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‘Not really’ Sasha could hear the sound of laughter in the background. A student party. How long was it since she’d been to one of those? Let her hair down with people her own age? ‘A lot of the gang from college were in Turkey two weeks ago. You should have come.’
Maybe I should have.
‘Josie and Danny are here now. D’you want to say hi?’
Sasha said hi, but she hung up the phone feeling even more lonely than she had before. We’ve grown apart. Even me and Georgia. We used to be so close.
Seeing his daughter on the couch, lost in thought, Don Miller turned on the TV. He could see she was upset, but long experience had taught him that distraction was a safer bet than the dreaded ‘talking’ when it came to women’s problems.
‘Only Fools and Horses, Gardeners’ World or Law & Order?’ he asked cheerfully.
‘Hmmm? Oh, I don’t mind, Dad. Whatever.’
Don plumped for Law & Order. Sasha tried to focus on the twisting plot and the laboured tension of the detectives’ banter, but it was a losing battle. She didn’t even notice when Don switched over to the ten o’clock BBC news until her mother walked in and asked her a question about the Middle East. A few seconds later, however, and the TV had Sasha’s full attention.
‘Isn’t that your professor, love? The fellow from St Michael’s?’
Sasha felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach. Theo’s face on screen looked even more handsome than it did in her dreams, if that were possible. He was doing that half-frown, half-smile thing that he did when he concentrated. It was the same face he pulled when he made love, right before he came.
‘What’s he doing on the news?’
It was a good ten seconds before the pounding of Sasha’s heart quietened enough for her to hear what Theo was saying. He was talking about some sort of breakthrough. Something that would change the face of physics and astronomy. Odd words and phrases leapt out at her…Einstein’s field equation, but seen through a mirror…changing our perceptions of existence…space-time continuum re-imagined…
Sasha felt a momentary swelling of pride. Those are my words. I wrote that.
The report then cut to a ludicrously simplified CGI of the Big Bang and the formation of earth. Above the graphic of the spinning planet was an equation. And that’s when it hit Sasha: It’s my theory. He’s gone public with my theory. It’s on the news.
Her hands and feet began to tingle with excitement, as if someone were passing an electric current through her body. Wordlessly she grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned up the volume, waiting to hear Theo mention her name.
Is this why he’s been so distant? He wanted to surprise me.
Theo was talking. ‘Sometimes an idea is so profound, but so simple, you can’t quite believe it yourself
He knows how to handle these things better than I do. He didn ‘t want me to screw it up.
‘…culmination of years of work
Only six months actually.
‘…grateful to all those who have supported me. Especially my wonderful wife Theresa.’
Excuse me?
‘Science can be a lonely profession, but Theresa has been there for me through thick and thin. It’s easy to get caught up in competition with one’s peers. But clearly this is not about me personally. This isn’t Theo Dexter’s triumph. It’s a triumph for the whole physics community. For the human race, in a way’
Cut to various eminent physicists from around the globe. Sasha watched their mouths move, but her ears were ringing. Slowly, hideously, the truth began to dawn.
Oh my God.
‘I’m just the lucky man who happened to be sitting in the right place when inspiration struck.’
Yeah you were in the right place! Naked in a field with ME. You stole my idea!
‘Bastard,’ Sasha muttered, getting unsteadily to her feet.
The report was finished. Huw Edwards was saying something about the Special Olympics. Sasha grabbed the arm of the sofa for support. The room was starting to spin.
‘Are you all right, darling? Sasha?’ Don gave her a worried glance.
‘I need some air.’
Outside in the garden, warm summer scents of jasmine and freshly mown grass assailed Sasha’s senses. The world looked and smelled and sounded familiar, but everything had changed. Her hand shook as she dialled Theo’s number.
He won’t answer. He’ll see it’s from me and he won’t answer. He…
‘Sasha. How are you, angel? Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call you back earlier. It’s been a manic day’ He sounded so calm, so normal, for a moment Sasha wondered if she’d imagined the news report. There was no hint of guilt or apology in his voice.
‘I saw you. On the news. Five minutes ago.’
‘Oh.’ There was a long pause. Irrationally, Sasha’s spirits soared. This is where he’s going to explain everything. It’s all some sort of ghastly mistake and he’s going to put it right. ‘Listen, all that stuff about Theresa…I had to say it. She’s been so low recently, and she was desperate to be a part of all the excitement. You understand, don’t you?’
Sasha shook her head in disbelief. This was getting more surreal by the second.
