Dead Silent

by Sharon Jones

  ‘You look smart.’

  ‘Yeah. Afraid I think there’ll be a couple of meetings to talk about what’s happened. I hate to…’

  ‘It’s fine. I need to go and buy some shoes. And then I’ll meet Michael from his interview.’

  His jaw tightened and one of his hands squeezed into a fist. Bugger. He really was angry.

  But then he looked at her properly for the first time since walking through the door and his face softened. ‘How are you doing?’

  She shrugged and tried to sound bright. ‘I’m fine. There’s no need to worry about me. It’s not like I haven’t seen…blood…before.’ Images of the boy and his bloody wings flashed before her eyes.

  She clutched her stomach as the three cups of tea she’d had in the Dean’s office staged a comeback and her head felt so light it might float away from her neck.

  Dad guided her onto one of the leather sofas and pushed her head down until it was between her knees.

  ‘Deep breaths,’ he said, rubbing her shoulder.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she muttered, trying to sit up. Dad’s hand kept her where she was.

  ‘I’d be worried if you didn’t feel sick about what you saw this morning.’

  ‘Did you?’ Poppy asked.

  ‘Fuck, yes. I nearly threw up twice on the way to the police station.’

  She glanced up, and this time he let her straighten up.

  He ran a thumb over her cheek and pressed the back of his hand to her forehead as if checking for a fever. ‘Feeling better now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  A knock at the door set his face into a frown. ‘Sorry, I’d better get that.’ He got to his feet and opened the door.

  ‘Hi, Jim, I hope you don’t mind me coming over, but I thought with Zoe being away we’d better talk about what to do about choir practice and the services,’ said a soft voice with the hint of a Geordie accent.

  ‘Of course, Chrissie, come on in,’ Dad said. ‘This is my daughter, Poppy. Poppy, this is Chrissie Sharrock, our junior organ scholar.’

  The girl was dressed in jeans and a navy blue Paddington Bear duffle coat and had a college scarf wrapped around her neck. She had shoulder-length nut-brown hair and her pretty face was pink with the cold, but bore no visible make-up.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. If I’d known you had company…’ she gasped, touching Dad’s arm with a familiarity that made Poppy flinch inside. ‘I’ll come back.’

  ‘No,’ Poppy said. ‘Don’t go on my account.’

  The girl glanced up at Dad. ‘Sure?’

  ‘We’re sure. Sit down.’

  Chrissie sat on the opposite sofa. Poppy was about to shuffle over to make room for Dad on her sofa, but just as she moved, he slumped down next to Chrissie.

  Poppy swallowed, a sudden dryness in her throat.

  ‘What a time to visit,’ Chrissie said. ‘I’m so sorry that you’ve come in the midst of all of this. Jesus, Jim, I hope you’re going to work hard to make this up to her,’ she said, giving him an accusatory look.

  ‘It’s true, I have a lot of making up to do.’ Dad smiled sadly.

  ‘What’s an organ scholar?’ Poppy asked, speedily changing the subject. ‘Did they give you a kidney, or something?’

  Chrissie laughed. ‘I get a scholarship and private music lessons in return for playing the organ. It’s not a big deal, but certainly helps pay the bills. There’s no way my parents could afford more organ lessons and pay for little luxuries like food and clothing. Don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t got the scholarship. So, what are you going to do while you’re here?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Poppy said. ‘Things are all a bit up in the air.’

  ‘I suppose they must be. It’s horrible, what’s happened. It’s not always like this, y’know? I mean, there are some completely spoilt dicks in Cambridge, ’scuse my French, Jim,’ she said, touching his arm again, ‘but they don’t normally set about killing each other.’

  Chrissie’s easy manner made Poppy smile. She liked the girl, even if she did seem to have a bit of a crush on Dad. Wasn’t like she hadn’t seen that happen before. Some of her teachers had gone into mourning when he’d left.

  ‘Danny was a nice guy,’ Dad said, thoughtful again.

  ‘Yeah. He wasn’t like the others.’

  ‘Others?’ Poppy asked.

