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“You’re a lovely ass,” Hannah said, and smiled. “And thank you.”
She took the jacket, slung it over her shoulders, and turned to face the Fellows’ Garden, the grass silvered with dew. An idea occurred to her.
“Do you… fancy breaking the rules? It’s the last week of term. They can hardly send us down.”
For a moment Hugh didn’t seem to understand what she was saying. Then his worried face broke into a smile.
“You’re on.”
They unlinked arms and ran across the pristine, untouched expanse, the dew-soaked grass soft beneath their feet. When they got to the other side, they were both breathless and Hannah looked back and saw the imprints of their footsteps, a dark guilty green against the pale jeweled tips of the untouched blades, and stifled a sudden desire to laugh.
As they passed through the wrought iron gate into New Quad, she was grinning, and she opened her mouth to say something—later she could never remember what—and then stopped. A figure was coming out of one of the staircases. A figure that looked very like… it couldn’t be.
She stopped short.
Hugh continued for a couple of paces and then realized that she had ground to a halt, and turned to see what was wrong.
“Hannah?”
“Shh!” she hissed peremptorily, and then pointed to the other side of the quad. They were standing in the shadow of a tall yew, and she was fairly sure that they were not visible to the man opposite as he plodded slowly down the far side, making his way towards the cloisters.
“Hugh,” she whispered urgently, trying to keep her voice low but loud enough for him to hear. “Hugh, is that, is that—Neville?”
Hugh peered after the departing figure, then took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirt, and put them back on, squinting at the shape as it disappeared towards the cloister side of the quad.
“Um… could be? He’s about the right build. Why?”
“Because I’m fairly sure he was coming out of staircase seven. Out of my staircase,” she spelled out, as Hugh looked at her blankly.
“Do you think he was looking for you?” Hugh asked, after a long moment’s pause. Hannah wrapped her arms around herself. Suddenly she was shivering, in spite of the balmy summer night.
“I don’t know.”
“I mean, he might have just been doing his rounds,” Hugh said, rather lamely.
“What rounds?” Hannah said. “What could he be doing prowling around the staircases at this hour?”
“Someone could have called him,” Hugh said, but there was no conviction in his voice. Hannah’s hands were trembling now and she clamped them under her arms, trying to quell her rising unease. Suddenly she just wanted to get home—back to her room, where April would probably be slumped on the couch in full makeup, snoring her head off, and Hannah could lock the door and curl up under her duvet with the hottest hot water bottle she could manage.
John Neville had passed out of sight now, at the far side of the quad, beneath the cloisters, and without speaking, Hannah set off again, her pace quickening. Hugh, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her at a jog.
They skirted the quad in silence until they got to the foot of staircase 7.
“Are you sure he came out of here?” Hugh asked at last, as Hannah stopped in the lighted shelter of the staircase, looking up at the darkness above.
She shrugged.
“I can’t be certain. But I think so. You really didn’t see him coming out?”
Hugh shook his head.
“I’m quite nearsighted. I didn’t see anything until after you pointed him out. Look, I’ll wait until you’re inside.”
“You don’t have to, he’s gone—” Hannah began, but Hugh was shaking his head firmly.
“No, I want to. Just send me a text when you’re safely in, and then I’ll go, but I’d rather know you’re okay.”
He looked tense and worried, Hannah saw, the light from the staircase lamp casting ridged shadows onto a brow that looked too anxious and furrowed for a nineteen-year-old.
