Touch

Yes. Complicated. Trinny wouldn’t be able to understand. Nobody understood. Nobody knew about being mad but him.

Yes Harry, you are mad. Not to mention bad and sad. You can’t go aroundHarry couldn’t stand the wittering any longer so he reached out and pressed the button on the clock radio next to his bed and Trinny’s voice vanished beneath the local station’s jingle. Top of the hour and the news. The usual regional mediocrity had been abandoned and the headline spewed out a tale of rape, violence and murder. The police had found a body of a woman down on Wembury Beach.

He turned off the radio. Fast. Not good. Not good at all.

Carmel, Harry! Carmel is back! Yuk! I bet she doesn’t look so pretty now.

Trinny sounded excited. Hysterical. But could it really be Carmel? Nausea began to rise within him like dirty water overflowing from a blocked toilet. He fought back the urge to vomit.

Carmel. You didn’t get her, did you? She is lost forever now. Decayed.

He ignored Trinny and wondered if the story signified something. Carmel back from the dead. Telling him he was on the right track, but also reminding him that Trinny didn’t compare to her. Couldn’t be the one.

Harry, what do you mean?

He’d kept her because he hoped she would change. She had been fun at first. Cute, lovely, bubbly. But now she went on yapping and nagging. And she was dirty. Very dirty. He had slapped her a couple of times, but it hadn’t made any difference. The simplest thing would be a clean break. Splitting up would be for the best. For both of them.

Harry! You bastard! I am your girl. Me. Not Carmel. She is dead. Rotting. Mitchell killed her. Remember?

Mitchell.

Harry didn’t like to hear that name. Not after what Mitchell had done to Carmel.

Mitchell was your friend!

Mitchell had once been his friend, true, although Harry didn’t really know what a friend 14