Disclaimer by Renée Knight

when he’d been in his room. You know, his personal stuff. That things had been moved about. We didn’t know about it till much later. If we had … well, my husband would have gone up there straight away and sorted him out.’
    ‘What did you do?’
    ‘We wanted to inform the police, only Jamie wouldn’t let us. My husband spoke to the university and they said they’d keep an eye. For a while, nothing happened. Then one night when Jamie was in bed, Brigstocke turned up. Started banging on his door, wanting to be let in. Said he’d missed his last train and he wanted to sleep on Jamie’s floor. I mean, he was a bloody nutcase. Another student, Jamie’s mate, helped get him out of there.’
    ‘And did the police get involved that time?’
    ‘No, no, Jamie wouldn’t call them and he wouldn’t let us when we found out. But his mate said that he’d sorted Brigstocke out. He didn’t come back after that. We went up there as soon as we could. Jamie’s friend told us Brigstocke had been sobbing at Jamie’s door, banging and banging for Jamie to let him in, and he’d had to drag him away. Jamie was too upset. It was his mate who got Brigstocke out of there. Bashed him about a bit – well, he had to. He said he was a nutter, crying like a baby. Jamie never told us any of that. Thing is, he’d really liked Mr Brigstocke, looked up to him.’
    ‘Thank you, Mrs Rossi, thank you so much. Do you think Jamie would talk to me?’
    ‘God no. He’d be furious if he knew I’d been talking to you. Even now. He completely clammed up about it – never talks about it. Sometimes I wonder whether, you know, anything had happened before he went up to uni. I mean Brigstocke was obsessed with Jamie.’
    ‘What do you mean? Did you ever suspect anything while Brigstocke was teaching Jamie?’
    ‘I don’t know. I don’t know … No, no, not really. I’m not sure. Jamie trusted Mr Brigstocke. It was Mr Brigstocke got him through those exams. They spent a lot of time together.’
    ‘Listen, let me leave you my number and if you think Jamie might want to talk, please give me a call. It’s possible he’s not the only one Stephen Brigstocke took an interest in.’
    It’s been a good day’s work. Productive. Catherine is building up a picture of Stephen Brigstocke, and it is not a pretty one. That makes her feel better, a little safer. She is not the only one who is hiding things. She is about to leave when Kim hands her a piece of paper with the address and phone number she’s been waiting for.
    She is in no rush to get home. Robert had said he’d be late, so she takes her time, gets off at an earlier Tube stop and decides to walk the rest of the way. It’s a nice evening. She passes her local bookshop, stopping to look in the window. It is full of temptation – full of things to cleanse her palate. She is stepping over the threshold when she hears her name called from across the street. She wants to ignore it – she feels the bookshop sucking her in, dragging her to its shelves – but the voice calls again, closer now, at her shoulder.
    ‘Catherine!’
    She turns and is met with a wide smile from a friend she hasn’t seen for a while.
    ‘How are you?’
    ‘I’m fine, I’m fine. How are you?’
    ‘Good. I’m good. What are you doing?’
    ‘Well, I was about to go and buy a book – need to find a birthday present.’ Why is she lying?
    ‘Oh, come and have a drink. Come on, a quick glass of wine …’
    The friend is beguiling. The sun is shining. Robert will be home late. They can sit outside, have a glass of wine, smoke a cigarette. She gives in, allows herself to be led away.
    It is still light when she gets home. Even so, she pulls down the blinds and turns on the lights. Robert will be another hour. The silence in the house invites Stephen Brigstocke back into her head. He had been held at bay for a while: the company of her friend, a glass of wine, had helped push him away, but now he has slipped in again.