The Oxford Inheritance (9 page)

“Okay, then come out with us tonight,” Evie insisted, still flushed and bright-eyed. “We're getting drinks at Freud's; you must come.”

“No.” Her reply was sharp, but Cassie quickly softened her tone. “I have an appointment. Some other time.”

“Oh! I forgot to ask.” Evie blinked at her. “How was the essay?”

“Fine,” Cassie answered quietly. “It went fine.”

“Okay, sleep tight!” Evie blew a kiss, and then was gone, her laughter echoing in the stairwell and up through the open windows as the group emerged in the courtyard below. Cassie moved to the windows and watched them go, Olivia and Evie with their arms linked, still bent over Olivia's cell phone, while Hugo matched their pace. The sunlight caught in their hair, glowing and vibrant; their voices rang with happiness.

For the first time in a long while, Cassie felt a pang of loneliness.

SHE ONLY MEANT TO REST BRIEFLY, BUT WHEN CASSIE WOKE, THE
light was fading outside her windows. She slowly swung her feet to the floor. She'd dreamed of Indiana again, playing in the orchard while her mother shelled peas for dinner and sang along to the radio. Now, in a cold, empty room, her loss was something real and solid in her chest, a longing for the past Cassie had relentlessly kept at bay all these years, folding it into a smaller and smaller space in her heart, out of the way of her everyday life.

Disoriented, she shook off the cobwebs of slumber. She was due at the Radcliffe Camera to cover for Elliot.

When Cassie reached the library, she found Elliot pacing impatiently by the front desk.“You're here, great, okay. Let me give you the tour.”

He led her back through an arched passageway into the hidden depths of the building. Behind the scenes, Cassie discovered that the library facilities were far less grand than the front rooms; what funds they had were clearly spent on the upkeep of the elegant reading room furniture and the plush carpets of the curving stairs, not the warrenlike maze of maintenance and storage rooms kept out of sight of the library guests. Elliot quickly showed her around the endless twisting stone corridors and perilous spiral staircases to the echoing vaults beneath the ground level. It was like the Raleigh vaults, only on a much grander scale: stadium-sized warehouse rooms filled with hundreds of thousands of books, the packed shelving stretching deep into the distance.

“Take the request slips, check the system log here, then go fetch,” Elliot explained, checking his watch. “A trained monkey could do it, no offense.”

“None taken,” Cassie replied. There was a hush in the library, a warm glow from the lamps on the walls. It was cozy and felt like a safe retreat, far from Raleigh and Hugo's piercing gaze. “I'll be fine. You should get going for your hot date.”

“Okay.” Elliot looked around. “That's everything, I think. I'll be back to close at midnight. Oh, and I forgot, I looked into that friend of yours, Margaret.”

“You did?” Cassie caught her breath, her heart suddenly racing. “Did you find anything?”

“Just call me King of the Vaults,” Elliot preened. He pulled a slim file from under the circulation desk. “Some of my best work, if I do say so myself, considering the time limits.”

Cassie snatched the folder, eager. “Thank you,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”

“Let's just hope my date is worth it,” Elliot replied. “Try not to burn the building down while I'm gone.” He left her with a salute.

Cassie took a seat behind the desk. The evening library was still and silent, even the dedicated academics of Oxford having a better way to spend their Friday nights than locked among the dusty stacks. She was alone with the past.

True to his word, Elliot had done a thorough job. He'd started with the most readily available source: the same Raleigh yearbooks Cassie had fruitlessly searched. Now, with Margaret Madison as the subject, Elliot had found more: her mother's face, sandwiched in the back of a group matriculation photo—lined up beneath the Raleigh tower just as Cassie had stood on that first day of term. Margaret's name, listed as part of the girls' hockey team; news of an award for English composition, and a poem, published in the dense record, to accompany photographs of the college grounds in winter. There were richer details too, which
Elliot had dug from sources Cassie didn't even know existed: copies of the Raleigh student rolls, broken down by subject group, and dormitory listings showing Margaret had occupied rooms above the West Quad. Tutor names, sporting activities. Newspaper clippings mentioning her team achievements, and a photo of her in a group of girls wearing matching fancy dress outfits, breathless from some charity run.

