The dead cannot be libelled

The dead cannot be libelled is a maxim invoked by Scott Hipwell as tabloid speculation about Megan Hipwell’s past threatens to become a public account she can no longer contest. The phrase gives the scene its bitter edge: Megan’s death has not ended the struggle over what is said about her, but has left her without a voice in it.

The Maxim in Context

The story concerns an event from years earlier, and how the tabloids obtained it is openly disputed. Suspicion falls variously on the police, Kamal Abdic, and Scott; Scott, in turn, assumes Kamal is the source. The maxim is not presented as a full explanation of the law. It is Scott’s terse description of why a dead person cannot bring a libel claim, offered while he considers the circulation of allegations about Megan.

Rumour and Suspicion

The most damaging version of the story alleges that Megan killed her baby. Scott recognizes the motive such an allegation could imply: a presumed father might have had a reason to kill her, even years later. He calls the accusation a lie and says people suspect him of inventing it both to blacken Megan’s character and to redirect suspicion toward an unknown man from her past. The claim therefore operates on two levels: it injures Megan’s reputation and supplies a possible motive in the murder investigation.

Limits and Narrative Significance

Scott says the police asked whether he knew Megan had been pregnant, what had happened, and who the father was. He says he denied knowing anything and insisted she had never been pregnant. He also reports that the police would not tell him how the story reached the newspapers and had assured him they would not release information about the pregnancy until they knew more. His use of the maxim thus sits beside an unresolved question: whether a damaging account will be published before investigators establish what is true.

Rachel Watson recalls Kamal’s calm manner and warm eyes, which do not fit Scott’s description of him as disturbed, though she also remembers his smile. That contrast does not establish who leaked the story; it keeps the accusation uncertain. The maxim’s significance lies in this imbalance: Megan is at the center of the rumour, but the living characters control its competing versions and the suspicions those versions create.