a girl back there.’ His voice sounded odd to his ears, as if it was coming from a place far away, not from inside him. ‘She’s dead. I think she hung herself. Or hanged,’ he corrected himself absently, although why he was worrying about grammar at a time like this was beyond him. He waited to hear Tommy give a reasonable explanation for the circumstances they found themselves in, but Tommy explained nothing, he just kept staring at Vince. He’d been a boxer once. Vince supposed he knew how to psych his opponent out before the fight began.
Finally Tommy growled, ‘What the fuck are you doing here, Vince?’
‘I came with Steve,’ he managed. That much was true. The sun was dazzling, like a spotlight aimed at him. He’d walked on-stage and found himself in the wrong play, one he didn’t know the words to.
‘Steve!’ Tommy yelled without looking round.
Steve appeared from around the corner of an old outhouse or garage. The yard was surrounded by an assortment of semi-derelict buildings. Steve was in a hurry and didn’t spot Vince at first. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Because you need to get a move on, Tommy, she’s going to be miles away by now. Have you phoned Andy?’ In reply, Tommy silently tilted his head in Vince’s direction.
‘Vince!’ Steve said, as if he’d forgotten about him. ‘Vince, Vince, Vince,’ he repeated softly, smiling regretfully. He might have been talking to a child who had disappointed him. ‘I told you to stay in the car, didn’t I? You shouldn’t be here.’ Where should I be if not here? Vince wondered.
‘What’s going on?’ Tommy snapped at Steve.
‘I don’t know,’ Steve said. ‘Why don’t we ask Vince?’ He drew nearer to Vince and put his arm around his shoulder. Vince had to suppress the instinct to flinch. ‘Vince?’ Steve prompted him.
Time felt as if it was standing still. The bright sun fixed in the sky was never going to move again. Steve, Tommy and Andy. The Three Musketeers. Everything fell into place. It wasn’t entertaining enough for the universe that he had lost his job and his house, or that he was under suspicion for murdering his wife, for God’s sake. No, now he had to discover that his friends (golfing friends, it was true) were involved in something that was – what were they involved in, exactly? Keeping sex slaves? Trafficking women? Were the three of them psychopathic serial killers who by chance had found they had the same taste for murdering women? At that moment all bets, however outlandish, were off to Vince.
He hadn’t realized that he’d voiced any of these thoughts aloud until Steve said, ‘Traffic’s just another word for the buying and selling of commodities, Vince. It says so in the Oxford English Dictionary.’ Vince was pretty sure the dictionary had other definitions of it too. ‘Profit with no loss,’ Steve added. ‘Plenty of money in the bank and always more to come. Do you know what that feels like, Vince?’
The sun was dazzling his brain. He closed his eyes and breathed in the heat. He was in a new world now.
It was suddenly very clear to Vince. There was no meaning to anything. No morality. No truth. It was pointless for him to object if there was no longer any consensus about what was right or wrong. It was something you had to decide for yourself. Whichever side you chose, there would be no repercussions from divine authority. You were on your own.
‘Vince?’ Steve prompted.
‘No, Steve,’ Vince answered eventually. ‘I don’t know what that feels like. I imagine it feels pretty good, actually.’
He laughed suddenly, startling Steve into removing his arm from Vince’s shoulder. ‘I knew you three were up to something!’ Vince said triumphantly. ‘It all makes sense to me now. You secretive buggers, you might have let me in on it.’ Vince grinned, first at Tommy and then at Steve. ‘Room for a fourth musketeer?’
Steve clapped him on the back and said, ‘Good man. Great to have you on board, Vince. I knew you’d get here eventually.’
The digital bedside clock said 5.00 a.m. He may as well get up. He had a lot to do today. It felt good to have a purpose for a change.
Blood Poisoning
‘Kippers.’
‘What?’
‘Can you pop into Fortunes this morning and pick up kippers?’
‘Kippers?’
‘Jesus, Andrew. Yes, kippers. I’m not speaking a foreign language.’ (She may as well have been.) ‘For tomorrow’s breakfasts. The couple in Biscay asked especially for them.’
Andy had got home just