

I try again. ‘She’s not sleeping well – you know what it’s like in the last trimester. She can’t seem to get comfortable.’

But Nell’s still frowning. Nicky is now yelling that the goal was a cheat; Gerry gets up and goes to the window, calling to his sons to play nicely in that sententious parental tone we all swear we’ll never use. Something else about having kids that never seems to change.

‘Look,’ I say, ‘it’s tough with the job but I’m doing as much around the house as I can, and we’ve got a cleaner coming in once a week for the rest.’

Nell is watching her boys. ‘We were talking earlier,’ she says, without looking round. ‘She says you’ve moved into the spare room.’

I nod. ‘Just so I don’t wake her up. Especially given I’m now getting up at stupid o’clock four days a week for the bloody gym.’

She turns towards me. ‘Quitting still a bummer?’

The look that comes with the words is cool but not unkind: Nell’s an ex-smoker too. She knows all about nicotine displacement strategies.

I try a wry smile. ‘A bastard. But I’m getting there.’

She eyes me up and down. ‘And toning up a bit too, I see. Suits you.’

I laugh. ‘Well, that’s a bloody miracle, considering I’m on a packet of Polo mints an hour.’

There’s a pause and then, finally, she smiles. But it’s a forlorn one. ‘Just look after her, Adam, OK? She’s so stressed out – this baby means so much to her. I don’t know what she’d do if –’ She stops, bites her lip and looks away.

‘Look, Nell – I’d never let anything happen to Alex. Not now, not ever. You do know that, don’t you?’

She glances up, then nods, and I wait. I know what she wants to say, and why she’s having so much trouble doing it.

‘It was in the paper,’ she says eventually. ‘He’s out, isn’t he? Gavin Parrie.’

‘Yes, he’s out.’ I force her to look at me. ‘But he’s on licence – there’ll be strict conditions. Where he can go, who he can see.’

Her lip quivers a little. ‘And he’ll have one of those tag things, right? They’ll know where he is twenty-four hours a day?’

I shake my head. ‘Most of them aren’t that techy. Not yet. The tags are linked to the offender’s address. If he goes out of a specified range the monitoring service gets an alert.’

‘And like Gerry said, if he came anywhere even remotely near here, they’d have his arse back in prison so fast he’d leave skid marks. Right?’

I take a deep breath. ‘Right.’

‘So why would he take such a massive risk?’ She’s willing me to agree now, willing me to belittle her fears. ‘He’s not stupid – he has way too much to lose.’

‘Right.’

She sighs. ‘I’m sorry. You probably think I’m completely overreacting. I just can’t stop thinking about those threats he made in court –’

She can’t possibly know how hard it is to be the man she needs me to be. But I try. ‘He was just venting, Nell. It happens all the time. And I don’t think you’re overreacting. Families always worry when offenders are released. The other victims will be going through exactly the same thing.’

‘But at least Alex has you,’ she says, giving me a wobbly smile. ‘Her own private protection officer.’

I don’t trust myself to reply to that, but luckily I don’t have to. She touches me gently on the arm and reaches for the pile of plates. ‘We’d best get on. They’ll be wondering what we’re up to in here.’

As I walk back into the dining room I wonder what she’d have said if she knew the truth.

Gavin Parrie isn’t stupid, she’s right about that. And he’d have a hell of a lot to lose, she’s right about that too. But he does have a reason. A reason that might – perhaps – be worth the risk.

Revenge.

Because he wasn’t just venting, that day, in court.

He was guilty. He knows that and I know that. But there’s something else we both know.

Gavin Parrie was convicted on a lie.

* * *

Daily Mail

21st December 1999

‘ROADSIDE RAPIST’ GETS LIFE

Judge calls Gavin Parrie ‘evil, unrepentant and depraved’

By John Smithson

The predator dubbed the ‘Roadside Rapist’ was given a life sentence yesterday, after a nine-week trial at the Old Bailey. Judge Peter Healey condemned Gavin Parrie as ‘evil, unrepentant and depraved’ and recommended he serve a minimum of 15 years. There was uproar in the court after the sentence was announced, with abuse directed at both judge and jury from members of Parrie’s family in the public gallery.

Parrie has always insisted that he is innocent of the rape and attempted rape of seven young women in the Oxford area between January and December 1998. The case hinged on forensic evidence found in Parrie’s lock-up, linking him to one of the victims, which he contended was planted there with the collusion of Thames Valley Police. As he was led away, he was heard issuing death threats against the officer who had been instrumental in his apprehension, saying he would ‘get him’ and he and his family would ‘spend the rest of their lives watching their backs’. The officer in question, Detective Sergeant Adam Fawley, has received a commendation from the Chief Constable for his work on the case.

Speaking after the verdict, Chief Superintendent Michael Oswald of Thames Valley Police said he was confident that the right man had been convicted and confirmed that no other credible suspect had ever been identified in the course of what became a county-wide investigation. ‘I am proud of the work done by my team. They went to enormous lengths to find the perpetrator of these appalling crimes and bring him to justice, and it is absolutely unacceptable that they should be subject to either threats or intimidation. Police officers put their lives on the line on a regular basis to protect the public, and you may rest assured that we take all necessary steps to ensure the continued safety of our officers and their families.’

Jennifer Goddard, mother of one of the victims who committed suicide after her ordeal, spoke to reporters outside the court after the verdict, saying that nothing was ever going to bring her daughter back, but she hoped she could now rest in peace: ‘The man who destroyed her life is finally going to get what he deserves and pay the price for what he’s done.’

* * *

At St Aldate’s, Sergeant Paul Woods is spending the afternoon on reception, and is very far from happy about it. He works the giddy heights of the custody suite these days but the civilian desk officer is on holiday and the PC covering her has food poisoning, and Woods drew the short straw. And along with it, a short fuse. It’s far too bloody hot for a start. BBC Oxford said it might hit 30 degrees today. 30 degrees. It’s bloody indecent, that’s what that is. He’s propped open the main street door but all it’s allowing in is fumes. And more people. A good half of them are just looking for some respite from the sun – there’s never been so much interest in the leaflet stand, that’s for sure. It can go weeks without needing to be refilled, but suddenly they’re all out of How To Protect Your Home From Thieves and Things To Look Out For When You Shop Online. There’s a group milling around it right now – tourists clearly, and mostly Chinese.

Woods glances up at the clock. Another twenty minutes before he can take a break. The tourists around the leaflet stand are talking eagerly among themselves now. One is gesturing towards Woods; she appears to be trying to get up the courage to come and talk to him. He draws himself up to his full authority, and at six foot two and sixteen stone that’s a lot of gravitas in every sense. It’s not that he’s trying to discourage her as such, it’s just that he knows from dreary experience that these sorts of questions can almost always be answered by any half-decent map. He really has had his fill of unofficial trip-advising over the years.

He’s saved, as it turns out, by the bell. Just as the Chinese woman starts to approach the desk, the phone goes. It’s the woman on the switchboard – another civilian, Marjorie something. She must have got the short straw too.

‘Sergeant Woods – can you take this one, please? I’ve tried CID but there’s no one in. It’s Edith Launceleve.’

He picks up his pen, momentarily irritated that he never has known the correct way to write that bloody place. Whose bright idea was it to call a college after someone nobody can spell?

‘OK,’ he says heavily. ‘Put them through.’

He raises his hand grandly to the Chinese tourist as if he has the Chief Constable on the line.

‘Is that Sergeant Woods? Jancis Appleby here, Edith Launceleve College.’

It’s the sort of voice that makes you sit up straight.

‘How can I help you, Miss Appleby?’

‘I have Professor Hilary Reynolds on the line.’

She says it as if even a minion like Woods will have heard that name. And actually, he has, but right this minute he can’t for the life of him remember when –

‘The Principal,’ she says briskly. ‘In case you may have forgotten. Hold on, please.’

Now that does bring him up short. The bloody Principal? What could possibly be so important that the Principal gets on the blower? What is she even doing in the office at the weekend?

The line clicks into life again.

‘Sergeant Woods?’

Not the female voice he was expecting and he loses the first few words remembering Hilary can be a bloke’s name too.

‘I’m sorry, sir, could you say that again?’

‘I said I’m afraid I need to report an incident involving a student at the college.’

Woods’ eyes narrow; ‘incident’ can cover a multitude of sins, from the mortal to the extremely mundane.

‘What sort of incident would that be, sir?’

An intake of cultured, well-educated but slightly irritated breath. ‘A serious incident, Sergeant. I’m afraid that’s all I’m prepared to say at this stage. Could you put me through to Detective Inspector Fawley?’

* * *

It’s hot in Boars Hill too, but somehow it seems a lot more bearable up here. No doubt some of that comes with the altitude, but the thirty-foot swimming pool and well-stocked poolside bar are definitely helping. Those come with the altitude too, though that’s an elevation of a rather different kind. Given the address, you don’t need to be a fully paid-up member of CID to make some shrewd deductions about the sort of house this was likely to be, but Gareth Quinn was, all the same, quietly impressed when he saw what lay behind the wrought-iron gates that swung silently open for his Audi A4, newly valeted for the occasion. A good acre of lawns (also valeted for the occasion, though he wasn’t to know that), a parterre and orange trees, and a scatter of what estate agents probably call ‘useful outbuildings’, shunted discreetly out of sight of the chiselled neo-Palladian pile and its uninterrupted prospect of ‘That View’. The bristle of construction cranes is unfortunate but in all other respects the spires lie dreaming down there this afternoon in the shimmering heat, just as Matthew Arnold once saw them.

Quinn had no idea how loaded Maisie’s parents were when he met her. At first glance, she was just another of those pony-tailed French-nailed girls with their soft smiles and their crisp vowels. Avocados, he calls them: ripe, ready and green. Though not quite so green, in this case, that she was prepared to go to bed with him on the first date, and in the almost unprecedented ten days it took for that to happen he realized she had rather more to her than most of her identikit predecessors. She made him laugh and she listened, but she didn’t give him an easy ride, and he found himself having to articulate why he believed what he did, some of which surprised even him. He also realized – and this was fairly unprecedented too – that he actually liked her, as much out of bed as in it. Which is why, even though he’s always had an almost anaphylactic reaction to the idea of meeting his girlfriends’ parents, he’s not only here but still here, long after he’d agreed with Maisie that they would leave. The beef was rare, the wine likewise, and Ted and Irene Ingram are decidedly not what it said on the tin. Yes, they have a lot of money, but they’re not shy of showing it, which was never going to be a problem with Quinn. The two men edged around the Brexit bear trap for a good half-hour before Ingram let slip which side he was on, whereupon they fell on each other with all the relief of oppressed fellow devotees. In Oxford, at least, theirs is most definitely the Leave that dare not speak its name.

So all in all, Quinn has been enjoying himself royally. By the time the phone call comes through there’s even an imp in the back of his brain whispering that Maisie is the Ingrams’ only child, and if in-laws are inevitable then these two might not be such a bad option. There’s a bottle of 1996 Sauternes on the table now, and a box of Havana cigars, and Quinn has slid Maisie his car keys. Which, as the look on her face makes clear, is also pretty much unprecedented. She glances at him now, as his mobile goes: it’s the ringtone he uses for calls from work.

As he reaches for the phone, Quinn glances round the table, smiling his contrition. ‘I’m really sorry – they wouldn’t be calling if it wasn’t important.’

Ingram waves the apology away. ‘Of course. Maisie explained this might happen. I completely understand. It’s an important job, what you do.’

Irene Ingram pushes back her chair tactfully and Maisie gets to her feet. They start clearing the plates, and Quinn walks away down the garden. Perhaps he’s doing it to get a better signal, but then again, perhaps he’d rather Maisie’s father didn’t hear him answering with his current rank.

A few yards further on he finally takes the call.

‘DC Quinn.’

‘Woods here.’ Quinn can hear the traffic in the background; Woods must be at the front desk. He makes a perfunctory apology for ruining Quinn’s Saturday but it’s clear from his tone that he’s not getting a bloody weekend so why the hell should CID.

‘Just had the Principal from Edith Launceleve on the blower asking for Fawley.’

Quinn frowns. ‘What’s wrong with the duty inspector?’

‘Tried that. Nothing doing. Sorry.’

‘OK, so –’

Woods interrupts him. ‘I’d have called Gislingham, as DS, but given he’s out till Wednesday –’

Quinn ignores the snipe. He’s got used to all the not-so-subtle digs about his demotion. He could have got a transfer, but when he decided not to, he knew the price would be sucking it up. And some of the bolder wags have, of course, taken great delight in using exactly that phrase. But he only has himself to blame: he let his dick rule his head and got involved with a suspect. He was lucky he didn’t get fired. But he’ll show them – he’ll get his stripes back. It’s just a matter of time. In fact – who knows? – perhaps this call is a golden opportunity. With Gis away, a slam-dunk chance to show his class.

‘No worries,’ he says airily. ‘What is it – what have you got?’

By the time Woods has finished, the opportunity is looking rather less than twenty-four carat, but there’s no need for Ted Ingram to know that. As far as he’s concerned, this is a mega-important hush-hush murder case requiring the attention of a fast-track officer destined for greater things. The sort of man, whispers the imp, Ingram would positively welcome as a son-in-law. Quinn squares his shoulders, lifts his chin and starts back up the grass towards the pool.

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

14.35

A call from Quinn is just about the last thing I was expecting. He’s at his girlfriend’s parents’ today – he made a big thing about how nonchalant he was about it, which rather indicated the opposite to me, but that’s Quinn all over. He’s been deputizing for Gis while he’s away, but we don’t have a big case on at the moment – certainly nothing that would merit a call at the weekend. I’d have thought Quinn would relish the chance of flying solo again, even though I did make it abundantly clear it’s just unofficial ‘standing in’ not official ‘Acting’.

We’re all still in the dining room when he calls. The afternoon is reaching the fuggy stage, though Alex’s dad is still chirpy – as garrulous as I’ve seen him in years. I’ve always liked Stephen. It’s the anomaly of in-laws: the same age as your parents, and you can end up knowing them almost as long, but if you’re lucky – as I’ve been – they have your back but they don’t press your buttons. Though that could just be because they don’t know where the dangerous buttons are.

Alex flickers an anxious look at me as the phone goes, but says nothing. She has one hand curled round her belly and she’s fiddling with her napkin with the other. She’s getting tired. I need to start manoeuvring people to leave.

Out on the patio, I take the call.

‘Quinn? What is it?’

‘Sorry to bother you, boss. I’m meeting Ev at Edith Launceleve. There’s been an incident involving a student.’

I frown – I know Quinn’s being uber-careful not to balls anything up at the moment, but does he really need to call me about this? But then I remember that most of the students have already gone down for the summer so it’s unlikely to be just the usual vomit-and-shouting undergraduate excess.

‘What are we looking at?’

‘Not sure yet.’

‘So why –’

‘Apparently the Principal asked for you specifically. His name’s Hilary Reynolds. Ring any bells?’

A small one, a long way away – a conference a couple of years ago?

‘I googled him,’ says Quinn, ‘and apparently he’s some hot-shot human rights lawyer.’

I was right – it was that conference –

‘He’s just been appointed to that parliamentary advisory panel on whole-life tariffs. You know, the one Bob O’Dwyer is on.’

That’s all we need: Robert O’Dwyer is the Chief Constable. But creds to Quinn for checking, rather than just ploughing straight in like the Lone Ranger.

‘OK, I’ll need to take my in-laws home first, but I can be there in about an hour.’

* * *

Edith Launceleve College – EL to its students – sits on fourteen gardened acres straddling the Banbury and Woodstock Roads. Not very far from town, according to any normal notion of geography, but still the equivalent of Outer Mongolia in the excitable microcosm that is the University of Oxford. It’s been mixed for more than thirty years, but it was founded as an institution for the education of young women, by a vigorous Victorian spinster who simply wouldn’t take no for an answer, and named after the twelfth-century patroness of the nearby Godstow nunnery, who was by all accounts equally energetic and equally bloody-minded. EL’s accumulated an impressive roll call of alumnae in its hundred-plus years, including several generations of women who had – and needed – exactly the same tenacity. Quinn’s not to know, but DC Asante’s mother was one of them. She now runs a FTSE-100 company, but the number of other women doing the same can be counted on the fingers of one hand. EL’s splendid isolation from town and all its temptations was no doubt seen as an advantage by its uncompromising foundress, but it’s definitely a downside these days – when the University has open days they have to resort to chalk marks on the pavement to tempt sixth-formers that far north. On the other hand, it does have one Unique Selling Point: there’s almost always somewhere to park. Maisie finds a space right opposite the lodge and turns off the engine. Quinn sits for a moment, staring across at the gates.

‘One of the girls in my year at Burghley Abbey went here,’ says Maisie.

Quinn turns. ‘Yeah?’

She nods. ‘She said it was OK but it didn’t really feel like Oxford. I mean, there are blokes there now and everything, but she said it still came off like a girls’ boarding school.’

Quinn turns back to look again. There’s a group of young people standing chatting by the main door. They’re clutching files and the obligatory water bottles, but there are ID cards on lanyards round their necks, so it’s a fair bet they’re summer school, not permanent. They seem happy enough, either way. Smiling, looking to the future with confidence, perfectly balanced across race and gender. It could be the cover shot for the college brochure.

‘Do you want me to wait till your colleague arrives?’ asks Maisie.

He turns to her again. ‘Nah, no need. Ev only lives ten minutes away – in fact, I’m surprised she’s not here already.’ He pushes open the door. ‘I’ll see you back at the flat – if it’s going to be a long one I’ll give you a bell.’

‘OK, see you later.’

She starts the engine and pulls away, turning right at the junction in a screech of rubber. Quinn smiles, despite his precious tyres. That girl has balls; she drives almost as fast as he does.

He crosses the road as Everett’s Mini pulls into the space Maisie just left. He assumed she’d walk down from her flat in Summertown, but perhaps she wasn’t at home when she got the call. He hardly ever sees her off-duty so the clothes come as a surprise. Whatever she’s been doing, it seems it required a skirt.

‘Very natty,’ she says as she comes towards him, nodding to his chinos and pink shirt. ‘I hope they were suitably impressed.’

He could take umbrage but he decides to smile instead. ‘Slayed ’em,’ he says. ‘Eating out of my hand.’

She hitches her bag higher up her shoulder. ‘So what’s all this about?’

‘Some sort of “incident”. But not a 999 job so I’m assuming no one’s dead. Woods says it was the Principal who called it in. Refused to say anything more, just kept on saying he wanted to speak to Fawley.’

‘Serious, then.’

He nods. ‘The boss is on his way. But, right now, your guess is as good as mine.’

Ev has a guess all right, but decides, for now, to keep that to herself.

Quinn goes to check in with the lodge, and Ev waits outside; he doesn’t need her holding his hand, especially if he’s bigging himself up as surrogate DS. The group by the door has dispersed now, and the courtyard is empty. Bits of glitter and confetti are caught in the paving, the last fragments of Finals. She can feel the heat coming off the stone through her thin sandals.

