Chapter Eight
Outside Merrill Hall, Judith sat on the steps with her phone, and watched Chloe’s video through four times.
She had to admit, the girl was good at what she did.
Chloe knew how to get and hold attention.
Her editing was sharp, her visuals were interesting.
She was helped, of course, by the fact that she had a good rack, but good looks only got you so far.
Judith lit a cigarette and watched the video for a fifth time, then she flicked back through Chloe’s posting history.
The girl’s schtick seemed to be feminism for the new age.
She was deliberately provocative. Her most popular post was one where she banged on about third-wave feminism and intersectionality, while wearing short shorts and a bra top with her hair in pigtails.
Her look provoked the inevitable onslaught of criticism, and then the criticism provoked the inevitable rebuttals, and all the comments and counter-comments drove her engagement through the roof.
Her second most popular video argued that women embracing their sexuality and enjoying it as part of their power was intrinsically feminist. In that one she wore a Britney Spears style school uniform.
Chloe was smart. Everything she posted looked casual and spur-of-the moment, but it was clearly all carefully scripted and considered.
What was the source of her information? She was careful, she never mentioned Walker by name, but she talked like someone with direct knowledge.
Whatever Chloe knew, Judith wanted to know too, and sooner rather than later.
Judith took a series of screenshots from Chloe’s video.
Then she screen-recorded the whole thing, just in case.
After that she went through the comments and took more screenshots of any particularly promising leads.
Eight accounts claimed to have first-hand knowledge of Walker’s behaviour.
One anonymous account holder claimed to have been assaulted herself.
Two others said they’d had an uncomfortable moment with him.
Four others made vague allegations, and one said that from what they knew, Walker had been at it for years.
People said a lot of stuff online to get attention, so some of this might be bullshit, but some of these women might be exactly who Judith was looking for.
Judith’s phone buzzed with an incoming email. The email address was alexis.turner21@. Judith opened the email. There was an attachment—an MP4—and a brief message: I thought you should see this. Nothing else.
Judith clicked on the attachment, but her phone glitched.
It couldn’t seem to load the video. She tried three times before giving up.
She sent a short reply to Alexis. She didn’t want to spook the girl so she said that she seemed to have made a mistake taking down her mobile number.
She asked Alexis to get in touch, and then went back to the comments on Chloe’s post.
Judith checked the profiles of the women who claimed direct knowledge.
The first profile was private and fully locked down.
The other two were public accounts. She messaged each of them, explaining who she was and asking them to get in touch.
Her language was careful. Gentle. Reassuring. Nothing threatening here.
Judith stubbed out her cigarette. Three students walking up the steps gave her sideways looks of disgust. She wanted to tell them that if the worst thing they were going to see that day was a cigarette butt, then they were too bloody privileged to be judging anyone.
She contented herself with flicking the butt at their feet as they passed her.
One of them gave a little squeal of disgust, but none of them said anything. Chicken-shits.
Judith stared down at her phone. She needed to find Chloe, and talk to her directly. The problem was, she didn’t have the girl’s address, or surname, and had no obvious way of tracking down either.
Judith lit another cigarette but didn’t smoke it.
She went back inside the building—this time she didn’t need to repeat her trick with the intercom, because she pushed her way in as someone else came out.
She climbed the stairs to the second floor again and knocked at number fourteen.
Sophie opened the door. The look of dismay on her face was almost comical.
‘I posted exactly what you said! Nothing else.’
‘Where does Chloe live?’
‘What . . . I don’t know. You can’t smoke in here you know.’
‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Sophie. You might not know exactly where she lives, but you have an idea, right?
Chloe’s the one. You and all the other girls, you talk about her.
You want to know where she buys her clothes and where she drinks her cocktails and who she sleeps with and whether or not it’s true that she got a C in her final exams. Right? ’
‘You really can’t smoke in here. There’s an alarm system. The sprinklers might go off.’
