Chapter 45: After

AFTER

The next day, as she walks down the High Street towards Pelham College, Hannah thinks she knows what Emily meant the night before, about seeing her and November on the couch together. The sense that she’s stepping back in time is overwhelming, almost sickeningly so. Oxford doesn’t change—that’s part of it. Sure, some of the shops and cafes have different names, but the buildings, the road, the river, the skyline—it’s so close to how she remembers it that it gives her a surreal, dreamlike feeling, and a sense of something so strong it’s almost nausea washes over her as she crosses Pelham Street and nears the Porters’ Lodge. It’s not nostalgia—because she has no real wish to be back here. It’s something else. A sense… a sense almost of the past pressing down on her, suffocating her. And November’s presence beside her is part of that. Like a living ghost of April.

“I’m sorry,” she says to November as they draw level with the huge wooden gate, the miniature door-within-a-door. “I’m sorry, can we just—I need a second.”

“Sure!” November says. She looks concerned, and they stand for a minute, Hannah resting one hand against the golden stone of the outer wall, trying to steady herself. You can do this, he won’t be in there.

“Okay,” she says at last. And she is. Because the picture in her head is not of Neville as he was then—tall and broad and terrifying—but of the man in the article, the frail elderly man in his prison uniform. She feels her breathing steady. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“Are you sure?” November asks, a little anxiously now. “Because we really don’t have to. We can bow out—send our apologies. I can say I couldn’t face it. People will understand.”

“No, I’m fine. I want to do this.”

“Okay,” November says. She puts out a hand towards the big metal handle of the inner door. “Sure?”

“Sure.”

As she nods, November pushes on the centuries-old door—and it opens. And together they duck through, and then, for the first time in more than ten years, Hannah is inside Pelham College.

It hasn’t changed either. That’s the first thing she thinks. It hasn’t changed at all. There’s the Porters’ Lodge to the right, under the arch. There’s a kind of sick reflexive lurch in her stomach as she remembers all the times she scurried past, head down, panic choking her in case he was there. But now she forces herself to stop and look, really look. Two elderly men are standing behind the counter, white shirts straining over ample stomachs, but Neville is just a ghost in her imagination, and she doesn’t know either of them.

November leads the way into the Porters’ Lodge and steps up to the counter.

“Hi, we’re here for a tour? My name is November Rain, this is Hannah de Chastaigne. We’re here to look around the college and then we’re meeting with Dr. Myers.”

“November Rain?” the older of the two men says thoughtfully, running his finger down what looks like some kind of appointments ledger, then he nods. “Gotcha. I think Dr. Myers wanted to show you around himself. Let me give him a tinkle.”

November shoots Hannah a look, and Hannah bites her lip. This isn’t what they had discussed. Emily had simply said that the Master was happy for them to have a tour; there had been no discussion of who would be showing them around, and somehow Hannah had imagined someone neutral, unknown to them both, someone who didn’t know their history and their connection to Pelham—but of course this makes sense.

The porter is speaking on the phone, nodding and yes-ing by turns. Then he puts the receiver down and turns back to them.

“He’s coming down. Park yourselves in a corner—or maybe you’d prefer to wait on the bench outside?”

November looks at Hannah with a raised eyebrow, then answers for them both.

“I think we’d rather wait outside. Soak up the last of the sun.”

“Right you are,” the porter says cheerfully, and they let themselves out.

Outside, November looks even more rattled than Hannah feels.

“Yikes. Is this okay?”

“I think so…” Hannah says slowly. “I mean… I can’t think what difference it makes? It’s going to be hard to discuss anything in front of him, but then that would probably have been the case whoever showed us round. We could hardly have stood there going Oh yes, look, this is where Dr. Myers might have done it.”

“Yeees…” November says. She is beginning to look calmer, less alarmed. “Yes. You’re right. Yes, it’ll be fine, won’t it? It’s just a tour.”

“It’s just a tour.”

“Well, well, well.”

The voice comes from behind them, and at the sound of it Hannah’s adrenaline spikes so hard it feels like a jolt of electricity pulsing through her.

“Hannah Jones.”

She shuts her eyes, counts to three. Her heart is pounding. Think of the baby. She thinks of the baby. She thinks of April. She thinks of the blood pressure tablet she swallowed this morning with her breakfast orange juice.

She takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and turns.

