‘There is nothing you could have done. Not for Satnam or Jessica or Tash.’ Nevis takes a deep breath and sighs. Her mother goes on. ‘For some people dying is the only way they’re able to make sense of living.’

Chapter 43

Nevis

She waits until Honor has left before texting Luke, then sits back and stares out across the floating world, taking comfort in the familiar, gentle, elemental slap of the water on the steel of the hull and in the busyness of the water birds breaking the cool, green surface. A cormorant, spooked by a fish leaping out of the water, startles her back to wakefulness, its crack, crack backfiring into the air. If Satnam were a water bird she would be a cormorant. She has the same simple elegance, the same air of self-possession and mystery. Jessica would have been a sandpiper, with her nervous, darting energy, and Tash, well that was easy. Tash was a Canada goose, brash, noisy and nosy but with a generous heart and an adventurer’s spirit. They comfort her, these thoughts, though the pain of them is sharp too. She thinks about Satnam, how she could have asked the simple question, ‘Why are you thinking of leaving?’ before heading out to the library that Sunday. About pumping Jessica for information without ever stopping to listen to the silences in the spaces between her words. And about Tash, hard-edged, bawdy, chaotic Tash. Girls like Tash cover up their fear with trash talk and cigarettes.

Three young women, three chances to intervene. She, Nevis, could have. So why didn’t she? Was it cowardice? Is she so afraid of life that she’s unable to protect it? Everything is so confusing now she hardly knows where to turn. When did it begin? At the Valentine’s Day party or long before that, when three young women who were struggling with their mathematics met at a remedial summer class? What plans were hatched then? And when did they fall apart? And why has all of this passed her by? So many questions. So many unfinished and contradictory stories, tangles of half-truths and lies, of secrets and assumptions.

She thinks: perhaps I should go to the police after all. But if I did, what would I say? How likely are they to believe me, an odd girl who doesn’t know much about the world? There is no proof of anything. Nothing concrete. I suppose I could call Narinder Mann but she wouldn’t listen to me. There is a limit to what Narinder wants to know. Perhaps I should talk to the Dean? There was a moment, in the restaurant, when she imagined she could tell Christopher Cullen anything. What will I do, how will I feel, if I discover that he already knows? Or doesn’t know and, like Narinder, doesn’t want to hear?