‘OK,’ says Quinn, coming back towards her again. ‘They said Reynolds’ office is on the first floor. Turn right down the corridor and up the stairs. The PA will meet us there.’

It’s surprisingly cool inside, but something about the parquet flooring and the echo of their feet has Ev thinking of disinfectant and imminent hockey sticks. The upstairs corridor is a good deal plusher, and the PA is hovering, looking slightly irritated. She gives the impression she knows to the second how long it should have taken them to cover the distance and they have woefully underperformed.

‘Professor Reynolds is just on a call – please take a seat, it won’t be long.’

The PA returns to her desk, but the visitor chairs have a distinct waiting-for-detention look about them which is hardly appealing. As for Quinn, he doesn’t seem able to keep still. He spends the next five minutes scrutinizing the framed photos of the teaching body, until the PA’s intercom beeps and she gets to her feet.

‘This way, please.’

The office is certainly impressive, if only in terms of size. Wood panelling, windows over the garden, more framed photographs, this time of the previous heads of the college. They’re all women. Unlike the person walking towards them, hand outstretched.

‘Hilary Reynolds – you must be Detective Sergeant Quinn?’

Ev sees Quinn open his mouth but Reynolds has already moved on.

‘DC Everett? Please – take a seat.’

‘So,’ says Quinn, after a moment. ‘You asked to see us?’

Reynolds frowns. ‘You don’t think we should wait until DI Fawley arrives?’

Quinn shifts a little. ‘He said we should start without him. You know what it’s like, weekend traffic, tourists –’

Reynolds sits back, fingertips together. ‘This whole situation is extremely delicate.’

Quinn nods. ‘We do understand, sir, but until we know what it’s about –’

Ev glances at him and then at Reynolds. ‘If it helps, I have done sexual offences training.’

Reynolds turns to face her. He doesn’t say anything but she can see from his face that she’s bang on.

He clears his throat. ‘Yes, DC Everett, well guessed. This is indeed an issue of that sort.’

Everett takes out her notebook; Quinn may be playing at being one of the grown-ups but someone still has to do the heavy lifting.

‘Perhaps I can take some details? I’m assuming no one is in need of immediate medical assistance?’

Reynolds gives a quick, sharp shake of the head. ‘No, nothing like that.’

Quinn sits forward a little; he evidently feels the need to reassert the initiative. ‘An official complaint has been made to you, as head of the college?’

Reynolds nods. ‘The appropriate internal processes will in due course be put in motion as required by University protocols, but I felt the circumstances warranted an immediate referral to the civil authorities.’

Sounds like he cut-and-pasted that from the latest Equality and Diversity policy handbook, thinks Everett, as she makes a note. Leaving no arse uncovered, that’s for sure.

‘I see,’ says Quinn. ‘Perhaps you could talk us through the “issue” as you understand it. You told my colleague at St Aldate’s that one of your students was involved?’

Reynolds starts fiddling with something on his desk. ‘A postgraduate. One of our brightest. Transferred here from Cardiff at the beginning of Michaelmas term.’ He glances at Ev and waves a finger at her notes. ‘October, in other words.’

Gee, thanks, she thinks. As if a low-life like me could possibly know that.

‘And the other person involved?’ she says evenly.

Reynolds’ expression has darkened. ‘I’m afraid the other party is one of the college academic staff.’

It doesn’t come as any surprise – certainly not to Ev, and not only because she’s done sexual offences training.

‘OK,’ says Quinn, who’s going to lose his patience very quickly if there’s much more pussy-footing about. ‘Perhaps it would be easier if we talked direct to the parties involved?’

* * *

‘Do you want another glass of wine?’

Erica Somer looks up, shielding her eyes against the sun. She’s sitting on the terrace of Giles Saumarez’s house. Three fishermen’s cottages knocked together into a long, low, whitewashed space with polished stone floors and windows overlooking Southampton Water. It’s cool and airy inside, but out here the sunlight is blinding. At least a breeze has got up now; out on the estuary, among the tankers hauling towards the refinery, there are four or five small yachts leaning into the wind. Somer has never sailed, never wanted to, but she yearns suddenly to be out there, on the water, on her own. No one to think about, no one to answer to, wholly at the mercy of the current and the bright blue air. It’s the impulse of a moment only, and hard on its heels comes a pang of remorse. She should be grateful she’s here at all – at this amazing house, with Giles, who’s put so much effort into this weekend but doesn’t undo it all by telling her so every five minutes, like most blokes would. He’s bought the wine he knows she likes, put flowers in their bedroom, fresh towels in the shower. It’s been a beautiful day, and they’ve had a beautiful lunch. Literally. Crumbly white cheese, golden focaccia sprinkled with rosemary and salt, ripe figs, prosciutto, cubes of deep-orange quince jelly – the table was crying out for a #foodporn hashtag.

She shakes her head now: the glass Giles poured for her more than half an hour ago is still almost full.

He pushes up his sunglasses so he can look her in the eye. ‘Everything OK?’

She nods quickly, reaching for the glass, making an effort.

‘Yes, fine, just felt a bit off earlier, that’s all.’

He sits down next to her.

‘We don’t have to go out tonight if you don’t want to. It’s just that last time you were here, you said –’

‘No,’ she says, cutting across him. ‘I want to go. Will you please just stop fussing.’

She looks away, at the water, the gulls, the wheeling boats. Anything to block out the hurt and bewilderment in his eyes.

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

15.17

Hilary Reynolds isn’t the first head of house I’ve come across in this job. Principals, Provosts, Wardens – the handles may differ but they all grow the same masterly veneer; that grand self-assurance that comes of habitual High Table dining, an entire organogram of domestic staff and a great deal of getting your own way. Reynolds is no different; or at least not at first sight. It takes me a moment to realize quite how much anxiety is running in this room. And who’s generating it.

He’s in the far corner, leaning against the window seat. He must be twenty-two, twenty-three; pale skin, toffee-coloured hair bleaching to blond at the ends. A dark tattoo on one forearm, something spiky and sinister, like a Venetian mask. He’s taller than me, and broader too. The physique of an athlete; I’d go for rugby if you forced my hand.

‘Inspector Fawley,’ says Reynolds with a small cough, ‘I’m grateful you were able to join us. This is Caleb Morgan. He’s with the Mathematics faculty, working on compressed linear algebra for large-scale machine learning.’

Condescending and inconsequential; I have to hand it to Reynolds – as irrelevant information goes, that was pretty stellar.

Quinn must be sensing my irritation because he steps in quickly. ‘There’s been an allegation of sexual assault, boss.’

I stare at him. What the fuck is he playing at? This is Policework 101 – get your facts together before you go anywhere near the perp. And I mean, all your facts.

I pull Quinn to one side. ‘What’s he doing here?’ I say quietly. ‘You didn’t think you ought to speak to the victim first?’

He flushes. ‘I did,’ he says. ‘He is the victim.’

I turn to look at Morgan. His pale-blue eyes are intent on my face and I feel myself flush. And now I look properly, I can see the livid red mark on his neck. But even though it goes against all the training, against everything they drum into us these days, I just can’t stop myself thinking – this lad is six foot two, he’s built like a full back, surely he could have defended himself –

‘So,’ says Reynolds, looking at Quinn and then at me, ‘now we’ve got that straightened out, I imagine you’ll want to speak to Professor Fisher?’

Ev glances quickly at me. ‘Professor Fisher is Mr Morgan’s supervisor –’

Reynolds cuts across her. ‘I would, of course, prefer that you did not conduct that interview on college premises, especially given that the incident did not take place here. Professor Fisher’s address is Monmouth House, St Luke Street,’ he says, sitting back in his chair. ‘And it being a Saturday afternoon, I would imagine it’s more than likely you will find her at home.’

Her?

Morgan’s assailant was a woman?

* * *

In Risinghurst, Alex Fawley is saying goodbye to her sister. It’s taken the best part of half an hour to get both the dog and the boys into the car, and the dog was definitely the easiest of the three. Gerry is in the driving seat now, impatient to be away before one of his sons decides he needs the loo for the third time.

Nell reaches her arms around her sister, holding her close.

‘You will tell me if you need anything, won’t you?’

‘I’m fine, really. Adam’s being wonderful.’

Nell pulls away. ‘When he isn’t rushing back to work when he’s supposed to be having a day off, you mean.’

‘It’s not his fault. Comes with the job.’

Nell makes a face. ‘You don’t need to tell me – I’ve known him almost as long as you have.’

There’s a sudden bang in the street – a couple of skateboarders, taking advantage of the hill and the speed bump to try out some tricks – but Nell sees her sister flinch, then try at once to disguise it.

‘It’s only a few lads mucking around – you’re just being paranoid. That man – Parrie – he won’t be allowed anywhere near you. You do know that, don’t you?’

Alex forces herself to smile. ‘It’s just my nerves – they’re all over the place.’

The car door opens and Gerry leans out. ‘You coming?’

Nell gives her sister’s arm a quick squeeze. ‘Remember what I said, OK? If you need anything – and I mean anything – I’m only a phone call away.’

Alex nods and Nell gets into the car, but even after they’ve pulled away, Alex lingers there, her arms wrapped tightly around herself. The two skateboarders are still coasting up and down, flipping and twisting as they come off the slope, but Alex isn’t looking at them. She’s looking beyond them, through them, at the white van parked a few doors down. There’s a man in the driver’s seat, with a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes.

It doesn’t matter how many times people tell her that Gavin Parrie will be miles away, that he’ll be strictly monitored, under electronic curfew, she still sees him on every corner, in every van, in every shadowed and half-glimpsed face.

Because he knows. And one day – maybe not today, maybe not this week or this month or this year – but one day, he’s going to find her, and he’s going to make her pay for what she did.

It’s 30 degrees but she’s shivering suddenly, her hot skin iced with sweat.

* * *

[IVY PARRIE]

‘Hi, Gav, it’s your mum. Just wanted to let you know I got your message about the hearing. We’re all rooting for you here, love, and Jocelyn and the team are working really hard on your behalf. See you next week.’

[SOUND OF PHONE CALL ENDING]

[JOCELYN]

My name is Jocelyn Naismith and I’m the person referred to in that clip. The voice you heard was Mrs Ivy Parrie. Ivy is 76, she lives in Coventry, and you just heard her leaving her son a voicemail. She couldn’t call him direct because he was in prison. In Wandsworth, to be precise. Serving a life sentence for a crime he has always claimed he did not commit.

The clip was recorded in April 2018, shortly before Gavin Parrie appeared before the parole board. Thanks to the work done by my team, and with the support of Gavin’s solicitor, the long battle for justice was finally won, and he regained his freedom in May this year.

This podcast series tells Gavin’s story. How he was convicted in the first place, what The Whole Truth organization has discovered about the original investigation, and why we think the real perpetrator is still out there.

I’m Jocelyn Naismith, and I’m co-founder of The Whole Truth, a not-for-profit organization that campaigns to overturn miscarriages of justice. This is Righting the Wrongs, series 3: The Roadside Rapist Redeemed? Chapter one: Prologue

[THEME SONG – AARON NEVILLE COVER VERSION OF ‘I SHALL BE RELEASED’ [BOB DYLAN]]

Standing next to me in this lonely crowd

Is a man who swears he’s not to blame

All day long I hear him shout so loud

Crying out that he was framed

I see my light come shining

From the west unto the east

Any day now, any day now

I shall be released.

[JOCELYN]

Bob Dylan wrote that song in 1968, the same year Gavin Parrie was born. He was the second of three Parrie boys, sandwiched between the oldest, Neil, and the youngest, Robert (who the family called Bobby). His mother worked part-time as a shelf-stacker in a local supermarket, and his father, Vernon, was employed at what was then the British Leyland car plant in Cowley, on the outskirts of Oxford. The family lived in a small terraced house off the Cowley Road, and all three boys attended the local primary school, and then Temple Green Secondary Modern.

Ken Waring was Gavin’s form teacher in his first year at Temple Green.

[KEN WARING]

‘He was a bit of a tearaway, there’s no getting away from that. Always getting into scrapes. But I never thought he was a bad lad. He struggled with his reading, but looking back with the benefit of hindsight I suspect he may have been dyslexic. But of course, back then, you didn’t get assessed for things like that, and you didn’t get any extra help either. Kids like him often became disruptive just because they were having trouble keeping up. He was good with his hands, though, I remember that – he always got good marks in Woodwork and Metalwork. I guess I assumed he would follow his father into the car industry. That’s what the majority of our lads did.’

[JOCELYN]

By 1984 the family had moved to Manchester. Vernon Parrie had been made redundant from Cowley, but managed to secure another job at a truck assembly plant up north. It came at a bad time for Gavin, who as we’ve heard, was already finding schoolwork difficult. The transition to a new school proved a challenge too far, and Gavin left the education system that summer with no formal qualifications.

He spent the next two years moving from job to job – some office cleaning, some mini-cabbing, the odd stint labouring alongside his brother Bobby, who was an apprentice plasterer by then. Remember that – it’s going to be important later.

It was around this time that Gavin first met the woman who would become his wife. Sandra Powell was 16 and photos of her in the family album show a typical fun-loving 80s teenager. Big shoulder pads, a big smile and big hair. Really big hair.

[SANDRA]

‘I know, I know, but we all had perms like that back then. My mum used to do mine in the back kitchen.’

[SOUND OF PAGE TURNING]

‘I can’t even remember the last time I looked at these. And I definitely can’t believe I wore all this stuff – look at those legwarmers – what were we even thinking?’

[JOCELYN]

That’s Sandra. As you can tell from her voice, there’s still some of that bright, sassy teenager left in her, though the intervening years have taken a heavy toll. She lives in Scotland now, and has reverted to using her maiden name (we’ll hear why in a later episode), but through it all, she’s remained in contact with Gavin and has always been a firm believer in his innocence. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Back to 1986.

[SANDRA]

[SOUND OF PAGE TURNING]

‘Ah, I love that one – that’s me and Gav at Blackpool a couple of weeks after we first started going out.’

[JOCELYN]

It’s a sweet picture, and not just because they’re both clutching candyfloss. Gavin has a shy smile and a mullet haircut that makes him look a bit like David Cassidy. Sandra is acting up for the camera, and even though she’s two years younger she looks a lot more worldly, a lot more mature. And according to Sandra, that’s a pretty accurate reflection of the early days of their relationship.

[SANDRA]

‘It took Gav a long time to adjust to moving to Manchester. He’d left all his mates behind in Cowley, and I think he resented that a bit. He didn’t get along that well with his dad either, so I think he was quite lonely. I was definitely his first serious girlfriend, that I do know. He really wasn’t that confident back then – it took him so long to ask me out I was beginning to think he wasn’t interested.’

[JOCELYN]

But once their relationship started, things moved very fast. Within three months Sandra was pregnant, and by the end of that year they were the parents of a baby girl, Dawn.

[DAWN MACLEAN]

‘What’s my first memory of Dad? Probably him teaching me to ride my bike when I was about 6.’

[JOCELYN]

That’s Dawn. She’s a qualified beautician now, married and living in Stirling with two children of her own.

[DAWN]

‘I got the bike for my birthday, and I remember it absolutely poured down all day – you know what Manchester’s like – but he spent hours outside with me in the rain while I wobbled up and down. He wasn’t always that patient though. I remember he hated anything to do with paperwork or filling in forms – Mum always had to deal with Social Services or the council or our schools. I guess he was always a bit wary of people like that. People in authority. He said they were all out to get you. And let’s face it, he wasn’t wrong, was he?’

[JOCELYN]

Sandra and Gavin had two further children in the next ten years. Sandra had a job as a hairdresser but Gavin was still stuck with casual labouring jobs, so money was tight, and they couldn’t get by without benefits. After a while, the strain began to tell.

[DAWN]

‘By the time I was about 11 I knew my dad was struggling. I mean, I wouldn’t have used that word, but I knew he wasn’t happy. He seemed to be angry all the time, and I think he was drinking, and that just made him even more angry. And sad. I remember finding him in tears one day, upstairs in their bedroom. It was the first time I’d ever seen a man cry and it really scared me. It was after that that everything started to go wrong.’

[JOCELYN]

It was 1997. On May 2nd that year, a 16-year-old girl was attacked in Lockhart Avenue, Manchester. She was dragged into the undergrowth, sexually assaulted and left there, on the side of the road.

Three nights later, Sandra got a phone call.

It was Gavin. He was at Greater Manchester Police HQ, and he’d been arrested.

For rape.

[UNDER BED OF ‘I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON’ – THE CLASH]

I’m Jocelyn Naismith and this is Righting the Wrongs. You can listen to this and other podcasts from The Whole Truth on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[FADE OUT]

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

15.49

‘So if you can come with us now, we’ll do the Video-Recorded Interview, and take the samples the CPS will need if the case goes to court.’

It’s Ev doing the talking. And no question, doing it bloody well. Perhaps it’s the specialist training, but she’s managing to be completely unfazed by the killer flip in this case. Unlike me. Even Quinn seems to have got his head round it, though perhaps it’s just that he’s had longer to get used to the idea. And meanwhile Ev has been calmly taking down the details for the Initial Investigative Report, and talking Morgan through what to expect at the Sexual Assault Referral Centre, and what help he can ask for, and what support he can get. And at the end of it all, when she tells him he can have a male officer as his police point of contact if he prefers, it doesn’t surprise me at all that he decides to stick with her.

I’ve not said much in the last half-hour, and nothing at all to Reynolds, and I was rather hoping to keep it that way, but when we all get up to leave, he clears his throat in that way he has.

‘Could you remain behind for a moment, Inspector?’

Ev gives me a questioning look, but I just nod. ‘You go ahead. I’ll call you later for an update.’

Reynolds must have pressed some sort of button on his desk, because the door opens and the PA appears, tray of tea in hand. Either that or she’s been listening to the whole bloody thing on the intercom, which, frankly, wouldn’t surprise me.

Quinn looks rather enviously at the tea – we haven’t even been offered water thus far – but it’s evidently not designed for the likes of him. Silver teapot with a college crest, milk jug, sugar bowl and tongs, plate of lemon slices. And only two cups.

When the door closes behind them, Reynolds turns to me.

‘There’s a reason I wanted to speak to you, Inspector. Caleb Morgan – it’s rather more complicated than it might initially appear.’

More complicated? A female professor accused of assaulting a male student. Gender politics, university politics. Minefields don’t get any murkier than that. What the hell else could there be?

He coughs again. ‘He takes his father’s surname, but Caleb’s mother – she’s Petra Newson. I imagine you’ve heard of her?’

Of course I’ve bloody heard of her. An extremely combative local MP, with an agenda longer than my service record. If Reynolds hasn’t already put in that call to Bob O’Dwyer, odds are Petra bloody Newson has beaten him to it.

I keep my tone even. ‘I assume Ms Newson is aware of what’s happened?’

