Chapter 9
Mabel
The wind whipped against the draughty windows.
Tugging the neck of my woolly jumper up over my chin, I looked outside.
The college grounds were dark and serene beyond the glass, as if the image were cast in lead.
The last drops of ebbing rain beaded the vaulting windows, and a current of November air swept unchecked through the corridors – one of the reasons why this library was usually half empty, and why I loved it so much.
It was past eight o’clock in the evening, and apart from a few weary faces occasionally scurrying by in search of a book, most students had already gone home.
I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting there, but my stomach felt hollow and there was a sharp, stabbing pain between the vertebrae in my neck.
I dug two fingers into the place where it hurt and circled my shoulders before returning to the open book.
I’d come to the library straight after the last seminar to work on an essay.
My laptop had gone to sleep ages ago, but every now and then the ancient fan would spring to life, as if trying to tell me with an exasperated groan where my priorities should lie.
Unfortunately, my brain refused to agree.
Whenever I tried to concentrate on work, my mind began to wander.
The deeper I burrowed into Davie’s research, the more I understood why he was so nervous.
There were plenty of clues pointing to the existence of the League of Starlings, but no proof.
Rumours of parties in lecture halls and on faculty roofs, of statues looted from college grounds, professors’ offices ransacked and porters rescued from storage rooms the morning after, stripped of their uniforms and their memory.
Tales passed along the grapevine, stories that under normal circumstances I’d have dismissed as legend for lack of hard evidence.
But then again: there was the symbol. Photos of the bird scrawled on the doors of student flats and faculties, on toilet walls and monuments to great philosophers.
Moreover, the League of Starlings was mentioned in several university newspapers in the same breath as other societies and clubs, although never in detail.
The universities where rumours of the name cropped up were scattered across England: Oxford, Kent, London and Cambridge.
Over and over, Cambridge. The closer I got to the present day, the more sporadic the references became.
Almost as if the club – if it had ever existed – had dissolved.
Or … as if its members had grown more cautious over time.
I was leafing pensively through the University of Cambridge yearbook from 1982 when my phone lit up. Davie.
Davie
Hungry? I have half a tray of chips left over from dinner, and I could throw in a slice of apple pie to make the schlep across town worth your while.
I smiled as I cast my eye over the message. Mostly he only sent me texts like that towards the end of the month, when he knew my funds were running low.
Mabel
Tempting, but I’ve still got stuff to do here.
Davie
I don’t think you’re understanding me. They’re curly fries.
I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing, which I knew would irritate the student at the other end of the table.
Mabel
Seriously I can’t. I’ve got to finish this essay.
I felt a stab of conscience as I flipped my phone screen-down and hunched over the book. Partly because my laptop had just started humming again and partly because I was deliberately lying to Davie.
He knew I wanted to help him with his research, but I’d downplayed the extent to which this research had mushroomed over the last few days.
Either I was trying to find out more about the people in Ashton’s circle whose names I’d learnt, or I was digging into the sinister society, hoping that the two strands would eventually intertwine.
So far, there was no sign of that happening, except for Davie’s experience outside a pub.
We’d gone back a couple of days ago, but the bricks had long since been scrubbed of graffiti.
It could all be a coincidence. Ashton could have seen the bird symbol somewhere, like we had, and sprayed it on the wall just on a whim.
He and his friends might be a common-or-garden bunch of spoilt, new-money brats who simply happened to use the name of a species of bird as a password to get into their parties.
We might be wrong. And yet: we didn’t think so.
The low-hanging lamps illuminating the desks at the back of the library blazed up for a moment, casting a dappled peach light across the paper in front of me.
I glanced up at the old-fashioned fittings as I continued to leaf through the book, and very nearly turned the page without noticing it.
At the last moment I stopped, and went a page back.
The section was about a Trinity College anniversary, and it included photographs from the celebrations.
It took me a moment to realise which one had caught my eye.
