Almost Home: A Novel

by Pam Jenoff

  Straightening, my breath catches. About ten feet from the bank stands the simple marble grave, lone and ill-fitting among the trees. Trembling, I walk to it, then kneel. The headstone was not here the last time I was; then the grave was marked by only a raised mound of dirt, a cross someone crudely fashioned with sticks. Now I run my fingers across the lettering: JARED SHORT, FEBRUARY 1, 1976–JUNE 12, 1998.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Sorry I didn’t push harder to find out what was troubling you, that I let you down that final night. That I haven’t been able to find out who did this to you, that I have been gone for so long. I fight against the tears Jared would not have wanted. But the regrets rush forth, and I sink to the ground, sobbing. I know now that finding Jared’s killer is no longer just about finding the truth. It is about redemption.

  Why did I come here? It is not, I realize, just because Tony suggested it. No, I came looking for answers. I put both hands on the tombstone, as though Jared might kinetically transfer his secrets to me. I am overcome by a wave of frustration. “What!?” I shout through my tears, looking up at the unbroken grayness of the sky. “What is it that you want me to know?” My voice disappears, swallowed into the thickness of the trees, and then the air is silent again, except for the sound of a bird chirping in the distance.

  Wiping my eyes, I study the lone grave once more. I cannot help but contrast it to the American cemetery at Madingley, to which Jared and I biked that spring day, to the rows and rows of identical tombstones. Is Jared lonely here? No, I decide instantly. He would have wanted this, a quiet place by the water, only the trees and birds as company.

  The silence is broken by the rumble of a train crossing the railway bridge in the distance behind me. There is nothing more for me to do here. It is time to go. Reluctantly, I stand up, wiping the dirt from my knees. I take a step backward, studying the trees, which grow thicker as they recede from the river bank. Suddenly I notice something moving a few feet beyond the grave. It is a small rabbit, not much more than a baby, hopping among the trees, dwarfed by the thick trunks, nearly hidden by the brush. I watch as it moves closer to the gravestone, then disappears behind it.

  Intrigued, I lean forward, peering around the stone to get a better view. Then I stop. The ground on the far side looks different. The grass seems fresher, not as long and unkempt as on the front. I might have thought that Tony cut the grass, but he said he has not been here in a month. Curious, I crawl around the stone and kneel, running my hand along the earth. Closer now, I can see that the ground is covered with grass clippings, as though someone has taken then from a mower bag and sprinkled them here. I brush the grass aside. Underneath, the dirt is fresh and damp, recently pressed into place. My heart quickens. Someone has been here.

  Looking back toward the towpath, I wonder for a moment if it might have been vandals. But then I study the ground once more, running my hand along the line where it has been disturbed. The edges are neat, the lines meticulous, running several feet back behind the tombstone in a long, rectangular shape. The shape of a coffin.

  No, whoever was here was professional, deliberate.

  And they were digging at Jared’s grave.

  chapter TWENTY

  I STARE AT THE ground. Someone dug down to Jared’s coffin, but why? I thrust my hands into the cool, moist dirt; I am seized with the urge to start tearing at the earth, to see what lies beneath. But it is too heavy and I cannot dig that far. I need to get help, to tell someone what I’ve found.

  I race to the bank and climb into the scull, rowing back as quickly as I can, my strokes short and uneven. But when I reach the boathouse and pull into the bank, Tony’s car is gone. “Back in an hour,” reads a note on the door.

  Damn. I need to ask him about the grave site. I retrieve my bag from inside the workshop, then hesitate uncertainly. What now? I still need to go to the bank, I remind myself. I can go there, check back with Tony later.

  On the far side of the river, I make my way across Jesus Green. At Lower Park Street, I stop, eyeing the row of simple gray brick houses that line the left side of the road. Mine was the fourth on the left. I look up at the second-floor window, remembering long afternoons curled up in a chair, sipping tea as I worked on my thesis, breaking often to gaze out at an impromptu football game, children playing in the grass. Life here was the ultimate playground with high walls. Was it ever that simple for Jared, I wonder now? Maybe once. But then he’d seen what lay on the other side of those walls and it changed him. He tried to protect me, to keep the truth of whatever he’d seen from me. And now that truth is the one thing I need, the only thing that would give me closure and make me whole again.

