‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Rob.
‘It does.’ He was insistent. ‘Whether or not we tell the police, it still matters who she was. She was a real person, a human being, and her name was Emily Barratt.’ He left, not waiting to see Rob’s humble nod to the truth of what Matt had just said.
Natalie lay back again, not listening to the resumed conversation between Rob and Alex. She wanted Rob to leave too, to leave them on their own so they could just be together and deal with it together, her and Alex. She didn’t want to be part of a group anymore.
She looked up at the poster with its credits running along the bottom - Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva - imagining their own names up there instead, and now this newcomer, introducing Emily Barratt as the victim. That wasn’t just a name on a film poster though.
Like Matt had said, Emily Barratt was a real person and now she was dead. They’d never known her but their own lives would never be the same as a result. Natalie had no idea how big the difference would be. She hoped against hope that it might be slight, the whole business reduced within months to a distant and unclear memory.
Yet she was full of foreboding, and most of it centred around these people who’d been her friends for the past two and a half years, their weaknesses suddenly apparent. Matt - too noble, desperate to fall on his sword. Rob - too impetuous. Will - too weak and, most of the time, too drunk. All of them were a risk when it came to something as serious as this.
Alex was the only one who was strong, grounded, and maybe because of that, she should have been happy to see him with the others, but she wasn’t. She wanted to be alone with him, for them to close themselves off from everything outside and pretend like this had never happened. She wanted Alex alone.
3
Will was sitting in the kitchen eating cereal. It was turned nine now and the rush was over. Three or four people had been in and out, none of them saying anything to him. He’d been in the same college with these people for three years, knew their names and who they were. They probably knew who he was too.
But they didn’t know each other, and Will was one of those people recognized by everyone as in the college but not of the college. Everyone made choices and that had been his, a good choice too, but this morning he almost wished he’d taken a different path two and a half years before.
And this morning he could have used some idle conversation with these people who lived around him. Instead, he sat over his cereal for forty-five minutes, taking a mouthful, concentrating on it, chewing slowly, taking his time. For a few days now his nerves had been jangling up on themselves and for some reason he found eating cereal relaxing.
He’d finished and was sitting there with the empty bowl in front of him when Lorna came in. He didn’t know her either but he knew she studied art and that her name was Lorna. Sometimes when he came in at night or in the early hours her light would still be on and door open but he’d never knocked, never called in.
She was probably attractive but she was some kind of gothic hippy, hair dyed black, clothes to match - she looked like Morticia Addams. Actually, he quite liked the way she looked but he’d just never had the guts to say so to anyone. He liked that she was willing to look different, stand out.
She did what the others had done, walked in and acted like he wasn’t there. He wasn’t sure if she’d thrown her eyes upwards at the sight of him. Maybe it bugged her even to have him in the kitchen while she was in there. She went to the fridge and got milk.
She was about to walk out again when Will decided to risk it and speak.
‘Hi.’ His voice sounded too quiet and he cleared his throat and repeated himself. She’d heard him the first time though. She turned and stood there holding the bottle of milk and looking at him, part quizzical, part hostile.
‘Hello,’ she said, noncommittal. At least she’d said something. At least she’d acknowledged that he was there. They were the first words the two of them had ever exchanged.
‘I’m Will.’
She looked stunned, her face paralysed in surprise for a second before she laughed incredulously and said, ‘It’s a bit late for introductions, don’t you think?’ He didn’t respond and she gave him a suspicious look and said, ‘Let me guess, you’ve fallen out with your little group of elite friends so you’ve decided to finally fraternize with the untouchables in your own college. That would explain why you’ve been hanging around the kitchen the last few days.’
He shook his head. He hadn’t fallen out with anybody. It was difficult to be with the others at the moment, the feeling all the time that they were sizing him up, almost as if they were expecting him to crack. But he hadn’t fallen out with them, and would never. They’d always stuck by him and he’d do the same.