I drank more tea and watched him pace. He really did seem quite upset. I wondered what would happen if he had a heart attack, right there. It would probably serve him right, after everything he’s done.

“No one will find out,” I said. “No one saw. If anyone comes around, I’ll tell them we had a couple of drinks, that he seemed depressed, that he talked of ending it all, but that I thought he was just being maudlin. I left him to walk home through the park, and that’s the last I saw of him.”

“Oh Jesus,” Johnny said. “Oh Jesus, David.”

“What? What’s going to happen?” I said. He was starting to annoy me now. “Has anyone suggested that there might have been foul play?”

He shook his head.

“Well, that’s a relief. Are you sure you don’t want tea?”

Johnny ignored me. “I shouldn’t have come. Don’t try to contact me again. If anyone asks where I was tonight, I’ll say I was with Becky. She’ll back me up. You know she will.”

“Will she?”

I thought probably she would. Maybe I was wrong about her sleeping with the boss. Not that I would have told anyone about Johnny’s visit. Why would I? Still, his suspicion was hurtful. You don’t behave like that with your friends.

Johnny left soon after that, without even touching his tea. I guessed I wouldn’t see him again, at least not for a while. I was washing the cups and the teapot (green tea turns poisonous when it ferments, and it’s never good to leave it too long), when I heard a knock at the back door. Johnny hadn’t been gone for more than a couple of minutes, and I wondered if he’d had second thoughts; if he’d come back to talk to me.

But when I opened the door and looked out, it wasn’t Johnny standing there. It was a ghost. A ghost from the past. And not just any ghost either. Mousey, you’ll never believe who it was, standing there as if nothing had changed for over twenty years—

It was you.

Chapter 8

8

November 2005