Reynolds nods slowly. ‘I believe Caleb called her, yes. She’s in the US this weekend but is due back in her constituency tomorrow.’

So with luck we may have twenty-four hours’ grace. Sufficient unto the day and all that.

I take a deep breath. ‘Tell me about Professor Fisher.’

If Reynolds thinks that’s a conversational swerve he gives no sign. He leans forward and starts busying himself with the tea.

‘Marina is one of the country’s leading authorities on Artificial Intelligence. Not my area, of course,’ he says, with one of those apparently-self-deprecating-only-not-really looks academics give you, ‘but those in the know tell me her work’s been genuinely groundbreaking. And, needless to say, that whole field is extremely media-worthy these days.’

Needless to say, but he still went ahead and bloody said it. I remember now there was a Radio 4 programme about machine learning a few weeks ago, which I vaguely recall having on in the background when I was cooking, but I was distracted and didn’t follow it all. Thinking about it now, I reckon it was Marina Fisher who was fronting it; the BBC were bound to want a female voice for something like that.

‘Between ourselves,’ says Reynolds, proffering me the slices of lemon, ‘she’s just been approached for this year’s Royal Institution Christmas lectures.’

Despite everything – despite the crime she’s just been accused of – he still can’t quite keep the smugness out of his voice. Which tells me everything I need to know about what sort of asset this woman must be to the college. EL isn’t up there with the likes of Balliol or Merton – none of the former women’s colleges are. They don’t have the prestige, and they don’t have the pulling power. But a world expert in something as sexy as AI – that’s quite a coup. But the greater the triumph, the vaster the potential elephant trap: I don’t need to tell you how ‘media-worthy’ this story will be.

If it gets out.

‘There was a fund-raising dinner last night,’ he’s saying now, ‘for the University’s most important Chinese donors. Marina was the keynote speaker. The Faculty is aiming to create the world’s leading AI research facility pioneering the use of interdisciplinary methodologies.’

He’s beginning to sound like a sponsorship proposal, which perhaps he realizes, because he flushes very slightly and does that cough of his again. It’s already starting to get on my tits.

‘All this is highly confidential, needless to say. Negotiations are at a very delicate stage.’

‘Were you there?’

Reynolds gives a quick laugh. ‘No, Inspector, I was not. But I hear Marina stole the show. The Vice-Chancellor was relying on Marina to lead from the front and it appears she more than delivered. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that there’s a lot riding on this.’

He’s going to offer to draw me a diagram next. But I’ve got the message. Loud and clear. Both the college and the University are going to do their damnedest to prevent this woman going down. And taking them with her.

‘Mr Morgan said the incident took place at Professor Fisher’s house, last night.’

Reynolds raises an eyebrow. ‘Yes – that’s what he claims.’

I register the nuance of that ‘claims’, and wonder in passing if Reynolds’ facade of scrupulous objectivity is starting to crack.

‘So what was Morgan doing there?’

Reynolds frowns now, and I press my advantage.

‘You just told me that Professor Fisher was at a University dinner, so she must have got back quite late. So I’m going to ask again – what was Morgan doing in her house at that time of night?’

Reynolds’ frown deepens. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Your officers will have to ask Mr Morgan, but I cannot think of any reason why he should have been there.’

‘Is Professor Fisher in the habit of inviting students to her home?’

‘I doubt it – indeed, it is explicitly prohibited by college policy, as Professor Fisher will be well aware. We make an exception for occasional social gatherings – Christmas drinks, for example. But Fellows are strictly forbidden from holding one-to-one meetings or tutorials in their private residences. Not least, in these litigious times, for their own protection.’

He’s looking unsettled now – as if he’s only just realized how disquieting Morgan’s story is.

‘Who else lives in Professor Fisher’s house? Does she have a family?’

He shifts in his seat, making the leather creak.

‘I will need to be mindful of privacy issues here, Inspector. Data protection and so on. Someone in your position, you know how it is. But it’s common knowledge that Marina lives alone, with her son.’

‘How old?’

‘Eight, I think. Perhaps nine now?’

I sit back, allow the pause to lengthen a little.

‘The address you gave DC Quinn – it’s a very desirable part of town.’

That’s an understatement. Georgian town houses. Golden stone, sash windows, wrought-iron balconies; even Pevsner was impressed. A lot are offices now, or flats, but judging from her address, Marina Fisher has the whole three storeys. That’s some chunk of real estate.

Reynolds reaches to pour tea. And – apparently – buy time.

‘Marina’s former husband was a financier,’ he says eventually, lifting his cup. ‘He returned to Boston after the divorce. I believe Marina got the Oxford house as part of the settlement.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Now, if you will forgive me, I promised my wife I’d be home over an hour ago.’

There’s something he’s avoiding here, and it’s not just the quagmires of the Data Protection Act. But I’ll play the game. For now.

The door opens and the guard-dog PA stands there once again, waiting to show me safely off the premises.

‘I trust I can rely on you to keep me in the loop, Inspector?’ says Reynolds as I get to my feet. ‘This is going to be challenging enough, without being blindsided into the bargain.’

‘I’ll do my best, sir. But I’m sure you can appreciate that there’s only so much I’ll be able to tell you.’ I allow myself a small smile. ‘Data protection and all that. Someone in your position, you know how it is.’

* * *

Thames Valley Police

INITIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT

Rape and Sexual Offences

LOCATION AND IDENTITY OF THE PERSON MAKING THE REPORT

Professor Hilary Reynolds, Principal, Edith Launceleve College, Oxford OX2

THE EXACT LOCATION (WHERE POSSIBLE) AND TIME OF THE INCIDENT

Monmouth House, St Luke Street, Oxford OX1

06/07/2018 11.30 p.m.

WHETHER THE PERSON MAKING THE REPORT IS THE VICTIM, THIRD PARTY OR WITNESS, AND THE CAPACITY IN WHICH THEY ARE MAKING THE REPORT

Third party (head of the college, to which report was initially made)

NATURE OF THE INCIDENT

SEXUAL ASSAULT

Suspect made sexual advances to the victim, which he rejected. The suspect persisted, leading to a minor physical altercation, which resulted in minor scratches being sustained by the victim, and intimate touching in the groin area. It is not yet known if the suspect sustained any injuries. After this altercation occurred, the victim was able to leave the premises.

IDENTITY AND LOCATION OF THE VICTIM (IF KNOWN)

Caleb Owen Morgan, DOB 09/11/1995

Address: Flat 34, Graduate Accommodation Block, Edith Launceleve College, OX2

IDENTITY AND LOCATION OF THE SUSPECT (IF KNOWN)

Marina Imogen Fisher, DOB 17/01/1976

Address: Monmouth House, St Luke Street, Oxford OX1

WHETHER MEDICAL ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED AND DETAILS OF ANY INJURIES

N/A

Superficial scratches

A FIRST DESCRIPTION OF THE SUSPECT

IC1 Female, 42, 5' 6", approx. 150 lbs

IF THE SUSPECT IS KNOWN TO THE VICTIM, WHETHER THERE IS A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE OR SEXUAL OFFENCES

None

WHETHER STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO PRESERVE EVIDENCE

Victim advised not to wash and still wearing clothing that he was wearing during incident.

Scene is suspect’s address and will be secured upon arrest.

Suspect outstanding at this time.

WHETHER THERE ARE ANY PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS, FOR EXAMPLE, DISABILITY, LANGUAGE AND WHETHER AN INTERPRETER IS REQUIRED

N/A

DETAILS OF THE DEMEANOUR OF THE VICTIM OR REPORTER

Victim was calm, articulate and coherent, and did not appear to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

PREFERRED CONTACT POINT IF NOT AT THE SCENE

N/A

IF THE REPORTER WISHES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS, THE REASON FOR THIS

N/A

ATTENDING OFFICERS

DI A. Fawley

DC G. Quinn

DC V. Everett

DATE AND TIME

07/07/2018

15:45

* * *

Taking Morgan to the Sexual Assault Referral Centre by squad car was only going to crank up the rumour mill, so Ev drives down to St Aldate’s and picks up a car from the CID pool. It’s only a Corsa, and the air con is struggling, which makes the small space even more oppressive. She’s uncomfortably aware of Morgan’s sheer size, crammed into the back seat behind them, so close she can feel his breath on the back of her neck.

No one says very much. Ev’s learnt over the years that it’s best to talk as little as possible in these circumstances, even when the Gen Pub in question is in a chatty mood. But Morgan shows no inclination to talk at all. He just stares out of the window, at the tourists and the families and the ice-cream vans; silent, unseeing, sunk in thought. He looks completely desolate.

* * *

4.15pm Saturday

It’s happened again. Just now. He was out there. I was upstairs and when I looked out of the window there he was, down the road. Too far away to see his face. He always makes damn sure of that. Just sitting there, behind the wheel. No one does that, no one normal anyway. I went straight back downstairs but by the time I got to the door he was gone.

I told myself I’d imagined it. That I’m just being paranoid and overreacting. That there’s some perfectly logical explanation – some bloke innocently checking his phone or looking at a map. But I know what I saw.

Jesus – even I think I’m starting to sound crazy now. Writing this stuff down is the only thing stopping me losing it completely. I can’t even talk to A, never mind anyone else. People would look sympathetic and say it’s understandable, after what happened, but I’ll see that look in their eyes. And next time we met that look would still be there.

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

16.35

I called Tony Asante on my way over to St Luke Street, and though it’s barely a ten-minute drive, he’s still there before me. His new flat is only about half a mile away; no one else in the team could afford to live this central, but I guess it helps if your mother has the sort of job that gets her on the cover of Forbes.

When I park up, Asante’s on the other side of the road, leaning against a wall, apparently scrolling through his phone. He’s chosen a position out of direct sight of the house, but even if someone was watching they wouldn’t pay him particular attention. In his white T-shirt and Ray-Bans he could be anything – tourist, postgrad. CIA.

He’s not as absorbed by the phone as he’s feigning though: he’s at the car before I open the door.

‘Afternoon, sir.’

I wonder if he got changed before he came out – it’s so bloody hot I can’t move without sweating, but Asante looks like he just stepped out of a cold shower. There are still laundry folds in his T-shirt.

He gestures back towards the house. ‘I haven’t seen anyone go in or out since I got here, but the windows are open, so I assume someone’s in.’

‘You’re up to speed?’

‘DC Everett emailed me the IIR. Though there wasn’t much by way of detail.’

‘She and Quinn are taking Morgan to the SARC now, so we’ll know more later.’

He nods. ‘So, shall we?’

We ring and wait, and ring again, and the door is opened, eventually, by a small boy. Marina Fisher’s son, evidently. If he’s eight going on nine he’s small for his age. Red shorts and a Winnie-the-Pooh top, and soft blond hair that, personally, I think needs a cut. He stares up at us.

‘Who are you?’

I notice, now, that there’s a woman in the corridor behind him. She’s slender and rather beautiful but she looks tentative, as if she doesn’t really belong. Then she moves slightly and I see she has a duster in one hand.

I smile at the boy and show him my warrant card. ‘We’re from the police. We wanted to have a quick chat with your mummy.’

He shakes his head, over-vigorously, the way small children do.

‘She’s not here.’

‘I see. Do you know where she went?’

He turns to the woman, who taps out something on a mobile phone and holds it out to me. It’s a Google translate page. Faculdade is evidently Portuguese for ‘college’.

I try my best this-is-just-routine smile. ‘I assume she won’t be very long in that case. Do you mind if we come in and wait – is that OK?’

The woman hesitates, then nods, and we follow the two of them up the stairs to the first floor. There are black-and-white framed pictures all the way. It’s like those documentaries about 10 Downing Street, with a full deck of prime ministers going up the stairs. Only here, the pictures are all of the same person. Marina Fisher doesn’t just blow her own trumpet, she toots a whole brass section. There are two portraits of her in doctoral robes (I’m assuming one of those must be honorary, but hey, what do I know), one shot of a Newsnight panel, one that looks like her doing a TED Talk and another on stage with the Vice-Chancellor and Theresa May. With each picture I pass the stakes inch up. And not just for her.

The sitting room spans the whole depth of the house. Tall front sashes with long muslin curtains shifting gently in the rising heat. Stripped floors, deep ochre velvet sofas and, on one wall, a huge canvas of swirling koi carp that’s halfway to abstract – flickering blues and oranges and eddying yellows. You can almost see the water churning. To the rear, the windows look over a small but immaculate courtyard garden, with flowering shrubs elegantly arranged in terracotta pots. The boy must have a playroom somewhere else because there isn’t a toy or a mess in sight. The house whispers calm and grace and order. And screams money. Lots and lots of money.

Asante, meanwhile, is still staring at the painting.

‘Alan Hydes,’ he says, gesturing at the signature. ‘I know him. Well, not know, exactly – my parents have one of his. They met him in Mallorca – he has a studio in the same village.’

He looks embarrassed suddenly and turns away, as if he’s said too much. Perhaps it was that ‘same’ that did it, with its implied second home. He goes over to the table under the window and starts sifting through the pile of magazines. I clocked those myself – given the surroundings, you might have expected Homes & Gardens or House Beautiful, but these all have navy-blue covers and grown-up titles like Journal of AI Research and Neural Transfer Learning for Natural Language Processing.

‘It’s a fascinating area, don’t you think?’ he says, leafing one of them. ‘Apparently IBM think they’ll be able to replicate a fully functioning human brain by 2023.’

I glance at him. ‘Trust me, there are some things machines will never be able to do.’

He looks up. ‘You say that, but this technology is moving so fast – apparently eighty per cent of office jobs could eventually be automated. Eighty per cent. Whole armies of employees who’ll work 24/7, don’t need to be paid, never make a mistake, never complain to HR. And when you add in speech recognition, visual perception, the capacity for decision-making and planning –’

I raise an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, right.’

He nods. ‘No, really – I mean, I know it sounds like crazy sci-fi, but the sort of machines they’re developing now really do have the capacity to learn – the more they do something, the better they get at it. It’s getting to the point where the machines are actually improving the original spec. And not just in obvious areas like manufacturing, either – AI’s going to revolutionize the way pharmaceutical companies develop new drugs. And then there’s financial services, healthcare, education –’

It strikes me suddenly that he’s trying to give me an AI for Dummies briefing without making it too crashingly obvious. I can’t work out if I’m grateful or just irritated.

‘Not policework, though,’ I say, half under my breath. ‘I can’t see robots running murder inquiries any time soon.’

‘Ah,’ he says quickly, taking a step towards me, ‘that’s where you’re wrong –’

I flash him a look and he falters. ‘Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean – it’s just that I read this really interesting article about –’

But I never get to find out. Downstairs, in the hall, someone’s just come in.

* * *

The Sexual Assault Referral Centre is in a quiet street a little way out of town. If you didn’t know what it was, you probably wouldn’t guess. It doesn’t exactly advertise itself – just the obligatory car parking and a bland front sign with a logo of a tree. It could just as easily be a doctor’s surgery, a community centre or a primary school. And inside, pretty much the same applies: there’s a waiting room with armchairs, a coffee machine and a playpen. And, behind that, a corridor of closed doors. Where the real work happens.

Ev had phoned ahead so the Nurse Practitioner is in the reception area to meet them, but other than her, the place is deserted. Ev knows her vaguely from her training course, but they’re both careful not to overdo it on the meet and greet. This is not about them.

‘Mr Morgan?’ she says, extending a hand. ‘My name is Eileen Channon. If it’s OK with you, I’ll be doing your forensic examination today. I can arrange a male nurse if you prefer, though with it being a weekend there might be a bit of a wait until we can get someone here. But it’s totally up to you, if that’s what you prefer.’

Morgan shakes his head quickly. ‘I don’t want to wait.’

‘OK, and would you like to speak to an Independent Sexual Violence Adviser at this stage?’

Another no.

‘That’s fine. I know it’s a lot to take in. You can always change your mind later, just let DC Everett know.’

Channon gives him a brief professional smile; enough for human contact, but not so much as to imply that anyone is here to enjoy themselves.

‘I have a few forms for you to sign,’ she says, handing him a clipboard. ‘Sorry about that, but there’s no way round it, I’m afraid. It’s just some basic questions about your medical history and a consent form for the examination. I’ll be back in a few minutes, so take your time.’

Morgan goes to the furthest corner of the waiting room and sits down. There’s a box of tissues on the table next to him, and a stack of leaflets on STDs and counselling services. Ev turns away and takes Quinn by the arm, pulling him towards the coffee machine.

‘Stop staring,’ she hisses. ‘It’s not helping.’

Quinn flushes. ‘Sorry. It’s just that I haven’t done this shit before.’

‘Neither has Morgan,’ she replies in an undertone. ‘And if he can cope, so can you.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

16.56

Her son must have gone down to meet her, because we can hear Marina Fisher talking to him as she comes up the stairs. Perfectly pitched Upper-Middle Mother: slightly overloud, not entirely listening. She sounds decisive, breezy. Unconcerned.

‘I want to show you my drawing, Mummy.’

‘Lovely, darling, what a clever little boy you are.’

Footsteps, coming closer now, hard heels on the wooden steps.

‘I want to show you now!’ His tone is half pleading, half tantrum. ‘It’s important!’

‘Sweetheart – Mummy has some things she needs to do first. Tobin – stop that – I’ve told you before, you’ll hurt me.’

They can hear him stamping now. ‘But it’s not fair! I want you to talk to me! Not them!’

A pause. ‘Who, darling? What are you talking about?’

She rounds the corner into the sitting room and her expression changes.

‘Who the hell are you?’

* * *

‘You can leave your clothes behind the screen and DC Everett will bag up what we need afterwards. There’s a gown hanging on the back of the door and we have some T-shirts and yoga pants you can change into afterwards.’

Ev wonders how often this place needs that stuff in XXL, but unlike Quinn, she’d never say it out loud.

Morgan’s head is down – it has been ever since they came into the room. As if by avoiding eye contact he can pretend to himself that none of this is really happening.

‘You want me to take off everything?’ he says, a hot blush flaring across his cheeks. ‘Underwear and that?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ says Channon briskly. ‘And just to make sure – you’re still OK for DC Everett to remain in the room for the medical examination?’

‘Yeah, whatever. I just want this over with.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

16.58

She has quite a presence, even in this large room. She’s not especially tall, but she has poise, no question, and she carries herself with confidence – enough confidence to get away with not just the mini-length sundress but a straw fedora and calf-high gladiator sandals, both of which would be getting some serious eye-rolling from Alex if she were here. The look is in stark contrast with the crisp professional images on the stairs, but evidently Fisher’s personal style is a good deal less buttoned-up when she’s not on public show. There are auburn streaks in the long blonde bob and her make-up is flawless, even in this heat. So much so that, from where I’m sitting, she looks scarcely twenty-five.

There was an edge to her voice, and I suppose it’s understandable. Two strangers – male strangers – alone in the house with her eight-year-old child and a cleaner who doesn’t speak English. And we’re not in uniform.

