First the screaming of women and then the yelling of men, the men shouting out the words God and Jesus over and over. More screaming and I was scrambling down the roof of Great Hall. What was I thinking, what words were running through my mind? I don’t know, I think there were only impulses. Run away, hide. I pulled myself through the chapel window, ran down the stairs and out onto front quad. I slowed down so as not to be seen running. And that’s when I saw someone coming into college through the front lodge. And I shouldn’t have stopped, I shouldn’t have stood there frozen by guilt.
And then, distantly across the lawn, the figure making its way into Pitt stopped as well, as if it were he who’d been caught and not me. He turned around quickly, started to hurry away. His squat limbs, those small, furtive features. Shortest.
I gasped so hard the air stuck in my chest like a stone. And then the impulse to escape took over again. I didn’t have time to think about Shortest, I had to keep moving. I had to cross the end of back quad to get to staircase six.
Already a crowd had gathered, some of them hugging, the rest of them smoking, hands jittery and tight around their cigarettes. And no one saw me, they were all looking elsewhere. Not at the body, no one could bear to look at the body for more than a moment or two. They were looking up vacantly, staring out into the night.
I could hear sirens as I ran up the stairs. Some part of me must have been thinking clearly, some awful part of me, because soon I had discovered Mark’s door unlocked. I found my diary. It was under his pillow, ten or twenty pieces of bright yellow paper poking out from the top.
And then I was back in my room, shivering in bed, the pillow over my head to muffle the sounds of more sirens. And that’s when I started to think, when words finally began to form in my head. The horror, the guilt.
And not only the guilt but the fear. Fear of Shortest. Fear of being caught.
LXV(v) So there you have it, my confession. And perhaps this is why I have been mnemonically upping my measures of whisky, my pills. Not because of Chad, not because of the Game, but because I knew that this moment would arrive. The time for confession.
And yes, I do confess to it. I killed him, Mark, it was me.
But it was never supposed to be that sort of game.
LXVI(i) There was a knock on Jolyon’s door. He opened hesitantly, wondering if it might be the police. But it was only Dee and she flung her arms frantically around him. ‘Oh God, Jolyon, Mark’s dead, he’s dead. Have you heard? He’s dead, Jolyon, Mark’s dead.’
‘Oh my God, Dee, no.’
‘He threw himself from the tower, Loser’s Leap, it’s so awful, it’s so . . .’
Jolyon pulled Dee closer to him, if he clung to her tight enough he might squeeze out a drop of his guilt. And while Dee sobbed hard on his shoulder, Jolyon cried as well. But nothing could diminish the guilt.
‘I phoned Chad,’ said Dee, ‘I told him what happened. He’s on his way now.’
‘OK, Dee, it’s OK,’ said Jolyon. And then the seed of Jolyon’s guilt began to grow. Seed sprouted shoots. Shoots scrambled through soil and surged up through the earth, out into the light. The feeling that he wanted to confess.
Dee was in his arms and he was safe here. But he had to tell her before Chad arrived. Dee would understand, Dee would tell him what to do. Hadn’t she loved him – even if only for a few days? And he had been lonely for so long and her tears were so warm on his shoulder.
He kissed Dee on the forehead and they broke away from each other’s embrace. Dee, still in tears, collapsed into the armchair and Jolyon knelt down before her. Yes, he would tell her, everything was going to be all right. But quick, before Chad arrived. He placed his hands lightly on her knees and blew out his breath. ‘Dee listen,’ he said, feeling his fingertips on her flesh, ‘Mark didn’t kill himself.’
But Dee didn’t flinch, she didn’t recoil from him. Instead Dee spoke quickly. ‘Don’t say it, Jolyon.’ She gave him a threatening look. ‘Don’t you
‘No, you don’t – ,’ said Jolyon.
‘Christ, that’s what Chad kept saying to me on the phone. “The Game didn’t kill him, Dee, that’s not why Mark did it.” But it’s not true. It’s not true and I won’t listen. I won’t hear it from you as well, Jolyon, don’t you
Jolyon let his head fall close to her lap. Dee had to listen to him, she had to hear his confession before Chad arrived. ‘Dee, please listen to me.’ The words were sharp inside him, were trying to cut their way out through his skin.
