When Matthew got home there was a message on his phone that read, “Keep the key!!!”. It was from Christian.

He was surprised to see that the message was from two-fifteen, when they hadn’t gone out on the boat until four. He had left the phone at home, and so had missed the message, though now that he read it, he had to wonder once again what Christian was playing at. He must have put Lukas up to it. What other explanation was there? Still, though, when Matthew had asked Lukas, surely he had been telling the truth. He hadn’t spoken to Christian. He had said so.

Matthew dialled Christian’s number, but there was no answer. ‘Call me,’ he said, and went down to tea.

Later that night, he called Christian again, but it was near eleven, when he was thinking of going to bed, that the phone finally rang.

It was Lukas.

‘Hey,’ Lukas said.

‘Oh, hey,’ Matthew said, throwing himself on the bed. ‘I thought it was Christian.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No. You’re not. What do you want?’

‘I just…um,’ Lukas said. ‘I really need your help with something.’

‘Yeah? What is it?’

‘I can’t really…Do you think you could come over?’

‘It’s pretty late.’

‘Yeah, but, it’s…’

‘What?’

‘I can’t really say on the phone.’

‘O-kay?’ Christian said, separating the two syllables into a question. ‘And you want me to come now?’

There was no answer.

‘I’ll ask my Dad if I can borrow the car,’ Matthew said.

When he arrived, Lukas opened the door to him.

‘My Dad’s out and McCady’s asleep,’ Lukas said.

Matthew hung his coat up in the hall.

‘Do you want something to eat, or coffee or something? A drink?’

Matthew shook his and frowned. Was Lukas drunk? He looked pale, paler than usual, and he was wearing his pyjama bottoms with a white singlet, as though he was ready for bed. He had runners on, but his hair was mussed, as mussed as it could get, Matthew supposed, as it was so smooth and fair and heavy. He wasn’t the sort of person who got flyaway hair.

‘Are you drunk?’ Matthew said.

‘No. I took some pain killers.’

‘Yeah? What’s up?’

Lukas dithered for a moment, as though struggling to say something, and then he said, ‘Come out the back.’

Matthew followed Lukas down a corridor which led off the back of the hall. They passed through the kitchen, through a warren of rooms, and then into a small hall, where there was a door, and a dark wooden staircase, leading upstairs and down.

Matthew was surprised. He had spent hours playing in this house as a kid, but had never been into this part of it.

Lukas opened the door. It led into a long, three car garage, built onto the back of the house. The fluorescent lights flickered into life, and Matthew was aware of a wide expanse of shining quarry tiles, and then, at the far end of it, a bright yellow car with large wheels and a low slung body.

Lukas led the way across the garage to the farther side.

‘Whose car is this?’ Matthew said, as they approached it.

‘Oh, it’s mine,’ Lukas replied, turning around. He was standing in front of it. ‘My dad bought it, for my birthday.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a Maserati. A Quattroporte.’

‘Shit. It looks pretty expensive.’

‘Yeah. I can’t drive it yet. I haven’t got my license.’

‘You should get it,’ Matthew said, walking along the side of the car and looking in the windows.

‘Yeah. That’s what my dad says, but I’m kind of afraid of it, to tell you the truth.’

‘It looks pretty powerful.’

‘Yeah. But I only chose it cause I like the way it looks.’

‘How much did it cost?’

‘I don’t know – like, two or three hundred thousand, or something.’

Matthew said nothing. Lukas’ father was a writer. Famous in Scandinavia, but not here. It didn’t make him much money, Matthew supposed, but he had been rich anyway. He had inherited his money from Lukas’ mother, who had died in a car accident, an accident where Lukas had been in the car, but not badly injured.

It was probably this that made Lukas afraid of driving. Knowing his mother had been killed in a car, and he probably had memories of the crash.

‘Can I sit in it?’

‘If you want. It’s open.’

Matthew opened the door and stared in dismay at the dash. He climbed into the seat and put his hands on the wheel. Everything smelt of leather.

Lukas climbed into the passenger seat.

‘Fuck man, you should get your license,’ Matthew said.

Lukas said nothing.

‘We could go up the coast or something.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. This’d turn a few girls’ heads.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sure. I mean…it’d turn anyone’s head.’

‘Well, you could drive it.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure. I mean – you can drive it now, if you want to.’

‘Yeah?’ Matthew said, turning to face him, suddenly excited.

Lukas smiled uncertainly. ‘If you want.’

‘No.’ Matthew drew the sound out and took his hands off the wheel. ‘What would your dad say?’

Lukas shrugged his shoulders.

‘Do you want to?’

‘Not really,’ Lukas said. ‘I mean…after…I need you to help me with something.’

Matthew frowned. ‘What?’ he said.

‘I feel like I’m going crazy,’ Lukas said. ‘I feel like I’m possessed. And if you don’t want to be friends after this, well, it doesn’t matter. I mean…I want you to be my friend but…’

‘What?’

‘Well, I…’

There were moments of silence.

‘If you don’t tell me,’ Matthew eventually said. ‘I’m just going to go. I’m supposed to be going into town tomorrow. I have to get up at six.’

Lukas nodded. Matthew saw his bottom lip quiver, and realised he was going to cry.

Fuck, he said to himself. ‘Has this got something to do with that key?’

Lukas nodded and turned his head away, looking out the window, as though there was a view, as though they were going somewhere.

Matthew put his hands on the wheel and stared at the dash.

‘I keep getting these stupid ideas in my head. Ever since we made that statue. And it’s like, there’s voices in my head, telling me to do shit. And it’s not stuff I really want to do. But I get the idea I have to do it.’

Matthew gripped the wheel tighter.

‘Anyway, it’s like the other day, ringing you up. I had this idea this morning that I had to do this and… give you that key, but I didn’t expect you to throw it away. I thought you’d know all about it…and then, when I came home, I thought maybe there was another key, a spare one, but there isn’t, I’ve looked.’

‘Do you want the key?’

‘Of course,’ Lukas said.

It was in his pocket, Matthew realised. He took his right hand off the wheel and pinched his jeans with his fingers, feeling for the key. He felt the outline of it, a tiny piece of steel, and then he realised that Lukas was undoing the cord of his pyjama pants.

Matthew froze.

What was he doing?

Matthew frowned and tried not to look and then looked. Lukas opened the pants wide. Smooth pale flesh, and then he had his balls in the palm of his hand, held up to show Mathew. There was something trapped around them. Something metal. Brass?

‘What’s that?’ Matthew said. ‘A padlock? What did you put that on there for?’

He bit his lips in silence and frowned at the dash, gripping the wheel with both hands. He watched his knuckles turn white while Lukas tied his pants up. They were pale blue, and had little white bunnies all over them, and they were too short for Lukas, rising up above his ankles.

They looked like the sort of thing a kid would wear, as though he had had them for years.

There was a silence.

‘You know, that’s a pretty gay thing to do,’ Matthew eventually said, gritting his teeth and looking at Lukas’ arm. He could hit Lukas. He could lash out and punch him till his face was a bloody mess.