Almost Home: A Novel

  chapter EIGHTEEN

  IT IS COOL and cloudy as I step out of the train station at Cambridge, a sharp breeze blowing stray newspapers and other debris across the pavement. I do not bother walking this time but climb into one of the taxis that waits at the front of the station. “Trinity Hall,” I say to the driver.

  As I sink back in the seat, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the rearview mirror. My hair, which I slept on while damp at Sebastian’s, flares wildly from my head in all directions. If only I could shower again, or at least throw on a baseball cap. Of course I never would have done that as a student; it would have been too American, and I was always trying to fit in. I remember once as I stood by the side of the rugby pitch, watching a game, Ollie Smith, an arrogant kid from Leeds, had sidled up beside me. “Nice trainers,” he sneered pointing at my white Reeboks in a tone that implied no British student would be caught dead wearing those at a social occasion, even a sporting match. I walked away, eyes burning. I had forgotten I was not like the other students. But in that moment the differences came rushing back and I knew I would always be a foreigner.

  But the next day after we rowed, the crew all came to dinner wearing white athletic shoes. “I don’t understand…” I said.

  “I overheard what that ass Ollie said to you,” Chris replied. I could hear the anger in his voice. “That which you do to the least of my brethren…”

  “…you do to me,” I finished for him, touched by the show of solidarity. “Thanks guys.”

  Chris, I think now, as the cab draws close to the city center. He has always been such a loyal friend. Sebastian has to be wrong about him. But why didn’t he tell me about losing his job? I lean my head against the back of the seat, rubbing my eyes and puzzling over all that has happened. If someone had told me twenty-four hours ago that I would be suspicious of Chris and have feelings for Sebastian, I would never have believed it. Everything is muddled now. Not to mention the fact that Vance is dead and Duncan is still missing. The answers, it seems, are more elusive than ever.

  I pay the driver and make my way on foot through the market square to the end of Trinity Lane, where Trinity Hall sits. Despite its central location, it is easy to miss, a simple arched doorway in a stone building sandwiched by two of the larger colleges. Inside, its ivy-covered, brick-walled courtyards are textbook Cambridge. I hesitate by the entranceway to the first courtyard, trying to visualize the address Jared scrawled, to remember where the professors’ offices are located. For a second I consider asking in the Porter’s Lodge but I do not want to risk drawing attention to myself.

  Instead I start around the courtyard, studying the nameplate beside the first doorway. But there are no names that sound close to Ang. I move to the next door, scanning the list. Anxiety rises in me. I could have sworn Jared’s notes gave a college courtyard address, but what if I am wrong? His office could be at the remote Sedgwick site, where the history department is located. I start toward the next doorway. The third name listed is M. Ang. I open the door and start up the stairway that leads to the fellows’ rooms on the second and third floors. He might not be here, I remind myself. And even if he is, he might not remember anything from the conference or have kept his papers. At the second-floor landing, I walk toward the doorway to room three. But the space beside the door is an empty square, the drywall rough where something was taken down and not repaired.

  I knock on the door, which is ajar. “Hello?”

  “Come in,” a female voice says. I push the door open. Inside, a plain, fiftyish woman stands behind a large wood desk, sorting stacks of books. Sunlight streams through the stained-glass window behind her, illuminating the dust mites that dance through the air. Overflowing bookshelves climb to the ceiling. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Professor Ang. Is this the right office?” She cocks her head, staring at me in a way that seems to warrant an explanation. “I’m a former student of his,” I lie. “Back in town and hoping to talk to him about a project we worked on together.”

  “Oh dear,” she says, setting down the books and leaning against the desk chair for support. “You haven’t heard, have you? Then again, I suppose you wouldn’t have, being from America and all. Professor Ang passed away.”

  “He’s dead?” Her eyes widen at the abruptness of my question. “I’m sorry, I mean, I’m just so surprised.” I force sadness into my voice. “What happened? I mean when did he…?” I choose my words carefully in case there is a long-term illness I should have known about.

  “About five weeks ago. It was a car accident while on holiday in France.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Easy, I tell myself. He died in a car accident. There’s nothing suspicious about that. But my mind races, riddled with paranoia after all that has happened. Is it coincidence that Ang died now?

  “If only he hadn’t gone.” The woman’s voice grows heavy with sadness. “The professor didn’t even want to go, you know,” she adds. “He was never one for travel. But his wife insisted.” Her last words drip with disdain. Was this woman more than a secretary to Professor Ang, a lover maybe, or simply an assistant with an unrequited crush?

  “How dreadful,” I murmur. I weigh the information, considering whether it has value to me, and decide that it does not. “I was actually coming to see the professor to find a paper I worked on with him any number of years ago. I don’t suppose you’d still have his files. Maybe I could look for it…”

  “I’m afraid I don’t. I sent all of his personal effects to his family in Exeter last week. All that’s left are the books. College insisted that I get the office ready for a fellow they’ve brought in to teach for him.” Her tone makes clear that the room should have been left as a shrine indefinitely. “You could try the library, though. They kept a catalog of the faculty’s published works.”

  Only this one was never published. “Thank you anyway.”