  I press on and a few minutes later reach Saint Andrews Street and the main thoroughfare of shops. Hudson’s Bank was just past Sainsbury’s market, I recall. But when I reach the spot, the bank is gone, a discount travel agency in its place. I walk inside. A young male clerk sits behind a desk, typing on a keyboard.

  Customer service here, I remember, is not what it is in the United States. “Excuse me, but wasn’t there a Hudson’s Bank at this location?”

  He does not look up. “Closed about five years ago.”

  My heart sinks. “My family had a safe-deposit box there. Where would that have gone?”

  The clerk, visibly annoyed that I haven’t come to inquire about the cheap weekend getaway to Majorca advertised in the front window, stands up and walks to the back of the shop. I start to leave. “Miss,” a voice calls after me. I turn back, surprised. “My manager says that the boxes all went to the Barclays down the street.”

  “Thank you.” I race out onto the street. Barclays Bank is a half block north on the same side. Inside, the cheap blue furniture and pressboard walls seem unchanged by the years. Bypassing the line of students waiting at the window, I walk to one of the new-accounts clerks seated at a desk. “I had a safe-deposit box at Hudson’s. I understand that they were moved here.” The clerk stares at me evenly and for a minute I wonder if she will ask for identification, proof that the box is mine. But she stands and leads me to the rear of the bank, punches in a code, and opens a door to reveal a wall of boxes.

  The clerk leaves the room and closes the door behind her. I stare up at the rows of boxes. I do not even know if Jared had a box here. Even if the key does belong to him, the box could have been at a bank home in Wales, or anywhere. And if it is here, what would the number be? Perhaps I should just start trying each box. But there are hundreds; the clerk will surely come back before then. And I do not know if there is a hidden surveillance camera somewhere in the room. Think.

  Would he have used his birthday? I go to the box with the digits that match the month, date, and year of his birth, 2176, but the key gets halfway in and sticks. I twist in both directions, struggling to pull it out. People here sometimes express the birth date before the month, I recall, but the key does not fit in 1276 either.

  The hotel stationery, I remember then. The piece of paper that cost Sophie her life. There were numbers on it. Could those be related to the safe-deposit box? I close my eyes, pressing my hands to my temples and trying to remember. I can see the first three digits, 328. They struck me because March 28 was the very date that Jared and I first kissed. But the fourth digit is a blank. I walk to the place where the boxes begin numbered 3280. That box is high on the wall, so even standing on my tiptoes I can barely reach. They key will not go in the lock. I move to the next box and this time the key goes in but will not turn. My shoulders sag with disappointment. Perhaps the numbers Jared scribbled have nothing to do with a safe-deposit box at all. But I have to keep trying. Hurriedly I move onto 3282, then 3283, my heart sinking with each failed attempt. The clerk will be back any minute now. I insert the key into 3284 and it slides in easily. Holding my breath, I turn the key. The box opens with an easy click.

  I pull the box from the wall and set it on the table, my heart pounding. A safe-deposit box. Jared’s box. Why did he keep it? And why didn’t his mother, or someone els
e, come to claim it after all these years? I pull the box from the wall and set it on the table. The room is silent except for the low whirring of a fan in the ceiling. I hold my breath as I open the lid, expecting to find the cash he asked his mother to wire, or perhaps some papers explaining his research. But inside it is empty, except for a small gray box. A jewelry box, I realize, lifting it.

  I open it, then gasp. A diamond ring stares back at me.

  The box falls from my hand and bounces on the floor. Hurriedly I pick it up. The ring is white gold, a modest diamond solitaire. Exactly the kind of ring I would have picked. I take the ring from the box and slip it on my fourth finger. The fit is almost perfect, a little too snug, but ideal for my thinner fingers of college days.

