1

The doorbell rang.

Nathan had a feeling - but he dismissed it, muted the TV and went to the door. There stood Bob; hunched over, grinning in the darkness and rain. Saying: 'Hello, mate.'

Nathan said, 'How did you find me?'

'I looked.'

Nathan tried to slam the door, but Bob put out a big hand, stopping it. Then he removed the hand and said, 'They're digging up the woods.'

'They're what?'

'Digging up the woods.'

'Why?'

'Does it matter? They're building a housing estate.'

'Of course it doesn't matter. What kind of housing estate?'

'The kind people live in. Are you actually listening?'

'Yes. Yeah, of course.'

Nathan glanced backwards, as if somebody was standing at his shoulder. But nobody was; it was Tuesday night. That meant Holly would be back late.

He said, 'Look. Give me a call. Phone me at work.'

'I'm here. Right now.'

'You can't come in. I'll meet you somewhere. Tomorrow.'

'I'll be gone in two minutes.'

'My wife will be home.'

But Bob just stood there, waiting in the rain. So Nathan gathered his breath and moved aside. Bob stepped over the threshold and stood dripping on the wooden floor.

He'd noticed the many framed photographs that hung in the hallway.

Nathan waited while Bob took a squinting step forward, examining the photographs more closely. A baby girl, naked on a towel. A gap-toothed girl with a pageboy haircut. The fringe was blunt and a bit crooked - obviously trimmed by her mother. A holiday photograph in which the girl was a very young teenager, her hair short and bleached and spiky. She stood on the deck of a boat, wearing an orange life jacket. She was holding up a long, silver mackerel. In that photograph, she was laughing.

Bob looked at the photographs for a long time.

When he turned to Nathan, his voice had gone.

'What the fuck is this?"

'I told you not to come in.'

Using the wall for balance, Bob lowered himself. He sat on the stripped Victorian floorboards. He looked wrong, like an optical illusion, like a drawing where the perspective and the scale have been altered.

Fingertips brushed the hair on Nathan's nape.

In the living room, the TV flickered - and it seemed to Nathan that the lights dimmed, and flickered, then rose again.

Nathan and Bob had met fifteen years before, in the summer of 1993.

Nathan was renting a small room in a house on Maple Road. A year after leaving university, he was claiming benefit and waiting to be awarded a job on the city's biweekly listings magazine. The magazine had yet to bother rejecting his unsolicited job applications, or any of his unsolicited gig, film and record reviews. Nathan was encouraged by this lack of explicit rejection: his plan was to sit around and keep applying.

Because all the rooms in 30 Maple Road were rented out, there was no communal space in which to gather. So Nathan and his housemates spent the dole days drifting from bedroom to bedroom, drinking lots of Happy Shopper tea.

That afternoon, Pete's room was pretty quiet: from it there emerged only the earthquake throb of an Estring fed through a large amplifier and a digital delay pedal.

Nathan lay in bed, listening to it. Then he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, put on his trousers and a washed-out band T-shirt, and wandered across the mangy hallway.

Because Pete had lived in the house the longest, he'd graduated to the biggest room. In it, an old mattress doubled as a sofa. The sofa had been rescued from a skip outside next-door's house. Propped against the wall was a monumental, patched-together stereo -- assembled from gaffer-taped components joined by coloured leads and soldered interconnects.

Pete always had people in his room. Often, they were members of what was still called the convoy -- patchouli-ripe crusties who told endless dull tales of the Battle of the Beanfield. There were Goths, too, and sometimes ravers, a youth culture for which Nathan didn't much care.

There were oblique Rastafarians, a benevolent hippie called Fuzzy Rob, a speed-dealing biker called Carnie Frank, a morbidly obese West Indian truck driver called Reds. There were dangerous-looking, sarcastic men in baggy old jeans and prison tattoos.

But this afternoon, there was just a big, scruffy, feline man lolling on one of the old sofas. He wore an ivory shirt, a navy-blue suit threadbare at the cuffs and long, knotty hair that might have been backcombed since last being washed.

Nathan nodded hello and sat on the floor, hugging his bony knees.

The stranger put a Bic flame to the end of a John Player Special.

When it was lit, he leaned forward to offer Nathan his hand.

'Bob.'

Nathan shook the hand. It was very big. Shaking hands made Nathan self-conscious, like a kid playing grown-ups.

Pete sat cross-legged beneath the monstrous, teetering stereo. He wore a matted red dressing gown and dirty white socks.

Bob had a leather briefcase with him; scuffed at the seams, perhaps a lucky find in a charity shop. From it, he withdrew a Dictaphone, which he put on the floor in front of Pete, saying: 'Shall we get on?'

Nathan said, 'So, what's this all about?'

Bob was producing a spiral-bound reporter's notebook and a chewed-up Bic. 'A friend of a friend put me in contact with Pete.

He's agreed to be interviewed.'

'For what?'

'My research.'

'Cool. Are you a journalist?'

'No. It's just research.'

'For . . .?'

'My PhD.'

Nathan looked from one to the other and back again; at big handed, cumbersome Bob -- and Pete in his tatty scarlet dressing gown.

He said, 'Really?'

'Really.'

'What are you researching? Music?'

Music was Pete's only interest - music and a girl called Emma, who'd dumped him eighteen months ago.

Bob gave Nathan an imperious look, and Pete stepped in: 'He wants to know about my brother.'

'Mate, I didn't even know you had a brother.'

'That's the point.'

'So, what? Is he inside or something? Like, all black sheep and shit.'

Bob said, 'If you would,' meaning Shut the fuc up, please. He turned to Pete. 'Would you prefer to be alone for this?'

'Nah. Nathan can sit in. If he's into it.'

Nathan was into it.

Bob told him, 'If you stay, please don't interrupt. Please don't ask any questions.'

'All right. Whatever. Jesus.'

Bob leaned a little towards the Dictaphone and said, 'July 4th, 1993. 1.30 p.m. The subject is Pete King, aged . . .'

'Twenty-four.'

'Pete King. Aged twenty-four.'

For a moment, Nathan thought Pete was about to start giggling.

But instead he sat up - cross-legged and straight-backed - and began to talk.

Bob: So, when are we talking about?

Pete: Summer, 1981. June or July or something. I think it was June.

And your older brother?

David, his name was. We lived out in the country - our dad had a farm. When I was little, I used to follow our David round. He showed me all these secret places. He called me a limpet; but he didn't mind, not really - not even when I went off alone to have a gander at his jazz mags.

[Laughter]

There was all these knackered old Men Onlys and Razzles and Clubs. He had them stashed in an old box between the roots of this massive old yew tree, right on the edge of our dad's land, down by the river. It must've been five hundred years old, that tree, and our David used it to stash dirty magazines.

And how old were you -- when David died?

Twelve, I suppose. Twelve, going on thirteen.

What happened?

It was stupid, really. He was helping our dad fix the bailer. It was Friday afternoon and he was in too much of a hurry. He got his arm caught, then it was ripped out of the socket. Our dad was with him. He ran off to call the ambulance, but by the time it gets there, our David's dead. And how did you feel about that?

I don't know how I felt about it, really. It was all a bit weird.

Shock, or whatever. Our mum was crying and our dad was drinking, and all these aunties and uncles and neighbours and Granddad and Grandma were round. It was sort of like I wasn't there. What happened next? Well, they buried him. Did you attend the funeral?

