fingers were clumsy. He slipped the tape into his briefcase.
He returned to Bob, taking the empty blister packs from his pocket. He closed them in Bob's fist. Then he opened Bob's fist and removed the blister packs, tossing them in the kitchen drawer.
By now it was 8.15.
He'd told Jacki he planned to meet Bob at 8.30. Fifteen minutes to go, and Bob was still alive. From his throat emanated an unpleasant 'wheezing.
Nathan couldn't phone Jacki much later than 8.30. She knew him to be a punctual man. It was his salesman's training.
He said 'Fuck' and laid an ear against Bob's chest. It rose and fell, like low tide lapping at a sea wall. Nathan wished he'd done some proper research. Winging it like Justin just wasn't his way.
He held his breath, like a man about to dive, and slipped his hand into Bob's greasy pocket. He fished round. He could feel the soft, firm Badulations of Bob's cock and balls.
The keys weren't there. He looked at his watch. He went to the sink and poured a glass of water. He tried not to panic. He counted down from twenty. Then he went to Bob's overcoat, hung behind the door, and searched its pockets. The keys were not there either.
He began to search the flat. In minutes, his determination to be methodical had dissolved. He raced up and down, looking behind chairs, in kitchen drawers, under the bed. He searched beneath corner keyboards. He searched in the bathroom, in the cistern, the medicine cabinet. He checked the back of the sofas and between the sofa cushions. He re-checked the places he'd already checked. He stopped, infuriated. He looked at his watch.
It was 9.05.
Then he noticed the corner of Bob's briefcase. It was half-hidden by the hastily rolled-up, torn underlay that had been stuffed beneath the lowest bookshelf, the one that ran the length of the longest wall, next to the greying, disordered bed. Nathan ran to it. He waited, made himself calm; it would do him no good to empty the briefcase in haste. He went slowly. There were papers in there; Bic pens and two broken halves of a safety ruler. A pair of leather gloves. Buried in one corner were Bob's keys. The key to the safe, bigger and heavier, hung upon it.
Nathan went to Bob.
Bob wasn't breathing.
Nathan looked at his watch. Then he speed-dialled Jacki's number.
The line rang.
'Nathan?'
'Jacki, something's happened.'
He heard her standing up. She was at home. The television was on in the background.
'Where are you? Are you okay?'
He spoke too fast. He had to pause to catch his breath. He stopped and started again. He looked at his watch.
'I got here. I was late. I just got here. And Bob . . . I think he's done something stupid.'
The sound of a door being closed. Jacki, at home, moving into the hallway. Her husband was called Martin. Nathan had met him once or twice.
'Nathan, now be calm. This is very important. Be calm. What do you mean?'
'I don't think he's breathing. I think he took something.'
'Do you know what he took?'
'No.'
'Are you able to induce vomiting?'
'I think he's dead.'
'Do you know CPR?'
'A bit. I'm the sales floor first-aid supervisor.'
'Then keep calm and remember what you were taught. I'll have an ambulance there as quickly as possible.'
'Okay.' Nathan gave her the address and hung up.
He walked to the safe. He squatted, put the key in the lock.
On the sofa, Bob snorted.
Nathan nearly pissed himself.
He hurried over to the sofa. He looked into the cold, far corner, where the shadows were deepest. Then he took a greasy pillow and pressed it down on Bob's mouth and nose. There was no struggle. But -. Nathan pressed down until he could be sure.
His mind drifted.
He was awoken from this stupor by the distant wail of an ambulence.
He wiped the slobber-wet cushion on Bob's chest, propped it behind his heavy head, then hurried to the safe.
He stooped. He turned the key. The door was three inches thick, It was constructed of cold, solid metal. It swung open with satisfying weight. Inside the safe was the plastic-wrapped parcel, of the plastic, Elise's skull showed its teeth to him, missing the lower mandible. Bob had snapped the long bones to make them fit.
Nathan took out the parcel. The safe was empty. He examined the parcel from all angles, rapidly, rotating it in his hands like a basketball.
But
nowhere did he find the wrapped-up old carrier bag that contained Elise's rotted clothing, and his rotted DNA.
The sirens were appreciably closer now. Two or three of them. A chorus of emergency.
He stuffed the parcel back into the safe. He locked it. He put the keys in Bob's trouser pocket. He looked round the flat. He remembered that he had searched the bedsit once already. The clothes would not be where he had already looked.
A vehicle drew to the kerb outside. The flashing lights drew patterns on the ceiling. He heard car doors opening, hasty footsteps.
He said, 'Fuck.'
The doorbell rang.
He wondered how long it would be, before they broke down the door.
He called out, 'I'm coming!'
He looked at his drink, on the work surface of the kitchenette.
No ice, Bob had said.
Bob always had ice.
Until Nathan broke into the garage.
He ran to the fridge. He had to force back the rolled-up carpet to open the door, revealing the linoleum beneath, a layer of grease and crumbs. He went to the little freezer compartment. It was frozen shut. He forced it. It opened with a sharp crack. Fragments of dirty ice fell to the floor. He kicked the biggest of them beneath the fridge.
The remnants of Elise's clothing were inside the freezer compartment, still stuffed into a brittle, frozen Sainsbury's carrier bag, itself forced into a Ziploc freezer bag.
He ripped the bag free and forced it into a ball. It crackled like a campfire. He shoved the balled-up bag into the pocket of his raincoat.
The bag was cold and wet against his thigh, and it made a bulge in the lining of his coat. Already it was beginning to melt. He looked down at it.
There were hurried footsteps on the stairs. Somebody must have opened the front door, or the police had forced it.
Nathan ran to Bob's side, removing the latex gloves, bundling them up and shoving them, too, into his pocket. He dragged Bob off the sofa - the fall punching the final breath from his lungs.
Nathan climbed on top of him and began to administer what looked like CPR.
The door exploded in its frame. He looked up and over his shoulder Three paramedics were running in. They carried heavy shoulder bags, a portable defibrillator.
He shouted to them.
