Thicker Than Water

’ I ran out of steam mid-sentence again. ‘How the fuck did this happen?’ I asked, lamely.

Matt looked at me briefly, then back down at his own lap. ‘They came to Saint Bonaventure’s,’ he said. ‘I was teaching, but they waited until the end of the session, for which I’m very grateful. Then they asked if they could speak to me, in private, and I took them into the clerestory, which is only used on Sundays. And then they - told me they were arresting me. For Kenny’s murder. It was about seven o’clock, I think. I don’t really remember. No, it must have been earlier if I was still in a lesson.’

‘Fuck!’ The invective was for Basquiat and Coldwood. They must have gone straight from me to Matt. Basquiat probably had the warrant in her pocket the whole time she was talking to me.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Tell me about it. You and Kenny hooked up. How? They’ve got you in the car, and that’s their strongest piece of evidence right there. Tell me what happened, and we’ll see what we can do to beat this - thing.’

This time Matt looked at me for a lot longer. ‘You haven’t asked me the obvious question, Felix,’ he pointed out.

I laughed without a trace of humour. ‘You mean whether or not “whet>

Matt finally lowered his eyes again. ‘I can’t,’ he said, simply. He folded his hands in his lap, like a saint accepting martyrdom. It was only a gesture, but it set alarm bells off in various parts of my skull: this really wasn’t the time to turn the other cheek. In my experience, that time doesn’t come very often.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, angrily. ‘Why not?’

‘I just can’t.’

‘Then tell me how you and Kenny hooked up. What you talked about.’

‘Kenny . . . called me. Suggested that we should meet.’ Matt spoke slowly, as though choosing his words with care. A jury wouldn’t have been impressed.

‘Out of the blue?’ I said, falling automatically into the role of prosecutor.

‘Yes. No. Not entirely,’ Matt said, floundering slightly. ‘We’d met a year before, by chance, so he knew I was in London. I don’t know how he got the phone number of Saint Bonaventure’s, but I suppose it’s not that hard to find. The faculty lists must be online somewhere.’

‘So Kenny called you. Why did you say yes, Matt? You couldn’t have wanted to see him again. I thought we all got more than enough of him when we were kids.’

Matt drew in a long breath and then let it out again, shuddering audibly. ‘He said he could help me,’ he said. ‘With something—’ Abruptly he jumped to his feet and walked away from me. A few steps brought him to the far wall, where he had to stop. He put up his hands as though to support himself. His right hand happened to fall on the let’s-all-wear-condoms poster, and I thought incongruously of the oath they make you take when you give evidence, with your hand on the holy text of your choice. I solemnly swear . . .

‘Matt,’ I said urgently. ‘I’m on your side. What are you afraid of?’

He bowed his head, shoulders hunched. His voice was thick and barely audible, as though his mouth was full of something choking and hot and he had to try to speak through it. ‘I didn’t kill him,’ he said again.

‘I know that!’

‘But I think I did something - worse.’

The words made a space for themselves as they fell: made the dead silence that followed them seem like a police-incident barrier around their sprawled, unlovely outline. Nothing to see here. Keep moving. It’s all over.

‘Worse than murder?’ I said, as soon as felt like I could muster a detached, sardonic tone again.

Matt turned to look at me, a strained and terrible grin on his face as tears welled up in his eyes. ‘Worse than “s. wimurdering Kenny? Yes. Oh yes. A lot worse than that. God help me, Fix. Oh God help me.’ He raised his hands to his face as though he was going to bury them in it, but instead he just clamped them on either side of his forehead and held them there, rocking slightly backwards and forwards in an autistic pantomime of grief and pain.

This time I did throw my arms around him, if only to stop that scary display. Violent shudders were running through him like peristaltic waves."

"‘It will be all right,’ I said again, between my teeth. ‘But you’ve got to trust me, Matt. You think the room is bugged? They don’t do that, because it would shoot the case down as soon as they tried to use it in evidence. And Coldwood wouldn’t pull that shit on me in any case. What is it you think you’ve done?’

‘I can’t—’ Matt moaned. He lowered his head onto my shoulder, not for comfort but as though he was about to faint and couldn’t hold it upright any more. ‘I just - what I’ve done is—’

He didn’t seem able to make it any further. The next word couldn’t be ‘unforgivable’ of course: all sins can be forgiven if they’re truly repented of, and it’s never too late.