I told him that while I appreciated how diligently he would research such a subject, I doubted if I could get it past the university’s board of governors.
Opening my office door, I don’t find him waiting on the row of chairs in the corridor. Instead he’s chatting to Chloe, an undergrad student who answers the phones in the psychology department. Milo is dressed in a James Dean T-shirt, low-slung jeans and Nike trainers. Chloe likes him. Her body language says so - the way her shoulders pull back and she plays with her hair.
‘When you’re ready, Milo,’ I announce.
Chloe gives him a look that says, Next time.
‘Professor O’Loughlin, how’s it hanging?’
‘It’s hanging just fine.’
‘I heard about you being stabbed and I was, like, shocked, you know. I mean, that’s a heavy scene.’
‘Yes, Milo, very heavy.’
He takes a seat opposite my desk, leans forward, elbows on his knees. A long fringe of hair falls across one eye. He brushes it aside, tucking it girlishly behind his ear. Smiling quietly. Beaming.
‘I think I’ve got it: the big idea.’
‘Hit me with it.’
‘Well, I went to see a comedy night last week and I was watching this black dude telling jokes, really edgy stuff, racist, you know. He’s telling nigger jokes and all these white people in the audience are laughing and cheering. I got to wondering what effect racial humour has on prejudice.’
Milo looks at me nervously. Expectantly. Hopefully.
‘I think it’s a great idea.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. How are you going to do it?’
Milo gets to his feet, pacing the room while he lays out his ideas for a cognitive study involving an audience and a series of questions. He’s energised. Animated.
‘So how long do I have?’
‘Start work now and you can update me at the end of November.’
He cocks his head, looking at me with one eye. Milo often looks at me sideways so I never see both his eyes at the same time.
‘That’s only two months.’
‘Sufficient time.’
‘But I got to work out questions. Parameters. Study groups . . .’
This is the other side of Milo’s personality - making excuses, questioning the work involved.
‘Two months is plenty of time. Show me too little and I’ll mark you down as being lazy. Show me too much and I’ll think you’re sucking up to me.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Huh?’
‘You’ve spent four years studying human behaviour. Decide if I’m lying.’
Milo pushes back his fringe. Frowns. Wants to argue.
‘I know what you’re like, Milo. You cruise. You coast. You wear that earring and that T-shirt because you see yourself as a rebel without a cause, channelling the spirit of James Dean. But let me tell you something about Dean. He was the son of a dental technician from Indiana, where he went to a posh school and studied violin and tap dancing.’
Milo looks completely bemused. I put my hand on his shoulder. Lead him to the door. ‘Start your thesis. No more excuses. Show me something by November.’
I watch him disappear along the corridor with his exaggerated slope-shouldered walk. My old headmaster at prep school, Mr Swanson (who looked like God with long white curly hair) would have barked at him, ‘It took a million years for humans to learn to walk upright, Coleman, and you’re taking us back to the trees.’
Coop Regan is sitting nervously on a chair. Dressed in a coat and tie, he has combed his oiled hair across his head and buttoned his jacket as though waiting for a job interview.
This is a completely different man to the one I met four months ago in Edinburgh, hiding away in a dark lounge watching old home movies of his missing daughter. Now clear-eyed and sober, he stands and shakes my hand firmly, holding my gaze.
‘Ah’m sorry to bother you,’ he says, in a voice ravaged by years of smoking. ‘Ah know you’re a busy man.’
‘That’s OK.’
‘We couldn’t go home without saying goodbye.’
‘Where’s Philippa?’
He motions outside. ‘Billy wanted to play. It’s a long old drive home.’
Glancing out the window, I see a young boy running through the trees, being chased by a large woman in a bright green cardigan who is shaped like a fireplug. Philippa has no chance of catching Billy, but she’ll keep on chasing as long as he keeps laughing.
‘Vincent brought us to see you,’ says Coop.
Then I notice Ruiz standing beneath a tree, which has blooms as big as his fists. Billy runs towards him and hides behind him for a moment as though his legs are tree trunks.
‘We’re going to have to watch that one - he’s cheeky like his ma used to be.’
‘You’ll do fine.’
Coop’s chest expands and he stares at his polished shoes. ‘Ah said some things to you before, when you came to see us. Ah blamed Caro for making us love her so much. Ah was going off my head.’
‘I understand.’
Coop nods. ‘Aye, Ah think you do.’
He pulls me into a hug. I can smell his aftershave and the dry-cleaning fluid on his jacket.
Releasing me, he turns and wipes his eyes. I walk him downstairs and say goodbye to Philippa, who is pink- faced and breathless, ten years younger than I remember with her bright red hair pulled back from her round face.
They wave and toot their horn, taking their grandson home. Ruiz lets his eyes wander across the grass to a group of pretty students having a picnic in the shade. For a fleeting moment I glimpse a yearning in him - a longing to be young again - but he’s not a man to look over his shoulder or contemplate what might have been.
It has been two months since I left hospital and three months since the stabbing. The stiletto blade entered beneath my ribs and travelled upwards through my spleen, aiming at my heart. Narrowly missing the chambers and aorta, it punctured my left lung, which slowly collapsed. The slenderness of the blade limited blood loss externally but filled my chest cavity. I needed three blood transfusions and two operations.
I came out of hospital on the same day that Natasha Ellis appeared in Bristol Crown Court charged with the murder of Ray Hegarty and attempted murder of Annie Robinson. These were crimes of passion and crimes of revenge. Natasha thought she was losing Gordon to another schoolgirl lover - someone just like her.
At first she denied the allegations and then tried to strike a deal after Louis Preston found her DNA on a hand-towel at the murder scene.
On that Tuesday evening, Natasha let herself into the Hegarty’s house using a key that she copied from Sienna. She hid behind the teenager’s bedroom door, looking at the reflection in the mirror so she knew exactly what moment to strike.
She was expecting Sienna, but Ray Hegarty arrived home instead. He must have heard a sound and walked upstairs into Sienna’s room. Perhaps he saw Natasha at the last moment as the hockey stick was falling.
She couldn’t risk being recognised or identified so she silenced him, cutting his throat, right to left.
Ronnie Cray said it on that first day - it had to have been someone small to hide behind the door. Somebody left-handed. Somebody who neatly folded the hand-towel in the bathroom.
The amount of blood must have surprised Natasha - how fast it flowed, how far it sprayed, covering her hands and her clothes. Minutes later Sienna came home and saw her father’s bag. She crept quietly up the stairs, wanting to avoid him, but heard a tap running in the bathroom and a toilet flushing.
