It was only on a first impression, but Molly knew she liked London.

She liked the grey sky, the grey buildings, the grey people, the grey pavements. It was every English city in a microcosm, just slightly busier and with a whiff of affluence and multiculturalism that was sometimes missing elsewhere.

As she and Jim walked down the grey pavements past a woman in a grey coat with a grey face, Molly thought about how she loved the fact no-one glanced at them twice. Cambridge had felt cosseted and golden in comparison; sort of bubbly, friendly, soft. London had harder edges.

It was sort of perfect.

Jim's flat was huge, lovely, empty. Jim was the same.

Jim was cold eyed and silent all the way in on the train. He'd changed as they'd left Cambridge- drawn into himself. He looked older, more serious, more frightening. For the first time since she'd graduated Molly wondered why she hadn't ever considered doing anything but following Jim to London. After all, she thought, in truth I don't know all that much about him; nothing that matters.

Molly suddenly felt sleepy, and so slept the rest of the way.

The new flat had everything in it- all Jim's furniture, carpets, lights- but it had nothing to make it feel lived in. There were no functional items on any surface, no books yet on the wide shelves. More pressingly there was no food in any cupboard; it hadn't occurred to Jim to buy anything like that. Molly knew how he sometimes forgot to eat.

In the end Jim bought them a take-way, an Indian from round the corner. Molly's first taste of London was half-warm curry and half-cold beer. They sat the wide new table in the bare white kitchen and ate with plastic forks from the foil containers. There wasn't yet a clock anywhere in the house so Molly had to clue what time it was, though it felt late. It was dark. The kitchen was lit with harsh white lights.

Jim wrinkled his nose and poked a piece of cauliflower with his fork. The plastic bent slightly, but held.

"I want you out by Saturday." His voice was low and ponderous.

"By, Saturday?"

Jim didn't respond but popped the cauliflower in his mouth and chewed slowly.

"I thought I could stay here a little while until I find somewhere of my own." Molly was bemused, but not insulted. Saturday was the day after tomorrow.

"I've found you somewhere. It's not far from here, from me, but it's also not far from that silly job you applied to either. Not that matters. They're going to give it to you, but you're going to turn it down, obviously."

Molly set down her fork, "What makes you think that?" She slowly reached for her beer bottle, and then wrapped her hands around its neck, looking at Jim with her deep set eyes.

He met her gaze with his, brown eyes to brown eyes. "What makes me think what exactly?"

"That I'll turn it down."

"That was meant to be a subtle job offer. I'm clearly just too subtle."

Molly raised her eyebrows, "Well I don't want it. I don't want your job."

There was a moment of silence in which a siren wailed distantly outside.

"You what?" Jim's face was all of a sudden screwed up with incredulity. He dropped his fork into his curry so he could use both hands to gesticulate. "You don't want it? You don't even know what I'm offering you. You can't possibly-" he searched the empty air for the word, "-comprehend what I'm offering you." He blinked and tipped his head on one side like a kicked dog. "You're not taking that crappy job; I want you to work for me."

Molly looked away and took her time in taking a drink of beer. "Well I don't want to. I want to work for someone I don't know. I want to do what I've been learning to do for four years."

"I thought you were interesting."

"I don't even know what this job is."

"So you reject it like that? Your salary at the-"

"You know I don't care about the mon-"

"Then what the fuck do you care about? Why are you trying so hard to be normal when you could amazing?" Jim slammed his hand down on the table, eyes wide, angry, pale.

Molly swallowed; her mouth was a little dry despite the beer. "I-"

"You, nothing." Jim blinked slowly. "I thought you were… I thought you were-" he shook his head and picked up his fork again and carried on eating as though nothing had happened.

The silence stretched out painfully for a minute or two.

Molly broke it first. "Tell me about the job then?"

"No."

Molly thought. "Tell me about you then."

"No."

"Please!"

"Why? You know about me."

"No I don't." Molly set down her fork, not that she'd eaten anymore. "I may as well take advantage of this, as this is the most normal conversation we've ever had -to say this: I don't know anything about you." Her voice sounded smaller than she'd intended. She usually kept what she said short.

