I’m still confused by what she said, the conflicting impulses – to invite me to lunch, drink champagne, punt to Grantchester, tell me about her father; and then the warning to stay away from her. Before today, I’d always felt out of my depth in her company, but I saw a vulnerable side this afternoon, held her while she sobbed like a child. I feel more in control, less in need of being warned off. I can look after myself, decide whether to attend Louis’ party tomorrow night. And I still want to go.

  The spring sun was slinking away like a thief, stealing the last of the day’s heat as we approached Queens’ College. I took off my jacket and laid it across Clio’s shoulders. And then I kissed her cheek.

  ‘How much further?’ she whispered, pulling the jacket up around her neck.

  ‘Not far now,’ I said. ‘Mathematical Bridge ahoy.’

  It was a poor attempt at levity, my heart wasn’t in it. I felt depressed, defeated, as if I was returning from battle with a cargo of the wounded.

  I punted us on towards Clare Bridge, and then I stopped in mid-flow, my eyes drawn to an incident unfolding to my right. An ambulance had parked up beneath the twin western towers of King’s College Chapel. It looked incongruous with its blue flashing lights, at odds with the tranquillity of the setting, the manicured lawns, the neo-classical stateliness of the adjacent Gibbs Building. Police officers were in attendance too, cordoning off an area with tape to keep people away. A small crowd stood at a distance, several of them hugging each other.

  ‘Do you know what’s happened?’ I asked as we slipped slowly past another punt.

  ‘Suicide,’ the student said. ‘Jumped off the top of the chapel.’

  I closed my eyes. They wouldn’t have survived. Catastrophic spinal injuries if they had. Life-changing.

  Clio stirred in the bottom of the punt. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, sitting up on the cushions. Her dress was tangled, revealing a brief flash of nipple. I looked away.

  ‘Someone’s jumped off the chapel.’ I nodded in the direction of our most famous landmark.

  ‘My God, how awful,’ she said, looking across at the scene.

  I could see two police cars parked beside the chapel. A second ambulance turned onto the lawns and drew up beside the first one.

  The river seemed to flow even slower, if that were possible, punts drifting listlessly as everyone tried to take in the tragedy, process what must have happened only a few minutes ago. The wind had dropped too. Had anyone seen him jump?

  ‘A guy from Queens’, apparently,’ a student on the riverbank said to no one in particular.

  It was one of those moments when you just know something, feel it in the pit of your stomach, even though the odds of being right are stacked against you. There are hundreds of students at Queens’, but only one had had a row on a bridge this afternoon, leaving another in tears. Only one had warned me about Louis and run off into the night with fear on his face.

  ‘Do you know who?’ I asked.

  The student shook his head. But I knew. I was sure of it. A red-haired student called Aldous.

  19

  Adam holds the phone in his hand, staring at it for a few seconds. He and Tania have had their rows recently, but nothing like that. She was angry. Really angry. Get her out of our house, Adam. He would feel exactly the same if an ex of hers turned up one evening with a bottle of champagne when he was away.

  He looks around the living room, littered with evidence of the life he’s made with Tania. Freddie’s scooter in the corner; Tilly’s soft toys spilling out of a wooden box; a stack of their favourite Motown vinyl records on a shelf above a vintage record player, bought together in Greenwich Market; a rare painting by his dad, which Tania found online at an auction in Truro and gave him for his fortieth birthday; a glittering Rajasthani throw that they bought in India on their honeymoon for too much money after he managed to haggle the price upwards. He doesn’t want to lose this life. Clio is still next door in the kitchen. And it’s raining hard outside. He needs to order her a taxi, but where to? She could hang around the Eurostar terminal, wait for her train in the morning. She said it was early. And the station will be safe, well lit.

  He opens the door and goes back into the kitchen.

  ‘Christ, what are you doing?’ he says, spinning away as if he’s just walked into a pane of glass. Clio has stripped down to her underwear and is ironing her dress in the corner of the kitchen, where the ironing board is still standing from earlier. Before Tania left, he’d pressed Freddie’s and Tilly’s clothes, even one of Tania’s dresses, made a special effort. He hadn’t put the board away, despite Tania always asking him to. There are limits to his domesticity. Now he wishes he had.

  ‘I’m sorry – my dress was still a bit wet and I couldn’t find the tumble-dryer, so I thought I’d iron it.’

  ‘Please, you need to put some clothes on,’ he says, rubbing the sides of his forehead with his hands as if he’s got a splitting headache.

  ‘Don’t be such a prude,’ she says, walking over to him. ‘Hold this for me – try not to crease it.’

  She passes him her dress while she walks back and turns off the iron. He watches as she folds up the ironing board and slips it behind the kitchen door, where it belongs. How did she know? She’s in good shape, wearing expensive, skimpy underwear. French, presumably. He tried to buy Tania lingerie once, soon after they met. The red nylon thong didn’t go down well.

  ‘Done,’ she says, walking back over to him.

  He turns and holds out the dress as if, like the champagne, it too is contaminated. They look at each other for a moment. Her eyes seem different again, like they did at the station. She glances across at the garden windows and then back at him. Is she scared of something? He looks over at the windows too.

