Scandalous (11 page)

Just before supper that night—her favorite Moroccan lamb and homemade strawberry ice cream; Mum was pulling all the stops out to try and cheer her up—Sasha called Georgia.

“The summer’s so
long
. I’m missing St. Michael’s more than I thought I would,” she admitted. Not able to tell her friend about Theo, she hoped Georgia would read between the lines and offer some sympathy. “Do you find that?”

“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 opted for
Law & Order
. Sasha tried to focus on the twisting plot and the labored 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 quieted 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 reimagined…

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 dialed 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. “I’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. “I 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 a second-year student.”

“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.

S
ASHA 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 neoclassical 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 around 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 exchange 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 a s…scandal. I’m sorry. My work is too important.”