I get up and walk towards her, holding out my warrant card. ‘Detective Inspector Adam Fawley. This is Detective Constable Asante.’

She puts her hand down to touch her son’s head; instinctively protective now. The boy is hiding behind her, clinging to her leg, his thumb in his mouth.

‘Perhaps the other lady we saw could look after the little boy while we talk? It might be best.’

She stares at me for a moment and then nods.

She bends down. ‘Tobin, could you go and find Beatriz and ask her to give you a glass of milk?’

‘Don’t want milk. Want Fanta.’

‘All right, then. Just this once.’

She straightens up and ushers him gently out on to the landing. ‘Good boy. I won’t be long.’

We all wait until his footsteps fade down the stairs and then she turns to me again. ‘So perhaps you could now explain to me what you’re doing here?’

‘We have some questions. About last night.’

She looks blank, perplexed, the ghost of the smile still hovering on her dark-red lips. As if this has to be some sort of mistake. As if she’ll be regaling her friends about it later over rhubarb and tamarind artisan gin. ‘Sounds like a bad teen flick.’

But we’re not laughing.

* * *

‘And as well as not changing your clothes, you also haven’t showered since the incident took place, is that right?’

She didn’t really need to ask – the air in the small room is stifling now, and it’s not just the heat.

Morgan shakes his head. ‘I was going to but Freya – my girlfriend – she said I shouldn’t.’

Ev’s ears prick up: it’s the first time he’s mentioned talking to anyone other than Reynolds. In cases like these, any sort of corroboration can end up being significant.

Channon is nodding. ‘Your girlfriend was absolutely right. But as soon as we’re done here there’s a shower cubicle next door. That’s bound to make you feel a lot more comfortable. Then you can have a cup of tea and DC Everett can take your evidential account. Which is really just a fancy term for a statement.’

‘There’s no rush,’ says Ev quickly. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

The room is silent again as Channon goes calmly about her business, quietly explaining what she’s doing as she collects and bags forensic swabs from Morgan’s body. Face, neck, hands, chest, groin. You’d know he played a contact sport just from the old scars and Channon dutifully notes those too, but what she’s looking for are the unhealed. The scratch on his neck, the other, smaller ones high on his chest.

‘It’s my team,’ he says, seeing Everett looking at the tattoo on his forearm. He rubs it self-consciously. ‘The Ospreys.’

Channon asks him to stand, and he turns left, turns right, raises his arms, as requested, as biddable as a small child. He’s trying to tough this out and everyone is being impeccably sensitive and considerate and discreet, but it’s clear, all the same, that he’s finding it all horribly intrusive.

He briefly catches Ev’s eye and makes a sad wry face. ‘And to think I never used to get why so few women report being raped.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

17.04

‘Marina Fisher, I am arresting you on suspicion of sexual assault. 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 may be given in evidence.’

She’s shaking her head, backing away from me. ‘Sexual assault? What are you talking about?’ Her voice falters, and she feels behind her for the sofa and sits down heavily. When she speaks again, her breath is ragged. ‘Who – who said this –’

‘I believe you know a student called Caleb Morgan?’

She frowns. ‘Caleb? Caleb says I raped him?’

‘Professor Fisher, we really need to have this conversation at St Aldate’s. Where it can be recorded.’

‘St Aldate’s – you mean the police station?’ Her eyes widen and for the first time she looks genuinely afraid.

I nod. ‘It’s better that way. Not just for us – for you too.’

She looks down, fighting for self-control, then nods. ‘I’ll need to call my lawyer.’

‘Of course. You can do that when we get there. Can Beatriz stay with the child or is there someone else you want us to call?’

She’s silent so long I’m not sure she’s heard.

‘Professor Fisher?’

She looks up, half startled. ‘What? Oh – yes, I’ll ask her.’

Asante takes a step towards her. ‘And we’ll need the clothes you were wearing last night. I assume you’ve taken a shower today?’

She stares at him. ‘Of course I have –’

Though perhaps she regrets answering so sharply because she bites her lip now. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be – it’s just this whole thing is –’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Yes, I have showered.’

‘We’ll need your clothes too. Everything you were wearing last night. Including your underwear.’

Her eyes widen. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s already been washed. And my gown is at the dry cleaner’s.’

I glance at Asante, who raises an eyebrow, but she forestalls us.

‘Look, I know that probably looks dodgy or something, but I spilt some wine on it, OK? That’s all. And I was going past the cleaner’s on my way to college anyway.’ She shrugs. ‘It was just convenient, all right? If I don’t do it now I’ll forget, and by the time I drag it out of the wardrobe for the next shindig it’ll be too bloody late.’

It might make sense, it might not; but either way it’s going to have to wait. I’m not having this conversation here.

‘So,’ I say, ‘could you speak to Beatriz now? And our CSI team will also need access to the premises to conduct a forensic search. DC Asante will stay here until they arrive.’

She holds my gaze for a moment and then nods. ‘OK. I’ll tell her.’

She seems on the verge of tears.

* * *

* * *

The dry cleaner’s is on the Woodstock Road, and it is, indeed, in a direct line between St Luke Street and Edith Launceleve. But the affluent of North Oxford clearly have better things to do on a hot July afternoon than dirty laundry, so Asante isn’t at all surprised to find he’s the only person in the shop. In fact, he suspects the not-much-more-than-a-lad behind the counter was hoping to bunk off early, given the aggrieved look he shoots at Asante when he pushes open the door. Though he cheers up considerably when he discovers it’s the police. And not just police, CID. This is better than the footie.

Asante does his best to rise above it. ‘I believe you took in an evening dress for cleaning earlier today?’ He checks his tablet. ‘Full-length red satin gown with a sequinned bodice and chiffon sleeves. It would have been booked in under the name Marina Fisher.’

The lad drags the order book towards him and flicks back through the pages.

‘Yeah,’ he says after a moment. ‘Looks like it.’

‘Could I see it, please? The dress?’

The lad makes a face and flips the book shut. ‘Nah, sorry, mate.’

Asante frowns; they must clean on-site, he can smell the chemicals. ‘What do you mean, “no”?’

‘She asked for an express job, didn’t she – two-hour turnaround. It’s been done already.’

Asante sighs. RIP any chance of forensics. Sometimes luck is on your side; sometimes it just isn’t.

‘Can I take it anyway?’

The lad shakes his head. ‘No, sorry, mate. Like I said.’

Asante grits his teeth; frankly, it would be easier pulling them. ‘Why not, if you’ve finished doing it? Look, if it’s paperwork you need –’

The lad grins. ‘No, it ain’t that, mate. It’s been cleaned, yeah. But it’s not here. The van picked it up an hour ago.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘We clean here, but alterations – hems, that sort of stuff – that’s done off-site. And according to the docket, this one was a repair job.’

Asante’s eyes narrow. ‘Exactly what kind of a “repair job” are we talking about?’

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

18.43

I’m not in the room when CSI process Marina Fisher, but I am waiting at the coffee machine when Nina Mukerjee comes out. She doesn’t look surprised to see me.

‘Waiting for an update?’ she says, going over to the water cooler. She sticks a paper cup under the dispenser and presses the button. ‘We’ve taken all the usual swabs, but the only thing visible to the naked eye was the slight bruising on her right wrist.’

I frown – I don’t remember seeing that. And the sundress was sleeveless –

But then it comes to me. She had a heavy silver cuff bracelet on one wrist. A bracelet big enough to cover any damage. And it was her right wrist.

‘What did she say about it? The bruising?’

‘Claimed it was probably her kid, but couldn’t remember exactly how it happened. If you ask me, the marks were too big for a small child, but there’s no way to prove it one way or the other.’

‘And it couldn’t have happened at another time? Earlier that day, say?’

‘Impossible to say for sure. It might be worth trying to get hold of any photos taken at the dinner, see if they show anything.’

‘Is there likely to be any DNA?’

She raises an eyebrow. ‘I wouldn’t bet on it. I took fingernail scrapings though I doubt they’ll yield much. But you said Morgan hadn’t showered, so if there are marks on him and she made them, we’ve got a pretty good chance of proving it.’

‘And how did she seem to you, in general?’

Mukerjee considers. ‘Surprisingly composed, actually. She was a bit stressed when she first came in, and the lawyer fidgeting about like a mother hen probably didn’t help, but as soon as we got into it she calmed down at once.’

‘I guess she’s a scientist. Of sorts, anyway.’

‘Funnily enough, that’s exactly what she said. That she found the environment soothing, because it’s what she’s used to.’

Mukerjee picks up her water. ‘One thing’s for sure – she was a lot more composed than most people in her position. The lawyer couldn’t wait to get out of there but Fisher made a point of stopping and thanking me. She said that when it came down to it my job was the same as hers: it was all about the facts. And the facts would prove she’s telling the truth.’

* * *

When Clive Conway gets to the St Luke Street house it’s a uniformed PC who opens the door.

‘Afternoon, Puttergill. Some sort of rave round here last night, was there?’ he says, scraping his shoes on the mat. ‘There’s bits of glass all over the step.’

Puttergill looks blank, then ducks his head outside to look. ‘Is there? I can’t see anything.’

‘Curse of CSI,’ says Conway with a sigh. ‘Every random bit of crap looks like trace evidence.’ He unloads his forensic case in the hall and closes the door behind him. ‘So you got dumped on too, did you?’

Puttergill grins. ‘I was on roster anyway and this place is a hell of a sight nicer than the Cowley Road squad room. Doesn’t smell of cabbage for a start.’

Conway smiles drily; Puttergill’s only six months out of police training college. He’ll learn.

‘Anyone else here?’

Puttergill shakes his head. ‘There’s a cleaner around looking after the kid. Funny little bugger – took one look at me and ran off like a bat out of hell.’

Conway looks sardonic. ‘Next time, try not to pull your baby-frightening face.’

Puttergill laughs. ‘Just wait till he sees you in your nuclear war gear.’

The other curse of CSI – airtight onesies in a heatwave. Brings a whole new meaning to ‘high’ summer.

Conway raises an eyebrow. ‘Well, unless you’ve stumbled over a corpse in the conservatory, I think I can wing it with the basics.’ He opens his case and pulls out a mask. ‘Right, sooner I start, sooner I get a beer.’

* * *

Video-Recorded Interview with Caleb Morgan, conducted at the Holm Oak Sexual Assault Referral Centre, Oxford

7 July 2018, 6.15 p.m.

In attendance, DC V. Everett; observing by video link from adjacent room, DC G. Quinn

VE: OK, as I explained outside, I’m going to try to get as much detail down now as I can, so we have as full a statement as possible. We don’t want to ask you to go through this again if we can avoid it, so please try to tell me everything you can remember, OK?

CM: OK.

VE: And like I said, we are recording this, and if there’s a court case this tape may be used in evidence. Do you need me to explain anything more about that?

CM: No, I understand. And I’ve got the leaflets and stuff.

VE: OK, perhaps I could ask you to start by telling me how you came to be at Professor Fisher’s house yesterday evening.

CM: I was babysitting. She was at that dinner so I was babysitting Tobin.

VE: Have you done that before?

CM: [nods]

Yeah, I do it a lot. The money’s useful and Tobin’s a nice kid. I have a brother who’s only a bit older than him. Well, half-brother really, but I’m used to being around boys his age.

VE: Is it common for dons to use their students as babysitters?

CM: [shrugs]

I don’t know anyone else who does it. But that’s Marina all over – she’s not really one for sticking to the rules.

VE: That’s what you call her – ‘Marina’?

CM: Most of the postgrads call their supervisors by their first names – it’s no big deal.

VE: How would you describe your relationship?

CM: [quickly]

It’s not a relationship – not like that, anyway.

VE: I wasn’t implying anything. I’m just trying to get a full picture. So you weren’t just tutor and student, would that be fair? Given that she trusts you with her child?

CM: I guess. We have a laugh. And she really is phenomenal. Intellectually, I mean. Seriously cutting-edge. What I said about her not sticking to the rules, I meant it in a good way – you can’t just do the same old same old, not in our field. You’ve got to take risks, challenge the status quo.

VE: Sounds like you admire her.

CM: [shrugs]

Anyone working in AI would give their eye teeth to be supervised by Marina. I was mega excited when I found out. I never thought it would end like this.

VE: But up until last night there’d never been anything else between you? It had been purely professional?

CM: [nods]

VE: So tell me what happened last night. What time did you arrive at Monmouth House?

CM: 8.00, 8.15. Something like that.

VE: And did you spend any time together then?

CM: She was about to leave, but we had a quick drink before she went – she said she needed a bit of Dutch courage. There was a lot at stake, so I guess she was feeling the pressure a bit.

VE: What did you drink?

CM: I had a beer. She had white wine.

VE: And when did she get back?

CM: Must’ve been about 11.15, perhaps 11.20.

VE: And you were where, at that point?

CM: In the kitchen. Downstairs, on the lower ground floor.

VE: And how was she – what was her mood like?

CM: Boy, she was really flying. Couldn’t stop talking – about how well it’d gone, how impressed they’d been. Sounded like she’d completely blown them away.

VE: Did she appear intoxicated?

CM: Well, yeah – I mean, it was a dinner, so she’d had a few. Quite a few, if you ask me.

VE: What happened next?

CM: She said she was celebrating and went to the fridge to get a bottle of champagne. She asked me to open it.

VE: And you did that?

CM: I started saying I didn’t really want any and I had to get back, but she just laughed at me and said of course I wanted some. I said was she sure she wanted to open champagne when it was already so late – I guess I was really asking if she needed any more, given she’d obviously had quite a lot already.

VE: But you didn’t put it in quite so many words?

CM: No, well, she was still my supervisor, wasn’t she? Anyway, she said I had to have at least one glass because she couldn’t celebrate on her own. Then she said she was hopeless at the corks and would I do it, so I did.

VE: And then what happened?

CM: [silence]

VE: Mr Morgan?

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

19.24

Fisher’s lawyer is a fearsome operator by name of Niamh Kennedy. I’ve crossed swords with her before. She won’t have come cheap, that’s for sure, especially on a Saturday night. The premium service obviously includes collecting a complete change of clothes, because Fisher is now in full-blown Cath Kidston mode – floral dress, cotton cardigan, ballerina flats. All of it no doubt carefully selected by Kennedy to make her client look as far removed from a sexual predator as humanly possible. She even has her hair in bunches, no doubt for the same reason. The result is a bizarre Alice in Wonderland vibe which is already starting to weird me out. There’s nothing childlike about Fisher’s face though. She looks hollow-eyed and haunted. Alice woke up and found it was all a dream; that ain’t going to be happening here.

I take my seat next to Asante, open my file and go through the requisite procedural box-ticking. And I mean that literally: Kennedy sits there marking off the list of PACE requirements as we go, and makes sure I see her doing it. After all that, finally, we can begin.

I sit back. ‘OK, Professor, perhaps you could talk us through your version of last night’s events.’

The answer is quick; she was expecting this.

‘Caleb had offered to babysit for me while I was at the dinner at Balliol.’

‘Offered, or you asked?’

She blinks. ‘OK, I asked.’

‘And he’s done that before – yes?’

She glances away. ‘A few times.’

She’s not meeting my eye; she knows she’s on thin ice here, but I have fatter fish to fry than minor infractions of college procedures.

‘What time did you get back after the dinner?’

She shrugs. ‘Eleven fifteen? Something like that.’

‘And you’d been drinking?’

She looks at me now. There are two spots of colour in her cheeks. ‘Of course I’d been drinking. It was an eight-course dinner. Everyone was drinking. I admit I had a lot more than I normally would, but I wasn’t drunk. Absolutely not.’

‘So what happened when you got home?’

‘I went downstairs to the kitchen. I could hear Caleb down there. He had some music on and he’d been working on his laptop at the kitchen table. We chatted for a bit.’

‘About his research?’

‘No, not really.’

The colour on her cheeks is deepening. I sense Asante shifting next to me. Kennedy reaches across and touches Fisher lightly on the arm. ‘It’s OK, you can say.’

‘Look,’ she says, ‘he was flirting with me, all right? He does it a lot. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘And were you flirting back? I mean, he’s an attractive lad –’

She stares at me now. ‘A lot of men flirt with me, Inspector, and a fair number of women too. Other academics, students, university administrators; chancers in all three of those categories and chancers in general. I don’t take any of it seriously.’

I nod slowly. ‘So then what?’

‘He said we should have a drink. To celebrate my so-called “triumph”.’ There’s a bitter note in her voice.

‘So-called? I thought you’d secured a big-cheese donor – isn’t that worth celebrating? Hilary Reynolds gave me the impression it was a tour de force.’

She gives an acid little sigh. ‘Funnily enough, it doesn’t feel much like that any more.’

‘But it would have done last night, surely? Before all this happened?’

She sits back. ‘He said we should celebrate. He got the champagne out of the fridge. He opened it. OK?’

‘So the two of you had a drink together. Just the one glass?’

She flushes again. ‘I think so.’

‘You think? You don’t remember?’

‘I remember I spilt some – on my dress. I remember him filling my glass again.’

She glances at Kennedy, and then at me. Evidently something else they’ve already discussed.

She takes a deep breath. ‘After that, it gets a bit hazy.’

* * *

VE: Mr Morgan?

CM: [fidgeting with his water bottle]

VE: I know this is tough –

CM: She started coming on to me, all right? I was leaning back against the worktop and she came up really close. Like, pressing her body against me. She started asking me if I fancied her.

VE: And do you – did you?

CM: [flushing]

Kind of. I mean, she’s a lot older than me but she’s pretty hot. All the postgrads think so. And she looked amazing in that dress – anyone would have thought she looked sexy –

VE: It’s not a crime to find her attractive, Mr Morgan.

CM: Caleb. You can call me Caleb.

VE: So what happened next?

CM: [takes a deep breath]

Well, she was definitely drunk by then. She’d kicked off the stilettos but she was still swaying, like she couldn’t stand up straight. And she was slurring her words. Even if I’d wanted to – there’s no way I’d have done anything about it with her in that state.

VE: But you might – under other circumstances? If you thought she knew what she was doing?

CM: [pause]

In theory, perhaps. But only in theory – it’d have been a complete nightmare in practice. For my research, I mean. And anyway, I’ve got a girlfriend. It just wouldn’t be worth the colossal amount of shit it would’ve caused.

VE: What happened next?

CM: She started touching me – through my clothes. My shorts. She said, you know, that it proved I did fancy her.

VE: [softly]

You had an erection.

CM: [nods]

But that didn’t mean –

VE: It’s just a physical reaction, Caleb. It’s not something you can necessarily control. It doesn’t mean that any of this is your fault, and it certainly doesn’t mean you weren’t assaulted.

CM: [pause]

VE: Can you go on?

CM: [looks away, nods]

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

19.47

‘You’re saying you don’t remember what happened next?’

Fisher shakes her head.

Kennedy leans forward. ‘Look, what exactly is this Caleb Morgan alleging?’

‘He says Professor Fisher made physical sexual advances, and continued to do so even when he made it clear that he was saying no. Intercourse did not take place, but she did touch him in the groin area.’

