Of all the hundreds of new students packed into the chapel for Dean Mordue’s inauguration speech, I was the only one taking notes – and feeling extremely self-conscious as I did so. In my flared jeans, retro Adidas sweater and red beanie, I looked like an off-duty children’s TV presenter. None of this helped the feeling of being completely out of place. It wasn’t cool to make an effort back in Sevenoaks, but I suddenly hated the feeling of being so underdressed. I vowed to go clothes shopping with the student loan that had just landed in my bank account. I didn’t own a single item of black clothing, which suddenly seemed like a grievous oversight.
Dean Mordue was finally talking about the North Tower murders, after twenty minutes of pretentious preamble in which she flexed her academic connections with a shamelessness that seemed too much even for Carvell. My pulse quickened when she said Janie’s name, and I started to bullet point the names of the other victims – even though I’d studied the case for so long I knew them by heart.
‘And finally, the North Tower is permanently out of bounds. Any student found breaching this rule will be expelled on the spot.’
As she left the dais, disappointment crested in my chest. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting – for the dean to let slip a clue that would allow me to solve Janie’s murder where the police had failed? – but her speech gave absolutely nothing away.
All I knew was that the chances of me staying away from the North Tower were slim to none. The tower was the reason I was here.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see a text from Dad.
Just got to Wetherby services. If you need me to turn around, speak now or forever hold your peace. (Kidding. I’ll be there with a cup of tea whenever you need me.)
Nerves having settled somewhat since earlier, I popped a sour cherry in my mouth and forced myself to type out a chirpy response.
Thanks, Pops, but I’m ok! Love you! xx
‘Hey, what are you writing?’ asked the girl next to me on the pew, gesturing to my notebook. She wore big tortoiseshell glasses, and had long black hair and more piercings than I’d ever seen on a single human. Floral tattoos crept along the ridges of her shoulders and wound up her neck like wisteria. She wasn’t morbid like Alice, though. Her beaming smile and lilting Mancunian accent were incongruously sunny.
‘Oh, erm, nothing,’ I said, tucking the notebook away into my backpack and adjusting my beanie hat. ‘I’m Lottie, by the way.’
Another wide smile. ‘I’m Nat, and this is my roommate Sara.’ The girl next to her with tight ginger curls and a cream cable-knit cardigan waved theatrically. ‘We’re already obsessed with each other.’
Something childish in me glowered with jealousy. Why couldn’t I have a roommate who described herself as ‘already obsessed’ with me? Why had I been stuck with a literal porcupine?
Come on, Lottie, I told myself.You had about fifteen thousand friends in school. Making new ones shouldn’t be so hard.
‘What are you guys doing after this?’ I asked, forcing the usual pep back into my voice. Carvell would be what I made it, and if I didn’t find a lifelong friend in my roommate, I could easily find more elsewhere. Friends were like Pokémon cards, right? I could just keep collecting them until one was a shiny Charizard?
‘We’re going to get seriously pissed in the Refectory,’ Sara said, smearing garish red lipstick across her mouth using a gemstone-studded pocket mirror covered in smudges. ‘You should come!’
I grinned at her, this little flame-haired Charmander with big potential. ‘I’m in. You can help me round out my birthday in style, yeah?’
‘It’s yourbirthday?’ shrieked Sara, as though I had just announced my intention to climb Kilimanjaro in the nude. ‘Bitch, why didn’t you say?’
This confused me, on account of the fact I had quite literally just said, but I laughed anyway.
‘Right,’ said Nat, following me up the aisle towards the exit. ‘Let’s meet at seven to get you unbelievably fucked up.’
Their friendliness settled the nerves in my belly to a mere flicker. It was going to be fine. I didn’t need my roommate to love me, as long as other people did.
(This was a complete lie. I’d always wanted to be loved by everyone.)
As I left the chapel, I found myself wondering why I hadn’t told Nat and Sara what I was really writing in my notebook. Perhaps it was Dean Mordue’s cautionary words about tragedy tourism and needless speculation, and it was prudent to keep my cards close to my chest. Perhaps I realised how insanely narcissistic it was to think I could solve a complex series of murders when professional investigators couldn’t.
And yet I kept thinking about an idea fromIn Cold Blood, one of my favourite books. The fact that imagination was so powerful that it could open any door and let terror walk right in.
The North Tower murders had gripped the nation. They were on the cover of every newspaper, at the start of every news segment. People discussed theories over hushed pints in bustling pubs, speculated over who had done it and why, or even suggested it was the work of a suicide cult. But when several years passed and the deaths remained unsolved, Carvell slipped out of the cultural zeitgeist the same way the Zodiac Killer did stateside. People just . . . moved on. But I never did.
What if it wasmyimagination that could open this long- sealed door?
What if the fact Janie’s death was so important to me was the key?
And if that key let the terror walk right into my own life, so be it.