Chapter 1

The flat was a disaster. Empty bottles, half drunk glasses of wine, and abandoned plastic cups covered every
flat surface. Vodkas from Eastern Europe mingled with beers from the West and wines from the New World. The rubbish had long since broken out from within the confines of the bin and was roaming wild and free. The wooden floor was sticky
from spilt red wine and had bits of toilet paper stuck everywhere. Even the “Emergency condom for household use!” that had been a permanent fixture on the fridge, had finally been opened. Outside the flat, the world was in just as
much disarray. Lehman's brothers had just collapsed, the FTSE had plummeted, politicians were holding emergency meetings with bankers and people were losing their jobs.

Shortly after 11am, the first signs of non-bacterial life emerged. A creak of a door
opening, the flushing of the toilet, the shuffling creaking of the staircase as
someone descended slowly. A big pair of furry slippers landed heavy footed onto
the floor. It was Gail, one of the four flatmates of the London flat, wearing
her Winnie the Pooh pyjamas. Looking around the room she wondered why it always
seems to look a lot worse the following morning. Amongst the alcoholic
undergrowth was a dirty beige food stained Ikea sofa, serving as a reminder of
where the kitchen ended and the living room began. A pair of half untied boots,
attached to pale hairy legs hung over the edge of one of the sofa. They
belonged to Aggy, who as of last night was the ex-boyfriend of Beat. He was a
tall lanky guy from Leeds with long shaggy hair and unkempt goatee on his face.
His belly, also hairy, peeked out from beneath his faded yellow t-shirt and
rose up and down in rhythm to his snuffling snores. Beyond Aggy’s snoring the
only other sound was the soft swish of the ever present London traffic in the
background, which if you tried hard enough you could just about imagine was the
sound of the distant sea. Only the thunk thunk of the tube as it went by would
jolt you out of your reverie to remind you that you were in a heaving breathing
cosmopolitan capital, which until recent events had been the financial and
cultural capital of the world.

     Looking across to the armchair, Gail spotted Alex, sat upright with his head tilted back and eyes shut. He was still
wearing the smart work outfit from the day before, a slim fitting pale blue
shirt, neat black trousers and trendy black shoes with pointy ends. His arms
rested by his sides and he had an air of grimness about him as if he’d fallen
asleep whilst in the waiting room of a hospital.

            She wondered why he hadn’t just gone to his own bed. Perhaps he’s dead she bemused. He certainly looks
dead. She smiled to herself as she imagined shaking him hysterically crying  “Wake up, Wake up!”, giving him a slap for good measure, and then waving a snotty goodbye to the ambulance as he was carried away. In reality though, she wasn’t really a dramatic sort of girl despite what people may have though from the events of last night. Looking
around she spots a small tube of rolled up paper next to Alex feet and speckles
of white dust on the table in front of him. Has he been taking more of that
stuff? What a stupid twat!

            She walked over to him and gave him a prod. He didn’t stir so she felt his hand. It seemed quite cold but she
wasn’t sure if it was as cold as dead persons ought to be. She leaned in close
to his face searching for signs of life but could not see any visible
breathing. It was then she started to panic. Perhaps he’d only been dead for a
short while and this was the critical period when only the kiss of life would
save his life, administered by some person who knew what they were doing yet
claim “it was nothing”. Not Gail then; she’d have no clue, attempt to do mouth
to mouth, and instead be charged with sexual assault on a dying person. She
waited with her face in front of his for two seconds, three seconds, four
seconds, still no signs of breathing. Just as she was about to shake him
hysterically and tell him to wake up and give him a slap for good measure, he
let out a long slow exhale of morning-after breath which smacked her straight
in the face and up her nostrils causing her to cough and splutter.

            Alex opened his eyes. “Morning,” he
said sheepishly in a thick Parisian accent causing Gail's heart to flutter for
a second. Damn that French accent she thought.

“Morning.”
she replied coldly. “I thought you were dead”.

“Sorry
no, I am still alive,” he said smiling sheepishly and looking away from her
eyes.

            Gail wondered if he’d just been
pretending to be asleep in order to avoid her. She turned and headed back to
the kitchen and started filling the kettle with water. She thought back to the
argument they’d had last night. More than anything she felt utter
embarrassment. Her drunken cry of “But I thought you fancied me!” bounced
through her head like a schoolyard ball and ricocheted down into her heart. It
brought back cringing memories of a similar situation in first year of
secondary school, when she said the same thing to nerdy Ben Taylor. The embarrassment
she felt when nerdy Ben Taylor admitted he liked her best friend Jenny more
than her and that he’d only been talking to her to get close to Jenny had
burned into her cheeks for years until she buried it deep into her
unconsciousness. Twelve years, and several failed relationships later she
thought she’d learned never to jeopardise her dignity in such a way again, yet
here she was feeling exactly the same. 

