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“What?” Hannah wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to shiver in the draft coming down Pelham Street. It was June, but the night air was cool in spite of her cardigan. “No, I had no idea. Where? All the walls are eight foot and covered in spikes.”
“There’s a bit where you can get a foothold. Ryan showed me—he used it one time when he’d forgotten his Bod card and couldn’t be arsed to go round the front. Want me to show you?”
“Yes!” Hannah said, more eagerly than she had meant, and then felt ridiculous. “I mean, not that it’s that much of an issue. I don’t mind going past the lodge. It just might be—you know. Useful. One day.”
Emily shot her a look like she was in absolutely no doubt of how much Hannah did not want to face Neville, but said nothing, only turned up Pelham Street. They passed the Cloade gate without stopping, and then rounded the corner and ducked into a small lane that led between houses to the Meadow, a large field that backed onto Pelham and was used for cricket in the summer and lazing out on sunny days. Here, the high wall that bounded the college on four sides was covered in ivy and creepers, and Emily walked slowly through the scrubby trees, picking her way by the light of her mobile, before stopping at last at a place where the ivy grew particularly thick.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Can you see? The ivy makes a kind of mattress over the spikes, and you can get a foot onto that sticking-out stone halfway up, and pull yourself up.”
“That one?” Hannah said, disbelievingly pointing to a stone at least four feet off the ground. “Maybe Ryan can, but I definitely can’t. It’s much too high.”
“Yeah, that one. Ryan had to give me a leg up, but maybe we can find a log,” Emily said. She was searching around in the undergrowth, using her phone as a torch, but then seemed to realize that was a nonstarter. There was nothing solid enough around. “Okay, scratch that. New plan. I’ll boost you, and you pull me up if you can. If you can’t, I’ll go round by the main entrance.”
Hannah nodded. Emily made a platform of her hands and braced herself, and Hannah put her weight onto the living, yielding flesh of Emily’s linked fingers and felt Emily shove with all her might.
Hannah’s hands caught on the top of the wall, but for a second she wasn’t sure if she would make it. The stone was old and crumbling, and the creepers began to peel away under her fingers. But then her kicking left foot caught on something, the sticking-out stone Emily had pointed out, and it gave her just enough purchase to haul herself up, panting and scrabbling, and swing her right leg over the top of the wall.
“Ow!” The yelp of pain came out louder than she had meant.
“Are you okay?” Emily whisper-shouted from below.
“I’m fine,” Hannah said, though it wasn’t completely true. She had grated her thigh over one of the unprotected spikes on top of the wall, and now as she pulled herself up to sit astride, she could feel a spreading wetness that she was pretty sure was blood. She poked herself gently, feeling the broken threads of denim and an ominous dampness. “Think I just stabbed myself on a spike. I’ll live, but RIP my new jeans.” She gave a shaky laugh. “Okay, your turn. I’ll pull, you jump.” She braced herself, holding her hand down for Emily, now nothing but a dark shape and a glimmer of phone screen in the darkness below.
“You know what,” Emily’s voice said, with a new reluctance, “on second thought, I think I’m going to take a pass on that. Can you get down?”
Hannah looked at the drop on the other side. It was not quite as high and there was a convenient buttress that she could lower herself onto to break her fall.
“I think I’ll be all right. Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I think this shortcut is probably fine if you’re a six-foot rugby player, but not so great if you’re a fragile five-foot-nothing bluestocking like moi, not to mention these sandals are my favorite. If you’re sure you’re okay getting down, I’ll go round by the lodge.”
“I’m sure,” Hannah said. “Good luck with the revision.”
“Cheers, see you at breakfast, then.”
Hannah sat, listening, as Emily’s footsteps crunched off into the darkness of the wood, and then she swung her other leg over the wall and sat, contemplating the drop.
It would be easiest, she thought, if she rolled round to lie on her stomach; then she could hold on to the wall with her hands and lower herself feet-first onto the buttress. Painfully, she began to roll over, feeling the thick twisting ropes of ivy digging into her hip, and the protest from her inner thigh as the material of her jeans chafed against the cut.
At last, though, she was lying on her front, her legs dangling roughly over where she thought the buttress should be, and she began to lower herself cautiously down. She was almost at full stretch, her arms quivering with the unaccustomed strain, when she felt something, someone, grab her ankle.
Hannah kicked out instinctively. The hand let go, and she heard a male voice cry out in pain, and someone stagger back. And then her arms gave way and she slid to the ground in a slither of grazed ribs and jarred ankles
She landed heavily, but picked herself up almost at once and began to run around the side of Cloade’s, in spite of the pain in her knees and thigh. She wasn’t sure who had grabbed her, but she knew that she didn’t want to wait and find out. What she had done was strictly against the rules, and if a tutor or a member of college staff found out, she would be in trouble.
“Oi!” she heard from behind her, as whoever she had kicked recovered himself. It was a man’s voice, but oddly high, almost falsetto. “Oi, you, stop!”
Hannah pushed herself to run faster and rounded the corner into the passage that led into New Quad.
And then whoever it was behind her tackled her.
She felt a whiplash jolt as the pursuer grabbed at her collar, jerking her back, and then her feet were hooked out from under her. She went down in a rush, elbows and knees onto the graveled path, all the wind knocked out of her. She felt a man’s body land heavily on top of her, covering her almost completely, his hips pressing into her backside, his chest crushing hers against the ground. There was an arm across the back of her neck. She couldn’t breathe—but she could smell something—something horribly familiar—that sickening musty smell of body odor and damp.
Panic engulfed her.
“Get off me!” she choked, but the words came out so smothered they were barely audible; he was grinding her face into the path, she could hardly get any air in. Her hands were wet with sweat, her whole body shaking with fear, her lungs screaming for oxygen. She felt his hips grinding hers into the ground—and she felt something else too, something hard and thick and urgent, pressing against her. “Ge—” she tried again, but the words dissolved into a sobbing gasp. Stars were beginning to explode against the inside of her skull, obscuring her vision. “G-ge—”
And then another voice, a deeper one, unfamiliar.
