'So, what's he doing here?'
'To tell the truth, I don't know. I mean, he just turned up. I don't even know how he got my number. I'm not in contact with anyone from back then.'
'And what?'
'I just wanted rid of him.'
'There's something wrong with him. Was he on drugs or something?
He looked like he'd been crying.'
'I think he's had some problems. You know. Mentally. I think he might be on medication.'
'Jesus.'
He clutched the edge of the work surface and squeezed.
'Poor you,' she said, and laughed. She hugged him from behind, nestling her wet fragrant head in the crook of his neck. He could smell shampoo and the rain itself, the faint tang of pollution. She squeezed his arse and slapped it. 'So, what are you going to do?'
'I promised to go out for a drink with him. Is that all right?'
She nibbled his neck. 'Of course it's all right; I wish you'd go out more often, you know that. It just seems a shame that, when you do finally get a social life, it's with weird Bob.'
?'
She knitted her hands across the bulge of his belly; he wasn't as skinny as he used to be. 'I'm sorry. Is that a really horrible thing to say
He patted the back of her hands - a signal to disengage. She stepped away and he turned to face her.
'Of course not. Do you think I want to go drinking with someone who smells like rotten tomatoes?'
She picked up her wine.
'Poor you.'
He turned to go upstairs, and Holly said, 'Who's the girl?'
'What girl?'
'He said he was having girl problems.'
'I don't know. He didn't even say.'
'Poor bloke.'
'Poor bloke? You've changed your tune.'
'I don't know. He must be lonely. Coming to you with his problems - when you hardly even know him.'
Nathan gave a non-committal grunt and made a gesture with his hands, exaggerated like a Hollywood Mafioso.
Then he walked past the photos of Elise in the hallway, and went upstairs and passed the photos of Elise on the upstairs landing. He let himself into the upstairs bathroom and turned on the light. He locked the door and rushed to the lavatory and was copiously but silently sick. He puked until he was passing green bile, and what looked like spots of blood.
24
In the morning, Nathan slipped out of the office and called the number Bob had given him. They arranged to meet.
Nathan had left a spare suit jacket hung on the back of his chair -- this was to imply that he was still in the building, but away from his desk, perhaps in a meeting or on his way to the post room.
He walked to the main road and hailed a taxi. It took less than fifteen minutes to drive to Bob's house. He and Bob lived in the same city. They'd watched the same buses go by, had perhaps shopped in the same shops, seen the same films at the same cinemas. Perhaps at the same time.
The cab dropped him off at the corner. It was a street of Victorian mansion blocks long since gone to subdivision and seed. Nathan walked down an overgrown front garden to what had been a four storey house. He stood on the worn stone step, reading the faded paper strips adjacent to the ranked doorbells. The ink in 'Morrow'
had faded almost to illegibility.
He rang the bell and, waiting, lit a cigarette.
Eventually, the big, peeling door opened and Bob let him in. The hallway was dirty and dusty, grey-carpeted. An improvised mail drop, a melamine bookshelf, was a landslide of bills and junk mail. A bicycle was propped against the two-tone walls, as were an empty plastic laundry basket and an old drop-leaf table. Nathan followed Bob along the hallway and down into the basement, where Bob lived in a single, under-lit room.
It was large and square and its walls were jam-packed with second-hand books. A home network of computers stood on a few junk-shop tables - three elderly laptops and four or five desktops, two of them brand-new Dells. Beside them stood a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Musty sofas made three edges of a square. Nathan noticed a crusty towelling sock balled up in the corner of the kitchenette, by the fridge.
It smelled in there.
Bob shifted magazines and a frayed sweater from one of the sofas, bidding Nathan sit.
'Coffee?'
'No.'
'Right.'
While Nathan waited, Bob boiled the kettle, making himself a pint of black Nescafe. Then he lowered himself into a sofa opposite Nathan and said, 'So, how have you been?'
'How the fuck do you think I've been?'
'I don't know. Which is why I was asking.'
Nathan patted his pockets and produced a cigarette. He lit one.
'What's this all about?'
Bob sipped scalding coffee. 'Funny, isn't it?'
Nathan looked away, at the book-lined walls.
'The way things turn out,' said Bob. 'Did you hear about Detective Holloway?'
Nathan had. A few years back, Holloway had apparently absconded with some ransom money. Nathan and Holly had quizzed Jacki about it, but Jacki would say nothing. That was a while ago now, a few years. Holloway had been caught and, as far as Nathan knew, he was still in prison.
Nathan was looking at the reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Bob followed his line of sight. 'Don't worry. I'm not taping this or anything.'
'What is this stuff?'
'Research.'
Nathan looked away from it all. It gave him the creeps. He ran his hands through his hair and said, 'Oh, Jesus Christ, what am I doing here?'
'Who is Holly?'said Bob.
'My wife.'
'You know what I mean. I was thinking about it all night. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't put it all together. You know what that's like?
Lying awake, worrying about something?'
'I've got a pretty good idea, Bob. Yeah.'
'She knows her, doesn't she?'
'Knows who?'
'Your wife knows Elise.'
Her name on his lips.
Nathan made a gesture with his fingers, like someone batting mosquitoes from his face, telling Bob not to bother him.
Bob jumped to his feet, apparently elated. 'I knew it! I knew it was something like that. Jesus. You're sick. It's unbelievable. Jesus. She even looks like her.'
Outside, a car went past.
