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Jem’s Latin had never been good and was mostly forgotten, but he knew the tag:After that, therefore because of that. ‘I’m just stating facts. And the fact is, one of us did it. We all had reasons to be angry, and it seems that most of us were hiding secrets. Secrets that Toby knew.’
‘Toby,’ Nicky repeated, and Jem was quite sure he was stalling.
‘How did he know?’ He wanted to push Nicky, unbalance him. He hadn’t realised how much he needed the answer until he’d asked the question. ‘How did he know about you and me, Nicky? Did you tell him? Were you trying to make him jealous?’
‘Jesus wept,’ Nicky said. ‘I didn’t tell him a thing, you fool. You did.’
‘I did not!’
‘Oh, you did. You have remarkably expressive features to one who knows you, and Toby could be observant when it suited him. He worked it out all by himself, I assure you. But I question the relevance of this. I assume you didn’t murder him?’
‘No,’ Jem snapped, since he felt a little foolish now.
‘And he’d known I was queer since I knew myself, so that wasn’t so much a secret as a fact of life. Why would it become something to kill over?’
‘Because he exposed you,’ Jem said. His mouth was dry. ‘We all knew, but we didn’t say, did we? Not aloud, never aloud. And then Toby did, and I suppose he might have done it again.’
Nicky’s jaw hardened. ‘So I killed him? Is that your suggestion?’
Their eyes met and held. Jem swallowed. ‘Did you?’
‘No. But I would say that, wouldn’t I?’
He hadn’t lost his knack for irritating people, Jem thought, and took a stupid comfort in that. ‘I didn’t come here just to accuse you. I want to know what happened and I think, between us, all of us, we can find out. I hoped you’d talk to me—about the others, and that night, and Toby.’
‘About you and me?’
‘There was noyou and me.You made that abundantly clear at the time.’
Nicky’s eyes, such a warm brown for such a cold man, were steady. ‘Yes. I did. What do you want to achieve, Jem? To see one of us hang: Aaron, or me, or Prue perhaps? The judge putting on his black cap and the walk to the gallows?’
Jem had to lick his lips to answer. ‘I don’t want to see any of my friends hang. But whoever killed Toby wasn’t our friend.’
Nicky considered that without expression. Finally he said, ‘I suppose we should talk. But I need a period of mental adjustment. Tea?’
‘What?’
‘Tea. The beverage that cheers but not inebriates. Take a seat and let us have some sort of normal what-have-you-been-up-to conversation over a cup of tea, as old friends do after a decade.’
‘Why don’t we talk about it now?’ Jem said flatly.
‘Because I’m not sure I trust you,’ Nicky said equally flatly. ‘You aren’t the only one who’s thought about Toby since his death.’
Jem looked at him, alone in a room of books. He took the chair.
They didn’t speak as Nicky busied himself with the kettle. Jem looked around, searching for something that spoke of memories or happiness or relationships, seeing none. He did, however, notice a stack of monographs on a table.Riddling the Romance: a new interpretation of ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’, by DrNicholas Rook.
‘You’ve published.’
‘Repeatedly. It’s the done thing, you know.’
‘What did you do? After, I mean.’
‘From then till now?’ Nicky shrugged. ‘I took my Finals, with some success, and went to All Souls, where I achieved my doctorate. I was offered a position here as senior lecturer under Professor Hartley three years ago.’
It was a bare-bones account of a spectacular rise. Jem didn’t bother to congratulate him. ‘Why here?’
‘Because I didn’t choose to leave. And Anselm’s has the best Anglo-Saxon department in Oxford thanks to Hartley.’
