What had she meant when she said she was going to ‘take these in with me’? What was she talking about? I went back into the bedroom and looked around. She had been standing by the desk when she said it. I scanned the desk surface: my short stories were gone.

I swore under my breath. She read the stories again last night, proclaimed them works of genius and jumped my bones. ‘You’re going to be famous,’ she said as she straddled me, really seeming to get off on the idea, flushed pink from her throat to her chest. Of course, I liked the idea too, but I really don’t think the stories are good enough to show anyone, not yet. They aren’t polished. And I don’t think I could stand being rejected at the moment, just when I’ve started to get used to being accepted.

I decided I would have to go to see Emily at lunchtime and get them back – hopefully, nobody would have looked at them yet. Emily told me that most submissions sit on their slush piles for weeks if not months. It would be easy for her to retrieve my work from among the other slush.

Then the phone rang.

I thought it might be Emily, calling me from her desk to say hi. She often does that in the morning, even when we’ve just parted. So I almost skipped towards the phone.

It wasn’t my beloved.

‘Alex?’ Two slow heartbeats’ worth of silence, then, ‘It’s Siobhan.’

My tongue was paralysed. Her voice was low, less melodic than I remembered. I always thought she had a lovely tone to her voice, even when she was telling me to get lost, but now, with just a few syllables, I could tell that something had changed.

‘I suppose you think you’re clever, don’t you?’ When she said ‘clever’, the word wobbled, her voice trembling with the emotion she was trying to suppress.

I managed to speak: ‘What?’

‘I suppose you think you’re clever. Or funny.’

‘What are you talking about. Did you get the cheque?’

‘I got it alright. And then I ripped it in two.’

‘You – why?’

‘Don’t try to come across all innocent. I want you to write another cheque, and send it to me – you know my address, don’t you? You’ve probably memorised my postcode.’

NW6 6BG, I almost said, biting my tongue before I could.

‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said. My voice was trembling a little too.

‘I’m talking about the fact that you “forgot” to sign it.’.’

‘Oh shit. I...’

‘Look, just send me a replacement today, alright? Signed, this time. And…and… stop trying to mess with my head. It isn’t fair.’

The phone went clunk.

I held onto the receiver for a few moments, listening to the dialling tone. My hand shook as I replaced it. Maybe it was the aggression that Siobhan had fired at me. Maybe it was the knowledge that I’d made another mistake, causing hassle for myself and upset for Siobhan. Or perhaps it was just the sound of her voice that did it. After all, not long ago I was convinced that I was in love with her. Maybe a fragment of that delusion still lingers, somewhere deep inside me, in the place where my memories dwell. The sooner I could get another cheque to her and get her out of my life the better.

I went into the bedroom, which was warmer than the rest of the flat, and dug out my cheque book which, apart from the cheque I’d written to Siobhan, was completely unused. I wasn’t used to writing the things – it wasn’t surprising I made a mistake. I couldn’t believe she thought I did it deliberately. What kind of person does she think I am?

I left the house and headed for the post office, where I paid a little extra to send the cheque by recorded delivery. I read the cheque over three times to make sure I hadn’t written ‘three pounds only’ or signed my name as Mickey Mouse. I even asked the woman behind the counter to look at it for me and check I’d written the correct date. She gave me a queer look then said, ‘It looks fine to me, love.’

Good. I walked out of the post office with my head down and collided with somebody coming in.

‘Sorry,’ I heard a vaguely familiar voice say, and when I looked up I realised it was Brian, the guy from Siobhan’s writing class. I tried to scurry away but he had recognised me and his myopic eyes had lit up as if we were old, great pals.

‘Alex,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m alright,’ I said, wanting to keep my answers as short as possible so I could get away from him. He was wearing a Star Trek baseball cap. God, what if somebody cool saw us together? They might think he was my friend. I shuddered.

‘You’ll never g-guess what happened last night,’ he said, pausing to see if I could in fact guess. When he saw that I wasn’t going to bother trying, he said, ‘Siobhan flipped out. She shouted at us and called us all rubbish writers and st-stormed out. It was really shocking. She had a real g-go at me about this exercise she made us do. Jane and Barbara were quite upset.’

I was interested now. ‘So has she quit?’

‘L-looks like it. She said she had, anyway. The college has said we can have a part refund for the course fees. It’s a real shame – I was really enjoying the course. And I always thought Siobhan was so nice. But I suppose, well, writers are re-re...’

I waited a moment for him to spit it out.

‘Renowned for being a bit volatile, aren’t they?’

I said, ‘Hmm,’ thinking of Siobhan’s phone call earlier.

‘Why did you leave the course anyway?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’ve been really busy at work.’

He nodded. ‘We ought to have a re-reunion,’ he said. ‘The old class. Except, of course, poor Kathy couldn’t come.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said, suddenly wanting to get away again.

‘Did you see that thing about her in the paper?’

My bad news radar started bleeping. ‘Yes. I did.’

‘Well, I gave that woman a ring.’

I could feel storm clouds gathering overhead. A number 13 bus went past the post office. A gipsy came out and gave me the evil eye.

‘You what?’

‘Yes. Well, I wanted to offer her my condolences and tell her that I was a friend of Kathy’s.’

A friend? In my experience, Brian had barely exchanged a word with Kathy. What the hell was going on? Was he part of some great conspiracy against me?

‘She was really interested,’ he continued. ‘She said she was compiling a dos-dos...’

‘Dossier?’

‘That’s right. On people Kathy might have met recently. So I gave her a list of the people in the writing class. She seemed very grateful. She...’

‘A list? Including me?’

He was starting to look nervous and went into a huge spluttering fit of w-w-ws, and I quickly realised that I was being a moron: I didn’t want to give the stupid twat any reason to wonder why I was so upset. I took a deep breath. He took a deep breath too. And after I’d counted to five, I said, ‘So is she going to want to talk to us?’

‘Yes – I think so. Just to see if Kathy said anything to you about meeting anyone that night – the night she died.’

I nodded, then blurted, ‘She certainly didn’t say anything to me.’

‘Nor me.’

I could picture Kathy in the half-light, clambering on the fire escape. I could hear the noise her body made as it hit the ground. Suddenly, I had to get away. I said, ‘Well, maybe I’ll call this woman to save her the trouble of trying to contact me.’

Brian nodded and started to say, ‘Bye-bye.’ Before he could get to the second bye, I had gone, striding into the pedestrian flow on the High Street. What the hell would happen next? Why was Brian such a stupid freak? And then I thought, well, how is this woman going to find me? It’s not as if Brian had a list of our phone numbers to give her? So what if she had a list of people who knew Kathy? She probably had a list as long as Park Lane. I needed to chill out.

And I needed to see Emily. After talking to Siobhan and then Brian, both of them torturing me with memories of the past, I needed to talk to the one person who represents my future. My Emily.