“He can fuck off,” November snarls. “You’re sitting here until you feel okay.”
That’ll be a long time, Hannah wants to say, but she knows what November means. She knows too that it’s the truth. She will never really be okay again. Something broke in her the night of April’s murder. Something nothing will ever be able to mend—not Will’s love or her mother’s care, not the baby in her belly. Not the fragile peace she has constructed in Edinburgh.
“I’m okay,” she says now, and she stands, carefully, steadying herself on the desk. “There’s just—just one more thing.”
November watches uneasily as she moves to the other side of the room, to the door to the right of the window, and pushes it open.
Inside it’s been transformed into a kind of stationery store, along with boxes of Jiffies, headed paper, envelopes, pens, and branded Pelham maps and leaflets.
She stands, looking, trying to remember. And then a last shaft of evening sun breaks through the autumn clouds and falls through the leaded window, slanting across the old oak boards, and suddenly, there it is—in her old room, with her bed to the right, her old desk across from her. And she is there too. Hannah. Not the Hannah of now, but the Hannah of then. The Hannah of before. Young, happy, full of hope and promise, and so unbearably, unutterably innocent of all the horror that life could hold.
She stands for a moment, looking at the shadow of the girl she left behind, bidding her goodbye.
And then she lets the door close, and turns to face the present.
AFTER
“So? How did it go?”
Emily, Hannah remembers with a sigh, is nothing if not direct. They’ve done the obligatory small talk, ordered and received their food—but now she’s getting down to business.
“It went… okay, I think?” She turns to November for confirmation, but November is winding ramen around her chopsticks and only shrugs.
“Okay? What does that mean? Did he do it, that’s what I’m asking.”
Hannah cannot suppress a flinch, and even Emily has the grace to look abashed.
“Sorry. That was a bit brutal. But isn’t that why you’re here? Did he explain anything? Did he say why he didn’t come out to help?”
“He did,” November says. She sucks noodles into her mouth, then swallows. “He wasn’t there.”
“What?”
“That’s his story, he wasn’t there. That’s why he didn’t hear anything, why he didn’t come out to help, why he was never called to give evidence in court. He was presenting at a conference in Cambridge and stayed the night there. He didn’t see or hear anything.”
“Is that true?” Emily demands. She looks from November to Hannah, as if they are the ones covering up for Dr. Myers. “I mean, it’s a bit too convenient for him, don’t you think?”
“I have no idea,” Hannah says, a little wearily. “But it’s what he said, when November asked him if he could tell us anything about that night. And it would have been pretty easy to check at the time, so if the police accepted it, I would imagine yes, it’s true.”
“So you’re back at square one?” Emily says.
“Maybe,” Hannah says.
“So does that mean that maybe you’re not back at square one? That you found something out?”
“It just means maybe,” Hannah says, a little more acidly this time. She is regretting her choice of words now. The truth is that she is not sure if they are back at square one. Something has been gnawing at her since her conversation in the set with November, something November made her see with fresh eyes. But she’s not sure she wants to share it with Emily. Not yet—not while she’s still figuring out the implications.
* * *
IN THE CAB BACK TO the hotel, November turns to Hannah.
“Are you… okay?”
“How do you mean?” Hannah shifts in her seat. She can’t get comfortable. The seat belt is cutting into her bump and her spine aches from the fashionable backless benches in the restaurant. “Is this about me saying I didn’t want coffee? I was just tired, that’s all.”
“I didn’t mean that. It was the way you went quiet halfway through the meal. I wondered if something had happened.”
“Shit.” Hannah bites her lip. “Was it that obvious?”
“It was a bit.” November looks awkward. “I mean, Emily started grilling you about Dr. Myers and you… you just clammed up. Did I miss something? I mean, that was what we went there to find out, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like she was asking anything we hadn’t been thinking.”
“No,” Hannah says. She rubs her face. What she said to November about feeling tired was an understatement.
“Are you worrying that Myers’s alibi doesn’t hold up?” November asks anxiously. “I was thinking about that earlier—I mean, he could have come back. After establishing his alibi at the conference.”
Hannah shakes her head.
“I really don’t think so. I mean, when? The porters would have seen him coming through the main gates, and if he’d used one of the unmanned ones, he would have had to swipe in, and his Bod card would have been recorded. I mean…” Something strikes her for the first time. “I guess… there’s always the possibility he climbed over that gap in the wall.”
“A gap in the wall?” November sounds puzzled, and Hannah realizes that of course she wouldn’t know any of this. It’s strange, she’s so like April, and she clearly knows so much about their friendships and their time at Pelham, that it’s hard for Hannah to remember that she was never actually there, that this is all just secondhand information to her.
“Pelham was—is—completely walled,” she explains. “And mostly it’s pretty secure, but there was this one place behind Cloade’s where you could climb over. It was on the route you’d take back from the station. But I can’t see Myers doing that. That was something the students did to avoid going the long way round after the gates were locked, not a member of staff on his way back from a conference.”
“So… what, then?” November says diffidently. She looks uncomfortable—like she is trying not to pry but is genuinely worried about Hannah’s silence.
Hannah’s phone beeps and she glances down at it in her lap. It’s from Will. How did it go? Can you talk?
“Hang on,” she says to November, “it’s Will, I need to take this, he’s been worried.”
She dials him back, and he picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, are you okay? How was it?”
“I’m fine. I’m in the cab back to the hotel with November so I won’t talk for too long, but the meeting was… I mean, he was nice. Helpful.” She knows it sounds like she’s reviewing a hotel receptionist, but she doesn’t know how else to put it. “I don’t think it was him, Will.”
“What do you mean?” Will’s voice is uneasy on the other end. “How can you tell?”
“He wasn’t there—November asked him outright what he’d seen, and he said he was away that evening, that was why he was never called to give evidence or anything. I’m assuming the police would check up on something like that, so I’m guessing it’s true?”
There’s a long silence at the other end of the line, as if Will is thinking about something.
“Will?”
There’s another silence. Then Will clears his throat.
“I’m sure you’re right. If he’s got an alibi, he’s got an alibi. So… you’re coming home?”
“Yes.”
“Great.” The relief in his voice is unmistakable. “I’m glad. I know you wanted to do this, but I’m glad it’s over and you’ve got your worries out of your system.”
Now it’s Hannah’s turn to fall silent. Will waits for her to respond and then says, a little more sharply.
“Hannah? It is over, isn’t it?”