‘Key?’

‘Come on,’ Christian said, holding out his hand, and encouraging Matthew with it.

Matthew thrust his hand into his pocket and was surprised to find the key still there, though the jeans had been washed since he had last worn them. He held it between his fingers for a moment.

And then he gave it to Christian.

‘Well done.’

Matthew offered him a tight-lipped smile.

‘Well now, what would you say if I told you that I have an exact copy of this key, a replica, and that I know exactly what it’s a key to?’

Matthew sat down on the bed and thought for a moment.

‘I’d be surprised,’ he said.

‘Well, then, prepare to be surprised.’

Christian got up from the desk and walked over to his cupboard. He bent down and pulled a package out of it, a postal package, a white box smaller than a shoe box that obviously had been sent through the post, and was as yet, unopened, Matthew saw, as Christian handed it to him.

‘What’s this?’ he said.

‘It’s a package.’

Matthew didn’t feel like laughing.

‘Don’t you want to open it?’

He turned it over and looked at it. It was addressed to Christian Mueller, though the sender was, apparently, Lukas Sorensen, 18 Lakeside Drive, Eden Park, W7.

‘You’re familiar with Lukas’ handwriting, no doubt.’

Of course he wasn’t.

Matthew weighed the package in his hands for a moment.

‘There’s a key in here?’

‘That’s my surmise, though you might want to look at the date stamp before you open it.’

Matthew frowned at it. It had been stamped on the 16th. He figured backwards and reckoned that that was the day they had gone out on the boat.

‘Why has he sent this to you?’

‘Like I’ve told you, he’s a sick boy. He’s really not responsible for his actions. Let’s just say, I made him do it.’

Matthew opened it in a sudden rush. There were two smaller packages inside, both of them wrapped in expensive red and silver gift paper. One, a flat square that might contain a key. The other, something softer, about the size of a fist.

‘Do you want me to open these?’

‘Open the small one. That’s the one for you.’

Matthew picked at the cellotape, apprehensive about what he was going to find, though at the same time able to feel what must be a key inside of it.

He felt like spitting at Christian.

He pulled back the folds of paper and picked up the key, feeling, now, that it was him, and not Lukas, who was being played.

‘You might want to check it against this.’

Christian handed him the key that he had given him back again, and Matthew held the two of them together. They were identical.

Matthew nodded and put them on the bed beside him and stared at them, not looking at Christian.

‘Don’t you want to know what’s in the other package?’

Christian sat down on his chair and straddled it, rolling it over to Matthew, his hands on the back of it. He laid his head on his hands and looked sideways at Matthew.

Matthew looked at the pattern on the counterpane beside him.

‘What’s in it?’ he said.

‘Well,’ Christian said, ‘if I tell you that, then you’re going to go on a little trip with me, into the far, sick reaches of your little friend’s mind – if I’m right of course. We’re going to conduct a little experiment in mind control. And I’m going to convince you. Is that a deal?’

‘Whatever.’

‘Okay, then. What you’re going to find, when you open it, is two pairs of little Lukey’s jocks. One for you, and one for me. Do you want to play this game?’

Matthew pushed a scorn of air through his nose, and picked up the other package.

It was soft, as though it contained some sort of clothing. He picked at the cellotape, doing it slowly, not really wanting to open it at all.

He unfolded the paper, and there, as Christian had predicted, were two pairs of jocks, one a faded blue and red with a superman S on the front of them, the other pair a pale faded yellow with little white baseballs all over them. They were little boy’s jocks, faded and threadbare thin.

Matthew touched neither of them. He laid the package down on the bed beside him, and sat, biting his lips, looking at the carpet, his face red, he supposed. It felt hot enough.

‘I can’t say much for his taste,’ Christian said, twisting back and forward on the chair. ‘I mean, I think I got over Superman jocks a while back. How about you?’

Matthew felt like hitting Christian.

Christian had to have done something to Lukas. He had to have threatened him, or something, in order to make Lukas do this. What the fuck did he know?

‘How the fuck did you get him to send them to you?’ Matthew said, suddenly looking up at him.

