remained, however, flickering as soft as candlelight as she opened her laptop and called up a new blank document.
‘Shall I type?’
‘If you don’t mind.’ Matt wrapped his hand around the cardboard coffee cup. ‘I doubt if I’ll be able to keep up with just two fingers.’
In the end, even Beth’s fingers had trouble keeping up. His mind raced ahead, exploring possibilities and working through different courses of action. It was exacting, difficult work but she found herself enjoying it.
She ventured a few opinions and he listened carefully. A few more and he argued his case, giving in with a grin when she carried the point. Her confidence, usually shaky in these situations, began to grow and gradually self-assurance began to quiet her habitual craving for approval.
Finally, he looked at his watch. ‘Nine o’clock. Suppose we’d better wrap this up soon.’ He gathered the papers in front of him together with obvious satisfaction.
‘Is that really the time? I’m sorry, I’ve kept you too long. You should have been home by now for Jack.’
He shook his head. ‘Not tonight. My mother’s looking after him and she’ll stay over. And you haven’t kept me, I’ve enjoyed this evening. You’re pretty formidable once you get going, you know.’
Really? She’d never been accused of being formidable before but Matt had left her in no doubt that he meant it as a compliment. ‘Well, thank you. I look forward to a return match.’
He chuckled. ‘Me, too. I don’t suppose you’d like to come over for a nightcap. We could talk some more.’
Beth shook her head. This was dangerous territory. Matt’s house. Matt’s mother. ‘Let’s finish off here. Go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another day.’
He looked as if he was about to argue and then he nodded. ‘Okay. You’re the boss.’ Dark shadows of fatigue seemed to deepen in his face and he gathered together the papers that lay scattered across his desk. ‘I’m hoping to get away on time tomorrow to spend some time with Jack, but if you have an hour or so on Thursday evening we could talk then.’
Beth nodded. That sounded a more sensible idea. ‘Okay. In fact, there are some people I want to take you to meet. Say six o’clock?’
It was only a ten-minute drive to the university campus but Beth made it through the gates with a sense of relief. Her car was playing up again, and she had insisted she would pick Matt up outside the entrance to blue wing, not wanting to go through the rigmarole it took to start it with him around. Love might have worked with his old Spitfire, but her runaround needed a rather more determined touch.
She slid thankfully into the virtually empty car park and switched off her lights. The autumn term was winding to a close, and most people were out at parties or get-togethers before they went home for Christmas. Matt followed her over to the squat, ugly building that cowered in a slight dip alongside the main road, overshadowed by the tall, glass-clad Arts Tower and the elegant, turn-of-the-century Humanities block. Picking her way down a twisting metal set of steps that led to the lower ground floor, she banged on the only window that was illuminated.
Ed let her in, and Matt followed her through to the lab, a large dingy room, filled with desks and computer equipment. Beth hovered in the corner where the hum from the machinery disrupted her own hearing technology least, wondering what Matt would make of it all.
‘This is Ed.’ She gestured to the young man standing beside her. ‘He’s project managing and generally keeping me in order. And that’s Luke and Allie. Luke’s cracking out the code, and Allie’s a linguist, so she’s the expert on language definitions.’
Matt’s eyebrows shot up. ‘So you’re…what, writing your own software?’
Beth grinned. ‘Not entirely. But I couldn’t find any existing software that would analyse my data the way I wanted, so we’re making a few changes to existing modules.’
‘Quite a few.’ Allie was out of her chair, holding her hand out to Matt and giving him an unusually bright smile. She was obviously dressed up to go somewhere, a short dress over leggings and boots, her long blonde hair falling down her back instead of tied up in its usual messy plait. Now that Beth looked, Ed was looking unusually smart, too, and only Luke was in his usual uniform of jeans and a washed-out sweatshirt.
‘Hmm. Impressive. You have quite a set-up here.’ Matt was looking around him with an assessing eye.
Luke’s head snapped up from the screen he was studying. ‘Yeah—wanna take a look at the new server?’
Beth doubted that Matt had the slightest interest in the server, however much processing capacity it possessed, but he was looking politely enthusiastic. Before she could step in with an excuse, Allie spoke up.
‘We don’t have time for that.’ She turned to Matt, her hands clasped together in front of her, almost in a gesture of supplication. ‘Dr Sutherland, we’ve put together a small presentation for you to show you what we’ve been doing to assist with the computer analysis of Beth’s results. We know you don’t have much time, so it won’t take more than three quarters of an hour.’
So that was what Allie was all dressed up for. Beth had not meant them to go to all this trouble and Ed had said nothing about their plans when she had spoken with him the other day.
She gave Matt a little shrug to indicate that she had no idea of what was coming next, and he gave her a melting smile, turning to Allie with an enthusiasm that belied the fact that he’d already had a long day.
Matt was silent as they walked back to her car later, as if deep in thought. As she drove out of the university entrance gates, gunning the engine to stop it from stalling, he woke from his reverie. ‘What happens if they don’t come up with the goods? To your research, I mean.’
‘I’m not dependent on their software working. If it doesn’t, there are other tried and tested packages that will do what I want, only not as well. Why, do you have doubts?’
‘No. I think they’ll deliver. They’re a little rough around the edges, but there’s no shortage of talent there. I was just concerned that you might not have a back-up plan.’ He shifted in his seat. ‘You didn’t know they were going to make a presentation?’
‘No. Sorry if it—’