  An engagement ring. Jared was going to ask me to marry him.

  This explains so much—Jared’s secretiveness, the money he asked his mother to send. Perhaps the plane tickets to Rio were intended for us to elope or take a honeymoon (though the tickets were one-way). But it does not help me figure out why he was killed.

  I take off the ring and hold it again, considering. So Jared wanted to marry me. It seems unlike him to be so impulsive. When did he plan to give it to me? Had he changed his mind or simply never had the chance before he died? I was never one of those girls who dreamed of getting married. But now I picture him picking out the ring, nervously planning how to propose. What would my reaction have been? I imagine saying yes, the news spreading joyously throughout the college. We would have been married in the chapel, I am sure, a small ceremony. And then I would have canceled my plane ticket home and found a way to make a life here with Jared.

  It would all have been so perfect. Knowing now what he wanted for us, the possibility of what might have been, makes his death hurt more than ever.

  I shake my head, clearing the vision from my mind, and reluctantly place the ring back in the jewelry box. Then I hesitate. What should I do with it? Wearing it does not feel right, not when Jared did not give it to me. But I cannot leave it here. I put the jewelry box into my bag, then close the box and walk from the vault.

  Outside, I look at my watch. One-fifty, nearly an hour since I left the boathouse. I start to retrace my steps toward the river.

  As I near the edge of Jesus Green, I reach into my pocket for my cell phone. I need to call Mo, to tell her that I am alive. Much as I like to keep running with the impunity of the dead, it isn’t fair to make her grieve much longer. And I need to get to her before she calls my parents and ages them a decade with misinformation. There is a certain comfort, I decide, in telling her from here, risking her wrath from a safe distance.

  “Jordan!” A familiar voice calls behind me. Caught off guard, I jump. Chris, I realize, turning. What on earth is he doing here?

  He kisses my cheek, then steps back quickly. I straighten my shirt, the awkwardness of seeing him for the first time since our having slept together rushing back. “You startled me. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Likewise.” He looks at me levelly. “What are you doing?”

  I can tell from his expression that he has not heard about the explosion at my flat, the misperception that I am dead. “I’m just heading back to London actually. There’s been a gas explosion at my flat.”

  His jaw drops. “An explosion? Thank goodness you’re all right!”

  “I am, but a colleague of mine was killed. Some of the news reports said it was me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. But you didn’t say what you were doing up here in the first place.”

  I hesitate. I could tell him about the translation of Jared’s research notes, about the ring. Ask him if he found a copy of the Madrid paper in Jared’s things. But Sebastian’s suspicions are fresh in my mind. Chris has kept so much from me that I hardly know him anymore. For a second I want to turn the questions on him, ask him why he lied to me about his job. But I do not have time for a lengthy confrontation. Instead I search for an explanation that will get me out of there quickly. “I thought I would check some records at the University Library, see if there is anything on Jared’s research.” A look of disbelief crosses his face and I instantly realize my mistake. Chris knew I did not come from the library. How long had he been following me? Did he see me talking to Tony at the boathouse, coming out of the bank? My fingers close around the jewelry box in my pocket.

  “And?” he presses.

  I shake my head. “Nothing. You?”

  “Just asking a few more questions around college. But the Master seems to have clamped down on everyone speaking to us.” He is lying, too. Did things change the other night in his flat? Or was he this way all along? My initial instinct not to tell him what I’ve found was right.

  “Jordan, I’ve been trying to reach you.” He reaches out and touches my arm. “About the other night…”

  “It’s okay.” But he does not look appeased. He wants, needs to talk about it. Still, I tell him, “I have to get back to the office, the explosion and all that. Let’s have dinner tonight and talk then.”

  His face brightens. “Sounds great.”

  “I’ll call you later to set details.” I reach up and brush my lips past his cheek. Then I hurry past him, continuing on the path through Jesus Green. A minute later, I look back at the spot where Chris stood. He is gone, or seems to be anyway. But my suspicion bubbles: What is he really doing here?