It was at the very bottom, spread across half the page: five people against a brick wall, all looking directly into the lens.
The photograph was in black and white, but I was certain they were all wearing black.
Starling-black, I thought, and in the next breath I remembered Blake’s hair.
Narrowing my eyes, I examined them more closely.
Three men, two women, all in their early twenties, and at first glance not only strikingly attractive but also so obviously self-assured that they could only have led lives of privilege.
They looked no different from the students I crossed paths with every day, yet there was one detail that stopped me in my tracks. One of the women was wearing a brooch at the neckline of her dress. A brooch in the shape of a bird holding a twig in its beak.
Heat rose to my cheeks and blurred my vision. I blinked it away, then bent hastily over the book to read the caption.
The new generation of the Cambridge elite. From left to right: Quentin Middleton, Ellen Lucille Meester, Cedric Landon Wells, Arthur O’Brien, Amelia Victoria Wallingford.
I had to reread the last name several times before I realised why it sounded so familiar.
Once it clicked, I reached for the stack of books in front of me and found the one I’d just been looking through.
It took me a minute to find the page again.
Next to an article about the most scenic views in Cambridge were several photographs.
One of them was of a bench next to the Cam.
I’d dwelt on the picture earlier because I always paused to look at benches – at least, I did if they had a commemorative plaque.
My mother always used to stop and read the inscriptions.
Sometimes there were just names, sometimes dates or quotations.
Funny, isn’t it? When somebody dies, people often don’t know what to do with their love, she’d told me once.
Is that sad or beautiful? I’d asked.
That, my darling, she had answered, linking her arm through mine, is life’s most fundamental question.
Barely two months later, her old Volvo had been T-boned by a Porsche.
Since then, I too had been at a loss, not knowing what to do with my love.
If I had the money I’d have put up a dozen benches in her memory, but as it was, I just stopped for a moment at the ones I found, and read my mother’s name in each inscription.
I’d done the same with this one earlier, but the actual name on the plaque had stuck in my head.
In memory of Amelia Victoria Heaven Wallingford
ex hoc momento pendet aeternitas
I picked up my phone, opened the translator app and typed in the Latin phrase.
Eternity is poised upon this moment.
Frowning, I entered the woman’s name into the search engine.
While the creaky library Wi-Fi slowly loaded the results, the student at the other end of the table got up and left, although I was so focused on scanning the search results I barely noticed.
The third one caught my eye. I clicked it, and a photograph appeared: smiling out at me was the familiar face of a pretty blonde-haired girl.
A gap between her front teeth, a dimple at the right-hand corner of her mouth, large eyes, thick lashes.
A face that radiated youth and a zest for life.
A face totally at odds with the headline of the article.
STUDENT, 22, DIES IN FIRE AT UNIVERSITY BUILDING
Amelia Victoria Wallingford (b.1960), daughter of the Home Secretary, lost her life in a blaze that broke out last Friday at Trinity College, Cambridge.
The circumstances that led to this tragic incident are still unclear.
According to a spokeswoman from the University Council, an investigation has been launched in cooperation with the police and fire services.
At this time, the authorities have not yet ruled out arson.
Wallingford was in her second year studying Social and Political Sciences, and volunteered—
I broke off at the sound of a thud somewhere behind me.
Whirling round, I stared along the serried rows of shelves that yawned before me.
The lamps above the stacks were flickering, too, and some had gone out altogether.
The gloom thickened as the shelves receded, a colourless labyrinth of interweaving spines and wooden shelving. There was no one to be seen.
Glancing at my watch, I realised the library would be closing soon.
Returning my attention to the search results, I scanned the first three pages.
Article after article about Amelia’s swimming competitions, public appearances with her father and her volunteer work at a local animal shelter.
The face in the pictures was always the same.
So was the name itself. Except – it wasn’t the same as on the bench.
Not quite. The second middle name, Heaven, appeared nowhere else, not even in her official obituary.