The Judgement of Lut

Rod started to receive the text messages at the office in April 2004. He couldn’t hide them from Charlotte, because Rod didn’t normally ‘do’ text messages. He thought it was something more suited to teenagers. Now he was getting them – sometimes as many as six or seven – every day. Charlotte asked him who they were from. He’d say, No one you know. You wouldn’t approve anyway.

Charlotte kept pushing. In the end, Rod gave in and said, It’s this guy I’m seeing called Ozzy. He’s twenty and he’s beautiful. He said that Ozzy was a Muslim who wasn’t yet ‘out’, and that – only half-jokingly – he believed that Ozzy’s family would kill him if they found out about the relationship. Charlotte, who in her own way loved Rod as much as Stuart did, told him to keep away from Ozzy.

Rod kept receiving texts. It seemed that there was a problem between him and Ozzy, because some of the texts were threatening. One said, pointedly, that Ozzy knew where Rod’s mother lived in Sussex. Another suggested that Rod’s clients might like to know what it was he did in his private life. Then, a few weeks later, Rod came into the office, agitated. He sat down in front of Charlotte’s desk. I think I’ve pissed that Ozzy off. Someone’s got hold of my Gaydar profile and made it look like I’m a paedophile.

Charlotte asked how Ozzy could possibly have known his password. Rod made a face as if to say, You’re going to shout at me for this. Then he said, I was in the shower and Ozzy said he didn’t have a profile on Gaydar so could he borrow my login.

Charlotte told him once again to have nothing more to do with Ozzy. Maybe you’re right, said Rod.

That was the last Charlotte heard about Ozzy until one Friday a few weeks later in May. She and Rod were going to a lunchtime reading of a play in the West End, and Rod said to Charlotte, You’ll never guess who phoned me and confessed to that Gaydar thing. It was Ozzy. He wants to come and see me tonight.

Charlotte said, I hope you’re not going to see him.

Rod replied, Well, he’s twenty and he’s beautiful.

Ozzy called a few more times later that afternoon. Rod was too busy to speak to him, but in the end he took one of the calls. Afterwards, Rod told Charlotte that he had made an arrangement for Ozzy to phone him at 10.30 that night but would not be seeing him, adding, as he left the office, You know you’ve talked me out of a shag tonight, don’t you?

And he laughed.

When Rod didn’t appear at Charlotte’s engagement party the following night, she wasn’t concerned, although she was disappointed. Stuart, who had been invited, was also absent.The next day, Charlotte, beginning to worry when she had still heard nothing from Rod, called Stuart, but he diverted her calls. He hadn’t been in the mood to go to the party, and now he wasn’t in the mood to make excuses.

At about five p.m., Charlotte rang Ann,who was still living in the grounds of her parents’ cottage in Framfield. She stayed close to the farm to look after her mother – Margaret Hall – who had suffered a series of severe strokes and was now an invalid. Ann had been worried about Rod since the last time she saw her brother a few weeks before. She knew that he wasn’t happy. He had said to her, Ann, I don’t much like myself at the moment.

He told her about the dates he had been arranging through the Internet. She warned him to take care, fearing the dangers of his meeting up with strangers for sex. He said he didn’t like what he was doing but that he was addicted to it.

Before Rod left that day, there had been an odd exchange when he had insisted on discussing his will with her. He wanted to amend it, leaving half of everything he had to Stuart, and the other half to Ann. Before, Stuart had been the sole beneficiary. Ann told him not to be so silly, talking about death at his age. He was, after all, only fifty-three. Now, here was Charlotte, ringing to tell Ann that Rod could not be found.

Ann decided to phone Stuart. Stuart said, If anyone is going to go round there, it ought to be me, meaning to Rod’s flat in Southwark.

Charlotte told Stuart to make sure that he went with someone and, on Ann’s advice, he took a close friend with a calm disposition, Andy Philips.