Almost Home: A Novel

  A bell rings, jarring me from my thoughts. I jump as a bike speeds by, its rider swerving to avoid hitting me by just inches. I stare at the back of the rider as he passes. There is something about the boy, about the way his hair flares in the wind, that reminds me of Jared. I force myself to look away. I am still standing in the middle of the street. All around me, students pass in every direction, racing to the library or lectures, laughing and talking with friends. I am, I realize, the only one who is standing still.

  I turn away, making my way down Trinity Street, not looking at the other colleges or shops, aiming for the one place I actually need to go. At the top of Jesus Lane, I stop again. I am almost there. The rock in my stomach grows. But it is too late to turn back now. I force myself to keep walking. The road curves slightly and the high wall breaks, revealing a simple iron gate, the entrance to Lords College. My breath catches. A whiff of honeysuckle, carried on the wind from a garden unseen, wafts underneath my nose, hurling me back through the years. On the other side of the gate runs the Chimney, a walled passageway several hundred feet long, dozens of bicycles propped in the gravel on either side of the path. It ends at a brick tower, three stories high, crowned with a crest of red and black bearing three roosters.

  “Oh,” I cry aloud, bringing my hand to my mouth. My eyes fill, begin to burn. I wasn’t prepared for the sameness of it all.

  Beneath the archway, a figure crouches, tying a shoelace. Jared, I think for a second. But then the figure straightens and I see that it is Chris. Wiping my eyes, I start toward him. A flicker of surprise crosses his face as I near, as though he did not really expect me to show. Then, as I step through the archway, his eyes flood with relief and the haggard expression that lines his face breaks. “Jordie,” he says, bending to kiss my cheek. I do not answer but stare over his shoulder into First Court, transfixed by the familiar brick buildings that line three sides of the square, the horse sculpture on the manicured lawn in the center. “As if we never left, eh? How are you holding up?”

  “Fine,” I manage, forcing my gaze away from the courtyard.

  “Good.” His eyes travel from my face to my khaki jacket and jeans, lingering a split second too long on my fitted white t-shirt. “Wait here for a moment, okay?” Before I can answer, Chris turns and enters the rounded doorway on the left side of the arch that leads to the Porter’s Lodge, the office from which most of the administrative details of the college are handled. I watch through a narrow-paned window as Chris confers at the counter with a gray-haired porter I do not recognize. Behind them, a rugby game crackles on a black-and-white television.

  I turn away. Opposite the Porter’s Lodge, a low chalkboard runs the length of the arch, crammed with scrawled announcements of rowing schedules and rugby practices, the starting time for mass in the chapel. It is the beginning of the May term, I realize, resetting my brain to the long-forgotten academic calendar. The school year is organized around eight-week terms: Michaelmas in the autumn, the Lent or Easter term running January through March, and finally the May term, which actually ends in June. I remember each as a sprint, a flurry of athletic and social activity, building to a fever pitch, then four weeks’ holiday to recover before the next one began.

  A group of students, unfathomably young, passes by me into First Court, their laughter ringing out, echoing off the brick buildings as they walk the path that lines the grass, red-and-black striped college scarves flapping self-importantly behind them. One of the students is talking animatedly on a mobile phone, discussing plans for the evening. We did not have those when I was here. Most students did not have phones at all, using instead the pay phones underneath the bar stairs. Among ourselves, we communicated by paper, notes scrawled hastily on scraps and put in pigeonholes, the narrow slots in the mailroom outside the Porter’s Lodge. The notes, confirming plans, proposing dinners and parties, formed a tapestry of daily college life, and in the beginning I saved every scrap of paper, planning to intersperse them with the many photographs I’d taken of dinners and parties and such in an album someday. Then the sirens came in the night. I left with one suitcase, the notes and photographs and all of my other belongings still in my room, as though I had only gone for a visit to the States. As if I was coming back. What became of those things? I picture my room on Lower Park Street, frozen in time. Did the bedders throw everything out? No, Sarah would have taken care of it. She would not have allowed a stranger to go through my belongings. I imagine her left behind to deal with it all, sorting through my clothes, taking them to the charity shop. And what of Jared’s things? Someone must have packed them up, sent them home. I make a mental note to ask Chris.

  I stare after the students as they disappear through the archway at three o’clock, which leads to Cloister Court, one of the half-dozen courtyards that make up the interior of the college. Do they know about Jared, about what happened here? Most, I assume, do not. The rowers might—there is a plaque down by the boathouse, Sarah told me once, purchased with donations made in his memory. I remember thinking that there should have been more, a section of the college named after him, or at least a scholarship fund. But Jared was not rich like Chris; his family could not have championed such a cause. I left and so did the others; within a few years, anyone who knew Jared was gone.

  No, it is as if he vanished, his memory disappeared like smoke. It is largely, I know, because of the circumstances of his death. If Jared had died after a brave struggle with illness, the story would have been touted. But an inexplicable drowning was unseemly. The college would have tried to minimize the tragedy, fearful of the effect on alumni donations and admissions. There were surely whispers among the students in the years immediately following our departure, urban legends about what transpired. Now it was reduced to a footnote, a piece of college lore.

