The Headmaster's Wife(58)

He went into the cafeteria proper and suddenly felt enormously tired, so tired he could barely remain standing. He sat down in the nearest chair and tried breathing slowly and deeply. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes it didn’t. He didn’t understand why the head fuzz was better, but the fatigue was worse. He put his head in his hands and tried to count. He had no idea what he thought that was going to do. He just needed to work up the energy to get across the room to where the coffee was.

“Mark?”

If he’d had to pick the voice he least wanted to hear, at this moment or at any other, he would surely have picked this particular voice. He didn’t have to look up to see who it was. Nobody on earth sounded like Alice Makepeace except Alice Makepeace. That was true even though her accent was a boarding-school cliché.

“Sorry,” he said, taking his face out of his hands. “I know I didn’t show for check-in. I’ll explain it to Sheldon when I get back to Hayes. I just wanted a cup of coffee. I don’t have any back at Hayes.”

“You don’t look like you can make it across the room to get coffee,” Alice said.

“I’m a little tired.”

“You’re always tired.” She stood there, not saying anything. Mark had the impression that there was something he was supposed to do, but he didn’t know what. “Look,” she said, “I’ll get you some coffee. Black you take it, don’t you? And sugar?”

“As much sugar as I can get,” Mark said. “And one of the big cups. Thank you. I’m sorry I’m not really functioning here.”

Alice Makepeace made no comment on that. Nobody here ever made any comment when he said things like that, and he knew why. They didn’t think he wasn’t “functioning,” and they didn’t think he was tired; they thought he was either drugged up or screwing off.

The jacket he was wearing felt too hot. He didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed it before. He took it off and put it on the back of his chair. Only half the lights in the cafeteria were on. He didn’t like this room. He missed the cafeteria at his old school in Connecticut, Rumsey Hall, which was big and open and shabby in the way that places got when they were regularly overrun with small boys. How long did it take to get a cup of coffee? What did Alice Makepeace want from him?

He looked up and she was back, holding a large coffee in one hand for him and a small one in the other for herself. Hers would probably be decaf. She was one of those people who was always very careful to eat and drink in a “healthful” way and to make damned sure that everybody around her knew it.

She sat down. He swatted at his coffee with the plastic stirrer she had brought him.

“So,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“Everybody wants to talk to me,” he said. “No offense, but I’ve already told the police and Mr. Makepeace everything I know. Michael was my roommate, not my clone. I didn’t really know that much about him. And I didn’t see much of anything when I—when. You know when. It all happened really fast, and I wasn’t noticing much. I just wanted to get out of there.”

“You noticed enough to think it might not be a suicide,” Alice said.

Mark took a long drink of coffee. It scalded his throat. “I don’t think it wasn’t suicide. The police said it has to be suicide.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“No, that’s not right. Michael committed suicide. Of course I think Michael committed suicide.”

Alice stared at him. She had a truly awesome stare. It was eerie in a way. He didn’t like it directed at him. He did know what Michael had been thinking to sleep with her though. She was beautiful and one of those people who were always the center of attention. “People who glow in the dark,” his mother liked to call them. They walked into a room, and nobody wanted to look at anybody else.

Alice took a sip of her coffee. “I find that hard to believe,” she said. “If you didn’t think there was at least a chance that Michael may have been murdered, why did you bring that Mr. Demarkian to Windsor?”

“Not to investigate a murder,” Mark said quickly.

“But that’s what he does, isn’t that true? He investigates murders.”

“He does when he’s working,” Mark said. “He doesn’t all the time.”

“And he’s not working here?”

The head fuzz was back. Mark could feel it. He looked down at the coffee and saw that he’d already drunk half the cup. He was going to have to get another one before he went back to Hayes. Alice Makepeace was staring at him again. He felt sick.