Kept fucking, specifically. This was not a relationship. Walden had not lost all self-respect, she wasn’t going to get herself mixed up in a workplace romance proper, especially not with Mark Daubery. She’d already forced herself to have a very brief, very dry, very uncomfortable conversation with the examinations officer, because the entanglement as it stood was enough of a conflict of interest that she should not be invigilating or going anywhere near any of Will’s upcoming A-level exams. They didn’t seem especially close, but uncle and nephew was still a family connection.

Will, of course, had no idea what was going on. No one knew, apart from the examinations officer, who by nature of the role was not a gossip. Because there was barely anything going on, just a practical arrangement between two single adults, which was nobody’s business.

“Not now, thank you,” Walden said crisply. “If you aren’t going to make yourself useful, do please feel free to go away.”

“I thought I was being useful,” said Mark. He was standing by the door, next to the only table in the room. Todd hadn’t taken the Great Key with him when he went to get lunch. It was still there, strung on its chain, lying on the table. Mark picked it up and let it swing from his fingers. “Heavy, isn’t it?”

“Put that down.”

“Can’t be the original mediaeval key,” Mark said. “I wonder how old it is.”

“Put it down, Mark.”

“Down, boy. Yes, Dr Walden.” He dropped the big iron key back on the table; it landed with a thunk. “See you later?”

“I’m extremely busy,” said Walden.

“I’ll fix you a gin before you fall into bed.”

“Make it a double,” said Walden. “Now get out.”

Walden didn’t take a real lunch break, but she did swing by the staff dining room for supper. She was hoping for a big plate of proper boarding school stodge, the sort of thing that sat in your stomach like a lump of lead and could power an army of teenagers through hours of Games. She was in luck: they were serving toad in the hole with onion gravy and mash on the side. Middling-quality sausages padded out with batter and a heap of mashed potatoes, all in shades of brown and beige, and more carb for pudding in the form of jam sponge and custard. Walden requested large helpings of everything, even the sad, overboiled peas and carrots.

This kind of meal didn’t happen as often as it used to. A modern school catering company usually had ambitions towards nutritional balance and healthy living, and quite right too. But for Walden, this sort of thing was pure comfort, the food of her childhood, the food that made sense on a miserable January evening. She almost went back for seconds.