Redeemed From Time
By: Gramarye and Sweeney Agonistes

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What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

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Instinct told him that anything Merriman would have tangled with back in 1911 would have
been fairly significant historically. Thus the next morning found him back in the Bodleian,
investigating the types of volumes which summarized news events in various years.

1911 was an eventful year by anyone’s standards. Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus;
the Titanic was launched; Standard Oil was broken up by the Supreme Court of the United
States. Gustav Mahler died, and Tennessee Williams was born. The Manchu dynasty was
overthrown in China. Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. King George V was crowned,
the Parliament Act came into effect, and the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre.

As he turned the page, a grainy photograph of terraced ruins caught his eye. Will looked at
the caption; it stated blankly that in 1911, Hiram Bingham of Yale University discovered the
famous Inca city of Machu Picchu.

The hair on the back of Will’s neck stood to attention. He could not take his eyes from the
photograph.

“Here,” he said softly to himself, “we have 1911, an Ivy League university, and a significant
archaeological discovery.”

Will replaced the book and went to the card catalogue. He made a few notes, submitted his
requests, and then went outside for a moment, breathing deeply, trying to get his head in order.
He had work to do.

He went back inside to his carrel; within two minutes, a woman with soft brown hair came
with the stack of books he’d requested. With a smile, he took them from her and set to work.
The Diaries of Hiram Bingham lay on the top of the stack. The most obvious thing came first.
Will flipped to the index and ran a finger down the L section.

Lyon, Merriman (Doctor) – 28, 99, 107, 131-33, 241, 245, 247, 251, 258-61…

The page numbers danced on and on; Will was dancing inwardly.

He carefully turned pages, starting with the earliest entries. Fortunately, Bingham’s diary
style was a good step above the Marchmont woman’s. He read a little, skimmed some more,
and finally came to page twenty-eight.

....though nearing Coropuna. Came across an Englishman by the name of Lyon yesterday,
working in the village we passed in the morning. Older man, quiet type. Seemed to be a
doctor, some sort of physician – had apparently done wonders for the natives with basic
medicines and so forth, though he didn’t claim to be affiliated with any particular church.

Will paused, his finger on the page at the paragraph’s end. Merriman, posing as a medical
doctor? It was possible – with him, anything was possible – but it came as a surprise
nonetheless.

Further reading revealed that Merriman had indeed posed as a doctor, an Englishman educated
in Germany. (‘He would make it more complicated than it had any need to be,’ Will muttered
under his breath.) Bingham’s party had had a doctor already, one of the explorer’s friends from
his college days at Yale, but another English-speaking man was more than welcome in their
group – and the new man’s familiarity with the area was also most welcome. Merriman’s name
appeared in the diaries on occasion, scattered quite casually through the pages.

....Lyon pointed out some interesting butterfly specimens to Harry [Harry Foote, the
‘naturalist’ of the party) earlier, and Harry ran off for a good hour with his net....

....snakes are still worrying in these parts, though Lyon assures us that there is no truth in
the tale that certain species are capable of springing upon their prey. I wish I could believe
him....

Will read further, taking notes with pencil, trying to keep his hand from shaking every time he
came upon Merriman’s name. According to Bingham, the elderly gentleman had not been present
at the first sighting of Machu Picchu. His name was conspicuously absent from the diary on that
matter. But a later entry, after a good fifty pages of rhapsodising over the discoveries, sent a
shiver racing up Will’s spine:

When Doctor Lyon first insisted that we stop at Mandor Pampa for the night, I was indeed
loath to set up camp in a place that seemed clearly inhospitable. The rain, the air, everything
seemed to be against us. Yet now I see it for the stroke of luck it was, for things might have
turned out very differently indeed had I not made the final decision that turned out to be all
for the best.

Will closed the book, and leaned back in his chair. A memory swam up into his thoughts,
something his aunt Fran had said down in Cornwall, early on in the Easter holiday that he
and Simon and Jane and Barney had spent looking for the grail...and the precious manuscript
that would decipher it:

‘And such a sweetie -- he came all the way to Ohio to spend a few days with us last fall,
when he was over giving a lecture at Yale.’

Will chuckled quietly to himself. He would have bet every last pence in his bank account that
Merriman’s lecture had centred on the details of Hiram Bingham’s fantastic, ground-breaking,
and wholly unexpected archaeological find – an ancient city hidden away in the farthest reaches
of the Andes.

