Complicit by Nicci French

maybe we could meet up. I could take you out for dinner. Let me know.’ His tone was warm, eager. We had an agreement.
    ‘Bonnie.’ Neal’s voice on my answering-machine at home. ‘Call me when you get this. I’d really like to see you. Don’t worry about how late it is.’ There was a pause, then his voice stumbled: ‘I can’t sleep anyway. I’m thinking of you.’
    Neal was courteous, helpful and somewhat shy. The woman he had loved had died in a car crash. He found it hard to show his feelings. Now, however, he was showing his feelings to me. He was happy because of what he knew was about to happen between us. And I had left him this evening, gone to Hayden’s and had sex with him.
    Did I still want something to happen with Neal? Did I want anything else to happen with Hayden? I sat on the edge of my bed, kicked off my shoes and rubbed my aching feet. What had I done and why had I done it? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything at all. My body ached and felt strange to me, as if what had taken place with Hayden had changed it in some way. Even thinking of him sent a loose tremor of desire through me.
    I would ring Neal tomorrow – except, of course, today had long ago turned into tomorrow. I would tell him – what? That I was ill, I had the flu. That’s what I’d do. I’d put everything off for a day or two, hide from him and myself.
    After
    Alone in my friend’s house, I put the bottle of wine I had brought for him on his kitchen table and went into the living room to wait. I sat on the armchair, then stood up again to walk around, examining the books on the shelves, the photos on the mantelpiece. It was five past three. Someone should have arrived by now. Had I got the arrangement wrong?
    At ten past three the doorbell rang and it was Sonia. She was wearing a floor-length black skirt with a pale yellow T-shirt, and her dark hair was piled up. She was fresh and clean and strong and full of comfort. I had no idea what to do, what to say, how to behave. I wanted to burst into tears and be hugged by her and at the same time I wanted her to act as if nothing had happened, so that last night could just become a dream of mine, shrivelling in the light of day.
    She looked at me appraisingly. She gave me a little nod. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t turn up.’
    ‘I nearly didn’t.’
    ‘Is anyone else here yet?’
    We stood in the room like hosts waiting for a party to start. There was no conversation that wouldn’t seem artificial. I had the clutching sense of a friendship coming to an end because what she had done for me was so huge, a favour that overshadowed everything else.
    ‘Sonia,’ I began, and the doorbell rang again, three short jabs of sound.
    It was a hot day but Joakim was wearing a thick hoodie,whose sleeves came over his hands. He was carrying his violin tucked under one arm and his face was chalky. There were purplish smudges under his eyes. He grunted some sort of greeting.
    ‘Not with your dad?’ I said.
    He grunted something else.
    ‘You look a bit rough,’ Sonia said cheerfully.
    ‘I feel crap,’ Joakim said. He flung himself onto the sofa. ‘Where is everyone? I thought I’d be the last to arrive.’ He huddled against the cushions like an animal retreating into a burrow.
    ‘You need some strong coffee,’ I said.
    I went into the kitchen, and when the doorbell rang again, I stayed there, leaving Sonia to answer. I heard murmurs but couldn’t tell who had arrived until I carried Joakim’s coffee into the living room. It was Guy, in what passed for casual wear – ironed denims and a short-sleeved blue shirt. He hauled in his drum kit, nodded at me curtly, then turned his attention to Joakim. ‘Where the bloody hell were you?’
    Joakim shrugged. ‘Out.’
    ‘And you couldn’t have rung us? Your mother was frantic.’
    ‘I’m eighteen. Jesus!’
    ‘You still live with us and while you do – What’s the matter?’
    ‘I feel a bit