by Hunter, Cara
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 up in a loose knot, and in front of her, yet another bowl of that kids’ cereal she can’t get enough of at the moment. I tease her about it all the time but she just looks arch and says I should thank my lucky stars it’s something so bland (and she has a point – with Jake, it was kippers).
Opposite her, her hands wrapped around my Mr Perfect mug (and yes, that is a joke), is a woman. I’ve seen her before. Emma something. She was at the same college as Alex years ago, but there isn’t really a word for what they are now – not exactly friends but a bit more than acquaintances. She works for the council fostering and adoption service. Last year, when a couple of local builders found a traumatized young woman locked in a basement with her eighteen-month-old son, it was Emma who arranged for Alex and me to foster him for a few weeks. Though lest you should think I really am Mr Perfect I should say at once that it was against my better judgement, and, I suspect, against Emma’s too, though we never discussed it. It was my wife’s idea, and she is both very persistent and very persuasive. And if you know about that case, and that little boy, and you’re wondering what happened to him, Brandon is doing well. He’s with long-term foster parents who are hoping to adopt him. It’s not my case any more, but I keep in touch. I don’t have to, but I do.
‘Adam, you remember Emma, don’t you?’
We smile at each other, a little awkwardly. I’m uncomfortably aware that I didn’t shower at the gym and even my own wife wouldn’t want a clincher with me right now. So I just stand there, trying not to look like an oaf.
I raise a hand. ‘Hi.’
Emma’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She has long strawberry-blonde hair and a pair of silver hoop earrings that she keeps fiddling with. I seem to remember her hair being darker the last time I saw her, but it’s been quite a while. I could be wrong.
‘Emma just popped by to drop off a present for the baby,’ says Alex, levering herself out of her chair. I see now there’s a white teddy bear sitting on the worktop beside her. It has a red bow tie and that slightly imploring look soft toys always manage to have.
‘We were just having a bit of a catch-up –’
/>
I start to back out of the kitchen. ‘Great – absolutely. Totally fine by me.’ I gesture towards the stairs. ‘I’ll just, you know, have a shower. Take your time.’
* * *
‘Bloody hell,’ says Baxter, sitting back in his chair. He’d had his earphones in but he’s pulled them out now and is looking round at the rest of the team. ‘I think you lot need to hear this.’
Quinn and Asante have only just got back from seeing Sandford – Quinn’s still in the process of hanging up his jacket – but they all know Baxter, and if he says there’s something, there’s something.
‘What you got?’ asks Quinn as they start to gather round.
‘I had a call a while back from Clive Conway,’ says Baxter. ‘He’s got the results on the prints at Fisher’s house. Nothing on the champagne glasses, as expected, but there were prints on the bottle. Both Fisher’s and Morgan’s.’
Quinn frowns. ‘But they both said Morgan was the one who opened it, didn’t they? So where does that get us?’
Baxter shakes his head. ‘It’s not just that. Apparently when Conway fished the bottle out of the bin, there was a whole load of broken glass in there too – and it was right at the top, so it couldn’t have been in there very long.’
‘So?’ says Ev, looking increasingly mystified.
‘So, it turns out it was another wine bottle – prosecco, Conway said. And there were prints on that too. Two different sets. One lot were Morgan’s, but the others are unidentified. But one thing we do know – they’re definitely not Marina Fisher’s.’
Quinn’s still frowning. ‘And? Am I missing something?’
But Baxter hasn’t finished. ‘The only reason Conway bagged it up in the first place was because he remembered there were bits of broken glass on the front step when he arrived. Exactly the same broken glass. There can’t be many ways that got there, can there? Not in that part of town. So barring a clumsy supermarket driver –’
Ev gives him a dry look. ‘Oh yeah, fat chance. Trust me, Marina Fisher’s Ocado list does not include prosecco. I doubt she’d even allow it in the house.’
Baxter raises an eyebrow. ‘My thoughts exactly. So I did a bit of digging of my own.’
He leans forward and reaches for his keyboard. ‘And as it turns out, a woman called Pat Hart rang 101 at just after nine the night of the dinner. She was on her way to meet a friend at the Playhouse bar.’
He turns up the volume and presses play.
Caller: Hello? I’m ringing because there’s some sort of incident going on at St Luke Street.
Call handler: What sort of incident, madam?
Caller: There’s a man and a blonde woman arguing in the street. I just went by in a cab and they were really going at it. It looked to me like she’d had quite a lot to drink – she had a bottle in one hand and was waving it about.
Call handler: Has there been any sort of physical altercation?
Caller: I couldn’t see that much just going past, but I did see him pushing her. Pretty hard, from what I could see – and he’s quite a big bloke too.
[background noises]
Hang on a minute – the cab’s dropped me off now and I’m walking back. I think I just heard the sound of breaking glass.
Call handler: I’m arranging for an officer to attend –
Caller: No, hold on – they’re not there any more.
Call handler: They’ve gone into one of the houses?
Caller: I don’t know – not that I can see. They were right there, on the corner, but they’re not there now and I can’t see where they went. Sorry – I didn’t mean to waste your time.
Call handler: No, that’s absolutely fine. It’s what we’re here for. Could you just hold the line a moment, please, so I can take your details.
Baxter presses pause and there’s an audible release of breath. Because even if the caller didn’t give the exact address, they all know who she was talking about.
