Come Clean (1989) by Bill James Page B

good architect, solid and handsome and full of education, if possible. He was less frantic for
acceptance than Alma, because he knew there had to be a lot more very rough fighting and earning yet, and Leo had to be pushed right under and held there till the bubbles stopped. But he did want
acceptance to come one day.
    On the ground floor, wearing a stone mortar board and with a very fat stone open book on his lap, was the seated, stone figure of the man who had been the first chief of the university up the
road, and Loxton went down to look at him once more. The figure always fascinated him. Perhaps he was supposed to be reading the book aloud, and his mouth had been done half-open, so you could even
see his stone teeth and stone tongue. That must really be something, to be carved to last by a sculptor who knew his trade. In them days it probably meant you had truly made it if you said you was
going to get stoned.
    As he gazed at this heavyweight old scholar, Loxton heard what he thought for a moment was the muffled scream of a girl, but then decided at once that it was more like a shout of great happiness
and relief. He looked around and saw that on the other side of the hall stood a glass-walled telephone box. Inside was the woman he had assumed to be Mrs Iles, with the receiver in her hand. Though
he had heard that one noisy yell, he could make out nothing of what she was saying now, but he saw she looked very different from when on the dance floor. Suddenly, Sarah Iles seemed absolutely
full of life and joy as she chatted and laughed and listened, and her husband would probably have given a couple of years’ pay to make her open up to him like that once in a while. Some hope.
Sad, really. As the conversation went on she viewed herself in the telephone box’s mirror, and quickly smoothed down some strands of hair with one hand, like she was worried the person at the
other end might see her untidy. Part of the skirt of her lovely blue gown was jammed in the door and sticking out, as if she had been in a great hurry to make the call and could not be bothered to
free the material. You did not need to be brilliant to guess this was a woman talking to a lover, and a lover who, maybe, she had not been able to see for a time.
    Loxton turned his face away in case she glanced towards him and walked up the stairs on the other side, where there were more portraits to look at. Then, after a while, he descended to the hall
again and found the telephone free. Quickly, he went in and rang Macey. The air of the box was still heavy and exciting with her scent. ‘A bit of a long-shot,’ Loxton told him.
‘Get up to that lad’s place right away, will you?’
    ‘That lad?
    ‘The one we had under discussion recent. The one it been difficult to locate?’
    ‘Oh,
that
lad.’
    ‘I think he might have just had a call from someone pretty fond of him.’
    ‘Ah.’
    ‘Yes. It looks like this person was rushing to make the call at a special time, something arranged, like, so he might be home for an hour or two. Worth a try.’
    ‘Of course. How do you want me to handle it, suppose he’s there? What I mean, how serious?’
    As he gazed out of the booth at the heavyweight university man and his important book that obviously stood for all learning and so on Loxton considered this: ‘Serious. It got to be
serious, no question. This lad might have heard some dangerous words the other night, that’s the point. He’s a liability.’
    ‘Yes, such a liability.’
    ‘That’s it. Regrettable he was there, really, but he’s in the way, or could be in the way. What I mean, why did he disappear, why’s he hiding, if he’s not
problematical? That’s what you got to ask.’
    ‘It’s a point.’
    ‘So it’s a grave matter, definite. Yes, a grave matter.’
    ‘I understand.’
    Iles and his wife were standing with Colin Harpur on the main landing when Loxton returned. ‘Benny,’ Iles called, ‘you look so deserted,