Michael arrived late. His bowtie was real and perfectly tied, and his shoes gave off a military gleam. His black hair was slicked backwards, revealing his high forehead. His cheeks were clean and shining, and I thought he might have shaved since dinner. He had the kind of dark stubble that can never be wholly removed, and leaves a blue-black shadow on the jaw. I asked him where we were going; all he would tell me was that we were visiting his old boys’ club, a private set of rooms above a restaurant. I was surprised to hear that such places still existed, particularly in the radical atmosphere of a university town. He led me down the passage on to Bridge Street, which we crossed over, heading towards Jesus Green. Michael would never have compromised his dignity so far as to break into a jog, but I had the feeling we were late for something. We stopped on the pavement outside the walls of Sidney Sussex. There were three doors in the face of a rather grand red-brick building, each divided from the others by thick pillars supporting a white neo-classical portico on the second floor. Flat-headed black spears, linked along the top by a strip of black metal, formed a fence along the front, punctuated by a gate for each door. The middle one was glass, and disclosed the marble lobby of an up-market Pizza Express, with a pianist just visible in the interior. The second door stood open, and was manned by two large Asian men wearing earpieces and tight black T-shirts under their Puffa jackets. Bass emanated from the smoky subterranean darkness, and the occasional flash of disco lighting appeared on the wall. A queue of feral teens had formed outside, and they jeered at us as we made our way to the closed door on the left. Their derision would normally have made me blush and walk quickly past, inspiring hours of self-reproach in the safety of my room, but Michael brushed it aside with a grunt of satisfaction.