'Yeah! And we can both go down to see Johnny Law and explain the mysterious disappearance of my friend. Now, where does Eliot live?'
Janice swallows. 'Strathkinness. The faculty cottage. But he loses the residence with the job.'
'But he'll get some time before the eviction. Eliot works fast. Two dates with Beth and Tom will be dead.'
She shakes her head. 'I've said enough. And I've heard enough. I won't have anything more to do with this.'
He squeezes her wrists. 'Yes, you will.'
Her eyes narrow. 'Make me.'
Dante releases her and steps back, breathing hard.
'Go on, hit me,' Janice says, smiling.
He shakes his head. 'You'd probably get a kick out of it.'
She swings her hand at the side of his face. Dante catches the thin wrist, making the gold bracelets clatter, before seizing her narrow chin with his free hand. He squeezes her mouth until her eyes water and then stops, disgusted with himself.
He looks at the trembling woman, about to fall apart, and suddenly wants to apologise. They stare at each other, both seeming to realise in an instant exactly what Eliot has reduced them to. 'We're going upstairs to your office, Janice. You're going to make a phone call to one of your poncy friends who took a special interest in me at the Orientation. You can tell them I'm coming over and I mean business. After that, you are going to give me Eliot's address.'
Janice straightens her clothes, the emotion seeping out of her in quick breaths. She teeters up the remaining stairs, and steadies herself with both hands as she climbs. Dante follows her back to the office in silence, shivering as the rain steams off him. The sudden change in temperature and his outburst at Janice make him feel lightheaded and sick.
Janice phones the Proctor first. His secretary tells Janice the Proctor is out. Dante clenches his fists with frustration. Janice misreads it as anger and quickly punches out the Hebdomidar's number. 'Hello, Marcia,' she says, fighting to keep her voice under control. 'Is Arthur in? Oh, I see.' She then looks up at Dante. 'He's busy. You'll have to make an appointment.'
'It's an emergency. Tell her,' Dante instructs.
Janice obeys. She repeats his line, frowns, and then hangs up. 'He can't see anyone before ten tomorrow morning,' she says in a thin voice that suggests tears are not far away. 'You can go and bully him for the information then.'
Dante points a finger at Janice. 'You people are crazy. None of your qualifications and Greek salad mean shit. People are dying in this town and you know it. If I get stalled again by any of you, I'll get the truth with my fists. That's warning number one; there won't be another.' Dante storms out of the office and runs into the rain. Ten o'clock the following morning may be too late; Arthur Spencer can cancel the rest of his appointments for the day.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Huddled into himself against the rain, his head bowed beneath the angry skies of the afternoon, Arthur Spencer walks back to his office. His pace is brisk. During his lunch break he only pecked at a sandwich, but managed to drink three cups of coffee he now regrets. Wheezy from the effort of moving faster than is comfortable, he is propelled by the urgency of his thoughts. Hurrying through the wet Quad, he wonders if things will change for the better with Eliot removed from his post: if this is at all possible after so long under the burden of what they know.
Eliot has been fired — the Chancellor endorsed the termination of contract, and the Principal was also adamant that he go after reviewing Eliot's slipshod contribution to the last academic year. There is no longer room for eccentrics to shelter beneath the antique roofs of an old university. Things have changed; results are monitored. Everyone is assessed. Edinburgh has beaten St Andrews in the national polls for excellence. The university must function as a business to survive. And, without the lecturing post, Eliot is required to vacate the cottage in Strathkinness. There will be nothing for him to do but leave the area. With Beth in tow?
A success? An end to the anxiety that curdles his insides and never gives him a moment's peace? Especially at night, when all the day's distractions cease, and he is left alone with his thoughts. With so many thoughts and with so many memories he tries to erase and then rebuild anew in better terms. It has always been his aim to add a light of reason to what Eliot has done. And when he fails, he tries again, and then again, until he no longer trusts any of his recollections of Eliot from the previous six months. But the feeling, the sense, the instinct that something is wrong, never goes away. Something in his conscience occasionally begs him to make a confession to the authorities, no matter the damage to his reputation. And when the impulse to come clean subsides, in weakness he is prepared to wait and hope it will all end, naturally and discreetly. Harry made the final decision about Eliot. He made all the other decisions too. But how long has he, along with Harry and Janice, concealed what they know about Eliot? How can the other two stand another day of it?
And today marks the time he most looks forward to — the week before the first Monday of term, starting a new academic year, when he gets his first sighting of the students. But his attempt at finding any of his customary enthusiasm fails. The sky is black with rain. Breakfast with his wife was tense. And again, like every other morning since Dante arrived, she asked him what was wrong and he refused to tell her, to explain why he slept poorly, gazed listlessly at the glowing television in the evenings, drank more than usual, and stayed up late to pace the carpet in the living room after she retired. How can he explain? Where does a civilised and educated man begin with this matter? It defies reason and taste and decorum. 'A few problems at work. Always hard seeing the budgets cut when your friends head the departments,' was all he offered his wife, and any of the others that ask after him.
It is a waiting game and Arthur doesn't like it. They have heard nothing from Eliot since his contract was officially cancelled, and he knows he can only relax if the action succeeds in forcing Eliot to leave town. Janice claims he has been living in his office for a week. Wearing the same clothes and drinking himself stupid. He accepted the news of his termination in silence; his face, she said, betrayed nothing. But the early-morning cleaners claim to have heard him ranting to himself, and sometimes he even breaks down. He is a suicide risk: Janice is convinced.
Confiding his fears in no one but Harry — who is impatient with the continual speculations Arthur indulges in to make sense of the situation — offers no relief. He no longer knows what world Eliot inhabits, or what exactly he has done. And at such a tense moment that will cancel their friendship forever, Arthur cannot rule out a reprisal.
He approaches College Gate. Housing his office on North Street, down from St Salvator's and the Quad, the building is the most solid symbol of the familiar and secure left to him. He nods at the security guard on his way into the foyer. His shoes squeak on the polished floor. The security guard smiles and then returns to his paper. It is a local and the headline reads CATTLE DISEASE CREATES CRISIS IN FIFE FARMING COMMUNITIES. Turning left along the ground-floor corridor, he approaches the General Administration area to collect his mail before beginning the afternoon's work in his office. It won't be long before some of the students begin applications for the hardship fund, he has a speech to prepare for the new postgraduate body, and he is in the middle of mediating three disputes between students and their landlords.
With a deep breath and a considerable mental effort, Arthur pushes Eliot from his mind and enters a large, open-plan office. It is shared by Personnel Services and his secretary, Marcia. When he enters the room, the secretaries and administrators fall silent over their coffees. Talking about me again, he thinks. He smiles and feels playful, eager for the distraction. 'Thank you for the flowers,' Marcia says from behind her desk, blushing.