Judith took a drag on her cigarette, and slowly and deliberately blew the smoke upwards. A smoke alarm on the ceiling blinked sullenly at her.
‘You know where she lives. The building at least. Spill.’
‘I don’t know. I’m serious! I mean, I’ve heard she has an apartment on Garton Street over in Carlton North. The art deco building. On like, the second floor because she has a view of the park. But I don’t know if that’s true or anything!’
Judith smiled. ‘Thank you, Sophie. You’ve been very helpful.’
Outside, the temperature was slowly rising.
It was going to be a sunny day. Judith missed her bike.
She’d have to do something about booking it in for repair.
She’d have to get it collected too, from the station car park, but she wanted to do that when no one was around to see it.
Judith was just settling into the driver’s seat of her patrol car when her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She answered the call.
‘Detective Lee? This is Robert Walker.’
‘Yes, Mr Walker.’
‘I believe you spoke to my secretary yesterday morning.’
Judith said nothing. There was an eagerness in his voice that she didn’t like.
‘My secretary said you wanted to know if this girl, Alexis Turner, if she had a referral. I double-checked. Alexis filled in a form when she arrived. She gave a student number. I’ve called the college administration.
The student number isn’t real. There’s no student by that name even at the college! ’
‘Mr Walker, you shouldn’t be making phone calls like that. It’s not your job to investigate this complaint. That’s my job, and you need to leave it to me.’
He gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I don’t think for a second that you’d sit around and do nothing if someone made a similar accusation about you, Detective, so I don’t know what makes you think that I should.
Look, the point is, this girl is clearly lying.
And I want to know what you’re going to do about it. ’
Judith said nothing. She was disturbed by the fact that Alexis had given a fake student number.
It was one thing to lie about her phone number and address.
It was stupid, but there was a possible explanation.
Trust between cops and university students wasn’t at its highest. Maybe Alexis had wanted a buffer between her and Judith, at least until she’d decided that she could fully trust the other woman.
But why would Alexis lie about her student number—before her appointment with Walker had even taken place?
‘I mean, obviously you’re going to drop the case now, right? This girl is a liar. I don’t know what she’s up to, but this is obviously just a set—’
‘Mr Walker, you need to stop making phone calls please, and let me do my job. I assure you, I’ll investigate these allegations—’
It was his turn to cut across her. ‘Why aren’t you listening to me?’
‘I am listening to you.’
‘I don’t think you are. It was clear when you came to the house that you’d already made your mind up about me. What is it, is it that you hate men? Think we’re all as bad as the worst of us?’
‘Mr Walker, I’m going to hang up now, but I have to warn you that if you continue to make phone calls or to take any action to find or talk to the complainant in this case, I will treat that as interference with a criminal investigation.
That’s something we take very seriously. Do you understand me?’
‘I understand you. But this is wrong. This is completely wrong.’
As Judith drove over to Carlton North, she turned the conversation over in her mind.
Walker was a prick. His accusation that she hated men, how many times had she heard that from a suspect?
Always from some men’s-rights arsehole who’d spent six months stalking and terrorising his ex and his kids.
She didn’t hate men. She loved Rocky, in her own way, and she was fond of Katy’s husband, Oliver.
She had plenty of male friends and she liked a man in her bed, when the mood struck her and the timing was right.
There were plenty of good men in the world.
But in Judith’s extensive experience, good men rarely found themselves accused of sexual assault.
Twice. By two different women, ten years apart, with remarkable consistencies in their accounts.
But maybe she’d pushed Walker a little too much in their interview.
She’d been so relieved to finally have a chance to take a proper run at him.
Maybe she’d gone a little hard. And now, three lies in a row from her witness.
Why? Judith thought it through. University students got free mental health care.
Maybe Alexis wasn’t a student at all. Maybe she just had a friend at the university and she’d pretended to be a student to get access to the doctors there.
It was possible, but theories wouldn’t get Judith anywhere.
She needed to find Alexis, and get some straight answers.
And track down any other evidence against Walker that she could.
* * *