Hannah said nothing. That she could understand.
“I can’t afford to cock this up,” Hugh said as they passed underneath the Cherwell Arch, which separated Old Quad from the Fellows’ Garden. “My parents aren’t well off, you know. Not like Will’s. My father’s just a GP, my mother’s a stay-at-home mum. They really scrimped and saved to send me to private school, and Pelham—well, it’s all they’ve ever wanted. My dad went here, and he was so proud when I got in after him. I’m an only child so I’m really—I’m all they’ve got. I can’t let them down. I just can’t.”
“You won’t,” Hannah said, surprised by the desperation in his voice. She squeezed his arm, feeling his thin muscles tense beneath his jacket. “And you know what, even if you have failed, which I don’t think you have, so what? They’ll still love you, won’t they?”
Hugh only shrugged again, and then, as if trying to change the subject, he cleared his throat and said, “I can feel your goose bumps. Do you want my jacket?”
It was folded over his arm and Hannah stopped, facing him, and touched his face for a moment.
“Hugh, why are you so kind?” she asked, and Hugh gave a little shrug.
“I don’t know. Just that kind of ass, I suppose.”
“You’re a lovely ass,” Hannah said, and smiled. “And thank you.”
She took the jacket, slung it over her shoulders, and turned to face the Fellows’ Garden, the grass silvered with dew. An idea occurred to her.
“Do you… fancy breaking the rules? It’s the last week of term. They can hardly send us down.”
For a moment Hugh didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. Then his worried face broke into a smile.
“You’re on.”
They unlinked arms and ran across the pristine, untouched expanse, the dew-soaked grass soft beneath their feet. When they got to the other side, they were both breathless and Hannah looked back and saw the imprints of their footsteps, a dark guilty green against the pale jeweled tips of the untouched blades, and stifled a sudden desire to laugh.
As they passed through the wrought iron gate into New Quad, she was grinning, and she opened her mouth to say something—later she could never remember what—and then stopped. A figure was coming out of one of the staircases. A figure that looked very like… it couldn’t be.
She stopped short.
Hugh continued for a couple of paces and then realized that she had ground to a halt, and turned to see what was wrong.
“Hannah?”
“Shh!” she hissed peremptorily, and then pointed to the other side of the quad. They were standing in the shadow of a tall yew, and she was fairly sure that they were not visible to the man opposite as he plodded slowly down the far side, making his way towards the cloisters.
“Hugh,” she whispered urgently, trying to keep her voice low but loud enough for him to hear. “Hugh, is that, is that—Neville?”
Hugh peered after the departing figure, then took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirt, and put them back on, squinting at the shape as it disappeared towards the cloister side of the quad.
“Um… could be? He’s about the right build. Why?”
“Because I’m fairly sure he was coming out of staircase seven. Out of my staircase,” she spelled out, as Hugh looked at her blankly.
“Do you think he was looking for you?” Hugh asked, after a long moment’s pause. Hannah wrapped her arms around herself. Suddenly she was shivering, in spite of the balmy summer night.
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, he might have just been doing his rounds,” Hugh said, rather lamely.
“What rounds?” Hannah said. “What could he be doing prowling around the staircases at this hour?”
“Someone could have called him,” Hugh said, but there was no conviction in his voice. Hannah’s hands were trembling now and she clamped them under her arms, trying to quell her rising unease. Suddenly she just wanted to get home—back to her room, where April would probably be slumped on the couch in full makeup, snoring her head off, and Hannah could lock the door and curl up under her duvet with the hottest hot water bottle she could manage.
John Neville had passed out of sight now, at the far side of the quad, beneath the cloisters, and without speaking, Hannah set off again, her pace quickening. Hugh, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her at a jog.
They skirted the quad in silence until they got to the foot of staircase 7.
“Are you sure he came out of here?” Hugh asked at last, as Hannah stopped in the lighted shelter of the staircase, looking up at the darkness above.
She shrugged.
“I can’t be certain. But I think so. You really didn’t see him coming out?”
Hugh shook his head.
“I’m quite nearsighted. I didn’t see anything until after you pointed him out. Look, I’ll wait until you’re inside.”
“You don’t have to, he’s gone—” Hannah began, but Hugh was shaking his head firmly.
“No, I want to. Just send me a text when you’re safely in, and then I’ll go, but I’d rather know you’re okay.”
He looked tense and worried, Hannah saw, the light from the staircase lamp casting ridged shadows onto a brow that looked too anxious and furrowed for a nineteen-year-old.
“Okay,” she said at last.
The first step into the shadows was always the worst. It was like a leap of faith—stepping into the darkness of the stairwell, before the sensor at the turn of the stairs caught your movement and the lights above flickered on.
But as she climbed, Hannah found herself relaxing. There was something so familiar, so comforting about the smells and sounds of staircase 7. She could hear Henry Clayton’s booming voice coming out from behind door 4; he and his neighbor Philip were obviously having one of their long-running political debates, which Hannah knew from experience would probably last until 3 a.m. On the landing below, someone was having a late-night shower, the smell of Dove body wash filtering up the stairwell along with the sound of splashing water.
Dr. Myers’s room was silent, but there was a glimmer of light showing under his door. He must be awake, and probably marking papers. For some reason the sight made Hannah feel better. So what if John Neville had been up here with another one of his lame excuses. April had probably told him to fuck off and sent him away with his tail between his legs.
Her own door, though, was open, just very slightly. As if April had come back in a hurry and hadn’t closed it firmly enough. It wasn’t the first time she had left it ajar—it was something people did quite often, if a roommate had forgotten a key, or just to signify that they were home and open for visitors. Not usually this late at night, though.
Hannah put her hand to the door and stepped inside.
And then—
AFTER
Hannah can’t sleep.
She lies there with her hand over her bump, listening to Will’s steady breathing beside her, wondering if he too is awake, but she can’t bring herself to ask.
Instead she runs over and over in her head the conversations of the day. Her exchange with Ryan. The new spin he has put on the days running up to April’s death. And her argument with Will before dinner.
The thing is, she understands his point of view—his need to move on, put the past behind them. It’s what she has wanted herself… until now. But if her evidence put an innocent man in jail and led to a murderer walking free—well. She can’t just accept that, no matter how much Will wants her to. She can’t spend the rest of her life wondering if she got something so devastatingly wrong. She has to know.
Now she lies there, straining her mind back to Pelham, trying, trying, trying to remember. If only she could recall the end of that night as clearly as the beginning. But it feels as if the shock did something to her brain—made it shut down, refuse to remember what was in front of her eyes.
Then it comes to her. Hugh.