“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.
“Okay,” she said at last.
The first step into the shadows was always the worst. It was like a leap of faith—stepping into the darkness of the stairwell, before the sensor at the turn of the stairs caught your movement and the lights above flickered on.
But as she climbed, Hannah found herself relaxing. There was something so familiar, so comforting about the smells and sounds of staircase 7. She could hear Henry Clayton’s booming voice coming out from behind door 4; he and his neighbor Philip were obviously having one of their long-running political debates, which Hannah knew from experience would probably last until 3 a.m. On the landing below, someone was having a late-night shower, the smell of Dove body wash filtering up the stairwell along with the sound of splashing water.
Dr. Myers’s room was silent, but there was a glimmer of light showing under his door. He must be awake, and probably marking papers. For some reason the sight made Hannah feel better. So what if John Neville had been up here with another one of his lame excuses. April had probably told him to fuck off and sent him away with his tail between his legs.
Her own door, though, was open, just very slightly. As if April had come back in a hurry and hadn’t closed it firmly enough. It wasn’t the first time she had left it ajar—it was something people did quite often, if a roommate had forgotten a key, or just to signify that they were home and open for visitors. Not usually this late at night, though.
Hannah put her hand to the door and stepped inside.
And then—
AFTER
Hannah can’t sleep.
She lies there with her hand over her bump, listening to Will’s steady breathing beside her, wondering if he too is awake, but she can’t bring herself to ask.
Instead she runs over and over in her head the conversations of the day. Her exchange with Ryan. The new spin he has put on the days running up to April’s death. And her argument with Will before dinner.
The thing is, she understands his point of view—his need to move on, put the past behind them. It’s what she has wanted herself… until now. But if her evidence put an innocent man in jail and led to a murderer walking free—well. She can’t just accept that, no matter how much Will wants her to. She can’t spend the rest of her life wondering if she got something so devastatingly wrong. She has to know.
Now she lies there, straining her mind back to Pelham, trying, trying, trying to remember. If only she could recall the end of that night as clearly as the beginning. But it feels as if the shock did something to her brain—made it shut down, refuse to remember what was in front of her eyes.
Then it comes to her. Hugh.
Hugh was there too. He saw as much as she did—almost—and perhaps he remembers even more.