Hugh lets his hand drop and he brushes his fringe away from his forehead. His face is profoundly unhappy.
“I went over to her. You were kneeling over the—her body. You kept saying Oh April, oh my God, April, over and over again. I tried her pulse and I think in my heart I knew she was gone, but I couldn’t quite bear to admit it. I began pumping her heart, just kind of hoping against hope, and you were standing there, looking so awful, your face was just white and drained and you were kind of swaying, and I thought you were going to faint—and I said, Hannah, for God’s sake go and find someone, go back to the bar and get help. It was partly for April but partly because I thought I had to get you out of there before you passed out. I wanted someone to look after you as much as anything. And you gave this kind of gasping sob and you stumbled out into the hallway and I heard you kind of staggering down the stairs gasping Oh God, oh someone help, please help. I carried on giving April mouth-to-mouth and heart compressions for… oh God, I don’t know how long.” He stops and takes a long, shuddering swig of his wine. “I carried on until the police came. It felt like forever. But they did come. They did come in the end. They said I’d done all I could. But it wasn’t enough. I don’t think—I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for that. It wasn’t enough.”
“Thank you, Hugh,” Hannah says. Her voice is husky and her eyes are prickling. This is the first time they have ever discussed this, the first time she has ever heard Hugh’s version of events. Before the trial they were told strictly not to discuss the case, for fear of prejudicing each other’s evidence. And afterwards—afterwards the last thing she wanted was to wallow in the pain and horror of that night. Now she is ashamed to realize that what Hugh went through was just as bad, maybe even worse. He has lived all these years with the memory of April’s dead lips on his, of his failure to save her. “Hugh, it wasn’t your fault, you know that, right? April was already dead—she was strangled. You couldn’t have saved her.”
Hugh says nothing. He only shakes his head. His eyes, behind the horn-rimmed glasses, are squeezed tight shut, as though holding back tears. When he speaks it’s with a catch in his throat and a little grating laugh.
“I’m sorry, I—I wasn’t expecting this. I would have bought a larger glass of wine if I’d known.”
“I’m sorry too,” Hannah says, and she means it. “I should have warned you. It wasn’t fair to spring this on you.”
“It’s all right,” Hugh says. He tries for the suave, urbane smile he probably uses on his patients, though it’s not completely convincing, not to someone who knows him as well as Hannah does. “God knows, I should be over all this by now. These days we’d probably all be offered free therapy. Back then it was, Oh well, chin up, and we’ll go easy on you in the exams, you know?”
Hannah nods, though the truth is that she doesn’t know. She never went back to Pelham. Hugh, Will, Emily, and Ryan, they all returned—shaken and traumatized, but they returned—and eventually they all graduated. But not Hannah.
Instead she moved back to her mother’s house. She would return to Pelham eventually, she told herself. Take a year out, perhaps. But then a year turned into two. Going back to Pelham became moving on to the University of Manchester. Or Durham. Anywhere else.
And then gradually that goal disappeared too, fading into the distance, along with the memories of her friends, her essays, and the girl she used to be. Only Will remained. Will, whose letters kept arriving, regular as clockwork, in his distinctive spiky handwriting, telling her about May balls and end-of-term parties, about rowing on the river and fluffing exams, about essays and tutors and rags and, eventually, about graduation ceremonies and MAs and postgraduate training.
She had thought at the time that nothing could survive April’s death, that she had been burned out by it, left a shell of the girl who had gone up to Pelham so hopefully that bright October day. And for a while that had been true—or almost true. Because one thing had survived. Her love for Will. It was the only thing that had endured.
“So… do you think it was Neville, then?” she forces herself to ask. She picks up her glass and takes a sip.
Hugh shrugs.
“I don’t know. I thought so at the time but now you’re making me wonder. I mean it’s not like—”
He stops.
“It’s not like?” Hannah prompts. Hugh, unexpectedly, flushes, a splotch of bright color appearing high on his cheekbones. He tosses his hair out of his eyes with that nervous tic she remembers so well from the very first time they met. He looks embarrassed.