Yeah. But I didn't think that much of it. I'm sitting on this bloody pew in a suit, all tight round the collar. And nobody's said two proper words to me about him. It's a really hot day. You remember that summer -- they had all the riots, St Paul's, Toxteth, Brixton and wherever.

So anyway. On the way home in the car, I'm not speaking. I don't cry or nothing; I just don't speak. And as soon as the car pulls up outside the farm, I run inside. Our mum's got this big spread laid out. Sandwiches and that -- pork pies, this massive ham.

Our dad comes up to me and says, Don't do this to your mother, not today of all days.

So I start crying and run upstairs. I'm so pissed off, I don't know what to do. So I start looking round for something to smash. I want to break something -- something I really care about. Does that make sense? It's very common.

Anyway. I'm standing in the middle of my bedroom, fists all clenched, and I think: the Specials.

Our David had been to see them -- in Bristol, at the Locarno, in 1980. He'd hung round outside and got the album signed. Not Terry Hall - but Neville had his name on there, and Roddy Radiation. It was David's most treasured thing, and I'd always wanted it. I used to nick it, hide it among my records. I only had about five - Top of the Pops and Disney songs and that - so he always found it, easy. So anyway. I go to David's bedroom and I kneel down, and there it is - the most precious thing in his world, the first Specials album, signed by Neville Staple and Roddy Radiation.

I had it in my hands, I was going to snap it - when I see something in the wardrobe mirror. I look up, thinking it must be our dad and I'm in deep shit. But it's not our dad. It's our David. Your brother David? My dead brother David, yeah. What was he doing?

Just sort of sitting there. Smiling at me. Did he speak?

He didn't need to. It was the kindest smile I ever saw. Like he knew exactly what I was doing, and why I was doing it. The funny thing is, the first thing I thought to do was to put the record back where it belongs. So I do that, and when I look up, our David's gone.

What happened next?

I sit there on the edge of the bed, next to where David had been.

Then go down to the wake and say sorry to our mum and dad. They were all right about it. Did you mention seeing David? No need. Had anything like this happened to you before?

No.

And since?

No.

One last question. What was David wearing?

[Pause]

I don't know. I can't even remember. How weird is that?

Bob sat back on the sofa, pocketing the Dictaphone.

Pete relit the skinny joint he'd allowed to go out.

Nathan said, 'Blimey.'

Pete puffed and exhaled, saying, 'Freaky or what?'

The door creaked loudly and Nathan's heart exploded in his chest.

He looked over his shoulder, at the door, saying, 'Christ. I'm getting the fear.'

Bob told him, 'Sometimes, telling these stories acts as a kind of evocation.'

'Evocation

of what?'

'I don't know. Whatever.'

Nathan's feet were cold. The worn carpet was bitty on his soles. He said, 'What are you talking about?'

'I'm doing ghosts.'

'Doing ghosts.'

'Studying them.'

'Yeah, right.'

'Absolutely. I'm two years into a PhD. Psychology.'

'But there's no such thing as ghosts.' He cast a quick, guilty glance at Pete. 'Sorry, mate.'

Pete shrugged, unbothered.

Bob began to pack up his briefcase, saying: 'So, is Pete lying?'

'Of course he's not.'

'Is he mad?'

'No.'

'Was he seeing things?'

'No.'

'Then what happened?'

'I don't know.'

'Nor do I. That's why I'm studying it.'

Bob stayed a little while longer. They drank a cup of tea and Pete played his band's demo. Bob nodded along and seemed to approve; he promised to come to Pete's next gig. They all knew he wouldn't. Then he thanked Pete and told Nathan it had been good to meet him.

Bob said, 'See you later, then.'

Nathan thought: Not if I see you first. But he said: 'You must have an idea -- you must have an opinion.'

'On what?'

'On what they are. Ghosts.'

'They're any number of things. Illusion, delusion, hallucination.

Electromagnetic phenomena dicking around with the temporal lobe.

Infra-sound. All of the above, and more. Not many people know this, but most ghosts are spectres of the living. The ghost of a living person is called a fetch.'

'A fetch.'

'A fetch.'

'Yeah, right.'

'It's true,' said Bob, with the briefcase in his hand.

He said goodbye, and they heard him stomp down the stairs - then the creak and slam of the front door.

'Fuck me,' said Nathan. 'Where did you find him ?'

They laughed.

On the bass, Pete banged out the riff from Ghostbusters. Nathan said, 'Is it true? What you told him?'

He didn't see Bob again for four and a half years.

That September, Maple Road's tolerant old landlord died, leaving the house to his daughter, who put it straight on the market. Unprotected by tenancy agreements, the housemates drifted off and away.

After Pete's band, Odorono, split up, he moved to a squat in London. A couple of years later, Nathan saw a small picture of him in Melody Maker. Odorono had become the Odorons. They released one independent album before succumbing to musical differences.

Nathan was one of the few who bought the CD; it was called The Malibu Stacey Sessions. Nathan played it three times, and tried each time to like it but never could. He filed The Malibu Stacey Sessions at the back of his collection, where it couldn't shame him with his indifference.

Now

it was Christmas, 1997.

For three years, Nathan had been employed as a researcher on a late-night local talk-back programme called The Mar Derbyshire Solution. The presenter, Mark Derbyshire, was paunchy and balding - with a neatly shaped beard which failed to obscure his close physical resemblance to a beaver. He wore satin shirts in primary colours, open to the third button.

Usually, The Mark Derbyshire Solutions lonesome audience could be relied upon to trumpet their opinion on the day's news stories.

When those stories weren't conducive to late-night chat, Nathan had to dig up some current issue that involved paedophilia, satanism, immigration, child murder, miracle cancer cures, political correctness gone mad, or European integration. This was called research. Mostly, it consisted of reading the Daily Mail.

When this think-tank of the lonely was in proper, eye-rolling form, Mark Derbyshire and the show's producer (a louche and florid ex-Fleet Street hack called Howard) kept Nathan around simply to have someone to humiliate.

A great deal of Nathan's job, therefore, involved popping out to the local twenty-four-hour garage or supermarket to buy tampons, extra-strength condoms, laxatives, or K-Y Jelly. Sometimes all four.

Sometimes, if Mark was feeling especially beneficent, Nathan might be sent to get the Jag washed instead. Sometimes, he was sent out with a pocket stuffed full of five-pound notes; in the early hours of the morning, he was required to approach strangers -- in the street, on late-night garage forecourts and in taxi queues whereupon he would ask them for that evening's code word, which had been decided by Mark: it might be simply big brassieres, or it might be Nule Saddam, or it might be Mark Derbyshire is a Sex Donkey!

Slowly, this occasional item became a semi-regular feature.

Eventually it was given a name: A Fistful of Fivers, in Association with Infinity Motors, Ltd. Mark would send Nathan on to the street at 2

a.m. with 2,000 pounds in his pocket, cash. Nathan would hang around waiting to encounter some lucky member of Derby's Crew, which is what Mark called his listeners.

It didn't take Nathan very long to learn how to distribute the cash safely and quickly. Mostly, he handed wads of it to minicab drivers filling up at the twenty-four-hour garage round the corner - it was not terribly far from the police station.

Many of the cab drivers were regular listeners to The Mark Derbyshire Solution - although many of them, being immigrants, were also part of The Mark Derbyshire Problem.

Nathan was twenty-seven and at the fag end of a relationship with a girl called Sara, with whom he had once, not very long ago, believed himself to be in love. Now the sight of her nettled and demoralized him.

