9.35am. Wednesday, 8th November
The physics department hummed with earnest young men and women in jumpers and spectacles, clutching folders and laptops to their chests. In another life this could have been him. If he’d been more locked on at school. If his mother hadn’t been an addict, and if he hadn’t killed a man when he himself was still a boy.
North kept his head down as he navigated the corridors. He’d filched his own folder and a mathematical textbook from the Blackwell’s university bookshop he’d passed en route, stealing a plastic bag for good measure for added deniability. If he had more time, he’d have scouted out a beanie and scarf, but he didn’t want to push his luck.
There was a smell of institutional cleaning fluids and damp in the hallway as he ran his finger down a list of tutors. A tiny, scowling Chinese girl, her hair in two stubby plaits leaned against the notice board watching him, the heel of her gold Dr Martens boot working away at a hole in the plastered wall. He hesitated at the absence where Peggy’s name had once been. Moved down – Dr Walter Bannerman level 3, room14.
“He’s an idiot,” she said.
Judging by the pile of plaster-dust on the floor, the girl had been there some time.
“He knows more than I do.”
She rifled through a file in her arms, ripped out an essay and thrust it at him. Introduction to radio astronomy. It was marked with an “F”.
“Now you’re even,” she said, pulling herself away from the wall. She had the look of someone who’d been there long enough and knew it. “Ciao, moron-person.”