And it isn’t. Although it looks like any back office, this is, after all, where April lived and laughed, studied and slept. And it’s where she died.
“Which was her room?”
“That one,” Hannah says, pointing to the door to the left of the window. She moves across to it, opens the door. She’s almost expecting to find it just as April left it, but of course it has been transformed into an office like the others. There’s a single desk, a rather bigger one than the two outside; a whiteboard covered with notes; and a lot more files. This room obviously belongs to the boss of the little department. “Her bed was there,” she says, pointing. “She had a desk there, and an armchair there—nonregulation. Nothing April had was ever just the standard college stuff, apart from the bed and the wardrobe. And it was a dump—it was always a dump. Clothes everywhere. Nail polish. Half-written essays.”
Pills, she thinks but doesn’t say.
November gives a shaky laugh.
“I can believe that. Her room at home was always awful. Our cleaner used to try to get it into some kind of order once in a while and then April would go raging around the house saying she couldn’t find anything. Which was a complete joke because she couldn’t find anything anyway—she was always leaving stuff strewn around.”
She moves across to the window, looking out at the rooftops of Pelham, past the steeple of the chapel, over the outer wall. In the distance the river is winding its way slowly, glittering in the last failing rays of sun.
“What a beautiful view.”
“Isn’t it? We were so lucky. And we didn’t even know it.”
Hannah moves across beside her, rests her hand on her chin.
“You know, one time, I came up the stairs and I heard April screaming in here. I came running into her room—”
“Let me guess,” November breaks in, a little dryly. “Another prank?”
“This was before I’d learned to be quite so suspicious. I raced in, and at first I couldn’t see April at all. Then I saw it—two pale hands clutching at the windowsill.”
“What?” November says with a short laugh, a mix of puzzlement and amusement on her face. “How on earth? We’re about four floors up, aren’t we?”
“Look down,” Hannah says, and November peers over the sill, and then begins to laugh in earnest.
“Okay. I get it. She lowered herself out to stand on that bay window.”
“Yup. Except then she couldn’t get back in. She wasn’t tall enough to get a purchase on the sill, and I wasn’t strong enough to pull her up. In the end she had to shinny down the drainpipe.”
They both stare out at the rusted drainpipe that runs down beside the bay window serving the flats below, and November gives a little smile.
“Well, that sounds like April.”
There is a moment’s silence.
“Do you think—” November starts, and then glances over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door, as if she is looking for someone, worried about being overheard.
“Do I think he did it?” Hannah says. She has lowered her voice, even though it’s unlikely Dr. Myers would be able to hear them from outside two thicknesses of wood. And they would have heard him reenter the set.
November nods.
Hannah shrugs.
“I have no idea. Before we came here it felt like the best possibility. But now… now I just don’t know.”
They go out into the main office again and stand there, both looking at the spot where April was found.
“It was there, wasn’t it,” November says at last. “I recognize it from the photos.”
“Yup,” Hannah says shortly. Suddenly she very much does not want to be here. The memories are too close, crowding in on her with painful intensity. April, sprawled across the rug, her cheeks still flushed and streaked with the afterglow of the copper makeup.
She sways, steps to try to catch her balance. She feels suddenly as if she might faint.
“Are you okay?” November asks, alarmed at something in her face. “You’ve gone really pale. Sit down.”
Hannah nods and gropes her way to a chair.
There’s a knock at the door, and November barks, “Just a minute! Hannah’s feeling a bit faint.”
“Oh, of course.” Dr. Myers’s worried voice comes through the wood. “Anything I can do?”
“No, she just needs to sit down for a moment.”
“I’m okay,” Hannah manages. “I can go.”