Sara didn't much like Nathan, either - so probably it was fortunate they barely saw one another. The Mark Derbyshire Solution was broadcast from midnight, which meant Nathan left for work shortly after 9 p.m. Sara worked in an office and didn't get home until 7.30. This left about ninety minutes for them to get through.

Nathan was pretty sure that Sara was sleeping with her boss, who was called Alex and looked like that kind of man.

There were hints. She'd taken to showering when she got home, as well as when she got up. She no longer wore her slightly tattier, more practical underwear to the office and her lingerie at the weekends; that behaviour pattern had suddenly (and neatly) reversed itself.

Nathan sometimes saw the flickerings of deceit in her face: the sidelong glance, the secret smile for a private allusion.

'Are you okay?' he would say.

'Fine,' she'd say - and smile that dreamy, knowing smile.

Nathan felt bad for her.

Now he'd decided the time had come to finish it with Sara; one of them had to do it. This is why he'd accepted that year's invitation to Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party. It was to be a kind of parting gift, and a kind of unspoken apology.

Sara didn't listen to The Mark Derbyshire Solution - it was on too late - but she'd always been impressed that Nathan worked for Mark Derbyshire, who had once been famous. And she'd always wanted to go to his party. But every year Nathan found an excuse not to.

The Christmas party had been written into Mark's contract when he still meant something, which was a very long time ago indeed.

But the radio station still paid for the drinks, the canapes and a miserable local wedding DJ to play some Boney M. records. Most of the senior management and a number of the station DJs and newsreaders felt compelled to attend. Many of the junior staff actively looked forward to it and so, apparently, did the communities local to Mark's house.

Before leaving for work on Wednesday evening, Nathan told Sara, 'So. We've been invited again.'

'To Mark's party?'

'To Mark's party.'

She froze, like a fawn in woodland.

Nathan was putting on his plaid jacket, the one he wore to work during the winter. He said, 'It's probably best if we don't go. There'll be a lot of drugs around, I expect.'

Ordinarily, Sara disapproved of drugs. But now exasperation flickered round the edges of her face. This was Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party, and the presence or absence of drugs was of no interest to her.

She grew demure. 'But I'd really like to.'

She said this every Christmas. And every Christmas, Nathan said, 'Maybe next year.'

Now she simpered a little, half playing, half meaning it, stroking his upper arm with the back of her fingernails, saying, 'Pretty please?'

And Nathan said, 'Okay, then. Why not?'

She screamed and kissed him - smacking him on the cheek and on the forehead.

Even as recently as a few months ago, they'd probably have had quick, celebratory sex. But Nathan and Sara no longer had sex.

Neither of them had mentioned it; it made them too sad, too awkward and too embarrassed.

Now, Sara got so childishly excited - running and whooping -- that she had to run to the bathroom.

At first, this pleased him; it had been a while since she was so happy in his company. Then he began to wonder when, exactly, she'd begun closing the bathroom door when she needed to pee.

It seemed to him that he really should know something like that if only so he could identify it as the moment he knew for sure that it was really over.

But he hadn't noticed, and the moment he knew for sure it was really over was right now, right this second.

After the moment had passed, he called out, 'I'm late, I have to run!' and opened the door.

From the bathroom, she yelled, 'See you, babes!' and he smiled.

He caught the bus to work.

Saturday was the night of the party. Nathan slept late and woke, unusually, to the sound of Sara going about the house, singing. It was a sunny, late-winter afternoon, and from the flat the traffic noise was reduced to a monotonous hiss.

He got up and pulled on an old and faded band T-shirt. Utterly Bastard Groovy, it read, green on black. Utterly bastard groovy was exactly what Nathan never felt, not any more.) In this and a pair of Calvins, he slapped barefoot to the compact living room.

Sara was sitting at the table, one hand round a mug of coffee, reading the Guardian Review. Nathan was struck by the reality of her. He saw how pretty she was, and how young; with her face cleansed and scrubbed of make-up, he could see the tiny imperfections and freckles on her nose and cheeks, and her eyes looked naked and vulnerable. She was bare-legged, wearing only one of his Tshirts. It fitted her like a minidress. This is how she'd dressed on those far-off Saturday mornings when he first knew her; those days when it would have seemed impossible that he could ever grow to dislike her, or she him. Or that they could ever stop having sex.

In the afternoon they snuggled chastely on the sofa, watching a black and white film as the winter sun dipped in the west.

At 5.30, they began to get ready. Nathan took a shower and shaved. He had a couple of good suits hanging in the wardrobe -- he'd bought them with his first credit card when he and Sara were first together and he was light-headed with the idea of being in love, and being loved by this lovely girl. There were some good shirts, too (also yet to be paid for), and several good ties. Nathan never wore ties; he had the wrong kind of job. But Sara kept buying them, and with each tie he unwrapped from tissue paper, he sensed her disdain for his lack of ambition ratchet up another notch. The ties hung on a rack in his wardrobe, a Technicolor indictment.

When, in a rolling cloud of scented steam, Sara finally emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a white towel, Nathan was dressed and ready, laying out his wallet and keys on the kitchen table. He wore a charcoal-grey suit over a black T-shirt.

He sat on the bed and watched her. There was no prevarication; she'd been planning her outfit for days now. She blow-dried her short hair with brisk, staggering efficiency, so the asymmetrical fringe fell over one eye. She applied her make-up with a few, quick, practised strokes (but in a manner he knew required years of diligent practice, like elite sportsmanship). Towel off: knickers on. Bra. Pull-up stockings.

Spritz of perfume. Dress. Slip on heels. Suddenly remember to apply roll-on deodorant. Examine self in mirror from several difficult angles, smoothing down creases with an alluring little shimmy. Open handbag. Double-check keys, address book, mobile phone, whatever other mysteries the bag contained. Lean in to mirror. Fiddle with fringe, minutely calibrating it. Add mascara.

She ordered a taxi and mixed them a gin and tonic. The plan was to sit listening to music - Sara's choice - until the taxi arrived. Nathan hated the Cranberries.

He walked to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Faintly embarrassed by his own nervousness, he ran the taps just to make a noise. Then he removed from his pocket a little Ziploc bag containing four grammes of cocaine in four paper wraps. He'd cleaned out his savings account to buy it. The supplier was Howard, the grey-haired ex-hack who produced The Mark Derbyshire Solution.

Nathan racked up two fat lines on the cistern, then took the little pewter snorting spoon he'd bought from a now-closed head shop in Cornwall one good summer that seemed a million years ago, and he snorted back, crisply and efficiently. Then he stood straight, looking at the ceiling, sniffing. His snot tasted chemical.

He smiled with joy at the memory of it and knew it was working already.

He tucked the spoon into one pocket and the wraps into another, opened the bathroom door and walked out, sniffing.

In her party dress, Sara stood alone in the centre of the room, one hand cupping an elbow, the other holding a long glass of gin and tonic. As if she were the host and waiting for the party to begin.

At the railway station, they queued for tickets. There were twenty minutes to kill. They stopped for a drink at the generic railway bar.

Nathan visited the lavatory. Then they hurried to catch the train. It sat on a wintry platform. They boarded and sat without speaking, Sara staring - apparently sombre - at her blank-eyed reflection in the train window, and through it to the passengers on the platform who passed spectrally by.

Nathan said, 'Christ. I'd kill for a cigarette.'

She gave him the look.