Cassie drank it all in. Here, at last, was a real window into her mother's life, so vivid she could almost see her: laughing on the quad between classes, hanging out in the Raleigh bar with her teammates, late at night. She felt a pang of grief well up. The woman Cassie had known was an anxious loner, uncomfortable in crowds, never one to form close friendships no matter what town they moved to or which whirl of her manic phase was under way. But here she was, looking normal and cheery, just a regular college freshman brimming over with excitement and possibilities.

Cassie had never known this side of her mother, and now she never would.

The night passed uneventfully, with a few requests from researchers.
Cassie was left to contemplate the file until Elliot returned after midnight to close up, his cheeks flushed and his sweater askew.

“Good date?” Cassie asked, teasing.

“A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell,” Elliot replied with a wink. He looked at the file spread out on the desk. “Was the info any help? Like I said, I'm just getting started. I thought I'd make a list of her old classmates next. The intake was small that year, only ten other students in her English class, so it shouldn't be too hard to find someone who knew her.”

Cassie paused. She'd been secretive about her search to date, but curiosity was winning out. “That might be a good idea.” Cassie nodded. “Either way, this was just what I needed.”

“I'll let you know when I dig up something more.” Elliot glanced around. “No problems tonight?”

“Nothing to report.” Cassie pulled on her coat. “Some kids were making out in the Egyptian room, but I left them to it. And I know you said to leave the returns for you to deal with, but I didn't have anything else to do, so I checked them back in and reshelved them downstairs.”

Elliot gave her a look. “Well, aren't we industrious? You know, if you enjoy slaving away for a pittance, we're looking to replace the clerk who just quit on me, said something about a hostile work environment . . .” He rolled his eyes. “The job's yours if you want it.”

“I do,” Cassie replied immediately. Her savings and stipend wouldn't last for long, and although Raleigh's official policies frowned on students holding jobs during term time, they surely couldn't find fault with the respected library. She would be able to access the archives any time she liked.

“I'll tell the boss and have you come in for a proper interview.” Elliot yawned. “Now, be gone before I rope you into tidying up.”

“Good night.” Cassie turned to leave but Elliot called after her

“Be careful. They found a girl by the river the other week, strangled to death.”

Cassie stopped. “Was she a student?”

He shrugged. “I don't know. Local girl, I think. But it's a big bad city, so be sure to watch your back.”

“Don't worry,” Cassie reassured him. “I can take care of myself.”

She was almost home when she remembered that she'd meant to go grocery
shopping that afternoon; there was no food up in the attics. She hitched her bag and kept walking, striking out north across Magdalen Bridge and up Cowley Road, which snaked through the outskirts of the city. Here, the streets were wide, cracked concrete, rumbling with local traffic and public buses, and lined with a grimy patchwork of twenty-four-hour Indian take-out stores, discount supermarkets, and church thrift stores advertising cut-price electric goods and community luncheons.

Cassie walked briskly, remembering Elliot's warnings. This part of Oxford was a far cry from the elegant city spires, but tonight the change of scenery was a relief. Away from the distractions of the library, her mind circled back to a face she'd rather forget. Hugo. The memory of him in her living room rattled in her mind. She could see him now, that dark, piercing stare, those casual, elusive smiles, as if he knew a secret and wouldn't tell.

She shook the thoughts away, arriving at the large, neon-lit supermarket she'd found on a past exploration. It was half empty at this hour, with only a few lone shoppers pushing their carts up and down the wide, stacked aisles. Cassie picked up a basket and began to wander, picking out cheap food, pasta, tinned sauces, end-of-day cuts of meat she could freeze or make into a nourishing stew. Eventually, she made her way back to the checkout aisles and unloaded her basket onto the conveyor belt. The shop assistant was a bored-looking teenager, a girl with bleached hair and a yawning expression. She began to ring up the sales, as Cassie kept a watchful eye on the register total.

“And here we are again.” The voice came from behind her. Cassie turned to find the jogger she kept encountering moving into line behind her. He grinned, setting his basket down on the conveyor. “Charlie, remember?” he told her. “And you're Cassie.”

