I quickly rattled off another five or six shots: different angles, different styles. Showing other parts of the court, showing the walls behind them draped with faces, with the girls stony-faced and arms folded, holding hands, pretending to run, anything I thought Geoff might conceivably buy. Then the rain began to splatter more heavily and it was all over: we darted back inside to the dog-s.h.i.t disco with cheers ringing around us.

And in another ten minutes Cody and the girls had reverted to Jonathan and the boys and a smirking, flushed anonymity, and Cream of the Crop Top had been packed away into their over-stuffed kit bags until the next time. The adrenalin in my body was leeching away into nothing and I was thirsty, and hungry, and damp, and feeling like something had changed.

We thanked the boys, and then Spencer and I sprinted through the cloudburst back to his room. "Quite something, aren't they?" he called as we dodged the growing puddles. "They sing and dance too, though that is in all honesty less refined than their overall look at present. They're making rather wonderful progress though."

"You know I had no idea there was a degree in drag. What is it, like a BSc in Sa.s.s and Shaving?" I had my camera bag under my jacket to try to keep it dry.

"BA, dear, not BSc. Oh, no, this is purely extra-curricular. We do very much encourage it though. We positively delight in our students graduating from St Paul's having emerged from whichever particular chrysalis they might have arrived in."

"Like, coming out?"

Spencer bounced through his stairwell door and held it open for me again. "There are many types of closet, Conor."

The high I realised I was in from the photoshoot lasted until I returned to the Bugle office, dried off again, and sat at my desk next to a curious and restless Manish to start pulling the story together.

"Oi, ginger." It was a m.u.f.fled Geoff. He beckoned me over with one hand, the other stuffing a sandwich into his mouth.

"All sorted, boss," I said. "I've got some cracking pictures. Page one copy on the way. Have you come up with a better headline yet? I've had a couple of ideas-"

"Hold your horses, kid. Change of plan." Still chewing, he waved me onto the chair beside him.

"Geoff, we agreed page one-"

He swallowed. "Don't get shirty, sunshine. You're right, I said page one if you got the b.o.o.bs. But I'm killing that story." He gave me the full-on Churchill face.

I got louder. "You can't, man, it's a good story. What have you got, a councillor falling off a chair? This is better than that."

He raised his hands to quieten me. "Listen. Who was it you spoke to at St Paul's?"

"The guy running the race. Flowers, Spencer Flowers. He's a good guy."

"Was he the one you called an a.r.s.ehole earlier?"

I nodded reluctantly and tried to calm down. "He's an academic. Course he's an a.r.s.ehole. But he's a decent enough a.r.s.ehole. I've seen a few a.r.s.eholes in my time-"

Hands up again. "Enough. And he's a bender like you?"

"Hey, if you're gonna get all hate crime on my a.r.s.e there's a whole bunch of better words you can use."

"Is he?"

"What's all this about? There's not some radical h.o.m.os.e.xual page one conspiracy going on." Not quite. I was starting to properly bristle and my gay agenda hackles were on the rise.

"I've heard a few stories about this Flowers bloke. I thought you might have a bit more for me, some back-up."

"Yeah, right, because all the gays know all the gays. We all sleep with each other and use the big gay telegraph to tell each other our big gay secrets. Tell me, how is the Queen? You must know her, she's straight and old."

"You know what I mean, ginge. You've just come back from meeting this guy. You've said he's an a.r.s.ehole - your words, mate, your words. So, how much of an a.r.s.ehole? Word is he's out of control. Slagging it around. It gets a straight-up bloke like me a bit suspicious, don't it? Taking liberties with innocent young freshers is he?"

I took a breath. Now was not the time to get all West Side Story. For all I knew Spencer was taking a few liberties with freshers, though I doubted it. What I'd seen at the college didn't suggest that. He was genuine, decent. Proud of the girls and the boys. I reckoned they could look after themselves, no problem. In fact I could imagine one or two freshers taking liberties with him, if he'd let them.

What worried me was that Geoff didn't understand St Paul's, and more importantly St Paul's - and Spencer, and Seb - didn't need this kind of publicity. I was pretty sure Spencer was no saint, but I was also pretty sure that n.o.body was. Manish might have been slagging around more than Spencer. This kind of talk seemed... twenty years out of date.