He wondered if delivering that lecture had made Merriman feel at all smug. It was possible,
certainly. If you wanted to be polite about it, it could be said that Merriman was a details
sort of man who appreciated the overall picture, and lived his life accordingly.

“Even if that life was several thousand years in span,” Will said softly. But there – it would
do him no good to get overwhelmed again. That was why he was engaging in this research,
after all. It would be all right. Of that he was certain.

Where now, though? The day was still young; there was much time in which to continue the
search. As much as he wanted to look closer at Merriman’s fling in South America, he could
not afford to do so – not when his colleagues had begun to notice that he wasn’t ageing as he
should. Not when he had given away too much to Jack Clairmont, even if Clairmont would
soon settle into obscurity in the Florida Keys. Right now he simply needed to trace Merriman’s
presence in history. There would be time enough to look at the details – to find, if possible,
how Merriman had made the change form whatever he was before to world-renowned
archaeologist. That information would be what Will needed, in the end.

He looked down at the notes he had taken that morning.

28 – There already. Posing as doctor. Educated in Germany?

There was the route he should take. A survey of German universities was in order. Will ran
a quick mental check of Merriman’s degrees, both earned and honorary. Nothing from Germany,
as far as he could recall.

He sighed and rose. Merriman certainly hadn’t made this easy for him. There was nothing he
could do, though. He had to press on.

Will’s attitude had changed radically by the time the Bodleian closed for the night. Using
every resource available to him, he had made a thorough investigation of every school he
could find in Germany that offered medical training – and there was nothing. Absolutely
nothing.

A nasty thought occurred to him as he was walking back to his rooms. Perhaps Merriman had
only said he was educated in Germany to prevent Bingham from asking questions. It was
possible, and more than that, it was something that Merriman would have done.

He unlocked his door, flicked on the closest lamp, and collapsed in his chair. Will sat there
for a good hour before he said flatly to the room:

“I’m sulking.”

The responding silence was deafening.

That realisation made, he got up, knelt at the grate, and made a fire. “It is better, after all,”
he said as he struck a match, “to have a fire to talk to than no one at all.”

The flames roared into life, and he went to make tea.

His world thus put back to rights, Will settled back in his chair and said to the fire, “My
hands shook whenever I came across his name today.”

The fire did nothing out of the ordinary.

“I’ve got to be more careful about my reactions. I mean, look what happened with Clairmont.
He was able to figure out that I’d known Merriman somehow – and I’m not stupid, and neither
is he. As old as I look…common sense would tell anyone that there’s no way I could have
known him. I knew very well what I was doing, and I didn’t stop.”

The flames shivered slightly.

After a pause, Will said, “I don’t suppose I should speculate on why my hands shook.”

A charred log cracked in two; sparks shot up into the chimney.

“I think…” His voice faded, and he rested his chin on his hand.

The fire crackled merrily, encouraging him.

So softly that he wasn’t entirely sure he was speaking at all, Will said, “I think finding
Merriman is more important personally than it is professionally. If you take my meaning.”

The flames fell a bit, then burst back into life with a darker intensity.

“Maybe I should go to bed.” He felt bleak. “Maybe things will look different tomorrow.”

The fire fell into darkness, but that was his own doing. He never left the fire going when
he went to bed, although there was no danger of the fire escaping the grate. It was nice to
have a friend whenever one needed one, but to summon the fire more often than it was
needed was a sign of weakness, and that was unacceptable. Merriman, Will knew, would
not have approved.

* * *

The next morning, his mood hadn’t improved. A restless night had done nothing to improve
it, and a most unsatisfactory breakfast of nearly stale toast and one soft-boiled egg had only
made it worse. Will was sorely tempted to spend the day hiding in his rooms with a thick,
fuzzy blanket and a ‘comfort book’, but a brief survey of his cupboards and his tiny refrigerator
told him that unless he was going to fake his own death by starvation, he needed groceries.

The supermarket was crowded, so Will set about stocking his basket with necessities to get
in and out as fast as possible. Bread, eggs, tins of soup. He hovered over the custard tarts
before giving in and adding them to the top of the pile, looking around rather guiltily as he
did so. He held the basket high as he moved through the milling crowd, past a mother trying
to quiet a squalling toddler, and once he was clear of the throng he paused to eye the queues.
It seemed a futile hope to think of finding one that was moving at more than a snail’s pace,
but he selected the most likely one and settled down to wait.

