The kettle was boiling so Alex walked back through into the lounge, intending to make small talk, act like the good host. The guy was sitting on the sofa though, hunched and contemplative over a small book that had the look of some kind of scripture about it.
He seemed oblivious so Alex went back out and finished making the tea, brewing one for himself too, blackberry and nettle, something he’d last drunk with Kate a couple of years before. He went back in then, hovering silently with the two mugs until the guy looked up and put the book back in his pocket.
‘Sorry. Thanks. This is kind.’
Alex sat down in one of the armchairs and said, ‘No, it’s the least I could do after you brought this for me.’
He looked at the carrier bag where Alex had put it on the floor.
‘It’s his notebooks, letters, things like that. I thought you’d want them. I’m on my way up to a Buddhist retreat in Scotland so it’s cool, you know, kind of on my way.’
Alex nodded and said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Luke.’
‘And how did you know Will?’
Luke nodded thoughtfully, as though he’d been asked for his thoughts on some complex issue, saying finally, ‘I met him a few years ago through a kind of mutual friend. I’d just graduated and he’d been kicked out of his squat so we were both looking for a place. That’s it really, we became flatmates.’
‘Was it an overdose?’ Luke looked uncomfortable but nodded, his expression suggesting he felt guilty or looked upon Will’s death as a failure on his part.
‘I was away for a couple of days. I found him when I got back.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s crazy, you know, because he was really getting it together again, even talking about going back to college and stuff. He was developing a real interest in Taoism. That’s why I wanted to get away after it happened. It was too weird, too scary.’
Alex couldn’t quite work out what he was saying and was beginning to wonder why he’d invited this guy into his house. He was uncomfortable with the thought that he might have invited him in simply because he was lonely and wanted the company.
‘Too scary in what way?’
‘Will smoked it. He had a phobia of needles. I mean, like a real phobia.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ He hadn’t known either, that Will had smoked his heroin rather than injecting it. He hadn’t known much at all about Will, and maybe he never had, even when they’d been friends, seeing him back then only as a caricature, the socially awkward stray they’d adopted, always relied upon to get drunk first, to be sick, to end up in scrapes. It wasn’t the same person that Luke was talking about; this was someone real, with pain and emotions and hopes.
‘I’m talking total phobia. And he had things under control again. So tell me, you know, tell me why he’d get stuff that was too pure, not from his regular guy, and stick it in his arm. That’s what I told the police, search the place, you won’t find another needle in here. Someone killed him. No way would Will have done that.’
‘You’re telling me Will was murdered.’ Luke looked noncommittal, not even meeting Alex’s eyes. ‘What did the police say?’
‘They’re looking into it.’ He gave a knowing look and added, ‘How hard will they look? That’s the question. How hard will they look? How much do they care? You know, they have all this stuff to do and Will’s just a junkie as far as they’re concerned. Junkies OD.’
Alex tried to picture the kind of life they’d shared, Luke and Will. He wondered what their daily routine had been - meals, going out, the whole thing. Had there been girlfriends? It was hard to imagine too, which of them had been more dependent on the other. Whatever their domestic relationship, Luke was lost at sea now, unable even to comprehend how a junkie could die a junkie’s death.
‘Why would someone have killed him?’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked despondent and Alex felt bad looking at him, realizing now that this guy had probably been a better friend to Will than he ever could have been.
They’d kept in touch by letter at first, more than he had with any of the others and Will had visited a couple of times but the truth was, Alex had slowly introduced distance between them. Whether or not it stemmed from the night of the accident, Will had begun to fall apart, Alex scared off by the risk of being tainted.
He stared at the bag, wondering for a moment or two if there were letters in there. His had become vaguely patronizing as far as he remembered, becoming less and less genuine. They’d stopped altogether just after Kate had left and yet Luke had brought these things to him.
Luke saw him looking at the bag and said, ‘The police asked me if anything was missing. I told them there wasn’t. Will didn’t have much anyway, just the things in that bag. He’d even sold his books.’ Alex looked up, not sure what to say, and noticed then that Luke was nervous, afraid even. ‘I told them nothing was missing because I didn’t think it was, but there is something missing.’