Outside the shop, he lit a cigarette and walked back to Bob's, as slowly as he could make himself-to allow the temazepam to work, the effects greatly amplified by the alcohol. It was a cold night. He was glad that The door was still on the latch. He closed it properly, then walked down to the bedsit.
He walked in and closed the door.
Inside the flat, Bob was on the sofa. The suitcase was open at his feet. He was finishing another drink, and reading the laminated note.
'About time.'
'Sorry.'
Holding the note by the edges, Bob polished it clean of fingerprints then placed it, without ceremony, in the open suitcase.
Then he said, 'Why did you break into the garage?'
'I thought you hadn't left the house.'
'I knew you'd do it.'
'What can I say?'
'How can you be unconvinced? She's here. Right now. In this room.'
'I know she is.'
He threw Bob a cigarette. Bob went to catch it. Missed. He fumbled for it, almost fell from his chair.
'Jesus,' he said. 'What do they put in this stuff?'
'It's fifteen years old.'
Nathan glanced at his watch. It was 7.40. He thought of the cold layer of air that blankets a river at night.
'In a way,' he said. 'I suppose I should be thanking you.'
'For what?'
'For my life.'
Bob's face went sour with derision.
'I'm not joking,' said Nathan. 'I like my life. And it would never have happened, if you hadn't . . .' He couldn't say it. 'If you hadn't done what you did.'
Bob saluted him with the glass. 'Good for you.'
'And I've been thinking. The thing about the afterlife: if there is one, we all end up there, sooner or later. And if there isn't, what's the difference? We'll never know.' He gestured at the volumes in Bob's clammy, swollen library. 'So what's the point of all this? What's the point of wasting your life on death?'
'What's the point of anything?'
'Life is the point.' Bob was sleepy like a lion. He stared at the glyphs on the floor, and into the open suitcase. The laminated note. Nathan watched him for a long time.
Then he said,'Bob?'
Bob was shocked, as if he'd forgotten Nathan was there. He stared '-him full in the face for a few moments, as if trying to place him.
He said, 'Right,' and tried to stand.
But he couldn't stand. He fell back, on to the sofa.
Nathan looked at his watch.
Then he took the latex gloves from his pocket. He'd bought them in a box from the chemist. He snapped them on. There were two little puffs of talcum at his wrist. He removed from his pocket a blister pack of temazepam and began to pop the little maroon jelly beans into his palm, one by one.
He walked into the circle. His air of purpose made Bob try to rise.
but he fell back again, looking befuddled, as if he'd misplaced something.
Nathan pushed him deep into the sofa.
Bob said, 'What are you doing?'
He sounded disconnected and confused, like one of the voices on the tape.
Nathan put his hands round Bob's throat. Bob grasped his wrists and struggled for a while, he was strong but the
strength was leaving him. He was breathing through his teeth. He made exerted, snivelling sounds.
Nathan dug a thumb into Bob's eye.
Bob opened his mouth to scream.
Nathan crammed a handful of temazepam into Bob's mouth.
Then locked an elbow around Bob's throat. Bob wouldn't close his mouth. The flexing of his tongue forced a few pills to rain down on the sofa, bouncing on the hexed concrete floor.
Nathan hit Bob's jaw with the heel of his hand. There was a loud click.
There was blood on Bob's lips. But he wouldn't swallow. His face was a deep plum; a broad delta of veins on his forehead.
Nathan pinched Bob's nostrils.
Bob struggled. He bucked and thrashed, but weakly, like someone dreaming.
He made panic noises, whimpers, deep in the back of his throat.
He tried to stand.
Nathan bore down on him. The sharp smell of green tomatoes and cigarettes and stale clothing. Bob's skin and bristles and hair in his face.
Eventually, Bob swallowed.
Then gasped at the ceiling like a drowning man. 'Oh Jesus, what are you doing?'
Nathan picked up the spilled temazepam, as many as he could find, and crammed them again into Bob's mouth. There was a lot of dark blood in there -- and something brighter red. Bob had bitten off the tip of his tongue.
Nathan squatted, putting his face close to Bob's. Bob's eyes were hooded and heavy. The hot whisky breath, harsh and slow, like a tranquillized animal.
Nathan glanced into the corner.
Then he stepped outside the circle.
He went to Bob's computers. He removed the tape from the reelto-reel recorder. It was a fiddly job and his 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.'