But Honor remembered. Honor saw. She saw Zoe, through the crack in the door of her dorm room. She saw him on top of Zoe, frantically at work even though Zoe was obviously passed out, her arm as floppy as a rabbit’s ear, her body unresponsive. She saw the heel of his hand on the back of Zoe’s head, pressing her head into the pillow and, for a moment, a glimpse of his face in profile picked out in the light coming in from the corridor. She’d shouted and pushed on the door which moved an inch then sprung back from the safety chain. She saw him freeze, could almost hear the panic going through his mind. He thought he’d closed the door. He had closed it, secured the chain on the inside, thought he was safe from prying eyes, but evidently the latch had been on and a draught or perhaps the movement on the bed had clicked the lock open and the door had swung just far enough for Honor to see some of the horror that was going on inside. She screamed, ‘Get off her!’ and tried to curl her hand around the door to reach the chain. His head snapped up so that she could no longer see his face and she heard the rustle of the mattress moving and Zoe’s arm moving with the momentum, her hand half open, the fingers soft and mobile. And she’d shouted, ‘Let me in you bastard,’ and charged the door putting all her weight behind her shoulder. She couldn’t see him now, but she watched through the crack in the door as the mattress sprang back from his weight. And she ran at the door, jamming her side into the wood but still the chain held firm. Seconds later she saw the shower room light go on and heard the door close and she remembered thinking, he’s trying to get away, and that was when she ran, along the corridor and down two flights of stairs and across the quad to the campus security office and panted out who and what she’d seen. And when the security officer came back to the room with her the chain was off but the door was closed and no one responded to his knocking or to her calling. The officer would have left then if Honor hadn’t insisted that they go inside to check on Zoe. With a sigh he reluctantly took out the master key and let himself in and they saw Zoe lying on the bed, passed out, alone, the thick smell of alcohol in the room.

‘She’s just pissed,’ he said. ‘Ain’t no one else here. Wasting my time.’