  I make my way back down the steps, then out of the college. On the street, I stop again, my shoulders slumping. Ang is dead, and so are my chances of getting the paper, at least from him. What now? I could just get on the next train back to London. Cambridge, it seems, is a dead end again. I start toward King’s College chapel, set against an ominous gray sky. It looked so imposing just a few days ago. Then I feared its wrath, the questions it seemed to ask. Now I am demanding answers. But its grandeur seems to conspire against me, standing sentinel to obscure the truth I came to learn. I think of Sarah, lying in her hospital bed, of Vance, who was almost certainly killed for knowing too much. Of Jared. Anger rises white hot in me, boils and bubbles over. There is more to be learned here.

  I turn and head north toward Lords, uncertain exactly of where I am going or what I am going to do. Halfway down Jesus Lane, I stop, looking toward Malcolm Street. A hand seems to grip my throat. From the top of the block I see it: Jared’s house. No different than the rest, a dilapidated row house, three stories high, subdivided into rooms for a half-dozen or so students with shared bathrooms and a kitchen. Slowly, as if against my own will, I walk toward it. Then, standing in front of the house, I take a step forward, peer down. My throat tightens. Through a low gate, a set of steps leads to Jared’s ground-floor flat. I turn away and instead climb the stairs to the porch and study the door buttons that ring to each of the flats, names scrawled beside each on scraps of paper, covered by the tape that holds them in place. I run my finger across the bottom piece of paper: How many layers would I have to peel back to find Jared’s name?

  My thoughts are interrupted by a loud creaking sound. I leap backward as the front door swings open unexpectedly. “Hallo!” a cockney voice booms. A stout, round-faced woman in a flower print dress and apron appears in the doorway, holding a mop. “Can I help?” I struggle to catch my breath. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” the woman adds. “Thought it was one of the students forgotten their key.”

  Nettie, I recall. Though she was considerably thinner then, and her hair more brown than its present gray, I still recognize the wo
man as the same one who had been the bedder for this end of Malcolm Street, cleaning the student houses. “Hi, Nettie,” I manage at last. “You probably don’t remember me, but I’m—”

  “I know who you are,” Nettie interrupts. “One of the students, or used to be anyway. You used to go with the young fella in the basement.” She presses her lips together. “One who died.”

  A lump forms in my throat. “Yes. My name is Jordan.”

  “That’s it, Jordan!” she exclaims, as though she remembered on her own. “Nice to see you. Come on in.” I hesitate, staring through the doorway behind her. I had not imagined actually going into Jared’s house. But Nettie has turned and waddled down the hallway. As I step into the dilapidated foyer, a familiar smells fills my nostrils. It is the scent of old heaters and burned toast, of damp carpet and too many people living in too close a space, unchanged by the years. Nettie sets down her mop against the wall, wiping her hands on her apron. “I was just about to make myself a spot of tea. Would you like some?”

  I start to say no. It is only a matter of time before Maureen finds me missing and figures out where I have gone. I have to keep moving. But it may be worth asking Nettie some questions. And the kitchen is downstairs, beside Jared’s old room. “That would be lovely.”

  I follow Nettie down to the kitchen. “What brings you back here?” she asks as she fills the electric kettle.

  Good question. I pause uncertainly, as a dozen answers flood my mind. “I’m writing a book about my time at Cambridge,” I say at last, choosing an outright lie.

  Nettie smiles widely over her shoulder. “Ooh, will it be one of them romance stories?”

  I fight the urge to laugh. “Maybe. But right now I’m just doing some research. Trying to remember things. And I was wondering if I could take a look around.”

  Nettie purses her lips. “I suppose so. You’ll want to see your fella’s room, I suspect?”

  “Please.” I hold my breath as she processes my request, remembering how the Master might have told the staff not to cooperate with Chris and me.

  Nettie waves her arm. “Go ahead. Have a look while the water’s boiling. Room’s unlocked and the boy who lives there now won’t be home for hours.” I walk out of the kitchen to the door beside it. Through a new coat of white paint, I can still see the scratch where Jared dented the door, trying to move a chair. Taking a deep breath, I turn the handle and step inside. Tears spring to my eyes. It is someone else’s room now, adorned with posters of heavy metal rock groups, photos of students drinking and making obscene gestures at the camera, things that Jared never would have hung. But the furniture is the same, the tiny single bed, the spartan desk and dresser by the window. Even the smell, a damp basement odor, is unchanged.

  I spin around slowly, then drop to the floor. A thousand memories race through my mind, nights spent whispering and making love in the narrow bed, waking up in Jared’s arms. An image pops into my head, different from all the rest. It was May 3, my twenty-second birthday, and Jared surprised me with breakfast in bed, fresh-cut melon and strawberries. Afterward, he drew me into his arms, kissing me even more urgently than usual. When he put himself inside, I was surprised to feel him not wearing a condom. We’d been so fastidious to that point, despite the fact that I was on the Pill. He only planned to stay that way for a minute, I know, just to feel what it was like. But the indescribable closeness, the warmth of his skin against my insides paralyzed us both. Then he gave a slight shake of his head, an apology for what he could no longer hold back, and as he began to move toward the inevitable finish, I knew it was too late, that in that moment something between us changed forever.

