Chapter 34
Eve spent the following day – Easter Saturday – busying herself around the flat in an attempt to make good use of the spare hours that had suddenly presented themselves, hours she should have been spending with her family.
But she was on tenterhooks, jumping at the slightest sound.
By mid-afternoon, she felt sick with disappointment and regret.
Joe still hadn’t replied to her messages.
She could have woken to a lazy, noisy breakfast in Sascha’s bright, sunny kitchen, then gone for a walk along the river and a lovely pub lunch in Kew.
Her fight with Sascha and Mackenzie now seemed meaningless, her stance in defence of Joe pointless.
She had upset everyone in her life, and for what?
So that she could spend the Easter weekend tired and alone, doing housework?
At around four, she felt hungry and realised she had barely any food in the flat, having planned to spend the weekend at Sascha’s.
She ate half a can of cold baked beans straight from the tin and had just finished making a shopping list when the door buzzer sounded in the kitchen.
Her heart rose in anticipation as she hurried to answer it.
She knew it was unrealistic to expect it to be Joe – who had never been to her flat – or Mackenzie, who would be nearing Dorset by now, but there was hope, at least.
‘Eve, it’s Iwan.’
For a moment, she couldn’t place the voice or name.
‘Iwan Raker,’ he said. ‘From work.’
Her head of department? What was he doing here – and during the holidays?
She buzzed him into the building and waited by the front door.
‘I’m sorry to turn up out of the blue,’ he said as she let him in, ‘but I’ve just been finishing up some bits on campus and I knew you lived nearby, and …’ He looked at her. ‘Well, I didn’t want to do this over the phone.’
‘Do what?’
He took a step and peered round the doorway to the living room. ‘Can I?’
‘Of course.’
Eve closed the front door and followed him in. He circled the coffee table, then stopped next to the sofa, looking uncomfortable.
‘We have a problem,’ he said.
‘What kind of a problem?’
He hesitated. ‘We’ve had a visit from the police.’
Eve took a sharp breath. ‘What about?’
‘About the man you’re seeing.’ He glanced up at her.
She flushed. ‘I see.’
‘So, it’s true?’ He eyed her expectantly.
‘I don’t know,’ she said stiffly. ‘That depends on what you’ve been told.
’ She could hear the chill in her voice and she felt sorry for Iwan because he was just doing his job, but …
the bloody police. Why were they doing this to her?
They clearly weren’t satisfied with coming between her and her family.
Iwan hovered next to the sofa for a moment, then sat down. Eve walked over to join him.
‘Did they come to the college?’ she asked.
He nodded.
‘And what did they say?’
‘That you’re in a relationship with a …’ he cleared his throat ‘… a sex offender. A convicted rapist and murderer. That he’s just been released from prison. That he served twenty years.’ He hesitated. ‘That they’re worried about the students.’
Eve sighed.
‘As, of course, are we.’
‘We?’
‘Myself. Reena. Giles.’ He shifted uncomfortably. ‘And, of course, I’ve had to take this to the board of governors.’
Eve pictured this, the meeting in the boardroom on campus, the looks of concern on the faces of the dean and pro-vice-chancellor.
‘So how did they do it?’
‘How did …?’
‘The police. Did they just turn up? Did they come to the Law Faculty?’
‘Yes.’
‘When? When did they come?’
‘On Monday.’
‘Monday? You mean … the Monday just gone?’
‘Yes. I wanted to speak to you as quickly as possible, of course, but I’m sure you appreciate that I also needed time to talk with Reena and Giles, to look at the potential ramifications, and then to raise it with the board.’
Eve wasn’t concerned about his delay in talking to her.
She was furious with the police. What right did they have to keep talking to everyone she knew?
She was pretty sure they were acting outside of their powers.
Her mind spun back to some of the events of earlier that week.
Everything now made sense: the tight smiles in the corridor, the clipped conversations, the way the staffroom had fallen unexpectedly quiet when she had entered after a mid-morning lecture.
She gazed back at Iwan and knew without him having to tell her that the news was out.
She was already being gossiped about within her department, and no doubt elsewhere in the university.
‘Some of the students have got hold of it,’ Iwan said, confirming her suspicions. ‘And we’ve had a call from the women’s officer at the SU. There have been requests to …’ He paused. ‘To ask you to stay away from campus.’
Her heart beat faster. ‘You’re suspending me?’
‘No,’ Iwan said, stretching out the word in way that said not yet. ‘We’re asking you not to go onto campus for the time being. Or through the student village.’
‘Because …?’
‘Because this is a potential safeguarding issue which needs looking into. The union has made the request and we feel it’s a reasonable one. It’s the Easter holidays anyway, and so there’s no reason for you to go into the faculty building. If there is anything you need, we can get it for you.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Eve said. ‘What kind of a threat do you think I am?’
‘It’s just a precaution until we have had time to look into the issues the union has raised.’ He hesitated. ‘And it’s for your own good. If you are seen in the student village or on campus, it could be damaging for you, as well as for us.’
