pulls open a door. An internal light flicks on and a second later she hears the sound of him urinating.
She springs out of bed, ignoring the pain in her head and her rising nausea. There is barely enough light to see clothes scattered around the floor. She recognises none of them, but sees a pair of ripped jeans and a brightly coloured top that are in her size. There is underwear too and this does look familiar.
She dresses quickly, spotting her handbag on a desk by the window. She has seen enough by now to know that she is in a student’s bedroom in one of the more modern residence blocks. In the adjoining bathroom, the lavatory flushes. In the bedroom, she cannot find her shoes.
‘Going somewhere?’
She jumps around to see the boy – he cannot be much more than twenty – in the doorway to the bathroom and her first thought is relief. Whatever absurd situation she has got herself into, this dark-haired boy is definitely not Freddie. She drops her eyes – he is still naked – and looks frantically for her shoes. She spots them by the door.
‘Sorry,’ she mutters. ‘I’ve got to be – I have to go.’
He doesn’t move.
‘You married?’ he says.
She shoots a startled look at his face. ‘Why would you say that?’
He looks down, uncomfortable. ‘I know Ben Styles,’ he says. ‘We’re on the same course.’
She has no idea who he is talking about.
‘Who’s Ben Styles?’
He gives her a look that suggests disappointment, and then reaches back into the bathroom for a towel that he wraps around his waist. She is dressed by this stage and wants nothing more than to be out of the room.
‘Ben is the dude you were with last week,’ he tells her.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He presses the light switch and the sudden brightness throws her. He is a good-looking boy, she sees, but so young.
He holds up a hand as though to fend her off. ‘Look, don’t get any ideas about claiming lack of consent.’ She sees now that he is scared too. They are like two frightened wild animals that have encountered each other in the dark.
‘All my mates were in the bar tonight,’ he says. ‘They all saw you coming on to me. Most of them saw you with Ben last week.’
He sits down on the bed and now he looks sad rather than scared.
‘I’m not judging,’ he says. ‘I thought we had a good time. But running off in the middle of the night like you’ve done something to be ashamed of?’ He shakes his head. ‘That’s not cool.’
There is nothing else she can say to him. She grabs her bag and leaves the room. When she is outside again in the cool night air, she doesn’t think. Acting entirely on instinct, she runs through the quads of Emmanuel College, out through the porters’ gate and across the city towards Joe’s house.
44
Joe
Joe is dreaming of Ezzy again, but although the figure pursuing him through the streets of Cambridge is wearing Ezzy’s clothes, has Ezzy’s green hair and is demonstrating her unique skill on roller skates, the face in the lamplight has become Bella’s. The knife clenched in her hand is the same, though, and it is dripping with red liquid that he feels sure is his own blood. He runs, hot and breathless, through medieval streets but no matter how many corners he turns, the safety of his own front door eludes him.
He wakes in the early hours of Tuesday morning with a painful thudding in his chest and his skin prickling. This is not at all unusual for him and so he lies still, waiting for his heartbeat to calm and his breathing to slow. In a few seconds, the bad dream will seem more ridiculous than real. He will remind himself of all the security features his mother has installed in and around his flat and conclude, again, that he is better guarded than the crown jewels.
He waits, until he feels secure enough to turn over and try to return to sleep – and hears something. Something that makes his already frayed nerves burn. He remembers the huddle of homeless people at the crematorium, Dora’s insistence that she’d seen a young woman on roller skates at the drive.
He lies still and hears it again. A creaking of iron, and then a gentle thud repeated several times. Someone is climbing up the outside fire escape.