Sensing his gaze, the bursar looked up to wave, some bangles round her wrist catching the light of the high morning sun. Lucas raised a hand in response. American, ex-City, formidable, and forensically good with numbers, she rubbed some people up the wrong way, but Lucas liked her a lot. The pair continued briskly through the portico into the next courtyard. Definitely not sleeping together, Lucas decided, turning away from the window.

He was lost, at long last, in concentration at his desk when there was a faint rap on his door. Shouting an absent ‘come in’, expecting it to be Lauren, the staircase bedder, on a bin-emptying mission, he was surprised to glance up and see the wide, pale face of one of his first years peering round the door.

‘Hello there, Moira, shouldn’t you be at home, or backpacking, or on a beach or something?’

The girl’s look of pinched anxiety melted into a timid smile. ‘Yes, I mean… sorry to disturb you, Professor Shaw…’

‘No, not at all. Come in, come in.’ Lucas left his chair to greet her properly, pulling the door wider so she could enter the room. Even so, she continued to dawdle in the doorway, clearly still shy, despite his and his colleagues’ best efforts all year. There had been an encouraging make-over of sorts since the end of the summer term though, Lucas observed, noting the blood-red lipstick jazzing up the slightly top-heavy, pouting mouth and the way the once pitiful straggle of a fringe had been chopped almost back to her hair-line, revealing a broad, alabaster forehead, dark eyebrows, and a proper view of the girl’s disconcertingly sombre, grey eyes. Her clothes suggested an increase in self-confidence too, the usual baggy, grungy leisurewear on display all year having been replaced by a crisp, white T-shirt and denim shorts; while shiny Doc Martens gripped her feet and ankles like manacles, accentuating the paleness of her long, thin legs.