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I could still hear oohs and aahs from the other side of the house as I located Patrick’s car key with its red-and-gold logo fob in the drawer in the hall with all the other keys. I pocketed it. I took a deep breath. Then I made my way down the steps in front of the house, two at a time, crunching quickly across the drive over to where we had parked that afternoon. All was still and sharply shadowed in the moonlight. Patrick’s car was exactly where we had left it. More fireworks popped and crackled on the other side of the house. I slipped the painting into the trunk and covered it with a picnic blanket.
PATRICK, LONGHURST, 1991
Caroline seemed simply to have vanished. She wasn’t in the tent or on the front lawn. She wasn’t in the rose garden or on the terrace. I even checked the women’s toilets when I heard a scream—and found Freddie, disposable camera in hand, being admonished by an irate blonde for taking a photo over the top of her locked stall.
I marched off to the house to check our bedroom, but there was no sign of her there either. I peered into some of the other rooms on our corridor too, disturbing in one a couple under the duvet who screamed and threw an alarm clock at me. I checked all the rooms on the ground floor, even poking my head into the dark east wing and discreetly calling her name. Nothing.
By the time I got back to the tent, the band had started up and the dance floor was packed. Heels had been discarded, jackets were off, shirts had been sweated through already. Even Harry, unusually for him, was on the dance floor, flushed and tieless.
As I passed the bar, Ivo grabbed my arm and handed me a brimful glass of red wine, into which Douglas Burn immediately chucked a penny. The rest of Osiris then surrounded me—Toby Gough, Ivo Strang, all the boys—chanting, “Down it. Down it.”
“Christ’s sake, lads, grow up a bit, yeah?”
Eric Lam made a mock-sympathetic face. Benjy Taylor tittered. I grimaced and threw my wine back in one go. Pennying was one of the more irritating Cambridge traditions—the challenge being to drink up before the coin hit the bottom of the glass, supposedly to save the queen from drowning—and these lads never left college without a pocket full of coppers.
“Coming for a dance, old boy?” Douglas asked, clapping me on the shoulder.
“Soon. I’ve just got to find Caroline and check that she’s okay. You haven’t seen her, have you?”
He shook his head. “She can’t have gotten far.”
He had a point. Even if Caroline had decided to leave, she had no car. Had she tried to walk all the way to the gate and make her own way home? That was a mile’s hike, then another half hour along an unlit road with no pavement to the nearest bus stop, and the next bus wouldn’t be along until Monday. Might someone have given her a lift to the train station? It was possible, but she would have a long, chilly night in the waiting room ahead of her, if it was even unlocked.
I was beginning to feel increasingly worried about her.
After all the drama today, after everything Caroline had shared with me, I felt I should be with her, making sure she was okay. Instead, I had let her wander off into the night alone.
There was still no sign of her at midnight, when everyone gathered on the lawn for the fireworks. I asked around as the rockets popped overhead. Toby had not seen her. Ivo said he had no idea whom I was talking about. It was Giles Pemberton who pointed out Terry, said Caroline had been talking to him outside the marquee. To me that seemed unlikely.
I was wrong.
“Are you looking for Caroline?” Terry asked bluntly as I approached, his face illuminated in flickering shades of orange by the bonfire, around which people were toasting marshmallows.
I nodded. “Have you seen her?”
“She went back to your room, I think. She seemed pretty upset.”
I did not blame her. I had warned Caroline that the Willoughbys could be touchy, but I had never anticipated anything like this. Every time I crossed paths with Philip, he gave me the same aggrieved stare, as if amazed I had the gall still to be here. Was he going to tell my father about all this? I really hoped not.
I checked our room again—on the floor by the bed were Caroline’s muddy stilettos. Thank God for that, I thought. I’d been starting to panic that she had gotten lost in the dark and fallen in the lake.
By the time I got back downstairs, it had begun to drizzle, and guests—shivering girls wearing boyfriends’ tailcoats, boys in damp shirts—were filtering into the house.
Making her way along the ground-floor corridor in my direction, peering expectantly into each room she passed, was Caroline.
I called her name and she broke into a relieved smile.
“Patrick! Where have you been?” she asked.
“Looking for you, mainly. Are you okay? Have you been hiding out in the house the whole time?”
She nodded, looked like she was about to say something, then thought better of it. She gave an exaggerated yawn. I glanced at my watch.
“Are you tired? I’m sure nobody would notice if we slipped off to bed...”
She shook her head.
“I’m going to turn in,” she said. “But please don’t feel you have to call it a night because of me.”