Hannah smiles at that, and Ryan smiles back, a little sadly this time. Maybe he’s thinking of how their own lives were ripped into little pieces after April’s death.
“I didn’t know you kept up with Hugh,” she says, as much to change the subject as anything.
“Yeah, it’s funny, I wouldn’t have put us down for pen pals neither, and I never heard from him much after college. But he got in touch after my stroke. He’s been a good mate.”
Better than you and Will. The words hang in the air between them. Ryan doesn’t say it—he wouldn’t reproach them like that, and Hannah knows it—but it doesn’t stop it from being true.
Hannah swallows. She needs to bring it up—she can’t stand the way they’re both dancing around her betrayal, not mentioning the years of silence, the lack of visits.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Ryan, I’m really sorry we never came to see you. And I know Will feels bad about it too. It was just—I don’t know. I was running from everything about Pelham for so long. It’s why I ended up in Edinburgh. And I don’t want you to think Will and Hugh and I formed this cozy little clique up there, it wasn’t like that. Will came to find me. I don’t think I would ever have sought him out off my own bat—it was all just too painful. And Hugh…” She stops. She has never thought about why Hugh ended up in Scotland. “I guess Hugh followed Will,” she says finally. “Or I think he had some kind of surgical residency there at one point—maybe he just liked it there. But I never meant to drop you the way I did—or Em. It was more like…” She stops again, groping for the words. “More like I was just trying to survive.”
“It’s okay,” Ryan says softly. He puts out his good hand, touches hers, very gently. “We’ve all been a bit rubbish. I mean, how often did I call you before my stroke? Once, maybe twice? And that was only to tell you about the wedding—way to make it all about me, huh. And yeah, I’m not gonna lie, things have been a bit shit here. But it’s not like you were having a great time either. It’s not just you—I’ve barely spoken to Em since uni. We let each other down. We all did.”
Hannah nods. There are tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. She wants to tell him how much she’s missed him, how often she’s thought of him and Em, but she can’t find the words.
“Do you think it was because of April?” she manages at last. “The stroke, I mean? I’ve always wondered.”
“What, the…” Ryan pauses as if he’s searching for a word. “The stress, you mean?”
Hannah nods. Ryan shrugs lopsidedly, one shoulder rising more than the other.
“Maybe that contributed, but only in terms of my own behavior. Bottom line, I was drinking too much, smoking too much, eating shit—my blood pressure was bad… all of that was my choice. Well, not the blood pressure.” He laughs. “That’s genetic. But I should have got it treated instead of burying me head.”
Hannah bites her lip. She doesn’t want to think about that.
“So what brings you down here?” Ryan asks again, this time with the air of changing the conversation. Hannah takes a gulp of tea—remembering how much she hates PG Tips—and then a deep breath.
“Do you know a reporter called Geraint Williams?”
“Ger?” His face is a little surprised. “Yes, course I do. He’s a good bloke. We worked together at the Herald. How come?”
“He came to see me, at the bookshop. You probably heard John Neville died?”
“I did. Hard to miss it, to be honest. It was all over the news.”
Hannah nods.
“Well, Geraint came to see me afterwards. He’d been working on a podcast, with Neville’s cooperation, or at least that’s what he said. And he wanted my side of things.”
“Right,” Ryan says. He’s frowning slightly, but not like he’s contradicting her, just like he’s trying to see where this is going.
“We had coffee, and he… well, he thinks Neville is—” She swallows a gulp of scalding tea, trying to force herself to say the words. “He thinks Neville might have been innocent.”
To her surprise, Ryan doesn’t recoil. He only nods slowly.
“Aye, well, he’s not the only one. With a defense like that, there’s bound to be questions.”
“What do you mean?” Hannah asks, and now it’s her turn to frown.
Ryan gives a sigh and lifts himself slightly in his chair, as if the pressure of the seat hurts him. He can only really use one hand, Hannah’s noticed. He picks up his cup with that hand, operates his chair, now he lifts himself sideways on one arm, and then slumps back down with a squeak from the wheelchair’s brakes.
“Look, you’re not part of that circuit, you wouldn’t have known. But journalists—we talk to lawyers a fair bit and, well, there’s a fairly widespread—a fairly—” He stops, his expression frustrated.
“A what?”
“A—oh shit, what do you call it.” His face is twisted in annoyance. “When everyone agrees on the same thing. An acceptance, that’s the word I was looking for. Sorry—since the stroke, it’s like things have fallen through the gaps. Words, names, faces. It’s getting better, but it comes back when I’m tired. What was I saying?”
“A widespread acceptance,” Hannah prods, and Ryan nods.
“That’s it. An acceptance that his defense didn’t do a very good job. I mean basically what did it boil down to? You saw him coming down the stairs. That was it. Not much to lock a bloke up for life.”
“But the stalking,” Hannah says. She feels suddenly nettled, as if Ryan is accusing her of something. “All the stuff that came out at the trial about the other girls he’d spied on. It was part of a pattern of escalating behavior, isn’t that what the judge said?”
“He did, and there’s an argument that half of that shouldn’t have been ad—” He stops, pounds his hand down on his knee in frustration. “Fuck it, it’s gone as well.”
“Admissible?” Hannah ventures, unsure of the etiquette of filling in for him, but Ryan nods in relief.
“Yes! Thank you. Admissible. It prejudiced the jury and none of it spoke to him being a murderer, did it?”
“Ryan, he attacked me!”
“Or he did his job and stopped someone he’d seen breaking into college,” Ryan says, and then holds up his hand as he sees her begin to protest. “Look, I’m not saying you were in the wrong—you said what happened, and the rest was down to the jury. It wasn’t up to you to make Neville’s defense. I’m just telling you why some people have a problem with the verdict. But it’s too late now.”
She nods, thinking. It is too late now, that’s true. She can’t bring Neville back. But at the same time, she knows that she can’t let this rest either. Not if there’s even the slightest chance that Geraint is right.
“There… was something else…” she says, very slowly, and then stops. She’s not sure how to say this. It’s not the same as asking Will, the man she loves, the man she’s married to, April’s boyfriend. But it is still an accusation of a sort.
“Spit it out, pet,” Ryan says, but kindly, as if he knows this is hard for her. Hannah takes a deep breath.
“Geraint said… he claims that April told you—” She stops again, swallows, feeling the blood pounding in her throat. This can’t be good for the baby. “He said that April was pregnant,” she finishes in a rush.
Whatever Ryan was expecting, it wasn’t that. His face goes white beneath the dark beard. But he’s not surprised, or not as surprised as he should be, if the accusation were news to him.
There’s a long silence. Ryan raises his cup to his lips, takes a slow, painful swallow, and then sets it down and gives a shaky nod.
“It’s true?” Hannah asks. Ryan shrugs, one shoulder lifting higher than the other.
“Who knows. You know what April was like.”
“You think it was a prank?”
“I still have no idea. We…” His face twitches and he looks away from her, not meeting her eyes. “We were sleeping together; you probably knew that already.”
Hannah exhales. She’s not sure what to say. It’s weird to have her suspicions confirmed.