The envelope was lying on the mat when he got home from the gym. No stamp: hand-delivered. His name in neat letters, the kind of handwriting that’s unsettlingly regular and characterless. And in capitals across the top, PRIVATE.
He should have been wary – his heart should have jumped in his chest. But it had been months. He had honestly forgotten about the house, the party, the body. He ripped open the envelope and shook the contents into his hand. Photographs, eight by ten, big enough that you could see the detail in them. Professionally taken, he thought. Pin sharp.
Each one worse than the last.
His drunken idiot face, his eyelids drooping, a bow tie undone and hanging around his neck.
Barefoot and bony-ankled, balancing on the balustrade, one elbow on the cherub’s bowl, his eyes narrowed against the smoke from the cigarette that dangled from his mouth.
A dark corner of the terrace, sitting on the balustrade now with his legs apart, kissing—
His hands tracing patterns on skin—
Leaning in, eyes closed, lost in desire—
Lost in desire for the stranger who stood between his knees, whose tattoo showed so clearly in the picture, he could make out the dragon’s tail looping around one narrow elbow.
The next picture was worse.
And the next.
He dropped them on the kitchen counter and walked away, clutching his head. What the fuck. Who could have done this?
He wouldn’t look at any more.
He had to look at them. Quickly, he cycled through them: up against a wall, on a bed, both of them naked, no question what he was doing or that he was in charge. That was the pool house, that was the pool, Christ, they had been in the pool – he had no memory of it but there he was, swimming naked in the filthy water.
And there was the stranger he’d screwed blind, fit and alive, tattooed and pretty, eyelashes starry from the water, eyes like jewels. Unharmed, he pointed out to an imaginary police officer tapping the glossy surface of the print.
You were in the swimming pool together, and the body was found in the swimming pool, floating face down.
I can’t explain it. I can’t explain any of it. My drink was spiked, I think.
Then, pleading with his family. It wasn’t me. I’d never. I’m not. I didn’t. I know it looks—
Please, you have to believe me.
They might believe him, though they would take a while to get over it. He was an only child, adored, indulged. Sex was no big deal. He would be forgiven for that, especially if they didn’t actually see the pictures.
But the police didn’t have to believe him, and a jury wouldn’t. They could look at the photographs and follow the story of what had happened.
One of them had lived and one of them had died and he couldn’t remember how it had happened, or what he had done. He would be the chief and only suspect, and he couldn’t begin to defend himself.
All he knew was that he would do just about anything to keep what had happened a secret.