I arrived just after midnight, one hand holding a twenty-pound note and one eye on my watch. I had work the next day. It seemed like I was working every day and the weekends were merely a brief sigh, sandwiched between extensive bouts of desk-based inertia.

            The intercom was silent when I pressed it. I worried that it might be broken and permanently unresponsive. I’d have to call Con to come and get me, but I was low on credit. The wind blew lightly against my outline, ruffling the collar of my coat as I stood on the doorstep of the Georgian townhouse looking up at his window, the pane in a terrible state of disrepair.

 

            ‘Hello?’ came the response through the metal grate of the intercom. Con’s voice merged with the breeze as I looked at the green panel of his front door.

            ‘Hey Con’.

I looked down the street, along the roofs of the terrace houses.

‘It’s me’, I continued.

The buzzer buzzed and the lock clicked open.

I walked up the staircase to his top floor flat, noting the smears against the walls, black smudges and scrapes. Footprints left messily on the carpet. Chipped skirting boards on either side, as though something heavy had been dragged clumsily up the stairs.

Con was waiting for me at the top step.

‘Hey Peter’.

The low watt bulb revealed his dilated pupils. He grinned wildly, smoothing his hair.

‘Have you got the fever? Right now?’ I asked, backing off.

Con wiped his lips with his sleeve.

‘No, no, Peter’ he replied. ‘No. I just ate. Don’t worry’

I followed him into the flat and sat down on the couch, which seemed damp, smelling slightly of sour water.

  

‘Cup of tea?’ he asked, flicking the kettle on.

‘I’d love one, actually. Two sugars would be great’, I replied.

‘I remember how many sugars you take, Pete’. He pulled two mugs from a cupboard. ‘What are you after today, by the way?’

‘Just a twenty-bag’ I replied.

He reached into a rucksack he’d hidden under a rocking chair and pulled out a stationary bag, loosely filled with skunk. He threw it my way. I immediately began to make something to smoke, pulling papers from my pocket.

‘Thanks’, I said.

‘No problem’ Con replied.

Leaving the twenty on the coffee table, I watched Con prepare my drink, nervously keeping an eye on him in case his mood suddenly changed. After dark, you couldn’t be sure with him.

I lit the stubby joint as Con put my beverage in front of me and switched his computer on. Steam rose from the surface of the tea as the monitor’s screen puttered into life. He opened music software and I prepared myself for the tedium of being presented with his latest piece of music. After various modules loaded he began mouse-clicking and I busied myself with smoking.

               One of his songs clicked into life, bass-heavy on the speakers next to me. Intricate synthesised drumbeats rained lightly over a low bass moan. It sounded like a pleasant kind of insomnia – the bass forming a lulling and persistent motif as the beats corrupted the tranquillity, seemingly random until you allowed your ears to adjust. It was well-crafted, there was no doubt about that. It just wasn’t my kind of thing.

I stood up to pass the joint to Con.

‘No thanks. I’m keeping a clear head’

I nodded at him. ‘Okay’ I replied. ‘I’m just going to use your toilet’

I stood up from my seat.

  

‘Go for it. You know where it is’

I walked down the corridor in darkness and found the light switch for the bathroom, flicking it on. As the lightbulb sparked to life, a blonde girl was revealed, around the age of fifteen, suspended by her ankles over the bathtub. She’d been dead around two days, I surmised. Naked, her throat had been stuck with something cylindrical. Further slashes around her groin and arms signified that she’d been well bled. Bite-marks scuffed her chin. Her breasts hung weightily downwards, full of cold gravity. Her eyes were entirely white, the irises rolled all the way back into her head – a stark contrast with the black depths of Con’s pupils. A black-scarlet trail of clotted blood lay from a pool directly beneath her to the plughole, where it had dried out while spilling down the drain.

The toilet seat was down, so I lifted it. As I relieved myself, I noticed the stack of car magazines on the shelf by the cistern. I finished up and washed my hands while checking my face, which was drawn and pallid. I needed to get going.

Back in the front room, I retrieved the joint from the ashtray and took a drag.

‘I better get going, Con’.

‘Really?’ he asked, looking put out. ‘You just got here. Finish your tea at least’.

I sat down and sipped at it.

‘What do you think of the tune?’ he asked. ‘I’ve been at this one for the past two days’

‘It’s ok.’ I replied. ‘I like it’, I was unable to commit to a more favourable review.

‘That’s called ‘damning with faint praise’, I think’ Con laughed.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘What can I say? It’s not my thing’.

Con stroked a porcelain canine, his lips sneering into a smile.

‘Not your bag? Still listening to guitar bands playing the same three chords? I’ll bet you are’.

‘Horses for courses, Con’ I replied.

A lot of things had changed since I’d seen him last.

‘It’s all been done before, every riff, every bass line. It’s all just being recycled’ he continued.

‘People have been saying that since the early 90s. Even earlier. But at least it sounds real. At least it’s got real people playing real instruments’.

‘So what?’’ Con asked, looking annoyed.

‘So this kind of thing’ I went on, ‘despite the fact it’s technically brilliant it’s just…’

                 I realised what I was about to say might offend.

‘It’s just… what?’

I looked Con in the eye as he tongued those white canine teeth again.

 

‘It’s just that it’s got no soul’.

 

My words, like the bloodless blonde in the bathroom, hung heavily in the air.