Joseph walked across the grass. The sun was hot on his right cheek. There was no traffic on the Chesterton Road, and only a couple of young men in white trousers and cricket sweaters walking side by side a hundred yards away, probably students from Jesus College. They were involved in heated conversation and oblivious of anyone else.
Why had Sebastian said nothing? Even if he had not known at the time that it was John and Alys Reavley who had been killed, he must have known afterward. What was he afraid of? Even if he had weighed the chance of them tracing his car, since he had not recognized them, what threat was he?
Then the answer came to Joseph, ugly and jagged as broken glass. Perhaps Sebastian had known them.
If they were responsible for his death, then there was only one hideous and inescapable conclusion: it was someone here in college! No one had broken in. Whoever murdered Sebastian was one of those already here, someone they all knew and whose presence was part of daily life.
But why had Sebastian told no one? Was it somebody so close, so unbelievable, that he dared not trust anyone with the truth, not even Joseph, whose parents were the victims?
The sun burned in the silence of the mown turf. The traffic seemed to belong to another world. He walked without sense of movement, as if caught in an eddy of time, separate from everyone else.
Was it fear for himself that had kept Sebastian silent? Or defense of whoever it was? Why would he defend them?
Joseph came to the edge of Jesus Green and crossed the road onto Midsummer Common, walking south into the sun.
But if Sebastian thought it was an accident and he had been the one who had reported it, why hide that fact? If he had simply run away, why? Was he such a coward he would not go to the wreck, at least to see if he could help?
Or had he recognized whoever it was who had laid the caltrops and pulled them away afterward, and kept silent because it was someone he knew? To defend them? Or had they threatened him?
And had they killed him afterward anyway?
Was that why he had not come straight to college that day . . . fear?
But what about all the other occasions Perth spoke of? Joseph felt a strange sense of disloyalty even thinking such things. He had known Sebastian for years, met his straight-eyed, passionate gaze as they spoke of dreams and ideas, beauty of thought, music of rhythm and rhyme, the aspirations of men down the ages from the first stumbling recorded words in history. Surely they had trusted each other better than this? Had they been no more than children playing with concepts of honor, as real children built towers of sand to be crashed away by the first wave of reality?
He had to believe it was more than that. Sebastian had come even earlier than Regina Coopersmith said, and passed along the Hauxton Road before the crash. Or he had gone somewhere else altogether, by another route. Whoever had killed him had done so for a reason that had nothing to do with John and Alys Reavley’s deaths. That was the only answer he could bear.
Joseph turned back toward St. Johns, increasing his pace. Enough had been said about Sebastian and the injuries people felt they had suffered at his hands that a closer look at some of them would lead either to proving them trivial or, if followed to the very end, to the reason for his death.
One episode that came to his mind first was the curious exchange with Eardslie when they were standing outside Eaden Lilley’s and the young woman who walked with such grace had appeared about to speak to them and then changed her mind. It had been suggested that Sebastian had intentionally taken someone else’s girl, simply to show that he could, and then cast her aside. Was that true?
It took Joseph half an hour to find Eardslie, who was sitting on the grass on the Backs, leaning against the trunk of a tree with books spread out around him. He looked up at Joseph in surprise and made as if to stand up.
“Don’t,” Joseph said quickly, sitting down on the ground opposite him, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable. “I wanted to talk to you. Do you remember the young woman who passed us outside Eaden Lilley’s the other day?”
Eardslie drew in his breath to deny it.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t make that a question,” Joseph amended. “It was quite obvious that you did know her, whether it was well or slightly, and that, seeing me there, she decided not to speak to you.”
Eardslie looked uncomfortable. He was a serious young man, the oldest son, of whom his family expected a great deal, and the weight of it frequently lay rather heavily on him. Now in particular he seemed conscious of obligation. “Probably a matter of tact, sir,” he suggested.
“No doubt. What would she need to be tactful about?”
Eardslie colored slightly. “Her name is Abigail Trethowan,” he said unhappily. “She was more or less engaged to Morel, but she met Sebastian, and sort of . . .” He was at a loss to put into words what he meant.
“Fell in love with Sebastian,” Joseph finished for him.
Eardslie nodded.
“And you are suggesting that Sebastian brought that about deliberately?” Joseph asked, raising his eyebrows.
Eardslie’s color deepened and he looked down. “It certainly looked that way. And then he dropped her. She was very upset.”
“And Morel?”
Eardslie raised his eyes. They were wide, golden-flecked, and burning with anger.
“How would you feel, sir?” he said furiously. “Somebody takes your girl from you, just to show you and everybody else that he can? And then he doesn’t even want her, so he just dumps her, as if she were unwanted baggage. You can’t take her back or you look a complete fool, and she feels . . . like a . . .” He gave up, unable to find a word savage enough.
Joseph realized how much Eardslie himself had cared for Abigail, possibly more than he was admitting.
“Where does she live?” Joseph asked.
Eardslie’s eyes widened. “You’re not going to say anything to her!” He was horrified. “She’d be humiliated, sir! You can’t!”
“Is she the kind of woman who would conceal the truth of a murder rather than face embarrassment?” Joseph asked.
Eardslie’s struggle was clear in his face.
Joseph waited.
“She’s at the Fitzwilliam, sir. But please, do you have to?”
Joseph stood up. “Would you rather I ask Perth to do it?”
He found Abigail Trethowan in the Fitzwilliam library. He introduced himself and asked if he might speak to her. With considerable apprehension she accompanied him to a tea shop around the corner, and when he had ordered for both of them, he broached the subject.
“I apologize for speaking of what must be painful, Miss Threthowan, but the subject of Sebastian’s death is not going to rest until it is solved.”
She was sitting straight-backed in her chair, like a schoolgirl with a ruler at her back. Joseph could remember Alys reminding both Hannah and Judith of the importance of posture and poking a wooden spoon through the spokes of the kitchen chairs to demonstrate, catching them in the middle of the spine. Abigail Trethowan looked just as young, proud, and vulnerable as they had. It would be hard to forgive Sebastian if he had done what Eardslie believed.
“I know,” she said quietly, her eyes avoiding his.
How could he ask her without being brutal?
All around them was the clatter of china and the murmur of conversation as ladies took tea and exchanged gossip, in many cases bags and boxes of shopping piled near their feet. No one was vulgar enough to look at Joseph and Abigail openly, but he knew without doubt that they were being examined from head to foot, and speculation was rich and highly inventive.
He smiled at Abigail and saw by the flash of humor in her eyes that she was as aware of it as he.
“I could ask you questions,” he said frankly. “But wouldn’t it be better if you simply told me?”