'Come on,' he said. 'Just one night. It's party nerves.'

She allowed herself an expression of benevolent radiance. 'Go on.

It's only one night.'

It's only cancer, he thought, producing a packet of Marlboro Lights from his coat pocket; one of four he'd bought to last him a long evening.

He stood between the carriages of the juddering train, blowing smoke out the window.

Half an hour later, they pulled up to Sutton Parkway. It was little more than a dark, astringently cold concrete platform.

Nathan gathered himself, saddened a little to know the best part of Sara's evening, the anticipation, was nearly over. Almost certainly, from now on, the evening would only get worse.

Outside the station, they caught a minicab.

Nathan paid the driver and the minicab pulled away, its tail lights smudged and indistinct in the billowing white exhaust.

Their party shoes scratched on the cold gravel of the long driveway.

From inside the big house came a faint, muffled, repetitive boom; the windows vibrated with it.

Mark Derbyshire had built this mansion in the late seventies, when he could still afford it. At the rear was a helicopter landing pad, long since overgrown.

Nathan offered Sara his elbow and together they approached the door. It was answered by a balding man dressed as a butler; Nathan hoped he'd been hired for the evening.

Sara removed her coat, shrugging it from her narrow white shoulders in a way that made him remember, for a moment, why he'd once believed himself to be in love with her.

The magnolia hall was hung with gold and silver discs from forgotten bands and singers whose records Mark Derbyshire had once helped to climb the charts. And there were many framed eight by tens. In them a younger and thinner Mark Derbyshire - but with the same neatly trimmed beard, the same look of jovial malice - placed his arm round the shoulder of one squirming celebrity or other: a young Madonna was there, and David Bowie showed his David Bowie teeth. Elton John looked frumpy and unhappy in a straw boater and comedy spectacles. The photographs made Nathan melancholy.

Sara said, 'Shall we?' and - feeling for a moment like Cary Grant -- he led her inside the double door into the ballroom.

At the far end, the wedding DJ stood at his mixing desk. A few guests, mostly young local girls, were dancing.

Sara tugged his elbow.

'What?'

'Celebrity count?'

'It's early days. It's not even nine.'

She looked at him, trustingly. They pushed and 'excuse-me'd and danced round the loose crowd to get to the drinks table. It was a long trestle, behind which stood six young men in burgundy shirts, pouring drinks.

Nathan surveyed the party, holding a gin and tonic. He barely knew anyone - certainly nobody to whom he felt inclined to introduce Sara. He wondered what on earth they could find to talk about until it was time for her to go home disappointed.

They stared at the party and into their drinks. Nathan tried not to look at the senior managers -- whom he regarded with contempt for their black suits and their big, old-man ears and their stupid fucking cigars.

He made an effort to point out colleagues whose names he might have mentioned in passing, but Sara wasn't really interested; she wanted to see, and be introduced to, celebrities. But no real celebrity had stepped over Mark Derbyshire's threshold since Margaret Thatcher was in power.

Eventually, Howard strolled past. Although to Nathan he was obviously fucked out of his mind, he carried a certain louche charm, with his curly grey-white hair, his unlatched bow-tie. Nathan grabbed his elbow.

'Howard! Mate! Have you met Sara?'

Howard had not met Sara.

Shaking her hand, he glanced at her creamy decolletage with an expression that resembled sorrow. Then he locked eyes with her.

Howard had pale Icelandic eyes and they shone like a missile guidance system.

Nathan said, 'Tell her about some of the people you've worked with.'

'I'm sure she's got better things to do than listen to my war stories.'

'The Rolling Stones,' said Nathan, not without desperation. 'The Beatles. Spandau Ballet.'

'Spandau Ballet!' said Sara.

And that was it. She was happy.

Nathan hung around for a while, but soon it became clear he was no longer required. He wandered off to get another drink, then followed the chlorine tang towards the indoor swimming pool.

The atmosphere round the pool was excitingly muted and full of potential. Nathan leaned against the damp wall and stared through the steamy glass ceiling at the pin-sharp December sky. He recognized none of the constellations and for a moment fantasized that he'd entered a deeply foreign country. He felt good.

In the corner was Mark Derbyshire. He was engaged in restrained conversation with a big, shambling, shaggy-haired man in crumpled dinner jacket and an Hawaiian shirt. The shambling man seemed to be controlling the conversation: Mark Derbyshire looked diminished, clutching his glass of wine in one hairy-backed hand, nodding along, glancing left and right.

Mark spotted Nathan and rolled his eyes with relief, beckoning Nathan over.

'Nathan. You have to meet this guy.'

The shambling man turned. And for the second time in his life, Nathan reached out to shake Bob's hand.

'Mate,' he said, recognizing Nathan. 'Good to see you.'

Mark said, 'You know this guy?'

Nathan said, 'Kind of.'

Bob said, 'From way back. How are you? You're looking a bit more prosperous.'

Nathan looked down at his suit, still unpaid for. 'Well. Y'know.'

He caught Mark Derbyshire's confused, malevolent little eyes.

Bob explained to Mark, 'He was a bit of a hippie when I knew him.'

And Nathan protested: 'I don't know about that'

'Bit of a new age traveller,' said Bob. 'All patchouli and ganja.'

'That's great,' said Mark, who at least knew what ganja was; he'd heard it mentioned in a comedy reggae song. 'It's great that you two know each other. I can make you Bob's liaison, Nathan.'

'Great,' said Nathan, not knowing what Mark was talking about.

'We're going to have Bob on the show,' said Mark.

'As an experiment,' said Bob.

'What he means is, for a trial period. Thursday night, 12.30, for six weeks.'

'It's part of the research,' said Bob. 'I'm compiling stories for a book.'

'Still working on the PhD?'

'Inter alia.'

'Nathan, boy,' said Mark. 'Do us a favour - go and get us a drink.'

It was at once a jovial and venomous reminder of who was boss.

Bob caught Nathan's eye and winced in sympathy. Nathan set down his drink and walked quickly to the trestle table, ordered the drinks, looked for Sara, saw that she was still enchanted by Howard, then went back to the pool. He handed Mark Derbyshire his whisky and Bob his vodka tonic.

They said cheers and clinked glasses. Then a doddering, silver haired guest took Mark's elbow. Unsure whether to address Nathan or Bob, he alternated between them. 'Do you mind if I borrow the host?'

'Not at all,' said Bob, and lifted his vodka tonic in silent salute. The guest led Mark Derbyshire back to the party.

Bob watched him go.

'Christ,' he said.

Nathan smiled, not without guilt.

'I mean really. What a cocksucker.'

Nathan laughed, but he was uncomfortable.

Bob changed the subject. He said, 'So. Do you have any drugs?'

They stopped off at the bar. Sara was still in conversation with Howard, but they'd been joined by a number of other party goers. She looked like she was enjoying herself. Making friends. Wherever she went, she made friends.

Clutching a bottle of gin in one hand and three wine glasses in the other -- one glass full of ice -- Bob sidled alongside Nathan.

'She with you?'

'Yeah. Well, nominally.'

'Lucky man.'

Nathan ignored that -- it hardly mattered to him any more that Sara was good-looking.

And, actually, Nathan got the impression that Bob had disliked Sara on sight. Not many men did that, and Bob kind of went up in his estimation because of it. In some strange way, it made him an ally.

They hurried up the main stairwell. On the first-floor landing, they turned down a half-lit, door-lined hallway.

