The Whole Truth

Reynolds can’t see me till gone two. The PA tells me he ‘has a lunch’ so would I ‘come to the Lodgings’. No doubt they want to keep the likes of me from contaminating their hallowed turf. Given I have time on my hands, I opt to walk. Up St Aldate’s and through Cornmarket. The sun is bringing them all out – Jehovah’s Witnesses, a choir of Seventh Day Adventists, the local Islamic centre and a kiosk informing me that ‘The Message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing’. Though parching might be a better word, given the temperature. And all of it jumbled up any-old-how with the payday lenders, a stall selling sunglasses and smiley-face cushions, and that carrot-haired regular who plays the bagpipes. (There’s a furious-looking little old lady standing right opposite him with a knotted handkerchief on her head and a placard that says REBUILD HADRIAN’S WALL. That’s Oxford for you – never knowingly under-nuttered.) It’s six-deep in tourist groups most of the way so progress is slow, though at least most of those are managing to keep their clothes on. Unlike the locals, who are going hell for leather into another round of the Great British Kit-Off. If there was a law against raw bloke moobs in a built-up area I’d need to send for reinforcements.

When I get to the lodgings the flunkey at the door shows me through to the garden. Which is, of course, glorious – a green half-acre of lawns and honeysuckle and rose beds tended to within an inch of their lives. There are a couple of blokes there now, weeding and dead-heading. Needless to say, these chaps are keeping their shirts firmly on. As is Reynolds, who’s in a white linen number, sitting under an umbrella with a laptop open in front of him on a mosaic table. He gestures to an adjacent chair.

‘Take a seat, Inspector. I won’t be a moment. Do help yourself to lemonade. My wife makes it – an old family recipe.’

Forcing me to watch him fiddle about with emails is pretty low-grade stuff as power plays go, but the lemonade isn’t bad, so I content myself with the view. Somewhere nearby someone’s playing the piano. Mozart. That’s not bad, either.

‘Right,’ says Reynolds a few moments later, taking off his glasses and pushing the laptop slightly to one side. Though he doesn’t – I note – close it altogether. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘We’re making headway with the inquiry, sir, but I could do with some more background. A clearer picture of both Morgan and Fisher.’

He reaches for his glass. ‘Off the record, you mean.’

‘I’m not a journalist – we don’t work by those rules. I can’t guarantee that anything you tell me won’t end up in the public domain, but it won’t do so gratuitously. Police officers may be a touch bull-headed on occasion, but we do try to keep out of china shops.’

He smiles, a little uneasily, evidently unsure how to reply. Then the smile subsides. ‘So what do you want to know?’

‘Let’s start with Marina Fisher. I find the situation with her ex-husband a little odd.’

He frowns. ‘How so? They got married, they got unmarried, he went back to Boston. It was a lot cleaner than most divorces I’ve been forced to witness.’

‘But that’s my point. Joel Johnson went back to the US. How old was Tobin when they separated? A year? Even younger? And yet Johnson was perfectly happy to leave him behind, knowing he’d scarcely ever see him. You don’t think that’s odd?’

Reynolds gives me a heavy look. ‘Not really. Tobin Fisher isn’t Joel Johnson’s child.’

So that’s it.

‘In fact, he was the reason for the divorce.’

‘Fisher had an affair?’

Reynolds takes a sip of lemonade and puts the glass down. ‘I gather “one-night stand” would be a more accurate description.’

‘But she’s sure the child isn’t Johnson’s?’

‘He was in the US for most of that term. And in any case, Johnson is African American.’

He’s looking at me as if this is a tutorial and he’s just caught me out for not doing enough prep. And he’s right – irritating, but right: I should have known that. I should have looked Johnson up.

‘Fisher was at Edith Launceleve at the time?’

He nods. ‘It was her second or third year. But I’d known her before that. It was largely down to me that she came here. I was the one who persuaded her to leave Imperial. And it took some doing, I can tell you.’

If I’d come right out with it and asked him what size of dog he has in this fight I couldn’t have got a clearer answer. He’s up to his neck in it. Mastiff-level.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he says. ‘And the answer is no.’

‘No, what?’

‘No, I’m not Tobin’s father. I have never had that sort of relationship with Marina.’

I sit back a little. ‘Do you know who the father is?’

He shakes his head. ‘Like I said, she described it as a one-night stand. It’s possible she never even told him Tobin exists.’

‘And she went ahead with the pregnancy, even though she must have known it would torpedo the marriage?’

He shrugs. ‘She wanted children, Joel didn’t. And given her age –’