That lecture, a specialist criminology module that Grant had titled Deviance, Youth and Culture, was an optional module that students from a variety of degree subjects, ranging from sociology through to politics, were eligible to take. As with Grant’s other modules, the class was generally filled with a mishmash of students from different backgrounds – Birmingham was a renowned multi-cultural city after all. The one uniting similarity of the majority of the students was their inability to pay full attention to proceedings.

Grant by now recognised the faces of the small group who would actually sit with genuine eagerness, and he knew that one of those students for the module was Jessica Bradford. This would be the first time he’d seen her following the brief fangirl moment earlier in the week.

Which was why he was feeling slightly anxious as he headed inside the theatre and over to the podium. He really didn’t want the embarrassment of her swooning over him again.

When he spotted her in her usual position on the front row, she gave him a coy smile and he quickly averted his eyes and tried to clear his head. He carried on through his patter, and was part way through discussing Robert K. Merton’s strain theory of deviance – a theory that attempted to explain how societal pressures lead to criminality – when he noticed his phone, which he’d left on the podium, light up with an incoming call from Mary.

He thought about answering. Would the students care? Would they even notice? Grant thought about which of Merton’s five responses to strain could be used to describe his action if he did answer the phone. Rebellion, probably, exhibited by people who rejected both cultural and social goals.

Actually, no. Rebellion might be the response that best described the simple action of answering a mobile phone at an inappropriate time, but Grant knew the social response that his reaction to pressure fit perfectly; ritualism. This described the response of people who rejected society’s goals (largely because they were unable to achieve them), but still accepted and adhered to society’s means of achievement and social norms. Like Grant, people who exhibited ritualism were most commonly found in dead-end, repetitive jobs.

Dead-end? What was he thinking? Many people would consider being a professor of criminology an upstanding and rewarding profession. So why didn’t he?

Grant carried on with the lecture but couldn’t quite shake the feeling of a lack of fulfilment in his life. He wrapped up the session five minutes early, intent on calling Mary back. As usual the room cleared within seconds. Not fully, though. Jessica came idling up. Her friend, this time, hadn’t bothered to wait.

‘That was fascinating,’ she said.

‘I’m glad you thought so.’

‘I’ve had some further thoughts about my thesis. Could we chat about it again when you have some time?’