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.

Bob said, 'Is it, like, a sex thing? Do you get off on it?'

Nathan wanted to scream, but all the strength had gone from him.

He said, 'Jesus, no.'

'Does she look like her? I mean, naked?'

He couldn't endure Bob even contemplating Holly's nudity.

He made as if to leave. The weight of Bob's eyes fell on his shoulders.

'Really,'

said Bob, 'you have to stay.'

Nathan stopped. Eventually, he turned.

'Don't mention my wife again.'

'Fine. Whatever.'

'I mean, not ever.'

'Cool. You have to admit, though. It's pretty sick.'

They locked eyes. Nathan blinked first.

He looked at his shoes, then at a ball of soiled underwear lying dead on the kitchen linoleum.

'You wouldn't understand

Bob seemed about to speak. Instead, he slurped coffee and wandered to one of the tables, the one with the reel-to-reel tape recorder on it. Its plastic had yellowed with age and gone brittle. A crack ran across it like a fault line.

Bob pulled up an office chair, the kind Nathan used at work. It was threadbare and pilled and greasy.

Nathan said,'So?'

'So. The forest where we buried her has been sold off to some property developer. They're going to build a new housing development - or extend a housing development they already built, a couple of years back. Depends how you look at it.'

Nathan reached out for the sofa, as if he were about to fall.

'In the course of doing this,' said Bob, 'they're almost certain to find her. It's not like the grave was very deep or anything.'

'I never understood why they didn't,' said Nathan. 'I was waiting for it. I expected it every day.'

'Who knows? They had their suspect. He didn't leave the party all night. So maybe they just didn't look in the right places. Maybe one of the sniffer dogs had a head cold. Jesus, I don't know.'

Nathan had a feeling like he was descending too quickly in a lift.

'If they find her,' said Bob. 'Which they will, they'll recover traces of semen from two different men. They'll assume, quite understandably, that she was raped and murdered. And they'll take a voluntary DNA sample from every man who attended Mark Derbyshire's party, and they'll identify us, and we'll go to prison for the rest of our lives.'

Nathan thought of Holly and he thought of Graham and he thought of June. He thought of the day they rehung the photographs.

He walked slowly round the sofa and sat in it. He put his head in his hands.

Bob said, 'We have to move her.'

'I can't do that.' The intervening ten years had not happened.

'Jesus fucking Christ. I can't believe this is happening.'

'It won't be difficult. There can't be much left. Not after all this time.'

'Then what's the point?'

'I mean, she won't be heavy. She won't weigh much.'

Nathan began to laugh. He clapped his hand over his mouth.

'Can we be sure they'd find her?'

'Your sperm is inside her. How much of a risk are you willing to take?'

'But won't it have -- rotted by now?'

'They have forensic techniques that you wouldn't believe. All they need is a fragment of genetic material - just a tiny, a teeny tiny fucking scrap. They can amplify it. They, I don't know what they do, they spin it or something. It's called PCR. A polymerase chain reaction. Where there's a little DNA, suddenly there's a lot. And believe me, if there's anything left in her or on her, they'll find it. It's not like they don't know where to look ... in her womb, her mouth, in her anus .. .'

'Fuck.'

'We drive down there, we park in the lane, we dig her up, we put her in the boot and we drive her to ... I don't know where. I haven't thought it through yet. Somewhere they can't find her. We might have to pour acid on her or something. You know. On her, um, nether regions. Battery acid or something.'

'I can't do it.'

'Of course you can. You've done it once already. This time will be easier.'

'Not again.'

'You have to.'

'I'll take my chances.'

'How will Holly feel?'

A droplet of sweat ran the length of Nathan's spine. He was clammy, as on a thundery day.

'Because it would be a terrible thing to do to her,' said Bob. 'To let Elise be unearthed by a fucking bulldozer. And then learn it was you who put her there.'

'Do it by yourself.'

'I would if I could. But it needs two of us, to do it properly. Two pairs of hands. Two pairs of eyes.'

