11

They drove by the house to drop me off. Emma was spending the night with Harold. She said she would collect Charlie from his friend's house on her way back in the morning.

I don't know how I had got through supper without betraying my feelings. Fortunately they put down the deadness in my voice and face to tiredness. And anyway they were too wrapped up in each other to pay me much attention. No wonder she could afford to kiss me now. She did it again when I got out of the car. Kissed me like a friend, an uncle, a member of the family you run into at weddings but otherwise never think about.

Almost the worst part was how I'd deceived myself into thinking that there was something between us. Had I become so totally out of touch with reality? Could I trust my judgment about anything any more?

That night, exhausted though I was, I didn't go to sleep for many hours. I wandered from room to room with a compulsive restlessness. I drank but didn't get drunk. At least I didn't feel that I was getting drunk, just blurring the stark fact of my humiliation.

I thought of them in Harold's bed. A kaleidoscope of pumping, lusting images of erotically charged flesh swirled through my imagination. As the night wore on I became convinced that they both must have known of my feelings towards Emma. It isn't possible to hide something like that, and I was foolish to have thought I could.

There was no other explanation of their behaviour — meeting me at the airport and sitting me down at Chez Arnaud before I even had time to be five minutes alone with her. They meant to present me with a fait accompli to forestall the embarrassment of any declaration on my part, which they must have sensed was drawing near. I could hear them now, laughing. 'Did you see his face? I thought he was going to burst!'

Or, even worse, pitying. 'Poor Rick, let's hope he isn't too hurt. But it was best to get it over with.'

And so I went on, prowling endlessly from room to room, a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, the whole house ablaze with lights.

I don't know when or where I fell asleep, but suddenly I became aware that I was dreaming. Somebody was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't understand what. A bunch of papers were put into my hand. I knew that they carried the same information I had been straining to hear, but I couldn't read the print. The harder I tried, the blanker the paper became.

'I'm dreaming,' I told myself. 'I'm angry and frustrated because I'm trying to understand something, and I can't.' I threw the papers down, refusing to be made a fool of.

Then I saw where I was.

I was in Richard A. Hamilton's luxurious drawing room. It was night and the man who had just been speaking to me was stocky, with an expressionless face and eyes that were set too close together. He made me think of a bouncer at the door of some low dive, but I knew that in fact he was a private detective. I don't know how I knew that, but I did.

With a terrible finality I also knew that something he had said had just signed Anne's and Harold's death warrants. I looked down.

The blank white sheets of paper on the carpet were no longer blank. They were covered now with closely printed paragraphs. Without reading them I knew that they gave dates and places, times and telephone numbers, credit card bills and plane reservations. He had done a thorough job, this stocky little man.

There were also, I could see now, photographs, their edges pointing out between the printed pages. I didn't want to look at them, because I had already seen them. I knew what was in them. Those pitilessly literal images of Harold and Anne danced with my nightmare imaginings of Harold and Emma. My hands flew to my face, uselessly covering my eyes against what was already seared into my brain.

The stocky man was saying something. I had to silence the gasping noises coming from my throat to hear him.

'It's up to you. You just have to say the word, Mr Hamilton.'

'I'm sorry?' I mumbled. 'What did you say?'

'Anything you want taking care of, Mr Hamilton. I mean anything. A private arrangement between you and me.'

I understood what he was offering, and shook my head. 'No,' I said. 'I'll take care of it myself. Just tell me how much I owe you.'

He shrugged as though to take a life, two lives, or not take them was all the same to him. He named a figure and I crossed to a table where my cheque-book lay open. I took out a pen, filled in the cheque, and signed it Richard A. Hamilton.

'Thank you, Mr Hamilton,' he said as I handed it to him. 'And remember, if you change your mind, the offer's good.'

He left me alone in the middle of the room and saw himself out. I waited until I heard the front door close, then I went into my study.

I knew exactly what I was going to do. I knew where I had hidden the key to open the drawer in which was kept the gun that I had bought ten days earlier. I loaded it exactly as I had been shown, and slipped it into my pocket.

As though in a dream, I left the apartment and took the lift to the garage.

As though in a dream?

I knew exactly where I was going. I drove calmly, carefully, totally in control. The awful finality of what lay ahead caused me no concern.

After all, it was only a dream.

All I had to do was play the role set out for me. Events carried me forward without effort. I did not know the building that I parked outside, yet I knew that the address had been provided by the stocky man.

I did not know why I took the elevator to the seventh floor, or how I knew to turn left and follow the corridor until I reached apartment 7b.

It was only as I stood outside it that I remembered a key I had been given by the stocky man. I took it from my pocket and slipped it silently into the lock. It fitted perfectly. In my other hand I had the gun.

The living room was empty, but there was a glow of light from the bedroom. And voices.

They looked up at me from where they lay, naked, astounded, their faces full of fear.

I did not pull the trigger. The double explosion was just another thing that happened in the dream. It must have come from somewhere else. A car backfiring outside. A window banging in the night.

Can dreams contain noises like that?

Surely not.