Page 4 of Dead to Me

‘OK,’ she said.‘I… I’d still like to talk.’

Her dark eyes moved around the room, taking in the manifold expensive suits and beautiful dresses.The hard social smiles and Business Eyes.The kind that would rove away, looking not for a personal connection but the next networking opportunity.The next step up on the ladder.

Those people, honestly.They’re gross, and they don’t even know it.

It was weird watching Cordelia, though.I suddenly realised that she could see them, too.The social smiles and Business Eyes.And I liked her a little bit more.

‘Yeah, we should totally go outside to talk,’ I said, just as she opened her mouth to say the same.

It was goddamn freezing in the V&A’s Exhibition Road Courtyard.A cold March night is not the right time to stand in a windy courtyard in a sleeveless dress.

But it was also empty, and that meant Cordelia felt free to tell me everything.At least, everything she knew about a vibrant, clever, talented young woman named Holly Moore– and how she’d died.

‘We met at St Paul’s,’ Cordelia told me.I could already tell it was one ofthoseschools without needing to look it up.The kind where just going opens all sorts of doors that most of us would have mistaken for smooth walls.‘We were the outsiders: her the orphan who could only afford to be there because of her parents’ life insurance policies; and me the rabid socialist who couldn’t stand anything the place represented.Or my family, actually.Originally it was us and another friend, but mostly just the two of us.Outsiders.’She gave a ghost of a smile.‘I don’t think most of the students understood us, and the staff all either loved us for being smart or hated us for our politics.’

I realised that I already knew the crappy punchline to this story: that talented, bright, promising young Holly had died at the end of her second year of university.Had died, in fact, at one of the biggest and most prestigious events of the year.

Holly had gone to Trinity May Ball, along with hundreds of other students.She’d gone to have the time of her life, but had somehow died without anybody noticing.

It was a story I knew because of the job I did, but one I probably should have known more about.I don’t know if you were the same when it happened, Reid, but I couldn’t handle it: the way Holly’s death becameeverythingto the media, because she was slim and beautiful and had a tragic backstory.

And it wasn’t fair on Holly, a young woman whose death was senseless and awful, but every time I saw those blonde curls of hers I felt nauseated.Because Tanya– our wonderful, gorgeous Tanya– had barely been worth a subhead on page ten.

I still had to work on myself to listen to Cordelia that night.To squash every broken-hearted thought over Tanya and give Holly’s story the attention it clearly deserved.

‘We both applied for Cambridge, just different colleges,’ Cordelia said.‘She ended up at St John’s near the centre, and I was with lots of the feminists out at Newnham.’

Holly had been a great natural sciences student and a promising runner– already a bronze medallist at the five thousand metres in the under-twenties World Athletics Championships.At St John’s, she’d met an English student named James Sedgewick, who she’d quickly fallen for.

‘The thing about James is, he sort of straddles two worlds,’ Cordelia explained.‘He’s an actor and climate activist and is very uncomfortable about capitalism.But he’s also part of a wealthy family that’s been going to Cambridge for years.His dad and his grandad and everyone were all members of the Pitt Club, so he obviously had to join, too.’

‘Right,’ I said.‘The Pitt Club is…?’

‘Oh, it’s… like an exclusive members’ club,’ Cordelia explained, with a note of slight embarrassment.‘You have to be rich or well connected.For years it was all boys, but recently they realised they needed to start letting the girls in if they were going to survive.James’s sister joined, too, actually.She’s a bit older.’

‘Got it.’I tried folding my arms round myself at this point, wishing I’d chosen a dress with goddamn sleeves.‘I guess it’s kind of like a fraternity.’

‘I think so?’Cordelia didn’t sound sure.Maybe the world isn’t quite as obsessed with American college culture as we like to think.‘It’s definitely about who you know and how much you’re worth.But a few of those guys have something about them and it was the more worthwhile ones who James was drawn to, and Holly in turn.So we all ended up being friends.’She shook her head impatiently.‘Anyway,that’s… only relevant because they all went to Trinity May Ball together.’I know I must have given her a blank look, because she said, ‘It’s one of the really big events.Black tie, lasts all night.Fireworks, drinks, you know.And they hold it at the very end of the year, after exams are done, during May Week.Which is in June, just to be confusing.’

‘Sounds like a big occasion,’ I said.Honestly, I was so cold by then that thinking of anything to say was difficult, but something told me I should keep listening.That this was worth the whole-body shivers and agonisingly painful hands.

‘I don’t know exactly what happened once they all got there, but somehow– during the fireworks– Holly drowned,’ Cordelia said, her voice tight.‘She drowned in four feet of water.And nobody saw.’

Cordelia’s face twisted, and she turned away, her eyes blinking furiously and her lips pressing together.

‘I’m so sorry.That’s such a terrible thing.’After a beat, I tried, ‘Was there any investigation into what happened?’

Cordelia nodded.Breathed, and then said, ‘The post-mortem… they found ketamine.A really huge dose of ketamine.They think she pretty much overdosed, climbed over a fence and then fell into the river while the noise of the fireworks was going on.Everyone was… looking up.They wouldn’t have seen someone face down in the water.’

I felt something in me twist as she said that, Reid.I didn’t remember reading about that.In resenting this other student who’d had all the attention I thought Tanya deserved, had I really missed that she’d also died of a drug overdose?At the same age, in the same university?

But Cordelia wasn’t done.

‘But you need to understand several things,’ she said, her voice determined in spite of the clear emotion.‘The first is that Holly was an athlete.She barely evendrank,right?Andwith drugs, she and I were the same.We lost a friend to an overdose at fifteen– Rheanna.She died on the green outside school after one of a series of stupid nights where she tried to fit in, and Holly was heartbroken.She’s obviously never touched anything before or after.We lost our other outcast.Our friend.’She shook her head, eyes glittering but her expression unflinching.‘She used to get worried any time James was persuaded to take MDMA by the rest of that group.There is just no way that she would have taken a load of ket voluntarily.’

I looked at Cordelia, trying not to let her see what this meant to me.It reminded me so much of what I thought about Tanya.The fact that you only had to know her to realise she wouldn’t have done this.

On some level, I knew I had to be a good journalist, still.I had to ask the right questions.

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