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I’m sorry, April, she thinks. I’m sorry I failed you.
“So… who then?” November whispers. The driver is not looking round at them, but they are both conscious that in spite of the plexiglass screen, he could be listening. Guess who I had in the back of my cab… “It could have been anyone, then… right?”
“Someone with a motive,” Hannah says, ticking the list off on her fingers. “And someone that April trusted.” The sick feeling is back. “It must have been someone she knew well. That’s always been an unanswerable problem with the case against Neville. April hated him. There’s no way she would have let him come anywhere near her without a struggle. But a friend? That’s different. I mean, not Hugh—because I was with him outside the building. And I’m pretty sure it couldn’t have been Ryan. He was still in the bar when we left, although I guess it’s theoretically possible that he could have pelted it round the long way and got to New Quad before us. But…”
She stops.
“But it could have been Emily,” November says with sudden, dawning comprehension. “That’s why you went so quiet over dinner.”
Hannah feels something twist inside her like a knife. Because it’s true, and hearing it out loud makes it suddenly and sickeningly real. That is what she was thinking. She was sitting there working things out in her head, realizing that Emily’s alibi is the shakiest of them all. Yes, she was in the library. But there was absolutely nothing to stop her from slipping through the turnstile without swiping out, climbing the stairs to April’s room, sitting there with her, talking, laughing, maybe even poking fun at herself over the A-level prank—and then when Neville came up, providing the perfect fall guy, strangling April before sliding down the drainpipe and returning to her seat in the reading room.
I can’t believe it, she wants to protest, and it’s true too, except… that a little part of her can. Maybe several parts in fact. The part that knows that April had spent all year fucking Emily’s boyfriend. The part that recoiled when Hugh told her about the cruel trick with the A-level letter. And most of all, the part of her that remembers walking under the cloisters with Emily and Ryan on a cold November night, and hearing Emily hiss, If she tries any of that shit with me, I will end her.
The venom in Emily’s voice—that was real. It has stayed with Hannah for more than ten years. And even now it makes her shiver.
“It could have been plenty of other people,” she says now, trying to persuade herself as much as November. “April had pranked a lot of people. It could have been someone from another college entirely. It could have been—” The idea comes to her, and she clutches at it with a barely concealed desperation. “It could have been whoever was supplying her with the dextroamphetamine. A drug deal gone bad.”
This is all true.
But what November said is truer.
It could have been Emily. She has always had motive. And now she has opportunity.
“Hannah,” November says, and her voice is warning. “Hannah, please, don’t do anything about this until you’ve spoken to the police.”
“I won’t,” Hannah says, a little impatiently. “I’m not stupid.”
“I mean it—if this is right—if you tell anyone—”
“I said, I’m not stupid. I’ll phone them up tomorrow, as soon as I’m back in Edinburgh.”
“Okay,” November says. She looks at Hannah critically, as if she’s appraising Hannah’s strength, if it came to a fight. She looks worried.
“Why didn’t you say anything to Will?” she asks now, and Hannah feels a sudden tightness in her throat.
“Because he won’t listen,” she says. “I’ve tried—I’ve tried over and over to tell him that there’s something wrong about that night, something that I’m not seeing, can’t remember—but he won’t listen, he just wants me to shut up, pretend it’s all fine.”
She shuts her eyes. It is the worst feeling in the world, to be afraid—and to have the person you love tell you that it’s all in your head.
“Look, I don’t know him,” November says softly, “but… I feel like if you love him, he must be a good guy?”
“He is,” Hannah says. It feels as if something is lodged at the back of her throat, hurting her.
“He’s frightened for you. He lost one person he loved, much too young. I can see why he doesn’t want to lose another.”
“I know,” Hannah whispers. “I know.”
She puts her hand up to the corner of her eye and angrily brushes away the moisture prickling there, furious at her body for betraying her. She doesn’t want to be that woman—that pregnant woman who bursts into tears at the drop of a hat. She wants to be strong, logical, analytical—but she doesn’t feel like any of those right now.
“I could be wrong,” she says, forcing the words out as levelly as she can, and November nods, but the concern doesn’t leave her face. Hannah could be wrong. But if she’s not, there is a killer out there. Someone April trusted. Maybe even someone April loved.
And that idea makes Hannah very frightened indeed.
AFTER
That night, Hannah can’t sleep. Again. It’s not just the heartburn, though the Gaviscon pills aren’t working as well as the liquid does, and have left a horrible chalky residue on her teeth. It’s not just the baby, who seems to have woken up as soon as she lay down and is even now shifting and wriggling and turning like a cat trying to get comfortable on a strange bed.
It’s everything.
