McDermid, Val - Trick of the Dark

'Some might disagree with you,' Charlie said, her voice weary. 'Some might say it was his very experiences at the hands of those of us involved in law enforcement that sent him over the edge.'

'Speaking as a philosopher, I find that an untenable proposition, ' Corinna said briskly. 'Now, there's nothing we can do to help you professionally, obviously. Although I'm sure, where influence exists, it's being brought to bear. But what I can do is offer you the chance to be useful. To use your skills for good, if you like.'

Charlie didn't know why, but she felt like laying her head on the desk and weeping. 'I don't have the faintest idea what you're on about, Corinna. And I'm pretty sure I don't want to.'

'Charlie, we can help each other here. But a phone call isn't the way to do this. Come and talk to me. Come to Oxford for the weekend. Bring your partner if you like. I'm sure she'd find plenty to amuse her in the city. You don't have to come and stay with us if you'd find that awkward after all this time. We'll find you a room in college.'

'I don't think so, Corinna.'

'All I'm asking is that you listen to me, Charlie. No obligation. If you won't do it for me, do it for Magda. You and Magda were always buddies. Charlie, I understand the reason you do what you do. It's because you have a desire to protect the vulnerable. Right now, Charlie, my daughter has never been more vulnerable. Can your conscience really afford any more burdens?'

'That's a very poor effort at emotional blackmail, Corinna.'

'You said yourself if you had a daughter who was running around with Jay Macallan Stewart, you'd be shouting for help. That's all I'm doing here.'

'I understand that. But I'm not the person to help with this. I don't know how to break up Magda and Jay Stewart, even if I thought that was an appropriate thing to do.'

'I'm not asking you to separate my daughter from Jay Macallan Stewart,' Corinna said, sounding ruffled for the first time. 'I wouldn't be so crass. I know my Magda well enough to understand that finding out the truth about the kind of person Jay Stewart is will do the job perfectly well. What I'm asking is that you bring your talents to bear on uncovering that truth. At heart, this is about a miscarriage of justice. I thought you still cared about that kind of thing, Charlie.'

It doesn't take long for silence on a phone to loom large. After a few empty seconds, Charlie said, 'I don't understand.'

'Paul Barker and Joanna Sanderson did not kill my son-in-law, Charlie. The jury's out today, the evidence is stacked against them. They're going to jail. And it's wrong.'

'Haven't you left it a bit late to try and drag me into this? If it was really about avoiding a miscarriage of justice, surely you should have called me weeks ago.'

Corinna's exasperated sigh was not unfamiliar to Charlie. 'This hasn't exactly been easy for me. I thought it would be thrown out of court. I had no idea how far… Look, Charlie, what matters here is that the two people in the dock are innocent. They didn't kill Philip.'

Charlie couldn't help herself. 'Who did?'

'Some things don't work over the phone. Come and talk to me, Charlie.'

Hook, line and sinker, Charlie thought. Here we go again.

I left Northumberland Jennifer Stewart and arrived at Oxford Jay. A small thing, for sure, but the first stage of my transformation. A lot more was needed, that much was soon obvious. Years later, I still have vivid, humiliating memories of my first tutorial with Dr Helena Winter.

Helena Winter was one of the reasons I had chosen St Scholastika's. Hers had been the first book about philosophy that had fired my enthusiasm for the subject. When I'd come to the college for my interviews, I'd thought her the most stylish woman I'd ever seen. Impeccable in a charcoal pin-striped suit, she radiated calm composure. Her face was inscrutable, her hair a perfect chignon the shocking white of a new ream of printer paper. I desperately wanted to impress her.

I had prepared my first essay on the history of philosophy with her in mind and, as instructed, began reading it out. It may be hard to believe now if you've ever heard me on the radio or TV but back then I had a Northumbrian accent you could cut with a knife and spread on stottie cakes. I was barely into my stride when I became aware of Dr Winter's raised hand, like a genteel officer of the traffic police. I faltered to a halt.

'I'm so terribly sorry, Miss… Stewart,' Dr Winter said, not caring whether she sounded condescending or not. 'Your accent is positively splendid, and would be a great asset were you to be studying Anglo-Saxon and Middle English. But unfortunately I haven't understood a word you've said thus far. I wonder, could you possibly return to the beginning and speak a little more slowly?'

I was mortified. But at eighteen, I had no notion that a woman like Helena Winter was capable of being put in her place, never mind how to do it. So I started again, forcing my mouth round the sort of phonemes that would have earned scorn and mockery in my native Wearside. By the end of that first term, I was bilingual. BBC English for Dr Winter, Northumbrian when I was thinking and talking to myself.

The junior philosophy don was a powerful antidote to the formality of Dr Winter. Corinna Newsam was the polar opposite of most of the college's tutors. The list of differences was long and significant. She was Canadian; she was Catholic; she was married so she lived in a proper house, not a set of rooms in college; she had children of her own; she was no more than thirty-five, a mere child by Oxford's donnish standards; and she was informal, insisting we call her Corinna.Those were the tangible differences. But there were intangibles too. She was lively, making the ideas of Ancient Greek philosophers vibrant and relevant. She never patronised, and she wasn't a snob. Probably half of us were half in love with her.

Jay paused and reread the last paragraph. 'No,' she muttered. 'Strike the last sentence.' She had to keep reminding herself there were new brakes on candour. Magda would read this memoir. Most of what Jay didn't want Magda to know overlapped with what she wanted the rest of the world not to know. But there were more things that were off limits now. It was tacky to reveal to your lover that at the time she'd first had a crush on you, you were in love with her mother. So she erased the last sentence and took off her glasses, polishing them on her T-shirt while she figured out a new bridging sentence.

In short, she was the only member of the Senior Common Room who seemed to have friend potential for any of us.What I didn't realise back then was that it wasn't friendship I needed.

What was missing in my life was what had always been missing. I needed a mother. And somehow, Corinna Newsam picked up on that need.

Jay smiled in satisfaction. That would play much better with Magda. It also shone a benevolent light on Corinna, providing Magda with more ammunition against her mother's hostility. She could imagine Magda saying something to Corinna like, 'But she's so nice about you. She talks about how kind you were to her. Why are you being so unkind now?' Every little helped.

Jay checked the time in the bottom corner of her computer screen. Eighteen minutes till the next news bulletin. According to Magda, the jury would be going out sometime today. But it would be tempting fate to expect them to come back with a quick verdict. Jay longed for it to be over so she and Magda could forge ahead with their lives without fear. But she knew from past experience that when you set a chain of circumstance in motion patience was the only ally worth cultivating. It would all be fine. The ball she had started rolling on Magda's wedding day would score a goal soon enough. The next news bulletin was irrelevant. Plenty of time to write more.