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‘By looking at what went wrong,’ Jem said. ‘Aaron suspected you, and he was wrong, and now he knows that, and you know it, and maybe you can talk about it. And, just so you know, every time I spoke to him, he stuck to your alibi like glue.’
Ella’s brows shot up. Aaron’s cheeks darkened slightly.
‘Prue lost her husband and her child, and she is dreadfully unhappy,’ Jem went on. ‘But I spoke to Miss Keele and she’s writing to her, and perhaps something can be done. I wanted to know why my life fell apart, and now I do. And maybe, if I don’t have to distrust all the people I ever believed in and cared for?—’
Nicky made a stifled noise. Jem said, ‘That’s what it did. I haven’t settled to anything or made friends with anyone because I was too afraid. It’s been a state of limbo.’
‘Yes,’ Ella said. ‘That is exactly it. Limbo, with no resolution of the past, and no way to a future.’ She looked up at Nicky, lowering her hands. ‘There is nothing you can give me back that makes up for what you took. And if you hadn’t killed Toby, I’d be saying exactly the same thing to him.’ She stood, towering over the three seated men, chin up, eyes shining in the firelight. Her mouth was working, but she managed to say, ‘Live, and deal with others better,’ blurting the words out before she turned away.
It was one of the last lines ofCymbeline, the hero forgiving the villain Iachimo. Nicky had knelt for it on stage, curling into himself to show Iachimo’s shame. He didn’t move at all now.
Aaron rose and went to Ella, putting his hands gently on her shoulders. She didn’t look round at him, but she didn’t pull away. Jem looked back to Nicky, and saw his face convulse.
Jem made a strangled noise, shoving himself out of his chair, down on one knee so he could reach out for Nicky with both hands, and Nicky fell forward into his arms, gripping with a terrible desperation, body shuddering with silent sobs.
‘There are other things,’ Aaron said reluctantly. ‘What happened earlier?—’
‘Not now,’ Jem said into Nicky’s hair. ‘Ican’t. I’ll lock the door and we can deal with that tomorrow, but I can’t—any more?—’
‘No,’ Ella said. ‘I think we’ve all had enough for tonight. As long as you will be safe here?’
‘I think they’re both safer if Jem stays here,’ Aaron said. ‘Alive and well for breakfast, please. I don’t want to lose either of you now.’
TWENTY-THREE
Jem woke with a bleary suspicion that he’d been awake most of the night and only just drifted off to sleep. There was the faintest glimmer of pre-dawn light in the room, which suggested he needed to get up, and there was someone next to him. Nicky, quietly breathing.
Nicky.
Jem twisted his neck as gently as possible to check the clock, so as not to disturb his companion, and saw it was a quarter past seven. Time enough. He lay for a moment, memorising the sensation of the warm, heavy body by his, the sound of his sleep. Then, because life never let you keep anything for long, he sat up.
Nicky grunted, rolling over as Jem stood. ‘Ugh.’
‘Morning.’ Jem looked around hastily for his clothing, and pulled on his drawers in the dim light before he lit the gas.
Nicky groaned, blinking. ‘Right. Yes. Morning.’ He had a vague sound to his voice. Jem supposed he was going over the events of yesterday in his mind, and wasn’t entirely surprised to hear a very quiet, ‘Christ.’
‘Mmm.’
Nicky dropped an arm over his eyes. ‘I can’t imagine why you’re still here.’
Jem wouldn’t have left at gunpoint. For himself and the terror of the man in the dark; for Nicky, and the bottle of whisky and the razor blade. In the morning light, those things seemed sufficiently far away that he could breathe. ‘We should get up. I think Aaron and Ella might be coming for breakfast.’
‘I suppose it would be ungracious of me to complain about the social awkwardness attendant on confessing murder and then meeting one’s confessors for breakfast.’
‘Nicky.’
‘Sorry. I…may take a little while to come to terms with this. Permit me my defences?’
It was a painful question. Jem turned to face him, bare-chested, and Nicky said, in quite a different voice, ‘What the hell is that?’
‘What?’
‘Your face is bruised, and your shoulder. That’s not from the fall. What—’ He stopped. ‘Wait. Did Aaron say something last night?’
‘Someone attacked me,’ Jem said, and recounted the incident as unemotionally as he could.
Nicky heard him out, his mouth hardening. ‘Someone did that last night. And you said nothing?’
