He knocked.
No response.
He knocked again, a little louder.
Still nothing.
He knocked once more, much louder, then pushed down the door handle and walked in.
Professor Rothwell – donning Beats as he whistled to a jazz number on his top-of-the-range laptop – caught Sant in the corner of his eye and waved him in. He threw off the headphones and made a series of strange arm gestures that Sant took to mean he was welcome.
He was a thin man whose age was impossible to place. His tatty blazer and brown corduroys spoke of middle-aged inertia, but his shock of dishevelled fair hair gave him an oddly juvenile character. Maybe he’d donned the same new-romantic hairstyle for a few decades, and at last the style was trendy again. The illusion of youth was supplemented by an acute drooping upper