  ‘You English are so strange,’ she says, taking the dress and slipping it on.

  ‘I’m going to order a taxi for you,’ he says, walking across to the windows. ‘To drive you to King’s Cross.’

  ‘But my train’s not leaving for another ten hours.’

  Not as early as he’d thought.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ he says.

  He looks out on the garden, the neighbouring houses. He tells himself not to be stupid. There are no cameras out there. No one is watching him. But he draws the curtains just in case. It’s darker than usual, because of the storm, but night has yet to fall.

  ‘Your friends didn’t leave out a key?’ he asks, crossing back over to her. ‘Maybe someone else has got one?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Was Tania unhappy?’ she asks.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She disconnects her iPhone from the dresser. He thought she’d plugged it in by the pinboard. ‘You’re right. I should go.’

  She looks him in the eye before turning away. Her words come as an overwhelming relief, but, if he’s honest, he’s also a tiny bit disappointed. The damage has already been done with Tania and the neighbours. What difference would it make if she stayed over? He checks himself. The champagne has impaired rational thinking, allowed his primal instincts to run the show. He knows it’s the right decision for her to go. She should leave now. But he still can’t shake off the thought that finding Freddie in the park today was too much of a coincidence.

  He’s asked all he can about the puppy and she’s given him an answer. What more can he do? She found Freddie, who’d wandered off. But had he? I was in the sandpit, where Mummy told me to stay. He has to make decisions all the time at work about whether to believe young children. Where does it hurt? How long has there been a pain there? Might there be something else that’s upsetting you? It’s different when it’s your own child. Judgements become blurred. But he’s sure Freddie is telling the truth. His son had no reason to lie.

  ‘Let’s meet up again, properly, in a bar,’ he says. Until he can establish what really happened in the park, he needs to stay in touch with Clio, however risky.

  ‘With Tania too?’ she says.

  ‘I’m not sure that’d be a good idea.’

  ‘I’d like to see her again. Apologise for trying to sleep with her man. We do things a little differently in France. I came just before 7 p.m. but maybe you don’t have cinq à sept here.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘It’s when we have our affairs in France. Our aventures. Between work and dinner. I came to the park today hoping to see you. But when we met, and you told me that you would be alone tonight, I thought—’

  ‘Shall I call an Uber?’ he asks, keen to stop her from elaborating any further. Why had he told her that Tania would be away tonight? He’d also said that he was busy, on call, but she clearly hadn’t believed him.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says, bringing out her phone.

  At least she’s being honest with him now, but it still doesn’t explain Freddie’s version of events. If Clio just came to Greenwich to have an affair with him – flattering but unlikely, particularly after so many years – she could have bumped into him, rather than claimed to have found Freddie.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says five minutes later, standing on the front doorstep. Her Uber has arrived.

  Adam glances both ways to see if anyone is twitching their curtains. A moment later, Lynda from next door walks out onto her porch. Of course she does. Adam gives her a wave, hoping that Clio won’t do or say anything else to destroy what remains of his marriage.

  ‘Thanks for dropping by,’ he says, loud enough for Lynda to hear, as Clio kisses him on both cheeks. It could be worse.

  He watches as the Uber drives her away to her friends’ club, where she said she would go. Does he believe her? She’s not his problem any more. A blue glow from her mobile is visible in the back of the car. She’s texting her clubbing friends. At the bottom of Maze Hill, the new security camera stares down, no doubt clocking the car’s number plate as it passes.

  He’s always wondered what it would be like to be presented with an opportunity to have an affair. Now he knows. A nightmare. Thank God the moment has passed.

  His phone rings. It’s Tania. He breathes out a sigh of relief as he answers. He can tell her that Clio’s gone, that he’s got her out of their house, just as she asked. There’s a brief moment of silence before she speaks, her voice shaking with emotion.

  ‘Why am I looking at a photo of Clio in her underwear in our kitchen?’

  20

  May 1998

  I was shattered by the time I got back here, to my room. Clio and I walked over to Magdalene, her college, after we moored the punt. We didn’t speak much and I wondered if we’d ever be on our own together again.

  ‘See you around,’ she said as she crossed Magdalene Street and entered the main college entrance.

  ‘Maybe tomorrow night,’ I called out from the other side of the road. Meaning at Louis’ party.

  She stopped and turned, as if to say something in reply, but then disappeared through the archway. It was a sad walk back here.

  Just strolling into Tom’s usually cheers me up – I’m still grateful to be one of the few freshers to have been accommodated here in the historic part of the college, close to the old library, rather than across the river in one of the modern halls of residence. But tonight even the famous view down King’s Parade failed to lift my spirits. It was deserted, except for a police car parked up at the far end, outside King’s College.

  I flopped down onto my bed, still troubled by the tragedy that had unfolded on the Backs. It had upset Clio too. She kept staring at the chapel as we punted past, shaking her head in disbelief. Everyone in college was talking about it. Not only did the student die, but he also critically injured a member of the public who was walking past the chapel when he jumped. The student had yet to be named, but I was convinced that I knew already.