"Geoff," I said as calmly as I could. "I hate to break it to you, man, but... I'm sorry, you've been asleep for a couple of decades. It's the twenty-first century now. n.o.body gives a single s.h.i.t any more."

"This isn't about all that. f.u.c.k me, we hired you, didn't we? Don't start defending the bleedin' tribe mate. If he's in a position of power and abusing that trust-"

"Like you?" Oh, jeez.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Roll back, roll back! "I mean - you're sitting there in a position of power right now. You mustn't abuse that trust by- by printing stories about some college a.r.s.ehole that might turn out not to be true." Nice recovery there, Conor, you great c.o.c.k.

The argument had gone on long enough to draw Simon slithering from his desk, the enforcer wheeling his chair across to run interference for his master. "This isn't about Geoff," he said. "This isn't about newspapers, what they do now - or what they used to do."

Geoff shrugged, palms up. "If the Spencer bloke's clean, he's clean, and there's probably no story."

"Back in the bad old days," said Simon slowly, sc.r.a.ping a finger on Geoff's desk, "it was a lot freer and easier in the business. We might print stuff then that we wouldn't now. These days, we have the internet. Things can be checked. Traced." A pause while he flexed the fingers on his right hand. "You'd be amazed what you can find in access logs."

"So," I said, "you've got something about- about this Flowers guy from some access logs somewhere? Is that what you're saying?"

Simon fixed his gaze on me. "About him? Oh, no. Not at all. Not about him." There was an emphasis on him that made me think of baseball bats and a broken nose. "Remember where your loyalties lie, mate."

"Tell us what you know about Flowers," said Geoff.

I walked into my flat that night and went straight to my laptop to open up Gaydar. A very quick message to Spencer: "Incoming!"

eleven.

The Attack It was the second consecutive long evening chewing the cud with Conor and Seb, and certainly not as pleasurable as I would have preferred. It was apparent I was now the target of the Bugle's rabid ire, despite Conor's gallant efforts to distract them from my college record. Even a knight in shining ginger armour such as he was unable to wield his broadsword against his liege and his deputy liege with any degree of decapitatory success.

One sticks one's head jauntily above a parapet for just one millisecond and the wrath of the detritus of Fleet Street is arrayed pestilently against it, I thought.

Conor told me I was likely to be branded in print some flavour of s.e.x pest with the stage-whispered subtext that I was preying upon the youth of St Paul's. Via some lollipop-based subterfuge, perhaps, or promises of grade advancement according to some tariff of services.

Frankly, nothing could have been more distant from the actuality. The students at St Paul's were far too tickled preying upon each other, and ordering in from sundry other colleges, to have any special regard for me. My rapidly decaying flesh and accreting gut held no allure when the first flush was, as it were, on tap.

A secondary but no less dangerous trouble for our conspiracy was the deputy editor: intimately allied with his governor, as Conor put it, the Riker to his Picard, and - were Conor's suspicions proved - aware of Conor's interest in the duo's dubious past. This complication hastened and altered our plans somewhat. We could not risk the deputy's investigations unravelling and foiling the intended revenge.

In Seb's disturbingly capacious apartments beside the river, away from the cameras of college and the twitching ears of Humbug or anywhere else in public view, we inched soberly, in all senses, towards a revised and accelerated attack. Over the course of the evening I became half-tea, half-biscuit.

Thus Wednesday night granted me fewer hours of sleep than I was accustomed to, and Thursday morning began with the insistent, shower-interrupting ringtone allotted to the Master's outer office - one of the poorly doc.u.mented and less fiery of Dante's circles. I was instructed to present myself for ritual castration by the Forked Tongue of Chatteris at precisely nine o'clock.

The first four bars of Yankee Doodle, from the college clock high above Bottom Court, seeped mournfully through to the Admin dungeon as I knocked and entered the coffin-office.

"He is arrived," said Amanda from her desk, apparently to no-one: she was the sole occupant of the room, a small purple oasis of gibberish.

"Right," said a voice from the phone, and I understood. The voice had a p.r.o.nounced East London accent, distinctive from just that single word: the "r" drifted toward "w", the "i" was more "oi", the "t" absent without leave. The editor, or his deputy: and yet officially I still knew nothing. My heart began to pound.

"Sit, Spencer. Sit."

