… So what if this man, Karl, sitting on all this information, gets drunk at a dinner party where people are talking about Hamish Elton and what a great guy he is. And Karl mouths off about him because he knows Elton is a cheating, bigoted piece of shit. And then it comes out in the papers because someone told someone else. And to save his own skin, to avoid being disgraced, losing everything he’s built up, Karl stitches up his friend – we’ll call the friend James. Not realizing that friend is, himself, close to some sort of precipice.

The voicemail again. Karl took a wobbly breath.

‘Hello, you don’t know me, but a few months ago …’ He swallowed, tasting bile. ‘Well, I’m the boss of the guy who – went to the papers – told them about, you know. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know it wasn’t him. It was me. He lost his job for no reason. It was me, it was my fault. And I’m going to give you all my details and you can do what you want to me. Or I can go public and say I made it up. Or whatever you want. But the guy is in trouble. James. The driver is in big trouble, in danger, so please call me back. And you can call me as much of a cunt as you want. Just please, please call me back. Please call me back.’

It was done. He felt no clearance of the load around his neck, dragging him down in the driving seat. The seatbelt was cutting into him. He hadn’t eaten in hours, since well before leaving London; he felt so hungry he could walk into a field and eat a cow straight off the grass. He swung the car up the ramp, onto the empty road.

He didn’t know when overnight trains got into Edinburgh, if that was what James was doing. He didn’t know whether it was even possible to get there from Newcastle in whatever time was left.

*