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
