Page 44

I was on fire with excitement over the Pitt Club dinner. By which I mean I was equal parts curious and terrified.

The building was, as I’d already worked out, really close to my little house on Jesus Green, though of course I was coming from Dad’s. It was a neoclassical concoction of pillars with a broad frontage that was just made to impress.

Only the building isn’t actually all theirs any more. All those elite members who once owned a whole palace are now consigned to the first-floor rooms. The grand entrance and big chambers are now, in fact, owned by a pizza chain.

Not even an individual restaurant. A chain, Reid.

I decided, on balance, that mocking them about their changed fortunes wouldn’t be a good thing. But let it be known that I was incredibly tempted.

These thoughts were much better than the ones that had been crushing me for the earlier part of the week.

I had others keeping me together, too. Thoughts of getting a look inside the place and of finding out who the movers and shakers were.

Of working out who Esther’s boyfriend was; what Ryan had done in the past; and why James seemed to have trust issues around his friend.

Kit was waiting outside for me and looked uncomplicatedly happy to see me. Not to make a point out of it or anything.

‘You look totally great,’ he told me, giving me a brief peck on the cheek. ‘And only a little bit plaguey.’

‘You, too,’ I told him. ‘You always look a tiny bit plaguey. It’s part of your charm.’

There were none of his usual complex stares. He simply grinned and took my arm to go into the club itself.

‘Are you sure this will actually be fun, though?’ I asked him, quietly. ‘I mean… the Pitt Club…’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean, is it full of horrible right-wing misogynistic snobs who are going to give you rage?’

I laughed. ‘Yeah, that.’

Kit shook his head. ‘I think, in my dad’s time, it probably was a lot like that. But the whole place has had to change. I mean, students aren’t really like that any more here, any more than they are in the US.’

‘Uhhh, there are definitely students like that in the US,’ I told him.

‘OK,’ he amended. ‘There aren’t many people like that at Cambridge.’ He paused at the top of the stairs. ‘Because of this move towards being less elitist, the Pitt Club membership shrank like crazy over time and then they realised they had to adapt and let in women.’

‘My god,’ I said. ‘End of the world.’

‘Exactly.’ Kit gave me a gleaming smile. ‘And obviously, once that happened, it was only going to change further. They’re mostly good people now, and the rest are just a bit boring about money.’

I studied his face for a moment, wondering whether this was his attempt to justify joining but feeling a worrying suspicion that it wasn’t. That he really meant it.

Which was great for tonight’s conversation but seriously bad for my efforts at finding a backup scandal here to write about.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘You’ve convinced me. But I’m holding you responsible if anyone mansplains anything to me.’

‘Fair,’ he said.

He squeezed my hand, but then let go of it as we entered the dining room, as if to avoid giving off too many relationship vibes.

I couldn’t help feeling relieved about it.

The fewer people who saw us in public looking like a couple, the better, for the long-term good of my career and my sense of guilt.

Inside, the place was thickly carpeted enough to make walking in heels treacherous, and decorated ornately. The lighting was well done, I thought, and although the portraiture was heavy on the moody men, it was tasteful.

James was hovering in a corner with a glass of champagne, his handsome face looking a little drawn this evening. He was fiddling compulsively with a vape when we arrived and jumped slightly when Kit greeted him.

‘Hey, we all need a glass,’ Kit said, reaching out to where a waiter was standing with a silver tray of bubbles. ‘One more exam to go! Here’s to oncoming freedom!’

I took the glass Kit had handed me and lifted it. There was a beat before James copied us and replied, ‘Freedom!’

Was James just tired? Or was there something else going on?

‘Oh my god, you’re all so close!’ I said, trying to cover the momentary pause. ‘When is the last exam?’

‘Wednesday,’ James told me.

‘When are you finished?’ I asked Kit, realising he hadn’t actually told me, despite sharing about his family and his hopes for his rugby career. It was like the academic stuff didn’t matter to him.

‘Tuesday.’ Kit gave me a grin. ‘On Tuesday night I’m going to become a walking Vice documentary.’

‘Will I know the difference, or…?’

‘Oh, you’ll know,’ he said, and gave me the kind of look that told me he wasn’t just talking about drinking and taking MDMA.

