Until Proven Innocent

THREE

"HEY, HUGO."

Hugo cannot quite believe his eyes. Stood in his doorway, looking just as impeccable as she always has done (her beauty is an almost clinical one, straight-edged and crisp) is Alma Dhawan. She's slimmer, now, short and lithe with cheekbones like razor blades and a smile like a salesman. Hugo raises an eyebrow.

Morgan is going to lose it, he thinks. Then: "Alma? Why are you here?"

"Still a charmer, clearly."

"You know what I meant."

"Right." She waits for him to step aside and wave her in, and for once he's pleased for Ray's compulsions: the flat is Alma-level-clean, bleached and dusted and scrubbed to within an inch of its life, reeking of cheap air freshener. "Nice place. I live in a dump."

"Alma Dhawan? In a dump?"

"I live in London. You can pay £500 a month for a cardboard box." She gestures at the sofa and he nods for her to sit, settling next to her. "Anyway, rent prices aside, do you have any idea about the location of my ex-girlfriend?"

Hugo watches her carefully, but there's no sign of even a wince. She says ex-girlfriend like one might say apple or dog, like she was taught it in phonetic lessons at primary school and sees it as nothing more than a collection of letters. Alma, evidently, does not do hang-ups on past relationships. Or maybe she just doesn't do hang-ups about that one, which Hugo can't really blame her for -- it hardly ended on amicable terms. Towards the end, they took their relationship to the boxing ring. Alma was her best match, both of them adept at hurling themselves from the corners of boxing rings and going to hell on their opponents. It was always a draw, with them. They tripped themselves up to trick the other, took a punch to the gut to aim one at the face, fell and cracked ribs to gain new angles to kick at.

Hugo just hopes Alma hasn't come for her victory.

"She's out," he says, just as his phone starts vibrating. "Why?"

"I'll explain that when Morgan's here. Who was that?"

"The text?" Alma nods. "Oh - that's Ray. We share this flat. He's wasted, as per."

Alma watches the grooves in his face deepen, bottom lip jutting out as she types back a reply. She shakes her head; evidently, nothing much has changed in her absence. She used to think there wasn't a single person in Preston that didn't have a piece of Hugo's heart. Now, it seems, it's shared itself out again.

"Let him be wasted, then." Things are simple, for Alma. Her arteries are very much her own. Loving as loosely as Hugo is the practice of lost souls and healers, and Alma has never been either. "You're still trying to help everybody you meet? I told you that's a lethal practice."

"So is law."

She gives him a wry smile. "You're not wrong. But seriously, this guy is a grown man. Surely he can stop himself from choking on his own vomit."

"You've not met Ray," he says. "Besides, he's my best friend - with or without the alcohol abuse. I can't let the bastard die."

"He won't die." Alma says this with absolute certainty. But then again, she's never been the one to wrap her arms around Ray's shoulders and guide him into the passenger seat, never been the one to rest a hand on his chest and check for a pulse, never been the one to disinfect toilet bowls in the morning and clear the cupboards of alcohol. That, as an unspoken rule, has always been a part of Hugo's role as the Eternally Concerned Best Friend. "You know he won't."