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‘It really is,’ I insisted. ‘I was the one who told you about what Kit said. I pretty much suggested trying to find out what happened.’ I took a wobbly breath. ‘Jesus. You could have ended up dead.’

There was a long pause before he said, ‘But I wanted to know. I felt like I needed to. Like I owed it to Holly.’ He paused again, and said, ‘But honestly? Now? I’d rather nobody ever knew if it meant not putting them in danger. I can’t let this bullshit happen to anyone else.’

I wished I could tell him the whole truth, but I didn’t think it would help anyone right then. So I did the next best thing I could think of and asked him who he’d spoken to before this happened.

‘Aria,’ he said, forcefully. ‘Please don’t. Please don’t try to find answers. I didn’t even see it coming.’

‘But if you only spoke to one person…’

‘I spoke to all of them,’ he said, helplessly. Angrily. ‘The whole gang. Kit, Ryan, Esther… even Esther’s mum… I was on a mission.’ He looked at me steadily. ‘I thought it was worth it, but I don’t any more. And it’s definitely not worth it for you. You didn’t even know her.’

I was trying to reply, persuasively, when a series of footsteps on the lino flooring announced that James had more visitors. I probably should have guessed that it would be some of the others, but it was actually all three of them. I flinched slightly as Kit stopped in his tracks.

‘Hey,’ he said, shifting a bag in his hands. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

‘I couldn’t stand waiting at home,’ I told him. ‘I figured I’d get here the same time you did if I cycled hard.’

It was at that point, though, that I realised Kit must have asked the others to come with him. They hadn’t all arrived coincidentally at once.

Which meant he’d deliberately excluded me.

Why? I thought. Why keep me out?

I rose to kiss him, feeling all over again the strangeness of the situation.

Somehow Kit was both my boyfriend and absolutely not my boyfriend in any way.

I was going to act like he was everything I wanted for as long as I was Aria, and then I was going to leave Cambridge and never see him again.

It was increasingly messing with my head.

I saw the surprise and discomfort in his expression relax in the face of my warmth, though he made no move to explain why he hadn’t asked me along. Soon after that he was focused on James, and on cheering him up.

He did it sensitively but jokily. Whereas Ryan came in with banter so harsh about fainting in the shower that it made me actually wince. Though, weirdly, James seemed to find it funny as well, which made me think this was just how it worked between them.

They still default to being friends , I thought. Even when one of them tried to kill him.

Watching them, I realised with a sense of disappointment that Kit seemed to have made up fully with Ryan. Despite what he’d done to me. Despite their big stand-off at dinner.

I couldn’t get a handle on their friendship. It was like Kit was an indulgent parent and kept finding reasons to forgive him.

Even when he’s done terrible things to the woman you say you care about the most , I thought.

At one point Ryan looked up at me and caught me watching him.

And for a split second, his broad grin fell away.

He looked like a sad, angry, messed-up kid.

And then he made an impatient gesture with his hand as if trying to wave all of that away, and looked down.

Then he smiled again at something Kit was saying.

Esther spent most of the time with her arm threaded through mine, and I thought she seemed anxious, too.

But I found it impossible to tell whether this was guilt, worry for her friend, or her inability to cope with an emotionally complex situation without the help of MDMA.

She’d brought a couple of books and a box of macarons for James in a fairly practical style of offering help.

‘I’m so sad you’ll miss the ball tomorrow,’ she said to James at one point in a low voice. ‘Do you want us to sell our tickets, too?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ James protested with a crooked grin. ‘I’ll totally be there. Just as long as Dad can sort a ticket for my brand-new bodyguard, it’s all fine.’

I thought, once again, how strange it was that they were all so keen to go.

To the same event that had claimed the life of their friend.

It wasn’t like there weren’t a dozen other May Balls they could have gone to.

But Kit had told me there would be a minute’s silence in Holly’s memory, and maybe that was as much a reason to go as any.

We were all chased out not much later when James’s parents returned, pushing us over the visitor limit.

Once we were out in the hall, on our way to the exit, Ryan let out a long breath.

‘I’m no good at this stuff,’ he said, suddenly. ‘I don’t know how… How am I supposed to know what to say? I was trying to be funny, and I kept thinking I should shut the fuck up, but it was… I couldn’t help it. And now I’m worried I might have pushed him to feel suicidal all over again.’

‘He wasn’t suicidal,’ Kit said, tersely.

‘Look,’ Ryan said, holding up a hand. ‘I know I… He’s a friend, but…

We all know that stuff about someone else poisoning him is bullshit, right?

Like, how would anyone know his room was empty?

’ He caught Kit’s eye and clearly picked up on a dangerous look there, but he went on, ‘I mean, it’s really understandable.

It’s almost a year since Holly. This time of year must remind him… ’

We’d all come to a stop outside the treatment centre now, alongside the bike racks. But nobody was making any attempt to unlock anything. Kit and Ryan were facing each other, and Kit looked… coiled. On the verge of lashing out.

