Chapter 6
Mabel
I often thought of Cambridge as a bit like a secret compartment, with a false bottom.
There were places so heaving with tourists that you could barely put one foot in front of the other – and there were others so carefully concealed that few people ever laid eyes on them.
Places you discovered by chance and were wary of sharing with others, knowing that the magic that clung to them would be further worn away with each inquisitive stare.
Sometimes, I imagined that the city, like the university, had evolved these secluded nooks and crannies all by itself: small fortresses steeped in history, where silence and reclusion defended the last vestiges of atmosphere from the flash of tourists’ cameras and students’ Instagram profiles.
My favourite of these secret places was tucked away in the Wren Library.
At the end of a corridor between two bookstacks was an unassuming wooden door with a sign that read No Access.
For the most part it was kept locked, but this morning when I tried the handle it turned easily.
I knew immediately that Davie must be inside.
It was the same place he always went to ground when he needed peace and quiet, either because he was deep in the weeds of research and didn’t want to be interrupted or because he was in the mood to hide. Even, lately, from me. Or so it seemed.
Cautiously I opened the door a crack, until it caught on the latch. I took a biro out of my pocket, slid it through and lifted the small metal hook until it sprang out of the eye. With a last look over my shoulder, I pushed the door wide and stepped through.
I refastened the hook and climbed a set of stairs.
The higher I climbed, the more the smell of old paper was overlaid by Davie’s distinctive cologne and the aroma of his favourite eucalyptus sweets.
Upstairs, I glanced into the narrow room with the bay window, the walls of which were lined with books.
They were all very old, and the library staff had stashed them away up here to minimise how often they were handled.
If you wanted to look at them you had to fill out an application form, which happened so rarely that nobody ever really came up here.
Nobody except for Davie, who had stumbled across the books – and thus the room – while researching an article.
Afterwards he’d brought all his charm to bear on the librarian, who agreed to let him keep a key.
He told me the story the second time we met, swearing me to secrecy.
After my first visit, I understood why. In here, the clamour of the university seemed so far away, although you only had to lean out of the window to be reminded that you were in the heart of Trinity College.
The light that streamed through the casement window fell directly across the wooden table in the middle of the room, where Davie sat on one of two chairs, leafing through a stack of papers.
I cleared my throat and stepped into the room. ‘Davie Waverly, you’re hiding from me.’
He jumped, startled, and looked up at me. A look of surprise flitted across his face, soon turning to resignation with a trace of guilt. ‘That’s not true.’
I walked over and put my bag down beside the table. ‘You’ve been ignoring my calls. And this morning you were out of your room by seven, even though I know that on the weekends you don’t get up before eight.’
He shrugged, but I saw the way his eyes darted to the heap of papers. ‘I’m busy.’
I sat down on the chair opposite. ‘Yeah, I know. You’re supposed to be explaining what the hell happened yesterday when you came barging into my kitchen. You promised.’
Davie rubbed his face with the back of his hand. The circles under his eyes seemed especially dark today, yet his expression was oddly harried. I had a suspicion he hadn’t slept at all since last night’s visit. ‘I thought you might give me a bit more time.’
‘You thought wrong.’ I opened my bag to take out my notebook. ‘But I didn’t come empty-handed. I’ll give you my information in exchange for yours.’
In a flash he seemed considerably more alert. ‘Did you talk to Zoe?’ He tried to reach for my notebook, but I clamped it to the table with both hands.
‘Not exactly. But I did a bit of fieldwork of my own.’ I forced my mouth into a guileless smile, knowing he wouldn’t be happy to hear what I was about to say – frankly, I wasn’t too thrilled about the memory of it myself. ‘I went to a little get-together with Ashton and his friends last night.’
In an instant, the last traces of drowsiness were wiped from his face. ‘What? You promised me you’d stay away from those guys! How long did that last? Five minutes?’
‘Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I had no choice. Zoe wouldn’t let me talk her out of it. What did you expect me to do, let her go in there alone? Anyway, nothing bad happened. Apart from a UTI, maybe.’
‘Not yet.’