‘That’s what you’re about to learn,’ Christian said, putting his hand out like a stop sign as though prepared to ward of a blow. ‘We have a deal, right.’

‘Sure,’ Matthew said. ‘I want to know all about it.’

Christian swung around on the chair and pulled a small bottle of pills out of the cupboard behind him. He swung back to face Matthew, and held the bottle of pills beside his face, rattling them tantalisingly.

‘Matto, I can offer you a choice. You can swallow a blue pill, and return to the world as you know it, or you can swallow a red pill, and learn the truth. The problem is, of course, they only come in red. And they’re actually not really red, they’re green.’

‘You mean there’s only one type.’

‘That’s what I’m trying to say.’

‘Do you think I’m the one?’

‘I doubt it. And if you were, you’d probably fail.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it. If I’m nothing else, I’m honest.’

Matthew had to admit that this was true.

‘Can you tell me something?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘When was the last time you spoke to Lukas?’

‘Face to face?’

‘Face to face – no, not just face to face. On the phone. On the net. What the fuck ever.’

‘Last year at school sometime probably, or when he was in the hospital.’

‘In the hospital?’

‘Yeah. I was there with my dad, and my dad saw his dad, and I ended up having to speak to him.’

‘What was he there for?’

‘I don’t know. He had a tumour or a blood clot or something.’

‘Did your dad do it?’

Christian nodded.

Dr Mueller had specialised as a neurosurgeon before becoming a psychiatrist, though he still performed surgery occasionally, when someone was prepared to pay. Lukas’ father, no doubt, had wanted the best.

Matthew remembered now how Lukas had been absent during the first few weeks of final term, when Matthew had been stuck in art class, having no idea how to do a final submission, and having no one to work with. He had been happy when Lukas had come in one Monday and agreed to work with him. He hadn’t even asked him where he’d been.

‘Something about a car accident.’

‘That was years ago.’

‘I believe you, but like I told you. He’s disturbed. That’s what makes it so easy.’

‘And you haven’t spoken to him since then? You haven’t threatened him or sent him emails or got on his myspace or anything – he just sends you this stuff in the post?’

Christian made no reply.

‘Can you just tell me?’

‘Why would I have to tell you, when you’ve just agreed to try it? Why would I have to tell you when you’ve already agreed to try it, and broken the deal?’

‘Can you just say it?’

‘Okay, if he isn’t bigassedlady105, then, no, I haven’t spoken to him since last year sometime.’

‘You’re telling me that on your word of honour?’

‘On my word of honour.’

‘Fair enough. What are the pills?’

‘Antidepressants. From the fifties.’

‘Can I see them?’

Christian handed him the bottle. They were called Desultrodol, and were made out to a Mr Christian Mueller, the direction reading, “Swallow ONE whole tablet a night. Do NOT stop taking this medication abruptly. Do NOT exceed one Aspirin tablet or capsule per day.” The only suspicious thing about them was the fact that they were prescribed by a Dr D Mueller to a Mr Christian Mueller.

‘Did you prescribe these for yourself?’

Christian shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said.

Matthew looked at the chemical description. ‘Are these amphetamine based?’

Christian screwed his lips up.

‘Great,’ Matthew said, and handed him the bottle back.

Christian walked into his bathroom and came back with a glass of water.

‘You need to take two,’ he said, dropping the tablets into Matthew’s palm.

‘What’s so special about them?’

‘They have an unfortunate side-effect.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘They induce astral travelling.’

Matthew nodded slowly. He had heard enough of Christian’s theories to know all he wanted to know about astral travelling, reincarnation, telepathy and telekinesis. Christian believed you could travel into another person’s mind and control them. He had explained this much to Matthew, though Matthew thought it was bullshit. The only thing Christian had ever shown him that was convincing was a video of a kid on Google who moved a pen with his mind. And the only thing that made that look convincing was the expression on the kid’s face.

Matthew had to wonder how a guy who got such good grades, a guy who was doing a degree in mathematics, and said he could perform calculus in his mind, could believe in so much crap. Matthew didn’t even know what calculus was.

But this was the first time Matthew had heard of the pills.

He put his head back, and swallowed them.