“Hang on,” November says, but Hannah holds out a hand to say, No, I can handle this.
“I beg your pardon?” she says to Emily.
“I’m just saying,” Emily says with a shrug. She’s recovered herself now, and she gives a little laugh and moves down to the other end of the room, where there are olives and breadsticks laid out on the table. “If we’re chucking motives about, it was pretty obvious, those last few weeks. You could practically hear the swelling orchestral chords whenever Will looked at you. And so what, yes, I was pissed off at her. That A-level stunt she pulled was vile, and the planning that she’d put into it—I’m sorry,” she says, turning to November. “I know she was your sister, and I don’t want to speak ill of the dead. But when you think someone is your friend and then they do something like that, and you realize that the whole time you’ve been there, supporting them, having coffee with them, sharing drinks, they’ve been plotting how to fuck you up—it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, do you know what I mean?”
“It’s okay,” November says. She smiles a little sadly. “I have no illusions about April. I loved her—I still do. But I know the person she was. She could be incredibly kind, but she wasn’t always.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Emily says, rather shortly. She puts down her glass a little too hard so that the wine slops, and then disappears again into the kitchen. Hannah makes an oh my god gesture to November, putting her head in her hands and miming her own stupidity at putting Emily’s back up.
“Should I tell her?” she whispers, under cover of the clank of pots and pans. “About Dr. Myers?”
“It’s up to you,” November whispers back. “I mean… doesn’t she work here now? Would it put her in a difficult situation?”
“I don’t think so. Emily works for Balliol. It’s a different college. It’s not like we’d be making accusations about one of her colleagues.”
“One of whose colleagues?” Emily says, making Hannah jump and turn around, to where Emily is standing in the kitchen doorway. She is holding a huge casserole filled with steaming chickpeas, plump apricots, and savory spices, and it smells incredible. Hannah and November watch as she maneuvers it onto the mat in the center of the table, and then Emily says again, “You were saying? About someone’s colleagues?”
“Well, so, that’s the real reason we’re down,” Hannah says. “I’m sorry I said that about the prank April played on you. That was stupid. But I was thinking about the layout of the staircase—the fact that Neville was convicted because no one could have entered the building between him leaving, and us coming in.”
“Right…” Emily says slowly. She is dishing out tagine and couscous into three bowls, a furrow between her black brows, unsure where this is going.
“Unless… unless they were already in there.”
Emily stops. She puts a bowl down in front of November and looks hard at Hannah.
“Hannah, what are you saying? You’re saying that someone else on the staircase—”
“I’m saying it’s possible. The two guys below—Henry and Philip—they had alibis. They were both together all night in Henry’s room, and they gave evidence at the trial about hearing April walking around on the floor above from about ten forty-five and answering the door to someone. And the rooms below them, rooms one and two, room one was empty, it was used for some kind of scouts storage. And the girl in room two had her boyfriend over. I know because I knocked on the door on my way down and they came out together. But Dr. Myers… he was never questioned at the trial. He didn’t come out and see what was going on. Why wouldn’t he come out when he heard me screaming like that?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t he…” Emily says, very slowly. “Unless he had something to hide… Fuck. I can’t believe the police didn’t rule him out, though?”
“I mean, maybe they did and we just didn’t hear about it—but on the other hand, maybe they just never suspected him. What would his motive be?”
“Well, that’s a good point,” Emily says. “What would his motive be?”
Hannah looks down at her plate. She has to tell Emily. It isn’t fair not to. She takes a deep breath.
“Well… we think April may have been pregnant.”
She’s not sure what she’s expecting from Emily. Shock maybe, or a flicker of something indicating that she already knew. Neither comes. Instead a deep, weary sadness spreads over Emily’s face.