He is there. Dr. Horatio Myers. A little older, a little grayer around the temples, but still the same Byronic wind-swept hair, the same slightly self-conscious tweed jacket, like someone playing the part of an academic.

“Dr. Myers,” she says.

“How very lovely to see you here, Hannah.” His tone is perfect, she realizes, as he takes one of her hands in his, pressing it between his palms. It’s welcoming, but also grave, and an acknowledgment that this isn’t just any alumnus coming back for auld lang syne, but something rather different, rather more painful. “Although, it is in fact Professor Myers these days,” he adds, taking away a little from his air of solicitude.

“Congratulations,” Hannah says, unsure what else to say.

“And this must be November,” Dr.—Professor—Myers says, turning to her. “You look so like your sister.”

“I know,” November says, a little acidly, reminding him that this isn’t exactly an uncomplicated thing for her. She softens the remark with a smile before Dr. Myers has to fumble to extricate himself. “Thank you for showing us around, it’s—well, I won’t pretend this is easy, but it felt like something I needed to do. My father died two years ago and he took so many memories of April with him. Ever since then I’ve felt the need to forge my own.”

It’s beautifully done. Hannah almost forgets her nerves in admiration of November’s performance. If she could, she would applaud. It’s so pitch-perfect it’s almost… April. She doesn’t doubt the sincerity for a second—even though she knows that’s absolutely not why they’re here.

“Well, I am glad to do what little I can to help, my dear,” Dr. Myers says. “Now. Where shall we begin? I’m rather partial to the library myself.”

Hannah wants to roll her eyes. She can’t remember April spending more than five minutes in the library. It sounds more as if they’re here for a tour of Dr. Myers’s favorite hangouts, not something personal to April at all, but then again—it’s Dr. Myers they’re here to observe. So perhaps that’s to the good.

“The library it is,” November is saying with a smile. “Lead on, Macduff.”

“Well, my dear,” Dr. Myers says as they set off across the Old Quad towards the chapel cut-through, “far be it from me to begin by acting the professor, but considering our destination I cannot allow that to go uncorrected. The quotation is in fact ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ coming as it does in the context of a sword fight—the reference being, one is invited to infer, an invitation to lay the first blow. And in fact Pelham has one of the very few extant first folios, so I may, if we are extremely lucky, be permitted to show you the original line in its very earliest remaining printed form.”

His tone is light, conversational, just the slightest touch condescending. The tone of a tutor expounding on his favorite subject to his favorite tutee. And suddenly, it is as if Hannah never left.

---

IT IS PERHAPS AN HOURlater, and they have done the library, the Junior Common Room, the chapel, the Great Hall, and the bar, which means there is only one logical destination left. As they cross Old Quad and pass under the Cherwell Arch, Hannah knows where they are heading, and she feels something inside her tense, preparing herself for what comes next. The baby moves uneasily, as if sensing her nerves.

They cross the lawn of the Fellows’ Garden—by right, now, Hannah has to assume, since they are in the company of a fellow—but as they come out of the shadow of the Master’s lodgings and into the sunshine of New Quad, Dr. Myers stops.

“Now, as you may know—as Hannah undoubtedly knows—this is New Quad. I assume… I don’t wish to presume… Your sister’s room.” He looks doubtfully from Hannah to November, as if unsure how to phrase this. “Do you…?”

Do you want to see where your sister was murdered?

Hannah can understand his hesitation. There is no established social formula for asking this question.

“Yes, I’d like to see the set, if that’s possible,” November says firmly. “But I understand if it’s not.”

“Well, normally in term time access to student rooms would be difficult, but in point of fact,” Dr. Myers says, “in point of fact the room, actually the whole staircase, was turned over to office use in, um, well. In the aftermath of your sister’s death.”

“Ah,” November says, with understanding. It makes sense, Hannah supposes. Staircase 7 must have been notorious among the other students and she can’t imagine the parents of any brand-new fresher wanting their daughter to spend their first year at university walking in the footsteps of a murdered student. “Yes. I can understand that. Well, in that case yes, I would like to see it if that’s possible. But perhaps Hannah would like a rest.” She turns to Hannah, raising one eyebrow. “Hannah? Would you like to sit down here and wait while Professor Myers shows me up to the room?”

Yes, Hannah wants to say. Her feet hurt. Her feelings are churning. The baby is fluttering nervously inside her, responding to her spiking pulse. She knows November is deliberately giving her an out, if she wants it.

“No,” she hears herself saying. “I want to come.”