Nathan said, 'Have you been here before?'

'Nah. I'm following the vibe.'

'Right.'

'I know it sounds like bollocks. But you attend as many hauntings as I do, you learn how to read a house.'

He tried a door handle, moved on. Tested another; the door opened. He groped in the darkness and a light came on. They stepped into the room and Nathan closed the door.

It was a guest bedroom, impersonal as a Holiday Inn. A double bed, a bedside table, a mirrored wardrobe.

Nathan turned on a standard lamp that stood in one corner; it shed a more pleasing glow, so he killed the overhead light.

He said, 'You really believe that stuff?'

'Yep.'

Nathan took from the wall a square mirror, about the size of an LP, and lay it mirror-side up on the quilted bed. Then he kneeled and laid out four lines of cocaine, a cat's claw gash across his reflection.

Bob

went hunting in his thick, greasy wallet. He produced a ten pound note. Two lines each.

Then they were sitting on the floor with their backs to the bed, sniffing.

'So,' said Nathan. 'Have you ever actually seen a ghost?'

'Not as such.'

'What does that mean, not as such?'

'It means, I've seen their effects.'

'Effects like what?'

'Anomalies in haunted houses. Electrical disturbances. Cold spots.

Poltergeist phenomena.'

'No way.'

'Yes way.'

'As in, you've seen a ghost that throws stuff around?'

'People used to think it was that. But we're pretty convinced it's some kind of geothermic reaction - like an intense, very localized electrical field. It sort of charges things up - and yeah, throws stuff around.'

'No shit?'

'No shit. A professor I know in Copenhagen, he built a poltergeist machine. Honest to God. He built a room inside a kind of electromagnetic chamber. He filled it with everyday stuff-chairs, furniture, newspapers, mugs. Then he runs a charge through it, a really powerful charge. And guess what? He reproduces poltergeist phenomena, right there in the lab: things levitate, fly across the room.

All that.'

'You've seen it?'

'Seen it.'

'What's it like?"

'Creepy as shit.'

Nathan was enthusiastic. 'So you think that's what it is, the supernatural?

Just natural phenomena.'

'Pretty much, yeah. Ninety-nine per cent of it.'

'And the other per cent?'

'It's the other per cent that really interests me. Probably a good ninety-nine per cent of that last one per cent is explicable. We just don't know how yet. But the remaining one per cent of the one per cent?'

He pinched his nostrils and closed his eyes.

'Jesus. Do you have a cigarette?'

Nathan could feel each cell of his body vibrating.

After hoovering the last of the cocaine, then wetting their fingertips with spit and rubbing the bitter residue into their gums, Nathan refilled the wine glasses with ice and Bombay Sapphire.

Bob sat rigid on the bed, holding his glass by the stem.

'Fucking hell,' he said.

Nathan told him, 'I stopped taking this stuff two years ago. Can you imagine?'

Bob said he couldn't imagine.

They went quiet.

The quality of the light seemed to change.

Bob said, 'What's wrong?'

'Nothing.'

'Something's wrong. You've got something on your mind.'

Nathan thought about it.

Eventually, he said, 'So, yeah. I've got this problem.'

'What problem?'

'I was going to finish it with Sara.'

'Like, dump her?'

'That's a very strong word for it. We've kind of, y'know. Drifted apart and whatever. Somebody has to say something. One of us.'

'Won't it cause a scene?'

'Not tonight. I'm too wired. Are you wired?'

'Yes.'

"Me too.'

'So, if not tonight - when?'

'Tomorrow. Over lunch, a late breakfast.'

'Why?'

'She's having an affair.'

'With?'

'Her boss.'

'Okay. So where's the problem?'

'Second thoughts. Am I doing the right thing? Should I be, like, fighting for her?'

'If you loved her, you would.'

'Would I?'

'Yeah. Nathan, mate. The decision's already made. This is just anxiety talking.'

'And booze.'

'And booze.'

'And coke.'

'And that.' Bob leaned over and, with an index finger, he tapped Nathan's head. 'But in here, you know what to do. You've already decided.'

'You reckon?'

'I reckon.'

'I'm not sure I do.'

Bob seemed to be thinking very hard. He said, 'Do you love her?'

'I don't think so. But when I think of us not being together any more, it makes me a bit sad.'

'That's natural. But that's not love, it's regret. It's the end of love.'

'The end of love,' said Nathan, awed by the concept. 'Blimey. The end of love.'

Bob slapped his thigh and stood. He wavered a bit. His knees clicked.

He said, 'Let's consult the oracle!'

Nathan blinked up at him.

Bob said, 'Go to the bathroom. Bring back a plastic lid, like from a can of deodorant or something. Air freshener. Whatever.'

Excited - and too wired to question what he'd been asked -- Nathan hurried down the corridor to the bathroom, which had long since passed its best days. The shower and bath and sink were limescaled. The sinks wanted plugs. The taps dripped. Nathan rooted in the cupboards and found a can of shaving foam, from which he removed the plastic lid.

Back in the guest room, Bob was writing letters of the alphabet on sequential pages of a pocket notebook. Finally, he ripped the pages from the notebook, one by one, and lay them on the back of the mirror -- forming a rough circle. He placed the word YES at twelve o'clock, followed by the letters A through to M. At six o'clock, he placed the word NO, followed by the letters N through Z.

Nathan looked at the makeshift Ouija board and laughed.

'Come on. Look at the state of it. There's not even a pointer.'

'Planchette,' said Bob, and nodded at the plastic lid in Nathan's hand.

'You're joking.'

'Give it a try.'

Nathan giggled as they sat cross-legged before the board. Bob placed the planchette in the centre of it.

Nathan said, 'What do I do?'

'You rest your index finger -- very lightly, lightly as you can -- on the planchette. Then wait.'

'How does it work?'

'Something called the ideomotor effect: tiny involuntary muscle movements. It'll help you find out what you're really thinking.'

'I'm not sure I want to know what I'm really thinking.'

But Nathan did as instructed. They waited, in the loaded silence.

And then the planchette seemed slowly to rotate beneath their fingertips.

Bob

closed his eyes and licked his lips. 'Okay. Have we got anyone?'

They waited again. Until, with a dry creak on the mirror's surface, the planchette slid to the word YES.

Nathan took his finger from it.

'Fuck off. You're moving it. I can feel you.'

'Afraid not. Now, come on. You don't want to piss them off.'

'Piss who off?'

Bob looked at the ceiling. 'Them.'

Nathan said, 'Christ. You're giving me the horrors.'

Bob implored him with impatient eyes. So Nathan touched the planchette again.

Bob asked the air: 'Do you have a name?'

The planchette slid to the letter D. Then the letter A.

David

'Do you know us, David?'

no

'Then why have you come through?'

can you hear

'Yes. Do you have a message?'

die cunt

'Is that your message?'

die cunt die cu --

'Then goodbye.'

Bob took his finger from the planchette, saying, 'Mate. You're shaking.'

'Fuck me. Tell me you were doing that on purpose.'

'Were you ?'

'No.'

"Me neither. Shall we try again?'

Nathan shook his head; no way.

Bob told him, 'Look. It's nothing. It's coming from inside your head.'

'Or yours.'

'Or mine, yes. Possibly. Now come on.'

Once again -- Nathan much more tentatively -- they placed their fingers on the planchette.

'Now,' said Bob. 'Do we have someone?'

yes

'Who do we have?'

sunny

'Have we met, Sunny?'

