He picked up his phone. The card's number was in his contacts, saved fifteen days ago under a single initial, R, which was either discretion or cowardice.
Dialled before the last thread of his nerve could snap.
Two rings. A click. Rory's voice, warm and rough. Probably he'd been working and hadn't spoken in a while.
‘Hello?’
‘Rory?’ His own voice. Thinner than he wanted. ‘It's Neil. Ashworth. Hope I'm not disturbing.’
One beat. His heart punched his ribs.
‘Neil.’ The name arrived low and unhurried, with a weight that turned two syllables into a sentence. No surprise. No smugness. Just recognition. ‘No… you're not disturbing me.’
‘That offer.’ Each word had to be pushed out individually. ‘To… see the chaos. Was it serious?’
Rory's reply was immediate. Simple.
‘Yes. Come. I'll be here.’
The line went dead. Or Neil hung up first. He couldn't tell, his hand was shaking too badly.
Keys. Jacket. Wallet. At the front door he stopped. Checked the lock. Checked it again. But there was nothing to secure. Freddie was at Gemma's. The flat was empty. The only thing at risk was years of careful construction and he was about to put a wrecking ball through it.
The drive was ten minutes that lasted an hour.
Traffic lights held him at every junction. His hands were clamped on the wheel. He loosened his grip, tightened it again.
The streets changed. Newer estates gave way to older terraces, Victorian conversions. A pub with smokers outside, the red ends of their cigarettes floating in the dark.
He found the street. Passed it. Circled the block. Came back. Parked a block away, not a plan, an instinct. He still needed a margin of deniability between his car and someone else's front door.
Engine off. Thirty seconds in the dark. The longest of his life.
He got out. Locked the car. Checked he'd locked the car. Walked.
The building was as he'd imagined. Older, brick, three storeys. Wheelie bins behind a low wall. An ordinary building on an ordinary street that was about to become the most significant address in his life.
Buzzers. A column of surnames. Cavanaugh. Second floor, handwritten on tape starting to peel. Same slant as the card.
He stood in front of the buzzer with his finger raised and his lungs empty and for one second, one, he considered walking away. Back to the car. Back to the flat. Back to the lock and the folders and the white wall and the mattress that held one body. Just one.
He pressed it. The intercom crackled. No voice. Just the buzz of the door releasing. Rory hadn't asked who it was.
He knew.
The door gave. A dim hallway, old carpet and other people's cooking, onions and cumin, someone's Friday-night curry. A staircase rose ahead, narrow, steep. A noticeboard with a recycling note and a residents' meeting flyer dated three months ago.
Up.
Rory opened the door before Neil reached the landing.
He leaned against the frame, one shoulder, arms crossed. Faded black T-shirt stretched across his chest. Jeans that had given up being blue sometime in 2010s. Bare feet on the hallway carpet.
‘Finally, Mr Ashworth.’
The surname, chosen on purpose. The old formality repurposed, not a barrier now but a callback, a private joke between two men who both knew how much distance the word used to carry and how little it carried tonight.
Neil reached the landing. Stopped. Two feet between them. The hallway light was dim, a bare bulb, and it turned Rory's face into angles and shadow. His hair was loose, the curls darker than they looked in the fluorescent staff room. Charcoal dust on his collarbone where the T-shirt neckline dropped. Sharp chemical smell. Hours of work.
