‘I’m heading over there,’ said Dyer, on their arrival at the school gates. He gestured towards where the first XI were limbering up, although he couldn’t spot Leandro.

Her grey eyes lingered on him. ‘Thank you,’ was all she said. Her teeth white as mint.

Dyer had done most of the talking. About Katya, he had learned nothing, except that her husband was away quite a lot. Her face was luminous, but her depth uncertain. His eye fell helplessly to her upper lip.

‘I live just round the corner. Would you like to go to the Bookbinders one night?’

‘What, for “a pint of bitter”?’ She was regarding him.

‘Or if it’s vodka you prefer, there’s that cocktail bar on Walton Street.’ In heels she would be taller. In her flat red shoes, he could look her straight in the eye.

‘I prefer to try English beer.’

‘It would be a pint and a half at the most. While our sons do their homework.’

She gave him a slow, reluctant smile. Not the smile of a free woman, but the broadening smile of someone who wanted to be free, perhaps. ‘All right.’

Diaries were consulted, telephone numbers exchanged. A plan was hatched for the following Tuesday, even as her son was thumping on the sides of a football locker with Leandro trapped inside.

… the women exposed their parts with such innocence there was no shame. They laughed and enjoyed themselves greatly.

He thought of Katya next day in the Taylorian while transcribing the encounter of Pedro Álvares Cabral’s sailors with the Tupi Indians on the Brazilian coast. Her grey eyes twisting to look up at him. The faint golden down on her upper lip. She was married, but he had a fantasy of possessing her. Her fingers were gripping the pillow, he was soaring, the whalebone of her naked back, hoarse sounds coming from his throat, her throat.

This was before he went to collect Leandro and encountered him in tears bolting from the Hard Court, and discovered how Katya’s son had been victimising him.

There are things you cannot say to someone face to face. You are a coward. You have taken the wrong path. Your son is a bully.

Katya telephoned Dyer after he had sent his email to Mr Tanner. Not at all warmly she said: ‘It sounds like the boys are having problems.’

‘I know they’re going to be meeting – let’s see how everything evolves.’

Inevitably, she was no longer free on Tuesday to join Dyer at the Bookbinders. Her husband was flying in from Moscow to discuss the situation with Mr Tanner. He would be staying on in Oxford for a few days.

Chapter Five