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Jessica filled it: ‘Roughly how many students do you teach a year?’
    Apparently unaware of the meaning of ‘roughly’, Call Me Bob started hunting through the papers on the keyboard, holding up the lists of students before giving Jessica an exact number, then explaining that he didn’t teach all of them, simply that he was head of department. Jessica could feel Archie tensing next to her; she didn’t think down-to-earth Mancunians and erratic university lecturers would ever be the best of bed-fellows.
    As she glanced across to him, Archie caught Jessica’s eye, leaning in and whispering into her ear behind the back of his hand. ‘Who the fook’s called Bob nowadays?’
    Jessica nodded knowingly, as if he’d raised a good point. In many ways he had but she still wondered what he was up to.
    Call Me Bob’s eyes flickered between the two of them, wondering what had been said.
    ‘If you don’t teach all of the students,’ Jessica said, peering back at the professor, ‘how come you know who Damon is?’
    Leaning back into his chair, Call Me Bob stroked his chin. ‘When you’re head of course, you tend to know the students at the very top and very bottom. Those who do exceptionally are the ones the staff always talk about, of course, but there are also the students who miss classes, deadlines, or end up dropping out. The others, who turn up regularly and get middle-of-the-range grades, are the ones you tend to gloss over and perhaps don’t know the details of.’
    ‘Was Damon at the top or the bottom?’
    The professor nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh, the top, definitely. His father is well known in business circles around the city, so it was a name that jumped out when I saw this year’s admissions list. He was immediately one of the exceptional students, though. I was getting reports back straight away to say he was one to watch. I teach the introduction module – something to keep my eye in each year. All the students take a test in their first fortnight. It’s nothing too serious and has no bearing on their final mark; it’s more to assess their initial knowledge. He had one of the highest scores since we brought the test in.’
    ‘And Damon continued in the same vein?’
    ‘Yes. I don’t think he missed a class in the couple of months he was here. His work was always on time and the marks were consistently in the top two or three in the year. In the introductory class, whenever I asked a question, his hand would usually be in the air.’
    ‘Did you notice any changes in him in recent weeks?’
    Call Me Bob shook his head, hair flapping wildly in a breeze Jessica couldn’t feel. ‘I took a class with him on Tuesday and he was the same as ever – hand in the air, taking notes and so on. If anything, he seemed more enthusiastic than usual.’
    Archie leant in again, whispering into Jessica’s ear behind his hand. ‘Is it me or is this guy’s head on upside down?’
    Jessica’s eyes flickered up towards the professor. Now Archie had mentioned it, the flapping strands of hair on his head would have made more sense as a beard. She nodded thoughtfully and made a ‘hmm’ sound as Archie leant back. Call Me Bob peered from one officer to the other but said nothing.
    ‘Is that attentiveness unusual?’ Jessica asked.
    Call Me Bob tried to flatten his hair but only succeeded in making it more static, then he scratched his shoulder. ‘When I first got into teaching, all the students were interested and wanted to learn. Now everyone goes to university. Tuition fees slowed things down a little but there was a period where courses were accepting any old body – people with Ds and Es at A-level, just to make the numbers up and keep government funding. Then you have all these offshoot, new-fangled courses – herbology, hairdressing and who knows what else. It’s not like the old days, so it’s nice when you have students who want to learn.’
    Jessica clarified a few further points, taking the names of