Matthew arranged to see Dr Mueller on Mondays, after Lukas’ appointment, so that the two of them could go together. He didn’t really want to see Dr Mueller, but he had agreed because his parents had asked him.

He was having some problems, had been having some. Headaches. At the back of his head. And once or twice the feeling that there were people, one or two people, or lots of people, in his mind.

At first, when Matthew didn’t have his memory, these things hadn’t worried him. The headaches didn’t last forever, and the feeling of people being there, spirits, he had thought, was just his imagination.

Now, in the last week or so, since he had regained his memory, Matthew wasn’t so sure. He remembered how Lukas had had the headaches, or how he had always seemed to have them, when Matthew had been in his mind.

And now Matthew had the voices.

Once or twice, he had heard someone speak. Not his own voice, not his own thoughts, which he was in control of, but another voice, speaking autonomously. Other voices.

Matthew knew, from when he had been with Christian, in Lukas’ mind, that Lukas had been able to hear his voice, if he spoke aloud. And yet it was more than this. It was the feeling of there being people there, almost all the time, inside him, and watching through his eyes. A part of him.

Matthew supposed there might be people all over the world, who knew how to travel into another person’s mind. A head injury might make a person susceptible. And they might flock together, these people, once they had found a victim.

But it was more than that. These people, or some of them, the ones that were in his mind, that Matthew could sense there, seemed familiar. It was like he knew them. Like they were his friends. And when they weren’t there, he noticed their absence.

‘The voices are simply an hallucination, caused by trauma in the speech centres of your brain.’

Matthew nodded.

He knew that he had heard it before, and he supposed Dr Mueller was right. It might simply be the case that Lukas and he were suffering from the same symptoms. Both of them had, after all, been in a car accident, and had suffered a head injury. Brain damage.

Only Matthew knew, that that didn’t make sense. Lukas’ symptoms, at least the voices, had never been the result of his injuries. They had been Matthew, and Christian.

Or had they?

Matthew tried to think while Dr Mueller continued talking. Lukas had complained of voices, and complained of them more often than all the times that Matthew had been in his head. And he had complained, almost always, of this feeling of there being people there. And then there were the headaches. Perhaps these things were a result of the head trauma.

‘Are you alright?’

Matthew looked up at Dr Mueller and smiled.

‘Lost in your thoughts?’

He nodded.

‘Are you sleeping well?’

‘Yes. At least. Sometimes I dream. Disturbing things.’

‘Perhaps we could talk about it next week, if it’s worrying you.’

Matthew nodded. His time was up.

Lukas was outside, in the waiting room, waiting for him, but Matthew wanted to ask Dr Mueller first, before he went, about the night of the accident.

‘Do you know, on the night of the accident, I came over here, to see Christian, but I don’t remember it. Do you know what happened, why I was here?’

‘I don’t have any idea, Matthew. I didn’t see you.’

There was a pause.

‘But why don’t you go and see Christian, and ask him? He’s home. And I know he’d like to see you. It’s just that he’s…’

Christian hadn’t been to see Matthew, the whole time Matthew had been in the hospital, and he hadn’t called.

‘…showing,’ Dr Mueller finished, moving his hands in front of his stomach.

Matthew opened his mouth into an O, and nodded. He had forgotten all about the baby, and he wondered now, if Dr Mueller knew it was his. He didn’t suppose so, from the way Dr Mueller was acting. It didn’t look like it.

‘I’m going to go in and see Christian,’ Matthew said to Lukas, when he had paid, and they were walking towards the door.

Lukas nodded.

Outside, it was freezing. It was snowing, and there was a bitter wind blowing down the side of the house. As they stepped into it, a man was coming toward them, a fat man, and they had to move aside, stepping off the path into the garden.

He was bald, and was wearing a plaid shirt, and as he passed them, Matthew was overwhelmed by the scent of his cologne. He frowned, and remembered all at once how he had seen this man before, through Lukas’ eyes, and smelt that cologne. He even remembered that the man’s name was Grainger, having heard Dr Mueller call him that, through Lukas’ ears.

‘I love that smell,’ Lukas said.

Matthew nodded, watching the man pass.

