Page 31

It’s rare, in this job, that you feel like you’ve really screwed up. I mean, I’m careful about what I say in front of people.

But somehow, I’d managed to have a whole, open conversation about everything only yards away from Philip Sedgewick. The father of one of the most likely suspects.

And the way he was looking at me, with a knowing smile, I felt a sick certainty that he must have heard.

It made me jump when his expression changed to one of recognition and he said, ‘Aria! Goodness. Twice in two nights. Everyone will think we’re doing it on purpose.’

I still felt fully nauseous as I gave him my best attempt at a return smile and stood up. Had he not seen or heard anything, then? Or was this a facade?

He hadn’t been there when I arrived. That much I was sure of.

I also hadn’t seen him when I watched Cordelia leave. But I hadn’t been paying attention. I’d been busy freaking out. I could easily have missed him, and if so, who knew when he might have arrived?

‘Mr Sedgewick,’ I said, coming to kiss his cheek. ‘I thought it was you.’

There was no sign of obvious threat or anger as he said, ‘And this is my friend Max, who’s all right, even if he did go to Oxford.

’ He gestured to his companion, who looked like a slightly less good-looking version of himself.

‘This is Aria, a friend of James’s from Cambridge,’ Philip went on as I held a hand out.

‘Great to meet you,’ I said. ‘Even with the Oxford thing.’

Max laughed, but then looked towards the door. ‘I’d better go and find Clarisse. I’ll already be in trouble. Hope to meet you again soon,’ he added to me.

‘Oh, you, too,’ I said, and then said quickly to Philip, ‘I’m just meeting a friend who’s a member. I’d… better go up to the room.’

It was supposed to be a neat excuse for being there, and to distract him in case he’d seen Cordelia.

But the moment I’d said it I realised how much it must have sounded like I had a sugar daddy staying there.

The kinds of people who had rooms at the Caledonian were generally older guys, and going up to the room implied… yeah. That.

It was excruciatingly awkward, and I saw Philip’s expression change.

‘Of course, of course,’ he said. And then he cleared his throat, and said, ‘Look, if you ever need anything, in London… you don’t have to be a stranger.

Any friend of James’s.’ He pulled out a business card and gave me a troubled look.

‘I know a strange country probably feels a bit daunting, but you’re not on your own. ’

‘Thank you,’ I said, finding myself blushing in spite of every effort not to. ‘That’s kind. I’ve got– I know Seaton’s there in a pinch, too.’

‘Of course,’ Philip said again. ‘Of course. But if there are things you… can’t tell him.’

He gave another clear of his throat, and I ducked past him with a nod of thanks. On the one hand, I felt hugely relieved that he clearly hadn’t connected me to Cordelia Wynn, or heard anything we were saying. I was sure he’d have asked me questions if he had.

On the other hand, there was a real threat he might tell James not to get close to me because I was the wrong kind of girl.

I turned up the large staircase as if going to someone’s room– I had to follow up what I’d said, regardless of the subtext– and then proceeded to hide in an empty conference room for the next forty-five minutes until I was sure I could sneak out unobserved by both Philip and Cordelia.

On my wincing, heart-thumping way out to get an Uber to King’s Cross, I remembered my promise to Dad that I wouldn’t embarrass him, and I hoped that he never, ever found out about tonight.

I was still reeling from every part of the evening by the time I made it back to Cambridge. I was fully into unhealthy loops of anxiety as I cycled through what was thankfully still a warm night.

I had to stop before the lights changed on the junction of Hills Road and Gonville Place to adjust my wide-legged trousers, which were getting caught on the chain.

The road was mercifully low on traffic so I had an extra moment once I’d pulled into the bike box.

Another cyclist came to join me a second later, doing that kind of annoying thing of going further right and further ahead so they could get round the corner in front of me when the lights changed, but I figured it wasn’t a race, for once.

You know. Unlike the rest of the time, when it clearly is a race.

I straightened up and was only really conscious of a noise behind me just before the accompanying impact. It was a confusing, dizzying combination of sensations that involved a hard shove to my bike wheel and me trying frantically to keep from cartwheeling over the top of the bike.