  A moment later, Chris reemerges. “Let’s go.” He walks back out of the archway into the Chimney, kneeling in front of one of the bikes that leans against the wall.

  “I don’t understand,” I say, as he unlocks the bike and steers it in my direction.

  “I thought this would be the easiest way to go.”

  “Go where?” I demand, taking the handlebars. I had not previously thought to question Chris about his plan. But, I realize now, I have no idea what we are doing.

  “We have an appointment at the medical examiner’s office at three-thirty. The police were no help at all, claimed their file was sent away years ago. But my cousin knows someone at the hospital who got the medical examiner to agree to talk to us.” He gestures to the bikes. “I arranged to borrow these to get us to Addenbrooke’s.”

  “Oh.” I do not know why I am surprised. Cambridge students go everywhere by bicycle and Addenbrooke’s Hospital is on the outskirts of town. I was never the strongest rider, though, and I haven’t ridden in years. I study the bike. Old and rusty, it looks as though it could have been leaning against the wall since the last time I was here. I am annoyed. If Chris had told me where we were going, I could have just taken a cab from the station to Addenbrooke’s and avoided all of this.

  I follow Chris and wheel the bike down the Chimney and through the gate. “Ready?” he asks when we reach the street. I nod, putting my bag in the basket and climbing on the bike, trying not to wobble as we pedal east along Jesus Lane, away from the city center.

  As we reach the roundabout at Maids Causeway, I catch a flash of green out of the corner of my eye. To the left sits Midsummer Common, the river and boathouses just behind it. My eyes travel instinctively to the Lords boathouse. The bike begins to wobble beneath me, swerving into traffic. A car horn blares. Chris brakes hurriedly, rolling back to me and pulling me onto the sidewalk. “You all right?”

  “I-I think so,” I manage. “It’s just that…”

  He follows my gaze toward the river. “Did you go?” I know he is asking whether I went to the river earlier that day, down the towpath to Jared’s grave. I shake my head. “Me either.” He clears his throat, his hand heavy and warm on my should
er. “Let’s just get to the coroner, shall we?” I do not answer but start pedaling again, forcing myself to look straight ahead.

  Addenbrooke’s Hospital sits on the southern edge of the city, a chunky collection of adjoining 1970s-style block buildings set among the more modern structures of the biomedical campus that have gone up around it. I was never here as a student; I only glimpsed it from the motorway, heard references from Andy and the other medical students who came here for rounds. Now I follow Chris to an overflowing bike rack, then dismount so he can chain the two bikes together.

  We do not speak as we enter the hospital. The corridors are a drab white, lined with gurneys and medical equipment, and permeated by a metallic smell that reminds me of my own hospital stay a year earlier. Chris leads me down one corridor and then another to an elevator without hesitation, as if he has been here before. As we descend to the basement, I imagine the coroner’s office, half-dissected bodies lying on tables. But we reach a door to an office and as Chris knocks I am relieved to see through the glass window that it is just a desk and chairs, no corpses in sight. “Come in.” Inside, a petite Asian woman, her hair short and gray-flecked, sits behind an old metal desk piled high with papers. “You must be Mr. Bannister.” The woman rises slightly and extends her hand.

  “Chris,” he says, shaking her hand. “And this is Jordan.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Rachel Peng, the deputy coroner.” The woman gestures to the chairs. “Have a seat.”

  “We really appreciate your seeing us,” Chris says.

  “Anything for your cousin,” she replies. “I understand that you wanted to have a look at the file for a man named Jared Short.”

  “Yes.”

  Dr. Peng lowers her bifocals to stare at us. “May I ask why?”

  Chris clears his throat. “Jared was a friend of ours in college,” he begins and I can hear him choosing his words carefully. “He drowned.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. Peng replies.

  “And at the time, we were too young and upset to really understand what happened. Now,” he pauses, “we’re just trying to get some closure.”

  “Typically, you would need a release from the family or a police authorization,” Dr. Peng says. Hope rises in me. Perhaps we will have to leave without seeing the report. She continues, “But your cousin has been a good friend and I owe him more than one favor, so…” She reaches across her desk and picks up a file. “Here it is. I pulled the file this morning but I haven’t had the chance to review it. If you’ll just give me a second…” She opens the cover. “The report indicates that the body, I’m sorry, I mean Mr. Short, was found in the river and that he had been there about three hours judging by the decomposition of the, I mean, his condition.” She looks up. “I hope you’ll forgive my crudeness. I don’t often deal with the families and, well, tucked away in the lab all day, one can get a bit clinical.” She returns to studying the report. “There was some alcohol in his blood…”

  “How much?” I interrupt.

  “About .10.” I nod. Chris was right; Jared was drinking at the ball, enough that he shouldn’t have been driving a car, but not enough to make him fall in the river and drown. “There was no evidence of trauma to the body,” Dr. Peng continues. Her forehead crinkles. “Hmm, this is odd.”

