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“Ten minutes?” Dr. Myers looked at his watch, and then nodded. “Yes, ten minutes I can do. Come in.”
He stood back, and Hannah and Emily edged past him into the little office. The blinds were drawn against the summer sun, casting the room into pools of light and shadow. Hannah perched, rather nervously, on the edge of the chair she used in tutorials, letting her hair fall around her face, while Emily took the armchair in the corner and folded her arms with a grim expression.
“What can I help you with, Hannah?” Dr. Myers said pleasantly. Hannah felt a flutter in her gut at the thought of what she might be about to set in motion, but then steeled herself. John Neville had gone too far this time. She had to say something.
“It’s about one of the porters,” she said. Her throat was dry and she swallowed, wishing she’d had something to drink at breakfast other than strong coffee. “John Neville. He’s the very tall one.”
“Yes, I know Mr. Neville,” Dr. Myers said, frowning, as if he didn’t understand quite where all this was leading.
“He caught me last night climbing over the wall behind Cloade’s,” Hannah said. Her heart was beating fast. “And he—well, he rugby-tackled me. To the ground. He—” She swallowed again. It felt like something was blocking her throat, making it hard to breathe. “He threw himself on top of me. I couldn’t move. It was—” She stopped, unable to think how to go on. “It was—” she managed again, and then shut her eyes.
“Hannah’s hurt, Dr. Myers,” Emily broke in furiously. “Look at her face. It was totally disproportionate. And it’s part of a pattern of really threatening behavior towards Hannah and—”
“Ladies, hold up, hold up,” Dr. Myers said, raising a hand. “What’s this about your face, Hannah?”
Reluctantly, Hannah pulled back the curtain of hair shielding her bruised cheek and leaned forward, into the pool of sunlight. Dr. Myers looked at the marks in silence for a few moments and then folded his arms.
“I see. Run me through what happened step-by-step, Hannah. You were climbing over the wall? Why were you climbing over the wall?”
“I didn’t—” Hannah started, and then stopped. She had been going to say, I didn’t want Neville to see me going through the lodge, but now she was worried that would sound like she had a preexisting grudge against Neville. “It was a shortcut,” she finished, rather lamely. “The Cloade gate was shut.”
“Very well, so you climbed the wall, and what happened next?”
“I was climbing down the other side, and I felt someone grab my ankle.”
“Someone? You didn’t know it was Neville at first?”
“No, I didn’t know it was him at first—it was dark—and I was scared, so I kicked out, and ran away.”
“And he ran after you?”
“Yes, he called out something like stop, or stop, trespasser. I can’t remember.”
“Very well, and then what happened?”
“He caught up with me by the cloisters,” Hannah said. The words felt thick in her mouth. She heard again Neville’s pounding footsteps behind her, the whiplash sensation as he grabbed her collar, jerking her back. “He grabbed my coat and then tripped me and I fell, and he threw himself on top of me. He had his arm across the back of my neck. I couldn’t—” Her breath was coming fast, her heart was knocking in her ears. “I couldn’t breathe. I started to see stars.”
“And then?”
“And then someone else came along and said something like, what’s going on, and he stood up, and I—I just ran. I was so scared.”
“But you saw it was him?”
“When he tripped me, yes. I knew it was him.” Her voice was shaking now. She felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “I’m absolutely certain it was him, I recognized his voice and his—” She stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say his smell. It implied a level of intimacy she wished she didn’t have. “And th-there was someone else there,” she said instead, stumbling over the words. “A man. I think it was a member of college staff. Whoever it was spoke to Neville—he’ll corroborate my story, confirm it definitely was Neville who tackled me. And it’s not just my face, look.” She stood up, yanking at the hem of her shirt, pulling it up to show her torso, the scarlet scrapes, fast darkening into blotched purple bruises. “Look, I’m not making this up.”
Behind her Hannah heard Emily suck in her breath at the sight of her battered ribs, and she let the T-shirt drop and sat back down, her cheeks flaming.
“Well look, let me say first and foremost I’m absolutely not trying to cast doubt on what you experienced,” Dr. Myers said slowly. He stood up too, pacing to the window as if trying to give himself time to consider his response. “It sounds… well, deeply unpleasant and I’m not at all surprised you’re shaken up by it. But I’m just trying to understand the sequence of events from Neville’s perspective—you say yourself that you didn’t realize it was Neville until he tackled you?”
“And?” Hannah said angrily. She took a shaky breath, realizing that her voice had become shriller and more accusatory than she meant it to be. “No,” she said, more evenly. “No, that’s correct, I didn’t.”
“So it’s very likely that Neville didn’t recognize you either. He simply saw someone breaking into the college and—quite properly—asked them to stop, and then pursued them when they didn’t.”
“Dr. Myers, did you see those bruises?” Emily said, standing up in her turn. Her voice was calm, but dangerously so, and Hannah could tell she was only just keeping her temper in check. “And have you seen Hannah’s face? He didn’t just pursue her, he leaped on top of a defenseless female student and ground her face into the dirt until she couldn’t speak, and more to the point this isn’t the first time that he’s targeted Hannah, in fact—”
“Well, that’s just it,” Dr. Myers broke in. “That’s what I’m trying to understand here. Because obviously if you’re saying, Ms.…?”
“Emily Lippman,” Emily said shortly.