‘Professor! Professor Stanton!’

It was a young woman’s voice, and one that Will knew well. He half-turned, glancing round,
to see the young woman in question walking toward him, juggling a loaf of bread, a notebook,
and several bags of jelly babies.

‘Ah, Miss Leyden,’ he said genially, inclining his head as she sidestepped the yelling child
and took her place behind him in the queue. ‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m fine, and it’s Annie, professor,’ the girl said, tucking the loaf of bread under her arm and
pushing her brown hair out of her face. ‘You don’t have to be so formal about it – I’m not in
your tutorial anymore.’

‘And I’m still reeling from the loss,’ he replied with a smile. It was a familiar start to their
conversations. Annie Leyden had been reading history under Will’s supervision in her
undergraduate days, and it had been his gentle prodding that had helped her make switch
from her original intent to study the Norman invasion – a topic that had fascinated her father
but had bored her to tears – to her current graduate work in early British colonial studies.
‘How’s the research progressing?’

‘Oh, well enough,’ Annie said. ‘Buried in the archives, as usual. I’ve been stuck on the
records of the East India Company for the last week and a half. Every time I think I’ve
found what I’m looking for, it just peters out into a dead end.’

Will let out a little huff of breath, the closest he would allow himself to a sigh. ‘I know
the feeling.’

‘I’ll stop by and show them to you sometime.’ The loaf of bread was starting to slip down,
and Annie tucked the jelly babies under her chin to give it a shove upwards. ‘You might
find them interesting. I’ve come across at least half-dozen Stantons in the crew rosters –
d’you think you might be related to any of them?’

‘It’s possible.’ Will felt a tightness at the back of his throat. It was all too easy to conjure
up a memory of Stephen, looking nervous and stiff in full Navy dress regalia. ‘Anything’s
possible, unless it’s clearly impossible.’

Annie chuckled. ‘So you always told me. And that’s why I thought – oh!’

The bread had slipped down again, and in her haste to grab at it the notebook that she had
tucked under her other arm fell to the floor. She made a frustrated noise and tried to hold
onto all the bags of jelly babies, and at the same time she knelt awkwardly and started to
grope for her notebook.

‘Here, let me.’ Will bent and picked it up for her, rescuing a few loose papers that had slid
out of it during the fall. He straightened up, and was about to return the loose sheets to the
front of the notebook, but before he could open the front cover an odd prickling sensation
scurried up his spine.

He looked down at the paper in his hand. It was covered in notes and doodles in Annie’s
messy hand – a hand that had made him thankful for word processing on more than one
occasion – and it looked to be part of a list of officers and their ships. His eye fell on
one entry near the bottom of the page.

Ship: Pridewin
Master: Lyon (Commodore)
Destination: Bombay
- ship lost with all hands aboard – ca. December 1789

Will’s first thought was that there had to have been at least a few men with the surname
of Lyon working for the East India Company, and that this likely wasn’t Merriman. His
second thought countered that while there may have been several Lyons, there couldn’t
be very many Lyons in command of a ship with that particular name.

He slowly looked up at Annie, who was caught up in her attempts to wrangle the jelly
babies into a manageable state. “Troublesome things – I suppose this is the universe’s
way of punishing me for getting them – ” She cut off mid-grumble and peered at him.
“Professor Stanton?”

Will made a mental note of the date the ship had been lost, tucked the stray paper back in
the notebook, and handed it back to Annie, who had the loaf of bread gingerly tucked under
her arm. “I do apologise for prying, but – you said you were looking at ship’s records?”

“Yes – the ones that sank, mostly. I’m looking at the finances of the Company right now,
and lost ships had a pretty large effect on its financial situation, as one could imagine.”
Annie used the notebook to brush her hair out of her eyes.

“Quite.” Will thought quickly. “Is what you’ve found in a state to be looked at right now?”

“It’s in bits and pieces, but there’s a general coherency to the whole thing.”

“Would you like to join me for coffee? You can tell me about it, and if you’d like, I can
give you some suggestions.”

Annie’s excitement made her almost drop the bread again. “Sure! I’m at that point where
if I set eyes on the library within the next twenty-four hours or so, I’ll scream – but what
I’ve got so far needs to be talked about. You’re sure you’re not too busy?”

“Not at all,” said Will. “I need to take all this back to my rooms first. Is an hour enough
time for you to get everything together?”

“Definitely – there’s a little place called Indigo just round the corner – have you been
there?”

