The Reckoning of Noah Shaw Read online

  “All right,” I say to Goose in a rush. If I think about her that way, that night—abandon all hope, ye who enter there. If I remember that dream, I will never want to wake up. “Let’s go.”

  Two hours and two thousand pounds later, it’s late afternoon and we’ve got hours to kill yet, and now also bags to carry and nowhere to put them.

  “Know anyone from Westminster we can crash with?” I ask Goose.

  He nods. “Not sure where they’re staying, though—but it’s Freshers Week. We could just, you know, go along?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Find a gullible-looking fresher, lie about not having got our IDs yet?”

  “And then ask for . . . who was it that you know who goes here?”

  “Nate Hollis’s here, I think.”

  I shake my head. “Oxford, I thought.”

  “Shit, you’re right. Spencer, though!”

  I scarcely remember him, but what I do remember . . . isn’t flattering. “That twat? Managed Oxbridge?”

  “Father’s a big Tory donor, I think.”

  “What year was he, when I left?”

  “Sixth form, so, he’d be a fresher then.”

  I sigh. “We don’t even know what college he’s in, do we?”

  Goose shakes his head.

  “Why don’t you have more friends?” I whinge, before saying, “Fine. All right, I’m starving—let’s forage. We’ll sort it out then.”

  We scan the cobblestone streets in search of something promising and simple. The streets are all ancient and tangled, and what storefronts there are, off the main drag of King’s Parade, are so inconspicuous it’s as if they’re trying to hide.

  After walking for ten years, we finally happen upon a green façade and a sign that says GREEK RESTAURANT—more importantly, unlike the other restaurants we’ve spotted, it’s thoroughly swarming with students. More likely to find an easy mark, here.

  Walking in, we order on the first floor, fighting for space with all of the people crammed together, waiting for a table or even a chair.

  “In hindsight,” Goose says, looking forlornly at our shopping bags.

  “Yeah. Stupid.”

  “You pups lost?” a girl says to us, her face half hidden by dark blond hair. “You look rather desperate.”

  “Oh, we are,” I say. “Definitely.”

  She pulls a sad face. “Mummy and Daddy haven’t come along to see you off?”

  “I’m an orphan,” I reply gravely. Goose covers his mouth to hide his grin.

  The girl looks appropriately abashed. “I’m so sorry, that was shit.”

  A guy comes up beside her, holding a steaming something wrapped in foil. “Always putting your foot in it, Audrey.”

  “I really am sorry,” she says, before turning around.

  “Wait,” I say. “Apology accepted, if you help us.”

  She lifts her eyebrows. “Help you . . . ?”

  “We’re looking for our mate . . .” Goose begins, and I know he’s debating which name to ask for. Which name would she use here herself? “Ceridwen,” he goes with. Most distinctive.

  She shakes her head. “Don’t know her, sorry.”

  The guy squints. “Wait, Ceridwen Rees? At Emma?”

  Emma? Goose and I exchange a look. “Yes,” he says.

  The girl with him—Audrey, I suppose—narrows her eyes. “How do you know a Ceridwen?”

  “Met at a swap last year,” he says casually. “When I had time for those sorts of things.”

  I’ve been in America too long, and out of Westminster for longer. I try not to look utterly lost.

  “Know where we can find her?” Goose asks.

  “What would she be wanting with you lot, I wonder.”

  “I’m her cousin,” I say.

  “He’s an orphan,” Audrey repeats.

  “Heard that bit, yeah. Don’t know what to tell you—you’ve texted already, I’m sure?”

  I nod. “No response, and we’ve got all this shit . . .”

  “Right,” he says. “Well, you’re ours for the day, I suppose.” He extends his hand. “Kai Singh, Tit Hall.”

  Audrey extends her hand as well. “Audrey Burrow, Jesus.”

  “Noah Shaw,” I say.

  “Goose Greaves,” he says.

  They look on expectantly.

  “Colleges?” Audrey prompts.

  “King’s,” I say, because my mother went there, and it’s all I can think of.

  “Pembroke,” Goose says.

