The It Girl(67)

“I was so fucking thankful, you know?” he says. His voice breaks on the last word. “It was just April’s sick joke. But later… later on I started to wonder.”

“I’m sorry,” Hannah says. She stands up. “I’m really sorry, Ryan, I shouldn’t have dug all this up. Listen, I should go, I’ve kept you talking too long, and I have to get back to Edinburgh be—” She stops, stumbling over the last words. Before Will gets home is what she had been going to say, but she doesn’t want to admit to Ryan that she’s here without Will’s knowledge. “Before rush hour,” she finishes uncomfortably.

Ryan nods.

“Fair enough. Look, take care of yourself, okay? And if you want any baby clothes—”

He waves a hand at the living room, which is strewn with the plastic detritus left by two small girls.

“As you can see we’re due a clear-out. And I don’t think Bella’s up for any more kids.”

“Thanks,” Hannah says. She smiles. It’s a relief doing so after the seriousness of the last half hour. “I’d like that. And you take care of yourself too.”

“I will,” he says. He wheels with her to the door and unlatches it. Then, on the doorstep, he beckons her to lean over, and somewhat to Hannah’s surprise, he plants a kiss on her cheek. His lips are soft, and his beard even softer, much gentler than Will’s occasional three-day stubble when he forgets to shave. “You didn’t deserve this, Hannah Jones. Remember that, a’right?”

“I’ll remember,” Hannah says. She swallows, finding her eyes suddenly hot with unshed tears. “Thank you, Ryan. You—”

She doesn’t know what she wants to say.

You’re a good man.

You’re a better friend than either Will or I had any right to expect.

You didn’t deserve this either.

But she doesn’t find the words. Instead she just kisses him back, his beard soft beneath her lips, and then she picks up her bag and heads off towards the train.





BEFORE


When Hannah awoke the next day it was slowly, painfully, crawling up from dark dreams of being chased and hunted down and beaten. As she came back to consciousness, she became aware that the aching muscles and bruised bones were not part of the dream but real. She was still fully clothed under the covers, and she could feel the crusted blood on the inside of her thigh, and the pull of the denim where it had dried into the cut. There were grazes on her cheekbones and chin where her face had been ground into the gravel, and every joint seemed to have seized up overnight.

For a long time she simply lay there, blinking and trying to come to terms with what had happened and what she could do about it, but then she became aware of something else: the unmistakable sounds of sex coming from April’s room.

All of a sudden Hannah knew that she couldn’t stay there, listening, wondering if it was going to be Will, bruised lips in a sheepish grin, sidling out of Hannah’s doorway, or someone completely different slipping out unseen. She didn’t want to know. Either possibility was unbearable.

Instead, she grabbed her towel and a change of clothes and headed out of the flat down to the landing where the bathroom was.

Beneath the hot water, the cuts and abrasions were even more painful, the bruises on her skin even more clearly delineated. She had to do something. She had to say something. It didn’t matter, surely, that she had been climbing a wall. She wasn’t trespassing—she was a member of the college, who didn’t deserve to be assaulted.

But who could she tell? Obviously not the other porters—though they were supposed to be the first resort for immediate security threats. And not the Master. Hannah had never met him, but she had seen him at the top table at formal dinners and attended his address at the beginning of term, and she couldn’t imagine going to such an austere, remote figure with a problem like this.

Which left… Dr. Myers…? She couldn’t think who else she could approach.

For a while, she stood under the stream of hot water considering the problem, trying to imagine bringing it up with Dr. Myers, trying out the words in her head. He assaulted me? No, that wasn’t quite right. That sounded more… sexual than she wanted it to, though the memory of Neville’s crotch pressing into her backside was still uneasily vivid in her mind.

He tackled me. That was closer to the mark. But did it sum up the seriousness of what had happened? Did it convey the real fear she had experienced, feeling Neville’s crushing weight on hers, his arm on the back of her neck, his body pinning her to the gravel as he ground her face into the dirt?

He hurt me.

No. That had the pathetic ring of a child in a playground scrap, even though it was true.

At last, Hannah gave up and turned off the tap, toweling herself gingerly, trying not to open up the partially healed scrapes and grazes from last night. She got dressed and then stood, uncertainly, her towel and pajamas in one hand, her wash bag in the other.

What she should do—the logical thing to do—was go back up to her room and drop off her things before heading to breakfast. But she couldn’t face it. April’s visitor might still be there and Hannah wasn’t sure which would be more awkward, confronting April in a potential betrayal of Will, or bursting in on their makeup sex and having to deal with Will’s concern and pity over her bruised face.