‘It can be very expensive.’

‘Let me guess, five thousand pounds?’

‘Spot on.’

‘That seems quite pricey.’

‘Well, you have to factor in hotel costs, and so on. The flights themselves wouldn’t cost that much. I could probably get a cheap business class seat for about half that amount if I wanted to slum it. But I’d have to eat while I was there too. And, you know, buy a wreath. All in all, I’d say we’re looking at around five grand all in. And I couldn’t possibly expect you to give me that.’

‘No,’ said Jeremy, looking a little relieved. ‘No, of course not. But if you wanted to bury him here in London, I could probably help you dig a hole in a park somewhere.’

Achilles smiled. ‘Would that be legal, do you think?’ he asked.

‘We could do it under cover of night.’

‘You and me in a London park, in the dead of night, with the moon shining down on us,’ said Achilles. ‘You wouldn’t be trying to get into my pants, would you?’

Jeremy stared at him and his mouth opened and closed a few times, like a goldfish in a bowl.

‘I only ask,’ continued Achilles, ‘because I’ve started to worry about where this friendship is going. I mean, you are a lot older than me.’

‘Well, only by about thirty years,’ protested Jeremy. ‘That’s only a fifth of a lifetime, in tortoise terms.’

‘But we’re not tortoises, are we, Jeremy?’ asked Achilles. ‘We’re not tortoises. You’re a grown man. And I’m a teenage boy.’

‘True,’ replied Jeremy, looking a little disconcerted now.

‘I mean, I know that we’re just friends and it’s not as if you’ve tried to get me into bed, is it?’

Jeremy flushed. ‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I’ve never even suggested—’

‘But you do take me out for drinks a lot, don’t you? And I am underage.’

‘You said you were eighteen.’

‘I might have exaggerated by about a year.’

Jeremy stared at him for a moment, then looked around, tapping the tip of his thumb against the tips of each of his fingers in a strange, fretful tic, and Achilles watched him, always intrigued by how his victims behaved at this moment.

‘Perhaps it’s best if we don’t see each other again,’ said Jeremy, drinking the rest of his pint quickly.

‘Probably, yes.’

‘I don’t know what I’ve done to give you the impression that I had any … nefarious intentions towards you.’

‘No idea what that means, to be honest. But if you’re asking do I think you want to take me up the Khyber Pass, then yes, that’s what I think.’

‘But I’ve never … I’ve never so much as—’

‘Doesn’t matter what you’ve said or haven’t said, does it, Jeremy? It’s what it looks like that matters.’

‘And what does it look like?’

‘Looks like you’re a middle-aged man taking out a teenage boy who he met on a dating app to get him all liquored up and then … well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what comes next, does it?’