His work suffered. Luckily, the company was going through some troubled times and had no time to waste tracking each individual employee. Jake considered getting a long-term sick note but rejected the idea. The thought of being at Fever Street day after day, knowing what lay under the shed, less than forty feet from the house… it made him shudder.

By November, it was a bit – a little bit - easier. The days were short, the light draining from the sky at four in the afternoon, the sky gloomy and ragged with clouds. From the kitchen window, Jake could see almost nothing of the garden, just the ragged edge of the lawn, and the shed was hidden entirely from view. Those evenings, when the lamp light shone soft and golden, with the television murmuring quietly in the corner of the living room; when Veronica curled herself into the corner of the sofa to read her magazines and Jake could sit near her; when Carl was working late and it was just the two of them, being quiet and still together, he could almost manage to forget. Almost.

It was the dreams that were the worst. Almost nightly, they waited for him to slip into Temazepam’d unconsciousness. The drugs would stupefy him for four hours and then in the tail end of the night, in the coldest part of the night, the dreams would stealthily gather in the pit of his brain, ebbing into his unconscious. They were confused scrimmages – scraps of memory, images of desire. Once he dreamed that Candice Stanton was walking up the stairs, inexorably, unstoppable. He’d turned to get away, moving as if wading through treacle, in that dreadful way that dreams have of slowing movement, of being unable to get away. Then he’d woken in his own bed, drenched with sweat, trembling – turned, and found Candice lying next to him, her shattered head resting on his pillow. He’d really woken then, screamed himself awake with a sound that woke the others. He knew they were awake because as he lay there, feeling his heart thud away against the walls of his chest, he heard them whispering outside in the corridor. But neither one came in, or knocked, and in the morning, as he sat grey-faced and baggy eyed in the kitchen, neither one mentioned it.

The weeks passed. Christmas came and went, the usual day of so-called celebration at their father’s house, false smiles and making an early escape as possible. Veronica and Carl went out for New Year but Jake stayed in, working his way through a bottle of vodka, quickly enough to ensure he passed out at two minutes past midnight.

Spring became a hint, a whisper of warmth on the February breezes. Jake went to work, came home, went to work again. The dreams began to become a little less frequent but no less terrifying in their intensity. He took to staring out at the shed, just glimpsed from the bathroom window at the back of the house. The branches of the trees surrounding the shed grew buds, became filmed with a lacy green haze. The leaves grew thicker, hiding the roof from his gaze. The grass in the back garden grew slowly, inexorably, uncut for months.

And then, one day at the very end of June, Jake couldn’t get out of bed at all. He opened his eyes to the ceiling, to another day of this crashing, awful, unending nightmare, and he’d shut them again. He couldn’t move. He dismissed thoughts of work, of Jake and Veronica. He couldn’t move. He shut his eyes and slept again. When he opened them five hours later, he took two sleeping tablets and slept again. Dimly, as he drifted to unconsciousness, he heard the phone ringing. It was still ringing when he woke up in the early evening. He heard it picked up and Veronica’s voice. He shut his eyes again, drifted.

His bedroom door opened. Jake forced his eyes open. Carl stood in the doorway, looking at him, unsmiling.

“What’s up with you?”

Jake considered.

“Tired,” he said, after a moment.

“No shit. You’ve been in bed all day. Your work rang – V told them you were sick.”

“I am sick.”

Carl walked closer to the bed. Jake didn’t look at him. He stared up at the ceiling.

“Are you going to get up?”

Jake was silent.

Carl sighed.

“Have it your way.”

Jake closed his eyes again as Carl left the room.

He stayed in bed for a week. He didn’t wash. Veronica brought him cups of tea and plates of toast that he ate, grudgingly. She opened the window of his room and he waited until she was out of the room and then shut it again. He kept the curtains drawn.

He slept as much as he could. During the day, he found he didn’t dream, or didn’t dream of Candice, which was the important thing. When he was awake, he read magazines or his old collection of Viz comics, or watched a bit of television, or stared into space. He didn’t bother ringing his workplace – work felt like another lifetime ago, something completely separate from his life now. He didn’t think, or he tried not to think – it was harder than it sounded.

On the seventh day, he woke up incredibly early, at sunrise. He lay in bed, listening to the early morning birdsong, and felt the grey fog that surrounded him begin to lift. He watched a sunbeam creep gradually across the wall of his bedroom and felt his own spirit begin a slow and gradual lightening. It was so obvious, what he had to do. He would go to the police. He would tell them everything, and they would come and take the body away and whatever happened after that, happened. It couldn’t possibly be worse than what he’d been going through. It couldn’t possibly. He would deal with it, he knew he’d be able to deal with it. He couldn’t go on living like this, not for anything, not another day, not another minute.

The resolution he’d come to brought him such relief, he knew it was the right decision. He leapt out of bed, actually leapt, and ran to the shower. Scouring a week’s worth of grime from his skin brought him intense pleasure. He didn’t even look out of the window at the leaf-hidden roof of the shed.

It’s the right thing to do, he told himself. The right thing.

As he was dressing, he heard the front door slam and a moment later, the roar of Carl’s car. Off to work early then. He had planned to go straight to the police station but on impulse, he decided to go to and see Carl at work. It was only fair to tell him. For a moment, his euphoria dipped. What would Carl say? What would Carl do? Jake began to dress, slowly, his fingers fumbling over zips and buttons, as if he’d forgotten how to fasten his clothes. But I have to do something, he said to himself. I can’t go on like this.

It felt strange to be out of the house on Fever Street, after more than a week of seclusion. He walked slowly down towards the entrance to the Underground station. The morning commuters were beginning to flock towards the trains. He saw the Evening Standard seller’s board outside the station and saw the headline London Wins Olympic Bid. In his earlier life, the life before Candice Stanton, he might have been quite excited about that. He took the Northern Line down to Kings Cross. More and more people crammed themselves onto the train at every stop. Carl’s office was in Holborn so Jake battled his way through the crowds at Kings Cross and waded towards the Piccadilly line. As he reached the southbound platform, he could see the digital clock flick from 08.45 to 08.46. His early-morning elation was dissolving. Could he actually do this? Could he really go through with his plan? He tried to think of the possible outcomes but his mind was a blank. All he came up with was a queasy montage of late-night crime shows, blue-lit police cells, confrontations on the steps of a court house.

There was a low rumble, a metallic mutter and clatter as a train drew into the platform. People began to struggle towards the doors. Jake edged himself into the carriage and moved between the seats. He clenched his hand around the cool metal of the bar above his head. The rattle of the train was like the beat of a drum inside his head. Christ, could he do it? Did he have the courage to do it?