It was another ten minutes or so before he was settling down, sitting at his desk upstairs with a whisky for comfort. He looked at his own pale reflection in the window, finally allowing himself to laugh a little at his own expense - it was crazy that he let himself get like this.
He needed to sell this place, move to another university, make a fresh start. For the four years that Kate had lived there the house had been okay, even if she’d always laughed and called it a body-snatcher’s house. And he’d been okay too with her around, the attacks almost stopping completely.
But the two years since she’d gone had taken their toll, the house transforming into the place where he nurtured his demons, where he oversaw the crumbling of his own psyche. He was still holding it together during the day but he couldn’t wait to get back anymore, to sit here and dwell on the past and the moment it had all gone wrong.
One stupid moment, and it had become his whole life, his whole reason for being. He needed to make a fresh start and yet he worried that if he removed Emily Barratt from his life there’d be nothing left. He had less substance now than she did, less life in him.
He’d thought that many times over the last couple of years, that he inhabited this house like a ghost, no corporeal presence, no heat. It felt like a house that been long left vacant, the absence of people cutting through the rooms like a draught. Maybe that was the problem, maybe the wrong person had died ten years before.
The glass was empty so he got up and crossed the room to where he’d left the bottle, pouring in another hefty measure before going back to the desk. He’d only just sat down again when a heavy knock sounded on the front door. It startled him and then left him paralysed.
People didn’t knock on his door, not at that time of night, not ever. He didn’t know what to do, panicked. Perhaps it was the girl. She might have seen him walk down that way and followed him, seeing the light on, the only house that was occupied. He thought of not answering but then remembered the way he’d felt down by the river, that there was a reason for him to come back.
He got up and went downstairs, put the light, pulled the door open. There was no one there, just a plastic carrier bag on the step. It looked stuffed with papers, notebooks. He glanced down at it and leaned nervously out into the street, expecting again to see the girl walking away.
There was a guy standing a few yards away though, staring expectantly at the doorway. He’d given up and had been walking away but had heard the door. He too was some kind of traveller or homeless person, blond dreadlocks, a goatee, an old army backpack, a guy who looked like a smoked joint.
He nodded now and said, ‘Oh, right.’ He walked back a pace or two, stopping again as if a little unsure of getting too close. He pointed at the carrier bag and said, ‘I just came to deliver that.’
‘I think maybe you have the wrong place.’
The guy looked up at the house and took a piece of paper out of one of his coat pockets, studying it briefly.
‘This is the right place,’ he said. ‘You’re Doctor Alex Stratton?’
‘Yes I am.’
‘That’s it. That bag’s for you. I didn’t know who else to give it to. His family didn’t want it and I didn’t know who else to give it to. I know he wrote to you sometimes.’
The guy had inched his way closer as he’d spoken but stopped short and almost took a step back as Alex said, ‘Who? Who wrote to me?’
‘Will. He died.’ A name followed by two simple words of explanation, and yet Alex couldn’t quite make sense of it, as if the part of his brain that was meant to process them had suffered some kind of short-circuit. He stared blankly at the guy in the street who looked vulnerable now, a young face beneath all that contrived earthiness. The guy looked upset, on the verge of breaking down, but instead he repeated himself like the words didn’t make sense to him either. ‘He died.’
Alex nodded and said, ‘Please, come in. Have a drink or something.’ He leaned down and picked up the carrier bag, taking it into the lounge without waiting to check that the guy had followed. He heard the front door shut though and the guy was standing there when he turned around, looking around the room, slightly on edge.
‘Sit down. Would you like a drink? Or coffee?’
‘Just water please. Or caffeine-free tea if you have it.’
‘I think I have fruit tea. The girl who lived here with me used to drink it. It’s a couple of years old though.’
‘That’d be cool. Fruit tea.’ Alex nodded and went through into the kitchen.
Will was dead. It was a thought that sat awkwardly in his head. In a way he was shocked, just by the delivery of the news, but it wasn’t a complete surprise. That’s why he hadn’t asked the obvious question, because he’d just assumed it had been the heroin Will had been addicted to for the last six or seven years.