  ‘He was one of those guys. You know: good at everything and everyone loves them?’

  Poppy nodded. She was, after all, going out with one of ‘those guys’.

  ‘Rumour had it he was heading for a double first,’ Chrissie continued. ‘Most of that lot think they’re better than everyone else, but Danny was pretty normal, even if he did have crap taste in friends.’

  ‘He was a nice guy, and he’ll be missed,’ Dad said, firmly, giving Chrissie the kind of look generally reserved for Poppy.

  Chrissie looked suitably chastised and Dad crossed an ankle over his knee and tapped his fingers against the black leather of his shoe. Poppy had seen him do that before. Normally it would have been a battered pair of Doc Martens, but it was what he did when he was worried about something. She got the impression that there were things the two of them wanted to talk about without her being there. She felt uncomfortable and in the way.

  Poppy pushed herself up off the sofa.

  Dad jumped up too. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I should leave you to talk about whatever it is you need to talk about.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to go.’

  Poppy looked down at her feet. ‘I need to buy shoes.’

  ‘Oh, right, yeah. OK.’

  ‘Listen, I’ll come back later,’ Chrissie said, getting up. ‘It was really nice to meet you, Poppy. If you need anything or fancy going for a coffee, my room’s in Blue Boar Court. Just ask the porters, they’ll point you in the right direction.’

  ‘Thanks. Nice to meet you too.’

  ‘Talk to you later,’ Dad said, as she disappeared out the door. ‘You really don’t have to go,’ he said, turning back to Poppy.

  ‘I can’t wear these all day.’

  Dad sighed. ‘I could come with you.’

  ‘Don’t you think things are bad enough? I still have the mental scars from the last time you took me shoe shopping.’

  He snorted and smiled. ‘Fair comment. OK. We’ll talk properly later, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Got your phone with you?’

  Poppy nodded.

  ‘I’ll give you a call when I’m done. You’re sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Dad went to the door, pushed aside the black academic gown that hung there and took down a blue scarf that had two gold-coloured stripes running either side of a red one. He hooked it over Poppy’s head and looped it around her neck. It smelled of him. She’d almost forgotten his smell – the warm, spicy aftershave he’d worn since she was a kid.

  ‘What’s this for?’ she asked, pressing the scratchy wool to her neck.

  ‘If you want to walk through any of the colleges you’re less likely to get stopped wearing one of these. Porters will assume you’re a student.’

  ‘Think I can pass for eighteen?’

  ‘Scarily, yes.’ He brushed a hand down her hair. His eyes became watery as he looked at her and he took a deep breath as if about to say something. He closed his mouth and shook his head. ‘I should go and see what’s happening.’ He leaned down and kissed her forehead. ‘Do you know the way?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Dad grabbed his keys off the coffee table and opened the door for her. They walked in silence, down the uneven stone steps of the stairwell and into the columned cloister of Nevile’s Court. To the right was the library he’d pointed out on the way over. It seemed to float above arched pillars, as if it had been built on stilts to keep the books safe.

  ‘This is where Isaac Newton first measured the speed of sound,’ Dad said, stopping beside her.

  ‘Really?�
�

  ‘Listen.’ Dad clapped his hands together. The sound echoed, almost as if unseen people were sending the clap back to him.

  Poppy smiled. ‘That’s really strange.’

  ‘And Lord Byron, the poet?’ Dad continued, seemingly enjoying his new role as tour guide. ‘He lived over there with his bear.’

  ‘His bear?’

  ‘Yeah. Although the college allows cats, they have never allowed dogs. And Byron got a bit annoyed about that and so got himself a bear.’

  ‘That’s a bit of an extreme way to prove a point.’

  ‘By all accounts, Byron was a bit of an extreme character.’

  ‘Did you live here when you were a student?’

  ‘No. This is the inner sanctum of the college. You need to be a senior fellow to get a room here. That, or a humble chaplain. Oh, and Winnie the Pooh’s in there,’ Dad said, catching Poppy looking back at the library.