I didn’t quite manage it. With my legs braced either side, I was essentially tripped up by the bike itself. After multiple staggering steps I fell forward, throwing my left arm out to save my face and then feeling the lancing pain of the bike landing heavily across my left leg.

‘Hey!’ I heard a woman shouting. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

It’s the other cyclist , I realised, as I lay there stunned for a moment.

‘Jesus, are you OK?’

The cyclist again.

I dragged myself upright, almost tripping again as I did it, and saw her concerned face a few feet from mine. She’d backed up a little but hadn’t climbed off her bike to help.

‘I… yeah,’ I said, trying to assess the slightly numb pain in my leg. The bruised feeling in my arm. ‘I think I’m OK.’

‘He just didn’t stop,’ she said, looking out left towards Lensfield Road and the Fen Causeway. ‘Fucking idiot.’

I twisted round, but whatever vehicle had clipped me it was no longer visible past the curve of the road.

‘Don’t suppose you have a bike camera, do you?’ I asked.

The cyclist grimaced, glancing up towards where the lights had now changed for cyclists to go. She looked impatient to be gone. ‘Sorry. I didn’t see the reg, either. It’s not lit properly.’

‘No problem.’

The lights changed again so the cars could go, and of course there was now an impatient motorist pulling up behind us and pipping at his horn. Thanks, hon.

I walked my bike off to the side, out of the way, while the woman on her bike left with a wave. A not particularly helpful, if sympathetic, interaction.

I could feel that weirdly disconnected pain in my leg that tells you you’re probably going to have some swelling there later, but I decided after some stretching that I was OK to cycle.

I chose to head back across Parker’s Piece, then stick to the pavement down the side of Christ’s Pieces and Midsummer Common from there. No more roads.

All the while, I was looking ahead for assailants jumping out at me or over my shoulder for cars in pursuit. But nobody else troubled me on the way home, and even though I was shaking slightly as I locked my bike up outside I began to feel a strange sense of triumph.

Because I was sure that the car must have been following me deliberately. The impact had been a warning.

I just had no idea what had triggered it.

Having managed to get to sleep by midnight, I woke bolt upright at 3 a.m., disturbed by a noise outside. I’d been dreaming about someone pursuing me, and I was on my feet at the window in a moment with thoughts of a masked intruder and a shock of pain through my injured leg.

The noise turned out to be just a couple of drunk guys who’d presumably been at a late-night lock-in at the Maypole pub.

One of them had tripped over the kerb and the other was now laughing at him.

It was the kind of thing I’d grown used to over the last couple of weeks, and I was on the verge of going back to bed when I realised that there was something attached to my front gate.

Something that hadn’t been there before and was now flapping in the light breeze off Jesus Green.

I think I must have sat in that window trying to peer at it and also in every direction for at least ten minutes.

It looked, by the light of the street lamps, like it might be mid-brown in colour.

It could have been just a flyer or poster, but there was nothing attached to anyone else’s gate, and something in the way it was banging into the wrought iron made me think it was heavier than a single sheet of paper.

It looked a lot like an envelope with something inside.

I felt the strangest inability to decide what to do. Part of me was convinced it was there to lure me out so someone could finish what they’d started.

Another equally strong part was desperate to find out what was in there. Because if it was a friendly warning instead of a threatening one, or better still information about Holly, I couldn’t risk it being stolen by the time I got up in the morning.

In the end, my inability to let things go won out. I crept downstairs without turning on any lights and fetched the rolling pin that generally did little except jam the cutlery drawer. I stayed standing inside the door with my hand on the latch for a good minute, psyching myself up.

And then I opened it and put it on the latch in one movement and ran down the three steps to the gate as fast as I’ve ever run anywhere. All the while I was conscious of the corner of the house to my right and the fact that someone could be hiding round there.

The moment I got to the gate it became clear that I’d been right. The flapping attachment was one of those card-backed certificate envelopes made from waxy brown paper. It had been fastened to the top of the open gate using duct tape.

I tugged at it, eyes flying wildly around. In my fear, I was frantically imagining human shapes in the bushes. Each breath of wind made my heart skitter.

It took three efforts to pull it clear, and by the time I’d done it nobody had emerged from any shadows. No real enemies had come to get me. The expanse of the green was quiet, lit in pools of white light by wrought-iron lamp posts.