Meredith Melia rolls her eyes. ‘Not again.’
Patrick Dunn clears his throat. ‘I have to say, I agree. We’ve already discussed this, repeatedly and at length. Whatever that child saw or thinks he saw, he’s a child. A young, impressionable and therefore – by definition – unreliable child.’
Morgan turns to him. ‘No, it’s not just that – he’s a lying little toerag. He lies all the time – if he told me the sky was blue, I’d go and fucking check.’
Asante glances at Somer. Her turn.
‘You told us before you thought he had “problems”.’
Morgan nods. ‘Right. Exactly.’
‘A child like that, he’d probably find any sexual act alarming, wouldn’t you agree?’
He frowns, unsure, suddenly, where this is going.
‘You see,’ says Somer, sitting forward now, ‘we think we know what happened that night. There never was an assault, was there, Caleb?’
His head drops, but he says nothing.
‘What Tobin saw was his mother having sex. He’d never seen it before, he had no idea what it meant and he was understandably frightened. But he had no need to be: his mother wasn’t in any danger. Like I said, she was just having sex. But if that’s what happened – if that’s all it was – you’ve got a lot of questions to answer. Starting with why the hell you’ve been lying to us all this time.’
* * *
GQ: As I said, it’s much harder to bring a successful prosecution where the case relies on a child as the only eyewitness. Juries worry that they might have been coached or told what to say.
MF: I would never do anything like that.
GQ: All the same, you can appreciate that before we go any further we need to establish whether Tobin’s testimony can be relied upon.
MF: I’m not sure I understand –
VE: Morgan’s lawyers are also questioning his reliability. Which is not unreasonable, given his age.
GQ: So, Professor Fisher, is your son a truthful child, would you say?
* * *
The room is silent. Morgan’s head is in his hands. He’s shaking his head slowly, again and again. The time on the recording machine moves steadily on; a minute, a minute and a half, two.
‘Was she threatening you, Caleb?’ says Somer eventually. ‘Is that why you lied?’
Meredith Melia leans over and puts a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. ‘Caleb,’ she says quietly. ‘Are you OK?’
There’s no response. Melia turns to the officers. ‘Perhaps you could give us an explanation for this sudden interrogatory volte-face?’
Somer and Asante exchange a glance.
‘The leak of Professor Fisher’s identity,’ says Asante. ‘It’s prompted someone to come forward. Someone who went through a similar experience.’
‘Halle-bloody-lujah,’ says Dunn, under his breath.
* * *
MF: What are you suggesting? Of course he’s truthful –
GQ: In one of our earlier interviews you told us he lied to you about the dress.
MF: That was different.
GQ: Different? How, exactly?
MF: [silence]
GQ: So he has, in fact, lied, on one occasion, at least. Does he make things up as well? Tell stories about things that turn out not to have happened?
MF: No, of course he doesn’t.
GQ: Ah, you see, that’s the problem. I spoke to Tobin’s teacher, yesterday afternoon. And before you ask, Ms Kennedy, the conversation was authorized by an Inspector under Section 29 of the Data Protection Act 1998, which allows for the disclosure of personal information without parental consent for the purposes of detecting or preventing crime.
NK: Even so –
GQ: And given that the enquiry we were making might potentially exonerate Professor Fisher, it would be very odd if she were to object to it now.
[pause]
Wouldn’t you agree?
* * *
‘Did you know?’ says Somer. ‘That this had happened before? That she’d done the same thing to someone else?’
Morgan shakes his head. He looks like he’s struggling to take this on.
‘The young man in question transferred to King’s London eighteen months ago,’ Somer continues. ‘Before you came to Oxford. He couldn’t face staying here after what happened to him. That’s why we need you to tell us the truth. And all of it, this time.’
Morgan sits back. His face is pale and he’s having difficulty making eye contact.
‘OK, I admit it – I slept with Marina. Once. Once. It was when me and Freya were on a break. Freya never knew.’ He glances up at them. ‘And I don’t want you telling her now, either.’
‘So when you told us you’d never had sex with Professor Fisher, that was a lie?’
He hesitates, then nods. He’d dropped his gaze again and his face is flushed now. ‘I thought if I admitted it, you wouldn’t believe me about that night.’
Somer nods slowly. How many women have thought the same thing, over the years? How many rape victims decided not to come forward for exactly the same reason?
‘Go on,’ says Asante.
Morgan’s still not looking at them. ‘I told her it was over. That I was back with Freya, and her and me were finished. That we never even started.’
‘When did you tell her that?’
He flickers a look at them. ‘That night. After the dinner. I just wanted to get it over with and get out of there – but like I told you before, she was buzzing. She said she wanted a drink and she wanted sex – you know, right there and then, on the bloody kitchen table.’
Ev nods. ‘And what did you say to that?’
‘I said no – that I wished I hadn’t done it the first time and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. But she refused to accept it.’
‘What happened next?’
The flush deepens. ‘Like I said, she just wasn’t taking no for an answer.’ He stops, starts rubbing the back of his head. ‘So, well, you know –’
‘You had sex.’
He nods. ‘I said, OK, for old times’ sake and all that. But just once. She seemed OK with it at the time.’
‘But afterwards, she changed her mind?’
He glances up, looks away again. ‘Yeah. I said to her, after we’d – you know – done it, that it was over now. Really over. That was when she turned
