Taking a deep breath and sitting upright once more, Gary says, ‘Like I said, I sort of knew this day would come. Reynolds would … what he would say was that he wanted to pleasure you, only it wasn’t pleasurable. It was awful, but you couldn’t say no because he would threaten to ruin your academic career. He would usually lock the door to his office but, this time, it was late, and I guess he forgot, and Maddy burst in on us, and, I remember this so clearly, the shame, but also the hope, because Maddy saw us and she said “Oh” and I thought, he’s been found out now, so everything will change, but he just said, “Maddy, as you can see Gary and I are busy being naughty, aren’t we, Gary. You’ve caught us with our pants down.” Then he laughed and said, “So if you don’t mind?” So she left and he carried on. He had no idea my recorder was on, obviously. But the saddest thing, in a way, was that Madeleine saw what was happening and she turned her back on me.’

‘Did you tell anyone?’

He bites his lip and shakes his head. ‘That’s what’s so sad. None of us did. We didn’t even tell each other. The victims. I didn’t know it had happened to Michael until after he died. I remembered him saying how much he hated Reynolds. It’s so difficult to explain, but you wouldn’t have known what to say. You were so alone. I was scared of getting kicked out of the university. And Reynolds was our personal tutor, so he would have been the person to tell. And what if I had told? He could have just denied it. And Madeleine would have backed him up. In fact, I think she did. It was a stitch-up. And anyway, who would have believed me?’

‘And Madeleine never said anything to you about that incident?’

‘Nothing. I avoided her. I was just so, you know, so humiliated that she’d walked in on what Reynolds was doing. When you told me you wanted to talk about her, I went up into the attic and dug out some photos. I found one of her. I guess it must have been at one of the faculty drinks parties. You want to see it?’ Without waiting for an answer he reaches out for an envelope lying on the coffee table and draws out a photograph of a young woman with dark hair and a broad smile punctuated at either end by dimples. Something about the image is familiar, though she has never met Madeleine Ince, only had that one disastrous phone call with her.

‘She’s very pretty,’ Honor says, returning the photograph to the table.