Crap.

‘Oh, I didn’t know we had Clarisse here tonight,’ James said at that point, cutting through the sexual tension.

I turned to see Esther standing next to a woman who was such a carbon copy of her that she could only have been her mother.

From Clarisse’s sleek dark hair in its French pleat (the same colour as Esther’s) to her perfect cheekbones and complexion; from her large, long-lashed eyes to her cool smile.

Even the clothes were basically the same: Esther’s knee-length beaded dress the match of her mother’s silvery number.

Seeing them together struck me as important.

It was so clear that Esther was different around her.

That veneer of control had descended, and it was like seeing the stranger I’d first met all over again.

The flawless, unassailable, cold human who I’d only later realised was really a fragile, warm thing.

I was both fiercely curious to meet this woman and aware that I was absolutely not on my game. I deliberately hung back, turning a little away. I had Kit to talk to at first, and then James after Kit vanished to the bathroom.

James was still looking pale, tired and out of sorts. But he managed a brief conversation until his parents emerged at the top of the stairs and snagged his attention. The Pitt Club family, of course. He left me alone to go and talk to them.

Esther was at my shoulder a moment later. I wondered if she’d been waiting for a chance.

‘Would you like to come and meet Mummy?’ she asked, her voice containing that alabaster-smooth quality she used for greeting strangers. It made me pity her, but it also made me uneasy.

‘Sure,’ I said, trying to smile. ‘I’d love to.’

Clarisse’s expression was curious beneath her social smile as Esther introduced us, but she was far from hostile, as I’d feared she might be as an over-controlling mother. I guessed she was wondering whether I was an appropriate friend for her daughter, but she seemed inclined to think I was.

‘This is Aria, Mummy,’ Esther said, still perfectly poised, and I couldn’t help finding it weird that she still called her mom that at the age of twenty-one.

‘It’s a delight,’ Clarisse said in an accent that was a perfect balance between English, French and East Coast American. She leaned in to offer her cheek. ‘I’ve heard a lot about your rowing.’

I pulled a self-deprecating face. ‘Sorry. It’s a rower thing. We’re basically incapable of having normal conversations.’

Clarisse laughed. ‘Not from what I hear. Esther tells me you’re a wonderful friend.’

I gave Esther a smile, and then said, ‘She’s honestly way too kind to me.

I’ve spent most of the year being seriously antisocial and your daughter’s actually forced me to make some friends at last. I owe her a lot, but I’m kind of sad I left it so late.

They’re all about to leave, and I’ll be back to just rowing and studying. ’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can keep in touch,’ Clarisse protested. ‘Particularly with so much of your training in London, where Esther’s first two years will be.’

I couldn’t help looking very sharply at Esther. Hadn’t she said she was looking for a job? To hear that her career was mapped out was… surprising.

‘Well, that sounds OK then,’ was all I said.

‘Will you go back home to your family over the summer?’ Clarisse asked. ‘Or will they visit you here?’

‘A little of both,’ I answered. ‘I mean, I doubt Mom and Dad will make it over here, but maybe my bro.’

Clarisse’s smile grew imperceptibly brighter, and I realised that it was Aria’s senator brother who was the real draw here. I was being seen as a networking opportunity.

Though actually, I realised, it might be more that Aria’s brother was deemed an eligible match for Esther.

Clarisse didn’t say anything further because her attention was caught by someone across the room, and to my horror I heard her say, ‘Ryan, my darling. Are you not coming to say hello?’

There was movement, and suddenly Ryan Jaffett was being welcomed into the circle.

I felt my chest tightening, and I turned in blind panic to look over at Kit, whose expression was slack-jawed and horrified.

I saw his mouth move as he said, ‘What the fuck?’

I felt like leaving, but I knew I couldn’t. I had a week and a half left to figure all of this out, and if I made no progress, the Ensign could pull the story at any moment.

It’s all right , I told myself. You’re all right.

And then I remembered what Cordelia had said, about being committed enough to this that I’d have to be all right, and it helped.

‘I… Hello, Ms Thomas,’ Ryan was saying. ‘It’s… you look great.’

He sounded awkward. Wretched. But he wasn’t making an excuse and leaving, which would have been the kind thing to do.

