Кара Хантер - No Way Out

There's rain in the air, but the clouds part momentarily and a shaft of sunlight slants down across the grass and the shrivelled winter plants. There's a solitary blackbird at the edge of the gravel, darting at the municipal bark chips and digging out shreds of wood. I find myself staring at it as the bearers move forward, so I hear rather than see the swell of emotion as Gregory Gifford steps up to take his little grandson's coffin. It's Zachary who has the women in tears, but it's Matty I'm shrinking from. Any parent who's lost a child will tell you the same. Widows, orphans `“ there are names for people who've lost wives, lost husbands, lost parents. But there's no name for a parent who's lost a child. And so I avoid funerals when I can, and children's even more. It's bad enough at the time, when you're half dazed with the wreckage of your life, but reliving it in the rawness of someone else's grief is all but unbearable. I don't want to think about that day. I don't want to remember Alex's white tearless face, my parents clinging to each other, and the flowers, wreath upon wreath of them sent from all those people we'd asked not to come `“ people we'd asked not to send flowers. And yet they sent flowers all the same, because they had to do something . Because they felt as helpless as we did in the face of such unthinkable pain.

The procession forms now, the bearers adjust under the weight and the minister comes forward. I hang back, letting the last stragglers go before me, avoiding the eye of the one or two hacks I recognize. The music they're playing is classical. Bach, I'm guessing, but something richer, less austere than I usually find him. We had Handel for Jake. Handel and Oasis. The Handel was Alex's choice. `Lascia ch'io pianga', `Let me weep over my cruel fate'. I loved it once, but I can't listen to it any more. The Oasis was down to me. `Wonderwall' . Jake listened to it all the time. I always thought he played it so much because he was hanging on to the idea that we would save him. But we couldn't. I couldn't. I wasn't any sort of wall for my son. In the end, when he needed me, I wasn't there.

I slip into a seat in the back row. A seat with a view over the entrance and the grounds. Because that's the main reason I'm here. Michael Esmond's entire family is being cremated today, and we've done whatever we can to ensure that wherever he is, he'll know that. His wife, his two sons `“ it takes a special kind of coldness to turn your back on that: even hardened killers I've known couldn't do it. So I position myself where I can scan the long drive and the bleak flat parkland that quarantines this place of death and parting from the ordinary, busy, self-absorbed life going on outside. The words of the funeral service push into my brain `“ Devoted mother and wife`¦ Popular with all his classmates`¦ Taken so tragically soon `“ but all I can see is the blackbird. With its intent beady eye and its brutal stabbing beak.

Oxford Mail online

Friday 12 January 2018 Last updated at 17:08

Funerals held in Oxford house fire

The funerals of Samantha Esmond and her two sons, Matty, 10, and Zachary, 3, were held at the Oxford crematorium this afternoon. Residents stood in silence in the streets as the cortège passed, and the large crowd of mourners included family, friends and colleagues, as well as representatives from Bishop Christopher's School, where Matty was a pupil. There was also a significant, if discreet, police presence. However, if officers were hoping Michael Esmond might make an appearance, they were disappointed.

Despite police appeals for him to come forward, the Oxford University academic has not been seen since the evening of 3 January, at an academic conference in London. Earlier that week he is thought to have attended a meeting with his head of department. Sources close to the faculty have suggested that Dr Esmond had been accused of sexual harassment by a female student, and could have faced a serious reprimand, if not dismissal.

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92 comments

CallydonianGal0099

It breaks your heart, it really does. Those poor children

MedoraMelborne

The father killed them. Killed them and then killed himself. Just you wait `“ I know I'm right

5656AcesHigh

I'm with you. I reckon the vicious SOB murdered the lot of them.

HillBilly_889

The more you hear about this the worse it gets. Now that bloke's a sex pest? You couldn't make it up.

I wait by the car, catching a smoke. Everett and Somer are seeing off the last of the mourners and the car park is nearly empty. The wind is getting up and I see Somer holding on to her cap as they round the side of the building and come towards me.

