Evil in Return by Elena Forbes

certainly moving quickly. He had turned his phone off immediately afterwards. He had no intention of calling her back until he had had time to think things through and had worked out what to say, but he decided it was better not to mention any of this to Tim. He could be very black and white when it came to the law. He also didn’t dare mention that in his panicked state by the canal, he had given them Tim’s name instead of his own. He wouldn’t understand.
    ‘Have you spoken to Paul or Danny?’
    Tim shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen either of them since Fi’s wedding. There was such a crowd and we didn’t get a chance to talk. We meant to meet up afterwards, but you know what it’s like. Can’t see everyone. Not sure I even have their current numbers.’
    There was silence for a moment. They had all been so close at university. He was surprised that Tim, of all people, had lost touch. He had been the glue that had held them all together, a combination of sheer force of personality and the fact that everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. They had all been in awe of him, happy to bask in his glory, perhaps in the naive hope that it would rub off on them too. The wedding had also been the last time Alex had seen Paul Khan and Danny Black. Although he had spoken to them both, it was the polite conversation of people who no longer had anything but the past in common. Paul was now a successful lawyer in a big City firm, with a loft apartment in Hoxton, an expensive car and a string of increasingly young girlfriends. He had become a cliché of superficial success, but it wasn’t enough. Even after all these years, he was still trying to prove something, trying to distance himself from his immigrant roots and become part of the establishment, still comically and pathetically insecure compared to Tim. Next thing, Joe had said, he’d be running for Parliament. Joe had dismissed Paul as someone without imagination, which for Joe was the ultimate put-down, and Alex found himself reluctantly agreeing. The seeds had always been there, but maybe when they were young it hadn’t mattered. As for Danny, he was still doing something on the fringes of the film business, with fingers in several pies, although from what Alex had heard from others, things weren’t going so well. Danny had been so pissed at the wedding it had been impossible to get much out of him. Joe hadn’t gone, he remembered. He had made some excuse but it was clear he wasn’t interested. Things had moved on, he had said, for all of them. Joe, Tim, Alex, Paul and Danny. ‘The Famous Five’, as they had once, on a drug-and-drink-fuelled high, styled themselves, or the ‘Fucking Five’ as someone – some narked woman, no doubt – had written a few days later in the dirt on Paul’s car outside the law library, along with the words ‘fuck off’.
    Alex studied Tim’s face for any sign that his thoughts were running in the same direction, but Tim seemed absorbed by the glass in his hand and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. The elephant in the room, the subtext that neither of them dared to refer to. They had been doing it for years. He felt a hypocrite.
    ‘It all seems a long time ago, doesn’t it?’
    Tim gave him a penetrating look. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘University.’ He chickened out as usual.
    Tim nodded. ‘But at least you still kept in touch with Joe. How was he when you last saw him? Happy?’
    ‘Yes. I think he was. Finally. Although he hated the publicity mill, it was good for him to have some recognition.’
    ‘You two were always very close.’
    ‘I thought you were too.’
    Tim shrugged. ‘We were once. But work . . . and being married . . . having a family . . . It all gets in the way.’
    And Tim’s desire to distance himself from that time, Alex thought. Although Joe had never said anything, he had sensed the slow, quiet rejection and been stung by it. It was probably at the root of his recent bitterness