I took Mum’s compact mirror out of my bag and examined my face: the pearl-studded hair clip that pinned back my fringe, my unmade-up eyes, my scarlet mouth.Bravest Heartit said on the tube in my handbag–a promise yet to be fulfilled. I didn’t feel brave, I felt out of place. Not just because I knew no one at the History Faculty, but because I was going alone. Without Zoe, who was probably in her room, waiting for a text from Ashton. Without Davie, because he’d gone home early to celebrate his mother’s sixtieth birthday.
We’d spoken on the phone after he got an email from uni, telling him the arson case had officially been closed.No evidence, no lines of inquiry, no significant damage, Davie had quoted, morose.I guess that translates as: no interest in helping me or the newspaper.
Ever since the fire, he’d been in such a foul mood that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him what I was planning. In any case, it might be a dead end. But Davie had taught me that sometimes, if you wanted to get to the heart of truth, you had to take the long way round, so over the last few days I’d been chasing down a few more obscure references to the League of Starlings. Passages in the university archives that mentioned rites, but offered no additional detail. Articles that described incidents I guessed were connected to the group, based on our previous research, but which weren’t linked to a specific name. The more I read, the more jarring I found some of these gaps, especially as the man who had worked on many of the publications was a well-known expert on the history of British universities in general and of Cambridge in particular. He had written essays on pretty much every student society in the country–but not a word about the League of Starlings. It might be a coincidence, but I no longer believed in those.
Nor did I believe it was a coincidence that Professor Garrett Edwards was retiring at the end of this term as a professor of history–at Trinity College, no less. It was no accident. It was a lead, and I had to follow it. Even if that meant squeezing myself into a too-tight dress and crashing a party, all by myself, full of people I didn’t know.
One last look in the mirror, a half-hearted smile, then I straightened my shoulders and strode off down the corridor.
The building was used mainly for official events. On the top floor were offices belonging to a few professors and administrators. The corridor on the ground floor was laid with reddish floorboards, the walls hung with watercolours depicting Cambridge throughout the centuries. I was about to turn left, following the babble of piano music, clinking glasses and voices, when I caught a glimpse of a shadow through a crack in the door on my right.
Impulsively, I went over and pushed it open. These walls, too, were hung with works of art, mostly portraits in muted earth tones. A man stood in front of the painting of a woman; she had black curls, deep brown eyes and a face at once young and old, her expression grave in a way that spoke of life experience.
Shaped by memory, I thought, examining her painted features, but the phrase ran through my head a second time when the man turned around, still evidently absorbed in contemplation.
As he gazed at me, the look of rapture faded, and the soft lines around his mouth hardened. ‘Can I help you?’ He couldn’t have been much beyond his late thirties, but the way he fixed me with his unnaturally bright blue eyes reminded me of the disapproving glare of an old man.
Hesitantly, I forced myself to shake my head. ‘No, I was just looking for?—’
‘I doubt you’ll find it in here,’ he interrupted, smoothing his dark grey jacket with his hand. His fingers were adorned with numerous rings, and on his lapel was a pin with a symbol I couldn’t quite make out. ‘This area of the building is off-limits to… the general public.’ It was obvious from the way he looked at me what he was really thinking:to plebs like you.
A few words left unsaid, and my timidity vanished. I beamed an exaggeratedly friendly smile. ‘Then you should have put up a sign. Otherwise, this is a public building, and as far as I know, there’s nothing in the university statutes about having to prove your annual salary before you earn the right to set foot in it.’
He frowned, then there was the sound of footsteps behind him. A door opened, and someone entered the room. ‘Henry, Brooks is here, we—’ Ashton stopped abruptly when he saw me. A look of unease flitted across his face, then he smoothed it, erasing all trace of emotion. There was not the slightest sign of recognition. ‘Are you coming? Then we can get started.’
He seemed unusually stiff. It wasn’t just his face, it was the way he held his shoulders in his elegant black suit, the way he clasped his hands behind his back. There was no glimmer of his usual cocktail of self-assurance, mockery and poise. Beneath the thin veneer of confidence, he looked like a dog expecting a kick.
The other man nodded and turned towards him, not dignifying me with a second glance. Ashton, however, stared after me as I left the room, the feel of his eyes on my back as unmistakeable as the nagging voice telling me this moment meant something. As if the scene were somehow coded in a way I couldn’t crack. Not yet.
There were about fifty people gathered in the room where the party was being held. Flowing dresses made of glittering fabrics, expensive-looking suits, countless perfumes and vocal registers intermingled, green floral arrangements on side tables, candles on the mantelpiece. The distinctive waft of money, mulled wine and spruce: the scent of Christmas at Cambridge.
I tugged at my neckline, wishing I could undo a button so I could take a proper breath. Instead, I accepted a glass of mulled wine and meandered through the room. I had examined the photos of Professor Edwards again before I set off, but now I couldn’t see him anywhere. Frustrated, I stopped at a table and scanned my environment, until a restless alarm began to prickle at the nape of my neck. I glanced around discreetly, my eyes wandering across the crowd, but I didn’t recognise any of the faces. The light was too dim, the room too full, my heart too nervous. It was thudding so hard it made my vision swim, and I narrowed my eyes repeatedly before I turned back and set the nearly full glass on the table.
When I looked back up, I saw a man standing by the fireplace, a plate of mince pies and a glass of mulled wine on thetall table in front of him.
Wiping my fingers on my dress, I pulled back my shoulders and made my way towards him. ‘Excuse me,’ I said, making an effort to sound friendly, as I came to stand opposite him at the table. ‘My name is Mabel Golding. You’re Professor Edwards, aren’t you?’ He nodded with his mouth full, and I gave a relieved smile. ‘You’re retiring in the new year, is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, swallowing, and held out his free hand. ‘This is my last soirée as a professor. Were you one of my students?’
‘No, but I’m really interested in history,’ I replied, as I took back my hand. ‘Including university history. Your name kept cropping up in the articles I was reading.’
‘Which articles?’
‘The ones about student societies.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He chuckled and hacked off another bite of mince pie, spearing it on his fork. ‘I’ve written quite a few of those over the years. Anything particularly catch your eye?’
‘Well, it was more something you didn’t explicitly mention, I suppose. Something I… read between the lines. It was about the League of Starlings.’
He froze mid-movement, the fork suspended in the air. A second later, he darted a look first over his own shoulder and then over mine. ‘You shouldn’t say that name so loud,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Especially not in a place like this.’
I was so deeply relieved I almost sighed. ‘So you’ve heard of them before?’
Professor Edwards regarded me warily before setting his fork down on his plate and brushing off his hand on his jacket. ‘Come on, let’s nip next door for a minute.’
Nobody paid us any heed as we left the room, passing through the hall to one with a bar, where a man behind it was polishing glasses. The music from the other room was audible here, too, but otherwise there was nothing but the snow gusting against the windowpanes.
We made for a table by the window, and immediately he clutched at it with both hands, as if the mere mention of the society had made him dizzy. ‘Where did you hear about them?’