Fisher is shaking her head. ‘This is some terrible, ghastly misunderstanding. There is no way –’

She looks down, puts a hand to her lips, breathes. Then she looks up again. ‘Is Caleb OK? I mean, that’s the only explanation – he must have had some sort of breakdown –’ Her voice falters. ‘Look, he’s been under a lot of pressure lately. His research –’

‘So, to be clear, you’re telling us you don’t remember any physical contact with Mr Morgan?’

‘No.’

‘And the bruising on your wrist – how did that come about?’

She tugs at her sleeve, then realizes she’s doing it and lays her hands flat on the table. ‘As I told your technician, it was probably my son. Children are surprisingly strong and don’t always know what they’re doing.’

If she’s aware of the irony in that last remark she gives no sign.

‘What about this morning?’

She frowns. ‘What about it?’

‘When you woke up – were you in your own bed?’

‘Of course I was –’

‘Fully dressed? Nightclothes, what?’

Fisher raises an eyebrow, derisive. ‘I don’t bother with what you so quaintly refer to as “nightclothes”, Inspector.’

‘So you were naked, but you don’t remember how you got there?’

She shrugs. ‘My gown was on the back of the chair, my shoes in the rack. Everything was as it should be. Apart from the fact that I had a headache and a raging thirst, and a child long overdue his breakfast. Don’t tell me that’s never happened to you.’

‘And it didn’t concern you that you couldn’t remember much about the end of the evening? Has that ever happened before?’

She sighs heavily. ‘Once or twice, if you must know. Usually after champagne. I really should avoid Bollinger last thing at night.’

As fuck-yous go, that was about as deft as it gets.

‘That being the case, when we’re done here I’m going to ask our CSI officer to take a blood sample. Just so we can all be absolutely clear exactly how much alcohol we’re talking about.’

Fisher glances at Kennedy, who nods. ‘They’re allowed to do that.’

Asante sits forward. ‘What about the dress?’

Fisher frowns. ‘What about the dress?’

‘Why did you rush to get it cleaned?’

‘I told you. I spilt wine on it. I didn’t want to leave it in the wardrobe in that state. I was worried it might not come out if I didn’t have it done quickly.’

‘But it wasn’t just cleaning, was it? You asked for some repairs to the dress too.’

There’s a flicker across Kennedy’s face which she’s not quite quick enough to hide; this, at least, is news to her.

I open the cardboard file and take out a sheet of paper. It’s a scan of the dry cleaner’s order book.

‘Mend ripped neckline and replace sequins (bag of spares supplied by client).’

I close the file again and look up. ‘What happened, Professor Fisher? How did such an expensive evening dress get damaged at a sedate black-tie bash like that?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Or perhaps it wasn’t there that it happened? Perhaps it was after that, when you got home?’

She opens her mouth and closes it again.

‘I told you,’ she says eventually, ‘I don’t remember.’

VE: So she started to touch you. What happened next?

CM: I managed to pull away a bit and turned round to tip the champagne down the sink. I’d hardly had any of it.

VE: How much had she had?

CM: I think she was on her second glass by then.

VE: So then what?

CM: I was still at the sink, and felt her coming up behind me. She put her arms round me and started putting her hands down the front of my shorts. You know, inside, trying to grab my – you know – my penis.

VE: What did you do?

CM: I turned round and pulled her hands away. I said I didn’t want to do this – that she didn’t want to do this. She said I was being ridiculous – we both wanted it. So I said what about Freya and she just laughed. Said something about why have prosecco when you can have the real thing. Then she reached up and pulled my face down – you know, trying to kiss me.

VE: And you tried to make her stop?

CM: [flushing]

I got hold of her wrist – tried to stop her, force her away. She still had the glass in her hand and some of it got spilt. I suppose you could say there was a bit of a tussle.

[pause]

That must have been when she scratched me – I didn’t realize at the time. I don’t think she meant to – she was still pulling at me and her fingers were in my hair and somehow it must have just happened.

[takes a deep breath]

Look, I’m not proud of this but I did end up pushing her away.

VE: How hard?

CM: [flustered]

Hard enough. I mean, not as hard as I could have, but I knew I had to be careful – she was drunk and I’m a lot stronger than she is. But I didn’t know what else to do – she just wasn’t taking no for an answer.

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

19.53

‘You’re not prepared to answer any further questions, Professor Fisher?’

Kennedy raises an eyebrow. ‘My client’s position is very clear. These allegations are false, contrived and very possibly malicious. No such incident took place, which means, by definition, that you will find no evidence to substantiate it.’

‘How can your client be so sure, when she claims not to remember anything after the opening of the champagne?’

Fisher starts to answer but Kennedy forestalls her. ‘Because she is a professional. And because conduct of that kind would be entirely out of character, as I’m sure her colleagues will happily confirm. As I said, should you find any actual evidence that these events took place, by all means let us know. But take it from me, you won’t.’

‘What possible motive would Mr Morgan have to make a false accusation? He has everything to lose and nothing whatsoever to gain.’

The lawyer raises an eyebrow. ‘You’ll have to ask him that, Inspector.’

* * *

Archive › 2018 › May Oxford Mail online

Wednesday 18 May 2018

Local MP accuses UK universities of failing victims of sexual violence

By Richard Yates

Didcot and Cholsey MP Petra Newson took part in a highly charged debate in the Oxford Union last night.

Speaking in support of the motion This House Believes That UK Universities are Failing to Protect Students from Sexual Crime, Ms Newson described the current situation as an ‘utter scandal’. ‘It’s clear to me that universities and colleges are not taking adequate or appropriate action against students accused of rape and sexual assault, and in far too many cases these incidents are not even referred to the police. Even worse, when teaching staff are accused of harassment or assault, some of these institutions are closing ranks and protecting their own. Lecturers – both male and female – are in loco parentis for the young people in their care, and if this duty of care is abused, they should be prosecuted with all the severity the law allows.’

The second speaker, Maria Gleeson, a former student at a Midlands university, attempted to bring an action against her professor two years ago, but ultimately withdrew the charge because the process was so distressing. ‘The people who were questioning me obviously had no experience of dealing with this,’ she said. ‘It was intrusive, and traumatic. I felt like I was on trial, not him.’

Speaking on the other side of the debate, Gareth McFadden of Universities UK, which speaks for 130 of the country’s largest institutions, acknowledged that there was growing concern about sexual violence on campuses, and said his organisation had published a detailed report on harassment, violence against women, and hate crime in 2016, which recommended a number of measures to help institutions address this issue and provide better support for victims.

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* * *

Clive Conway has pretty much wrapped things up at St Luke Street. Not that there was much to do. The two champagne glasses on the draining board had already been rinsed and dried, and without any obvious signs of a struggle he’s not sure what else CID could reasonably expect to find. He finishes taking his photos, makes a note to himself to collect the empty champagne bottle from the recycling bin on his way out, and bags up the glasses.

He’s packing up to leave when he gets the call.

‘Conway? It’s Anthony Asante. Marina Fisher’s being processed and something’s come up.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘She doesn’t have her mobile with her. She thought she did but it isn’t in her bag. She thinks it’s either in her office at Edith Launceleve or at the house. Can you see if you can find it?’

Conway glances around the kitchen. ‘There’s nothing down here, but I’ll have a look upstairs.’

‘Great, thanks. And collect the laptop too, if you can find one – given how sensitive this one’s going to be, Fawley wants us to check her phone. Just to be on the safe side.’

‘OK, I’ll let you know if I find anything.’

He finishes packing up and makes his way up to the sitting room and starts looking round. A few moments later he spots the mobile charging on a coffee table. He bags it and slips it into his case, then straightens up. It’s only now he notices that the boy has been in the room the whole time, sitting at a low table under the far window, so intent on whatever he’s doing that he doesn’t seem to have noticed anyone else is there.

Conway wanders over. The child’s working in a large drawing-by-numbers book – a huge, intricate design of what looks like St George and the Dragon. If it’d been one of his own kids the colours would be spilling out of the lines all over the place, but this boy clearly has more patience and better hand–eye coordination than all his three put together.

‘That’s really good,’ he says jovially. ‘Must help having so many colours to choose from.’

Conway’s kids had Caran d’Ache sets too, but he didn’t know you could get them three tiers deep. There must be over a hundred pencils in there. He stands there for a few minutes more, and each time the boy finishes with a colour he watches him put it carefully back exactly where it came from. The table remains tidy, the spectrum in the box perfectly graduated, the only sound the scratch, scratch, scratch against the page.

* * *

* * *

Conway pulls the front door shut and hears it click behind him. Monmouth House is on a corner so, unlike most of her neighbours, Marina Fisher has side access to her house, and doesn’t have to deal with the besetting conundrum facing owners of Georgian terraces from Bath to Bloomsbury: What To Do With The Bloody Bins. Fisher’s are just inside the side gate, tucked neatly out of sight in a purpose-built enclosure trailed with clematis. Conway opens the recycling bin to retrieve the champagne bottle, and finds it, as expected, right at the top. He bags it up and is about to close the lid again when he notices for the first time what was immediately underneath. He frowns slightly, hesitates a moment, then reaches into his case for another evidence bag.

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

20.15

‘OK, I know it’s late and it’s hot and it’s Saturday and you’d all much rather be interrogating a cold beer, but I just want to capture first impressions while they’re still fresh.’

I look round at them. Ev, Quinn, Asante. ‘So, which one do you believe? And no, it’s not a trick question.’

‘If you forced me to go one way or the other, I’d go for Morgan,’ says Everett. ‘He answered all the questions, kept good eye contact. He even admitted he fancied her, which he must have known would complicate matters. But he was asked the question, and he gave an honest answer.’

I turn to Quinn. ‘What about you, Quinn?’

He shrugs. ‘I can’t understand what Morgan’s doing here at all. Nothing actually happened, so why put yourself through a shitshow like this? And risk fucking up your career at the same time? He’s not stupid – he must realize there’s a sod-all per cent chance of a conviction. Just doesn’t add up.’

Ev looks across at him. ‘Would you be saying “nothing actually happened” if the genders had been reversed? If it was a male tutor and a female student? No, of course you wouldn’t.’

‘I know we all know this,’ says Asante evenly, looking from the one to the other, ‘but sexual assault isn’t about sex. It’s about power. And Fisher’s the one with all the power in this relationship. If she was abusing that power some other way – academically, I mean – then Morgan would have every right to make a complaint. Why is this any different?’

Quinn is shaking his head. ‘He’s still taking a massive risk –’

‘What about her?’ says Ev quickly. ‘Coming on to a student like that, knowing he could go straight to the college authorities and report her? That’s what I call taking a risk.’

‘But that’s the point,’ I say. ‘They’re both risk takers. Morgan said so himself, in interview. He said anyone working in that field has to be prepared to take risks or they’ll never get anywhere.’

Ev frowns. ‘They’re both as bad as each other, is that what you’re saying?’

‘I’m saying these are both people who might be more prepared than most to play a high-stakes game.’

There’s a pause. They’re not sure where that gets us and, frankly, neither am I.

‘I don’t know why CID are even on this,’ mutters Quinn. ‘Never mind the whole bloody team.’

Classic Quinn, but for once I sympathize. I wouldn’t have the entire team on it either, given the choice, but we don’t have the excuse of a more pressing case, and – rather more pertinently – I’m anticipating that sooner or later the Chief Constable will be ‘taking an interest’ or ‘just checking in’ or whatever apparently-casual-only-clearly-not phrase his PA comes up with. As my first Inspector once put it, ‘It’s only a suggestion, but let’s not forget who’s making it.’

‘There’s something about Fisher,’ says Asante eventually. ‘I can’t put my finger on it but something’s definitely off. All that stuff about not being able to remember – it’s a bit too convenient, if you ask me.’

‘On the other hand,’ I say, ‘why hasn’t Morgan mentioned the rip to the dress? He’s been upfront about the fact that there was a physical altercation – why not mention that the dress got ripped in the process?’

Ev shrugs. ‘Perhaps he didn’t realize? Perhaps he just doesn’t remember?’

Quinn gives a dismissive snort and looks away. ‘Yeah, right. He can’t remember, she can’t remember. He said/she said. It’s all bollocks – the whole thing.’

I see Ev about to object and decide to step in.

‘OK, we’ve probably all had enough for one day. But DC Quinn’s right about one thing: the CPS will never run with this as it stands. If we get DNA from Morgan’s body, it could be a whole different ball game. But meanwhile, whether we like it or not, we can’t ignore who his mother is. Not least because I doubt she’s going to let us. Remember that debate about sexual violence in the Union a couple of months back? She’d be all over this, even if the victim in question wasn’t her son.’

Quinn sighs heavily. ‘Just what we need. Being crapped on from a great height by an up-themselves politico.’

‘Right,’ I say briskly. Because that sort of attitude isn’t going to get us – or Quinn – anywhere. ‘So let’s not give her the satisfaction. Forensics will be at least a couple of days, and that’s if we’re lucky. So in the meantime, we do our homework. We need to confirm Morgan’s story with his girlfriend and talk to Fisher’s colleagues, both here and anywhere she’s worked in the past. I want to know if there’s been even the slightest hint of anything like this before. And check whether any of those people were also guests at the Balliol dinner – let’s see if we can find out if there were any signs of damage when she left, either to her or that bloody dress.’

‘We’ll need to be careful though,’ says Asante cautiously. ‘This sort of allegation – it would wreck her career. And if it turns out she didn’t do it –’

‘Precisely. So discretion, please. I want to eavesdrop on the rumour mill, not start it.’

I stand up; Asante’s making a note, Ev is gathering her things, Quinn just looks narked.

‘I’ll get DC Baxter going on Fisher’s phone and I’ll also see if we can get Bryan Gow to have a look at Fisher’s interview footage. If Asante’s right and something really is off here, he’s our best chance of nailing it. As for the rest of it, DC Quinn, you’re stand-in DS. Over to you.’

Quinn looks up. ‘Yes, boss,’ he says.

He’s perked up already.

* * *

It’s dusk, that most deceptive time of the day. The memory of light still in the sky, but the earth dark below. No one’s noticed the man parked up by the side of the road, not even the usually nosey old chap who’s just gone by with his dog. But why would he? The man hasn’t moved for a while – hasn’t read a newspaper, turned on the radio, dug a packet of mints out of the glovebox. The vehicle is silent, and so is he. He does nothing. Nothing, that is, but watch.

A few moments later a door opposite opens and a woman comes quickly down the path to the trellis enclosure by the gate. She lifts the lid of one of the bins and drops a black plastic bag inside, before turning and looking up and down the street. She’s looking directly at him now and he slides a bit further down in the seat, even though he knows it’s too dark, and too far, to see his face.

When the man glances up again two women are coming towards him along the pavement. Yakking away, their toddlers bundled up in buggies. There’s an older kid too, a boy with red hair and big glasses, drifting along behind. The man frowns. Mothers are too distracted, too frazzled, to notice pretty much anything, let alone someone just sitting quietly in their vehicle, minding their own business. But kids are different. They don’t care. They just stare straight in.

The women are drawing level now, shreds of conversation drifting across.

‘I think you just have to tell them –’

‘But you know what that place is like –’

‘When I spoke to Pippa about it she said the same thing –’

The women pass, but the kid is still dawdling, and the man can now see why. He’s stopping at each car, looking at the make and noting something on a small red clipboard. The man’s eyes narrow. Just his bloody luck to stumble over the only kid on the planet who wants to be a sodding traffic warden when he grows up.

The boy is closer now, but still too far to read a number plate. Not in this light. He can see the woman, still at her gate, straining forward, trying to see.

The man curses under his breath, reaches for the ignition key and starts the engine.

* * *

When Niamh Kennedy pulls in opposite Monmouth House there are no lights in the tall facade on the other side of the road.

‘Beatriz must be in the kitchen,’ says Fisher, peering up at the windows. ‘Poor woman – I had no idea I would be so long.’

‘These things are always interminable,’ says Kennedy. ‘If you take my advice, you’ll have a large glass of wine, a hot bath, and go straight to bed.’

‘I will,’ says Fisher. ‘I just need to spend some time with Tobin first. Heaven only knows what he must be thinking.’

‘Kids are more resilient than you think. He’ll take his cue from you. As long as you talk to him calmly, he’ll be fine.’ She reaches across and squeezes Fisher’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, Marina. I know you feel overwhelmed right now, but you’re strong. If you were the sort of person who was going to be defeated by this you wouldn’t have got this far in the first place.’

Fisher gives a quick nod, then gets out of the car and strides across the road, not looking back. She holds her head high as she struggles to get the key in the door, but as soon as she hears the car pull away her shoulders slump and she half staggers across the threshold into the hallway.

She stands there a moment, adjusting to the gloom. There’s a pale shape hunched on the bottom step, which lurches towards her, the eyes huge and ghost-dark in the pale face.

‘Where have you been, Mummy? You promised you would look at my drawing. I’ve been waiting for hours. Where were you?’

* * *

8.15pm Saturday

Just now, when I went out to the bins, he was there. Again. Parked down the road, far enough away that he knew I wouldn’t be able to see him – not properly. Then two women went past with pushchairs and I think they must have spooked him because as soon as they got close he drove away.

But it was him. I know it was.

He was there.

* * *

Adam Fawley

7 July 2018

21.54

When I get home, the house is in shadow. Inside, there’s a single light on in the kitchen, and a note saying there’s salad in the fridge if I want it. I pour myself a glass of Merlot and slip upstairs. The door to the baby’s room is ajar. It was Jake’s, before. A couple of months ago we spent a whole weekend carefully packing all his things away. We didn’t discuss it – we didn’t need to. We just knew it was time. And now, everything in there is new. Wallpaper, furniture, bedding, curtains; the piles of baby clothes still in their packaging, even the mobile hanging over the cot. The smell of paint lingers. Yellow paint. Everything is white or yellow – not a scrap of blue or pink in the whole place. Alex has known the sex of our child for months but she’s never let it slip, not once. Downstairs, the list of names stuck to the fridge is as busy with girls as it is with boys. Added, scratched through, question-marked, ticked. We seem to have finally agreed on Lily Rose for a girl, but we’ve been brought up short when it comes to boys. Literally: she wants Stephen for her dad, but I hate Steve; I like Gabriel, but she can’t stand Gabe. Impasse.

I move softly across the landing, inch open our bedroom door and stand for a moment, listening in the twilight.

Outside, I can hear a distant siren, the murmur of traffic on the ring road, a late last burst of blackbird song.

But here, in the room, my sleeping wife moans softly in her sleep, restless in unquiet dreams.

