TOYL

heard the door close.
    ‘So,’ he said, leaning in towards Richard, placing both hands on the bed’s guardrails. He felt the bed lurch under his weight, seeming to symbolise the power he had at this moment.
    He was the giver and taker of life.
    ‘It’s funny how things work out,’ he whispered into Richard’s ear. ‘You know,’ he said, as he looked at the tubes and wires spiralling from Richard’s body, ‘if there was any other way of doing this, then I would do it. But you shouldn’t think of this as a bad thing, Richard. It’s all part of the wider picture, the greater good. I hope you understand that.’
    He moved a hand towards the ventilator and grasped one of the tubes. He was shaking and a bead of sweat tickled his face as it snaked down past his ear. This was going to be harder than he had expected.
    ‘You see, she needs to know,’ he said, pulling back again and letting go of the tube. ‘And you’re going to help her understand.’

13

    The call had come out of nowhere. Shocked to hear his voice again after all that time, his first reaction was to hang up and hope he would go away. But he had been insistent, begging for him to come over. And then the threats came, so he had little choice but to go over there and find out what was going on.
    When he arrived at the apartment it had been a stomach-churning sight. The place looked like an indoor rubbish dump. He had struggled even to open the door, pushing past unopened post and unread newspapers. Then there had been the lounge, which was decorated with plates of moulding, half-eaten food and open bottles of whisky and beer. The kitchen stank to high heaven. The smell, something that he could only liken to stale vomit, mostly came from the bin, which had attracted a number of fat black flies.
    It was like a scene out of a horror movie.
    He had found him in the bedroom, unconscious on the unmade bed with the telephone off the hook next to him. The room reeked of alcohol. His cheek was resting in a pool of crusted vomit and at first he had wondered whether he’d choked to death.
    And he was ashamed to admit that for a split second he had actually been pleased to think that was the case.
    But he was alive, and he’d done the right thing, calling the ambulance and even accompanying him to hospital. He had stuck around just long enough to know that he was going to be okay. Not that he really cared. All he really did care about was that this guy would leave him alone and let him get on with his life. But he wasn’t sure that was ever going to happen.

14

    Will had sworn that he would never dial his number again. Just the idea of talking to him again, somehow inviting him back into his life, made his stomach turn. But what if his suspicions were true? He’d never be able to forgive himself if he just stood by and did nothing to help.
    He stood away from the crowds in a more secluded part of the park. He’d been there for a while now, enough time for the back of his neck to start reddening under the strength of the sun. The case of mistaken identity was still playing on his mind, freezing him into inaction. It wasn’t so much the embarrassment at accosting the man, or the way he had looked at him. It was more the realisation of how fragile he still was when it came to that man and the situation that connected them.
    He stared at his mobile phone, willing himself to call. Then he found the name and dialled.
    The call went through to the message service.
    He hung up, taking the inability to get through to him as some kind of heavenly reprieve, and spent another ten minutes or so wandering around Regent’s Park in the sunshine. But it was just putting off the inevitable. He stopped again, just outside the entrance to London Zoo. Throngs of families passed in and out, smiling and happy. Again he reached for his mobile and this time he called the landline number.
    Again there was no answer.
    Where the hell was he?
    Will dialled the mobile number again. This time he decided to leave a message.
    ‘It’s Will. I want to know, did you attack Dan’s brother, Richard Carlton? Did you go to Emma’s flat and do that to him?’
    He turned and moved away as a family approached.
    ‘If you are responsible for this, I want to know.’ He spoke under his breath. ‘And I swear, I will tell the police everything if I have to. I’m not bluffing – I mean it. I want to know if you have Dan. You promised that you’d keep Em out of this.’
    He called off and