  ‘Dad, I hate to break this to you, but Winnie the Pooh isn’t real. He’s a fictional character.’

  ‘Ha, ha. I meant the original manuscripts.’

  Poppy and her dad smiled at each other and she could tell they were both remembering playing Pooh sticks down at the river and reciting nonsense rhymes to one another. Her lungs contracted painfully. It took all her willpower not to throw herself into his arms and tell him how much she missed him.

  Dad’s smile faded and his brow crinkled.

  ‘Poppy, I’m really—’

  The wind changed directions and whipped through the columns, filling the cloister with the sound of whispers. Poppy shivered as the cold slid between every gap in her clothing and, in among the whispers of the wind, she thought she heard someone calling Dad’s name.

  A guy appeared from behind one of the columns on the opposite side of the courtyard and waved. He was tall with dark hair, cut into almost the same style as Michael’s – slightly long at the front so that his fringe flopped over his eyes. He wore stone-coloured trousers, a dark wool sweater and a scarf wrapped several times around his neck so that it almost covered the bottom half of his face. Even so, he was vaguely familiar.

  Dad looked over his shoulder and sighed. ‘I have to take care of this. Do you know where you’re going? Head through that passageway there and you’ll be in Great Court, and then you can go out through the main gate. Turn right, and keep going. You’ll eventually hit King’s.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  The guy who’d called to Dad had stopped at the corner. He bobbed up and down, obviously trying to keep away the cold. He glanced up and his gaze connected with Poppy’s.

  That’s where she knew him from: he was one of the guys from last night.

  He began walking in their direction but was cut off by a tall girl who was wrapped up in a quilted jacket. She had hair so red there was no way it was natural. And even from this distance, Poppy could tell that her eye make-up had smudged. She guessed they were friends of the guy who’d died. Glancing at the two people waiting for him, Dad put an arm around her shoulders and steered her towards the stone steps that led to the passageway into Great Court.

  His pace was brisk, and he practically pushed her up the first of the steps. ‘I’ll call you later.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’ Poppy looked between him and the approaching guy.

  ‘Bye.’ With that, Dad marched away, as if to head off the students before they made it any closer to her. Was he ashamed of her or something?

  Poppy slowly mounted the steps, surreptitiously glancing at them from behind the curtain of her hair. As she reached the top step, Dad turned and waved at her. She got the feeling he was just making sure she was leaving. She waved back, put her head down and ducked quickly into the shadow of the passageway. There she stopped, stepped closer to the wall and edged back to where she could just about see Dad and the students.

  Dad had his hands on his hips. The guy was waving his hands around. He was whispering so she couldn’t hear what he was saying, but his expression was furious, as if he’d really like to be shouting. Dad glanced back towards where she was hiding. Poppy flattened herself against the wall, waited a second and then dared another look.

  Dad was pointing his finger at the guy. He only did that when he was really angry. She’d expected to be on the receiving end of that finger herself, but the dead body in the chapel seemed to have got her out of that so far. But why would Dad be getting so angry with a guy who only looked old enough to be a student? Was that really the way chaplains were meant to behave with students?

  The guy pushed past Dad and headed in Poppy’s direction, shouting, ‘No, Lucy! I won’t do that.’

  ‘You need to talk to Messenger. If you don’t, I will,’ Dad shouted after him.

  Footsteps echoed on the stone steps. Poppy pretended to be taking a great interest in the notice board and the guy carried right on past her, his clipped footsteps echoing like whip cracks.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘So you think espionage stopped the Cold War from turning hot?’

  Michael shifted in his chair. Why the hell had he said he was interested in Cold War politics? He barely knew a thing about the subject. His A level didn’t even cover that period…but it had just somehow slipped out. And now they expected him to be an expert. What an idiot!

  Professor Madigan leaned back in her chair and observed him from behind steepled fingers. She was younger than he’d imagined, probably in her thirties, and despite her rounded cheeks and jovial manner, the amusement in her dark eyes was disarming. He got the feeling that she knew he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about and was going to enjoy teaching him a lesson about overreaching.

