Free Gifted and Talented by Wendy Holden

the worried interior of David’s head. It would be useful to have a resident cleaner. Some of the more difficult mothers whose children Dotty taught violin to remarked on the mess from time to time and, given the way things were with the faculty, he couldn’t risk any of his students taking similar complaints to Professor Green. A cleaner would help, definitely. It would actually be an investment.
    He stared at Olly. ‘You’d really rather live in a cupboard in my freezing hovel of a house than go back home?’ Then, as Olly nodded, he asked, ‘Just how bad is your home?’
    Olly managed a smile. ‘It’s not bad. It’s like you said – the going back. I’d feel like a failure.’
    David nodded. He knew all about feeling like a failure. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s a deal. You can move in as soon as you like.’

‘The name’s Allegra Trott,’ barked the voice on the other end of the phone. ‘I’m a City director and I’ve just been given an enormous bonus.’
    Richard tsked under his breath. It was Monday morning, he had briefly stopped in his office on the way to a meeting and he had no intention of being held up by this obviously misrouted call. ‘Congratulations,’ he said sardonically. ‘But—’
    ‘So,’ Allegra cut in, in a commanding tone Richard could well believe brought boardrooms to their knees, ‘I thought I’d ring up the old pickle factory and ask if there was anything I could do.’
    She paused meaningfully. The appropriate neuron now leapt over the synapse and the connection in Richard’s brain was made. She was offering money. Fine. He now knew to route the call to the development office. Fundraising was their business. He was not here to drum up money for Branston.
    That was the job of Flora Thynne, development head. Richard had met her during his first few days in his new post. Tall, as thin as her name and with a long, mournful face devoid of make-up and wispy dark hair caught up at the back, she had made no attempt to disguise how enormous, even hopeless, was the task heaped on her frail and slightly sloping shoulders.
    Whatever principles and influences its architect had in mind when designing Branston, it seemed that the British climate was not among them. Over the years since, the freezing cold of winter had cracked the concrete. The frequent and plentiful rain all year round had collected on the flat roofs and caused damp patches to spread in the rooms beneath. Simply keeping the college standing soaked up money, Richard learnt, and that was before any of the grandiose plans for new library wings, extended bursary schemes and academic chairs were gone into. There was the entire roof to replace, too.
    Well, now here was Allegra, who might just do it.
    Putting the call through, Richard reflected tersely that Flora should arrange to have ‘The Allegra Trott Memorial Roof’ spelt out on it in tiles so it would be visible to passing aircraft. The American institutions he had worked in would have done it without hesitation. Their tiles would, moreover, have glowed in the dark.
    Shortly afterwards, Richard left his office for the meeting with the college council. Hurrying down to the college’s front entrance, he almost collided with Flora Thynne, emerging from the development office. ‘Did you,’ he asked her, ‘talk to that Trott woman?’
    Flora trained a pair of sunken, hopeless eyes on him. ‘She asked me,’ she said in her dreary voice, ‘to put something in the post.’
    ‘And have you?’ Richard was half-annoyed with himself for even being interested. It was not his business. He may be the Master, but first and foremost he was a scientist. It was up to Flora to grasp any opportunities she was presented with, and Allegra Trott was obviously an open goal.
    ‘I’m on my way to the porter’s lodge with this now.’ Flora raised up her right hand, which held a small sheet. Richard read it in disbelief. It was for the list of Branston merchandise available at the