“I’m gonna make a cup of tea. Do you want one?”

“Oh do not worry. I will make one myself,” said Alex, making a stumbling attempt to
get to his feet.

“Oh don’t be a pillock. I’ll make it.” said Gail waving her hand at him.

She navigated her way over to the kitchen amongst the alcohol graveyard, looking
for some mugs along the way. She found two including one that had been used as
an ashtray and was filled with cigarette butts. She gave it the briefest clean
and set it aside for Alex.

“Aw could you make us one too?” came a gruff Northern voice.

Aggy’s ears, finely tuned for any opportunity to get something for nothing, had perked
up at the sound of mugs being cleaned and the kettle being switched on.

“Sure,” sighed Gail and looked for another mug. An awkward silence reigned whilst she
made the tea. She came back over and placed the mugs on the tea-table, politely
ignoring the existence of the white dust. She pushed Aggy’s feet out the way,
who reluctantly hunched up his lanky legs and gave up half of his sofa kingdom.

            Each person thought back to the events of the night before and the new reality they found themselves in. Gail
stared out the window clutching her mug with both hands and biting her teeth
into it. Alex checked his Blackberry with one hand, made some keen tapping
noises on it, before throwing it aside and just staring into space. Aggy sipped
away at his tea, holding the mug in front of him by the handle, resting it on
his broadly crossed legs and staring longingly at the half eaten kebab which
was strewn over the floor.

After a few abortive attempts at initiating conversation which ended up as a feeble
clearing of his throat, Alex eventually broke the silence.

“I was as you say a bit of a twat last night wasn’t I?”

Gail couldn’t help but smile. Damn that French accent.

“Yeah you were.”

 “Look how manky that looks,” chortled Aggy
pointing to his half eaten kebab which was strewn on the floor. He then
proceeded to rummage around and found an untouched strip of chilli coated kebab
which he wolfed down. “Ah that’s good that is,” he beamed before going back for
another rummage. Just then Beat walked in. “Friggin disgusting more like it.”

            Beat’s real name was Beatrice, but
she preferred the association with Kerouac and the Beat generation. She was a
big fan of associations. She was associated with being an artist, a performance
poet, a journalist, a film maker, and a political activist. She was a member of
the London poetry society, the London Writers group (as well as their rivals,
Writers of London Unite!), the North London Creative’s Network, the People
& Planet society, and the Socialist Party. Her credentials included two and
a half paintings, nine unpublished poems, one published one, one student union
magazine article on whether socialism can live alongside capitalism (her
conclusion being no), one mockumentary (a documentary in which you take a
serious subject and poke fun at it, which she claimed as her own invention
until she realised it had been done before), as well the introduction of a
recycling system in the flat. The thing she associated with the least, was her
day job – administrative assistant at Shoreditch art gallery.

“That’s
just what I do to support myself, but an artist is who I am,” she would
say to the bafflement of guys at parties who thought they were asking an
innocuous question on occupation. Beat was also the longest member of the
house, having been there since she finished university three years ago. As a
result she seemed to have taken on the management role of the flat. She dealt
with the landlord, paid the bills, and sorted out anything that went wrong. It
was her dedication to this job that made Gail wonder how much of the real Beat
was the trendy hippy chick she portrayed herself as to the outside world and
how much was a secret suburban housewife wanting to come out. 

“Morning douchebags” she said and flopped herself down next to Alex, her braided hair
spinning around her head.

“Anyone seen Adesh?”

Adesh was their other housemate who they hardly ever saw. He kept himself to himself
and were it not for the gradual the depletion of his milk you’d never guess he
lived there. He had a middle-eastern complexion, though no one could remember
where he was from or whether he had even told them.

“I haven’t seen him in many many weeks,” stated Alex.

“He hasn’t paid the rent for this month apparently,” said Beat, fidgeting with her
braids.

“You think maybe he’s done a runner?” questioned Aggy.

“Well his milks gone off and he's had some letters lying there for weeks,” replied
Gail.

“I do not remember seeing him come home last night,” replied Alex.

Beat flicked her hair back and tilted her head sceptically.

“You were off your face, I’m surprised you even remember yourself coming home!” she
said shaking her head.

All four then descended into a dissection of last night’s events, skirting for the
time being around the bigger issues.

“I think my friend Becky pulled your mate Steve.”

“Remember we put toilet paper down on the floor and tried to dance and clean at the same
time?”

“I think someone took a photo of me when I was throwing up.”

Just then they heard a knocking sound at the door. Four sharp knocks, equal distant
apart. Gail went off to see who it was. She returned a little while later with
a worried look on her face and two large figures following behind her.

“It’s the police,” she stated with a wide eyed expression. “I think they might be
after Adesh.”