'I didn't say that.'
'Four brothers,' she said, holding up three fingers.
'And it's not as if you're the first chap I've ever stepped out with.'
This was a truth she liked to assert from time to time, dishing out unsavory details to drive home her point, although she was too angry for that right now.
She tossed the remainder of her wine away, the liquid crescent flopping into the tall grass. She got to her feet a little unsteadily. 'I'm going.' 'Don't,' he said, taking her hand. 'Stay.'
'You hate it.'
'That's not true.'
'I know what you're thinking.'
'You're wrong. I could be jailed for what I'm thinking.'
It was a crass play, but he knew her vulnerability to that kind of talk. Besides, this was the reason they'd skipped their lectures and come to the meadow, was it not?
'I'm sorry,' he said, capitalizing on her faint smile, 'I suppose I'm just jealous.'
'Jealous?'
'I couldn't do it, I know that. It's great. Really. It hooked me instantly. The drunken vicar's a great touch.'
'You like him?'
'A lot.'
Gloria allowed herself to be drawn back down onto the blanket, into their sunken den, out of sight of the river towpath, where the stubby willows bristled.
His fingers charted a lazy yet determined course along the inside of her dove-white thigh, the flesh warm and yielding, like new dough.
She leaned toward him and kissed him, forcing her tongue between his lips.
He tasted the cheap white wine and felt himself stir under her touch. His hand moved to her breasts, his thumb brushing over her nipples, the way she liked it.
Sexual favors in return for blanket praise. Was it really that simple?
He checked his thoughts, guilty that his mind was straying from the matter in hand.
He needn't have worried.
'You know,' said Gloria, breaking free and drawing breath, 'Hampshire it is. Screw the Battle of Britain.'
The note was waiting for him in his pigeonhole when he returned to college. He recognized the handwriting immediately. It was the same barely legible scrawl that adorned his weekly essays. The note read:
Dear Mr. Strickland,
Apologies for making this demand upon your busy schedule, but there is a matter I should like to discuss with you regarding your thesis.
Shall we say 5 p.m. today in my office at the faculty? (That's the large stone building at the end of Trumpington Street, in case you've forgotten.)
Warm regards,
Professor Leonard
Adam glanced at his watch. Fifteen minutes to get across town. The bath would have to wait.
Professor Crispin Leonard was something of an institution, not just within the faculty but the university as a whole. Although well into his seventies, he was quite unlike his elderly peers, who only emerged from their gloomy college rooms at mealtimes, or so it seemed, shuffling in their threadbare gowns to and from the dining hall, across velvet lawns whose sacred turf it was their privilege to tread. Few knew what these aged characters did (or had ever done) to justify the sinecure of a college fellowship. Authorship of a book, one book, any book, appeared to suffice, even if the value of that work had long since been eclipsed. For whatever reason, they were deemed to have paid their dues, and in return the colleges offered them a comfortable dotage unencumbered by responsibilities.
Professor Leonard was cut from a far tougher cloth. He lectured and supervised in three subjects, he continued to offer his services as a college tutor, and he remained involved in a number of societies, some of which he had also founded. And all this while still finding time not only to write but to be published. By any standards it was a remarkable workload, and one he appeared to shoulder quite effortlessly.
How did he manage it? He never hurried and was never late; he just loped about like a well-fed cat, giving off an air of slight distraction, as if his mind was always on higher things.
He was deep in slumber when Adam entered his office. The first knock didn't rouse him, and when Adam poked his head around the door and saw him slumped in an armchair, a book on his lap, he knocked again, louder this time.
Professor Leonard stirred, taking his bearings, taking in Adam. 'I'm sorry, I must have nodded off.' He closed the book and laid it aside. Adam noted that it was one of the professor's own works, on the sculpture of Mantegna.