  I jump as my cell phone vibrates in my hand. Sebastian’s number appears on the screen. The news report said I died in the explosion, so why is he calling me? For a second I consider not answering. But I desperately want to hear his voice. And I cannot keep the fact that I am alive a secret any longer. “Sebastian?”

  “It’s me.” His voice is raspy and hollow.

  How did he know that I wasn’t dead? But before I can ask, there is a shuffling sound of the phone being passed. “Jordan, what’s going on?” Maureen booms. Apparently, the fact I’m alive is no surprise to her either. “What the hell are you doing out of town?”

  Damn. In my haste I’d forgotten about the tracking device on the phone. “I’m in Cambridge.”

  “I told you not to leave town. Sophie’s been killed.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Forget sorry. What was she doing at your place?”

  Quickly I tell her about my phone conversation with Sophie, our plan to meet at the train station. “She never showed up.”

  There is a pause. “After the explosion, I thought…”

  I can hear the pain in Mo’s voice. “I should have called you. I’m sorry.” I swallow. “How did you know it wasn’t me?”

  “Sebastian figured it out, actually. We couldn’t identify the body, but Sebastian recognized the sweater Sophie was wearing.” My stomach twists, a strange ball of jealousy and guilt. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine, but Mo, there’s something I have to tell you—”

  “Not another word,” she interrupts. “I want you to do exactly as I say: get on the first train back to Kings Cross. I’d send someone to get you but it’s quicker this way. My car will be waiting for you at the station.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Jordan. Get to the train, now. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

  Ninety minutes later, I step off the train at King’s Cross. “Ms. Weiss?” A gray-suited man I’ve never seen before appears at my side. “Diplomatic Security.” He opens his jacket, revealing a silver badge so that only I can see, as if someone might try to impersonate him or I might question his identity. “Come with me, please.” As we walk from the platform through the station, he keeps close to me. Is he afraid I might try to slip away? He escorts me to Mo’s car, closing the back door behind me before climbing in the front passenger seat. We pull from the curb, weaving as swiftly through the streets as traffic will allow.

  Twenty minutes later the car speeds around Grosvenor Square, screeching to a halt in front of the embassy. The flag out front flies at half-mast. Sophie, I think, the roc
k of guilt in my stomach growing.

  “Wait,” the agent orders firmly now from the front passenger seat as I start to open the car door. It is the first time he has spoken since the station. He gets out of the car and comes to my side, opening the door and taking me expertly by the arm. I notice then that he has his pistol out, drawn low at the waist. His head swivels in both directions. “Come on.” It is not my fleeing, I realize then, that he is worried about. Does he really think someone is going to take a shot at me in front of the embassy, in broad daylight? Suddenly I am back in Liberia, racing for the helicopter. I lower my head, quickening my pace to match his as we make our way up the steps to the door.

  Inside, the man releases me but follows closely as I head toward the elevator. “She’s in the Bubble,” the agent says, pushing the button for the subbasement. Downstairs, he waits by the door to the Bubble as I punch in the code and open it. Then, his work done, he turns and disappears.

  Maureen paces the front of the room. Sebastian is seated at the table, head in his hands. He does not look up as I enter. The memory of our kiss rushes back to me and I fight the urge to go to him, make sure he is all right. I half expect to see Sophie seated at the front of the room, overeager to please, willing to do whatever is asked.

  Mo strides across the Bubble, her expression twisting between wanting to hug me and hit me. “Thank God you’re okay,” she says at last, gripping me by both shoulders.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I was…” Hearing a rustling sound behind me, I stop and look over my shoulder. A short older man with gray hair stands in the corner of the room. He is, I realize, the man I saw Mo speaking with in the lobby the other day. I look at Mo, puzzled.

  “Jordan, I’d like you to meet Roger Newsome of the Serious Organized Crime Agency,” Maureen says.