Thicker Than Water

‘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.

‘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.

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.

‘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.

‘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.