“Once or twice.” Will withheld judgement on the place; it was not one of his favourite
establishments, which rather meant, he thought, that his age was showing. He began to
unload his basket, glancing at his watch as he did so. “Eleven-thirty, then?”

“Yes.” He heard, rather than saw, her grin. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate
this, Professor Stanton.”

He inclined his head. “It’s rather nice to get my head out of my element for a while – and
a little off-topic knowledge is always a useful thing.” The checker gave him his total, and
he paid up. “I’ll see you shortly.”

As Will left, he was smiling. “Useful, indeed,” he murmured. “Quite useful.”

* * *

Forty-five minutes was all that Will needed to return to his rooms and put away his
groceries – and then re-put away the groceries when he realised that he had placed
the two tins of mushroom soup in the icebox and put a packet of frozen peas under the
sink, next to the dish liquid.

‘Calm down, you fool,’ he hissed at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. ‘Chances
are you’re getting all worked up for nothing.’ He splashed water on his face and ran
his wrists under the cold water tap for good measure. Two minutes later he was out
the door, briefcase in hand, coat collar turned up against the brisk wind that was
whipping down the street.

The Indigo was a moderately small coffeeshop that prided itself on being ‘free, fair,
and independent’, a statement that roughly translated to a sort of reverse snobbery
amongst its patrons – no soulless corporate coffee sold here, thank you very much.
A piece of paper taped to the grimy till at the main counter proclaimed in bold black
marker-pen that all coffee and tea products sold in the establishment came from
companies that treated their workforce like wage-labourers, not slave-labourers.
An admirable sentiment, in Will’s opinion, though he couldn’t help but notice that
the sign on the till was mostly obscured by a large glass fish-bowl labelled ‘Tip
Jar’ in the same black marker-pen.

‘A large green tea – for here, please,’ he added as the young woman at the till
reached for a paper cup. Wordlessly, the girl switched to a white china mug and
handed it to a boy next to her, who prepared the tea with a practised speed whilst
Will paid for his hot drink. Tea in hand, Will picked up his briefcase and turned
round to find a table just as Annie raced into the coffeeshop, a voluminous shoulder
bag bumping against her side.

‘Oh, I was going to get that for you!’ she exclaimed, dumping her bag on the nearest
clean table. ‘I work here on weekdays – employee discount and all that.’ She glanced
over Will’s shoulder, and said to the girl at the till, ‘Double mocha, Kath, and tell
Nick not to skimp on the whipped cream.’ That taken care of, she turned back to
Will with a bright smile. ‘Sit, sit – won’t take a minute.’

He sat, and took a tentative sip of the tea, trying to keep the scalding liquid from
searing the tip of his tongue. After a moment’s amiable bickering with her co-workers,
Annie slid into the chair across from him and set a handful of change on the table.

‘Here’s the difference,’ she said, cradling her mug in both hands. ‘Wouldn’t want you
paying more than you have to, especially for a cuppa.’

‘Oh, no,’ he protested, pushing the money back toward her. ‘You’ve got tuition to think
about, and I’m gainfully employed. Or what passes for it, considering that it’s the History
faculty.’

Annie grinned at him. ‘I’d make some smart remark about that, but then again I haven’t
got the luxury of tenure.’ She set her bag on the floor and rooted through it, producing
two notebooks and a sheaf of clipped-together papers from its depths. ‘I’ve got a basic
outline down, and last night I tried to start a few rough chapter drafts, but it’s the old
problem all over again. I can’t make what I’ve got here’ – she tapped the notebooks –
‘and here’ – she tapped her forehead – ‘into something that even looks like an opening
paragraph.’

‘Mm.’ Will was quite familiar with the “old problem”, which he privately attributed
to one too many sixth-form essays written the night before they were due. Annie had
a tendency to be incapable of writing anything without adrenalin and looming deadlines
lighting a fire beneath her...and some caffeinated product at her side.

‘Well, let’s take a step back then,’ he said at last. Unconsciously, he had adopted
the fingers-steepled, slightly leaning-forward posture that he often used during his
undergraduate tutorials. ‘What’s your research about, and what is it going to allow
you to prove?’

He thought he saw a brief flash of mirth in Annie’s eyes as she launched into an
explanation of her intended dissertation. The East India Company had been Britain’s
means of expansion in South Asia, and Annie had intended the use the company’s
records, British government documents, and the personal papers of Company officers,
men, and their families to examine and chart the changing attitude of the British public
toward further expansion into India. She seemed genuinely interested in her subject,
and her enthusiasm for the topic increased as the level of mocha in her mug decreased.

