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Jem’s hands were so tight on the tumbler that the crystal edges felt as though they were cutting into his fingers.
‘It was damned quick,’ Nicky said reflectively. ‘And clean, considering. He went down. I tried to catch him—I remember his sleeve slipping through my fingers, the feel of the material. His mouth moved a little, but only for a second, and he looked confused, really utterly confused, and then he was dead. I would have run for aid, if there had been any chance. I do think I would have. But he was dead, and I looked at him and…I don’t know. I’d felt half-mad for such a long time, and I looked down at my best friend, the man I’d loved for years, and I didn’t feel anything at all.’
He sounded calm, but the whisky shuddered in the glass. Jem watched that because he couldn’t watch Nicky’s face.
‘I felt entirely self-possessed, in a distant sort of way, the dispassionate observer of my own actions. I made sure the windows were fastened, and then I looked for the key, but I couldn’t find it. You know he always put it down in some damn fool place and we’d all be searching for ten minutes, and it would turn up in a shoe. I couldn’t lock the door and I had a feeling I should, so I tricked it—which was a damn fool thing to do, in retrospect, but there we are—and I took the cellarway back to the JCR and returned to my digs. There was blood on my shirt. I took it off, and I worked on my translation for an hour or so, and then I went to bed. In the morning I went for my usual walk with the shirt in a brown paper bag and threw it in a waste bin. After which I simply carried on until I was arrested.’
‘And so was Aaron. Youletthe police arrest him.’
‘I didn’t want to hang,’ Nicky said. ‘I had no excuse to give the police except the frustrated homosexual yearnings they suspected, and there would be no clemency for that. I would have swung, still will, and I’m sorry to be a coward, but I don’t want to. I’d rather cut my wrists, if it comes down to it. I’m not afraid of blades. And—this will sound extraordinary, but since I’m telling all, anyway—I wanted to know that, if I were caught, it would be because the police did their job. They arrested me purely because someone told them I was a queer, and I found myself entirely reluctant to help the useless swine. So I decided I’d admit what happened if and when someone else was charged. I wasn’t going to let Aaron go to the gallows for me: I hope you believe that. But they didn’t charge anyone, and they let me go in plenty of time to sit Finals. Which I did with some success, and with the same feeling of not quite being there. I saw you fall by the wayside, and Prue flee Oxford, and I passed my exams and went home and locked myself in my room without food or water. My parents had the chauffeur kick down the door eventually.’
‘And you came back here,’ Jem said. ‘You killed Toby and then you came back here to teach.’
‘Where else could I go? It seemed necessary that there should be some sort of consequence. The Anglo-Saxons sent their murderers into exile. I exiled myself here, where Toby died, and spent a little while trying to persuade myself I had acted rightly, and rather longer coming to terms with the truth.’
‘Not long enough,’ Jem said. ‘Because you didn’t tell the truth, did you? You let us, all of us, wither up in fear and mutual suspicion, and look at us. Look at the damage.’
‘I know.’
The firelight picked out his angular features, pooling shadows on his face. Jem swallowed. ‘And now what?’
Nicky shrugged. ‘That’s up to you. My main concern is that you don’t plunge Aaron into trouble—though I suppose you weren’t going to really, were you?’
‘No,’ Jem said. ‘I knew it was you. I think I always did.’
‘Then why in God’s name would you—’ Nicky began.
‘Because it helped me pretend, I suppose. I wanted it to be anyone else and I tried my hardest to persuade myself it was, but nobody could hate Toby that much except someone who loved him. I just wanted time with you before it had to be true.’
Nicky put his face in his hands. They sat in silence for a long moment, then he looked up again, interlaced his long fingers and flexed them outward. ‘Well then. You’ve done what you set out to do, found the who and the why of Toby’s murder. There only remains what you’re going to do about it.’
‘WhatI’mgoing to do? You’re going to confess. Aren’t you?’
‘No, I am not. If you choose to take this to the police, feel free, but I will not give myself up.From this time forth I never shall speak word, as another villain so neatly puts it.’
‘But you can’t make this my responsibility,’ Jem said blankly. ‘It’s not up to me. I don’t want to—’ He cut himself off.
‘But youareresponsible,’ Nicky said. ‘Everyone told you to leave it alone and you chose to persist. If you carry on this course to the end, I shan’t hold it against you. I’m not going to pretend it will be a relief, but at least it will be an ending, and that’s something.’
‘That’s what I wanted,’ Jem said numbly. ‘An ending.’
‘Then you’ll have to decide what it is. Just—’ His mouth moved in an effort at a smile. ‘Warn me first?’
Jem got up, movements ungainly, stumbling. He moved blindly for the door, grabbing for his hat and coat as he went, screwing up his eyes because he refused to let the tears fall. Nicky didn’t speak as he hurried out.
Old Quad’s single gas lamp glowed feebly against the thick wreaths of grey fog. Jem stumbled away from it, towards Summoner Quad, not sure where he was going except away.
It wasn’t fair. It ought not be this way. It ought to be Ella, or Aaron, or that imaginary fucking passing lunatic, not Nicky who had kissed Jem and loved him and ruined him. Nicky, who had said that first night on the rooftop that, if he could change a single thing about back then, he would choose not to have betrayed Jem that night.
Jem sobbed aloud, one horribly loud, painful gulp that was flattened by the fog. He headed down the gardens, along the path to the far gate, not that there were any people to see him, but he needed to be as far as possible from anyone. He couldn’t go back to his little bare room in Bascomb Stair, his empty life.
Nicky, Nicky…
And Toby too. Laughing Toby, their flame, always full of life. Jem would never have taken up with the others, or started rowing, or acted, he’d never have done any of it without Toby sweeping him along. He’d been so wonderful until he wasn’t.
He should have lived up to himself, to everything he could have been, and then he wouldn’t be dead, and Nicky wouldn’t be a murderer.
Jem walked down to the garden gate, almost stamping, grinding his feet into the ground because the pain in his foot was better than the pain everywhere else.
