Naming the Bones by Louise Welsh Read Free Book Online

people had a life. ‘Fergus taking you somewhere nice?’
    ‘Fergus doesn’t take me places. We go together.’
    Murray put his foot against the desk. If he were a cowboy, he’d have tipped his hat forward. She hadn’t dressed for him after all. He tried for playful and failed.
    ‘We could go together better.’
    Rachel bent towards him. He felt her breath, warm and sweet, with a faint scent of peppermint. She’d started smoking again.
    ‘One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Fergus, he’s never boring.’
    ‘He bored me rigid at the last faculty meeting.’ Murray reached into his desk drawer and fished out the bottle of malt he’d bought weeks ago in the hope of tempting Rachel to stay longer than the time it took to straighten her clothes. ‘I think I need a drink. Do you want to join me?’ He hesitated. ‘Or we could go somewhere, if you’d prefer a glass of wine?’
    Rachel glanced at the clock above the office door. Murray wondered if she’d been keeping an eye on it during their lovemaking.
    ‘I told you. I can’t stay long. We’re having people round for dinner. Fergus is making his famous shepherd’s pie.’
    ‘Proletarian heartiness the latest smart thing?’
    ‘I hope so. It’s certainly more economical than some of his other enthusiasms. Here,’ She reached into her bag and drew out a bottle of Blackwood’s. ‘I’ll have a splash of this. My alibi.’
    Alibi . The word irritated him.
    ‘How long will it excuse you for?’
    ‘Long enough. Fergus was determined to have Shetland gin for aperitifs. They don’t sell it everywhere. Why?’ She had a pointed face, like a sly little fox. Sometimes, when she smiled, she looked a short leap away from a bite. ‘Are you scared he might hunt me down?’
    Murray got up and washed his coffee cup. The light stretching across the room was snagged in his mind. Fergus was around twenty years older than Rachel, somewhere towards his sixties, but he’d run the 10K last year. Could he have covered the stretch of the corridor in the time it had taken Murray to get to the door? But why would Fergus run? He had the power to fell Murray without lifting a fist. He ignored Rachel’s question, taking the gin from her and pouring a little into the clean mug.
    ‘Sorry about the crockery, not very suave.’
    ‘Not being very suave is part of your charm.’
    ‘Then you won’t be surprised to hear I can’t offer you ice and lemon.’
    ‘A little water will be fine.’
    It was part of what he’d liked about her, this posh gameness. In another era she would have made a great lady explorer. He could imagine her cajoling a team of native carriers through the jungle, taking one of them to her tent at night then ordering him to pick up and carry her bundles the next morning.
    Murray went to the sink. Usually he drank the bottled stuff, convinced he could taste the liquorice taint of lead in the university tap water, but there was only a small dreg left in the plastic bottle of Strathmore in his rucksack. He let the cold run for a moment then added a dash to her cup.
    ‘Thanks.’
    Rachel smiled, holding it against her chest while he poured himself a nip of the whisky. He was going to clink his cup against hers, but she took a sip of the gin, grimacing then coughing against its burn.
    Murray laughed.
    ‘A hardy people, these Shetlanders.’ He tasted his own drink. ‘Doesn’t it bother you? Our visitor?’
    ‘You shielded me.’
    He toasted her with his mug.
    ‘Instinctive chivalry.’
    ‘Of course it bothers me.’ She glanced at the clock again. ‘But what’s the point in torturing ourselves? A rumour will start or a rumour won’t start. We’ll worry about it if it does. The thing we have to make sure of is that it doesn’t happen again.’
    ‘You’re right. It was stupid, doing it here.’
    ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’ She saw the expression on his face and smiled. ‘We both know it can’t go on.’
    He couldn’t trust his voice.