‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ Billy said. ‘With Adele.’

‘You weren’t yourself.’

‘Zoe must hate me.’

‘She doesn’t hate you.’

A hard shove to the chest now would be murder. Charlie would never survive the fall.

‘Have you talked about me?’

‘Of course. We’ve been worried sick.’

‘I guess she was upset after she found out about Adele.’

‘Bro, you have no idea. She was in a total state.’

Billy couldn’t see his brother’s eyes properly, just dark pools of shade.

‘But you calmed her down?’

‘What are brothers for?’

Billy felt a smile spread on his lips. ‘Good question. What are brothers for?’

‘Looking out for each other, that’s what.’

Billy could tell from the way Charlie’s facial muscles tightened that he was smiling too. Two brothers, having a heart to heart, smiling away.

‘Especially me and you,’ Charlie said. ‘Since Mum and everything.’

Billy narrowed his eyes, trying to look at Charlie’s face, but the thin light made it impossible to make anything out.

‘If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone,’ he said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Billy looked down at Queen’s Drive, a small car plugging its way up the slope towards the trees. Someone heading home after a great night out, home to bed, to sleep and wake tomorrow refreshed.

Billy remembered Charlie with his arm round Zoe, both of them naked in bed. The contented looks on their faces, not a care in the world.

He turned to his brother.

‘Tell me honestly, Charlie. Did you feel a pulse on Frank Whitehouse?’

Charlie put a hand on Billy’s shoulder. Billy’s arm and chest muscles twitched.

‘I swear to God I didn’t.’

‘Swear on Mum’s grave.’

‘I swear on Mum’s grave I thought he was dead.’

‘Anything else you want to tell me?’ It was as if someone else had said the words, but they came out of Billy’s mouth.

‘Like what?’

‘Like anything.’

No talking, just the rumble of the city at Charlie’s back.

Far off to the left, Billy noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Smoke. Impossible to tell the source from here, it was a few miles away, but a steady column of black was billowing up into the lilac spread of sky. Billy thought he heard the distant wail of sirens.

Charlie still hadn’t spoken. Billy felt the weight of his injuries pressing down on him, crushing him. His eyelids drooped and he raised an unsteady hand to the bump on his head. It didn’t seem to have gone down at all since the accident. When was that? He’d lost all sense of time. Maybe he would have the lump on his head for ever, a permanent reminder.

‘We need to get you to hospital,’ Charlie said.

Billy had his head in both hands now. ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘What question?’

‘I asked if you had anything else to tell me.’

Billy raised his head. Charlie’s hand was still on his shoulder.

‘No,’ Charlie said. ‘Nothing.’

Billy put his hand on Charlie’s wrist and gripped tight. He still couldn’t make out his brother’s face properly. Over his shoulder in the distance the smoke was still coughing upwards, and Billy thought he saw a flicker of flame licking the rooftops down there. Just a sliver.

‘Do you think I should try to make it up with Zoe?’

‘I think you should get back to hospital right now, or it won’t matter a fuck what you do.’

‘That’s not an answer.’

Billy’s grip tightened on his brother’s wrist. He felt sick as he glanced behind Charlie and down the steep slope to Queen’s Drive.

‘I don’t know what the hell you should do.’

‘I’m asking your advice. As my big brother.’

‘I think you should worry about it once you’re better.’

‘And when will that be? It feels like I’ll never be better.’

Charlie placed his other hand on top of Billy’s.

‘Look, Bro, you’ve suffered post-traumatic stress and serious injuries. You need to lie down and do nothing for as long as it takes to press the reset button on your life.’

Billy let out a laugh. ‘Press the reset button? Switch me off and back on again, yeah? See if I manage to reboot?’

‘If you like.’

Billy felt himself squeezing his brother’s wrist. Charlie’s other hand was covering his, and Billy felt his hesitation.

‘You have no idea what it’s been like for me.’

‘Of course…’

‘My brother and my girlfriend betraying me.’

‘What?’

A thudding silence.

‘You both persuaded me to leave Frank in the road when I was going to report it.’

A loosening of the tension in Charlie’s grip. He let out a breath.

‘I’m not going over all that again.’

He lowered his hands.

Billy felt the electrical circuit broken, their link to each other severed.

Charlie turned side on, looking to the south of the city.

‘Looks like something’s burning, out near The Inch.’

Billy looked at his brother’s outline, thick against the sickly shimmer of street lights beyond. He had never been able to fight his brother. Never been able to win, at least. Bigger, stronger, smarter. The closest thing to a dad he’d ever had.

He gazed at the drop directly beneath them, his blood thumping in his skull. He felt something wet against his hand. Jeanie’s tongue. Jeanie nuzzled in for comfort and he grabbed her emaciated body and held on to her. He squeezed her until she writhed out of his grasp and mooched away to a nearby bush.

Something clicked in Billy’s head.

‘Did you say The Inch?’

Charlie turned. ‘Yeah, around there anyway.’

Billy got up and stood next to his brother. The smoke was obvious now, spreading up into the night, thinning out and diffusing into the ether. The tips of flames occasionally licked above the roofline.

Billy gazed at it for a second, then pulled his phone from his pocket. He made a call and waited. Four rings, then a pick up.

‘Rose?’

‘Billy? Jesus, it’s the middle of the night.’

‘I’m up on the Radical Road…’

‘What are you doing there? You’ve just had brain surgery.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I have a question for you.’

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