her dad’s face ashen amongst them.
The immediacy of the memory stung at the corners of her eyes, but then she felt Tom’s hand brush against hers as he worked the key in the front door, and the image fell away.
‘It’s a bit damp, hence the smell,’ he said without a hint of apology. Away from the noise of the bar, she noticed the trace of a Scottish accent.
He moved ahead of her, making no attempt to kick away the coats that lay strewn on the floor, as if he’d left in a rush, cups scattered across every surface of the studio flat. Beneath the clutter, there was a certain order to the space: the guitar propped up on a stand in the corner, music stacked beside a small Yamaha keyboard. The table was rounded at the corners with A-line legs.
It occurred to her then that she had no idea what he did, this man whose flat she was suddenly inside. She had no idea how she had even come to be here.
‘I’m a student,’ he said as if reading her mind, and she squinted in disbelief.
‘Really? How old are you?’
‘Forty-two,’ he shrugged and noting the faint look of alarm on her face, tilted his head. ‘Oh, come on. Really? I’m twenty-four. But I’m studying architecture which takes about ninety-seven years, so … How about you?’
She yawned. ‘Younger than that … just.’
It can’t have been much later than midnight but any energy she’d felt in the bar had faded so that all she wanted was to lie down and close her eyes.
‘Would you like a drink?’
She shook her head.
He moved towards her slowly, so sure of himself and yet unimposing.
‘You look knackered.’
She nodded.
‘You can have my bed.’ He pointed towards a single mattress in the corner.
‘Come with me,’ she held out her hand to him. They passed out sometime later, his arm pulling her towards the warmth of his body, pinning her there in a way that was both suffocating and yet so comforting that she had to wait until he was asleep before pushing him away.
I look up through squinted eyelids, German techno beats sliding around my head. From here, above the outline of people’s limbs, I can see it is dark outside. Around me, the party is still heaving so that I can only just make out a vague impression of Jess a few feet away on the sofa talking to a man, her lips moving in slow motion.
As if pushing through a brick wall, I manage to draw the strength to sit up, willing my eyelids to follow suit. My cheeks, the inside of which I’ve chewed raw, feel like they are sinking away from my face towards the floor.
‘Jess?’ My voice is unexpectedly loud, though no one else seems to hear it. I try again but the effect is a slosh of vowels.
Across the room, the man Jess is talking to inches forward and they both laugh, she stretching her head back as he nuzzles her neck.
Jess?
This time my voice sticks in my throat and I give up, succumbing to the weight of the exhaustion that has taken hold from the inside out, the chemicals prowling through my bloodstream, squeezing the life out of me. Letting my eyes drift shut, I feel the leather sofa swallow me whole. As my brain shuts down, I picture myself standing, taking my friend’s hand and running down the stairs, out of the front door; the two of us tearing down the street at Chalk Farm, screaming at the top of our lungs.
By the time I open my eyes again the music has descended into a low ambient throb; bodies, half-dressed, are scattered across a wooden floor; a man in jeans and a cowboy hat leans precariously against a yucca plant. The sky through the window has started to lighten, signalling it is time to leave. Slowly, as if bound in clingfilm, I turn to where Jess had been but now there is no one there.
Letting my eyes open and shut several times, I feel for my bag and fumble for my phone before realising the battery is dead.
Shit.
Taking a minute to unpeel my legs from my seat, I step across a sea of semi-comatose bodies into the hall.
In each room, different beats fall over one another, the same stale smell of smoke and spilt beer following me through the house. Finally I find Jess’s boss slumped at a table, a black Amex card in his hand.
‘Hugh,’ I say, but he ignores me, a smirk impressed across his features.
‘Oi!’ I say, louder this time, and his head twists to look up at me.
‘Is-o-bel,’ he rolls each syllable of my name on his tongue, and I feel my stomach turn. ‘The roving reporter returns … Listen, when are you going to give up that local paper shite and come work for me? Tell you what: wash your hair every so often and you’d have a face for TV.’
‘Have you seen Jess?’ I ask, focusing on the smudge of dye that has leaked from his newly chestnut locks into the peak of his receding hairline. Christ, if I’m still rolling around in shit-holes like this when I’m his age I only hope someone slits my throat. With that fleeting image, I remember the spate of stabbings in Somers Town I’m planning to dig into next week, focusing on the circulation of weapons across our part of the city. If I can pitch it around the ongoing tensions in Camden, I’m pretty sure I can spin a legitimate local interest angle.
‘Yeah but what’s the angle?’ I picture my news editor, Ben, pre-empting the words of the editor, tucked away in his cheap glass box at the back of the room. ‘We’re a local paper, Isobel, not the New York fucking Times.’
Hugh’s face contorts, as if he is trying to place Jess’s name – the name of the woman who has been his assistant for the past six years … Assistant Producer, actually, I can hear her voice correcting me in my head.
‘Sit down,’ he slurs. ‘Want a line?’
He returns his attention to the table, haphazardly scraping and crushing white powder with his card.
‘Have you seen her?’ I repeat and he looks up again.
‘Who?’
‘I’m all right for shit K, thanks, Hugh,’ I say, not bothering to answer, and he puckers his face into a grin, attempting a South American drawl.
‘Issy, darling, this is pure cocaine straight from the streets of Ecuador!’
Is it fuck. ‘Can I use your phone?’ I ask and he slides it across to me before returning his attention to the pile of powder.
Jess’s number goes straight to voicemail.
‘Where are you?’ I whisper into the handset before tossing the receiver back at him.
‘Go
