Brownie’s PlayStation but left his own clothes?’ I tried to undo the knot at the top of the first bin liner, but it was tight.
‘Don’t open them in here,’ Pants said to me. ‘I’ve just hoovered.’
‘Has he got any mates?’ Jo asked. ‘Anyone who’ll know where he went?’
‘Only Brownie, and he doesn’t know.’
‘Where is Brownie?’
‘Out.’
‘Out where?’ said Jo, in a voice that said she was trying to be patient.
‘He’s gone to try The Warehouse again.’
We waited for him to expand.
‘Jack works there. Or he used to. Brownie’s gone down, looking for him.’ He opened the fridge and took out a carton of rice milk. ‘You’re not the only ones, you know. He owes his share of the gas bill.’
That surprised me. People living in squats pay gas bills? Struck me as a bit pedestrian. ‘Not the only ones what?’
‘How do you know he left?’ asked Jo, sitting back down at the table and returning to her roll-up.
‘What?’
She lit the end, her eyes screwed up against the smoke. ‘How do you know he’s not dead?’
Sometimes I hate Jo. She has this way of putting into words the things that lurk in the corner of your mind, the things you don’t want to think about. She just puts it right out there, like there’s nothing to be scared of. Pants kicked the fridge door shut with his foot.
‘He’s not dead.’
‘How do you know?’ Jo stared at Pants without blinking.
Pants didn’t say anything.
‘He might have fallen in the canal,’ Jo said.
‘What you trying to say?’
Wasn’t it obvious enough? I flinched as Jo continued to bat around the possibilities.
‘Been mugged, got run over?’
Jo listed the various tragedies as I tried not to think how plausible each of them sounded. More plausible than someone doing a runner in the buff with his housemate’s PlayStation.
‘Did you try the hospitals?’
Pants raised his eyebrows.
‘How do you know it was him that took the PS4?’ Jo paused and tapped the end of her cigarette into the ashtray on the table.
‘It’s obvious.’ He put two mugs on the table in front of us with a bit too much force, so that a splash of hot liquid leaped over the rim. ‘Who else? There was no break-in.’
I thought I saw him frown, his features darkened for an instant.
Jo didn’t let up with the questions. ‘Have you rung his family?’
He mopped at the spilt tea on the table with a dishcloth and then rinsed it in the sink. ‘He didn’t—’
‘Sounds like you didn’t give him much of a chance,’ said Jo.
I took my first sip of scalding tea. I love it so hot it burns the skin off the roof of your mouth. ‘She’s right,’ I said, after I’d thought about it for a moment. ‘If my flatmate went missing—’
Jo didn’t let me finish either. ‘Ever heard of the benefit of the doubt?’ she asked.
Pants folded his arms across his chest. The beginnings of a tattoo poked out under his T-shirt sleeve. ‘You didn’t live with him.’
‘He could be dead in a gutter for all you know,’ said Jo.
I got a sudden flash of my Aunt Edie, although she’d have said ‘dead in a ditch’. Guilt clawed my stomach lining. She’s my only living relative, and I hadn’t rung her in weeks.
‘Don’t you take the moral high ground with me,’ he said, his voice lower, quieter. He turned away.
I didn’t understand the sneer in his voice. My gaze followed his. I could see the tops of the trees on The Ridge through the kitchen window, still bare from winter and fading against the darkening sky.
‘His family’s not heard from him for three months,’ I said. ‘You can understand why they’re worried.’
He reached for a packet of Silk Cut that was on the high up mantelpiece above a gas fire. He lit one, inhaled in a way that made me think my initial hunch was right – he’d only just got up. As he exhaled he turned back to face us.
‘Oh, we heard from him.’
My patience snapped. ‘He’s rung?’
His gaze flicked to me like he’d forgotten I was in the room. ‘Would have been nice,’ he said. ‘But no.’
‘Then?’
‘Wait on,’ he said, disappearing through the kitchen door towards the hall.
Jo pulled a face, like she didn’t know what he was on about either.
He returned a moment later carrying a brown envelope. He held it upside down over the table and an Old Holborn tin fell out – the old-fashioned kind, orange and black with a row of what looked like Georgian houses on the lid. It clattered onto the table. Jo and I glanced at each other, a weird feeling blooming in my chest.
‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Open it.’
A feeling of dread crept over me. Don’t ask me why. I’m starting to believe in sixth senses and I’m learning to trust my gut. It’s taken years, but, after what happened, well, let’s just say I learned the hard way. I knew whatever it was in that tin it wasn’t good. It had its own aura, a bad vibe, or some kind of shit.
Jo picked up the tin. It didn’t rattle, and I knew by the way she held it in her hand it had weight to it. She glanced up at Pants, then me, and she prised off the lid. I held my breath.
Inside was a small plastic bag plump with brown powder. I kind of hoped it was demerara sugar but a voice inside me said I was clutching at straws.
‘Smack,’ said Jo, her voice rising like she was asking a question, but one to which she already knew the answer.
‘Really,’ said Pants, the sarcasm hard to miss.
‘So …’ My brain tried to make sense of the messages my eyes were feeding it. ‘What? He posted you heroin? In lieu of the bills?’
‘Read the note.’ He tugged