  OK, all he had to do was steer the conversation onto safer ground – something he actually knew about. Until then, he would roll out everything he could remember from that documentary he’d watched last year. Thank God for the History Channel!

  The professor crossed one leg over the other and let her black high-heeled shoe dangle from her foot. ‘That’s an interesting argument to make,’ she continued thoughtfully. ‘Most people would want to argue the exact opposite: that every time a spy ring was discovered on either side of the Iron Curtain, relations between East and West became more fraught.’

  Michael cleared his throat. ‘I think politicians on both sides would have been more paranoid if they didn’t think they had some insight into what the other side was doing. They might not have trusted all the information that they received, but without it their imaginations alone would have escalated the paranoia.’

  Scratching noises drew his gaze. The other lecturer, Dr Holden, a hulk of a man in a worn-out suit, was furiously scribbling something on his pad. Probably the word REJECT over and over again. After meeting a couple of the other people they were interviewing today, Michael realised he didn’t have a chance in hell of getting in.

  ‘You sound like you admire the work done by our security services,’ Professor Madigan said. ‘Is that a career path you yourself are interested in?’

  What? Seriously? Was that a trick question? She really wanted to know if he was interested in being a spy? Oh yeah, she’d definitely made up her mind to reject him and now she was amusing herself by making him squirm.

  Michael tightened his grip on the arm of the chair. ‘I’m not interested in working for the Russians, if that’s what you mean,’ he said, his tone a little sharper than he’d meant.

  Professor Madigan’s cheek twitched, turning the corner of her lips into a horrifying smile. She’d riled him, and she knew it. ‘Not all spies educated in Cambridge have turned traitor. Besides, you shouldn’t believe everything that was written about Guy Burgess – our government was just as capable of producing disinformation as the Russians.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘No. I didn’t mean to imply…’

  The two tutors glanced at each other.

  ‘Leaving the Cambridge spy ring to one side, in your opinion, if the Americans hadn’t instituted the Marshall Plan, do you think the Cold War would ha
ve taken the same course?’

  What?

  They wanted his opinion on that? He didn’t have an opinion on that.

  Shit.

  He was opinion-less.

  As Michael passed out of the main gate of King’s College, it felt as though the doors had slammed shut behind him. Permanently. There was no way they were going to give him a place after that little performance. Ugh! He’d sounded like a complete numbskull in there.

  His parents were going to be gutted. Mum had been blabbering on and on to her golf cronies about how her son was going to Cambridge – she’d hate having to take that back.

  Michael spotted Poppy standing by the low wall that ran around the edge of the snow covered lawn, hopping from one foot to the other with her phone pressed to her ear. She wore an exasperated expression.

  ‘No, Dad didn’t know. Didn’t you tell him? No, I do not want Jonathan to come and pick us up – Mum! Seriously. I can’t just leave.’ She glanced up and, seeing him, smiled.

  He raised a hand in greeting, forced a smile onto his face and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

  ‘I’ve gotta go, Michael’s here.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll ask him – Mum says, how did it go?’

  The truth didn’t seem warranted. He shrugged and turned away. He didn’t want her to see the big F for failure stamped between his eyes. Poppy had enough on her plate after what had happened that morning.

  ‘It went great, Mum,’ Poppy said, before launching into all the reasons why they couldn’t immediately jump on a train home to Windermere. Good. He didn’t want to go home just yet. He couldn’t face people knowing how badly he’d screwed up.

  He watched groups of students hurrying by, heavy bags tugging at their shoulders, loaded with books from the libraries he’d never get to use. Tiny snowflakes drifted out of the leaden sky making the whole scene appear fuzzy and slightly unreal. Cambridge was unreal. A stupid dream that was never going to happen.

  A hand on his arm brought him back to reality. ‘Oh, hey,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘Reliving your triumph?’ She dumped a plastic bag on the floor, tucked her hands into the ends of his scarf and pulled him against her. He felt the contours of her body mould to his and the briefest memory of her stretched out beneath him slid through his mind.