  “You shouldn’t have any trouble getting into Pembroke—porters’ll let you in with your email.”

  “Right,” I say slowly as I invent a lie. “Thing is, all our luggage was lost on the flight. Haven’t had a chance to replace it.” Goose begins shifting the shopping bags to hide the gym bag he brought.

  “Flight?” Kai asks dubiously.

  “From New York,” I say, preparing to lay it on very, very thick. “My father’s funeral,” I add solemnly.

  They both look squirmingly uncomfortable. Kai tries to recover by saying, “I’ve got a mate at Emma who can get you in. He might know her—they’ve got a splendid bar.”

  Emma . . . Emmanuel. And Tit Hall must be Trinity Hall. In another world, if I were another person, this could be my life.

  “Expensive but splendid,” Audrey chimes in. “What’s all that?” she says, glancing at the bags as our order’s called out. There are so many students they take turns passing our food to me through the crowd.

  Goose looks at them, then at Audrey. “Clothes?”

  Audrey narrows her eyes. “You aren’t prepared at all, are you. Where’d you go to school?”

  “Westminster,” we both say.

  “How posh,” she says mockingly. “And no one told you anything?”

  “I’ve been . . . preoccupied,” I say. “But we’d be so grateful for your help.”

  She looks at Kai, who smiles. “Of course, mate. Follow us.”

  33

  WITH PRINCIPLES

  THEY OFFER TO HELP CARRY our shopping bags to Emma and we eat as we walk, hand-waving our reasons for not going straight to our colleges to drop everything off. Kai’s texted his mate, Jack, who’s waiting for us at the student gate.

  “Aren’t you a sorry bunch,” he says, opening it for us.

  “Now, now, Jack,” says Kai, “the children are our future.”

  “How unlucky,” he says. “ ’Less either of you is a rower?”

  Goose chimes in happily. “I am.”

  Jack pats his shoulder approvingly. “What school did you go to?”

  “Westminster.”

  “Could be worse.” He shrugs. “You any good?”

  “Not too shabby.”

  “We’ll forgive the fact that you’re a public school twat, then. You?” Jack asks, as he signs us in with the porters.

  “Not a rower, alas,” I say.

  “He’s a communist,” Audrey says.

  “Oh, King’s? Dreadful. Do not, under any circumstances, join one of the political parties.”

  “It’s a sign you aren’t being invited to real parties,” Audrey adds.

  “All right, mate,” Kai says. “Enough shit chat. You know where Ceridwen is?”

  “Have you texted her?” Jack asks unhelpfully.

  “No answer,” I say.

  “I can bring you by her room—her flatmate could let you in, if either of them is there. If neither of them is, you can come round to mine.”

  “Thanks,” Goose and I say together.

  We pass the wide, emerald-green Front Court, which is completely empty. The clock tower looms over us, and the windows in its dome are dark. I feel watched as we walk beneath it.

  A mad thought. “Where is everyone?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?” Jack asks.

  “Seems rather . . . uninhabited?”

  Kai and Audrey laugh. “You can’t walk on the grass, and everyone’s squirrelled away at Gardies and the bars hiding from fr
eshers.”

  “That’s where we found these two,” Audrey says.

  “What, Gardies? Maybe you’re not so hopeless after all,” Jack says appraisingly.

  “It’s the only place open after ten,” Kai explains.

  I blink. “You’re not serious?”

  Audrey laughs. “Your college bar’s where you’ll spend most of your time.”

  “Or Cindies. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, at least.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “A club. Has a different name now—”

  “Since the nineties, basically.”

  “But everyone still calls it Cindies. Everyone who goes is charmingly naff, though.”

  “If you’re a hipster and can afford it, there’s Fez on Thursdays—”

  “And Life, which, if you can overcome the stench of Jaeger and vomit—”

  “Wait, wait,” Goose says, holding up a hand. “You’re saying the only place to go out after ten here is a Greek takeaway, or a club?”

  “There are five,” says Jack.

  “Clubs, that is,” Kai says.

