That is a woeful lie. Besides, you’re a woman.

Susan scowled. “Sod off.”

They stared at each other a while, the cigarette burning lower as ash dropped onto the pillowcase.

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Fine. See if I care.

“It’s none of your beeswax.”

You’ve made your point.

“So stop looking at me like that.”

I have no eyeballs. I’m not looking at anything.

“Am I supposed to be impressed by such arrant pedantry?”

Susan, I’m a skeleton onto which you are projecting your own internal dilemma. Any pedantry is your own.

Susan twitched her eyebrows in concession. It was probably time for her to get up before this got any more Lord of the Flies.

The question was, how insatiable was Esther’s need to pry? Before McGraw arrived, there had been no need to worry. But now, if Susan remained silent, there was another source to whom her friends could turn. A source that Susan needed to shut down.

Susan flexed her fingers before curling them into a fist and rapping twice on the door. At the sound of footsteps beyond, Susan took a step back from the threshold, crossed her arms, and adopted the look that had forced confessions from criminals before they’d even contemplated the crime.

The lock snicked, and the door opened, the hinges making a barely audible squeak of protest. There, stooping slightly as if too languorous to hold his own body weight, was her nemesis in all his mustachioed glory. Susan forced herself to meet his eyes. A dark, muddy green to match his sweater.

The scent of sawdust wafted gently into the hall.

“Susan.” McGraw opened the door a little wider, and she caught sight of a workbench in the middle of his room, wooden planks of various lengths propped up against his bed. “Would you like to—”

“None of that,” Susan growled, and McGraw looked a little taken aback. “I’m here to talk terms.”

She produced a sheaf of papers from her back pocket. After a brief hesitation, McGraw accepted it.

“Terms of conduct agreed between the undersigned and Susan Ptolemy . . . What, no middle name?” The look McGraw swung her was tinged with amusement. A challenge.

Without hesitation, Susan snatched back the paper, scrawled a barely legible addendum, and handed it back.

“Such a pretty name, Xanthipe . . .” McGraw murmured, reading on.

1) J-block, Catterick Hall, is considered out of bounds to the undersigned at all times.

2) Information relating to all events outside the space and time of university is to be revealed on a strictly need-to-know basis to no more than two personal friends accrued in the last month. Names to be cited below. Any transgression of this clause will be considered “gossip” and will be dealt with accordingly.