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