* * *

At just gone 9.00 the following morning Anthony Asante is sitting in the bay window of his apartment, talking to his mother on the phone. He’s pulled one of the blinds to screen out the sun but it’s already too hot for him to sit there much longer. ‘Bay window’ probably has you picturing him in a flat in one of those classic Oxford Victorian houses – four storeys, red brick and stone mullions – but you could hardly be more wrong. This bay window is rectangular and juts from the wall like a half-open door, and the flat is a sleek wood-and-white duplex which anyone visiting can hardly believe even exists in this town, especially this close to the centre. But visitors of any kind are largely notional as yet, since Asante has only been here a few weeks. Even if that weren’t the case, he’s always preferred to keep his private space private. Though he knows he’s going to have to make an exception for his parents. He shifts the phone to his other ear, scrolling all the while on his tablet. He’s good at multitasking, and in any case, talking to his mother doesn’t require too much brain capacity. She’s saying something now about taking him for lunch next weekend. Something about a gaudy at her college the night before.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says quickly before he can reply. ‘We’re going to stay there overnight.’

Asante tries to keep the relief out of his voice. He loves his parents and – rarer – he admires them, but he really doesn’t want them staying here. If she’d pushed it, he’d have said he hasn’t got round to buying a spare bed (which also happens to be true), but he’s grateful, not for the first time, for his mother’s ability to work these things out for herself.

‘There are plenty of undergraduate rooms available,’ she’s saying now. ‘We may not have had gargoyles or boys, but one thing EL always did have was space.’

‘How about The Perch?’ he says. ‘For lunch? Dad’s always liked it there.’

‘Perfect,’ she says. ‘Though we’d better book – it’s bound to be packed in this weather. Especially at the weekend.’

‘OK, I’ll sort that out. Leave it with me.’

‘We’re so looking forward to seeing your new place, Anthony – are you sure you don’t want us to bring anything? We’ve loads of spare furniture – the loft is practically bursting –’

Asante smiles, but not unkindly. Anything that suits his parents’ stucco-fronted Holland Park town house is really not going to fit in here.

‘It’s fine, Mum, I really don’t need anything.’

He finishes the call and wanders through to the kitchen, where the side of the castle mound rises cliff-like only a few feet from the window. His neighbour’s black-and-white cat is halfway up the path, prowling for mice. He has one eye and extravagant moustaches, making him look dashingly piratical. The Mound is one of the main reasons Asante bought the place. For some people, the main attraction would have been the bars and coffee shops of the now-chic prison quarter only a few hundred yards away; for others, the five-minute walk from the station. But Asante likes the sheer improbability of the Mound, a thousand-year-old man-made hillock right in the heart of the city. He likes the old brewery and the converted malthouse, and he likes the evocative street names – Paradise Street, Quaking Bridge, Beef Lane. There was a horse hospital round here, in the nineteenth century, and a marmalade factory in the twentieth. The place is not very well known, eclectic and unexpected; rather like Asante himself.

He pours himself a glass of water and pushes the kitchen window open a little further. They do Shakespeare productions in the castle courtyard in the summer, and he can see the edge of the stage and the steps where the audience sit. He’s been to a couple of productions now, including a Henry V with only four actors that hadn’t sounded very promising but turned out to be a wonder. At night, when it’s quieter and the trees at the top are flood-lit, he can sit on his balcony and listen to the entire show. It was Titus Andronicus last night. Not a play he knew, but the gaggle of schoolkids were clearly lapping it up. Cannibalism, revenge and rape – what’s not to like, if you’re fifteen.

* * *

Ten miles away as the crow flies, Ev is getting in a quick early visit to her dad. He’s only been in the care home for a couple of months and it’s taken time to get him used to the place, never mind accept it. She’d been almost as reluctant to agree to it as he was, but after a fall that nearly left him with a broken hip she knew she no longer had a choice. The doctor said so, the manager of the home said so, even Fawley said so. But none of that makes her father’s reproachful stare any easier to take, or his simmering self-pity any easier to hear.

She’s visited every weekend since, but this is the first time when they haven’t had the heating on. Every mobile resident is outside in the garden, which Ev hasn’t ventured into before and turns out to be much nicer than she’d expected. Beds of roses, marigolds, petunias – the sort of flowers her father’s generation grew up with. But, of course, he still found something to criticize (‘the gardener’s one of those greenies, but he won’t get rid of blackfly like that with bloody Fairy Liquid’). Still, at least he had a bit of colour in his cheeks when she helped him back into his armchair. And then there was tea and soggy garibaldis, and more daytime TV with its demoralizing adverts for funeral plans and denture fixative and, that euphemism of the decade, ‘sensitive bladder’. Ev is uncomfortably aware that the same sort of advertising has started turning up on her Facebook feed – just how old do those people think she is? By half past ten she’s had enough, and decides she’s earned a decent coffee in the peace and quiet of her own sitting room. She gets to her feet, mumbling something about feeding Hector, only for her father to bark out that his only daughter ‘cares more about her bloody cat than she does about me’ at foghorn volume. A couple of other visitors turn to stare as she leaves, but one gives her a sympathetic look that says, Don’t worry, I’ve been there.

She’s picking up speed as she crosses the lobby, the open front door already in sight, when she hears her name.

‘Miss Everett?’

She turns. It’s Elaine Baylis, the manager. Ev’s heart sinks. Another half-hour between her and that coffee. And that’s at best.

‘I thought it was you – could I have a quick word?’ Baylis must have seen the look on Ev’s face because her own hardens a little. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long.’

Baylis can’t be much older than Ev, but the combination of a studiously dreary wardrobe and a sanctimonious professional manner gives her the aura of an elderly fifty-five.

She shows Everett into the office and closes the door behind her. Ev takes a seat on one of the uncomfortable plasticky chairs.

‘I just wanted to say,’ starts Baylis, taking her own seat and tucking her skirt neatly under her – her mother would have been proud – ‘we’re really pleased your father is settling in.’

Ev wonders if she’s speaking on behalf of the whole staff or if it’s some sort of Royal We.

‘But?’

Baylis frowns. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘It sounded like there was a “but” coming.’ She smiles. ‘Or perhaps I’ve just spent too long interviewing suspects.’

Baylis looks momentarily wrong-footed. Now there’s a first, thinks Ev.

‘I just meant,’ she says, sitting forward now, ‘that it’s always a relief – for everyone – when a resident starts to feel at home.’

Ev waits. There’s something else coming. No question. Like she said, she’s been at the interrogation game a very long time.

Baylis sighs. ‘I know we talked about this before, before your father became one of us.’ She makes it sound like the Masons. ‘But I feel I do need to say it again. Meadowhall is a residential home, not a nursing home. We don’t have specialist resources –’

‘The Alzheimer’s.’

She blinks. ‘Yes, the Alzheimer’s.’

‘The GP says it’s still very early stages. He prescribed those drugs –’

‘I know, and we’re making sure he takes them. But that’s about all we’re able to do.’ She emphasizes the words. ‘We don’t have full-time medical staff. We wouldn’t be able to cope –’

‘If it got worse – yes, I know. You told me.’

Baylis gives her a long look, not unkindly. ‘It’s not a case of if, Miss Everett. It’s a case of when. Alzheimer’s always wins in the end.’

Ev’s throat is suddenly tight with tears.

‘I know,’ she says after a moment, her voice betraying her. ‘I do know that, I just want – I just want him to be somewhere normal for as long as he can. Somewhere that feels as much as possible like home.’

Baylis nods. ‘And that’s what we’ll provide. But only for as long as possible. I just wanted that to be completely clear.’

Everett gets to her feet – if Baylis really was a suspect she’d have exactly the right whip-smart response, the perfect form of words to re-establish the balance of power between them, but something about this office is radio-jamming her brain.

‘Sorry,’ she mutters, ‘I’ve got to go.’

* * *

The head of the university computer science department was easy enough to track down, but rather harder to persuade to see them at the weekend. When he opens the door of his Abingdon Road house he’s rather pointedly dressed in slippers and a purple-and-turquoise dressing gown.

‘You’re not Moonies, are you?’ he says jovially. ‘The last bloke who knocked here wearing a suit like that asked me if I wanted to be saved.’

Quinn steps forward, showing his warrant card. ‘Acting DS Gareth Quinn. This is DC Asante. Thank you for making the time to see us, Professor Sandford.’

Sandford takes a step back and waves them through. ‘I’m in the kitchen. At the back.’

It’s a Victorian semi, but unlike most people who live in houses like this, Sandford hasn’t knocked through any of the downstairs rooms, so there’s a railway carriage feel of doors opening off a passageway that doesn’t get enough light. That, combined with the heavily patterned wallpaper and the piles of newspapers and magazines, makes the place feel much smaller than it really is. The kitchen is in a modern extension, but ‘modern’ is a relative term. Eighties, at a guess. Out the back, what’s left of the garden has been slabbed over; there’s a white plastic table and chairs on the grubby paving and neglected tomato plants withering in a growbag against the fence. And Sandford clearly isn’t much of a domestic goddess within doors either. The kitchen’s not that clean under the clutter and the only item less than thirty years old is the large Nespresso machine. The rest is vintage 1985 – the mug tree, the matching tea and coffee jars, and the enamel toaster in the corner that’s definitely an original rather than a trendy repro. There’s a mug of coffee steaming on the breakfast bar and a plate of newly buttered toast, but Sandford doesn’t offer either. He just pulls out a bar stool and gestures for them to do the same.

‘Must be serious, to get you chaps dolled up to the nines this early on a Sunday.’

Quinn gets out his tablet. ‘We’re making enquiries in relation to Professor Fisher.’

Sandford raises an eyebrow. There’s a half-smile trying to get out. ‘Marina? Well, well, well. Who’d ’a thought it, eh?’

‘It’s a confidential matter at present, sir. And it’s very important that it remains so. I’m sure you understand.’

Sandford does a zip gesture across his mouth. ‘Rest assured, my lips are sealed.’ He reaches for a slice of toast and coats it liberally with blackcurrant jam. Asante feels his stomach start to rumble.

‘Go on then,’ Sandford says, his mouth half full. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘How does Professor Fisher get on with her students?’ asks Quinn.

Sandford nods slowly, chewing all the while. ‘She’s very popular. Being a media star no doubt helps – sprinkles a bit of fairy dust. Oh yes, she has quite the little following.’

‘What about her colleagues?’ asks Asante. ‘Does she inspire the same admiration there?’

Sandford considers. ‘That’s rather more nuanced, shall we say. No one questions her technical competence, but this is Oxford; excellence merely gets you to first base.’

‘What do they think about her public profile?’ continues Asante. ‘Is that seen as a good thing?’

Sandford gives him a narrow look. ‘Well, the “official” line is that having a woman of Marina’s standing on the staff can only be a good thing. And if it helps attract girls to the subject, so much the better. Getting the stats up on female applicants is still an unholy grail for every STEM faculty.’

Quinn raises an eyebrow. ‘And the “unofficial” line?’

Sandford puts down his toast and wipes his hands on a piece of kitchen paper. ‘There are those who think she’s too flashy, and her rather – shall we say – idiosyncratic style of dress doesn’t exactly help. Not that she appears to care, but that’s Marina all over.’

‘In my experience,’ says Asante carefully, ‘academic life can be very competitive –’

Sandford is already laughing. ‘My God, out of the mouths of babes. The average Oxford department, Detective Constable, is a very small pond overstocked with piranhas the size of elks. And the fact that they’re so rare only serves to make the female of the species that much deadlier.’

Asante and Quinn exchange a glance.

Sandford gets up and goes over to the coffee machine. ‘Safe to say, Marina’s most vocal detractors are almost certainly motivated by envy, and almost always other women. One of them famously referred to her as “the sort of marina where the wisest option is a wide berth”.’

He gives them a heavy look, turns to the switch and flips it on. The kitchen fills with the thudding gurgle of the machine. Quinn makes a point of staring at the empty mugs, but it cuts no ice with Sandford. He collects his coffee then comes over and joins them again.

Asante takes a deep breath; here comes the point of no return. They’re going to have to trust Sandford to keep his mouth shut from now on, and his demeanour so far has hardly inspired much confidence. ‘Have there ever been any allegations against Professor Fisher that you’re aware of? In connection with her teaching role?’

Sandford looks intrigued. ‘What sort of “allegations”?’

He stares at them, a stare that turns into a gape as the silence lengthens and he finally realizes what they must be getting at. ‘Fuck me,’ he says. ‘You are joking, I take it?’

‘Just answer the question, please.’

Sandford sits back a little. ‘Well, if you actually mean what I think you mean, the whole bloody idea is preposterous. Marina has no shortage of male company as far as I can see, and even if she did, she’s just not that bloody stupid.’

Asante quietly makes a note, trying to give the impression that this is all perfectly routine, but without any confidence that he’s managing to pull it off.

‘I believe there was a fundraising dinner on Friday night,’ says Quinn. ‘At Balliol. Were you present?’

Sandford nods. ‘Of course. And if you’re going to ask about Marina, she completely aced it. Had the bigwigs eating out of her hand, especially our Chinese friends. They couldn’t get enough of her. And that dress – what did they say about Nicole Kidman that time? – “pure theatrical Viagra”. At one point during dessert the Vice-Chancellor was heard to mutter that they should have asked for double.’

‘That sort of success won’t have endeared her much to her female colleagues either, I imagine.’

Sandford smiles drily. ‘No doubt. But as it happens, she was the only woman present.’

Asante nods slowly; easy to see what an adrenaline hit that would have been. Fisher must have felt invincible. Invincible enough – and uninhibited enough by all that alcohol – to assume she could ask for anything else she happened to want, and expect to get it?

He clears his throat. ‘Professor Fisher has admitted to us that she was drinking at the dinner.’

Sandford raises his eyebrows. ‘We were all drinking.’

‘Were any photographs taken?’

Sandford gives a quick frown. ‘Some, I think. I didn’t have my phone with me, but a couple were posted on the faculty WhatsApp group yesterday.’

‘And you’re on that?’

Sandford nods. ‘For my sins. I take it you want to see?’

‘If you don’t mind, sir.’

Sandford fishes about under the scatter of Sunday papers and unearths the phone. ‘Here you go. Usual sort of stuff.’

‘Your group’s called “The Vowels”?’ asks Quinn, frowning.

Sandford looks smug. ‘Artificial and Experimental Intelligence, Oxford University. AEIOU.’

‘Hilarious,’ says Quinn.

Sandford’s still smirking. ‘Thank you, I thought so too.’

Quinn turns back to the phone. There are a couple of formal shots that were probably taken before they went in to eat – a line of men in DJs, monotonously black and white, Fisher queening it in the centre, glittering in her scarlet dress like some sort of tropical insect. She’s turned three-quarters to the camera, one shoulder lowered, as if she’s done this before. The later shots have people with glasses of port in their hands, and Marina is clearly visible in several, talking to a couple of middle-aged men. Her cheeks are slightly flushed and, judging by their faces, both men are captivated by her, though it’s debatable whether it’s her cleavage or her conversation that’s making the greater impact. Quinn scrolls to another picture, stops, then holds out the phone to Asante with a meaningful look. Marina Fisher, mid-gesture, her right hand raised, her sleeve slipping down. She’s not wearing a bracelet and her wrist is completely unmarked.

‘Can you send these to me, sir?’ asks Asante, sliding a business card across the counter.

Sandford shrugs. ‘Sure, knock yourselves out, as our American cousins say.’

Quinn gets to his feet. ‘Unless there’s anything else you think we should know, I think that’s it, thank you. We’ll leave you to your breakfast.’ And get some of our own, he thinks. Thanks for bloody nothing, tosser.

Sandford follows them down the hall to the door.

‘There was one thing –’

‘Oh yes?’ says Quinn, turning back to face him.

‘Who brought this “allegation” against Marina? I don’t think you said.’

‘No,’ says Quinn. ‘We didn’t.’

As they walk back up the Abingdon Road towards St Aldate’s, Asante turns to Quinn. ‘What are the odds this is all over that WhatsApp group before the day is out?’

‘Two to one on,’ says Quinn grimly.

* * *

It’d take a lot more than wild horses to get Clive Conway to work on a Sunday under normal circumstances, but something about the Fisher case isn’t sitting right, so as soon as his wife is settled outside in the garden with her brother and his family, he slips upstairs to his office and logs on to the TVP server.

He stares at the screen, then sits back, swinging the swivel desk chair slowly from side to side.

He should be feeling pretty pleased with himself right now, with his hunch amply vindicated. But it’s not as simple as that. It rarely is. Because even if what he found is clear enough, the why and the how are going to take a lot more explaining.

His wife is calling up the stairs to him now, wondering where he’s got to, reminding him about lighting the barbecue.

He leans forward, grabs the landline phone and starts to dial.

* * *

The porter scans down the list. ‘Cornwallis Building. Up the street, turn right. Number six.’

Freya Hughes is at one of the specialist graduate colleges, assembled half a century before from a scatter of Victorian houses and a dining hall purpose-built on one of the back gardens. Everett hasn’t been here before, but it seems nice enough. Though she can imagine the more self-important overseas applicants dismissing it as insufficiently ‘Oxford’.

Hughes’ room is on the top floor of a modern annexe behind the main buildings. It looks tired, the concrete streaked and stained, and some of the double-glazing clearly blown. Funny, thinks Ev, as she knocks on the door, how none of the university’s modern buildings ever quite manage to live up to what was already there. And as for that metal armadillo thing on the Woodstock Road –

‘Yes?’

The girl at the door is petite and blonde, with fair skin that must be a sore trial in temperatures like these and eyelashes so pale they’re almost invisible. She’s holding on to the door, opening it only as far as she has to. She looks not exactly hostile but careful, guarded.

Everett holds out her warrant card. ‘DC Verity Everett. I’m here about Caleb Morgan.’

‘Oh, yes. Caleb. Of course. Come in.’

She has a nice view. The back of one of the Victorian houses, landscaped into a neat paved area with wooden seating and shrubs and a brick barbecue. The room itself could do with higher ceilings, but it has an en suite and decent carpet. Like the rest of the place, ‘nice enough’. Perhaps they should have that as the college motto. In Latin, obviously.

Everett takes the desk chair and Hughes perches on the window seat. There’s a mobile phone on the desk, but as soon as she sees Everett glance at it Hughes gets up quickly and moves it further away.

Everett takes out her notebook. ‘Caleb is your boyfriend, right?’

Hughes nods.

‘How long have you been together?’

‘About nine months.’

Ev makes a note. ‘And I think he came to see you on Friday night – about what happened?’

Another nod. ‘He wasn’t going to do anything about it, but I said it was all wrong. That she should never have behaved that way.’

‘And “she” would be Professor Fisher?’

‘She takes liberties. Not just the babysitting. Other things. She thinks she can get away with it because of who she is. Because she’s a woman and gets so much attention.’

‘Do you know Professor Fisher? You’re doing a different subject, I think? English, was it?’

The girl blinks. ‘Yes. And no, I don’t know her. I’ve seen her, of course. Around the place. It’s hard not to.’

The words alone suggest bitterness, but Hughes’ tone is remarkably matter-of-fact and her body betrays no emotion. She’s just sitting there, her hands grasped in her lap.

‘When you saw Caleb on Friday night, what did he tell you?’

