‘Well… yes…’ Don’t show impatience, Lucas warned himself, saying gallantly to compensate, ‘Though being interrupted in my labours can also be a welcome break.’ She laughed at this, infusing Lucas with one of the rushes of satisfaction that had nothing to do with being a good supervisor and everything to do with being liked. ‘Okay, Moira, let’s have it…’ He caved in, shooting a pointed look at the clock. ‘Tell me what you’re after and I’ll do what I can.’

The elaborate talons fluttered to her fringe, perhaps missing its previous incarnation. ‘Oh God. Embarrassed now.’ She glanced towards the window and then down at her bare knees. ‘Okay.’ Her chest rose and fell as she took a deep, wheezy breath. ‘So, I’ve been working on something…’ she scrabbled to open the buckle on the canvas bag as she talked, sliding out a slim purple folder ‘…and I’d be, like, so grateful, if you’d take a look at it.’

‘What sort of something?’ Lucas asked, ready to be impressed by any attempt to get a foothold on the following term’s topics.

‘It’s just a few pages… I… I’m going to be a writer, you see. It’s a novel… well, the start of one…’

‘Whoa there.’ He held up his hands, laughing as kindly as he knew how. ‘Moira, that is tremendously exciting of course – I mean, wow, congratulations. But I’m afraid…’ He went to perch on the arm of the sofa next to her in a bid to establish as friendly a rapport as possible during the course of delivering the response she had no wish to hear.

‘I felt I had to ask such a favour in person—’

‘And I am honoured, Moira, truly, but—’

‘I’m not in a hurry or anything,’ she countered breathlessly, ‘but I’ve written and rewritten it and just need someone to tell me whether it’s any good or not, someone who knows…’

‘But, Moira…’ Lucas spoke very gently ‘…I am not a novelist. Nor do I know any novelists, come to that,’ he added, somewhat hastily, since he was acquainted with several, none of whom he would ever want to bother with such a request. ‘However, there must be all sorts of writing groups, online, or on Facebook…’

‘Please, Professor Shaw, it’s like, twenty pages, and all I want is like a straight literary opinion. I mean, it would just give me… oh, do you know, it doesn’t matter…’ It was as if a plug had been pulled inside her. The bony shoulders dropped. The folder was rammed back into the bag. She stood up, a little unsteadily, revealing the red indents made by her shorts, criss-crossing her upper legs like evidence of self-harm. ‘It was dumb of me to ask. Stupid.’ She flung the word with a thick voice. Her grey eyes, catching Lucas’s, were wide and watery.