"Not here

Nathan removed his finger.

'Fuck that.'

Bob's face had darkened. 'Put your finger back.'

Nathan did.

Then Bob relaxed himself and once again spoke to the air, 'Why are you here, Sunny?' fuks him

'Who fucks who?'

fuks him

fuks him

fuks him

Nathan stood up.

'Really,' he said. 'Fuck that. I mean really. Fuck it.'

He looked down at the mirror. Then he hit the main light switch.

He was dazzled by the sudden, whiter glare. With his foot, he scattered the letters of the Ouija board across the carpet.

Bob was standing up, too. 'What are you doing'

'And fuck you, too.'

'Do you know how dangerous that is?'

'You're cracked in the head, mate.'

Nathan picked up his cigarettes and left the guest bedroom.

Outside, in the dim hallway, he looked at his watch. His eyes wouldn't focus. He leaned against the wall.

Then he strode downstairs, where it was hotter than ever. The bodies and the noise pressed down upon him. He squeezed into the ballroom.

He looked at his watch. An impossible amount of time had passed. Sara was on the dance floor. 'Crocodile Rock' was ending. It was followed by 'He's the Greatest Dancer (That I've Ever Seen)'.

Sara was dancing with Mark Derbyshire. Mark had discarded his jacket. Nathan watched them; Mark was grinding his hips, all but dry-humping her, and Sara was laughing. Mark's shirt was soaked under the armpits and between the shoulder blades.

The dance floor was packed and the music was fast and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Nathan snatched a bottle of Chardonnay from the trestle table, then went to collect his coat and walked out the front door.

The cold and quiet hit him, the skin contracting like cling film across his skull. He clenched his teeth and sat in the spilled light on the stone doorstep, the muffled sounds of the party behind him, and wondered what to do. The big house mocked him. So he went for a walk in the darkness, clasping the bottle by the neck.

Beyond the east wing was a small copse of leafless trees. On the other side was a tennis court. Around the tennis court were arranged some benches. On one of these benches huddled a dark mass. As Nathan approached, the dark mass seemed to bloom, sprouting a white head. It resolved into a girl. Her short hair was glossy black in the starlight. She was bundled up beneath a man's overcoat.

She said, 'Hello.'

'Hello,' said Nathan. 'So what are you doing out here?'

'Getting some air. Y'know.'

He laughed, once. Too loud: a bird erupted from the dark trees behind them. She looked over his shoulder and up, tracking its progress.

'What's that? An owl?'

He squinted into the darkness. The Milky Way spread like a distended contrail across the sky.

'I don't know. I think it was maybe a crow.'

'Whatever. You didn't impress it much.'

'So, how do you know Mark?'

'I don't. Not really. He's a friend of my dad's. Which is lucky, if you think about it.'

'Please explain.'

'Because Mark respects my dad, he technically can't make a pass at me.'

'That is lucky.'

'I did say "technically".'

'Oh my God. He didn't.'

'No, but he was working up to it. Mum, Dad and my sister had already gone home. So I sneaked out, to get away from him. Let him find someone else to lech over.'

Nathan sat down next to her and, in unconscious imitation, drew his knees up to his chest and hugged them.

He passed her the wine. She took it.

He said, 'I think you're safe. Right now he's dancing with my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.'

'Ugh.'

'You should see him.'

'I'd rather not. I've seen it. I've felt it. He shoves his hard-on into you, kind of grinds it around. Like you won't notice.'

He shuddered.

The girl said, 'So what makes her your soon-to-be ex? The dancing thing?'

'Nah. It's a long story.'

'Who's in a rush?'

'Long story short, she's seeing someone else.'

'Behind your back?'

'Pretty much.'

She ruffled his hair.

'Poor puppy.'

Something passed between them. The night had magic in it.

They sat for a few minutes, watching the slowly circling sky --until Nathan said, 'I'm freezing.'

"Me too.'

'Would you like to sneak inside and maybe have some drugs?'

'What would your girlfriend say?'

'I don't think she's my girlfriend any more.'

'Just checking.'

'Ha.'

'What've you got?'

'A little bit of coke. There's a room. Up the main stairs, take the dark corridor, the little offshoot.'

'To the guest bedrooms?'

'You've been here before.'

'Every Christmas since I was nine.'

'Cool. Third door on the right. I'll meet you in there.'

'I'll go first. See you in five minutes?'

'Five minutes.'

He consulted his watch. Not yet midnight.

The girl scurried off, lost in the big black overcoat.

He waited on the bench, watching the sky. It was so clear. He saw a satellite, a quick-winking light passing too high and too fast to be an aircraft.

Then he retraced his steps to the house. By now he was beginning to wonder if the girl had been real. He paused on the stoop and remembered how the darkness of the leafy copse had swallowed her up like ink spreading on a drawing. He remembered the cold touch of her hand on his brow.

He walked back inside and was received by a burst of warmth, party chatter, and 'La Isla Bonita'. He re-checked his coat, then cautiously popped his head into the ballroom. Sara was in the corner, talking to somebody, a woman.

He hurried up the stairs and ducked down the twilit hallway. He went to the third door on the right, paused for a moment, and tried the handle.

The door was open and the light was on and the girl was in there.

She'd thrown her overcoat down on the bed. She wore a short skirt and a tight T-shirt with some kind of ironic legend on it. Adidas trainers. In her hand she held several scraps of paper. He saw the word YES. She said, 'What's all this about?'

'You don't want to know.'

'Were you doing a Ouija board in here? Jesus, what are you, twelve?'

Once again, he took the mirror from the wall (in the lamplight, he could see the looped, dried snail-trails of his and Bob's wetted fingers) and laid it on the bed.

He passed her the little pewter tube. He hadn't been able to share it with Bob - to see Bob shove it up his hairy ectoplasmic nostrils. But the girl's nostrils were of an altogether different order. The girl had pretty nostrils, and up them she snorted two of the lines he'd laid out for them.

She sat on the bed and let it begin to work.

She glanced at him. Then she glanced away. Then -- very carefully and very precisely -- she patted the mattress next to her.

'Come and sit next to me.'

He went and sat next to her.

They sat there like that. Their knees were touching. They talked for a bit.

He put his arm round her. She felt tiny. She turned to face him. He moved to meet her. Their lips touched. Her tongue darted between his lips. She tasted of cocaine and cigarettes and wine. He slid a hand beneath the hem of her T-shirt. Her flesh was warm and soft and firm. He pushed her back. Her hands were laced at the nape of his neck. He could feel her ribs. He cupped her breast and squeezed; he felt her nipple harden in the palm of his hand. She arched her back.

The door opened and Bob walked in.

Nathan sat up and said, 'Jesus fucking Christ, Bob.'

He saw that Bob wore an earnest, worried expression. It infuriated him: it made him want to rip Bob's ears off. He said, 'Fuck off Bob.

Please, just fuck off.'

But Bob didn't fuck off. Instead, he said, 'Sara's looking for you.

She's on the warpath, mate.'

Nathan groaned.

'I was introduced to her downstairs,' Bob said. 'She's wondering where the hell you've got to.'

Nathan was bored and angered by the thought of Sara's disapproval; he imagined her tapping her foot and crossing her arms, pouting, flicking back that precisely calibrated fringe.

While he pictured it, Bob turned to the girl and said, 'I'm Bob, by the way. Friend of Nathan's.'

The girl was smoothing down her T-shirt, saying, 'Elise.'