‘Theresa? What are you talking about, Theo? You stole my theory! I just saw you on the BBC bloody news, telling people my thesis was your idea.’
‘I think you’re a wee bit confused, sweetheart.’ There was an edge to Theo’s voice that hadn’t been there before. T’ve been working on this theory for years. Long, long before I met you. Now, granted, you developed a couple of my ideas further than I had. Your paper really got me thinking
‘Liar!’ Sasha exploded. T didn’t develop your ideas! They were my ideas and you know it.’
‘Come on, Sash. This is nonsense. I don’t know anything of the kind. Listen, I’m jumping into a cab now. Can we talk about this tomorrow, when you’ve calmed down?’
Sasha hung up on him.
When Don Miller walked into the garden ten minutes later, he found his daughter pacing the stone path, mumbling to herself like a lunatic.
‘Sash, love? What is it? Your mum and I are worried about you. Won’t you tell us what’s happened?’
Sasha stopped mumbling, stared at him and burst into tears.
When she finally stopped crying, she told him everything. Her affair with Theo, how it had started, his marital problems, the secrecy, and how it had alienated her from her friends and family. Finally she told him about her theory, a simplified version but Don got the gist. How she had trusted Theo to advise her on it and he had stolen it and was trying to pass it off as his own work.
Don Miller listened in silence. When Sasha finally finished talking, he said gently, ‘I see. So what are you going to do?’
‘Do?’ Sasha looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean what are you going to do? I hope you’re not thinking of letting this wanker get away with it. Are you?’
‘But Dad, it’ll be his word against mine.’
‘So?’
‘He’s a fellow, a respected, professional scientist. I’m just a student about to start her second year.’
‘So?’
‘So no one will believe me.’
Don Miller took his daughter’s hand. ‘I believe you, Sasha. You’ve got right on your side. The truth will come to light in the end, but not if you don’t fight for it. Mum and I will be behind you all the way. We’ll get you a lawyer. We’ll sell the house if we have to.’
Sasha was so touched she started to cry again.
‘I loved him, Dad.’
‘No, love. You just thought you did.’
Her dad was right. She couldn’t just sit back and let Dexter get away with this.
I’ll take him to court. I’ll win back my theory and expose him as a liar and a fraud.
Theo Dexter was going to curse the day he underestimated Sasha Miller.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e9031146-8bb5-530a-a467-2446a9e03e21)
Sasha squeezed both her parents’ hands as the members of the Regent House filed back into the room. The Regent House was the official governing body of the University of Cambridge. Usually it only ever met in the grand, neo-classical Senate House on King’s Parade to award degrees, or to elect a new chancellor. But today, sensationally, the Master of St Michael’s had summoned a special congregation – Cambridge’s equivalent of a court martial – to settle the increasingly embarrassing and bitter dispute between Professor Theo Dexter and his second-year pupil, Sasha Miller.
Of course, today was only the university’s decision. Theoretically, Sasha could still pursue Theo in the British courts. But the six-hundred-pounds-an-hour lawyer Don Miller had engaged was blunt about her chances.
‘If the university goes against you, it will be very difficult to win a civil case. I hesitate to say impossible. But if you pursue Dexter and you lose, the court will most likely award him damages and costs. Add that to your own legal fees and you could be looking at a bill running into millions of pounds.’
‘We’ll do whatever it takes/ Don said defiantly. But they all knew it wasn’t an option. Everything rested on today’s decision. Up until a couple of hours ago, Sasha had been sure she was going to lose. In the last two months, since the British press had got hold of the juicy story about the hunky Cambridge professor and his teenage undergraduate lover, Sasha had seen her good name raked through the mud. Like flies swarming round a turd, the university establishment had rallied around Theo Dexter. No one, other than Sasha’s student friends, had agreed to speak up for her.
Until this afternoon.
Harold Grier, a senior American physicist on secondment from Harvard, had been one of Sasha’s lab partners at the Cavendish. Grier had witnessed much of Sasha’s early research work on what was already now being referred to as ‘Dexter’s Law’. If he spoke up for her, she had a shot. Unfortunately for Sasha, Harold Grier was also a pathologically private man and so shy he was borderline autistic. He had refused all her entreaties to testify at the Senate House. ‘I can’t be dragged into as…scandal. I’m sorry. My work is too important.’
Sasha had given up trying to change Harold’s mind weeks ago. But today, after the lunchtime recess, a miracle had occurred. Walking out of the ladies, she saw Harold Grier standing alone in the grand foyer of the Senate House with a sheaf of papers in his hand. Harold saw her too, and smiled.