'I thought she'd be light.'

'I can't do it alone. Simple as that.'

Above them, a door slammed. Running footsteps descending the staircase.

Nathan said, 'Are you scared?'

'Wouldn't you be?'

'Yes. Yeah, I'd be scared.'

They sat in silence. Then Nathan stood. 'I'll be in touch.'

'Make sure you are.'

Nathan shuffled from the bedsitting room, slamming the door behind him. He walked up the stairs and out the door and along the drive and into the daylight.

He sat on a wall from which the metal railings had been removed in 1941 -- melted down for weaponry, their black nubs long since worn smooth. He took great lungfuls of air and watched the traffic go past.

Nathan walked in and dropped himself in the armchair. He sat with his coat on, looking at the television. It was Coronation Street.

Holly was on the sofa. She'd been on site most of the day, visiting a warehouse in Birmingham she was interested in converting. Then she worked for a couple of hours in the home office they'd installed in the second bedroom.

She'd taken a hot bath to unwind: if she didn't, she couldn't sleep, she'd be thinking about work all night. Sometimes that happened to Nathan, too. He'd wake at 2 a.m., fretting about some new line of cards that was failing. Now Holly smelled of bath oil. She wore 'ŚŚ

tracksuit trousers and a T-shirt. Her hands and feet were soft and her legs were crossed beneath her. She was half-lying on the sofa, watching TV and doing a crossword.

She said, 'What's up?'

'Nothing.'

She put down the paper and muted the television.

'You look terrible.'

He touched his temple. 'I've got this really bad headache.'

She came over and sat in his lap. She was so clean. She laced her hands behind his head and said, 'This isn't like you. Have you caught a bug or something?'

'I don't know.'

She touched his burning forehead. 'God. You're really sick'

She stood and led him upstairs and made him undress. She folded back the duvet and he lay, corrupt and sweating, in the clean bed. He left on his boxer shorts; he could smell his genitals. He cupped his throbbing testicles and slipped into a feverish sleep. The testicle ache spread to his lower back, like a bruise across his kidneys.

Elise's spectre lay a cool hand upon his forehead and he woke with a shout to see it was only Holly, his wife. She put a thermometer into the corner of his mouth. It was the instrument she'd once used to time her ovulation. She waited, then she removed it and held it to the hallway light.

'You're burning up.'

He reached out and held her hand by the fingertips.

She said, 'You sleep. I'll drive down to the chemist and get something for the fever.'

He sat up. Grabbed her wrist.

'Don't.'

'You need to get that fever down. I'll be back in twenty minutes.'

'Please don't go.'

She looked at him - backlit, the thermometer held high in one hand.

He said, 'Don't leave me alone in the house.'

Slowly, she lowered the thermometer.

'You're scared of the dark, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

She sat on the edge of the bed, holding his hand.

'You never talk about it.'

'Would you?'

'Did you think I'd laugh?'

'Yes.'

She laughed.

'You see,' he said.

She leaned in a little closer. 'What happened, to make you so scared ?'

He turned away on his side.

'Nothing.'

He could feel her, looking at him.

She said, 'Shall I turn on the light?'

'Please. And leave the door open.'

She kissed his forehead and turned on the reading light. She left the bedroom door ajar. He heard her, descending the stairs; picking up the telephone and taking it through to the front room. She'd be calling her mother, seeking advice on how to treat a man who never fell ill, who wouldn't let her leave the house to get medicine.

He woke to a cool flannel on his forehead.

Holly pressed a mug into his hand; Lemsip Cold Flu.

He said, 'Where did you get these?'

'Shhh,' said Holly.

He began to panic. 'Did you leave the house?'

Then he saw June, framed in the doorway. She'd driven to a twenty-four-hour chemist in the town centre. Nathan looked at her.

Then he looked at Holly. She brushed back his sweating hair.

'Get better, now.'

Later, the sound of the front door closing: June going home. He imagined her at the wheel, a bubble of light in the darkness, hurtling past the earth where her daughter lay.