Charlie,’ she called when he was fifty yards away, making him slightly self-conscious. He habitually wore a tweed jacket and grey flannel trousers, even in summer—these were the casual clothes of his youth, and he was stuck in them—and on this day he had added an open-necked sports shirt instead of a shirt and tie because he wanted to change easily at the squash club. He had felt very informal talking to Mrs Summers, but in these surroundings he felt like a banker. All round them the counter-culture was on display; most of the people were under thirty, dressed in blankets and sacking. At one table a boy sat with his eyes closed and his hands in the air, making two circles with thumbs and forefingers. Meditating? At another, two young mothers tented in curtains were demonstrating the joys of breast-feeding to the passers-by.
‘Have a fellafel burger,’ Molly suggested.
Salter looked at the menu but could recognize nothing, and he shrugged and nodded. When it arrived it turned out to be a giant sesame-seed bun filled with weeds and roots. Salter found it tasty.
‘I’m having mint tea,’ Molly said. ‘They do have coffee for addicts,’ she said.
‘That’s me. Coffee with extra caffein, please, and two spoonfuls of white, cancer-inducing sugar.’ You’ve got to stand up for your own, he thought.
After the food she sat looking expectant, like a good student. Salter began, ‘I’d like to know about the other teachers at Douglas. How did Summers compare, as a teacher, with the others in the department that you had?’
‘I only had two others. Dunkley taught me Canadian Literature, and a man named Philpott, an Englishman, taught American Lit. He’s not there now.’
‘What happened to him? What are you smiling about?’
‘He left in mid-term and Professor Browne, the chairman, finished the course.’ She laughed. ‘Philpott never turned up much and we complained about him. A lot. We called him the Great Canadian Doctor.’
‘Why?’
‘It turned out he was a fake, no degree, nothing. By rights, according to the proper rules of fiction, he should have been brilliant, but he was a joke. When he did come to class, about once a week, he used to read book reviews to us that he’d got from the library. Browne hushed it up and everybody passed the course.’
‘And Dunkley?’
‘He’s OK. He is supposed to be very left-wing and he wears all the gear, but he’s really an old-fashioned schoolmaster. He made us work. In theory you could choose your own way of passing his course, but by the time you had finished discussing it with him you had already done more work than you would have done in a conventional course. He made you do your own course outline, and to do that properly you had to know all the material before you started.’
Salter had run out of questions.
‘Anything else?’ she asked brightly.
‘I guess not. I don’t suppose I’ll have to bother you again.’
‘Hardly worth meeting for, was it? Or was it just an excuse?’
‘It was just an excuse. I wanted to see you,’ he said nervously.
‘That’s nice. Do you want to see me again?’
Salter floundered. She rescued him. ‘I’m not propositioning you, Charlie. But we can get together if you like.’
But, Salter thought, you are twenty years old and I am forty-six and you cannot have any idea of how foolish I feel. Summers may have liked your essays as well, but he must have enjoyed you as much as I do.
‘I may need your help later on,’ he said, dodging.
‘You don’t have to need my help. Just call me. Or I’ll call you—for a beer.’
‘No, don’t do that.’
‘I see. Your wife would mind?’
That didn’t take much thought. ‘Yes.’
‘Don’t worry. I won’t let you do anything silly.’
The middle-aged police inspector who had seen everything smiled shyly. ‘AH right,’ he said. ‘It’s nice to see how the rest of the world lives.’
‘Isn’t it? Now I have to go. Are you buying my lunch? You won’t feel compromised?’
‘No. I’ll put it on expenses, then I’ll know it was business. I’m still conducting an investigation.’
‘Good.’ She touched his hand. ‘Finish your coffee.’ She walked away, threading between the tables, waving at him as she reached the kerb. Salter hunched happily over the dregs of his coffee.
Salter changed into his old tennis clothes, and wondered what to do. with his valuables. The attendant showed him a row of little wooden cubby-holes with locks, and Salter chose one and deposited his wallet and watch, putting the elastic wristlet with the key in his pocket in preference to wearing it. The pro was waiting for him on the court.
‘Like this,’ the pro said. He dropped the ball on to his racquet and hit it against the front wall of the court. Salter swung at it and missed. ‘And again,’ the pro said. Swing and hit, with the handle. ‘And again.’ Swing and hit, straight up to the ceiling. ‘That’s it,’ the pro said. ‘I can see you’ve played a lot of tennis.’ Salter smirked. They kept at it for ten minutes, sometimes keeping the ball in play for as much as four successive hits. Then the pro suggested a rally. Just keep the ball in play,’ he said. Ten minutes later Salter thought it was all up with him. His lungs were heaving, his heart pounded in his ears, and he could barely see for the sweat. ‘How’s your condition?’ the pro asked. He had gooseflesh from the chilly court.
Salter took a deep breath. ‘And again,’ he sobbed, and hit the ball hard, and properly.
‘Terrific,’ said the pro, and returned it from behind his back without looking.
At the end Salter said, ‘I want another lesson tomorrow.’ They left the court and Salter walked down the corridor to the changing-room which was now crowded. He took his clothes off, feeling ill at ease among a lot of nude lawyers, self-conscious about his varicose veins and his old gall-bladder scar. But under the shower, and then, in the whirlpool, he forgot himself in the pleasure of having stretched his body.
He dressed and waited in the lounge, and soon Bailey appeared for his game with Cranmer, the accountant. He dropped his eyes when he noticed Salter, then looked up very quickly and greeted the inspector with a lot of noise. ‘How’s it going, chief?’ was one of the things he said.
‘I’ve just had my first lesson,’ Salter said. ‘I think I’ll join.’
‘Really? Maybe we’ll have a game, sometime.’
‘When I’ve had a couple more lessons.’
They sat quiet then, waiting for each other to speak. Bailey broke first. ‘Any news on Old Dave?’ he asked.
‘None. I’ll tell you, Mr Bailey, we are baffled. It looks as though it must have been a casual set-up.’
‘He got rolled, you think?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Poor old Dave, eh? Well, I’d better change. Percy is always on time.’ He bustled about with his racquet and bag.
‘One thing, Mr Bailey. I was just checking on a few odds and ends. Summers made a’ couple of calls from Montreal on Friday afternoon . . .’
‘That’s right, Inspector, I forgot to tell you. One of them was to me, to tell me he couldn’t play squash the next Monday. He’d forgotten to tell me when I saw him on Thursday that he was going to Montreal for this conference.’
‘I see. That was all, was it? Did he sound very excited?’
Bailey considered this. ‘Excited? No, I wouldn’t say he sounded