‘He said she’d come on to him. That he’d said no, but she took no notice.’

‘Do you know if he’s spoken to anyone else about this?’

She shifts her position slightly. ‘He told his mother.’

Ev makes a note. ‘He did that here, when you were with him?’

She nods. ‘I pushed him to. And she agreed with me – that he shouldn’t just let it drop.’

Ev watches her for a moment. It’s hard to see her being anything other than envious of Fisher – her position, her prominence, her sheer power. Add to that a liberal dose of sexual jealousy and pretty much anything is possible.

But that doesn’t mean she’s not telling the truth.

* * *

There’s a point, on the road back from Southampton, when Somer starts to feel she’s nearly home. The rise over the Ridgeway, the subtle change in the landscape that marks the sweep down to Oxford. She’s done the drive dozens of times since she started seeing Giles, and this moment, like the scenery, has always faced two ways. Backwards, to missing him; and forwards to work and everything she values about her own separate life. Today, for the first time, she’s looking only one way. She’s not going to think about what she’s left behind.

As she passes the turn-off for Compton and East Ilsley she grips the steering wheel a little tighter and puts her foot down.

* * *

Fuck I just had the police here

Shit

What did they say?

Just asked about Caleb. And that bitch F

What she did to him

That’s all?

Nothing else?

No. I’m prob just overreacting. If they knew anything they’d have said

You still want to go ahead?

Yeah yeah we’re good

Like I said, I’m just panicking

There’s no way they could’ve found out

OK leave it with me

And delete this

* * *

Adam Fawley

8 July 2018

10.20

Alex was still asleep when I left for the gym and I decided not to wake her. She needs rest more than I need to demonstrate my keeper credentials by making her breakfast. But I do pick up two cappuccinos and a couple of almond croissants from her favourite place on my way back from the gym. Though as it turns out, I’m wasting my time.

The first thing I notice when I push open the front door is the smell of coffee; the second is the sound of voices. And it’s not the radio. There’s someone here.

I drop my keys on the hall table and my bag on the floor, and walk through to the back. Alex is sitting at the kitchen table in one of my old T-shirts, her feet bare, her hair twisted up in a loose knot, and in front of her, yet another bowl of that kids’ cereal she can’t get enough of at the moment. I tease her about it all the time but she just looks arch and says I should thank my lucky stars it’s something so bland (and she has a point – with Jake, it was kippers).

Opposite her, her hands wrapped around my Mr Perfect mug (and yes, that is a joke), is a woman. I’ve seen her before. Emma something. She was at the same college as Alex years ago, but there isn’t really a word for what they are now – not exactly friends but a bit more than acquaintances. She works for the council fostering and adoption service. Last year, when a couple of local builders found a traumatized young woman locked in a basement with her eighteen-month-old son, it was Emma who arranged for Alex and me to foster him for a few weeks. Though lest you should think I really am Mr Perfect I should say at once that it was against my better judgement, and, I suspect, against Emma’s too, though we never discussed it. It was my wife’s idea, and she is both very persistent and very persuasive. And if you know about that case, and that little boy, and you’re wondering what happened to him, Brandon is doing well. He’s with long-term foster parents who are hoping to adopt him. It’s not my case any more, but I keep in touch. I don’t have to, but I do.

‘Adam, you remember Emma, don’t you?’

We smile at each other, a little awkwardly. I’m uncomfortably aware that I didn’t shower at the gym and even my own wife wouldn’t want a clincher with me right now. So I just stand there, trying not to look like an oaf.

I raise a hand. ‘Hi.’

Emma’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She has long strawberry-blonde hair and a pair of silver hoop earrings that she keeps fiddling with. I seem to remember her hair being darker the last time I saw her, but it’s been quite a while. I could be wrong.

‘Emma just popped by to drop off a present for the baby,’ says Alex, levering herself out of her chair. I see now there’s a white teddy bear sitting on the worktop beside her. It has a red bow tie and that slightly imploring look soft toys always manage to have.

‘We were just having a bit of a catch-up –’

I start to back out of the kitchen. ‘Great – absolutely. Totally fine by me.’ I gesture towards the stairs. ‘I’ll just, you know, have a shower. Take your time.’

* * *

‘Bloody hell,’ says Baxter, sitting back in his chair. He’d had his earphones in but he’s pulled them out now and is looking round at the rest of the team. ‘I think you lot need to hear this.’

Quinn and Asante have only just got back from seeing Sandford – Quinn’s still in the process of hanging up his jacket – but they all know Baxter, and if he says there’s something, there’s something.

‘What you got?’ asks Quinn as they start to gather round.

‘I had a call a while back from Clive Conway,’ says Baxter. ‘He’s got the results on the prints at Fisher’s house. Nothing on the champagne glasses, as expected, but there were prints on the bottle. Both Fisher’s and Morgan’s.’

Quinn frowns. ‘But they both said Morgan was the one who opened it, didn’t they? So where does that get us?’

Baxter shakes his head. ‘It’s not just that. Apparently when Conway fished the bottle out of the bin, there was a whole load of broken glass in there too – and it was right at the top, so it couldn’t have been in there very long.’

‘So?’ says Ev, looking increasingly mystified.

‘So, it turns out it was another wine bottle – prosecco, Conway said. And there were prints on that too. Two different sets. One lot were Morgan’s, but the others are unidentified. But one thing we do know – they’re definitely not Marina Fisher’s.’

Quinn’s still frowning. ‘And? Am I missing something?’

But Baxter hasn’t finished. ‘The only reason Conway bagged it up in the first place was because he remembered there were bits of broken glass on the front step when he arrived. Exactly the same broken glass. There can’t be many ways that got there, can there? Not in that part of town. So barring a clumsy supermarket driver –’

Ev gives him a dry look. ‘Oh yeah, fat chance. Trust me, Marina Fisher’s Ocado list does not include prosecco. I doubt she’d even allow it in the house.’

Baxter raises an eyebrow. ‘My thoughts exactly. So I did a bit of digging of my own.’

He leans forward and reaches for his keyboard. ‘And as it turns out, a woman called Pat Hart rang 101 at just after nine the night of the dinner. She was on her way to meet a friend at the Playhouse bar.’

He turns up the volume and presses play.

Caller: Hello? I’m ringing because there’s some sort of incident going on at St Luke Street.

Call handler: What sort of incident, madam?

Caller: There’s a man and a blonde woman arguing in the street. I just went by in a cab and they were really going at it. It looked to me like she’d had quite a lot to drink – she had a bottle in one hand and was waving it about.

Call handler: Has there been any sort of physical altercation?

Caller: I couldn’t see that much just going past, but I did see him pushing her. Pretty hard, from what I could see – and he’s quite a big bloke too.

[background noises]

Hang on a minute – the cab’s dropped me off now and I’m walking back. I think I just heard the sound of breaking glass.

Call handler: I’m arranging for an officer to attend –

Caller: No, hold on – they’re not there any more.

Call handler: They’ve gone into one of the houses?

Caller: I don’t know – not that I can see. They were right there, on the corner, but they’re not there now and I can’t see where they went. Sorry – I didn’t mean to waste your time.

Call handler: No, that’s absolutely fine. It’s what we’re here for. Could you just hold the line a moment, please, so I can take your details.

Baxter presses pause and there’s an audible release of breath. Because even if the caller didn’t give the exact address, they all know who she was talking about.

Caleb Morgan and Freya Hughes.

Ev looks around, her eyes wide. ‘I was at her place less than an hour ago, asking about that night, and she never said a bloody word about this.’

‘It’s not just that, though, is it,’ says Asante quietly. ‘What that caller described – the pushing, the fact that Freya was drunk – it’s exactly what Morgan said happened with Marina Fisher barely two hours later.’

Quinn is nodding. ‘So either he shoved two different women that night –’

‘Not impossible,’ says Ev. ‘Sadly.’

‘– or he’s manipulating the memory,’ finishes Asante. ‘Using the detail of a real incident to create a better fake one.’ He looks at the others. ‘You know what they say – best way to get away with a lie? Wrap it up in a whole lot of truth.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

8 July 2018

13.45

‘What do you want to eat?’

Emma stayed another two hours in the end. I don’t know what they were talking about but it sounded pretty intense from where I was. But then again, that was out in the garden, so I didn’t hear it all. Enough, though, to stop me crashing in to get myself some food, and as a result I’m now borderline hypoglycaemic.

‘There’s some cold chicken,’ says Alex, staring into the fridge. ‘And those avocados could do with eating too.’

Frankly, right now, I’d give my right arm for pie and chips.

‘Everything OK with Emma?’ I say it mostly to be polite, but Alex glances at me and gives a heavy sigh.

‘She’s having a bit of a hard time right now.’

I’m frowning, trying to remember something. ‘Hasn’t she got a new bloke, or am I making that up?’

Alex takes the mayonnaise out of the fridge and reaches towards the cutlery drawer for a spoon. ‘She had a new relationship. Past tense. Last time I saw her she was really excited about it, but looks like it’s all fallen apart already. She’s always had zero luck in that department.’

I make what I hope are the appropriate sympathetic noises.

‘And I know she’d like to have kids too.’

She doesn’t say any more. She doesn’t have to. Emma’s the same age as Alex. It’s the eleventh hour for her, just as it was for us. Only our miracle happened.

I move across and wrap my arms around my wife. She jumps a little and I assume it’s my fault for surprising her, but then she reaches for my hand and places it gently over her belly, smiling up into my face.

‘Looks like there are three of us in this hug.’

* * *

‘Caleb?’

The line is crackling and breaking up, but he recognizes the voice.

‘Hi, Mum.’

‘I just wanted to check in – see how you’re doing.’

He frowns; there’s a delay on the line. An international delay that shouldn’t be there. ‘I thought you were due back today?’

A sigh. Or perhaps it’s just more interference. ‘I’m sorry, darling, something’s come up here. I can’t get to see the senator until Friday. But I’ve managed to get some other meetings in, and given it’s the recess, there’s no need to rush back.’

His turn to sigh. Clearly he doesn’t qualify as a ‘need’.

‘Have you spoken to your father?’

He rolls his eyes. ‘No. They’re still in Sydney. You know that.’

‘No need to take that tone,’ she says crisply. ‘At least I’m trying to do something. No doubt he’s too busy being hipster dad to have time to support his firstborn.’

He bites his tongue. His mother is no less absent than his father, it’s just a different sort of distance. But he knows from experience there’s no point saying so.

‘Now,’ she says, ‘I’ve spoken to Meredith – talked her through the whole thing – and they’re going to call you, OK?’

And now he feels like a shit, because she has, for once, actually done something. ‘Thanks, Mum. Appreciate it.’

‘Only the best for you, my darling,’ she says, with more than a whiff of singed martyr. ‘You’ll be in good hands – Meredith has a ton of experience in cases like this. So just do whatever she tells you, OK? And don’t let yourself be bullied, either. Far too many victims back down because the police and CPS make it too damn ghastly to carry on.’

He smiles quietly. ‘Don’t worry about me, Mum. I’ve got it covered.’

* * *

Freya Hughes is hostile even before the door is fully open. ‘What’s this about? I’ve already told you everything I know.’

Ev gives a heavy sigh. ‘No you haven’t, and you know it. So are you going to let me in or would you prefer to do this at St Aldate’s? Either’s fine by me.’

Hughes’ eyes widen for a moment, then she releases her grip on the door.

Ev follows her inside and Hughes turns to face her, folding her arms.

‘When I was here earlier, I asked you about Marina Fisher and you said, “I don’t know her.”’

She frowns.

‘But you do, don’t you? You certainly know where she lives. You were seen there on Friday night.’

She looks guarded, clearly unsure quite how much Ev knows. ‘So?’

‘So you never said anything about it. Why not?’

Hughes shrugs. ‘It wasn’t any of your business. It still isn’t.’

‘Oh, I think it is, don’t you?’ says Ev wearily. ‘Your boyfriend makes an allegation of assault, and you don’t mention that you were round there only two hours before, rowing in the street.’

‘It wasn’t rowing –’

‘Well, pick your own word, but whatever it was, it was serious enough for a member of the public to call 101 and report it.’

Hughes turns away. ‘I was just annoyed, that’s all. We were supposed to go out that night but then Caleb cancelled at the last minute so he could do her bloody babysitting.’

‘You were jealous.’

‘Yeah, I was jealous,’ she says acidly. ‘Happy now?’

‘So you turned up with a bottle of wine, thinking you could still spend some time together? But I’m guessing he wasn’t expecting you.’

She looks sulky. ‘It was supposed to be a surprise, wasn’t it.’

‘But he wouldn’t let you in.’

Her expression hardens. ‘He said he was working. That he didn’t want to be disturbed. Even by me.’

‘Especially as you were rather drunk already.’

There’s a silence. Then Hughes sits down heavily on the window seat.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’d had a few with my mates before I got there. But I wasn’t drunk.’

‘But he still didn’t want you in the house.’

She looks away. ‘He said I might wake up Tobin. That Marina wouldn’t like it.’ Her sarcasm is venomous.

‘And he pushed you away. Quite hard, from what the 101 caller said.’

Her eyes narrow and she’s suddenly wary. ‘Well, they’re wrong. He never touched me.’

‘The caller was pretty sure. And she had no reason to lie.’

Even if you do. The unspoken words echo in the room.

‘Like I said,’ she says. ‘It never happened.’

Ev breathes an inward sigh. How many times has she heard women say this? Women who’ve ‘fallen down the stairs’, ‘walked into a door’.

‘You do know that would be common assault, don’t you? Pushing someone like that?’

‘Oh, please.’

‘I’m serious. Just because you’re clever and educated and well off, doesn’t mean you can’t be a victim. Domestic violence can happen to anyone. And it often starts just like this – with things that seem trivial, only then there’s a next time, and a next –’

‘Are you thick or something? There won’t be a next time, because there wasn’t a first time.’

Ev makes a note, and takes her time doing it.

‘So you smashed the bottle you’d brought and stormed off.’

Hughes’ gaze flickers away, but she says nothing. This, at least, she can’t deny.

‘And then later that same night, he’s on your doorstep, telling you he’s been assaulted. By the same woman you’d been jealous of for months and whose house you weren’t even allowed into only a few hours before. How did that feel?’

Hughes flushes. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘What was it like then?’

‘He needed someone to talk to – he wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘And you advised him to report her?’

‘Of course I did. She tried to assault him. He had those scratches – he looked absolutely terrible. Aren’t the police always telling people to come forward – that too many abusers get away with it because crimes like this don’t get reported? Why should it be different just because it’s a bloke?’

Ev nods. ‘Yes, you’re right, we do say that. But false allegations are just as damaging as failing to make an allegation at all – arguably, more so. So I’m going to ask you straight – did you encourage him to exaggerate what happened or falsify it in any way?’

‘No.’

‘Even though this woman had been monopolizing your boyfriend? Even though you admit how angry you were?’

‘No. I didn’t. I told him to go to the college and tell them the truth.’ She holds Ev’s gaze. ‘Just like I’m doing now.’ She slides off the window seat and stands up. ‘And I’d like you to leave now, please. I have nothing else to say.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

8.45

When I get to the office the following morning Quinn’s already got a whiteboard going. Blown-up pictures of Caleb Morgan and Freya Hughes that look like they come from their student ID cards, four or five snaps from the Balliol dinner, a couple of them a bit unfocused. Not unlike most of the attendees, I imagine, by the end. Quinn’s stuck a Post-it with an arrow on it next to one of them. It’s pointing at Marina Fisher’s wrist.

He comes up behind me as I’m standing there.

‘I take it you heard the 101 call?’

I nod; he emailed the recording over yesterday afternoon.

‘So, do we talk to Morgan?’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t see much point – Hughes is refusing to corroborate what the caller said and she’s bound to have told him Ev went to see her by now. He’s just going to come out with exactly the same story.’

‘Makes a difference, though, doesn’t it? To the allegation? Assuming we all agree Hughes is talking bullshit and he did actually push her, are we really supposed to believe he did exactly the same thing twice in the same night?’

I shrug. ‘We can’t prove he didn’t. Perhaps he does that sort of thing to women all the time. And even if he did push Hughes, it doesn’t mean he wasn’t assaulted by Fisher. But you’re right about one thing – we can’t afford to base this whole case solely on Morgan’s word. We couldn’t before and we certainly can’t now. So – what have we got?’

He makes a resigned face. ‘Not much. I managed to speak to a few of Fisher’s old colleagues at Imperial last night. The blokes were generally positive – thought she was great at her job, breath of fresh air, just what the department needed, blah blah blah. None of them bought the assault thing – the basic line was Fisher could fuck any bloke she liked so why bother trying to break into Morgan’s jockeys. I’m paraphrasing, of course.’

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that from sexual predators over the years: ‘I can have any woman I want – I don’t need to rape anybody.’ It never got any of them off the hook and it shouldn’t be a get-out-of-jail card for Fisher either. Or am I just being naive? The law is blind, or ought to be, but sexual politics aren’t symmetrical. Perhaps that simply isn’t possible, however hard we try to rebalance the scales. Remember that old Joe Jackson song? Right or wrong, right and wrong, it’s different for girls.

‘And the women she worked with?’

Quinn makes a face. ‘There were only two. One of them said she might have taken Fisher rather more seriously if she hadn’t insisted on dressing like a prostitute.’

Yet another comment about her clothes. I can only assume she does it deliberately, to get a reaction. Does she really not care how divisive that reaction is?

‘Take it from me,’ says Quinn, ‘“fans of Marina Fisher” is the country’s last remaining men-only club.’

I swing round to face the rest of the room. Baxter, Asante, Ev, and now, just coming through the door, Somer. She looks a bit flustered from being almost late, but tanned from a weekend in the sun and the wind. She’s caught the sun and it suits her, but she doesn’t look rested. She just looks stressed.

‘Nice to see you, DC Somer – have you had a chance to get up to speed?’

She nods. ‘Yes, sir. DC Everett sent me over some stuff last night.’

My phone pings. Bryan Gow is in reception.

‘OK, everyone, while we wait for the DNA let’s see if we can make any progress on the digital side.’ I look around. ‘And at the risk of repeating myself, Caleb Morgan’s mother is going to be all over this sooner or later, and my money’s on sooner. So do me a favour and keep up to date on the paperwork, all right?’

* * *

JosephAndrews2018

@JosephAndrews2018

9.17

Sending love & solidarity to a friend of mine who’s a #sexualabuse victim at #OxfordUni. Abuse BY a professor ON a student. But this time the #abuser was a woman & the #victim was a GUY. This affects everyone, people. WHOEVER you are

#NOmeansNO #MeToo #HeToo

1 7 24

Annie Dexter

@Adex201918

9.19

Replying to @JosephAndrews2018

This makes me so angry – no-one shd suffer this, men or women. I hope the uni authorities are being supportive & actually *believing* them. There’s also loads of support services out there – Samaritans, Nightline, the OU Students Union

#sexualabuseaffectseveryone #MeToo #HeToo

3 5 35

Michaela Mitchell

@1010101MM

9.22

Replying to @JosephAndrews2018 @Adex201918

12 THOUSAND men suffered sexual abuse in the UK last year, and a significant number of the perpetrators were women. It’s not common, but it *does happen*

End #sexualabusebythoseinpower #MeToo AND #HeToo

1 2 2

Lorna Bartholomew

@9_9_Starfish

9.22

Replying to @JosephAndrews2018

When was this incident? I’m involved in the @OxASV campaign and I’ve asked around but no one I know has heard anything about it. Are the police involved?

