Adam so close now. Leaning over me. Blood pouring from my veins.
‘Do you know, Dan, what it will look like?’ he asks.
What is ‘it’?
Heaven? Hell? Gush, gush goes the blood.
‘It will look, Dan, like you killed Helen.’
Oh, that ‘it’. But wait, I don’t understand. I shake my head.
‘I’ve always remembered, Dan, that you were willing to take the rap for me. Now you must do it again.’
He speaks in tongues, in parallels. I don’t understand.
‘You’ve given them all the evidence, Dan. Your “love” for me, in that notebook. A sure-fire motive – jealousy.’
Adam needs me. He is wrong. He doesn’t have the facts.
‘I don’t drive,’ I manage, because it’s true.
He maybe smirks, I think. All blurs.
‘Sure, you don’t have a licence. But all those cars you hired out for me, you and Jimmy, in the name Jeremy Bond? With your motive, that suddenly looks a whole lot different. Who’s to say you weren’t driving them yourself? Establishing an innocent pattern, before one night – crash! That’s what the police will think, with my suggestion.’
‘But your parents …’ I wheeze.
‘Did you really think I was using that car to visit them? Well, of course you did – that’s what I told you. While I made you my little scapegoat, in case I needed one. Nobody saw me in that car, Dan, except you and Jimmy. And no one saw Jimmy in it, that night. That’s why he got the Maserati. But they can imagine you in it. Plus, do you want to know what I found, Dan, in one of your rucksacks? I found a map. A map of the street on which my Helen had her class. And on that map, with the same ink of the pen you have loved for years – your special red-ink pen – There is a line running a long the street, and then an ‘X’ just where Helen died.’
I don’t have a map. I had an aunt. I had other priorities, when she was dying. I had my Adam bliss just gone. He knows this. He has lost his grip of reality.
‘And of course,’ Adam continues, ‘we know now you’re a killer, because of the girl in the flat.’
His words whirl. He is the bestower of truth, the Word, but he doesn’t know the truth.
‘It was for you, the girl,’ I tell him. ‘Practice. For Nicole. Be where you have been. Closeness.’
‘Yes, Dan. It was for me. A big help,’ He says. You see, he understands. ‘And Nic, too – that was for me.’ Yes, yes, it was, to be close to him. ‘That’s why you killed her.’
No, you see he is wrong. I didn’t kill her. He did. Couldn’t, Luke and I, though we wanted to.
I try to tell him but my lips are dry. I wish he would moisten them, perhaps with a sponge, but I don’t think he wants me speaking now. This is his time.
‘Yes, Dan – you killed her. And then you killed yourself. Slit your wrists. Then, because you are a coward, and cannot stand the pain, you set the house on fire.’
Did I? Is that what I did? Don’t remember doing that.
‘And don’t get me wrong, Dan. I’ll be sad. I’m brilliant at grief, remember? When they find your two, charred bodies, when they tell me my best friend has murdered both my wives out of love for me, I’ll be devastated.’
I am still his best friend. That is good. God Adam is good.
‘But I’ll pity you, too. I can think of the press statement now: “I always thought of Dan as my one loyal friend who would do anything for me. It’s true, he did. I pity him for the misplaced love he felt for me. But that doesn’t make what he did right. In fact, here’s a special place for him, in hell. Now, I just want to try to get on with my life, the best I can.” That’s what I’ll say, Dan, and I’ll raise a glass to you when I’m on my sofa, comfortable at home.’
I see. I see. Clever Adam. Three steps ahead, always. First Helen. Then Nicole. And now me. He wants me to sacrifice my life’s meaning to him. To stay here, to bleed, to burn, in amber flames.
‘You always wanted to take the rap for me, Dan,’ he says, leaning over close, so close that I can almost count his eyelashes. ‘Now’s your chance. Because that’s what happens, when you betray me.’