Cassie looked him over. He was dressed casually tonight, in jeans and a faded T-shirt that stretched over muscular, tanned arms. Under his open parka she made out the faded logo of the Rolling Stones emblazoned on the front, and recent scabs healing on the knuckles of his right hand. His smiling gaze scanned the contents of her basket and he whistled. “Anyone ever tell you to eat a vegetable? You'll get scurvy at this rate.”

“Anyone ever tell you to mind your own business?”

He laughed, undeterred. “Some fruit would help with those mood swings too. Happy chemicals, and all.”

Cassie looked down at his shopping: two six-packs of beer and a
bag of potato chips. “Because you're really the guy to lecture me about proper nutrition.”

Charlie clutched his chest. “A direct hit! She wounds me.”

Cassie tried not to smile.

“Twenty-two seventy.” The checkout girl yawned. Cassie turned back to her, and carefully counted out the foreign banknotes, loading her groceries into her backpack.

“You need help with that?” Charlie offered, trailing her forward in the aisle.

“I've got it,” Cassie replied, hoisting the bag onto her back.

“Suit yourself.” Charlie gave the checkout girl a wink. “Modern women, they can do everything themselves. Won't need us for anything soon.”

Outside, the midnight streets were dark and quiet, lit by the flickering neon of the streetlights overhead and the occasional headlights beaming from a passing car. Cassie pulled her jacket tighter against the late chill and set off back toward college, but she was only halfway down the street when she heard her name called from behind her.

She turned. Charlie was walking briskly toward her, a plastic bag swinging from his hand. “Which way are you heading?”

“Home.” Cassie hoped he'd finally take a hint, but when she turned away and started walking again, he fell into pace, his long strides easily matching hers.

“Me too. Ain't that a coincidence.” He pulled a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and offered it to her.

“I don't smoke.”

Charlie shrugged. “Me neither,” he agreed, pulling one out and producing a lighter. He lit it, and took a long drag. “I quit six months ago. Nasty things. They'll kill you one day.”

Cassie continued briskly down the street, but Charlie stayed beside her. When she turned across the road and he followed, Cassie stopped abruptly on the corner. “What are you doing?”

“Walking you home,” Charlie announced matter-of-factly. “It's not safe out here, late at night.”

“No.”

“No what?” Charlie grinned again.

“No to everything,” Cassie snapped. She knew how this went. He would walk her back, then hover expectantly outside the door, suggest a coffee, perhaps, or ask to see her place. She was supposed to feel indebted, obliged to him, swayed by the charming anecdotes he'd tell, and the persistence of his attention. She was supposed to give him whatever he wanted. “This isn't going to end in my bedroom, okay?”

A look of amusement flitted across his face. “Don't get the wrong idea. I'm just keeping an eye out. You never know what kind of big, bad beasts are out there, lurking in the shadows.”

Cassie gave a bitter laugh. “It's not those beasts I'm worried about. You're the one who won't leave me alone.”

Charlie looked wounded. “Hey now, that was uncalled for.”

“Was it?” Cassie sighed. It was late, and she was too tired for this. “I don't know you. I don't know anything about you. You're just some guy who keeps showing up, and now you're following me home. For all I know, you're going to leave my body in the river.”

“Hey,” he protested. “It's not like that. I have the full backing of the Oxfordshire County Police Department, see?” He pulled a badge from his pocket and opened it for her. “Police Constable Charles Day.”

Cassie looked at the badge, peering in the dim light at his identification photo and the official stamp. She snorted. “Just because you're a cop doesn't make you safe. In my experience, you guys are the ones I have to worry about.”

Charlie's smile faded. “You don't have to be such a bitch about it.”

“Why not?” Cassie shot back. “I didn't ask you to keep talking to me, or come after me now. I can take care of myself.”

“Clearly.” Charlie gave a sullen shrug, hands back in his pockets. The light was gone from his expression, and he looked almost hurt enough for Cassie to take it back. “I was just trying to be nice.”

“Don't,” Cassie said firmly. She walked away, fast on the empty street, her footsteps a sharp rhythm of anger on the dark sidewalk. This time, Charlie didn't follow. She crossed another intersection alone and was turning up toward the bridge when the sound of footsteps came again. She turned, ready to yell at Charlie again, but nobody was there, just a stray cat scuffling in the gutter for scraps.

Cassie shivered. She pulled her jacket tighter around her and hurried back toward the lights of the city.