Will listened patiently, asking a question or two when he needed further clarification,
reading over the papers she passed to him. When she handed him the notebook that had
contained the paper with the note about Commodore Lyon on it, he studied the paper
carefully before setting it down on the table.

‘This here – ’ he said casually, pointing to the entry. ‘Take this one entry, for example.
What do you imagine the people on the ship must have felt in the moments before it
sank?’

Annie looked rather startled at the abruptness of the question. ‘I...I don’t quite see
what...you’re asking what the crew felt? Before the ship sank?’

‘Well, I seriously doubt that they went down singing “Rule Britannia” in perfect
choral harmony,’ Will replied dryly.

‘Not under Commodore Lyon, certainly,’ Annie said with a giggle.

‘Oh?’ Will sipped at his tea, not caring that it was rapidly growing tepid. ‘And
why is that?’

‘Well...I’m actually being unfair to the man.’ Annie shuffled the papers in her hands.
‘Most of the E.I.C.’s ship Masters weren’t much more than petty tyrants. Not surprising,
seeing as how it was a time when the Royal Navy was still nabbing men off the streets
and press-ganging them into the service. According to some of the records and journals
I’ve come across, though – those of customs officials, other captains and the like – this
Lyon seemed to be one of the more decent captains. Which in those days meant that he
didn’t order his men flogged for trivial offences.’

Will nodded, very slowly. ‘But you can’t exactly see him leading a chorale of seamen
in a stirring, heart-felt rendition of “Abide With Me”.’

Annie shook her head, grinning. ‘Good lord, no.’

“Do you have any of the documents pertaining to this Lyon fellow with you?”

“Yes – I copied some of them out, although it was hard – these people had atrocious
handwriting.” She rifled through a notebook and pulled out a sheaf of papers. Sliding
them over to Will, she said, “I know, I know – pot kettle and all that.”

Will gave the only answer he could – a raised eyebrow and a half-smile. He then
turned his attention to the papers.

Four hundred miles out from Calcutta. Rendezvoused with the Pridewin today.
Dined with Commodore Lyon; his men are startlingly disciplined. When I inquired
as to how he did it, he said that he gave them no cause for complaint, and so they
behaved themselves. I have no doubt we were both thinking of the mutiny on the
Brookings.

He looked up at Annie and tapped her notes. “Who was this?”

She peered at the paper. “That’s an entry from the diary of James McFarland.
He was a captain – when it came to the treatment of his men, he was somewhere
between Lyon and the old captain of the Brookings.”

“So Lyon was esteemed by his peers?”

“They thought he was rather odd, but he kept to himself and did his job, and the
higher-ups in the Company were satisfied. That was all that mattered, really.
Although – ” Annie grinned. “The master of the Brookings also kept a diary,
and he and Lyon got into an altercation in Bombay once – he accused Lyon of
being too soft on his crew.”

Will chuckled. “The irony burns.”

“Horribly. And what’s even better – he said that Lyon just stood there and looked
at him like he was a rat or something. Didn’t say anything – just looked at him.”
Annie looked pleased. “He must have had presence, that’s for sure. Someone
painted a portrait of the Brookings’s master – Edwards was his name – and
maybe the artist was exaggerating, but Edwards looked like he could have been
a bouncer somewhere.”

“He must have had presence, indeed.” Will smiled; he had enough to work with
now, and to ask anything more might arouse suspicion. “So – your next point brings
attention to the attitudes of the landed nobles. Tell me about that.”

They chatted for another half hour on the subject of Annie’s dissertation. Will
offered advice where he could. Annie ordered another double mocha, this time
with extra chocolate syrup. Gradually, their conversation turned away from work
and on to old times.

‘You never did tell me why you finally chose to stay here for postgraduate work.’
Will tapped his fingers lightly on the scarred, scratched wood of the tabletop.
‘Especially when there was a span of about three weeks where you could talk
of nothing but having the chance to work with Dr Phelps, over at that other place.’

Annie spluttered as she drained the last of her mocha, and made a face at him as she
set her mug down. ‘I can’t believe anyone still calls it that,’ she said exasperatedly.
‘No, that’s not true. If anyone still did, you would.’

‘Some traditions need to be kept alive,’ Will countered calmly. ‘All part of the job.’