‘Who’s that?’ Sasha’s dad asked her, watching Harold take his seat. Don noticed the way that the Dexter camp’s eyes had all turned to follow him as he made his way to the front of the court.
‘I very much hope that’s my knight in shining armour,’ whispered Sasha.
The Master of St Michael’s took his seat. ‘In curia nostra, hodie est dies juridicus. Sedete silentio si commodum est.’
This is it.
Theresa Dexter held her husband’s hand and kept her eyes fixed firmly on the robed figures in front of her. Sometimes the urge to turn around and look at Sasha Miller was so strong it made her neck hurt. But she knew that if she made eye contact she wouldn’t be able to restrain herself from running over and strangling the girl with her bare hands. Better to be here than down the road in the Crown Court, on trial for murder, Theresa told herself. In an hour this nightmare will be over.
The last two months had been the worst of Theresa Dexter’s life. It was August when Theo had come home, ashen-faced, and told her that he was afraid one of his undergraduates was going to try to lay claim to his theory.
‘But why? I mean, that’s ridiculous. How could she possibly lay claim to it?’
‘We worked together.’ Theo shrugged. ‘I trusted her. You know, she’s a bright girl, she showed a lot of promise. I thought it would be exciting for her to be involved with something like this. Something ground-breaking.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I suppose I was naive.’
Theresa had been outraged on Theo’s behalf, sympathetic and practical. ‘We’ll talk to Ed Gilliam. He’ll know what to do. Try not to worry, darling. At best this girl’s delusional and at worst she’s a liar. Either way, she can’t hurt you. The truth will out.’
The next morning, Theo gave the same spiel to Ed Gilliam. When he’d finished, Ed said, ‘You prick. You were sleeping with her, weren’t you?’
‘Sleeping with…? Of course I wasn’t sleeping with her!’ Theo blustered. ‘How dare you imply…’
‘I’m going to give you five seconds to stop talking shit and tell me the truth. And if you don’t, I’m going to hang up, play a nice round of golf, and forget you ever existed. OK?’
Theo hesitated. ‘All right. Yes, OK, I did sleep with her. A couple of times. But it was nothing, a silly fling. She seduced me. Sasha can be very persuasive, you know.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Ed. ‘Pretty young girl plays the victim on Richard and Judy’s couch and next thing you know you’re a paedophile. No one will give a fuck whose theory this is after that. By the way, just out of interest, did you nick it?’
‘No! Of course I didn’t. The whole thing’s preposterous.’
‘Good. Now listen, you leave the PR side of this to me. It’s a nightmare, but I’ve handled worse. The trick is to hit back first, not wait for Lolita to leak the story. I’m going to tell you what to do, and you’re going to do it, no questions asked. We can salvage this thing but we have to act fast. And, Theo?’
‘Yes, Ed?’
‘Stop lying to me. Save your energy for all the other people you’re going to have to lie to.’
Following Ed Gilliam’s instructions, Theo admitted his affair with Sasha to Theresa that evening, albeit a heavily edited version.
‘But…but…we’ve been so happy’ Theresa blinked back tears.
‘I know.’ Theo hugged her. ‘I’ve been a fool, T. I am happy with you. Sasha was just so vulnerable and so needy. She kept on and on, pursuing me, begging me to be with her. It was relentless. I didn’t realize how psychologically disturbed she was until it was too late. Can you ever forgive me?’
His remorse was so heartfelt Theresa couldn’t help but forgive him, but she was desperately hurt. There was no time to process her feelings, however. The very next morning, a double-page spread ran in the Daily Mail, salivating over British science’s newest star’s liaison with his beautiful protégée.
At the breakfast table, Theo shook the newspaper angrily. ‘Bitch. I can’t believe she’s gone public already. Has she no shame? I mean it’s not just me she’s hurting. It’s you, and St Michael’s. The whole physics community gets tainted with this shit. How could she?’
‘It’s all right, darling.’ Theresa touched his arm consolingly. ‘We’ll get through it together.’
Half an hour later, Theo called Ed Gilliam from the car.
‘Nice piece.’
‘Yeah. It should do the job. Remember, say nothing to the press, not till I get you that statement. If they doorstep you, keep your cool and look remorseful.’
‘Remorseful. Got it.’
‘This is only the opening salvo, you know. The war hasn’t begun. Now we have to get the university on side.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Theo.
When Sasha read the Daily Mail article she was nearly sick.