  “And, yes,” finishes Audrey. “Look, this isn’t—where did you just come from?” she asks me.

  “Brooklyn.” Sort of.

  “Right. This isn’t Brooklyn. We make our own fun.”

  “Everyone basically stays at their colleges, except for swaps,” Jack says.

  “And bops.”

  She tsks at our quizzical, disappointed faces. “Swaps are where a group from one college will organise a drinking meet-up with a group or soc from a different college.”

  “And bops are piss-ups. Fancy dress, usually.”

  “You’ll basically be spending the next three years within a half-mile radius,” Audrey says.

  “But it’ll be the best three years of your life,” Jack assures Goose. Rowers. So chummy.

  Neither of us says a word, since we don’t even go here, but I can’t help mentally comparing it with, say, Daniel’s NYU. Even Daniel was rarely on what passes for a campus, there. The college is scattered amongst throngs of restaurants and cafés and offices and buildings stretching from the Battery to Midtown, and the fifty thousand students have New York as their playground, to ravage or retreat from in anonymity, if they want it.

  Jack leads us through an old stone staircase, and admittedly, it is gorgeous—spires and chapels dripping with culture and history and the ghosts of shit-droppingly famous people from bygone centuries.

  But it feels . . . close, roaming the corridors. As if the ceilings might cave in. And I have that feeling, still, only just managing to avoid looking over my shoulder to meet the eyes I feel on the back of my neck. “Doesn’t it get to feel . . . claustrophobic?” I ask.

  “Maybe if we went to Girton,” Jack says, and Kai mimes gagging. “But otherwise, no, not really.” He raises his hand to a door.

  “Wait, this is the dorm?” I ask.

  They look at each other, then at me.

  “He spent his last two years in the States,” Goose says quickly.

  All three of them look sceptical, still, and I kick myself inwardly.

  “I was sent down from Westminster for shagging the headmaster’s daughter,” I say, hoping to justify my ignorance sufficiently. “My parents both went here, and after the funeral . . . it felt right, coming back,” I add quickly.

  This, they seem willing to accept. Though they may not entirely believe me, I’ve found that one can almost always count on the English to be too polite to say so.

  Jack knocks on the door, with the rest of us a bit crowded in the corridor. Just as I think I hear a sound coming from inside, the door cracks open, and a girl’s face peers out. She smiles widely, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Ceri, you got a guy in there?” Jack says, pushing the door.

  The girl holds it fast and rolls her eyes. “Piss off,” she starts, as Jack says, “Your cousin’s here.”

  Her brows pinch together. “I don’t have—”

  “I’m Leo’s friend,” I say before she can finish that sentence, trying to edge my way in front of Jack, so she can see me just in case her ability means that she might recognise us. Part of me hopes it does, that she’s the reason I’m feeling so paranoid. “He sent me to find you.”

  Jack, Kai, and Audrey all turn to one another. “You swotty little sixth-form shits,” Kai says, as Jack roars with laughter.

  “You don’t even go here,” Jack says. “Classic.”

  I ignore them, because Ceridwen’s expression changes once I’ve invoked Leo.

  “Thanks, Jack,” she says quickly. “I’ve got it.”

  “What’re you doing with these children,” he says. “Cougar town?”

  “That’s right.” She rolls her eyes. “Bye, Jack.” Then, to us, “Come in,” she says. I try and slip past Jack, who’s blocking the doorway, and the door to the flat opens wide enough to reveal an overturned chair—and the closing of a cupboard door.

  “You do have a guy in there,” Jack says. “Saucy.”

  “Mmm, yup, now fuck off, seriously,” she says. “Come on,” she says to me. I squeeze past Audrey and Kai and Jack.

  “Sorry,” Goose says to them as he follows me into Ceridwen’s flat. “Thanks for the advice, though.”

  “Thanks,” Ceridwen says before shutting the door on the three of them. Her flat isn’t at all what I expected—one of the walls is stone, like the rest of the building, and the windows are leaded glass and lovely, but the furniture is prison-issue, and you can’t swing a kitten in here.

  “Where’s Leo?” she asks immediately.

