Кара Хантер - No Way Out

Gis nods. `Looks like Kuiper was trolling Esmond for a while,' he says. `As you can see, it's pretty full-on stuff too. He's also written some fairly savage blog posts, using yet another false name.' He picks up another printout. `In one of them he says Esmond's research is `њshallow, derivative, poorly footnoted and insufficiently recognisant of its indebtedness to antecedent sources`ќ.'

No one else could have written that: the vocabulary alone gives him away. But even if he chose a voodoo fire demon for a Twitter account, it doesn't mean he actually burned Esmond's house down. It was just a way to fantasize about doing it. In public. Without any apparent consequences. And that's the whole point, of course. Social media is a forcing ground for our darker selves. I sometimes think we're turning into that race on The Forbidden Planet `“ a supposedly advanced civilization who've created a machine to turn our thoughts into reality, only to find we've released the demon in our own minds. I don't have a Twitter account. As if you had to ask.

`So Kuiper wasn't above doing some heavy-duty impugning of his own,' I say, half to myself. Then I catch Gislingham giving me a quizzical look.

`Private joke. Sorry.' I turn to Baxter. `And when did you say he deleted all this material?'

`Thursday morning, boss. Right around the time the news broke about the fire.' He shrugs. `In theory, a deleted Twitter account is gone for good, but if you know what you're doing, you can usually dig them back up again.' And he does. Know what he's doing.

`Did Kuiper say anything about all this when he saw you, boss?' asks Ev.

I shake my head. `He talked about the review but that's as far as it went. He was trying very hard to convince me he just wanted to be helpful. Though I suspected what he really wanted to do was stop a bunch of clod-hopping coppers turning up at his college and embarrassing him. Or, at least, that's what I assumed at the outset.'

`And later?'

`It was when we got to the alibi that he really got rattled. He said he was at home in bed but he didn't want us calling his wife to confirm it because she's pregnant. When I told him there was no way round that, he changed his story. Now he says he went for a drive. His wife woke him up tossing and turning and he couldn't get back to sleep so he went out.'

I pause and look at them, gauging how that went down.

`What, in that weather?' says Quinn, openly sceptical. `It was cold enough to freeze your balls off Wednesday night. Even the joyriders on Blackbird Leys were tucked up with Horlicks.'

`His wife is pregnant though,' says Gislingham. `I saw a pic of her on Facebook. And she's pretty big too. I buy that bit about her waking him up.' Quinn smirks at him and he blushes a little. `Just saying. I know what it's like, that's all.'

`OK,' I say. `Let's start by checking Kuiper's alibi, just like we would if this was any other case. With a particular focus on the speed cameras and ANPR within a mile or so of Southey Road. We need to establish if we can place Kuiper anywhere near the house that night `“ either in the car or on foot. And get him back in here to give us his fingerprints. That should show him we mean business.'

Gislingham nods to Quinn, but I'd put money on Quinn handing that one off to Baxter. Baxter always gets lumbered with the hard yards.

I pull my jacket off the back of the chair. `I'm going home,' I say. `But before I do that I'm going to make a house call on Annabel Jordan.'

The house is one of the Edwardian semis off the Banbury Road, just north of Summertown. It's not unlike Southey Road, albeit on a much smaller scale. The same bow windows, the same gabled roof, the same white woodwork over pebbledash. Quite a lot of academics live up here `“ those who were lucky enough to buy these houses when they could still afford them. These days it's Kidlington and beyond, and the huge Victorian piles originally built for academics are reserved for investment bankers. Or the Chinese.

When she opens the door, she clearly has no idea who I am. `Yes? Can I help you?'

I flip open my warrant card. `Detective Inspector Adam Fawley, Professor Jordan. May I come in?'

A frown creases briefly across her brows. She hesitates, and glances back down the passage. There's the sound of voices, children squealing, crockery. Lunch. That thing I forgot to do. Again.

`We have guests,' she says. `My wife's family `“'

`It won't take long.'

She hesitates. Then, `Very well.'

The party is clearly in the back kitchen, and she shows me quickly into the front room. Artistic academic chaos. Over-stacked bookshelves, mismatched furniture, a scattering of colour supplements. A large chocolate Labrador looks up momentarily from his basket by the fire, then settles down again.

She closes the door behind her.

`How can I help you, Inspector? If this is about Michael Esmond, I've already spoken to your subordinates.'

`That's the point, Professor. You have already spoken to them and yet you completely failed to mention Jurjen Kuiper.'

Her gaze lights on me for a moment and then slides away. She walks over to the sofa and sits down.

`My officers specifically asked you if Michael Esmond was having problems with any of his colleagues, and you replied, `њNot that I'm aware of`ќ. Are you really telling me you didn't know about this review Esmond wrote? Because if you are, I have to tell you, I find that very hard to believe.'

She sighs. `Of course I knew. The entire thing was a complete nightmare.' She looks up at me. `I blamed myself, if you must know. When the TLS asked me if I could recommend someone to review Jurjen's monograph I suggested Michael. I had no idea he'd do such a `“ such a `“'

`Hatchet job?'

Her face is grim. `I see you've had occasion to read it.' She folds her hands on her lap. `In that case you will already know that Michael accused Jurjen of manipulating data to support his conclusions. In this admittedly rather small and self-obsessed discipline that counts as a high crime rather than a minor misdemeanour.'

`And did he? Falsify the facts?'

`The jury is still out. It would surprise me, knowing what I do of Jurjen. But on the other hand, the Michael I thought I knew would never dream of making such an accusation unless he had solid evidence.'

`And the TV series?'

She raises an eyebrow. `You are well-informed. Yes, Jurjen had been approached to present a series for National Geographic. Not quite on the scale of Blue Planet , but prestigious, nonetheless, and a good deal better paid than academic publishing. Only it all fell through after that review appeared. They must have decided it wasn't worth the risk. But if you're suggesting for one moment that Jurjen could have had anything at all to do with that terrible fire `“'

`I'm not `њsuggesting`ќ anything. Merely attempting to establish the facts. I need hardly tell someone as intelligent as you that `њfacts`ќ are even more important in my profession than they are in yours. And we've had to speak to you twice to get them.'

She flushes, flustered now. `It's no secret that academic life can be very competitive, especially these days, but this isn't an episode of Inspector Morse , you know. People in this university don't go around killing each other for the sake of one bad review or a lost TV series, however lucrative. And as for torching a house full of people, including two innocent children `“ well, Jurjen simply isn't capable of that.'

I let the pause lengthen. `What is he capable of?'

She looks up at me. `What do you mean?'

`Would he be capable, for example, of making threats?' I'm watching her face carefully. `Or orchestrating a concerted campaign of online trolling?'