She has come this far. She can’t turn back now.

As they walk around the edge of the quad, she feels a strange unreality taking over. They are walking—the three of them—to the site of Hannah’s worst ever experience, but as they crunch along the gravel it’s happier memories that crowd her mind. She remembers herself and Emily, picnicking on the banks of the Cherwell. She recognizes the bench where Ryan carved his name one summer night, and the archway to staircase 3 that some enterprising student taped up for a Rag Week prank. The sun is lowering in the sky, lights are coming on all around the quad. The figures beside her are dim in the gathering dusk. She could have slipped back in time—walking with April and Hugh, back to the set one winter’s night.

They follow Dr. Myers under the arch to staircase 7, and Hannah feels the stone beneath her feet, familiar even after ten years. There is the same momentary step into darkness before the lights flicker on up the staircase, the same slight delay. There is the same echo as they move upward. Dr. Myers has stopped his running commentary, as if he is not quite sure what to say. They pass rooms 1 and 2, where the slips of paper bearing the names of students have been replaced by ones reading STORES and ADMISSIONS 1, and then move up, landing by landing. Some of the doors stand open and inside Hannah can see not beds and students, but desks and administrators—all the myriad back-office functions of a busy college, hard at work.

On the top floor the door to the set is closed, and Dr. Myers pauses on the landing and gives a little rat-a-tat-tat.

“Come in,” calls a female voice with a slight Yorkshire accent, and Dr. Myers pushes on the door and enters, holding it with his hand so that Hannah and November can see past him. Inside there are two empty desks, a bunch of filing cabinets and box files, and a woman standing by the window putting on her coat.

“Oh, hello, Horatio. Can I help? I was just off.”

“Hello, Dawn. Dawn, this a former student of mine, Hannah.” He waves a hand at Hannah, and the woman nods politely, seemingly without recognition. “I was giving her a tour and she expressed a desire to see her old room. Are we disturbing you?”

“Not at all, as I say, I was just off. Would you lock up after me?”

“Of course.” Dr. Myers takes the keys she holds out and gives a little bow. “I will leave them at the lodge?”

“Ta, that’d be great. Sorry I can’t stay, got to pick up the kids from the minders. See you Monday! Nice to meet you ladies.”

“Have a good weekend, Dawn.”

Hannah stands back to let the woman leave, and then, after she’s gone, she steps forwards into the room, feeling the past close around her like a fist.

“You’ll find it’s rather different, I’m afraid,” Dr. Myers is saying, but his voice comes as if from a long way off, hardly breaking into her thoughts. This is where she, April, and the others played strip poker, the very first night they met. That mark on the windowsill was where April burned a hole in the oak with a lit joint. This—her hand touches the ancient wood of the doorway. This was her bedroom.

“Dr. Myers?” Her voice sounds odd in her own ears, too harsh and abrupt, but she can’t think of how else to ask. “Dr. Myers, could you—could you give us a moment alone?”

“Well I—” Dr. Myers flashes a look at the unattended laptops and files, and then, almost unwillingly, at the place on the floor where April’s body was found. There is a short silence as they all stare at the rug in front of the fire. Hannah wonders what he is thinking. Is he remembering what he did? Somehow here, in his presence, it’s harder to believe than ever. Surely there should be a sense of evil coming from a man who killed a young girl in cold blood? A sense of guilt?

But Hannah feels nothing. Nothing but the same immense sadness they all share.

Then, as if making up his mind, he nods.

“Yes. I’m sure I can do that. Take all the time you need.”

He backs out of the door, there is a moment’s silence as it closes behind him, and then Hannah hears November let out a trembling breath.

“So this is it.”

“This is it.”

“I—I wasn’t expecting to feel so—so, I don’t know—affected. I thought you might be shaken going back but I thought, I thought for me it would be just another room. But it—it’s not.”

“No,” Hannah says. “No, it’s not.”

And it isn’t. Although it looks like any back office, this is, after all, where April lived and laughed, studied and slept. And it’s where she died.

“Which was her room?”

“That one,” Hannah says, pointing to the door to the left of the window. She moves across to it, opens the door. She’s almost expecting to find it just as April left it, but of course it has been transformed into an office like the others. There’s a single desk, a rather bigger one than the two outside; a whiteboard covered with notes; and a lot more files. This room obviously belongs to the boss of the little department. “Her bed was there,” she says, pointing. “She had a desk there, and an armchair there—nonregulation. Nothing April had was ever just the standard college stuff, apart from the bed and the wardrobe. And it was a dump—it was always a dump. Clothes everywhere. Nail polish. Half-written essays.”

