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the TV remote in the other. He is watching a football match broadcast live from Chile. Small figures run around on a sandy pitch, their movements narrated in a language he can’t understand.

Roster and Anastasia will surely kick him out of the flat, but he doesn’t know when. They’ll be stopping his money too. He has no pension, no other source of income, and he has nowhere else to go. He told Anastasia to fuck herself, and he’s glad he did. He always liked her, but he wasn’t in a million years going to do what she wanted him to do just because he used to carry a flame for her.

They won’t pay him any more, though. Anastasia made that clear, and Roster made that clear too, months ago. People like that expect you to be loyal forever. But Robert has other loyalties. He isn’t in that world anymore, and he doesn’t want to be.

He would go and ask Lorenzo for advice, but he’s still away somewhere working on a film. And Robert isn’t sure Lorenzo is that fond of him anymore. He regrets the confession he made.

He sits up. He’ll phone the lad in the morning or send him a text. He’s not going to let that friendship slip away from him, as everything else has slipped away. He will make it right.

Maybe he will move out to the suburbs like Lorenzo’s parents. They are somewhere by the sea. He might move back to Scotland. He won’t know anyone anymore, but at least he’ll be able to get to the Ibrox. But how will he live? He hasn’t done an honest day’s work in decades. And he’s retirement age as it is. Perhaps he will be able to draw a state pension. These are all concerns now.

He turns off the telly. He can’t follow the action. The flat is quiet now, unusually so. He can’t hear any of the regular hubbub that continues in this neighborhood all day and night, and he finds it unsettling. Robert is afraid of silence like other people are afraid of the dark, and has spent his life avoiding it, moving in large crowds, living in the busiest parts of busy cities. When silence falls he goes out to find a racket—the clinking of glasses or the hum of traffic. When the world is quiet, he is alone in his own head, and that’s a place as dark as any night.

He needs noise.

He gets out of bed and finds items of clothing in his wardrobe, then puts on a pair of sturdy boots, wraps himself in a thick coat, and goes down to the street. Only a few places will be open at this time of night, but he’ll find somewhere.

Then he hears the voice. There is a voice shouting out over the rooftops. It is far away, but it seems to carry eerily, as if the person is speaking directly to him. He begins to walk towards it, taking alleys and backstreets. As he walks, he begins to hear other voices. There are men shouting. There are women screaming. He begins to run, but not away from the panic. He runs towards it.

Last Night Stand: Part III

There is a wall behind Tabitha and, without looking, she puts her hand back to lean against it. She screams. She tries to pull her hand away but it is stuck. She screams again.

Precious rushes forward.

Tabitha screws up her face in a grimace and lets out a deep breath through her teeth. She turns and looks down at her hand, lets out a brief “oh god” and then looks away and shuts her eyes.

Precious now sees what her friend has done. The low walls of the roof are covered with spikes, to keep away birds and burglars. As she leaned back, Tabitha skewered her hand on one of these spikes. It has pierced her hand through the center of the palm and has come out through the other side.

“Oh my god,” says Precious. And then she realizes that panicking won’t be of any help to anyone. “Don’t worry, love,” she says, in the calmest, most reassuring voice she can muster. “It’ll be okay. I’ll get help.”

“Don’t leave me here. Just get it out of me. Just get it out, and I’ll come down with you.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. It might make it worse.”

“Just get it out of me!”

“Okay, okay.” Precious relents. She steps forward and takes a closer look. There isn’t as much blood as she expected, but she realizes that more will come once the hand is freed. She pulls the cord from her dressing gown out of its loops, to use as a bandage. The fabric isn’t thick but it is long and she will be able to wrap it around Tabitha’s hand several times.

There isn’t enough light to see the wound clearly. Precious asks Tabitha if she is able to hold her phone torch with her other hand, so that Precious can investigate further. Tabitha holds up the phone and switches on the light and a beam of white descends to Tabitha’s hand and the sharp metal spike cutting through it. Tabitha’s skin looks pale, even paler than usual, partly because of her injury, partly because of the bright white light from the LED. The blood that has emerged looks as if it is already beginning to clot. It is turning the color of the rust on the metal spike and it is even taking on its texture, like a cuttlefish flushing the color of the seabed.

Precious places her fingers beneath her friend’s hand, and pushes upwards, gently at first then harder until Tabitha’s hand is free.

Tabitha inhales sharply but she does not scream again.

As predicted, the blood begins to flow in earnest. Precious recalls some of her medical training and wraps the belt of her dressing gown tightly around Tabitha’s hand, securing it with a knot. She instructs Tabitha to keep her hand raised, to lessen the