#OxfordAgainstSexualViolence #MeToo #HeToo

4 6 11

JosephAndrews2018

@JosephAndrews2018

9.28

Replying to @9_9_Starfish

A few days ago. The police are def on it though whether they’re getting anywhere is another matter. Let’s just say ‘she’ is *very* prominent

Lorna Bartholomew

@9_9_Starfish

9.29

Replying to @JosephAndrews2018

And how is he? Is he getting help?

JosephAndrews2018

@JosephAndrews2018

9.29

Replying to @9_9_Starfish

Yeah, doing OK at the moment

Oxford Against Sexual Violence

@OxASV

9.29

Hearing reports of a serious sexual assault on a male student by a female academic. If you still need proof that #sexualviolenceaffectseveryone this is it. Let’s stand strong with the men who’ve been on the receiving end of this #abuse and get the #HeToo hashtag trending

#VictHIM

27 65 352

Back at his desk, Andrew Baxter rolls up his sleeves. In every sense. It’s not as hot as it was over the weekend but the office has no air con and the creaky fan in the corner is just circulating hot air. He cracks open a cold Red Bull and picks up Marina Fisher’s phone.

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

9.34

Bryan Gow is looking irritatingly fresh in a cream jacket and chinos, neither of which I’ve seen before. He has new glasses too, and – even more startling – a decent haircut. We’ve worked together for more than five years, but his personal life is still an enigma to me. I’ve always assumed he had far too many time-consuming geeky bloke hobbies to have room for a relationship, but this new look of his may suggest I’m wrong. Who knows, perhaps there really is a woman out there who put ‘Maths-obsessed trainspotting Civil-War re-enactor’ under WLTM.

‘Interesting,’ he says, looking up from the file. ‘This one’s hardly business as usual, is it?’

I make a face. ‘It’s a high-wire act over a bloody minefield. Morgan’s mother is Petra Newson.’

His eyes widen. ‘Ah. I see. Shit.’

I give a grim laugh. ‘Yup, all of the above.’

‘So you want me to review the interviews?’

I open up my laptop. ‘Fisher’s, particularly. Asante thinks something is off. Says her body language is all wrong. But there could be all sorts of assumptions at play here. See above under “minefield”.’

‘True, but DC Asante is a bright lad. Let’s have a look, shall we?’

* * *

‘I don’t know, you just look a bit – off, that’s all.’

They’re in the ladies’ loo on the first floor. Somer is leaning back against the basins and Everett’s by the window, watching her friend and trying to decide if she should be worried. Somer has seemed so much happier since she started seeing Giles Saumarez. Ev’s only met him once, but he seemed almost too good to be true, especially after that ill-advised fling Somer had with the undeniably attractive but calamitously unsuitable Gareth Quinn. Saumarez is in the job as well, so he understands the pressures, but not in the same force, which in Ev’s opinion is a far safer idea (not that she’s ever tried it). Giles is good-looking, considerate, supportive, funny. What’s not to like? The only wisp of a cloud on the horizon was the imminent arrival of his two teenage daughters, coming from Canada for a three-week holiday. Ev knows Somer’s been apprehensive about meeting them, and she was definitely much less enthusiastic than usual about going down to Southampton this weekend. Is that what this is all about?

‘If it’s the girls,’ she begins, ‘then it’s completely understandable –’

Somer shakes her head. ‘It’s not that.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘A job’s come up. In Hampshire. Giles thinks I should apply.’

Ev’s eyes widen. ‘What sort of job?’

‘In the Domestic Violence Unit. They can’t say so publicly but Giles knows they’d really like to appoint a woman and there aren’t many obvious candidates in-house. And if I got it, they’d fast-track me through my sergeant’s exams.’

‘Sounds like you’d be mad not to give it a go. What have you got to lose?’

Somer looks away. ‘I don’t know. It just seems like a huge upheaval. I’d have to move – find somewhere to live –’

Ev frowns. ‘But you’d be living with Giles, surely? Isn’t that the whole point?’

Somer shrugs. ‘I don’t know. He’s talked about the job but he hasn’t said anything about that.’

‘Well, perhaps that’s just because he doesn’t think he needs to?’ Ev takes a step forward. ‘Look, you’ve got a lot on your plate. You haven’t been in CID that long, and then there’s you and Giles, the girls coming over. You’d be a bit weird if you weren’t wondering whether upping sticks and relocating your whole life is really that great an idea. But sleep on it for a bit – there’s no need to make a decision right away, is there?’

Somer sighs. ‘No. There’s time.’

‘Right, then. Just focus on the girls coming over for now. That’s more than enough to be going on with.’

Somer smiles. ‘I’m sorry – you’re right. It’s a great opportunity. I’m probably just overthinking it, as usual. I’m fine. Honestly.’

Ev gives her arm a quick squeeze. ‘Well, you know where I am if you want a chat. Whenever, OK?’

After she’s gone Somer turns and stares at her reflection for a long time. The woman in the mirror doesn’t look like someone on the threshold of an exciting new chapter. She doesn’t look fine, either. She doesn’t look ‘fine’ at all.

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

10.57

I lean forward and press pause. The video freezes mid-frame. Marina Fisher and her lawyer, and facing them, me. Asante isn’t in the shot. Kennedy is saying something; Marina has her hands folded quietly on the table in front of her.

‘So, what do you think?’

Gow sits back. ‘Fascinating. Fisher’s a piece of work, isn’t she.’

I raise an eyebrow. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘And the clothes – the little-girl-lost look – is that the sort of thing she normally wears?’

I laugh drily. ‘Er, no. One of her former colleagues described her as dressing like a call girl.’

His eyes widen. ‘Ow. Or rather me-ow.’

‘Quite.’

‘I imagine that makes collegiate life a mite abrasive at times.’

‘It’s not making this case any easier either.’

‘And you want to know if she’s telling the truth?’

‘Well, is she?’

He gives me a narrow look. ‘Not entirely, no.’

* * *

Oxford Against Sexual Violence

@OxASV

10.02

This latest #Oxford incident is a timely reminder that #sexualviolenceaffectseveryone, men AND women. Pls RT to show support

#HeToo #VictHIM

62 211 677

Ricky Jamieson

@Hatrick333

10.02

I was assaulted by my female professor too. It was ten years ago and I never had the courage to #speakout. Standing with the #OxfordVictim today

#HeToo #VictHIM

11 48 97

Darren Jessop

@COYSboy4evva

10.04

Replying to @Hatrick333

It happened to #MeToo. Blokes are too embarrassed to speak out because people might think they’re weak. And as for the cops – forget it. I never said anything either and it f*cked me up for years. But I’m doing it now

#HeToo #VictHIM

17 35 71

Rupert Deller

@DellaFellaxx1313

10.05

Replying to @Hatrick333 @COYSboy4evva @OxASV

Tagging @SurvivorsUK too – they do amazing work supporting sexually abused boys & men & their families

#standupandspeakup #HeToo #VictHIM

27 51 75

Shirley Farrell

@3579littlewhiteline

10.06

Replying to @Hatrick333 @COYSboy4evva @OxASV @DellaFellaxx1313

I’m a #rapesurvivor too. My attacker was over 6 feet and 17 stone. There was nothing I could do. It’s not the same for men – it just isn’t

#womenagainstviolenceagainstwomen

1

Oxford Against Sexual Violence

@OxASV

10.07

Replying to @3579littlewhiteline

Your experience must have been truly horrific. But men really can experience sexual violence too. The nature of it may be different, but it’s just as real for the victims. Hope you’re getting the support you need

#sexualabuseaffectseveryone

Kath Beecham

@KathyLatte_73065

10.07

Replying to @Hatrick333 @COYSboy4evva @OxASV @DellaFellaxx1313

What worries me is the prospect of this story getting picked up and used by the male violence apologists and woman-haters. It’ll be meat and drink to them, sadly

7 5 9

Oxford Against Sexual Violence

@OxASV

10.08

So moved and proud of the guys speaking up about their experiences of #sexualharassment on campus today

#standupandspeakup #endvictimblaming #sexualabuseaffectseveryone

#HeToo #VictHIM

199 442 1.1k

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

11.20

Gow rewinds the tape, then plays it again, slow motion now, the sound on mute. I watch, frame by frame. Fisher keeps eye contact, her hands still calm in front of her. There’s no tell-tale fidgeting, no foot tapping. Her body is controlled, her movements minimal.

‘And this,’ says Gow, ‘is where you ask her how the dress got damaged. Watch how she replies.’

On the screen, I see Fisher pause, then mouth ‘I don’t remember’. That’s all. Gow presses stop, rewind and play, slowing it down even more. ‘Did you see it that time?’

‘What am I looking for?’

‘Just before she speaks there’s a minute nod of the head – it’s almost imperceptible, but it’s there. Her words say one thing, but her body says something else. In general, her physical composure is pretty impressive, but a micro-gesture like that, it’s beyond the control of the conscious mind. Even if the mind in question does belong to an Oxford professor.’

‘So you think she does remember how the dress got damaged, she just doesn’t want to say so?’

‘That would be my guess, yes.’

‘But when she says she can’t remember any physical contact with Morgan, that’s genuine?’

‘Yes,’ he says slowly, but he’s frowning now, and so am I. There’s something here that’s not adding up.

Gow hesitates then sits forward. ‘Do you by any chance have Morgan’s tape?’

* * *

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

11.52

I load the disk and we watch, and then Gow rewinds it and plays it again, before pressing pause, sitting back and giving me an enquiring look. And now I know what I’m looking for, I can see it myself. Marina Fisher isn’t the only one who isn’t telling the whole truth. There’s something about that night Caleb Morgan doesn’t want to admit either. To me, to his girlfriend, perhaps even to himself.

I just have to find out what it is.

There’s a knock at the door.

Quinn.

‘Sorry to barge in, boss, but there are some people downstairs to see you.’

I frown. ‘Can’t you deal with it?’

He shakes his head. ‘Tried that. They’re not having it.’

He hands me a couple of business cards. Thick, textured paper stock, a confident, understated logo. A City law firm so prestigious even I’ve heard of them. And these people are both partners. I was expecting a top-end Oxford outfit but Petra Newson has gone straight for SWAT.

‘OK,’ I say, ‘show them into the first-floor meeting room, will you?’

He raises an eyebrow. ‘You’re putting them in the cheap seats?’

I give him a look. ‘We don’t want them getting too comfortable, do we?’

* * *

‘Anything interesting?’

Baxter looks up. Somer’s standing behind him, looking over his shoulder.

He gestures at the phone. ‘Ev was right about the prosecco. Marina Fisher buys her wine by the case from Berry Brothers & Rudd. She also spends at least a grand a month on clothes and has over ten thousand Twitter followers, how’s that for starters?’

Somer nods. ‘Doesn’t surprise me. Any of it.’ She seems distracted, fiddling with the end of her hair.

‘Apart from that,’ says Baxter, ‘I haven’t got much. Though as far as I can see there wasn’t anything going on between Morgan and Fisher before all this blew up.’

Somer moves round and stands in front of him. ‘What difference would that make?’

She’s staring at him, her fists clenched, and he blinks; where the hell has this come from? It’s not like her. ‘It’s just that –’

‘You think if you’re in a relationship with someone you don’t get to say no? Is that it?’

Baxter’s gone red now; he can sense Asante out of the corner of his eye. He’d been typing but he isn’t any more. He’s staring at them. The room is gradually falling silent.

‘Of course not. But it can make a difference – in court – you know that – look what happened with that Met case –’

‘I don’t believe this,’ she says, turning on her heel and walking away. ‘I don’t fucking believe it.’

Baxter stares after her then looks across at Asante. ‘Did I miss something?’

Asante shrugs. ‘Search me.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

12.18

The woman is in a tailored dress, the man in an open-neck white shirt and one of those slim royal-blue suits that seem to be the thing these days. They rise as I enter and we shake hands.

‘Meredith Melia,’ says the woman as I take my seat, ‘and this is my colleague Patrick Dunn. We’re representing Caleb Morgan.’

‘Thank you for the information, but I’m not sure why you’re here. Mr Morgan is the victim of an alleged crime, he doesn’t need “representation”.’

She smiles. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate that Mr Morgan’s family are very concerned that he receive the best possible advice and support.’

‘He’s been offered the assistance of an Independent Sexual Violence Adviser, and he has a dedicated police point of contact. The whole team is working extremely hard on his behalf. I’m not sure what other sort of support Mr Morgan needs that his family can’t provide themselves.’

Another smile. ‘It’s not that simple, though, is it, Inspector? This is a very unusual situation and the issues are both complex and exceptionally sensitive. The family is particularly concerned that Mr Morgan’s privacy should be protected.’

‘You can rest assured that we will treat Mr Morgan with the same respect and consideration that we give everyone else in his position, male or female, and regardless of who their “family” are.’

The lawyers exchange a glance.

‘Perhaps you could take us through the evidence you have assembled thus far?’

‘No.’

‘You’re refusing to do that?’

I sit back. ‘I’m under no obligation to. And if, in due course, I reach a point where I do want to have that conversation, I will have it with Mr Morgan. Whether he wants any of you in the room at the time will be entirely up to him.’

The woman frowns. ‘We were assured of your cooperation –’

‘Really? By whom?’

She opens her mouth to reply but I hear Dunn clear his throat.

‘We’re all on the same side, Inspector. I appreciate you don’t particularly like a bunch of rogue tanks turning up on your lawn but we’re not here to trip you up, get under your feet or generally make your life any harder than it already is. But it strikes us – and we hope you agree – that a policy of full and open communication would minimize the possibility of anything untoward appearing in the press, and make a successful outcome a lot more likely.’

I’m tempted to ask whether their client has also been adhering to that ‘full and open policy’ of theirs, because right now, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Dunn looks at the woman. ‘I think our best course would be to let Detective Inspector Fawley return to his work. There’ll be time enough for a fuller briefing when the DNA results come back.’

I show them back to the front desk and stand there, watching them out through the door and down the street. That comment about the DNA wasn’t a throwaway remark or a lucky guess. It was a message, and not a very subtle one: these people have backchannels and they’re going to use them. They’re giving me a choice: I can do this the hard way or the easy way, but if I know what’s good for me I’ll shut up and play nice.

They’re getting into a car now, a black Merc with tinted windows that’s just stopped on the yellow line a few yards up. As it pulls away into the buses and the bikes, I realize suddenly that there’s someone else in the street. Someone I recognize.

I hesitate a moment, wondering if it’s just a coincidence. But you know by now what I think about coincidences. And as our eyes meet across the traffic, I know I’m right.

We have to wait for a bus to pass, but a few moments later we’re standing face to face on the crowded pavement.

‘Hello, Adam,’ she says.

* * *

Alex Fawley has reached the point in her pregnancy where her baby is a good deal more active than she is. She’s always so tired now, and it’s not just the heat. When Adam’s at work she spends most of the day lying on the bed with the blinds down. She can’t even summon the energy to read, just plugs in her headphones or has the TV on in the background, treating it like radio.

She pours herself a glass of iced water and wanders back into the sitting room. There’s no one parked outside. No one unfamiliar, anyway. Just the Hamiltons’ SUV and the grey Fiat Uno owned by that woman a bit further down whose name Alex still doesn’t know. The white van hasn’t been back. Or at least she doesn’t think it has. But would he really be stupid enough to use a vehicle he knew she’d be looking for? If it was her, she’d go to a rental place. Get something bland and forgettable. And a different one each time, just to make sure. This man isn’t stupid; if he’s using a white van it’s intentional. Because he wants her to know he’s there. To scare her – deliberately scare her –

Her heart quickens and the baby turns, uneasy. She sits down slowly, willing her pulse to slow. Adam keeps asking her if everything’s OK – if she’s seen the van again – and she keeps just smiling and saying no. She doesn’t want him worrying – or starting to think she’s losing her mind. Because it makes no sense, she knows that: Gavin Parrie is miles from here, tagged, monitored, curfewed. But her fear just won’t go away.

She cradles her body now, feeling the baby settle.

‘Don’t worry, sweet one,’ she whispers, the tears gathering in her eyes. ‘You’re safe. Daddy would never let anyone hurt us. You and I are his whole world.’

* * *

Adam Fawley

9 July 2018

14.25

Reynolds can’t see me till gone two. The PA tells me he ‘has a lunch’ so would I ‘come to the Lodgings’. No doubt they want to keep the likes of me from contaminating their hallowed turf. Given I have time on my hands, I opt to walk. Up St Aldate’s and through Cornmarket. The sun is bringing them all out – Jehovah’s Witnesses, a choir of Seventh Day Adventists, the local Islamic centre and a kiosk informing me that ‘The Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing’. Though parching might be a better word, given the temperature. And all of it jumbled up any-old-how with the payday lenders, a stall selling sunglasses and smiley-face cushions, and that carrot-haired regular who plays the bagpipes. (There’s a furious-looking little old lady standing right opposite him with a knotted handkerchief on her head and a placard that says REBUILD HADRIAN’S WALL. That’s Oxford for you – never knowingly under-nuttered.) It’s six-deep in tourist groups most of the way so progress is slow, though at least most of those are managing to keep their clothes on. Unlike the locals, who are going hell for leather into another round of the Great British Kit-Off. If there was a law against raw bloke moobs in a built-up area I’d need to send for reinforcements.

When I get to the lodgings the flunkey at the door shows me through to the garden. Which is, of course, glorious – a green half-acre of lawns and honeysuckle and rose beds tended to within an inch of their lives. There are a couple of blokes there now, weeding and dead-heading. Needless to say, these chaps are keeping their shirts firmly on. As is Reynolds, who’s in a white linen number, sitting under an umbrella with a laptop open in front of him on a mosaic table. He gestures to an adjacent chair.

‘Take a seat, Inspector. I won’t be a moment. Do help yourself to lemonade. My wife makes it – an old family recipe.’

Forcing me to watch him fiddle about with emails is pretty low-grade stuff as power plays go, but the lemonade isn’t bad, so I content myself with the view. Somewhere nearby someone’s playing the piano. Mozart. That’s not bad, either.

‘Right,’ says Reynolds a few moments later, taking off his glasses and pushing the laptop slightly to one side. Though he doesn’t – I note – close it altogether. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘We’re making headway with the inquiry, sir, but I could do with some more background. A clearer picture of both Morgan and Fisher.’

He reaches for his glass. ‘Off the record, you mean.’