Ryan himself looked somewhere between scared and defiant. As though he knew he didn’t want this but couldn’t quite stop himself.

This is how he is, isn’t it? I thought. This is what makes him wreck things, and then drink.

‘Someone attacked him,’ Kit said, deliberately. ‘And here you are, trying to play it all down. Why is that?’

Ryan looked genuinely horrified. ‘What the fuck, Kit?’

I could see Kit’s jaw working, as if he were poised on the edge of saying more, or backing down and conciliating. And it occurred to me that if I pushed things just a little, the truth might fall out.

‘Maybe it was a friend who did it,’ I said, folding my arms over myself as if worried. ‘Because he got all hung up on what happened to Holly, didn’t he? He was going around to everyone. Asking weird questions…’

Kit looked caught off guard. He turned to me with a frown. ‘What do you mean?’

‘He told me about it,’ I said. ‘He had big questions about how she died and he was going to ask you all.’

I saw Kit glance over at Esther, who gave me a shake of the head. ‘He didn’t ask any of us anything, darling.’

Somehow the remaining anger seeped out of Kit all at once, and Ryan backed off a few steps. He reached into his pocket for his bike key and then started attacking the D-lock on his Scott.

‘Yeah, he must have changed his mind about asking,’ Kit said, watching him blankly. ‘Didn’t come to anything.’

He came to put his arm round me after that, but it did nothing to dispel the sense of cold I felt. Because it was clear that they’d all joined ranks now, and had decided James was on the outside.

Though not just James. I was on the outside, too.

I emailed Gael to update him as I made my way into London. We were due to meet the next morning for our check-in, and I’d decided to stay over at my own flat before it. I’d need as much sleep as I could get the night before Trinity May Ball.

I also emailed Imogen, asking her to find out anything she could from Cambridgeshire police about the attempt on James’s life.

Despite it being Sunday, I got an immediate, enthusiastic response.

I could tell that Imogen was desperate to be involved in this as more than a dogsbody.

I added a message to tread very carefully, which she at least acknowledged.

Having heard nothing more from either of them, it was a shock when I arrived on our floor of the Ensign at nine to find Gael waiting for me with a heavy expression.

I know him well enough that I immediately realised this was not good news.

I knew he might be about to tell me James’s near-death was all my fault.

It’s difficult to rally your arguments against something you basically agree with, but I tried to think of a few anyway.

I needn’t have bothered. The moment I sat down in Gael’s office, he said, ‘Maria is pulling the plug.’

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

‘But… come on. I know it’s taking time, but everything is moving now …’

Gael nodded, his expression full of sympathy. ‘I know. And I know it’s a rough deal when you’re in the middle of things. But as well as little progress over several weeks, she’s extremely concerned that our actions– however careful– have caused a student to try to attempt suicide.’

I couldn’t help making an outraged sound. ‘He didn’t! I talked to him today. Someone tried to poison him.’

Gael pulled a doubtful face. ‘Imogen got the attending officers’ report. It seems incredibly unlikely there was outside involvement, whatever he’s now saying.’

‘Well, there was,’ I insisted. ‘And we owe it to him to work out who and how, otherwise we’re leaving him in greater danger.’ I stood up. ‘It was asking questions that triggered the killer to move. Seriously, Gael.’

He rubbed his hand across his head. ‘I don’t think they’re going to budge, Anna.’

‘They? I thought this was Maria.’

He sighed. ‘I got hauled in by her and the editor. They’re both declaring themselves horrified by our casualness with student welfare.’

‘God,’ I said. ‘That’s not– that’s not fair.’

Gael gave me a wry smile. ‘Never expect fairness.’

I shook my head, feeling a surge of huge frustration.

‘I can’t leave all this unfinished. There’s James’s safety to think about, and Cordelia Wynn–’

Gael held up a hand. ‘You explained to her at the beginning that there might not be enough for us. You and she are going to have to accept that.’ And then he added, ‘I’m really sorry about this, but with the two of them saying no there isn’t a lot I can do.’

I gave him a last, desperate, pleading look. ‘But what am I supposed to do to protect James Sedgewick?’

He let out a sigh. ‘If you really think he was attacked, I’d say the best thing you can do is convince him to report it all to the police and then walk away.

Let them look at this their own way, without you.

’ He nodded. ‘In terms of practicalities, we can give you a reason to vanish. A sick relative. A drug relapse.’

I thought of Esther and James all being told that I was an addict. Of Kit and Ryan, the ones who thought they knew this already, being told that I’d given in and relapsed. Somehow the thought made everything inside me churn almost as much as the idea of walking away from the case itself.

‘I’ll sort it,’ I told him in a dull voice.

And then I left the office for Cambridge again, knowing that I wasn’t going to walk away at all.