Being by Kevin Brooks

– I knew that something was wrong. I could feel it, sense it. I could see it in her eyes. She knew something. She was treating me like a friend, but I wasn’t a friend. I was just some kid who’d come round to her flat one night with her ex-boyfriend’s brother. It was over a year ago. I’d only stayed for an hour, barely said a word. She shouldn’t have even remembered me. But here she was, treating me like a long-lost friend. And that wasn’t right.
    ‘Could I use your bathroom, please?’ I asked her.
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It’s just down the hall on the left.’
    I could feel her watching me as I got up and crossed the room. I was trying to stay calm, trying to act as normally as possible. But I was also trying to look roundher flat without letting her know that I was looking. I didn’t know what I was looking for – something out of place, something that might tell me something…
    Whatever it was, I didn’t see it.
    I went down the hallway and into the bathroom. I peed. Flushed the toilet. Washed my hands. Then I looked in the mirror. And as my face looked back at me – bedraggled and damp – I suddenly realized that I had seen something in the front room. I knew it. I’d seen something. I still didn’t know what it was, but I knew I’d seen something.
    I closed my eyes and pictured myself leaving the room. What had I seen? Settee, carpet, computers, table…
    Table.
    That was it. There was a table by the door. I could see it now. A little wooden table, a telephone table or something. And on the table… on the table there was a newspaper. An Evening Standard. Folded in half. Front page. I closed my eyes tighter and focused on something at the foot of the front page… the bottom edge of a photograph… a familiar grainy photograph.
    ‘Shit,’ I said, opening my eyes.
    My photograph was on the front page of the Evening Standard. Ryan’s false story about me – Robert Smith, frenzied attack, horrendous killing…
    Eddi had seen it.
    ‘Shit.’
    When I went back into the front room, Eddi was sitting on the settee, smoking a cigarette. I paused in the doorway and looked down at the table. The newspaper had gone. I looked over at Eddi again.
    She smiled at me. ‘All right?’
    I looked round the room, then put my hand in my pocket. ‘Where is it?’ I asked her.
    ‘What?’
    ‘The newspaper. Where is it?’
    ‘What newspaper? What are you talking about?’
    I looked down at the table again, then back at Eddi. ‘The Evening Standard ,’ I said. ‘It was here when I went to the bathroom.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, still smiling. ‘I really don’t know –’
    She stopped speaking as I pulled the pistol from my pocket and aimed it at her head. She stopped smiling too. Her mouth dropped open and she just sat there, staring in surprise at the pistol.
    I was surprised to see it too. I wasn’t quite sure how it’d got there. One second it’d been in my pocket, the next thing I knew I was looking down its barrel into Eddi’s shocked eyes.
    ‘What are you doing ?’ she said.
    ‘Where is it?’ I asked her again.
    ‘What is this? What’s going on?’
    ‘The newspaper, Eddi. Where’s the newspaper?’
    ‘What newspaper?’
    Something was happening inside me now. Something was taking over. And I didn’t want it to be there. I wanted Eddi to give me the paper before I lost control.
    ‘Please,’ I said to her, ‘just give it to me.’
    She tried smiling again, but her fear and surprise wouldn’t let her. Her lips were too tight to smile. ‘Come on, Robert,’ she said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘This is stupid. I don’t know what –’
    The pistol kicked in my hand. I heard a dull thwack, a gasp of breath, then the room was still and silent. Doomp doomp d-doomp. Eddi was frozen white, breathing hard, staring wide-eyed at me. I’d pulled the trigger, fired a shot into the leather settee. I could feel the shock in my bones.
    ‘The newspaper,’ I said quietly.
    Without