Caleb Morgan and Freya Hughes.
Ev looks around, her eyes wide. ‘I was at her place less than an hour ago, asking about that night, and she never said a bloody word about this.’
‘It’s not just that, though, is it,’ says Asante quietly. ‘What that caller described – the pushing, the fact that Freya was drunk – it’s exactly what Morgan said happened with Marina Fisher barely two hours later.’
Quinn is nodding. ‘So either he shoved two different women that night –’
‘Not impossible,’ says Ev. ‘Sadly.’
‘– or he’s manipulating the memory,’ finishes Asante. ‘Using the detail of a real incident to create a better fake one.’ He looks at the others. ‘You know what they say – best way to get away with a lie? Wrap it up in a whole lot of truth.’
* * *
Adam Fawley
8 July 2018
13.45
‘What do you want to eat?’
Emma stayed another two hours in the end. I don’t know what they were talking about but it sounded pretty intense from where I was. But then again, that was out in the garden, so I didn’t hear it all. Enough, though, to stop me crashing in to get myself some food, and as a result I’m now borderline hypoglycaemic.
‘There’s some cold chicken,’ says Alex, staring into the fridge. ‘And those avocados could do with eating too.’
Frankly, right now, I’d give my right arm for pie and chips.
‘Everything OK with Emma?’ I say it mostly to be polite, but Alex glances at me and gives a heavy sigh.
‘She’s having a bit of a hard time right now.’
I’m frowning, trying to remember something. ‘Hasn’t she got a new bloke, or am I making that up?’
Alex takes the mayonnaise out of the fridge and reaches towards the cutlery drawer for a spoon. ‘She had a new relationship. Past tense. Last time I saw her she was really excited about it, but looks like it’s all fallen apart already. She’s always had zero luck in that department.’
I make what I hope are the appropriate sympathetic noises.
‘And I know she’d like to have kids too.’
She doesn’t say any more. She doesn’t have to. Emma’s the same age as Alex. It’s the eleventh hour for her, just as it was for us. Only our miracle happened.
I move across and wrap my arms around my wife. She jumps a little and I assume it’s my fault for surprising her, but then she reaches for my hand and places it gently over her belly, smiling up into my face.
‘Looks like there are three of us in this hug.’
* * *
‘Caleb?’
The line is crackling and breaking up, but he recognizes the voice.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘I just wanted to check in – see how you’re doing.’
He frowns; there’s a delay on the line. An international delay that shouldn’t be there. ‘I thought you were due back today?’
A sigh. Or perhaps it’s just more interference. ‘I’m sorry, darling, something’s come up here. I can’t get to see the senator until Friday. But I’ve managed to get some other meetings in, and given it’s the recess, there’s no need to rush back.’
His turn to sigh. Clearly he doesn’t qualify as a ‘need’.
‘Have you spoken to your father?’
He rolls his eyes. ‘No. They’re still in Sydney. You know that.’
‘No need to take that tone,’ she says crisply. ‘At least I’m trying to do something. No doubt he’s too busy being hipster dad to have time to support his firstborn.’
He bites his tongue. His mother is no less absent than his father, it’s just a different sort of distance. But he knows from experience there’s no point saying so.
‘Now,’ she says, ‘I’ve spoken to Meredith – talked her through the whole thing – and they’re going to call you, OK?’
And now he feels like a shit, because she has, for once, actually done something. ‘Thanks, Mum. Appreciate it.’
‘Only the best for you, my darling,’ she says, wi
th more than a whiff of singed martyr. ‘You’ll be in good hands – Meredith has a ton of experience in cases like this. So just do whatever she tells you, OK? And don’t let yourself be bullied, either. Far too many victims back down because the police and CPS make it too damn ghastly to carry on.’
He smiles quietly. ‘Don’t worry about me, Mum. I’ve got it covered.’
* * *
Freya Hughes is hostile even before the door is fully open. ‘What’s this about? I’ve already told you everything I know.’
Ev gives a heavy sigh. ‘No you haven’t, and you know it. So are you going to let me in or would you prefer to do this at St Aldate’s? Either’s fine by me.’
Hughes’ eyes widen for a moment, then she releases her grip on the door.
Ev follows her inside and Hughes turns to face her, folding her arms.
‘When I was here earlier, I asked you about Marina Fisher and you said, “I don’t know her.”’
She frowns.
‘But you do, don’t you? You certainly know where she lives. You were seen there on Friday night.’
She looks guarded, clearly unsure quite how much Ev knows. ‘So?’
‘So you never said anything about it. Why not?’
Hughes shrugs. ‘It wasn’t any of your business. It still isn’t.’
‘Oh, I think it is, don’t you?’ says Ev wearily. ‘Your boyfriend makes an allegation of assault, and you don’t mention that you were round there only two hours before, rowing in the street.’
‘It wasn’t rowing –’
‘Well, pick your own word, but whatever it was, it was serious enough for a member of the public to call 101 and report it.’
Hughes turns away. ‘I was just annoyed, that’s all. We were supposed to go out that night but then Caleb cancelled at the last minute so he could do her bloody babysitting.’
‘You were jealous.’
‘Yeah, I was jealous,’ she says acidly. ‘Happy now?’
‘So you turned up with a bottle of wine, thinking you could still spend some time together? But I’m guessing he wasn’t expecting you.’