Free Tim Connor Hits Trouble by Frank Lankaster Page A

Rumour has it that they got involved in a brawl a few years ago, but that was before Swankie was elevated to Dean,’ she sounded disparaging about both men. ‘Anyway I’ll leave you to form your own impressions of your new colleagues.’
    ‘By the way’ she continued ‘have you received one of these?’
    She produced a large white envelope from her bag.
    ‘What is it? No, I don’t think so. Maybe it went to my old address in Peyton.’
    ‘Well it’s a surprise of a kind. It’s a notification from Howard Swankie that he wants to meet with the Social Science team in week five. Usually the meeting with him is much closer to the end of term taking the form of a review of how the Social Science group has performed over the period. This seems a bit different. Maybe it’s because of the two new appointments – you and Aisha Khan. And Rachel and I have only been at the Green Park site for a few months. So there’s been a lot of change and maybe Swankie felt he had to give feed back earlier than usual. But maybe it’s something else. I guess we’ll just have to wait until later to find out. He must have something big on his mind to notify us so early.’
    Taking this as a cue to change the subject, Tim waved the remnants of a sausage roll in the direction of the street.
    ‘You’re right about the view. You can see some of the most impressive sights of the city from here. It sure beats South Essex, at least the part I lived in. The A13 out of London passes through the armpit of the country. The other is the A12 which isn’t much better. And it gets worse. Both roads end in Southend, home of candyfloss and permanently incontinent sea-gulls.’
    Because of his recent family traumas Tim was keen to avoid too much personal chat with Erica and, for that matter, with other new colleagues. He was still feeling his way at Wash, finding out rather than giving out. In any case Erica seemed happy to do most of the talking, filling him in on some of the less obvious aspects of life in and around Wash. She showed no inclination to reveal anything about her current personal life, but it wasn’t long before she began to talk quite openly about her life before Wash.
    She was the only child of wealthy parents, her father a defence contractor and her mother a fashion journalist. Amongst their careers and moneymaking, they found little time for her. They also found little time for each other. Her father was often abroad setting up deals which he considered to be of the utmost urgency, and her mother was anobsessive participant in a London literary set of bohemian tendencies. Erica usually found herself at home with at best one or other parent, rarely both, and sometimes with only a paid minder.
    Things changed as a result of an incident between herself and her father. She did not specify what exactly this was and Tim did not press her. He guessed that some kind of abuse was involved. The incident provoked a fierce row between her parents and precipitated the messy dismemberment of a long-dead marriage. By this time Erica was fourteen and when fully painted up, could pass for three or four years older. Her mother began to take her on a circuit of high living rather than leave her alone in the large house now occupied only by the two of them. This was no solution to either of their problems, expanding Erica’s worldly experience at the expense of her stability and education, and hampering her mother’s increasingly frenetic and hedonistic lifestyle. Her father for once intervened effectively and stumped up the money for a Catholic boarding school, Catholicism being his nominal religion.
    Surprisingly, the school worked out quite well for Erica. She had emerged from the rough waters of her sink or swim childhood with a maturity that was not mere precocity. Amongst the other girls she was a leader, on one occasion successfully organising a protest against the school’s attempt to extend ‘out of bounds’ to include the nearby village,