His former pupil, well used to his idea of tradition, rolled her eyes. ‘Look, it’s not
as if I’ve committed high treason by applying to Cambridge.’

‘A truly apt expression, that,’ Will said, chuckling. ‘After all, to paraphrase an old
saying, Cambridge produces the martyrs that Oxford burns.’ A little of the smile faded
from his face. ‘But seriously, why did you choose to stay?’

‘I suppose it just felt more comfortable here,’ said Annie, after a moment’s thought.
‘I mean, it was enough of a shock coming here from someplace like Herne Bay in
the first place. I know how things work here, and I figured that if they’d take me, I
might as well stay. It made sense.’

‘So it does,’ Will agreed.

Annie nodded, but her eyes had grown troubled. She stared down into her empty mug,
turning it in her hands. ‘But it’s weird, y’know? I know a lot of people at my College,
but most of the people I knew really well – my friends from my year, that is – aren’t
here anymore. They’ve all got jobs outside Oxford, or are in London or something,
or went overseas. But there’s times when I’ll walk past a restaurant or a pub, and
just as I go past it I swear I’ll see someone I know sitting inside, waving at me. Or
I’ll pick up the phone to dial someone, like Tom or Christina, and I’ll punch in their
old number by mistake –even if I’ve got their new one right in front of me. It’s been
almost a year now, and I’m still seeing ghosts.’ She looked up and gave him a
sheepish, half-hearted grin. ‘Sounds stupid, I know.’

Will gazed at her for a long moment.

‘No, it’s not stupid,’ he said quietly, reflectively. ‘Not in the slightest. It means that
you have quite a lot of strong memories here, good ones and probably a few bad ones
as well. But most of them must have been good ones, or you wouldn’t have wanted to
stay. And you’re very lucky to have had them, to have enjoyed your time here so much.’
He set his empty mug to one side and folded his hands on the table. ‘You might not ever
get rid of those ghosts...but do you honestly want to?’

‘N...no.’ At first her reply was hesitant, but as she spoke her voice grew more confident.
‘No, I don’t. I’ll say that it hurts sometimes, if I’m not having a good day, to walk by
somewhere and think “oh, I had fun there once”. Especially if I haven’t heard from
anybody I know in a while. But you can’t avoid walking past those places, because
that’s just dumb. It won’t make them go away or anything. Do you know what I mean?’

She held Will’s gaze as she spoke, and Will found that it was a struggle to maintain his
normal guarded expression and keep the necessary barriers in place. The absolute last
thing he wanted was for this young woman, this child, to look at her old professor and
see the effect that her innocent words had had on him.

‘Yes,’ he said finally, and even though he thought he had waited long enough before
replying, there was still a huskiness in his voice. ‘Yes. I do.’

Will picked up his empty cup and studied it for a moment, then lifted it to his lips and
pretended to drink the last of his non-existent tea to keep from having to look at her.

When he put his cup down, she was still watching him, but she only said, “Well, there
you are, then.” She smiled, and the moment was broken. “And what’s that thing Robert
Frost said? Something like, ‘home is the place that when you go there, they have to take
you in’. Not that they had to take me in, of course, but it’s home anyway, and I like it.”

“Our enclave is rather likeable,” agreed Will solemnly. “Much better than that other
place.”

Annie made a small noise of disgust. “How do you know? You’ve never worked
there. It’s just silly prejudice – no, excuse me, it’s tradition. Honestly."

He sat there, not quite smiling at her.

Eventually, she grinned. “That must be your way of being beastly.”

“Something like that, yes.”

With a laugh, she began to sweep all her papers back into various notebooks in
what seemed to Will to be an extremely haphazard fashion. “I reckon I can still
get some work in today.” Annie looked up at him with sudden candour as she
stuffed the notebooks back in her bag. “Thanks, Professor Stanton. You’ve helped
me out a lot.”

He inclined his head. “That’s what I’m here for.”

She grinned at him again. “I’ll see you round, yeah?”

“Most likely.” He watched her as she called out her farewells to her co-workers,
and she waved to him as she went out the door.

Will sat for a few moments, toying with his cup, staring down at the table, not
knowing what to think.

Then the ludicrous image of Merriman in a rear admiral’s hat came to him, and
he burst out laughing – much to the scornful dismay of Kath and Nick behind the
counter. The image stayed with him all the way back to his rooms, and he did not
stop smiling for a very long time.

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