These were the players.
The conversation from Sooz’s house began to play on a loose recording in her head, skipping and looping. One phrase was on repeat:
When you were with Julian, things always got messy. He wasn’t always faithful—and by that, I mean he was never faithful. Who is, at that age?
That last sentence had changed her day, made her feel twitchy and cold. Was that a 90s thing? Or was it true now? They were halfway through this trip to England. The journey had been a destination for so long, she had forgotten about the other side of it—the cliff edge, where she left, plummeted back to earth. Every evening was closer to the last evening. Just like the Nine and their doomed trip to Merryweather, counting down to the last moments of togetherness.
Behind her, Janelle and Vi were going through the schedule for the last full day of the trip. Tomorrow. Tea. Theater. After this, just one more full day.
“What is Richard III about?” Janelle asked Vi. “I’ve never read it, which I guess is embarrassing, but I don’t really like Shakespeare.”
Who is, at that age? College age is what Sooz meant. Which was around the age Stevie and her friends were now. David would remain here, in the warm air of pubs and the student house and the London Tube. This was his life now. Who knew what would happen next? And they were spending so much time with Izzy, or doing something for Izzy or related to Izzy. Izzy had done nothing wrong. She’d been complimentary, excessively so. She seemed to believe in Stevie more than anyone. But maybe that was something you did if you were covering for something. Because apparently no one was faithful. . . .
“Paranoia,” Vi said.
Stevie dribbled coffee down her chin and onto her tablet.
“It’s about paranoia,” Vi went on. “And wanting a horse really, really bad. I think. I just read the Wikipedia entry.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Janelle said. Anyone was invited to listen, but it was mostly directed at Vi. “Maybe I should do an engineering degree, and then a medical degree. To make medical devices. You can do that without being a doctor, but a doctor would really know how they’d be used. Right?”
“That’s so much school,” Vi said. “You’d be in school forever.”
“Well, the engineering degrees, those are four or five years, depending. I could get it done in four. And then probably one year to do the premed requirements. Then four years of medical school. Then the intern period, which is somewhere around three or five years . . .”
“That’s so much school,” Vi said again. “You’d be in your thirties before you were done.”
“Yes, but I could still make things all during that time. I could . . . I don’t know. It’s just a thought. But if we were going to school in Boston, we’d have so many options. Or New York . . .”
The conversation fizzled quietly. Nate squeezed the air in the bag of potato chips he was holding and it came open with a surprise pop.
Pop.
Something moved inside the dark corridors of Stevie’s brain. Something was alive in there. An idea. A pop. A noise. An unexpected noise. Like a firework. A leftover firework from Bonfire Night. The big celebration every year to mark the time Parliament didn’t explode.
“Get up,” she said to David, who was still watching something on his phone. She nudged him out of his seat and went to the luggage area at the head of the car. She hauled her bag out. She knelt in the aisle, taking it up completely, as she attempted to find the space to get it open. Someone was trying to get back from the bathroom and found Stevie on the floor in the way.
“Sorry,” she said, tugging at the fire safe. “One second.”
It was more than a second. It was an awkward struggle that took several minutes. She lugged the fire safe back to the table, forcing everyone to clear cups and wrappers. She took the aisle seat, which David had vacated for the window one.
“When you need to remember something . . . ,” she said to the group. “You’re a historian and you need to remember. What do you remember? Remember, remember . . . What’s the date again? The date to remember? The one with the fireworks?”
“The fifth of November,” Izzy said.
She tried 1105. Nothing.
But that was the wrong way around, of course. Here, it would be 0511.
The case clicked open.
17
“WELL,” DAVID SAID. “WILL YOU HOLY SHIT THAT.”
The six of them were pressed around the little train table. Janelle and Vi leaned over David’s and Stevie’s seats. Before them, spread out in a neat array, was a selection of documents.
Official documents. Police documents, mostly. Full-sized prints of thirty-five photographs. Seven witness statements. A copy of notes from the detective in charge of the case. Autopsy reports. A photocopy of a newspaper article. And on top, a note on lined notebook paper in what Izzy identified as Angela’s handwriting. It read:
Order of events, times approximate:
Right before game Rosie said
“I saw something I didn’t understand, but I do now”
“It was in the paper”
“You won’t believe me, I don’t believe me” does not believe self
Sooz came
Talk later because game starting
11 p.m. game begins, last sighting of Rosie going out front door with me, no one else sees her
11.15 Theo found （inside house, found by Sebastian）
11.30 Yash found （inside house, found by Sebastian and Theo together）
Time unclear, but probably before midnight: Julian and Sooz see Noel in back garden
12.30 I am found （stables, found by Theo）
1.00 Peter found （back garden, found by Yash）
1.30 Sooz （walled formal garden, found by Peter）
2.30 lights go out, Julian found, return to house
3–3.30 Sooz sees torchlight at the side of house, coming from the general direction of the woodshed and drive
“She was investigating the case,” Stevie said. This was obvious, of course, but this treasury of documents was so monumental, she couldn’t help but state it out loud. “How did she get all of this?”
“She’s a researcher,” Izzy said. “That’s her job. She knows people and knows how to get things. But this means the thing about the lock was real. What she said about thinking one of her friends was a murderer was real.”
“Well,” Stevie said, “it means that she was looking into the case, which she could still do even if she was looking for burglars who murdered her friends.”
Izzy tapped on the timeline notes.
“She’s making notes about where everyone was,” she said. “Because she thought one of them did it.”
Stevie ran her eye over the pile. One of these things didn’t belong. The newspaper article. It had nothing to do with the events at Merryweather.
* * *
BODY OF MISSING AMERICAN STUDENT FOUND
The body of missing American student Samantha Gravis has been found in the River Cam near Grantchester Meadows. Local resident Donald Worth was walking his dog along the riverside early yesterday morning when his dog became attracted to something in an area of natural debris and overgrowth. As he tried to move his dog from the spot, he noticed what appeared to be a human form trapped in the collected sticks and plants. Police positively identified the victim as Samantha Gravis.