Hart exhales. He is unable to be angry. He drinks another four fingers of Scotch and settles back on the couch, feeling more impotent than ever. But as he ponders Maria's disappearance and tries to decide whether he should speak with the university authorities, the phone rings again. Standing up too quickly, he staggers across the sheepskin rug in the lounge. Tiny red flashes fall through his swooping vision. He snatches the phone from the cradle and prepares for more abuse. 'Hey now.' His voice is thick. His mind inflexible.
'You the nightmare guy?'
Hart breathes a sigh of relief; it isn't Maria's boyfriend. 'Yessum.'
'I need to see you.'
'Sure. What's your name?' he asks, excited now, feeling the spirit of the investigation suddenly reanimate in the flat.
'Oh yeah. Rick.'
His words slur. 'When's good for you, Rick? How about now?'
'I can't. Not today. I got something on.'
'Tomorrow?'
'Yeah. That's cool. What time?'
'Will you be up at ten?'
'I'll be up at nine. I live with a prick who wakes me every morning.'
'Ten's fine then.' Hart gives Rick the address of his flat and takes Rick's phone number. 'Before you go,' he adds. 'Did you go to any of Eliot Coldwell's meetings?'
'Waste of time that was. I was told we'd get paid. I wasted three Friday nights.'
Hart raises the phone in triumph after he says goodbye to Rick. Another one; that makes four. Maria has disappeared and there has been no word from Kerry or Mike, although Kerry admitted she intended to leave town. But Mike? He would hang on to the end because of his thesis. Hart makes a decision on the spot: to satisfy his curiosity, and to placate the bad feeling Chris's phone call has instilled in him, he'll go and check on the scholar from Dean's Court.
Pale-faced, a little unsteady on his feet, and feeling as if his stomach has been replaced with a torn paper bag, Hart walks to Dean's Court from Market Street. In the bright sunlight, his head hurts too and he hates himself for thinking about the next drink. It is an effort to restrain himself from entering the dozen pubs he passes since leaving the flat. Getting liquored is all he feels up to after being yelled at by Chris. Conflict is not something he expected, not from the students. Is he losing his touch? And what the kid said about him not being a proper doctor cut deep. As an undergraduate in Chicago, he always drank heavily for confidence. At five-four, with legendary acne, he grew a Robert E Lee beard to cover it. Two proofreaders adjusted his Master's thesis because he was skunk-drunk when he wrote the final draft. What he then saw in Guatemala gave him a rock star's liver and, he guesses, another ten years to live unless he climbs on the wagon.
People need him in St Andrews. He has to lay off the booze. But the situation is impossible; if he starts spouting the truth about night terrors they'll say he's a crank with the looks to match.
Cursing himself for a moment of self-pity, Hart reminds himself that Mike Bowen's safety is first on the agenda. He hopes to God Mike Bowen's failure to answer his phone is nothing more than a case of the guy cracking Latin rocks in the library. But if he's gone missing too, Hart knows he has to go somewhere important, and soon, with his information. It's still too early to start making a noise, and he needs to speak to this Coldwell character before he goes to the authorities – even if it means forcing a confrontation with the lecturer, or door-stepping him at home.
Passing under an arch set in a high stone wall above a cobbled terrace, Hart enters the gardens of Dean's Court. Poplars, oaks and chestnut trees cast shadows across the ancient well, and lush grasses surround the fourteenth-century hall. It's made from grey stone and has an arbour dividing it from a modern annexe overlooking South Street. The steps leading up to the large wooden front doors are smooth and slippery with the wear of centuries, and the expansive reception smells of polished oak, old books, floor wax and dust: just like every university library he's ever worked and slept in since his teens. The air is cool inside, the hall quiet, there is no glare from sunlight, the rug feels soft beneath his feet. He is feeling better already.
Against one wall, festooned with black and white photographs,