  ‘Hey, Adam, come and look at what I’ve found.’

  Ji was standing by my door, temporarily untethered from his usual position in front of his fluorescent turquoise iMac computer. Since I’ve known him, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him outside his room, let alone outside the college. He sits there day and night, playing videogames and trawling the World Wide Web for the macabre. And sometimes playing poker and drinking whisky with other computer-science students from China.

  I rolled off my bed and followed him over to his room, across the corridor.

  ‘You won’t believe what I’ve just seen on rotten.com,’ he said.

  Words that always make me nervous. It’s Ji’s favourite website and he’s always quoting its tagline: When hell is full, the dead shall walk the earth – pure evil since 1996. Personally, I don’t get it, why anyone would want to look at photos of recent car crashes, gory dismemberments, fresh amputees and beheadings, the daily fare offered up by rotten.com. I struggle enough with our full-body dissection classes.

  ‘Do I want to see this?’ I asked as he sat down in front of his computer.

  ‘Watch,’ he said.

  And, to my shame, I watched, appalled, as a blurred human body fell past the ancient buttresses of King’s College Chapel and smacked into a hapless passer-by on the ground. It was the speed of the body’s descent that was so shocking. Like a sack of lead. The exact point of impact was mercifully out of focus.

  ‘Jesus, Ji.’ I turned away, thinking I might throw up.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘What happened here today. Already on rotten.com. Don’t you love the World Wide Web?’

  ‘What kind of a sick person would film something like that?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you want to see it again?’

  ‘No, I don’t, Ji. That’s a video of someone dying. Possibly two people. Why are you even watching it?’

  The video had been shot from long distance and the images were grainy. In truth, Ji has shown me far more graphic footage in the past, but it was still stomach-churning.

  ‘Curiosity?’ Ji said, more thoughtful than usual. ‘Or maybe I’m in denial about death. I am immoral!’ He grinned, raising both fists in the air like a champion boxer.

  ‘Immortal,’ I corrected, although immoral was possibly more apt. I don’t feel comfortable pointing out his mistakes – it’s not as if I can speak a word of Mandarin, let alone quote any Confucian words of wisdom – but he has asked me to correct him, such is his appetite to improve his English.

  ‘Immortal,’ Ji repeated, in his faint American accent. ‘I am immortal.’ This time he didn’t raise his hands but said the words reflectively. ‘Seeing something like this’ – he gestured at the computer – ‘reminds me that death is a reality of life. We all die in the end, some sooner than others.’

  I hadn’t heard Ji talk like that before. Death is more of a presence in my medical world. Every day we’re being taught new ways to postpone it.

  I was about to go back to my room when I stopped and turned. ‘Can you freeze the footage, when he’s falling, and zoom in at all?’ I asked.

  Ji gave me a conspiratorial smile. ‘You wanna see his expression? The face of death?’

  ‘No,’ I said, moving over to his desk again as he started to replay the video. ‘I just want to see the colour of his hair.’

  Ji pivoted to look at me. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Whatever turns you on.’

  ‘It doesn’t turn me on, Ji,’ I snapped, but it was no good trying to explain.

  I watched as he struggled to enlarge the frozen image. It took him a few attempts and then we were looking at a close-up.

  ‘Hard to say,’ Ji said. ‘But if I was a gambling man’ – everyone in college knows he is – ‘I’d say he had red hair.’

  It was definitely Aldous. No question.

  21

  ‘Adam, you’re holding her dress up like the cat that got the cream.’

  ‘I can explain,’ Adam says, sighing, relieved that he’s finally talking to Tania.

  For the past three hours her phone has been going straight to voicemail. And nobody’s picking up her parents’ landline. He’s left four messages with them already – strained, polite, the desperate words of a beleaguered son-in-law. It was hard to convey a sense of urgency without upsetting them or going into lurid details, and he guessed after the first message that Tania would have told them to ignore his calls and go to bed. He can understand her fury, but she needs to let him explain and put her mind at rest. Many times tonight he’s contemplated taking a train down to Wiltshire, but if she’s not answering his calls, she won’t let him into the house. And he doesn’t want to create a scene in front of her parents. Or the children.

  ‘You always can explain,’ she says.

  ‘But first you need to tell me who sent you the photo,’ Adam says. ‘Was it Clio?’

  ‘I really don’t care who sent the fucking photo.’ She’s still cross, more angry than he’s ever heard her. ‘It wasn’t her number, the one she gave me today,’ she continues. ‘A neighbour, presumably, nose pressed to the window after Lynda told the whole street that you had some fucking floozie from uni staying over in her underwear.’

  He thinks back to when Clio was ironing her dress. It was pouring outside. A public footpath runs along one side of their garden. It’s fenced off, but there are several places where you can see over. Their neighbours are notoriously nosy, but no one would have gone round into their garden in that weather, would they? He would have seen them.

  ‘Can you send it to me?’ he says. ‘I need to see where it was taken from.’

  ‘So you can get off on her again?’

  ‘You’re being unreasonable, Tania.’