Nathan peeped at her sideways, as if properly to say hello. She peeped back. Nathan's triumphant erection was wilting away. He moaned, 'Sara's the last person I need to see.'

'So let's keep hiding,' said Bob.

'She'll find us.'

At which, Elise nervously checked the door and straightened the hem of her T-shirt again.

Bob wasn't in the mood to give up. He said, 'So let's run away.'

Nathan thought about it for a moment - not too long, because he wanted to look decisive in Elise's eyes.

He said, 'That may be a good idea.'

He unlatched the bedroom window and wrenched it open - then stuck out his head, to see how far it was to the ground.

Nathan told Elise to wait for him while he shinned down the drainpipe, in case he should slip and tumble to his destruction. But once he'd wormed his way out of the window, the descent proved straightforward; he dropped the last two metres with some elan, pleased Elise was there to witness it.

Then she followed him, clambering down with the dexterity of a spider monkey.

Nathan was embarrassed.

They ran for the bushes, the distant thud of disco behind them.

They stayed in the shadows, following the gravel drive towards the main gate. Here, they squatted in a slough of darkness so black and cold it clung to them like viscous liquid.

After a few minutes, Bob pulled up. He was at the wheel of an old white Volvo estate.

Nathan and Elise clambered on to the back seat, keeping low, and Bob pulled away with too much wheelspin. They passed through the gates, all three laughing.

'Now,' said Bob, at the wheel. 'We need somewhere dark'

Elise said, 'I know the place,' and put her hand on Nathan's thigh.

He kissed her.

Out of nowhere, he felt like he was having the best night of his life.

Elise directed Bob through the small town of Socombe, past some farmland, through a village called Sutton Down, then along a road that ran parallel with a managed forest - an oak woodland. She tapped Bob's shoulder.

'Turn left back there.'

'Back where?'

All he could see was trees. But he reversed until Elise told him to stop. Before them, the headlights showed a place where the entrance to a narrow lane had been occulted by the overgrowth. Bob executed a five-point turn to get the car down there - a tunnel of darkness with a hummocked asphalt surface, just wide enough for a single vehicle.

Soon they were swallowed by it, following the headlamps.

Nathan said, 'How do you know this place?'

'All the local kids know it. You know about it way before you get to come down here. It's like lovers' lane or something. In the summer, anyway.'

'Cool,' said Bob. 'So, you've been here before?'

'Once or twice.' She glanced at Nathan. 'Except the big kids, they tell the younger ones that, you know, it's haunted. By a lady in white.'

Bob grinned in the rear-view mirror. 'Is there a river close by?'

'There's kind of a stream. A brook or something.'

'There's always running water. Near haunted lanes. Supposedly haunted.'

'Why's that?'

'Who knows? Geothermic forces or whatever.'

Nathan said, 'Don't get him started.'

Bob pulled the car to the side of the road. Its nearside tyres were caked in leaf mould and humus. He turned on the CD player. Charlie Parker.

Nathan fished out the remaining cocaine. Bob turned on the interior light. They were bathed in its sickly, intimate glow. Nathan cut out some squat, fat lines on the CD case. He snorted first and passed the CD case to Elise. As she brought it to her nose, Bob and Nathan looked at her, then at each other. She passed the CD case to Bob, who propped it on the steering wheel.

Elise wiped at her nose. The action caused her T-shirt to lift above her navel. She'd left the overcoat back at the party.

Bob pressed himself deep into the driver's seat.

'Christ.'

He turned off the interior light. For a few seconds the darkness was absolute. A voice in the blackness, Elise said, 'I like nights like this. When you don't plan anything, but it all seems to happen.'

Bob swivelled in the driving seat, to face them. He said, 'Look. You two. I feel bad. I feel like I'm ruining the night for you - walking in on you. Y'know. The way I did.'

Elise made a slapping motion at him and said, 'No, your timing wasn't great.' Then she drawled his name in a bad American accent: Bahb.

Nathan tried to laugh, and Bob grinned, resting his big jaw on the headrest.

'So why don't you go ahead and finish what you started ?'

Elise slapped at him again. 'What are you like'

Bob met her eyes and held them.

'If it was possible, I'd go for a walk. But the lane is dark and cold and, I have to say, a bit creepy. And even if I were to go out there, you'd be so tense about me coming back at the wrong time, you wouldn't relax. But you might never see each other again. It seems such a shame. So listen. I'll sit back and close my eyes and I'll turn up the music. And you two can . . . you know.'

She laughed again, loud in the darkness, and said, 'You're sick.'

Elise looked at Nathan. Then she looked at Bob.

'You'd watch!

'I'll try not to.'

'You'll listen!

'Then keep the noise down.'

"I can't.

'Can't? Or won't? Are you having bourgeois reservations?'

She went to speak, but then she guffawed and slapped Bob's shoulder again. She turned to Nathan. 'Do you want to?'

'Do you ?'

'Doyou? Do you have a problem with it?'

'With what?'

'With Bob. Being here.'

'No.'

Suddenly nobody was smiling.

Elise took off her T-shirt.

'Bob, you're looking.'

'I'll stop in a moment.'

'You'd better.'

Nathan leaned forward. Her tongue was slower this time. She seemed very aroused. He knew it was the booze and cocaine and the evening's sense of adventure. She tasted of wine and cigarettes. Her hand tugged at his shirt, found flesh. He kissed her long neck. He struggled from his jacket. She kissed his throat, his chest, helped him from his shirt. In his rush, he lost a couple of buttons. She fumbled at his fly. His cock, when she freed it, was springy as a cosh but cold to the core. She popped it into her mouth. The warmth was so abrupt that he jerked back, as if about to fall. Then he forced himself away from her and fumbled with her skirt. She lifted her arse to help him, wriggling at the waist, and when she muttered 'Bob, you're still watching' there was no real protest left in it.

Nathan was transfixed by the imprint of elastic in her bare flesh, and the shadow cast by her sharp hips, by the movement of her small, white breasts as she prepared herself for him. She bit his shoulder when he entered, and gasped. She pressed her feet, still in Adidas trainers, against the back of the front passenger seat. She was so warm. She wrapped her ankles around him and murmured something in his ear, he didn't know what. Her eyes were open.

It didn't last long. When Nathan tensed in orgasm, teeth gritted and neck corded, she hissed a single word through her teeth.

Bob's gaze, solemn and amused, was heavy on Nathan's back as Elise eased him from inside her. Nathan flopped, gasping, on the seat next to her. He was naked from the waist up and his trousers were gathered round his ankles. He was beginning to detumesce. Naked except for her Adidas, Elise sat laughing and gasping. Beads of Nathan's jism glinted on her pubic hair.

She said 'Oh, God' and brushed at her naked thighs as if they itched.

She and Nathan made eye contact. She squeezed his softening dick with affectionate good humour.

He said, 'I know. I'm sorry. Give me a minute.'

'But first -- more drugs, I think.'

'But what about Bob?' said Bob.

Elise leaned forward and slapped his shoulder again.

'Don't be such an old perv.'

'But I'm very aroused.'

'Bob,' she said.

On her knees, leaning on the front seats, she brushed back her fringe.

'Look, I like you. I really do. But I can't.'

'Can't? Won't?'

'Don't!

'Aha. Don't. Don't implies that class values are struggling with more basic desires. Did you come, just now?'

Elise laughed at Bob's audacity.

'No.'

'Would you like to?'