‘What does that mean? Davie, you really need to explain to me why you’re so worried about this.’
We stared each other down. The daylight pouring into the room was keen and wintry-silver, sharpening the edges of Davie’s face.
He narrowed his lips. As he put his arms around the stack of papers in front of him, I saw the corner of a file peeking out from underneath.
Two, three seconds, then it dawned on me: that was the file I’d seen in his office yesterday.
Suddenly the pieces were coming together.
Davie, who was working on a new story – something really big.
Davie, who stared at me in horror when I mentioned Ashton’s name.
Davie, who had made me promise to stay away from them – because they were seriously bad news.
I’d imagined those two things were separate, but now I realised: it was all connected.
‘Your research,’ I said bluntly. ‘It’s about Ashton and his friends, isn’t it?’
Davie hesitated, but he didn’t deny it. Instead he eyed me dubiously, almost unhappily. ‘If I tell you about this,’ he began at last, in a low voice, ‘you have to keep it between us. Promise?’
‘In case you haven’t noticed, my social circle isn’t exactly huge. Who am I even going to tell?’
‘Zoe,’ replied Davie soberly. ‘You’ll want to tell Zoe.’
‘If it’s about the people she’s been hanging out with, then surely she should know, shouldn’t she?’
‘She should, but she can’t.’ He leant across the table and took my hand, which had been moving instinctively towards the file.
His grasp was tighter than yesterday, but this time I could sense no hidden layers of meaning.
‘You know how fond I am of Zoe, but … she’s impulsive, she wears her heart on her sleeve.
If she really likes this guy, she’ll definitely say something to him. ’
‘Something about what, Davie?’ I repeated tensely. I couldn’t promise to keep something secret if I didn’t even know what it was.
I saw the tussle going on behind his eyes, until at last he let go of my hand and slid the topmost pile of documents aside to reveal the file.
‘A couple of weeks ago I took over one of Cassidy’s articles,’ he began, flipping back the ragged, light blue cover.
‘She was getting too busy with her dissertation and wanted to take a step back from the newspaper. I offered to edit her article and polish it up for publication.’
‘Which is Davie for rewriting it, I suppose?’
He grinned wryly. ‘You could say that. It was about the tradition of student clubs at Cambridge. Cass had made an intriguing start, but her research was superficial and – without wanting to be mean – sloppy. I’ll never understand why some people think the ability to use Google qualifies you to be a journalist… ’
‘Davie,’ I interrupted firmly.
He sighed. ‘Right. Well, anyway, I got stuck back into the research. I started poking around, digging up dirt about the big, established secret societies, I’m sure you know the ones: the Apostles, the Ferrets, the Pitt Club and so on.
I read through old reports, pored over articles, scanned through any records I could find in the university archives.
A lot of it was old news. These societies often tend to go a bit overboard – they make newbies jump through all sorts of hoops, take part in embarrassing rituals, you know the drill.
But … I stumbled across a few things that piqued my curiosity.
And as you know, I do tend to get a bit obsessed with stuff like that. ’
‘You don’t say.’ I suppressed a grin, although I could feel my whole body tensing eagerly as he spoke.
‘So I did a bit more research. I went to the National Archives in London and nosed around in some of their really old files.’ Wetting his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, he leant in over the table again and lowered his voice.
‘For some time now, there have been rumours circulating of a secret society that seems to have been connected to Cambridge for over a century.’
I frowned, confused. ‘Okay, but you just said it yourself: there are tons of clubs like that at Cambridge.’ Not that I’d ever met anybody in one, but all of us were aware of their existence.
For many students, joining one of these exclusive societies was a lifelong dream.
Induction into their inner circles, it was rumoured, practically guaranteed a broad network of alumni who could be called upon to help members after graduation.
Personally, I knew from the very beginning that I didn’t want to get mixed up in an organisation like that.
Those groups were all about money and power, and although they were relatively small spotlights, they still drew clear distinctions between light and shadow.
It was all about positioning, and I was painfully aware that people like me would never be allowed into the light.
Close as I might stand, I was always in darkness.