Silencer by Campbell Armstrong Page A

girl with straight, long blond hair. She looked as if she’d strolled out of a shampoo commercial. A yellow nimbus hung about her.
    â€˜Amanda,’ Rhees said, ‘this is Polly Svensen. Polly’s doing post-grad work next semester.’
    The student smiled. Amanda smiled back. Polly Svensen was, well, simply stunning. She had the kind of astonishing beauty that quickened men’s hearts and sent thrilled whispers running through crowded rooms. Her neck’s just a little too long, Amanda thought.
    â€˜I didn’t expect Professor Rhees to be at home. I was just dropping off my paper,’ Polly said. ‘I heard he was out of town.’
    â€˜Lo and behold,’ Amanda said, frost in her voice. ‘Here he is. The man himself.’
    Polly was all false modesty. She knew she was a knockout. Slender, five-eleven, faded skin-tight blue jeans and a white halter, and her cute little navel showing. She knew she changed the weather wherever she went.
    Rhees frowned at Amanda and said, ‘We were just discussing the role of nature in Dylan Thomas.’
    â€˜Mmm, interesting,’ Amanda said. Rhees had access to a surfeit of girls. He met them one on one in his office, tutorial fashion. She wasn’t normally threatened by these academic tête-à-têtes, but today things were just coming at her and she felt defenceless.
    She said, ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower, et cetera.’
    Polly said, ‘Right. You’re familiar with Dylan.’
    Dylan. Polly was just the type to be on first-name terms with dead poets.
    Amanda said, ‘A few lines, that’s all.’
    â€˜He’s worth getting into,’ Polly said. ‘There’s this really marvellous deep underlying green thing. “About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green”, you know?’
    â€˜And all this time I thought he wrote about jerking off. Goes to show.’
    Polly had a distinctive giggle. Somebody had probably told her once it was real neat, so she reproduced it whenever she could.
    Rhees got up from the table and cleared his throat. He indicated with a gesture of his head that he wanted a moment of privacy with Amanda. He went into the kitchen and Amanda followed. He shut the door and crossed his arms.
    â€˜You’re being rude,’ he said.
    â€˜Am I?’
    â€˜You know you are.’ Rhees reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘This isn’t like you, Amanda.’
    â€˜Well,’ she said, and shrugged.
    â€˜You sneaked off at dawn without saying where you were going. I can guess anyway.’
    Amanda opened a closet door, rummaged around and said, ‘I thought we had some Grahams here. Polly might want a cracker.’
    â€˜Unworthy scold,’ Rhees said.
    Amanda slammed the closet door shut. ‘She’s young and she’s like some goddess. Her hair goes all the way down to her ass, for Christ’s sake. What planet’s she from?’
    â€˜Come here.’ Rhees spread his arms and Amanda fell into them and shut her eyes. Rhees, her harbour. ‘Polly’s mostly bubbles, you’re more my ideal.’
    â€˜How can I be anybody’s ideal? Look at me.’
    â€˜You get better all the time, Amanda. I have you up on a pedestal.’
    â€˜I’m too heavy for your pedestal. I feel overweight and sluggish. And this.’ She tugged at her brown hair, letting it slide through her fingers. ‘They didn’t find Isabel, John. They looked and they looked.’
    â€˜Maybe …’ he said.
    â€˜Maybe what?’
    â€˜She’s still out there somewhere.’
    Amanda remembered the grains of dirt damp with blood. Rhees was trying to force open a little window of optimism in the face of evidence to the contrary. He was good at finding silver linings in the gloom. Please God let this be one of those silver linings. Let her be alive.
    Rhees kissed her forehead. ‘I’ll