Pills, she thinks but doesn’t say.

November gives a shaky laugh.

“I can believe that. Her room at home was always awful. Our cleaner used to try to get it into some kind of order once in a while and then April would go raging around the house saying she couldn’t find anything. Which was a complete joke because she couldn’t find anything anyway—she was always leaving stuff strewn around.”

She moves across to the window, looking out at the rooftops of Pelham, past the steeple of the chapel, over the outer wall. In the distance the river is winding its way slowly, glittering in the last failing rays of sun.

“What a beautiful view.”

“Isn’t it? We were so lucky. And we didn’t even know it.”

Hannah moves across beside her, rests her hand on her chin.

“You know, one time, I came up the stairs and I heard April screaming in here. I came running into her room—”

“Let me guess,” November breaks in, a little dryly. “Another prank?”

“This was before I’d learned to be quite so suspicious. I raced in, and at first I couldn’t see April at all. Then I saw it—two pale hands clutching at the windowsill.”

“What?” November says with a short laugh, a mix of puzzlement and amusement on her face. “How on earth? We’re about four floors up, aren’t we?”

“Look down,” Hannah says, and November peers over the sill, and then begins to laugh in earnest.

“Okay. I get it. She lowered herself out to stand on that bay window.”

“Yup. Except then she couldn’t get back in. She wasn’t tall enough to get a purchase on the sill, and I wasn’t strong enough to pull her up. In the end she had to shinny down the drainpipe.”

They both stare out at the rusted drainpipe that runs down beside the bay window serving the flats below, and November gives a little smile.

“Well, that sounds like April.”

There is a moment’s silence.

“Do you think—” November starts, and then glances over her shoulder at the closed bedroom door, as if she is looking for someone, worried about being overheard.

“Do I think he did it?” Hannah says. She has lowered her voice, even though it’s unlikely Dr. Myers would be able to hear them from outside two thicknesses of wood. And they would have heard him reenter the set.

November nods.

Hannah shrugs.

“I have no idea. Before we came here it felt like the best possibility. But now… now I just don’t know.”

They go out into the main office again and stand there, both looking at the spot where April was found.

“It was there, wasn’t it,” November says at last. “I recognize it from the photos.”

“Yup,” Hannah says shortly. Suddenly she very much does not want to be here. The memories are too close, crowding in on her with painful intensity. April, sprawled across the rug, her cheeks still flushed and streaked with the afterglow of the copper makeup.

She sways, steps to try to catch her balance. She feels suddenly as if she might faint.

“Are you okay?” November asks, alarmed at something in her face. “You’ve gone really pale. Sit down.”

Hannah nods and gropes her way to a chair.

There’s a knock at the door, and November barks, “Just a minute! Hannah’s feeling a bit faint.”

“Oh, of course.” Dr. Myers’s worried voice comes through the wood. “Anything I can do?”

“No, she just needs to sit down for a moment.”

“I’m okay,” Hannah manages. “I can go.”

“He can fuck off,” November snarls. “You’re sitting here until you feel okay.”

That’ll be a long time, Hannah wants to say, but she knows what November means. She knows too that it’s the truth. She will never really be okay again. Something broke in her the night of April’s murder. Something nothing will ever be able to mend—not Will’s love or her mother’s care, not the baby in her belly. Not the fragile peace she has constructed in Edinburgh.

“I’m okay,” she says now, and she stands, carefully, steadying herself on the desk. “There’s just—just one more thing.”

November watches uneasily as she moves to the other side of the room, to the door to the right of the window, and pushes it open.

Inside it’s been transformed into a kind of stationery store, along with boxes of Jiffies, headed paper, envelopes, pens, and branded Pelham maps and leaflets.

She stands, looking, trying to remember. And then a last shaft of evening sun breaks through the autumn clouds and falls through the leaded window, slanting across the old oak boards, and suddenly, there it is—in her old room, with her bed to the right, her old desk across from her. And she is there too. Hannah. Not the Hannah of now, but the Hannah of then. The Hannah of before. Young, happy, full of hope and promise, and so unbearably, unutterably innocent of all the horror that life could hold.

She stands for a moment, looking at the shadow of the girl she left behind, bidding her goodbye.

And then she lets the door close, and turns to face the present.