The Whole Truth

The second speaker, Maria Gleeson, a former student at a Midlands university, attempted to bring an action against her professor two years ago, but ultimately withdrew the charge because the process was so distressing. ‘The people who were questioning me obviously had no experience of dealing with this,’ she said. ‘It was intrusive, and traumatic. I felt like I was on trial, not him.’

Speaking on the other side of the debate, Gareth McFadden of Universities UK, which speaks for 130 of the country’s largest institutions, acknowledged that there was growing concern about sexual violence on campuses, and said his organisation had published a detailed report on harassment, violence against women, and hate crime in 2016, which recommended a number of measures to help institutions address this issue and provide better support for victims.

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* * *

Clive Conway has pretty much wrapped things up at St Luke Street. Not that there was much to do. The two champagne glasses on the draining board had already been rinsed and dried, and without any obvious signs of a struggle he’s not sure what else CID could reasonably expect to find. He finishes taking his photos, makes a note to himself to collect the empty champagne bottle from the recycling bin on his way out, and bags up the glasses.

He’s packing up to leave when he gets the call.

‘Conway? It’s Anthony Asante. Marina Fisher’s being processed and something’s come up.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘She doesn’t have her mobile with her. She thought she did but it isn’t in her bag. She thinks it’s either in her office at Edith Launceleve or at the house. Can you see if you can find it?’

Conway glances around the kitchen. ‘There’s nothing down here, but I’ll have a look upstairs.’

‘Great, thanks. And collect the laptop too, if you can find one – given how sensitive this one’s going to be, Fawley wants us to check her phone. Just to be on the safe side.’

‘OK, I’ll let you know if I find anything.’

He finishes packing up and makes his way up to the sitting room and starts looking round. A few moments later he spots the mobile charging on a coffee table. He bags it and slips it into his case, then straightens up. It’s only now he notices that the boy has been in the room the whole time, sitting at a low table under the far window, so intent on whatever he’s doing that he doesn’t seem to have noticed anyone else is there.

Conway wanders over. The child’s working in a large drawing-by-numbers book – a huge, intricate design of what looks like St George and the Dragon. If it’d been one of his own kids the colours would be spilling out of the lines all over the place, but this boy clearly has more patience and better hand–eye coordination than all his three put together.

‘That’s really good,’ he says jovially. ‘Must help having so many colours to choose from.’

Conway’s kids had Caran d’Ache sets too, but he didn’t know you could get them three tiers deep. There must be over a hundred pencils in there. He stands there for a few minutes more, and each time the boy finishes with a colour he watches him put it carefully back exactly where it came from. The table remains tidy, the spectrum in the box perfectly graduated, the only sound the scratch, scratch, scratch against the page.

* * *

* * *

Conway pulls the front door shut and hears it click behind him. Monmouth House is on a corner so, unlike most of her neighbours, Marina Fisher has side access to her house, and doesn’t have to deal with the besetting conundrum facing owners of Georgian terraces from Bath to Bloomsbury: What To Do With The Bloody Bins. Fisher’s are just inside the side gate, tucked neatly out of sight in a purpose-built enclosure trailed with clematis. Conway opens the recycling bin to retrieve the champagne bottle, and finds it, as expected, right at the top. He bags it up and is about to close the lid again when he notices for the first time what was immediately underneath. He frowns slightly, hesitates a moment, then reaches into his case for another evidence bag.

* * *

Adam Fawley