‘How?’
‘Well, the board is concerned about the potential for any negative attention.’
‘Wait,’ Eve said. ‘Like …?’
‘Like photos of you being taken and posted on social media.’
‘Photos of me? Why would there be?’
‘Things can quickly escalate,’ he said. ‘If we don’t respond appropriately, there could be protests and then—’
‘Protests?’ Eve looked at him despairingly.
‘These things can quickly gather momentum.’
‘Look, the police have got it wrong. I’m helping with a post-conviction appeal, that’s all. I think it’s a miscarriage of justice. The man concerned has got a lawyer and I’m helping her to establish the grounds we need to take it to the CCRC. Lots of law faculties have innocence projects.’
‘Faculties do. But not individuals. The problem is that we weren’t informed about this.’
‘Well, now you know, so can’t we just put out a statement through the comms team? We could ask for volunteers, make it official.’
He hesitated. ‘Before I did that, I would need to know the truth about the nature of your relationship with this man.’
Eve tried to keep her expression neutral, but she realised she couldn’t lie, not to her head of department.
This conversation would go back to the higher-ups and form part of the case against her, and – a thought that had come into her mind unbidden as she lay awake the previous night – the police could have evidence of their relationship.
The idea made her feel sick with shame and fear, but if Joe was being watched by the police from across the street, it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that someone could have been there in the garden that Sunday when she and Joe had begun to have sex in the kitchen, in full view of all of the windows. There could be photos.
‘We … were intimate. Once,’ she said, her skin hot.
‘It was a one-off. Neither of us meant it to happen. He was hurt – badly hurt – by what the police had done to him, and I felt sorry for him and … well, it just happened. Once. But we agreed that it shouldn’t happen again.
We agreed that I wouldn’t see him alone after that, not without his lawyer present.
And so, now, I really am just a part of his legal team. ’
He nodded. ‘So when did you last see him?’
Eve flushed. ‘On Monday,’ she admitted. ‘I went there to tell him that I was going to fund some of the costs of his case.’
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’ She watched his expression. ‘Why?’
‘There have been reports that he’s been seen on campus.’
‘No!’ Eve cried out in disbelief. ‘That can’t be true! When? When was he supposed to have been on campus?’
Iwan reached for his phone. He scrolled and tapped for a moment, then said, ‘It was reported to have been on Wednesday.’
‘Who reported it?’ Eve demanded angrily.
Iwan shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’
‘OK, so where’s the evidence?’
‘I don’t have any evidence as yet. Just the report.’
‘It can’t have happened,’ Eve insisted. ‘He would have no reason to come onto campus.’
‘Except to meet you, perhaps?’
‘Do you think I’m stupid?’ Eve shook her head in disbelief. ‘Why would I meet him there?’
‘I don’t know, Eve,’ he said, sighing. ‘But what I do know is that, as a faculty and as a college, we are responsible for ensuring the safety and well-being of our students, which means that when we receive a report like this, we need to put the building blocks in place for an effective prevention response.’
Jargon, Eve thought, feeling furious. Just jargon.
She knew there was no way that Joe had been on campus, but she also knew that there was nothing more she could do at this stage.
She would have to involve her own union, ask for a meeting, demand to see the evidence, and until then, she had no choice but to agree to what Iwan was asking.
When he had gone, she quickly snatched up her phone.
There was another message from her mum, asking if she was feeling well enough for a visit.
Eve wanted to weep at the kindness behind the offer, at the thought that her parents would cut short their time with Sascha’s family to drive all the way to Oxford to see her, but she had no idea what they would think about her situation, and besides, it wasn’t fair to take them away from their grandchildren.
She typed back: I’m much better, Mum, and please don’t do that. Let’s talk in the morning.
She put her phone on the table and stared at it, then picked it up again and opened her messaging app.
Joe wasn’t online. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been online since …
when? She selected his contact information, and then it hit her: he hadn’t been online since she had seen the blonde-haired woman outside his house the previous day.
With a sudden realisation, she leaped to her feet.
When she got to Norham Gardens, there was another car on the drive, a sleek-looking bottle-green Mercedes with 2023 plates.
She hesitated, her heart beating faster as she stepped past it and pushed open the back gate.
She could immediately see that something was wrong.
There were shards of broken glass strewn across the path near the back door, which was boarded up as if it had been broken into.
As she gazed at it, a man stepped out from the opposite corner of the house with a dustpan and brush.
He looked up as he saw her. He had dark hair and a goatee beard and was tall, thin and angular, casually dressed in a T-shirt and cargo trousers.
‘Don’t come any closer,’ he said, putting his hand up. ‘There’s glass everywhere.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for Joe.’
‘He’s not here.’ He eyed her curiously. ‘You must be Eve.’
‘And you must be Chas.’
He nodded, looking sorry.
She swallowed hard. ‘They’ve taken him back to prison, haven’t they?’