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course started today, Friday?’
    ‘Yes, it did,’ Gracewell explained, ‘but a group of us got here the previous day to set up our presentation. We’re on second. Tomorrow afternoon. And we knew we’d have no time today, what with the ice-breaking and Professor Brownwood. Brilliant, wasn’t he?’
    ‘Dazzling,’ lied Sally. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’
    He took the cup from her, one of a fairly nasty set that had Carnforth Conference Centre written on it, to make absolutely sure that it had no resale value whatsoever to a would-be nicker of other people’s crockery. ‘Thank you, Sally,’ he said, as though he’d just uttered the dirtiest word in the English language.
    ‘So what’s your presentation on, specifically?’ she asked him.
    ‘Well, the others are doing theirs first; that lot from Luton.’
    ‘Ah, yes, the Adolf Eichmann Comprehensive. Didn’t they strike you that way, a little? That Head of Science with the scowl and the attitude. God, I thought my colleague was to the right of Genghis Khan.’
    ‘That’s Mr Maxwell, isn’t it?’ Gracewell said. ‘He seems very attached to Rachel King.’
    ‘Yes, doesn’t he?’ Sally threw herself down on the bed, her head resting against the wall. ‘Is there a Mr King?’
    ‘Oh, no. Well, there was, but they say there was mental and physical cruelty. The rumour is she just packed her bags and her daughter one day and left him.’
    ‘Hmm,’ Sally nodded, ‘that’s men for you,’ and she grinned cheesily at him.
    ‘No, I enquired at the desk about Liz – Liz Striker. They hadn’t seen her go out. Or come back in. I even asked Gary to unlock her room for me. I don’t think her bed had been slept in.’
    ‘Really?’ That struck Sally as rather odd, too. ‘Well, there’s bound to be a logical explanation. She’s not … er … she’s not having a little flingette with some bloke on your staff, is she?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ Gracewell seemed horrified.
    ‘Well, I just meant, you know – two head shapes on the pillow, that sort of thing?’
    ‘I think I shall have to be going,’ Gracewell said, standing up sharply. ‘Thank you for the coffee.’
    ‘Look,’ she took the cup from him, ‘if I’ve said anything out of turn, Jordan …’
    ‘No,’ he said, but he didn’t glance back as he made, rather decisively she thought, for the door. ‘No, you haven’t. I expect I’ll get to the bottom of it somehow. Good-night, Sally.’
    And he was gone, moving off down the dimly lit corridor on silent brothel-creepers, his coffee barely touched in Sally’s hand.
    It’s always the same with courses. After the ice-breaking session comes the problem-solving session. Maxwell’s first problem was how to swap groups. They’d been picked at random by Gary Leonard, the course co-ordinator, and Maxwell was reasonably miffed, though not surprised, to find that he and Rachel were in different groups. He was in A and she was in D. He was still wondering whether a simple crossing out and rewriting or grovelling to a stranger to agree to a swap would be better when breakfast was over in the Hadleigh Suite and the intrepid little bands moved off.
    ‘Catch up with you at lunch,’ was all Rachel King had time to say. She winked at him and vanished into her team and the persona she wore for the world.
    On their way to the beach, Maxwell took in his team. In a weak and wandering moment, they might have been the A team, although their similarity to the Dream team was rather more striking. And if Maxwell was Hannibal Smith, it was most unlikely that any of their plans would come together, whether he loved it or not. They were a pretty ericaceous mixture, one way or another. Leader-designate was Gregory Trant, a rather reptilian creature whose eyes positively refused to travel in the same direction. He seemed a lacklustre bastard, but teaching in Luton probably does that to people. Should he go down fighting, Michael Wynn, the bearded darling of St