  We had time to plan for this, technically. What we’d say. And yet.

  “About that . . .” I start.

  “He didn’t actually send us?” Goose has decided to get right to it, I see.

  Her expression shifts, from anxious to guarded. “And who are you, exactly?”

  “Goose Greaves,” he says, extending a hand, which Ceridwen regards warily. She crosses her arms over her chest instead of shaking it.

  “How did you find me?”

  “We do know Leo,” Goose says, and I let him keep the lead since he’s taken it. “We met him in Brooklyn, a few weeks ago. A mutual friend mentioned your acquaintance.”

  “Still doesn’t explain how you found me. He knew me as Eva,” Ceridwen says, still keeping her distance.

  “Goose . . .” Is an expert Google stalker, turns out? Crept your social media? There is no good answer here. “We found you through a different friend of yours, actually,” I say, veering dangerously close to the subject of Sam, fully aware that there’s no good answer there, either—at least, not one we want to lead with. So I deflect. “You didn’t trust Leo enough to tell him your first name?”

  “He couldn’t pronounce it,” she mumbles, adding a slight eye roll that breaks some of the tension. “When did you last see him?” she asks Goose.

  We exchange a glance. How long has it been, since the bridge?

  “A week or so, I think,” I say. Flashbacks to Regency England really fuck with one’s sense of time, turns out. “Maybe a bit longer?”

  Her eyes close. “He said he and his girlfriend were heading up to Cam to meet me.”

  Goose and I exchange a look. “From New York?” I ask.

  She nods. “He texted from the airport, there, saying he was on his way that day. Said he needed to talk in person, that he didn’t trust texts.” She lets out a breath. “That was the last I heard from him. You?”

  Goose and I share another awkward look. “We . . . didn’t exactly part on the best of terms,” he says, which is clearly a mistake, because Ceridwen then refocuses on me.

  “What did you say your name was, again?”

  “Noah.” I offer my own hand, which she also doesn’t take. “Noah Shaw.”

  There’s a noise in the cupboard. Ceridwen’s eyes flick toward it.

  “We can come back later,” Goose offers, “if this is a bad time?”

&n
bsp; “Maybe—” she starts, just as the cupboard door opens.

  The person who steps out looks so much like Jamie that I think it is Jamie, at first. Bit taller, though, with less hair.

  “Shaw?” he asks me, in an American accent.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He stalks toward me with purpose, meeting my gaze straight on. Without looking at Ceridwen, he says to her, “Lock the door.”

  34

  SINS OF THE FATHERS

  RIGHT,” I SAY, BACKING UP, only just barely avoiding Ceridwen as she brushes past me to do as instructed. The lock clicks behind us. “I just want to start by saying I’ve no idea what Jamie’s told you, but I swear I never touched his sister.”

  “Who the fuck is Jamie?” he asks, still advancing.

  “You’re not . . . related?” I ask.

  “Is he black?” the guy asks. “Because we don’t all look alike, you know.”

  Off to a cracking start. “Of course not,” I say, as Goose says, “You actually really do look like him.”

  “Should I kick them out?” Ceridwen interrupts. “Call the porters?”

  The guy narrows his eyes at us, then says to Ceridwen, “This asshole’s father’s responsible for my childhood.”

  That escalated rather quickly. “If it’s any consolation, no one hated him more than me.”

  The guy raises his eyebrows, then rolls up his sleeves.

  “I don’t think there’s any need to get physical—” Goose starts, but then Jamie’s double just holds his fists up in the air. Exposing the scars on the undersides of his wrists. Vertical.

  I exhale slowly. “I’ve done the same. I understand.”

  “Yeah?” He tilts his head. “Was it hard for you, growing up the son of a billionaire? Let’s see your scars.”

  “Mmm. The thing about that,” I begin to say, realising that neither he nor Ceridwen has outed himself or herself yet. But there’s no point being coy, and someone has to go first. Might as well be me. “I—both of us,” I say to Goose. “We’re—Gifted.”

  “Gifted?” he repeats witheringly.