Murray kept his voice soft, wary of provoking her.
‘But he wasn’t over the limit?’
‘No, apparently not. There were no traces of alcohol, or drugs for that matter, in his bloodstream. It was just one of those things, a bloody unfortunate accident. I guess blaming Christie is easier than blaming Alan, or blaming myself.’
‘I know accidents provoke guilt, but it couldn’t be your fault, you weren’t even there.’
‘Ah, but there’s the rub. Alan wanted Lewis and me to go with him, to make the trip into a short break, but I refused. I had work to do and I didn’t want our holidays to start revolving around his research. Around suicides.’
‘You don’t know that anything would have turned out differently.’
‘He was always extra careful when Lewis was in the car, he would never have put his son, or me, at risk.’ Her voice held a fractured edge. She paused again, and softened her tone. ‘It would have been the perfect place for a holiday. The island is beautiful, really, really lovely, and everyone was nice to us.’ She gave him her sad smile. ‘But I won’t be going again.’
It was midnight when she saw him to the door. He hesitated in the close, unsure of whether it would be crass to thank her, but she beat him to it.
‘Thanks for all your help.’ Her voice was a peep above a whisper. ‘Lights to see by and blinds to hide behind.’
He kept his own voice low, careful of disturbing her new neighbours.
‘I was going to thank you.’
Audrey raised her eyebrows, ‘For what?’ They both laughed. She held a finger to her lips, ‘Shhhsh.’
‘For a lovely evening.’ He hesitated. ‘Can I give you a ring sometime?’
She leaned on the door, half in, half out. Her smile was gentle.
‘I think we’ve covered everything, don’t you?’
‘I wasn’t thinking about work.’
‘No,’ she smiled again. ‘I know, neither was I.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Please, don’t take it personally. Remember I’m a psychologist. In my professional opinion, I’m not ready for anything serious yet. Sex is easier than all the other stuff. I don’t feel disloyal having sex with another man — not that I make a habit of it — but dating. .’ She let the sentence tail away.
‘I guess I should feel used.’
‘Do you?’
‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything heavy, just dinner sometime, a drink if that would be easier, no strings attached.’
Audrey plucked at the door chain. It clinked as it hit the wooden jamb.
‘Perhaps.’
Murray reached into his pocket for pen and paper to write down his number, but she stopped him.
‘I’ve got your number already. I called you, remember?’ She stifled a yawn with her hand. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day. Lewis gets me up at the crack of dawn.’
‘I’ll let you go then.’
They exchanged a chaste kiss and he jogged down the stairs. He heard the door shut softly behind him before he reached the next landing.
Chapter Twelve
MURRAY WALKED SWIFTLY along the empty corridor, his trainers silent against the wooden floor. He’d chosen a quiet time of day, too early for tea breaks or sandwich runs, a mid period when those with classes would be safely ensconced in offices and lecture theatres. The place was studiously silent, no hint remaining of the clatter of students who had milled here fifteen minutes ago and would assault the stillness again soon enough. But behind some of the closed doors his colleagues bowed their heads over books and computers and at any time a sudden thought might send one of them out to the library in search of a remembered text or into the shadows of the quadrangles for a leg-stretch and a smoke.
Murray fished his keys from his pocket and selected the one to his room as he walked, ready to nip in swiftly, safe from fumbles. It felt strange, creeping like a thief towards his own office.
He passed Fergus Baine’s door, closed and blessedly silent, then Lyle Joff’s, Vic Costello’s, Phyllida McWilliams’, each shut and graveyard-still. Rab Purvis’s door was ajar, a signal that he was in residence and not averse to being interrupted. Murray increased his pace and slipped by, catching a glimpse of Rab’s arm resting against his desk, his hand tapping out a smoker’s unconscious rhythm as he worked.
Rachel’s office lay at the end of the hallway. He looked towards it, willing the door to open and Rachel to step out, half-dazed from reading, brushing the hair from her eyes, forgetting not to smile. The door stood firm, Rachel behind it or elsewhere, beyond him.
There were new posters on the noticeboard by his office, calls for papers, announcements of forthcoming lectures, a Keats/Shelley essay competition he’d once entered when he was a student. He glanced at the dead poets’ death masks, side by side above conditions of entry, then turned the key in the lock and went in, closing the door gently behind him.
Everything was as he had left it. The dried stain of coffee still slopped over the essay he should have handed back a week ago, the two mugs drained of whisky and gin set side by side, his chair pushed a little away from his desk.
He ran the mugs under the tap and placed them on the edge of the tiny sink to dry, then glanced at his watch. Eleven-thirty. If he was quick, he might escape before classes changed.
He started to gather the books he’d come for. An anthology of Scottish poetry that didn’t feature Lunan, but might be a useful reminder of chronology; a biography of a dead contemporary that mentioned the poet; a seventies literary review citing him as the next big thing.
Murray’s copy of Moontide was propped face-out on a high shelf. He reached up and tipped it from its perch, the book slipping through his fingers and landing with a slap on the ground. Lunan looked up at him from the front cover. His had once seemed an old face to Murray. Now he could see the youth screened behind the braggadocio of long hair and beard. He picked the book up and slipped it gently into the front pocket of his rucksack.
Christie’s books came next. The later ones were of no great concern, but he packed them anyway. As far as he was concerned she’d got stuck in the same weave, horror stories laced with Celtic folklore that sometimes started well, but always descended into a chaos of fantasy and false connections. Critics sneered, but her fans still bought them and so did Murray. He read each one quickly, greedy for a glimpse of Lunan, barely bothering to follow permutations of plots he considered all repetition.
Christie had found her subject in her first novel, Sacrifice: a group of young, overreaching outsiders whose lack of respect towards nature invoked their own fall. Murray had written an article on Christie’s later novels for one of the more ‘out there’ literary websites, Scooby Doo and the Falclass="underline" Paradise Fucked Up. He’d been pleased with the title at the time. Now he hoped that Christie hadn’t come across it.
Sacrifice was the final book in his pile. He’d marked a quote on the opening page that he hoped to use in his biography, if he could get permission. He opened the novel and read,
The cottage was six miles from the village, set back from the road along a rutted path. We had no visitors in those early days and when we left the shelter of our tiny cottage it was usually to go down to the loch side. Over the summer the path became overgrown so no one would have known we were there, except of course that they already did. We were the topic of conversation around hearthsides and dinner tables, in byres and country lanes. The islanders discussed us as they left church, hearts shrunken with the conviction of the saved. They mulled over our vices as they filled their vans and tractors with petrol at the one pump station, expanded on them in the mothers’ union and the ceilidh house. When we went down into the village to buy what we couldn’t make, every detail of what we wore, what we said, what we bought, was stored by those lucky enough to encounter us. Later we gave them something to talk about.