“Gary’s are gone, so we’re back to mine.”

“I much prefer Rothmans, if I’m honest.”

I pass her the box. “It’s Sykes. My name.”

She nods. “Holly Sykes. I’m Gwyn Bishop.”

“I thought you were Gwyn Lewis.”

“They’ve both got an iand an sin them.”

“What happened after you left Wales?”

“Manchester, Birmingham, semi-homeless, homeless. Begging in the Bull Ring shopping center. Sleeping in squats, in flats of friends who weren’t so friendly after all. Surviving. Barely. It’s one miracle I’m here to tell the tale, and another that I dodged getting sent back—until you’re eighteen, see, all Social Services’ll do is pass you back to the local authority you came from. I still have nightmares about my father welcoming home the prodigal daughter while the liaison officer looks on, thinking, All’s well that ends well, and then my father after he’s locked the door. Now, why I’m telling you this tale of joy and light is to show you how bad it has to be before running away is a smart move. Once you’ve fallen through the cracks, you don’t get out. It’s taken me five years until I can dare to think the worst is behind me. Thing is, I look at you, and—” She breaks off ’cause a boy on a bike’s skidded to a halt smack bang in front of us. “Sykes,” he says.

Ed Brubeck? Ed Brubeck. “What’re youdoing here?”

His hair’s spiky with sweat. “Looking for you.”

“Don’t tell me you cycled? What ’bout school?”

“Maths exam this morning, but I’m free now. Put my bike on the train and just rode over from Sheerness. Look—”

“You must reallywant your baseball cap back.”

“The cap doesn’t matter, Sykes, but we need—”

“Hang on—how did you know where to find me?”

“I didn’t, but I remembered talking about Gabriel Harty’s farm, so I phoned him earlier. No Holly Sykes, he said, only a Holly Rothmans. I thought it might be you, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

Gwyn mutters, “I’m saying nothing.”

I say, “Brubeck, Gwyn, Gwyn, Brubeck,” and they nod at each other before Brubeck turns back to me.

“Something’s happened.”

Gwyn gets up. “See you in the penthouse suite.” She gives me a go-for-it-girl look and waltzes off.

I turn back to Brubeck, a bit annoyed. “I heard.”

He looks uncertain. “Then why are you here?”

“It’s on Radio Kent. The three murders. At that Iwade place.”

“Not that.” Brubeck bites his lip. “Is Jacko here? Your brother?”

“Jacko? Course not. Why would he be here?”

Sheba comes running up, barking at Brubeck, who’s hesitating, like someone who’s got abysmal news. “Jacko’s gone missing.”

My head spins as it sinks in. Brubeck tells Sheba, “Shut up!” and Sheba obeys.

I ask feebly, “When?”

“Between Saturday night and Sunday morning.”

“Jacko?” I must’ve heard it wrong, over the noise. “Missing? But … I mean, he can’t be. The pub’s locked at night.”

“The police were at school earlier, and Mr. Nixon came into the exam hall to ask if anyone had information about where you were. I almost spoke up but I’m here instead. Sykes? Can you hear me?”

I’ve got that nasty floaty feeling you get in a lift when you can’t trust the floor. “But I haven’t seen Jacko since Saturday morning …”

“ Iknow, but the cops don’t. They probably think that you and Jacko cooked something up between you.”

“But that’s rubbish, Brubeck—you know it is.”

“Yes, I doknow it is, but you have to tell them that, otherwise they won’t start searching for Jacko as hard as they should.”

My mind zigzags from trains to London, to police frogmen dredging the Thames, to a murderer in the hedgerows. “But Jacko doesn’t even know where I am!” I’m shaking and the sky’s slipped and my head’s splitting. “He’s not a normal kid and—and—and—”

“Listen, listen.” Brubeck’s caught me and is holding my head like a boy about to kiss me, but he’s not. “ Listen. Grab your bag. We’re going back to Gravesend. On my bike, then on the train. I’ll get you through this, Holly. I promise. Let’s go. Now.”

December 13

“B OOMIER FROM THE TENORS,” commands the choirmaster. “Get our firm diaphragms wobbling, boys! Wibble-wobble, wibble-wobble. Trebles, le sss sssybilanccce on the e sss—we aren’t a troupe of Gollums, now, are we?—and tap ou tthose ts. Adrian B—if you can nail the top C in ‘Weep You No More Sad Fountains,’ you can nail it here. Once more with more welly! A-o ne, a-t wo, and a—” King’s College Choir’s sixteen bat-eared choristers, bereft of hairstyles, and fourteen choral scholars exhale in unison …

Of one that is so fair and bright,

Velut maris stella …

Benjamin Britten’s “Hymn to the Virgin” launches, chasing its echoey tail around the sumptuous ceiling before dive-bombing the scattering of winter tourists and students sitting there in the chancel in our damp coats. For me, Britten’s a hit-and-miss composer; prolix on occasion but, when pumped and primed, the old queen binds your quivering soul to the mast and lashes it with fiery sublimity …

Brighter than the day is light,

Parens et puella …

In my idler moments, I do wonder what music I’ll hear as I lie dying, surrounded by a bevy of hot nurses. Nothing more exultant than “Hymn to the Virgin” occurs to me, but I worry that when the big moment arrives DJ Unconscious will launch me off on the back of that “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight)” and for once in my life I’ll have no redress. World, shut yer mouth, for one of the canon’s most glorious musical orgasms, on the “Cry”:

I cry to thee, thou see to me,

Lady pray thy Son for me …

The hairs on my neck prickle, as if blown on. By her, for example, sitting across the aisle. She wasn’t there when I last looked. Her eyes are closed to drink in the music so I drink her in. Late thirties … vanilla hair, creamy-skinned, beaujolais lips, cheekbones you’d slice your thumb on. Slim beneath a midnight-blue winter coat. A defected Russian opera singer, waiting to meet her handler. You never know, this is Cambridge. A true, rare ten …

Tam pia,

That I might come to thee …

Maria.

Let her stay put after the choir troop out. Let her turn to the young man across the aisle and murmur, “Wasn’t that the very breath of heaven?” Let us discuss the Peter GrimesInterludes, and Bruckner’s Ninth. Let us avoid talk of her domestic arrangements as we drink coffee at the County Hotel. Let coffee turn into trout and red wine, and to hell with my last pint of the Michaelmas term with the boys at the Buried Bishop. Let us climb the carpeted stairs to that snug suite where Fitzsimmons’s mother and I frolicked during fresher’s week. Ouch. The Kraken in my boxer shorts wakes. I’m male, twenty-one, it’s been ten days since I last got laid, what do you expect? But I can hardly adjust myself with a lady watching. Oh? Well well well, if she isn’t discreetly studying me. I watch Rubens’s Adoration of the Magiabove the altar, and wait for her to make a move.

·   ·   ·

THE CHOIR TROOPS out but the woman stays put. A tourist aims his fat camera at the Rubens before Security Goblin snarls, “No flash!” The chancel empties, the goblin returns to his booth by the organ, and minutes trickle by. My Rolex says three-thirty. I’ve an essay to polish on Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy, but an eerie goddess is sitting six feet away, waiting for me to make a move. “I always think,” I tell her, “that seeing the choir’s blood, sweat, and tears as they work on a piece deepens the mystery of music, not lessens it. Does that make sense?”

She tells me, “In an undergraduate way, yes.”