A rare flash of frustration clouds his face for a second. ‘Then we’re no further forward. Especially as you seem determined not to think of Pete Weston as a possible suspect.’
Oddly, his annoyance helps to calm her. She takes it as a sign that he is, in spite of the front he puts on, struggling. ‘Hamish, we don’t need to present the Crown with the real killer, even an alternative one. All we have to do is throw enough doubt on your conviction. And those three were guilty of something. Which brings me back to the question you’re trying to avoid. What happened that night?’
His eyes drop to the table. ‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘I like nothing about this whole sorry business. Get talking.’
He peers up at her through his eyelashes. ‘I love it when you’re bossy.’
‘I’m not playing games with you, Hamish.’
He scratches the side of his head. ‘OK, everything James Laurence testified in court was true. My defence did a bloody good job of discrediting him, but he was telling the truth.’
‘There was a Fat Club?’
‘There was. And my seeing Daisy is what started it. I took a lot of banter over her. It’s not always easy, seeing a woman you actually want to spend time with, as opposed to the sort of girl your peers think you should be with. Especially when you’re young and a bit unsure of yourself.’
‘My heart bleeds.’
He pushes himself back on the chair and fixes her with a stare. ‘As my lawyer, you’re really not supposed to be judgemental. You sound more like a pissed-off girlfriend.’
‘Get over yourself. And keep talking.’
For a second he looks uncertain – whether to fight back or do as she says. ‘The other guys started picking up fat girls in bars,’ he says. ‘We went into town, away from the usual student hang-outs. We were looking for women who weren’t necessarily looking for a relationship.’
‘Or who didn’t expect to be taken out to dinner a few times before they put out?’
He gives her a pitying look. ‘We were students. We didn’t do much fine dining. A girl was lucky if we paid for her drinks. Anyway, at first it was just a bit of a laugh.’
‘You were involved too? Even though you had a girlfriend?’
‘I was nineteen, Maggie. I was a good-looking bloke. Sorry to sound conceited, but there it is. Yes, I liked Daisy, but I wasn’t ready to settle down.’
‘So this was a competition? A prize for the most bedpost notches.’
‘Nothing as formal as that. It was just a bunch of dickhead guys pissing around.’
‘Until someone had the idea of recording the encounters for posterity? Who was that? You?’
‘No. It was Simon, from memory. He made a tape. We all watched it. Found it a bit of a turn-on, if I’m being absolutely honest, and that became the next stage. We all bought surveillance cameras, fitted them in our rooms and went into the movie business.’
‘How many films were made?’
He shrugs. ‘I lost track. A few dozen. More, maybe.’
‘Who thought of selling them?’
He is silent. His eyes slip away from her.
‘Was it you?’
‘That’s what the others will tell you. And, yes, it probably was me who said, Hey, guys, you know what, we can make a fucking fortune out of these babies. But setting up the business involved all of us.’
‘How much money did you make?’
‘Enough. Our student finances became a lot more manageable.’
‘And nobody spotted it? Nobody recognized themselves?’
‘Women tend not to watch porn. And we didn’t exactly promote it around the university. We used shops in other towns to sell them. Most of our viewers probably had no connection with Oxford.’
‘How many tapes featured you?’
His eyes leave her face again. ‘Three, maybe four.’
He is still lying. There were more than four.
‘Was Daisy in any of them?’
‘No. That one was private.’
‘What happened to Ellie Holmes?’
He looks down, washes his hands over his face. When he looks up again she sees creases around his temples. This is how he will look first thing in the morning, she thinks. Tired, a bit crumpled.
‘Death by misadventure,’ he says. ‘The Coroner got that right. She’d drunk a lot over the course of the evening. Warwick encouraged it, of course, it was always a lot easier when they’d had several drinks, but he didn’t know she was taking anything else.’
‘Taking what, exactly?’
‘Ecstasy. A bad dose. Contaminated with methyl diethanolamine. Sent her into primary cardiac arrest. If Warwick had taken her straight from the club to A & E, she’d probably still have died.’
Maggie has read the post-mortem report into Ellie Holmes. This is all true. Just not the whole truth. ‘Go on,’ she tells him.
Hamish takes a deep breath, as though about to dive into a cold swimming pool. ‘When she lost consciousness, Warwick panicked. He tried to resuscitate her and failed. Then he phoned Oliver.’
‘Who phoned Simon, and then went to collect first Chris and then you?’
He examines his fingernails for a second before looking up. ‘I guess James was a lot smarter than we gave him credit for.’