When the shock began to fade, she’d been a little ashamed of herself. This was a city – a city full of all kinds of highly intelligent, unconventional people. ‘Nutters, to be plain,’ said Marianne’s dry voice. Maybe the guy was an insomniac; maybe he just liked to work at night, when it was quiet.
But if he was up at night, she’d thought suddenly, standing at his window like that, perhaps he’d seen Marianne go off the roof. Perhaps he’d seen what happened. But the surge of excitement fell away as quickly as it had mounted. No, he couldn’t have: as Turk said, the police weren’t idiots. They could see as clearly as she could that the flats looked on to the back of the house and they would have interviewed everyone who lived there.
She needed to sleep, she’d told herself, but she’d still been awake when the first crack-throated birdsong started up outside. Again and again, she came back to Michael Cory and the longer her mind whirred, the more convinced she was that somehow he was involved. A girlfriend dead by suicide; Hanna Ferrara’s nervous breakdown. The words of the pianist repeated themselves: He wanted to know me, really know me, as if there was something inside me – an essence, a truth – that he could pull out.
What if he had done that to Marianne? What if he’d got to her? What if he knew what she did?
Rowan fell asleep properly as the train reached the outskirts of London, and the heavy drugged feeling lingered as she walked down the platform to the ticket barrier. Marianne described Paddington as a whale, its elaborate ironwork a giant ribcage, but to Rowan, the station was a great ravening Dickensian engine fuelled by people. Today, only the prospect of trying to park in Mayfair had persuaded her to take a train but in the Sixth Form, they’d loved it, coming to London to see exhibitions and bands or just to wander about. There hadn’t been any barriers then so they’d rarely bothered with tickets.
She bought an espresso then made her way towards the mouth of the Underground. At the top of the steps, she felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. A number she didn’t know. Stepping out of the stream of people, she answered it.
‘Rowan?’
With the background noise, it was a second or two before she recognised his voice. ‘Adam.’
‘How are you? How’s everything at the house?’
‘Good. Yes, fine. I . . .’ She was drowned out by an announcement that the eleven o’clock for Bristol Temple Meads would depart from platform six.
‘You’re not in Oxford now?’
‘What?’
‘Platform six. Oxford Station only has two.’
‘Oh – of course. No, I’m in London. Paddington. I’ve had to come down for a meeting with my supervisor.’
‘Ah. That’s why I was ringing. I need to get some paperwork from Dad’s desk and I wanted to let you know rather than barge in unannounced and give you a coronary.’
‘Today?’
‘This evening. I’m at a thing in Birmingham, a conference, and I can drop in on my way back to Cambridge tonight.’
‘Of course – well, I mean, obviously, it’s your house.’ As she said it, she wondered if that was actually true. Who did own it? ‘Sorry, that sounded rude, didn’t it? What I meant was, I’ll be back by then and thanks for ringing to let me know. It’ll be nice to see you.’
She thought she heard him laugh. ‘I’ll see you this evening,’ he said. ‘Probably about seven.’
Queensway, Lancaster Gate – the Central Line clipped rapidly through its stations and she tried to concentrate. Adam had distracted her. She regretted having to tell him she was seeing her supervisor but the truth wouldn’t have done any good, either.
Once, years ago, they’d kissed. The summer she left school, he’d come home from Cambridge for the long vacation. Seb had taken Jacqueline to Barcelona one weekend and they’d had a house party, Adam’s friends and theirs, standing room only in the sitting room and kitchen, the garden full of people messing about in the paddling pool or sitting round the fire basket Turk borrowed from his parents. Yesterday, in fact, she’d seen the wine stain she’d made on the dining-room carpet, faint but still there nearly fifteen years later.
When she’d bumped into Adam on the landing, it had been after midnight. She’d spent most of the day getting the house ready but he said hello as if he hadn’t seen her for months. He was carrying a stack of CDs. They looked at each other and then he reached for her hand and they threaded a path through the people sitting on the stairs and went to his room. Blondie’s Atomic, playing on Jacqueline’s stereo downstairs, faded only a little when he closed the door. A warm breeze riffled the papers on the desk.
Without saying anything, he’d pulled her towards him. Everyone smoked then, the house had been like a working-men’s club the next morning, but she’d smelled sunscreen and washing powder on his shirt. A gentle kiss first, barely a touch of the lips, but then he’d put his hands around her waist and kissed her as if he meant it.
Sliding his hands to her hips, he lifted her backwards on to his desk. She’d pulled him closer and, at that moment, the door had burst open. Marianne.