`Did you get anything, sir?' says Everett as they reach me. `Because I don't think we did.' She pulls at her jacket again, shunting it back down.

I shake my head. `Nothing concrete. And you, Somer?'

`Not really, sir.'

`Did you speak to the lawyers?'

She nods. `Nothing doing, I'm afraid. They said they're unable to divulge anything about their clients' affairs. Even if they wanted to.'

I'm not surprised, though it was worth a try.

`But I did have a very interesting conversation with Philip Esmond. Not here,' she adds quickly. `This morning, at the care home.'

Which may explain an idle observation I made more than once during the last hour and a half. The way Esmond was looking at her, and the way she wasn't looking at him.

It doesn't take long to give me the gist of it. The incident with the boy, the accident on the Banbury Road and the panic flight to Calshot, the one place where Michael Esmond felt safe. And by the end of it she's not the only one who's starting to see a pattern.

`I know he didn't actually go to Calshot this time,' she finishes, flushing slightly at the memory, `but the rest of it `“ do you think he saw the news about the fire and went into another fugue state? It must be a possibility, surely. Though I suppose we'd have to talk to a psychiatrist to be sure `“'

`I can call Bryan Gow. Remind me `“ when did Annabel Jordan say she noticed a change in Esmond?'

`Last summer, boss,' says Ev with a meaningful look. `Which was exactly the same time the teachers at Bishop Christopher's noticed a change in Matty.'

Michael, Matty `“ there's something there, I'm sure of it `“ only just out of reach `“

`OK, let's do a bit more digging. Something happened in that family last summer and I want to know what it was.'

Interview with James Beresford, conducted at 12 Feverel Close, Wolvercote, Oxford

13 January 2018, 11.16 a.m.

In attendance, DC V. Everett

VE:Thank you for making time to see me on a Saturday, Mr Beresford. JB:No problem. Happy to help. Though I'm not sure what use I can be. I don't see Michael much. I mean, we were at school together, but that's a long time ago now. We were never exactly `friends'. VE:When did you last see him? JB:I've been thinking about that, ever since I saw the news. It was about three months ago. He emailed me out of the blue. It must have been four or five years since I'd heard from him before that. VE:So was there a particular reason why he got in contact this time? JB:It didn't seem like that to start with. We met up in one of those bars on South Parade. We had to sit outside because he wanted to smoke. I thought he'd given up years ago, but anyway, we must have been there at least an hour talking about nothing, and then he finally comes out with it. Says he wants to pick my brains. Professionally, I mean. VE:He wanted your advice? JB:Yeah, well, he didn't put it like that, of course. Michael would never want you to think you knew better than he did. VE:But he did want your help? JB:I was gobsmacked, if you really want to know. He'd never made a secret of the fact that he thought what I do is a load of crap. Not a `proper' academic discipline. Not like his. VE:What is it you do? JB:I'm a psychotherapist. VE:I see. So he wanted `“ what? A recommendation of someone he could see? JB:Basically, yes. Though he kept saying it was for someone in the family, not for him. But he would say that, wouldn't he? VE:In fact, we have now ascertained that his wife was suffering from post-natal depression. Do you think it might have been her he had in mind? JB:Right, I didn't know that. In that case, yes, he could well have been thinking of her. VE:Can you give me the name? The person you recommended? JB:I gave him a list actually `“ six or seven people locally. I can get you that. VE:Do you know if he ever contacted any of them? JB:They wouldn't tell me, even if he had. Confidentiality. And like I said, I haven't heard from him since. VE:And how did he seem, in general, that night on South Parade? JB:He looked bloody awful, actually. Hadn't shaved, sweat under his armpits. That sort of thing. VE:And that was unlike him? JB:[ makes a face ] I should say. It was always all about appearances with Michael. He had to be the one with the best exam results, the best job, the most beautiful home, the most beautiful wife. You get the picture. Actually `“ VE:Yes? JB:The first thing I thought when I heard the news was that he'd done it himself. You know, taken the ultimate way out. To be honest, if I didn't know he was in London at the time, I'd still think that. He always did have the cork in too tight.***