Half an hour later, Gislingham is feeling decidedly smug. He's never been that good at lateral thinking but, this time, he really has surpassed himself. Though he did have to drag Baxter back in to help him with the techy stuff. Which turned out to be a good call, given what they've unearthed now. It's a Twitter feed with the ID @Ogou_badagri. That particular choice of identity may not mean much to them but the owner's name certainly does. `Jurjen Kuiper' in Dutch is George Cooper in English, and it's a George Cooper who set up this account. And unlike Kuiper's official one, this Twitter feed is anything but academic.
`I do sympathize with you, Dr Kuiper.'
He inclines his head. `Thank you. It is greatly distressing to have one's work impugned in such a way.'
`Impugned'. How many Brits would say that. Or even know what it means. But Kuiper does.
`All the same,' I continue evenly, `we will, of course, have to eliminate you from our enquiries.'
A pale doubt flickers across his face.
`I'm sure it will be just a formality, in your case. But there are procedures we have to adhere to. I'm sure you appreciate that.' I pull my notebook towards me. `If you could start by telling me where you were around midnight on Wednesday?'
He pushes his glasses up his nose again. `I was hoping `“'
He stops. Flushes.
`Yes?'
`It's a little delicate.'
I sit back. We're a long way past `intrigued' now. This man has something to hide.
`Kuiper isn't just pissed off, sir `“ it's a lot more than that.'
It's Gislingham. Baxter's got the Twitter feed up on a projector in the incident room and Gis is scrolling down. Quinn has joined us too; he always thinks of himself as a bit of an expert when it comes to social media (`He bloody well should be,' as Ev said, `the amount of time he spends on Tinder') but he's clearly worried Gis has got one over on him on this occasion.
`I googled that name as well,' says Gis, handing out printouts. `Ogou Badagri is a Haitian voodoo spirit.'
I glance at the sheet and then back at Gis.
`Not only that,' he continues, `but he just so happens to be the god of fire.' He gives me a meaningful look. `And apparently you can also ask him to help you out if you need to take revenge on someone who's pissed you off.'
Quinn starts laughing. `Oh, come off it `“ no one seriously believes in that crap, do they? In this day and age?'
`That's not the point,' I say quietly. `It's not about believing in it. It's about using it. Using it to send a message. Michael Esmond is an expert in Latin American voodoo, he'd have known exactly what this meant. And who was behind it.'
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.'