‘Could well have been,’ said Nick, shaking his head. ‘Sorry, it’s gone.’
By the time we finished dinner, I still had no idea whether my date for the evening was an exceptionally nice and seriously good-looking bloke, or a cold-blooded killer playing cat and mouse with me. And given my history with men, the chances seemed pretty evenly split.
We left the restaurant to find snow had covered the ground outside and Nick suggested we take a longer route home to enjoy what he described as the city with a coat of whitewash. Despite jeans that were more hole than fabric, I agreed, because I still hadn’t worked this man out. Besides, there is something about snow, isn’t there? About the way it softens harsh sound and brightens the darkness, hiding everything that’s ugly and making the world look clean. As we walked through the town, students had left their buildings, even the pubs and cafes, to come outside and play. All around us were the sounds of fun: footsteps crunching at speed, high-pitched squealing and good-natured taunting.
For a few minutes we followed the river, watching flakes fall and melt on its slow-moving surface, then we turned across a stretch of field that Nick told me was Jesus Green. There was an epic snowball fight going on.
‘That lot are Jesus, the others are Queens’,’ said Nick, as he gallantly put himself between me and the fight. ‘Keep your head down and walk fast, they might not spot us.’
‘How can you tell?’ I asked.
‘Jesus attracts an inordinate number of red-haired women,’ he told me, ‘whereas Queens’ men are known for wearing their jeans very low down on their hips.’
I looked over at the skirmish. A girl with a Peruvian hat was rugby-tackled to the ground by a man wearing nothing warmer than a sleeveless vest. She didn’t seem to mind too much. No red-haired women or low-slung jeans that I could see. I gave Nick my best quizzical look.
‘Scarves,’ he said. ‘Jesus are red and black, Queens’ are green and white.’
A stray snowball came our way and caught him on the side of the head.
‘Serves you right,’ I told him.
‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘That is very cold down the back of my neck.’
We walked on, leaving the squeals behind us, and approached the town again. As we left the Green, I thought for a moment, and then took his arm. In front of us was a long, low house of honey-coloured stone, the ledges of its tiny paned windows frosted with snow. Over our heads a snowball soared through the air and exploded against the stonework. We turned a corner and beautiful buildings, gleaming white and gold in the lamplight, rose up around us. It was like stepping into a fairy tale.
‘I never tire of it,’ Nick said, as we made our way along the pavement and snow covered our footsteps almost immediately. ‘My parents both worked at the university. Their worst arguments when I was growing up were over which college I’d attend. My idea of teenage rebellion was threatening to apply to Oxford.’
My idea of teenage rebellion had been torching cars in the Cardiff docks. It didn’t seem like the moment to mention it. ‘So where did you end up?’ I asked.
‘Trinity,’ he said. ‘Dad’s old college. He’d died by that stage and my mother thought it would be a kind of memorial to him if I went there.’
His father had died. How exactly? Natural causes or … we were in amongst the buildings now. Towers and turrets stretched up above us.
‘It’s at moments like these,’ said Nick, who was looking up towards the rooftops, ‘that I always hope I’ll see a night climber.’
There was a tiny scar on the underside of his chin. This close, he smelled good. Something warm and rich. ‘Sounds like a low-budget horror film,’ I said.
‘I think that’s night crawlers,’ he replied. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of the night climbers.’
Careful now. This might be something every real student in Cambridge was expected to know.
‘Rings a bell,’ I said. ‘I think I just assumed they were a myth.’
‘Oh no, they’re very real,’ he said. ‘Any amount of photographic evidence. Most years in December you’ll see a Father Christmas hat on one of the pinnacles at King’s. All of them on a good year.’
‘So who are they exactly?’
He smiled down at me. ‘No one knows, that’s the whole point. There’s no club or society you can join because it’s all strictly against the rules. Get caught climbing and you’ll be sent down. No argument.’
‘And what do they climb?’
Nick raised his hand and gestured at the sky around us. ‘Everything,’ he said. ‘Rooftops, chimneys, drainpipes, spires, turrets. It started in the old days when colleges were locked at ten o’clock. Men who stayed out late had to climb their way back in. Some of them got a taste for it.’
I looked at a nearby church spire. It looked pretty high off the ground to me.
‘Do they ever fall?’ I asked.
‘Absolutely. A few years ago a chap got impaled on some railings. Story is he was so drunk they operated without anaesthetic.’
We’d reached the main gate of St John’s. Cambridge is a small city. Nick greeted the porter on duty by name as we stepped through the small inner door into First Court. A group of third-year students were building a snowman.
‘So, did you ever night-climb?’
‘Ah, that’s the thing,’ he said. ‘We never climb and tell.’
A cat watched us from a first-floor window ledge as we approached the main entrance to the Cripps Building and I could feel the beginnings of a nervous tickle. Nick would expect to be invited up.
We’d reached the door. He turned to face me, taking hold of the lapels of my coat to pull me closer, and I actually found myself considering it. He was the best-looking man I’d met in a long time and it wasn’t uncommon for undercover officers to have sexual relationships with people they were investigating. It was all part of infiltration and establishing trust.
On the other hand, wasn’t it turquoise eyes, not russet-brown ones, that I wanted looking down at me the next time I had sex?
‘So tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Three o’clock. My house. Come out hawking with me?’
I could not have Joesbury. Not ever. He was the one man in the world I would never be able to keep at arm’s length.
‘OK,’ I agreed, tilting my head back so the angle between his mouth and mine was perfect. All he had to do was lower his head. He smiled at me.
‘See you then,’ he said. Then he let go of my jacket, turned, and walked away.
SINCE THE ACCIDENT that had crippled her, Evi had dreamed many times that she could run. Occasionally, that she could fly. Only once had she dreamed that she could ski, and she’d woken trembling and sweating in the early hours. She had never dreamed that she could dance.
Until now.
Rock music. Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’. A pounding, insistent rhythm, turned up loud to be heard above the wind. Her hair flying round her head, her neck cold in the November air, the heat of a man’s body pressed against her. Harry. The priest who’d played in a rock band, who’d held her upright and moved them both around the bare rock of the Lancashire Tor. The night they’d fallen in love.
Harry back again. Harry in her arms. She could feel his breath against her forehead, knew the wonderful anticipation of a first kiss. They danced closer and closer to the edge of the Tor. He tucked her right hand against his chest, freeing his to gently tilt her chin up towards him. She saw brown eyes smiling down at her. This was it.
‘Evi fall,’ he said. And threw her off the Tor.
Evi was out of bed and the pain running the length of her body was all she could think of. She made herself
