John Harvey - Ash & Bone

'Maybe a little bit of the latter.' She poured two quite generous measures of Scotch, handed one to Elder, and raised her own. 'Cheers.'

'Cheers.'

'I saw him a few years back at the Jazz Cafe.' Karen smiled. 'Back in my clubbing days.'

'Now you sit around in the evenings knitting and doing crochet.'

'Something like that.'

The whisky was good, warm on the back of the throat. They'd eaten at a place on Upper Street, Turkish; had to stand in line twenty minutes or so for a table, but it had been worth it. Lamb kebabs and rice, hot sauce, a bottle of red wine.

'He played this,' Karen said, listening. 'You know it?'

Elder shook his head.

'"God Bless the Child".' She sang a few bars.

During the course of a long afternoon they'd managed to track down and talk to two of the three women whose names Jennifer McLaughlin had remembered.

Maria Upson, a nurse working in Orthopaedics at the Middlesex, had confirmed pretty much everything about Kennet they either knew or suspected; she'd gone out with him for nine months and now regretted almost every minute of the last six.

'Men,' she said, with a not totally disparaging glance towards Elder, 'get to know them, or think you do, let them slip under your guard and they either turn into five-year-olds who want cuddling and cosseting or else they're Fred West.' She didn't need to add which Kennet resembled most.

Lily Patrick was a trainee manager at Waitrose and the picture she painted was different: Kennet was kind, funny, considerate. Okay, he did once climb through her second-floor bedroom window in the middle of the night and scare the wits out of her, but that was to deliver a dozen red roses and some red balloons on her birthday. 'You know, like the Milk Tray man.'

'And sexually,' Karen said, 'he didn't ever suggest anything you felt uncomfortable with?'

'No.' Blushing, but just a little. 'What kind of thing?'

'Games, acting out fantasies. That kind of thing.'

'We did act out a bit of Romeo and Juliet once. You know, the balcony scene. After we'd seen the movie.'

'I was thinking of something a bit less romantic'

'I don't understand.'

'Rape fantasies, perhaps.'

'Rape?' Lily wiped her hands down the front of her Waitrose overall, as if they were suddenly sullied. 'You're joking, right? This is some kind of a joke?'

'No.'

'You've got to be.'

'It's something people do, Lily. Fantasies like that. Ordinary people.'

'Not people I know. Not Steve.'

Elder had been thinking about a song by Dire Straits Joanne had played over and over. He was trying to recall their fantasy life, his former wife and himself, if they ever had one.

'If it was so good,' he said, 'the relationship with Steve, how come you stopped seeing him?'

'He went away, didn't he? The Middle East somewhere. For work. This big project, rebuilding a hospital I think it was. Kuwait, maybe. Somewhere they couldn't drink, I know that. No alcohol. I remember Steve joking about it, how he'd have to be careful which airline he was flying with, in case, you know, it was dry. As much free booze as I can get, he said, before the drought.'

'He liked a drink then?' Karen said.

'No more than anyone.'

'And you haven't seen him since then? What was it? Eighteen months ago?'

'Two years nearly. No. He's still there, isn't he? Living there.'

'You've heard from him then?'

'No. Not really. Not since Christmas, Christmas before last.'

They'd thanked her for her time and left her looking wistful and not a little sad.

The third name – Jane Forest – they were still waiting to track down.

Karen was sitting on a low-backed two-seater settee, orange with purple and red cushions; Elder opposite in a grey wicker chair. The music was still playing over sounds of traffic and muffled voices from the street.

'Close on two years ago,' Karen said, 'according to Lily Patrick, Kennet went out to Kuwait.' She shook her head. 'I don't think so. Eighteen months ago, or not so long after, he started seeing Jennifer McLaughlin.'

'During which time he was also seeing Maddy Birch.'

'And, presumably, shopping at Tesco instead of Waitrose.'

'Seems to be a pattern,' Elder said.

'So what's the betting while he was going out with Miss Waitrose, he was seeing someone else then too?'

'Somebody whose fantasies ran on the rougher side of Cadbury's Milk Tray and Romeo and Juliet.'

'Most likely. Though even Juliet died in the end.'

'So did Romeo, remember?' Elder sipped his Scotch. 'If I knew my Shakespeare better, I could probably come up with someone more like Kennet than Romeo.'

'Othello,' Karen suggested. 'No, Iago.'

Elder had seen it once, Othello. When he was in the sixth form. The Grand in Leeds. A matinee. He could remember the teacher forever shushing them, then reading the riot act when they got back to the coach; remember the name of the girl he'd sat next to but not a lot about the play. Desdemona? A handkerchief?

'Wait, wait,' Karen said. ' Titus Andronicus .'

'Who?'

She laughed. 'I don't know. I just know there was a lot of blood.'

Stanley Turrentine seemed to have come to an end. It was comfortably quiet.

'I'm sorry about the other night,' Karen said after a while.

'The other night?'

'At your place. You must have thought I was being a bit of a tease.'

'No.'

'You didn't think I was coming on to you and then backing off?'

'I didn't think you were coming on to me at all.'

Karen threw back her head and laughed. 'God! I must be losing my touch.'

'No, it's me. Forgetting how to read the signs.'

'A little rusty?'

'Something like that.'

'Well,' she picked up the bottle of Scotch and tipped some into his glass, 'what you need is a little lubrication.' And then, aghast, 'I can't believe I just said that.'

'You didn't.'

'No, you're right.'

But he was smiling, smiling with his eyes, and though she wasn't certain, having got this far, she kissed him anyway. Once would have been okay, acceptable, within the limits of the situation, a point of some return, but it was more than once: his mouth, his neck, his cheek, his eyes. His hands on her body, her back, her thighs, her breasts. She pulled him towards her from the chair on to the floor. Oh God, they weren't going to do it on the floor? His fingers warm across her shoulder blades, his leg between hers. Some part of her mind flashing warnings. Her diaphragm was in its box in the bathroom, no condoms, and the chances of his having one were less than nil. As his thumb brushed her nipple she repositioned herself. Buttons and zips. She unbuckled his belt. Salt and sour in her mouth. Grabbing one of the cushions from the settee she raised herself up and touched herself between her legs. He kissed her there and there. Her heels drumming on his spine. If screams could only wake the dead.

Afterwards, they lay side by side. Somehow Karen had contrived to turn the music back on again. 'More Than You Know'. Elder was amazed at the colours of her skin, everything from dark chocolate to iron grey.

'I'm going to have a shower,' Karen said eventually, scrambling to her feet.

Elder lay there wondering what the time was, whether he'd be expected to stay the night. Whether he wanted to.

She came back five minutes later wearing a cotton robe, glass of water in hand, broad smile on her face.

'What?' Elder said.

'Wasn't so long ago, I could have got dressed up, really fit, put on my face, got myself down to the Funky Buddha, Sugar Reef, Chinawhite. Pulled some rising rap star or a brace of Premiership wannabes. And what do I end up with?' She laughed. 'Tired white meat.'

'Thanks. Thanks a lot.'