‘I wanted to say – before you go into purdah—’
She starts walking again. He takes it as an invitation to accompany her. She speeds up until he’s bobbing in her wake.
‘How did it go?’ he says, with a cocktail-party brightness.
‘Fine. Thank you.’
‘Good. The right person won, then? I know it isn’t always—’ He stops, swallows, pushes his hair off his face.
‘It isn’t always the case,’ she says. ‘No. Sometimes the wrong person wins.’
There’s a silence. He bites his lip. There’s no need for her to say any more. But she can’t stop herself. He’s one of them; he’ll betray Montverre, the grand jeu, and her, without thinking twice. He already has. The Red game. Everything else. She says, ‘I know what you did to my brother.’
There’s a split second – a heartbeat – and then he looks up at her. ‘You mean … How do you know about that?’ He tries to hold her gaze, but his eyes flicker. ‘Did he – he can’t have told you?’ Such outrage in his voice – and something else, not quite shame. It makes her want to – what? Slap him? Touch him, anyway. But if she touches him, who knows what will happen? She doesn’t trust herself. If she lets slip that she has his diary – or anything else, anything worse, she is afraid of what she might say … It’s dangerous, this urge to dance on the edge. Almost irresistible.
‘Don’t pretend—’ Her voice breaks. Stupid, treacherous voice. ‘Don’t pretend it was because you thought – that it was for his benefit. You wanted to win, didn’t you? You would have done anything to win. And then …’
She wants him to defend himself. But he squints at the floor, as though he’s admitting that even his diary is slippery and blurred, full of half-truths and self-deception. After a second he repeats, without raising his head, ‘And then …?’
‘Then …’ But her throat closes. She can’t say it. She doesn’t know what to say.
She hesitates. Then she strides away. She turns the corner at the end of the corridor. On her left, the windows look out on the courtyard. As she walks past them, a movement catches her eye and she stops.
There’s a motorcar in the centre of the black-and-white tiles. For a second, time has looped over on itself and she’s back at the beginning of Serotine Term, full of disbelief at Martin’s arrival; then she jolts back into the present moment. He’s not down there, he’s in the corridor behind her. If this is a repeating melody, it’s in a different key, or with a single note silenced. Instead, the man poking his legs out of the shining Rolls-Royce is corpulent and dark-suited. A grey-robed servant steps forward to help him up, obscuring her view, and two others busy themselves with a leather-strapped trunk. Then they retreat – struggling under the weight of the trunk as they lug it to the Magisters’ Entrance – and the car’s engine starts with a cough before it turns in a wide U and crawls towards the gatehouse. Two men are left, one a spotty youth looking up at the towers with amiable disinterest, the fat one with his head bowed. On the other side of the courtyard, the Magister Historiae and the Magister Cartae emerge from a doorway. They hurry over to the men in suits and shake their hands. A welcoming murmur drifts upwards.
She leans forward. Her breath mists the glass and evaporates almost instantly. Are they guests, arriving for the Midsummer Game two weeks early? The school will be full of outsiders – grand jeu masters, government officials, well-known amateurs, reporters from the grand jeu magazines – but the festival only lasts for a day, long enough for the Midsummer Game and lunch but short enough for them to catch the evening train back to the capital. Why are these men here now? She dislikes them already, and not only because of their loud voices and the smell of petrol fumes creeping through the cracks in the window frame. She draws back, turns to leave, and almost stumbles into Léo Martin. He’s been looking over her shoulder; now he ducks sideways to let her past, grimacing briefly, before his gaze goes back to the men in the courtyard. He says, ‘Is that …? Surely not.’
‘What? Who?’ She looks down. The Magisters have moved away; now she has a clear view of the men in suits.
‘That’s Emile Fallon,’ he says.
Emile Fallon. She feels her stomach lurch. For a moment she can’t think clearly: would she recognise his name, if she had never read Martin’s diary? Has she ever seen a photo of him? The easiest thing is to stare down at him and keep her expression blank. He seems older than Martin, with a bulging belly and a double chin, although his hair is still dark and slicked close to his skull. He glances up at the window and nods to them like an actor acknowledging his audience. He has a sly, close-mouthed smile. Instinctively she turns her back. It’s to hide her face, not to look at Martin, but he seems to take it as a question.
‘He was in my year, when I was a scholar,’ he says. ‘He works for the Ministry for Information, these days. You wouldn’t know him, he’s not … it’s all pretty hush-hush. He must have been invited to the Midsummer Game. Why has he turned up so early?’
She doesn’t respond. The thought of Emile here, again … She focuses on her face, keeping the muscles still. She has already revealed too much of herself. Remember. She’s never heard of him. She isn’t meant to know who he is.
Martin raises his hand. In spite of herself she glances over her shoulder. Emile is waving with a languid motion, like seaweed in a tide. Then he reaches into his jacket and takes out a gold cigarette case. He lights a black-and-gold Sobranie, still smiling up at the window. He flicks the match away. She can feel his attention on them both, like a cobweb clinging to her cheeks.
‘I suppose he’s come to settle in …’ Martin trails off. He was friends with Emile, years ago. Perhaps they’re still friends. Why not? Swapping intelligence between their ministries. Having lunch on the tax-payer. Evidence of the old boy network flourishing, the way it was always meant to. And yet he doesn’t look exactly pleased.
‘I must go,’ Magister Dryden says.
‘Yes,’ he says, and his eyes narrow. ‘Listen – I wanted to say, I know you’re angry with me, but please listen.’
‘No need.’
‘Yes, there is. I’ve been trying to find you. You’ve been avoiding me, haven’t you?’
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘What happened – I was drunk, I didn’t mean to insult you.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she says.
‘It does to me. Is it because of your brother, that you—’ He stops, as though she’s interrupted him. But she hasn’t; at least, not aloud. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘For everything. I’ve already said I’m sorry. Can’t we go back?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Goodbye, Mr Martin.’ She refuses to make space as she slides past him; her robe brushes his jacket and he’s the one to step sideways.
She walks away, expecting every moment to hear his voice. But it doesn’t come, and when she throws one last look behind her, he’s gone. It ought to give her some satisfaction, to have dismissed him so easily.
Emile is still in the courtyard, alone, now. As she watches, he blows out smoke through rounded lips. An O floats up, dissipates. Then he throws the cigarette butt away. He doesn’t bother to stub it out before he drifts towards the Magisters’ Entrance. It sits like an insect on a white tile, a narrow black-and-gold hornet, smoking.