[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