I did meekly as I was told, clasping hands together in case they shook. I was thankful not to be hungover.

"I am telephonically engaged with Geoff Burnett. His position is as of editor of the Bugle, of which you are no doubt aware of."

"I am- an avid reader," I said, pre-deploying the negatory pause.

"Good to hear it, son," said Burnett, voice m.u.f.fled and distorted on the ancient speakerphone. "You're in the next edition."

I feigned ignorance and trowelled on the guilt. "Indeed, the race. We are profoundly grateful for your publicity, Mr Burnett, as will be the many charities that benefit from the event. I hope your picture editor found-"

"Silence, Dr Flowers," Amanda commanded, perching upright on her distressed leather chair.

"Sorry, son, but a little bird has sung us a better story. Of course, in the interests of balance, we thought you might like to give us a few comments on the record."

"And what story might that be, Mr Burnett?" I said. "I can a.s.sure you my finances, and those of the charity event, are strictly in order." I kept my smile to myself.

"Your finances might be, kid, but your love life's a bit of a c.o.c.k up, if you pardon the pun."

This I could hardly deny. I was awash in adrenalin, pushing the deliberate incomprehension further. "Are you proposing some species of - what's the word? - make-over, Mr Burnett? I am afraid there is very little anyone, even the most talented, can do with my hair these days. I must decline a hairpiece on religious grounds, and a transplant-"

The editor interrupted. "Spencer - can I call you that? Spencer, listen. I'll level with you. I don't much care for the likes of you smart-a.r.s.es and G.o.d knows this town's chocka with 'em. Same goes for all the queer stuff. I tolerate it but I don't have to like it. Once it crosses the line, I don't have to tolerate it no more."

Amanda listened impa.s.sively, hands folded on her blotter and not even twitching towards the biro pot. I saw a narrowing of the eyes at the word queer but that was all.

"A line has been crossed, you say? Which line is that, Mr Burnett?" I asked.

His voice crackled menacingly back. "Whichever line my paper chooses. Whichever line I choose. And I reckon luring students in your care back to your pit crosses one h.e.l.l of a bleedin' line."

I rose slowly and faced the portrait of Dryb.u.t.ter on the wall behind Amanda with my hands clasped behind my back. I considered my next words very carefully indeed. "And I presume you have multiple on-the-record sources for these scurrilous allegations, which I of course strenuously and fully deny?"

"I've got enough to print."

"I'll take that as a no."

I hoped Amanda might jump in and at least confuse him for a few seconds. Sadly, she remained - for the first time in living memory - annoyingly silent.

"Any comment for us, Spencer? On the record? Maybe you'd like to confess everything here and now and we can do a big set-piece interview. And then at the end you start bawling and get drop-kicked out of the college. You know it's gonna happen. Might as well get it over with now - it'll be simpler in the long run."

I went calmly to the desk, pushed Amanda's pot of biros to one side, and perched beside the speakerphone. "I should like to make a counter-offer, Mr Burnett."

"Bribe, is it? We'll add that to the list."

"Oh, no," I said softly. "Let me say this. You might think your lies about me are true. You might believe you have impeccable sources." I leaned in closer to the microphone. "You haven't met the Archivist."

Amanda tensed. "I counsel and suggest caution, Dr Flowers."

I imagined a brewing panic amongst the Archivist's elves, perhaps a flavour of batphone glowing red beneath a gla.s.s cloche in his lodgings. I had not, for the avoidance of doubt, mentioned this idea to him in advance.

"Archivist?" said Burnett contemptuously. "You're threatening me with a f.u.c.king librarian? What's he gonna do, stamp me and lend me out?" He wheezed in laughter.

"I'm not threatening you, Mr Burnett. I'm offering you. An hour, with the Archivist. An exclusive story from the archives. In return, you drop your fanciful and libellous stories about me and reinstate the publicity for the charity event."

For a moment I thought I'd left him speechless. Perhaps some asthmatic reaction.

He replied as if to a dull child. "I don't think you understand the concept of a counter-offer, son. You want me, seriously, to drop a s.e.x scandal for an 'exclusive' about an unpaid fine from eighteen-bleedin'-ninety? You've been pa.s.sing the port the wrong way, doncha-know."

