Somer presses pause and turns to face me.
`OK,' I say. `If I'm Scott's lawyer I'm going to claim this is pure chance. He wasn't stalking her, he wasn't even following her, he was just innocently shopping for bog roll in the Co-op and suddenly, bam, there she was.'
`But that's just it,' says Somer, `he doesn't buy anything. He doesn't even get out of the car. He's only there for one reason and that's Sasha Blake.'
`If that's true it had to be planned, right?'
She nods.
`So how did he know she'd be there? At that precise place and that precise time?'
`Actually, I think I may have an answer to that.' She picks up her phone and flicks to a web page. `I did a quick check on the Blavatnik website and there was a talk that morning that was open to the public. Art and Power in Renaissance Florence. That's exactly the sort of thing Scott might have mentioned to Sasha. He's already admitted `њencouraging`ќ her, the bloody creep.'
But I'm only half listening. I've rewound the footage and I'm looking at it again.
`Here,' I say, freezing it and pointing. `See that?'
Evidently she hasn't, because she moves a little closer.
`Just before Sasha crosses the road. That woman there, wheeling the bike.'
She must be fifty, perhaps fifty-five, with longish blonde hair and a turquoise coat. She's going in the opposite direction to Sasha, so there's a point when they have to pass each other on the crowded pavement. A few moments later the woman suddenly stops and stares at something, clearly startled, before turning and looking back towards Sasha as she crosses the road. Then she shakes her head and carries on the way she was going.
`Is she looking at Scott?' says Somer.
`I don't think so. He's on the other side of the road, so I doubt he's in her line of sight. And he's just sitting in his car `“ there's nothing to provoke a reaction like that.'
Somer looks more closely at the screen. `Victoria's on her phone `“ she wouldn't have seen anything. Damn.'
`I doubt she'd have seen much anyway `“ not from inside the shop. The angle's all wrong.'
`I suppose we could try to track down the woman with the bike,' begins Somer, `but we're going to struggle to find her after all this time `“'
`We don't need to. Whatever that woman saw, it must have been right outside the OUP building. What's the betting they have CCTV too.'
* * *
It's the first really dry afternoon for over a week, and Ursula Hollis decides to take advantage. She hasn't been further than the end of the street for days and is starting to get a bit cabin crazy. Her elderly Labrador hasn't exactly complained, but they could both do with blowing the cobwebs away. She unhooks the lead from the rack by the door and smiles as the dog gets rather laboriously to his feet. You can almost hear him sigh.
`Come on, Bruno, it's not that bad. Just down to the Vicky Arms and back. There might even be rabbits.'
It's a long time since Bruno chased anything, let alone a rabbit. There are silver hairs round that chocolate muzzle these days. She rubs him behind the ears and drops a quick kiss on his brow, trying not to think about what she's going to do without him, when he's gone.
Even if the weather's improved there's still hardly anyone about outside. In five minutes, the only people she passes are a man from BT doing something complicated with wiring in a green box and Jenny from number 4 wrestling with her bins.
She gets to the junction, zips her puffa jacket up a little further against the wind and heads down towards Mill Lane.
* * *
Adam Fawley
9 April 2018
13.13
`But the OUP didn't have anything?'
To her credit, Gallagher looked neither surprised nor wary when Somer turned up at her office with me in tow. I'm not sure I'd have been so sanguine about it, if the roles were reversed.
Somer shakes her head. `It's too long ago `“ they don't keep their CCTV footage that long. And they're not even sure the camera would have been pointing the right way anyway.'
Gallagher sits back and her shoulders sag a little. `So we've no way of knowing what that woman saw, barring tracking her down. And even if we could find her it could be nothing `“ someone on a unicycle, that duck that got into last week's Oxford Mail `“ any bloody thing.'
It's that sort of town; I saw a bloke dressed as a giraffe on the Woodstock Road last week. #OnlyinOxford even has its own bloody hashtag. So yes, this could all be a complete wild goose chase. But something tells me it isn't. That woman on Walton Street saw something `“ something that shocked her enough to stop her in her tracks. And I suddenly have a cold feeling in my gut about what it might be.
Somer makes a despairing face. `I don't think there's anything else we can do.'
I look at her and then turn to Gallagher. `Yes,' I say. `There is.'
* * *
Interview with Graeme Scott, conducted at St Aldate's Police Station, Oxford
9 April 2018, 2.05 p.m.
In attendance, DI R. Gallagher, DC E. Somer, Mrs D. Owen (solicitor)
RG: For the purposes of the tape, DI Ruth Gallagher and DC Erica Somer will now be conducting this interview. I hope you enjoyed your lunch break, Mr Scott; perhaps we could now return to the subject you were discussing with DC Quinn. Since you were last in this room we have obtained CCTV from the Blavatnik School of Government from the morning in question, and you are quite clearly visible on camera.DO: I trust you will make this footage available?RG: Of course. So, Mr Scott, do you remember that morning now?GS: If you say I was there, I suppose I must have been.ES: There was a talk at the Blavatnik that we believe Sasha was going to. A talk about Renaissance Florence `“ is that ringing a bell?GS: Now you mention it, I think I did point that out to Sasha. I'm on their mailing list.ES: So you knew she'd be there.GS: I didn't know she'd be there. I just mentioned it to her. My pupils don't keep me informed about their social lives, Inspector.RG: But you knew there was a good chance she'd go, didn't you? Good enough for you to arrange to be there yourself. Just in case.GS: Like I said, I often shop in Jericho.ES: Only you didn't. You didn't even get out of your car. You just sat there. Watching.GS: I wasn't watching. I'm not some sort of pervert `“RG: That's as may be. But you were watching her, all the same. And what I want to know now, Mr Scott, is what exactly it was that you saw.* * *
Adam Fawley
9 April 2018
14.37
`Do we believe him? Do we actually believe him?'
I don't think I've ever seen Somer's face so pale. Ever since she and Gallagher came out of the interview room she's been pacing up and down, trying to walk off the nervous energy, the sheer incredulity. Gallagher has gone the other way: she's sitting at the table, barely moving, but I can sense the din in her mind, even from the other side of the room.
Somer turns to Gallagher and repeats her question. `Well, do we? It's crazy `“'
`But possible,' says Gallagher quietly. `You know it is.'
`But we can't go hauling people in for questioning based on that `“ even if it is true `“ even if he's not still lying through his bloody teeth, which he has every reason to do right now `“'
I take a deep breath. `I don't think he is. I think he's telling the truth.'