  Enough, I shudder, shaking the image from my mind. I only have a minute or two before Nettie calls me for tea. I stare up through the window to the street above, trying to piece together those last few weeks, sifting through the information I gathered, trying to get inside Jared’s head. He was frustrated that no one would listen to him about the Nazi money. (Nazi money—the concept still seems far-fetched, too impossibly remote for the real world.) Scared enough to buy one-way plane tickets. I remember then the long walks he’d taken at night, the haunted look in his eyes after he returned, his heart racing as though it would burst through his chest. Who was chasing you, Jared?

  My eyes drop to the desk beneath the window, a simple wooden plank on four metal legs. It is bare and neat now, not like when Jared covered it with so many books and papers you could barely find the bottom. Something on the underside catches my eye. A dark spot, too symmetrical and defined to be a knot in the wood. I crawl closer to get a better look. Grasping the edge of the desk, I feel along the bottom. It is not in the wood, I realize, as my hand brushes against a hard, raised object, but something attached to it: a key held fast by tape. I pry away the tape and pull out a small key. What could it possibly open? It is probably just a bike key.

  Hearing footsteps outside the door, I stand up quickly and shove the key in my pocket. A moment later, Nettie pushes open the door, holding two steaming mugs in her hand. “Tea’s on,” she announces. “If you’ve had enough time here.”

  “Yes,” I reply quickly. “Thank you for letting me have a look. For old times’ sake.” I follow her back to the kitchen. It is a classic shared student kitchen with cheap white appliances and countertops, and notes reminding the others to wash their own dishes and not borrow milk without asking stuck to the front of the half-sized refrigerator. I pull out a plastic chair from the table and sit. “Nettie, can I ask you something?”

  She carries milk and sugar to the table and sits down. “Certainly, lovey. What is it?”

  “Were you here the day Jared was found?”

  Nettie tilts her head, stirring sugar into her cup. “You askin’ for your book?”

  “No.” I swallow a mouthful of tea. “I’m asking for me.”

  “The morning he was found, I was. I come in and the police are everywhere. Don’t touch nothing, they told me. I figured after a few days they would want me to pack up his stuff and send it to his folks. But the next day, I came in and it was all gone.”

  “Did you clean the room then?”

  Nettie shakes her head. “It was already done. Looked as if no one had lived there.”

  Nettie was, I knew, the only bedder for the house. “Do you know who cleaned it?”

  “Me, I didn’t ask. I was glad for the help, what with looking after six houses and all. But it wasn’t any of the other girls neither, I can tell you that.”

  A fist seems to tighten around my stomach. “How about before he died—do you remember anything unusual?”

  “No, he was always right quiet. Never any girls here at all except for you.” I smile inwardly. “So sad that he passed away.”

  I can tell she has nothing more to offer. I finish my tea and carry my cup to the sink. “Thanks, Nettie.”

  “It was just tea.”

  “For the conversation, I mean.” I reach over and pat her hand. “For remembering Jared.”

  “It’s good to see you.” I start up the stairs. “Wait,” she calls. I turn around to face Nettie below. “There’s one other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, it’s just that I didn’t see Jared that often. He wasn’t one of those lazy student types, y’know. Not like some, always laying about and sleeping late, making it hard to clean. He was always out before I got here, what with his studies and rowing and all.” Nettie twists the front of her apron uneasily. “I just think that maybe you might want to talk to someone who saw him more than me, like Tony.” Nettie blushes.

  I nod. I had almost forgotten about the rumors that the boatman and Nettie were an item. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Tony was running errands this morning but you should be able to catch him at the boathouse just before one. Jared spent a lot of time there, y’know. Tony always spoke so fondly of him. He might have some information.” She pauses, looking at me evenly. “For your book, that is.”

  I know t
hen that she is not fooled by my story. “Thanks, Nettie.” The older woman does not answer, but turns and disappears back into the kitchen.

  I hurry onto the street, considering what Nettie said. I hadn’t thought to talk to Tony. Jared would not have confided in him, and I doubt that the prickly boatman would have noticed anything—he was always sequestered in his shop, preoccupied with fixing broken riggers and smashed bows, replacing oars. But it is worth a try.

  I look at my watch. Nettie said Tony would be back before one but it’s not yet noon. My stomach grumbles, reminding me that I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I walk to the far end of the road where it dead-ends into King Street. The road is best known for its large number of pubs, eight when I was a student, and for the King Street Run, a popular challenge where students attempt to drink a pint at each pub without breaking to go to the loo. I make my way to Saint Radegund’s Free Press, “the Rad” as it was simply known, the smallest of the King Street pubs, located at the end of the road on the left. It was a student favorite, most notably known for its lock-ins: as closing time neared, Perry the barman would ring the bell and shout “half-time” instead of calling for last orders, resulting in loud cheers from the students who could stay and continue to drink well into the night.

  The pub is deserted now, a young woman I do not recognize behind the bar where Perry should be, putting away pint glasses. “Can I order a sandwich?”