I decided to look anywhere but at him. I wasn’t going to be chased away when I was trying to learn things. It wasn’t fair.

But I also couldn’t focus on anything they were saying any more, and at one point Ryan moved towards me and I flinched backwards.

It was Philip Sedgewick who intervened and essentially rescued me. I don’t know if James had told him about what happened, or if he just saw that I was looking panicked. He stepped in and said, ‘Oh, I meant to ask you something about James. Could I borrow you for a minute?’

I let him draw me away, feeling a flood of huge relief as well as a bitter feeling of disappointment.

It was pathetic, and it was getting in the way of my job.

And worse still, it was clear that other people could see something was wrong.

James’s mother, Marcie, was looking after us in concern, too.

I caught her eye and gave her a slightly unsteady grin.

It’s OK , I tried to telegraph.

And Marcie nodded at me before moving to talk to Clarisse. James’s parents were genuinely sensitive, I realised. And I wondered how that had affected him: whether it made him more or less likely to be a killer.

Because everything still came down to that, in the end.

When I glanced back at Esther, I realised that she was looking after me, too, her expression questioning. Worried. Her guard finally down once again. And it made me feel a rush of guilt.

She gave a faint smile when I rolled my eyes at her, and that only made it all worse.

You can’t let yourself like these kids , I thought sternly to myself, after that. Esther might be a killer as easily as James or Ryan.

Once we were a distance away, Philip said, ‘I just wanted to know what present to get James for exam results day. He usually seems disappointed or morally offended by what I choose. I have a suspicion you might be better at finding out what he’d like than the rest of them, and I wondered if you might like a little mission. ’

I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘Are you calling me nosy?’ I asked, as a slight challenge.

Philip laughed. ‘Not in the least. I’m accusing you of actually listening to people.’

I glanced towards James himself, who I’d barely exchanged a word with all evening. ‘Not as much as I should. But I’m on it. I won’t let you down.’

It was a while later, once the dinner had started– with Ryan mercifully seated a long way from me and the starters eaten– that I excused myself to the bathroom and spent a while breathing out some tension.

I’d managed to hold it together and even to tell a few humorous rowing anecdotes, but I hadn’t made any actual progress and I needed to get my head back in the game.

It was after I’d finished pep-talking myself and was returning to the dinner that I stumbled on Kit and Ryan having a hushed conversation in the corridor outside.

They were round the corner from the bathrooms, huddled in a doorway, and they clearly hadn’t heard me closing the door or walking across the thick carpet towards them, so I ducked back behind the corner and listened.

The part of it I caught was Ryan saying, unclearly, ‘… off, Kit. Stop fucking interfering.’

‘You need someone to interfere,’ Kit said, his voice low and intense. ‘If you don’t stop it–’

‘Do you really think you can threaten me?’ Ryan was so clearly drunk and, with it, belligerent.

But when Kit replied it was with a greater level of anger than I’d heard from him. ‘It’s not even a threat,’ he said. ‘I’m telling you what’s going to happen if you keep doing this.’

‘What’s that then?’

‘You’re going to ruin your life,’ Kit said. ‘And there won’t be anything anyone can do to help you.’

Ryan gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’m helping myself.’

There were padding steps, and one of them retreated.

I thought, from the unsteady steps, that it must be Ryan.

I waited a few moments and then made my way round the corner, feeling a rush of fear that it would be Ryan waiting there for me.

But it was Kit who was still there, staring into space as he leaned against the door.

He looked… I don’t know, Reid. Furious.

Desolate. Done with it all. A mixture of all of this.

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You OK?’

Kit blinked and looked up at me.

‘I… yeah, I’m OK.’ He sighed. ‘Are you? I’m– Ryan shouldn’t be here. I’m so sorry.’

He held a hand out to me and I came to stand beside him, our arms intertwined.

I nodded. ‘I’m all right. I’d… prefer him not to be here, but I’m going to have to see him sometime, right?’

‘You don’t have to,’ Kit said, immediately. And he gave me a very open, earnest look. ‘I will support you in whatever you decide to do, and no matter what Ryan does, I’m not going to let him hurt you ever again. All right?’

And you know, as crappy as I’d been feeling, I felt a sense of genuine reassurance wash through me for the first time in days.