There wasn’t anything wrong with the scent, but it didn’t suit the man.

As they turned the corner, at the end of the path, and began to walk along the front of the house, Lukas put his hand on Matthew’s arm.

‘You’ve got the keys,’ he said.

Matthew turned, stopped, and thrust his hand into his pocket.

‘Why don’t you just come in,’ he said, stopping suddenly. He wasn’t ashamed of Lukas. He didn’t care what Christian thought of Lukas. He didn’t care if Christian knew Lukas was his friend. Or even lover, he said to himself. (Though about this he did care.)

Lukas hesitated.

‘Come on,’ Matthew said, and started to walk toward the front door. Lukas followed.

Matthew rang the bell.

Hildebrand opened the door to them, opening it wide, and ushering them into the hall. They had interrupted something, obviously. There were people, behind Hildebrand, in the hall, and Matthew had the feeling that they had been talking, that there had been animation, before the door was opened, but it stopped suddenly, as he and Lukas walked into the hall.

Hildebrand closed the door behind them, and it took Matthew a moment to take the scene in. The interior of Christian’s house was so dark, so heavily paneled in wood, and such a change from the bright snow outside.

He drew his head back and stopped, as he saw a group of his friends, Brad and Tom and Drew and Dale, standing and staring back at him, as though they were frightened. Christian was on the stairs. He had just mounted them, apparently, and had turned, as the door was opened. Brad and Tom, like black haired twins, were standing side by side, and they had been talking to each other, as best friends do. Between them and the stairs was Dale, whose face was now spreading into a grin, as he saw Matthew and Lukas walk in and stop.

Behind all of them, in the shadows, was Drew. Sensitive and nervous, as always. Someone who had never really fit in with their group, a quiet boy, like Lukas, who had somehow managed to hang on.

Matthew swallowed, and stared at all of them. They were frozen. And Matthew had the feeling that they had been caught, like children, doing something they shouldn’t.

Matthew took in the look in their eyes, their expanded pupils, and he knew, all at once, that they were on the tablets, all of them. He felt a moment of betrayal, and a yearning to be with them, feeling also, a sudden desire for the rush of the tablets.

His eyes flicked quickly, to their groins, and he saw that all of them, like his own, were swollen with engorged genitals that had grown beyond the norm. Even Drew, who had always been ribbed about having a small cock and balls, seemed to have something now, something much bigger than he had formerly had. He was wearing tight jeans, bright aqua, and a yellow T-shirt, and he was making a show of it, obviously, his cock and balls outlined in the jeans.

And in his hand, a pair of glasses. The blackout glasses. But a brown pair, just like Matthew had had, that he had used to…

Matthew swallowed, and stared at Drew. Of all of them, Drew was the only one who had visited him in the hospital. And now…

Had Drew been…?

Drew pulled his hands away. He put them behind his back, concealing the glasses, and turned his eyes away from Matthew’s.

Dale was the first to speak.

‘Mattster,’ he said, coming forward and putting his hand out. Grinning widely. ‘Long time no see.’

Matthew put his hand out, without thinking, and shook Dale’s hand.

He was an ugly person, had always been an ugly person, Matthew thought, though there was nothing physical that Matthew could particularly point to. It was his manner, his way of talking, and walking, and joking, which everyone else seemed to find so funny, but which, in Matthew’s opinion, made him ugly.

Matthew had just taken all of this in, when there was a second commotion. Hildebrand, who had left them after letting Matthew through the door, and put her head into the sitting room, was walking back into the hall again, from the sitting room, and behind her was another person, a white haired old woman. Tall, and thin. Matthew turned his head as she entered. He did a double take, recognising, suddenly, the old woman for who she was. Christian’s grandmother. Hildebrand’s mother, whom Matthew had met before, though the last time he had seen her, she had been at Whale Beach, in her own house.

A third person entered behind them, smiling, and confident, a little taller, perhaps, than the last time Matthew had seen him. A little handsomer. And with a pair of black glasses in his hand.

He wasn’t trying to hide them.

‘Matthew,’ Christian said, stepping down from the staircase, and walking towards them. ‘Lukas. This is my cousin. Rodney.’