I laughed, attempting an evil villain insouciance. "Mr Burnett, for a supposedly experienced and veteran journalist you are astonishingly naive. You have ten minutes to perform the necessary research on St Paul's. Rest a.s.sured, sir, that we have been doing our research on you."

I hung up before he could respond, and let out a long breath. The phrase death or glory swam in my head briefly before I banished it and replaced it with the college motto that Conor had noticed the day before: ex glande quercus, from acorn to oak. I certainly felt a little growth.

I lifted my head expecting thunderous eyes, expecting Amanda to pounce across the desk and sink her fangs into my neck and have my blood repaint her purple red.

And yet she said simply: "Gin, Dr Flowers? Gin?"

Without waiting for my answer she rose and shuffled to the drinks cabinet at the far end of the airless room. The cabinet whistled in shock on being opened and exposed to twenty-first century air. On her return the Master bore a brace of generously filled, as-new crystal gla.s.ses and the vaguest simpering of a smile.

"I'm not sure I understand," I said, accepting the gla.s.s and its heartening contents readily. "I was convinced utterly you would disapprove."

"My disapproval is plainly and greatly zenithal. The scandal you visit upon these walls is most heinous. The allegation of malperformance in our sacred duty in logo parenthesis heinouser. The risk you invite upon the Archivist, heinousest of all. And yet, and yet, and still yet, the approach chosen and taken has much of admiration upon it."

"I promise no risk to the Archivist, Master. And you know that I have brought no scandal to the college. I would not and could not do so. Burnett's allegations are lies, calculated to distract from the race. Someone wishes to disrupt it, to ensure I fail and fall in disgrace."

I wondered who that could be - and answer came there purple.

The c.o.c.kney one phoned Amanda back seven minutes after I hung up. It had taken only a short and rapid sweep across his network of contacts and sources - excluding Amanda, a.s.suming she was a more recent addition to that group - to, as it were, fill in the gaps regarding St Paul's.

A double-edged weapon, of course. Burnett's time of ignorance was over, which meant his time dismissing us as a big stone box of irrelevant toffs was also at an end. The plan to unseat him would have to be utterly and irrevocably successful, or else St Paul's would be at the point of his sword and the Archivist in grave danger of terminal exposure.

I informed Burnett he could attend college that afternoon, at four o'clock precisely. Conor and I had agreed this schedule beforehand so as to ensure the maximum time for planning and arranging our response. We had no intention of allowing Burnett to meet the Archivist: we would subst.i.tute another in his place. I thought it best not to inform Amanda of this wrinkle, to lessen her interference. And as per the original plan we would not be supplying him with a valuable and true exclusive either: Seb and, no doubt, others under his charge in deep background not part of our little cabal, were arranging one or two suitably convincing forged doc.u.ments - about Amanda, I still hoped and prayed. From that loop I was excluded for my own security.

Another reason for the four o'clock meeting: it was past the Bugle's print deadline for the week's edition. Conor could and did gleefully confirm that after a small argument between the editor and his deputy - the latter wanting to persevere with the smear - the Band on the Run front-page story, complete with its photo of Cody and the girls cavorting in college, had gone to print. It would appear on doorsteps and in selected newsagents across the city the next morning without fail.

This was a great relief: the event planning could now proceed in earnest. My diary, heretofore containing mostly student supervisions and appointments to booze, began to fill with race-related duties. But all would come to nothing unless our deception held.

I parked myself inside the porters' lodge twenty minutes ahead of the scheduled time to ensure Burnett did not curry favour with a porter on duty via cash or other sundries and obtain advance entry. We most certainly did not want that odious man having unfettered access to the student body. In parallel I felt a nagging concern that I had heard nothing from the Archivist, the true Archivist. I had expected a tussle regarding the plan, with some unseemly knee-based pleading on my part: but I was not contacted.

On the hour, with shadows lengthening across Bottom Court, a thin-faced man with silver slicked-back hair and a sheepskin coat of a more prosperous era nosed his way into college grounds beside the lodge. He was not as I had imagined Burnett to appear: he was decidedly scrawnier. It was evident he hadn't laughed since the dawn of the internet, and knew seven different ways to kill with bare nicotine hands. The porter scrambled to inquire his business, and then indicated towards me. Innards twisting, forcing a smile, I went to meet him.

"Mr... Burnett?" I asked.