The Whole Truth

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 already starting to weird me out. There’s nothing childlike about Fisher’s face though. She looks hollow-eyed and haunted. Alice woke up and found it was all a dream; that ain’t going to be happening here.

I take my seat next to Asante, open my file and go through the requisite procedural box-ticking. And I mean that literally: Kennedy sits there marking off the list of PACE requirements as we go, and makes sure I see her doing it. After all that, finally, we can begin.

I sit back. ‘OK, Professor, perhaps you could talk us through your version of last night’s events.’

The answer is quick; she was expecting this.

‘Caleb had offered to babysit for me while I was at the dinner at Balliol.’

‘Offered, or you asked?’

She blinks. ‘OK, I asked.’

‘And he’s done that before – yes?’

She glances away. ‘A few times.’

She’s not meeting my eye; she knows she’s on thin ice here, but I have fatter fish to fry than minor infractions of college procedures.

‘What time did you get back after the dinner?’

She shrugs. ‘Eleven fifteen? Something like that.’

‘And you’d been drinking?’

She looks at me now. There are two spots of colour in her cheeks. ‘Of course I’d been drinking. It was an eight-course dinner. Everyone was drinking. I admit I had a lot more than I normally would, but I wasn’t drunk. Absolutely not.’

‘So what happened when you got home?’

‘I went downstairs to the kitchen. I could hear Caleb down there. He had some music on and he’d been working on his laptop at the kitchen table. We chatted for a bit.’

‘About his research?’

‘No, not really.’

The colour on her cheeks is deepening. I sense Asante shifting next to me. Kennedy reaches across and touches Fisher lightly on the arm. ‘It’s OK, you can say.’

‘Look,’ she says, ‘he was flirting with me, all right? He does it a lot. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘And were you flirting back? I mean, he’s an attractive lad –’

She stares at me now. ‘A lot of men flirt with me, Inspector, and a fair number of women too. Other academics, students, university administrators; chancers in all three of those categories and chancers in general. I don’t take any of it seriously.’

I nod slowly. ‘So then what?’

‘He said we should have a drink. To celebrate my so-called “triumph”.’ There’s a bitter note in her voice.