  Chris leans forward. “What?”

  “The autopsy photographs are missing.” My stomach flips. Somewhere in my rational mind I knew that there was an autopsy, that the nature of his death would have required it. That is the very reason we are here. But hearing it now, the notion that such things were done to Jared, that there are pictures, is almost more than I can handle.

  “They would typically be in the file?” Chris asks.

  “Yes. I’m not sure why they’re missing.” She holds up the file to show the empty page where only two pieces of tape remain. “I’m sure there is a duplicate set in the file in London. Would you like me to request it?”

  “Please,” Chris replies. “That would be great. If you could send the file to Jordan at the American embassy in London, that would probably be easiest.”

  I cringe; I do not want to look at the pictures. “May we see the file?”

  Dr. Peng nods and passes it across the table. I pick it up. Inside, there is a three-page report, the handwriting slanted and faded with age. I run my finger over the paper. Whoever wrote this touched Jared.

  Chris leans close, reading over my shoulder. “Dr. Antony,” he reads, then looks up. “Who’s that?”

  “My predecessor. He’s the one who performed the autopsy.”

  “Does he still work here?”

  Dr. Peng shakes her head. “Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack about eight years ago.”

  I skim the handwriting. A twenty-two-year-old male, it reads. Six-foot two, one hundred ninety pounds. There are several paragraphs of medical terminology that I cannot comprehend. “I’m sorry,” I say, handing the folder back to Dr. Peng. “But I don’t understand this.”

  She scans the first page. “It says here that your friend was found approximately three hours after he died, and that the body was largely intact, consistent with someone who had been in the water for that period of time. That the toxicology report found he had a blood alcohol level of .10 and no drugs in his system. He…” Dr. Peng pauses as she flips to the second page of the report.

  “What is it?” Chris asks. Dr. Peng does not respond but raises her hand, then turns to the third page. A moment later she moves back to the second. Her forehead crinkles again, deeper this time. “Is something wrong?” Chris demands. I can hear the impatience in his voice. I put my foot on his, pressing down, warning him not to push too hard.

  “Can you tell us what the rest of the report says?” I ask gently.

  “It’s nothing,” Dr. Peng replies quickly. But her expression has changed, her eyes now guarded. “It must be a mistake.”

  I lean forward. “Dr. Peng, please.”

  Her hands tremble as she closes the file. “I shouldn’t have done this, let you see the file without authorization. I could lose my job.”

  “We’re not going to get you into trouble, we promise,” I reply. “We won’t tell anyone we’ve been here. We just want to know what it says.”

  She hesitates, then clears her throat. “Look, if anyone asks me, I’m going to deny that we ever met. Dr. Antony was my mentor and he was a great pathologist. But something isn’t right with this report.”

  “How so?” Chris demands. I press harder on his foot.

  “Well, here.” Dr. Peng leans across the desk, holding up the folder and pointing to the front page. “The cause of death given is drowning, like you said.” She flips to the second page. “But here, it says that there was no water in the subject’s lungs at the time of the autopsy.”

  A chill runs up my spine. “What does that mean?” But even as I ask, some part of me already knows the answer.

  “It means that your friend Jared didn’t drown. He was dead by the time he hit the water.”

  chapter SEVEN

  JARED DIDN’T DROWN.

  Dr. Peng’s words echo in my ears as I lean against the side of the hospital building, not moving. A few minutes earlier, when it was clear that the visibly shaken coroner was not going to say anything further, we hurriedly thanked her and left her office.

  “She said that Jared didn’t drown,” Chris says, echoing my unspoken thoughts. His voice does not register surprise.

  “But she also said it was probably a mistake,” I point out.

  “Either there was water in Jared’s lungs or there wasn’t. Seems like a pretty simple call, especially for an experienced pathologist like Dr. Antony.” He gestures with his head toward the bike rack. “Come on.”

  I follow him, staring out across the motorway at the fields as he unlocks the bikes. The clouds have thinned now, sunlight shining through, belatedly warming the day. As we walk to the edge of the road, Dr. Peng’s words play over and over again in my mind. It is imposs
ible to believe. For so long, the manner of Jared’s death was a fact, part of the tapestry that made up my life: I studied at Cambridge and had a boyfriend there who drowned. Now someone had ripped that piece out, leaving jagged threads, a blank space where it had been.

  I straddle the bike, then turn to Chris behind me. “Even if the coroner’s report is right, even if Jared didn’t drown, then how…?” I ask, my throat dry and scratchy. “How did he die?”

  Chris shakes his head. “You’re asking the wrong question. The question is not, how did he die? The question is, who killed him?”

  Killed him. The words slam into my stomach like a rock. “Just because he didn’t drown in the river doesn’t mean he was…” I cannot finish the sentence.

  “Killed? You’re joking, right?” he asks, voice rising. His eyes burn. “He didn’t drown, Jordan. We know that. So what do you think happened, Jared died and then happened to fall into the river on his own?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I stammer. “I just think we’re jumping to conclusions.”