On or Blue Peter while Murray did his homework at the table in the corner of the living room. Eventually there had been the second-hand paraffin heater in their shared bedroom so Murray could study in heady fumes and privacy.
The woman sitting next to him was reading a gossip magazine, flicking through photographs of celebrities shopping on sunlit streets, large black shades and pained expressions. He glanced at her, half-expecting a cut-price version of the girls in the pictures, but she was in her forties, neat rather than fashionable, her clothes carefully chosen. Did she wish herself young and in LA? God knows he did, though the idea had never occurred before. Maybe he could go there, become a movie star. That would show them. It would indeed.
The woman gave him a sharp glare and pointedly turned the page. He looked away. They were out of the city now and there was nothing but darkness in the beyond. He could see his own face reflected in the window; the shine of his glasses against the pits and bumps on the lunar landscape of his skin. Maybe he should shelve the idea of a movie career.
Murray unzipped his rucksack and slid out the manila folder containing the letter from Christie’s agent.
Dear Dr Watson
I have passed on your letter to Ms Graves, who has asked me to let you know that she will give your request for an interview serious consideration. To help her in her decision, she invites you to forward through me a copy of your CV, a list of previous publications and a synopsis of your proposed biography of Archibald Lunan.
Regards
Foster James
Niles, James and Worthing
He wondered why he had lied to George Meikle about Christie having already granted him an interview. He’d sent the requested documents six weeks ago. They would confirm his credentials, the scholarly nature of his interest. Would that be enough?
Murray’s phone chimed with news of a new text. He drew it from his pocket and watched the tiny electronic envelope twirl and open, half-anticipating a self-justifying missive from his brother.
Where are you?
There were people standing further down the carriage. To get up would mean losing his seat, so he dialled where he sat. He expected her voicemail, but Rachel picked up on the third ring. He said, ‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘I wondered if you’d get my message. I’d like to see you.’
‘I’d like to see you too.’
‘Good.’ Her voice was all business. ‘Where are you?’
‘I don’t like to say.’
‘I don’t have much time, Murray, Fergus has got his big deal of a dinner party later.’
‘I’m on the train.’
‘Heading where?’
‘Home.’
‘Can we meet at your office?’
He hated meeting her there, disliked the risk, the clash of associations.
‘Okay, when?’
‘When can you make it?’
Murray glanced at the display above the carriage door. They were approaching Croy.
‘I’ll jump in a cab at Queen Street and be with you in thirty minutes.’
‘Good.’
She cut the connection without saying goodbye. Outside, the train window started to speck with rain.
Chapter Five
MURRAY’S TINY OFFICE was almost, but not quite, dark. Enough light shone in from the streetlamp beyond the trees for him to see Rachel Houghton’s features soften. A blast of hail shot against the window and Rachel’s pupils widened, edging nearer, but still too self-aware to be there yet. Murray matched his rhythm to the shadows cutting across the room, blessing whatever procurer of office furniture had managed to issue him with a desk of exactly the right height. He clasped Rachel’s naked rump, her arms tightened around him and he lifted her from the desk. She gasped and raised her lips to his. Her nipples rubbed against his chest, smooth and hard, sweat-slick. Rachel groaned. Her body stiffened, pelvis pressed down into his. Murray felt the soft leather of her shoes, the spike of their stilettos as they spurred him on.
‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t or . . .’
Her ankles gripped him tighter. Murray felt a draught touch his exposed rear and a thin slice of light cut into the room, illuminating Rachel’s face, her eyes slitting against the sudden brightness, looking beyond him to the opening door. Murray felt her hands pushing him away. He followed her gaze, unsure of what was happening, and saw the intruder standing in the doorway, face shadowed in the gloom of the room. Murray heard him release a soft shuddering sigh akin to the groan that had escaped his own lips only a moment before.
‘Fuck!’ Murray’s curse acted like a sniper’s near-miss. The figure darted swiftly away. Murray extricated himself and stumbled into the hallway, almost catching the door before it closed. He shouted something as he ran, some bark of protest, his unfastened shirt flapping open, the air of the darkened corridor cold against his chest. But whoever it was had vanished, lost in the murky hallways that made up the old buildings. The only comfort Murray had was that he’d remembered to hold onto his trousers instead of letting them ambush him by the ankles and send him sprawling, like the comedy lover he so obviously was.
‘I’ve no idea who it was. Probably a porter doing his rounds.’ Rachel stepped behind the desk and began to pull on her abandoned tights. ‘More frightened of us than we were of him.’
A few years ago they would have had the surety of a cigarette to smooth the post-coital awkwardness. But these days smoking in university buildings was grounds for dismissal. Fortunately, fucking didn’t set off the sprinkler system. Murray fumbled his belt buckle into place and sank into the chair usually designated for visiting students. He lifted a first-year essay that only seconds ago had rustled beneath Rachel’s bottom and tried to smooth out the creases in its paper.
. . . he succeeded against the odds. Though his lifestyle was deemed unacceptable by mainstream society his . . .
The page bounced stubbornly back. Murray replaced it on the desk, weighting the bent corner with a mug. A little cold coffee slopped onto the neatly printed words.
‘Fuck.’ He blotted the stain with the front page of the Guardian. ‘Was he wearing a porter’s uniform?’ Murray peeled the newspaper back. A dark shadow of newsprint remained, stamped across the dutifully prepared argument. ‘Shit.’
‘I told you, I didn’t get a good look at him. It was dark and I was . . . slightly distracted.’
Murray wondered if he should have carried on chasing the intruder. He had been breathing in the distinctive reek of recalcitrant students, frustrated scholars and books since he was a seventeen-year-old undergraduate. The corridors’ twists and turns were mapped on his mind. He knew all the cubbyholes and suicide steps. The lecture halls racked with seating, the illogical staircases that tricked the uninitiated but led eventually to the out-of-bounds attics from where a man could lose himself and emerge on the opposite side of
