I woke up in my own bed in the small hours of the morning with no recollection of how I got there.
My head pounded with a constant hammering behind my eyes, at once dull and sharp, like a fish hook through my skull. Every part of me ached. I sat up gingerly, pressing my fingertips into my pounding temples, running a palm over my aching ribs.
That’s when I realised how bad things were.
My white shirt was covered in dark crimson blood; a great circle starting at the collar and arching down to my naval, as though I’d vomited terrible scarlet. I touched my face gingerly; it too was crusted in blood.
Lottie, to my surprise, was awake, pulling on a grey Sevenoaks leavers’ hoodie. In the dim light of the moon outside our window, she hadn’t noticed me stir.
‘What’s going on?’ I groaned. A glance at my wristwatch told me it was a little after four.
She turned to look at me. All the colour drained from her face at the sight of the blood, something like understanding settling over her features. I’ll never forget the hoarseness of her voice as she said: ‘They just found a body at the bottom of the North Tower.’
The world froze on its axis.
I was covered in still-wet blood, with no memory of what had happened between the library at midnight and the dorm room at 4 a.m.
Heart palpitating painfully in my chest, I asked, ‘What time did I come back?’ God, I was thirsty. My voice rasped and rattled in my throat.
Lottie stared at me. I couldn’t read her expression; fear or excitement or crow-like curiosity.
‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘You don’t remember?’
‘I had one too many whiskies at the Refectory.’ The lie slipped out of its own accord. I had no idea how many knots it would later tie me in. ‘I fell and hit my face on the way home.’ I gestured to the mess of my shirt. ‘Nosebleed.’
‘Who were you there with?’ Her tone had taken on a careful quality. I thought of her stack of true crime books; did she think she had woken up in one?
When had she woken up, anyway? How had she heard about the body so quickly? Had I missed something?
Or had she been sleepwalking again? The thought brought with it a prickle of suspicion. There was something she wasn’t telling me.
‘Some of my course mates,’ I said evenly. Another bear trap of a lie. ‘Where are you going?’ My measured tone matched hers.
That’s when I noticed the camera looped around her neck, the notepad and pen sticking out of her trouser pocket. Shedidthink she was in a true crime novel.
‘North Tower,’ she said, studying me even more closely. Her hand twitched up to her camera, then seemed to think better of it. ‘I want to know what’s going on.’ Then, more fiercely, ‘We have a right to know.’
Trying to calm the wild horses galloping in my chest, I asked, ‘Do they know who it is yet? The body?’
Please don’t be Harris, please don’t be Harris, please don’t be –
‘Some girl from the fine art programme. I didn’t know her.’
Unable to feel any relief, I tossed the duvet off my legs. ‘I’m coming with you.’
Lottie shook her head. ‘I . . . I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
A beat, in which I tried to figure out the least suspicious course of action.
‘You’re probably right,’ I replied slowly. ‘I should go and clean myself up.’ I lifted my hand to my nose to support the fell-and-hit-my-face story, only to find that it really did hurt. In fact, I was struggling to find a part of me that didn’t.
It was then that Lottie finally caved to her impulses. She grabbed her camera and snapped a picture of me in my blood- soaked clothes.
The flash blinded me temporarily, and by the time my vision cleared, she was gone.
I waited for the hot flare of anger but it never came. Instead there was just a soft, simple, thought:I don’t blame her. I look guilty.
I shook my head in disbelief, almost as though trying to dislodge the anticipated rage, the elastic-band snap. But it never came. All that was there was a calm, rational sense of understanding. The clear head I’d envisaged manifesting.