Quick as a fish, Bob's hand darted between her legs. He slipped two fingers inside her. Elise flinched.

'You cheeky bastard.'

She said it three times. Each time it sounded more like a compliment.

She moved her narrow hips in a figure of eight.

Nathan met Bob's eye. Bob's eyes were blank.

'Nathan won't mind, will you, Nathan?'

Nathan was becoming aroused again. But he pulled up his trousers and said, 'Of course not.'

Bob said, 'Mate. I think we'd better swap places.'

Elise lay back in the seat.

'I'm going to regret this in the morning.'

'I promise you,' said Bob. 'You won't.'

Nathan gathered his clothes, his jacket and shirt. They were damp.

Big and intent, Bob began to climb on to the back seat. Nathan opened the door and edged out, his shirt and jacket bundled in his arms.

Elise reached out for him as he left. She grabbed his wrist and squeezed, as one might at the apex of a rollercoaster. He squeezed back, he hoped encouragingly, and let go.

There was a blast of cold, December air. Nathan hurried into his clothes. His hands fumbled at the buttons.

Inside the car, Elise said, 'Oh my God..'

The Volvo lurched on its springs.

Nathan decided to get in the front seat and watch. But first he needed to piss. He walked behind the car. It was difficult to piss in the freezing cold, especially with a growing erection -- and the noises she made, the grunts and yelps. It took a long time and when it came, the wind whipped at the pale stream and scattered it over the rear windscreen of the Volvo.

Accompanying the car's increasingly violent movement, he could hear muffled, profane voices. Elise's voice rising in pitch and urgency, calling alternately on God and Jesus. A kind of bitten-back scream.

Nathan wanted to make her scream like that. Bob's voice was lower and insistent. Nathan wondered what she looked like, locking her white legs around his broad back. He stopped pissing and zipped himself up, not without difficulty. He opened the front passenger door and got inside. It was warm, and musky like a bedroom, undercut with cigarettes and leather upholstery.

By then, the car must have stopped rocking on its springs. Because when Nathan slammed the door and turned in his seat, Elise was already dead.

Nathan never seen a dead person before, but he knew it immediately.

Something had left her - whatever it was that a few moments before had made this fresh cadaver a girl named Elise.

A flock of starlings erupted in Nathan's chest.

Bob was sitting on the back seat - shirt-tails askew, naked from the waist down. His horse's cock hung thick and wet and glinting. Elise lay naked and almost face down, her feet on his lap.

Nathan stared at her.

There was only the sound of Bob's breathing. Elise's feet twitched.

An old joke, filthy, rose unbidden and popped on the surface of Nathan's mind - Now you're fucked. He shook it away.

He said: 'What the fuck have you done?'

His voice was girlish, and hearing it -- hearing the rise of panic made him still more afraid.

Elise's Adidas quivered at Bob's thigh. Bob stared at it, then shoved her legs from his naked lap. She let out an extended exhalation, like a post-coital sigh.

Nathan's sphincter loosened.

Bob said, 'She cramped. Down there. You know. I couldn't. I couldn't get it out.'

Nathan vomited into his mouth. He threw open the passenger door and let the vomit slap on to the road. He hacked up for a long time.

Then he ran away.

He ran and ran. His arms pumped. He felt no friction or resistance.

His breath came in hot and cold rasps. There were only the slow-shifting trees to the side of him, twisted oak and silvery ash, the twinkling sky above him, the pounding of his feet, a white cloud of breath.

He slowed to a wavering jog and then to a halt. The exertion caught him and he vomited again. He stood holding his knees.

Branches shifted in his peripheral vision. He leaned against a tree. He spat.

He didn't know if he'd run towards the road or away from it. But now he imagined himself, breathless and drunk and hopelessly wired - mad-eyed, unkempt - somehow managing to flag down a passing car. What would he say?

What would he say to Sara?

He stood there, getting his breath back. Then he trudged back towards Bob's car.

It took a while. He began to wonder if Bob had gone. Perhaps he'd dumped Elise by the side of the lane and had left Nathan alone with her, here in the woods. Then the white Volvo began to emerge from the night.

Nathan walked up to it. He opened the door and sat down.

Bob was still there, on the back seat. He didn't seem to have

moved, except to have pulled his trousers up. His belt lay unbuckled in his lap and his flies were unzipped.

He said, 'I think she had a fit.'

Nathan wanted to kill him: to cave in his skull with a tyre lever.

Then he'd make his way back to the party. He'd find Sara: he'd tell her everything was all right, and they'd go home. And in the pearly grey, late-winter dawn he'd immerse himself in the cotton-fresh duvet and wake late in the bright December morning and he'd go and get the newspapers, and a bacon sandwich for them both. And they'd eat the sandwiches and read the newspapers and drink tea and watch the EastEnders omnibus, and everything would be all right. He wished so ferociously never to have come to this dark lane with this man and this girl, that it seemed impossible the wish would not come true.

He said, 'We have to call an ambulance. Right now. Or they'll think--'

Bob pushed aside the hair which overhung his bloated cherub's face. 'They'll think what?'

'Christ. Surely not. She had a fit!

'While I was fucking her. I don't know what happened. Maybe she had a weak heart. Maybe it was the cocaine.'

Nathan gagged, and this time brought up only stomach acid. 'I can't believe this is happening.'

'We weren't to know.'

'But it wasn't my fault.'

'We don't know that. Not for sure. What if it was the drugs? What if you supplied her with the drugs that killed her?'

'Oh, Christ. What are we going to do?'

'We put her in the boot. Then we go back to the party.'

Nathan put his head in his hands and began to groan.

'I'll say I found you,' said Bob, looking up now. 'I'll say I found you by the side of the road. You'd seen Sara dancing with what's his name, Mark. Flirting with him, whatever. You were drunk and pissed off. You were trying to walk into the village, to catch a minicab home. You didn't realize how far it was, or how cold. I'm on my way home. I see you, I pull over. We're parked at the side of the road, talking about Sara, love and the meaning of life. All right? I talk you into going back, saying sorry to her. So now we go back. We stay at the party for half an hour, and then you have to make sure absolutely make sure -- that you have an argument with Sara, because you're going to storm out and everyone is going to see you. I'll follow on. I'll say I'm driving you home. And then we'll drive back here.

And get rid of her.'

Nathan rode a swell of panic, a surge like surf, and he rode it down again.

'I can't do that.'

'You have to.'

"I can't.

'Do you have any better ideas?'

'I'm not thinking straight. I'm fucked. I've had too much coke.'

'You haven't got time to think straight. We have to get back to the party. We have to confuse the timeline.'

'What timeline?'

'What time we were at the party, and what time she was. Nobody saw you go in there together, nobody saw her leave with you. So we need to be back at that party. And we need to be seen at that party.

Everybody has to see us. Acting normal.'

Things were shifting in Nathan's peripheral vision. He was scared to look.

He couldn't remember a time before this hateful old Volvo, a time before Charlie Parker on the CD player, a time before Elise.

'I can't come back here.'

'We have to. Because only a local would know it.'

All this time, they hadn't made eye contact. Now Nathan swivelled in his seat.

'We're going to get caught.'

'No, we're not. We just have to get through the next few hours.

There will never be a time as bad as right now. I promise you that.

This is the worst of it.'

Bob opened the door and squeezed himself out into the cold night air. He stood there for a while, his breath steaming, looking at the stars.

Soon, Nathan had joined him.