"Well what do you want to know?" Jim hadn't bubbled back into a good mood again like he normally did. His face was stony. Molly wondered if she should just leave it. Talk to him about something else. Anything else. They'd been so close at Cambridge, was that just an illusion? Everything since they'd come to London had felt stilted. Like they were strangers. She felt that she knew her cadavers better. She decided to press on.

"I'd like to know where you came from, family, that kind of stuff. You never would say."

Jim looked up at her slowly, expression inscrutable. A few long seconds past, and Molly wondered if he was about to hit her.

Instead, however, he started to speak, slowly, as though he were recounting a shopping list:

"I'm an only child. I was born in a cramped terraced house with grey pebbledash and damp, in Ireland. I went to school and did the kind of stuff that you do when you go to school in a shitty little town somewhere unheard of with a bunch of idiots. When I was thirteen we moved to England, to the south, me and my parents." He caught her look. "Oh right, parents, I suppose in the great nature vs. nurture argument you'd be for the former, how wonderful. How typical. Well, if you think they matter- my mother was a bit like you. Slight, dangerous, pretty, except she had dark hair like I do, and she wasn't as midgety as you are, offense intended. She played the clarinet since she was small and had studied music, but she stopped after she married, which was the most stupid thing she ever did. Or the two most stupid things. She was also an alcoholic, 'boo hoo' I know, sob story isn't it? My dad was an electrician. Stupid, charming, grumpy. I don't know what she saw in him. I went to a local grammar school, but I made them let me skip a few years. Then, I went to university, studied lots of lovely maths for want of anything better. So where are we now?" He looked unflinchingly at Molly, considering her reaction, and laid his hands down flat on the table. "-Then I met you. I moved to London. I ate curry and disappointed you by being frank when you're used to charming Jim, university Jim, lies and glitter. I moved to London and lost my favourite necrophiliac who chose dead bodies over her one true love."

Jim's lips almost twitched into a smile at the end. Molly didn't know if his story had been a lie or not, but she didn't really mind. She reached out her left hand across the table and laid it on top of his. His hand was cold.

Jim smiled at her, all teeth.

Molly smiled shyly back, "I thought you were going to end it with an orphan twist and get all teary."

"Oh I can if you like!" Jim's eyes lit up, but he slipped his hand out from under hers. "That's SUCH a good idea! Sadly I had it first, so no kudos to you, but at least you thought of it too."

"So it does end like that?"

"No that part happened after I got my first degree." Jim smiled. "It was quite bloody."

A second dripped by, the kitchen silent.

"You did- didn't, mind?" Molly wondered if she'd heard him right. If she'd understood him correctly.

Jim smiled even more widely, as another beat dropped.

"I didn't mind? I killed them Mols," His eyes laughed at her, as though she was stupid for not realising what he was saying. The thought struck Molly that this was a test.

Time yet again felt too slow.

Jim licked his lips and watched her face. "All those last few years, being morbid and malicious together, but never actually doing anything, never acting on it, did you think I was joking?"

Molly looked up into his eyes which seemed very, very deep. This was the answer to his test; so she took a moment to consider. "Yes, maybe -I did. But I hoped you weren't, I think. At least, I don't mind." She blinked and broke eye-contact. "I don't mind at all, you know I don't, and that's what's wrong with me."

She could hear Jim's smile, his pride. Time came back to speed as she heard a bus hiss past outside the window. She'd passed. "No Mols, that's what's right with us. Emotion is a trait of the loosing side, though some emotions are good, like happiness, and fun. I like those. I just find them in odd ways." He chuckled deeply and reached for his beer, taking a deep swig and leaning back in his hair stretching his shoulders back so his T-shirt stretched over his chest. "You really don't want the job?"

"Sorry Jim, I don't at the moment. Maybe later?"

"Fair enough. I love an independent woman."

"Fuck off."

"I love you too."

The peace in the flat seemed amiable again.

Molly finished her cold curry at a steady pace. Jim left his and sat and watched her eat, and then when she was finished picked up the greasy foil turmeric stained boxes and threw then away into the sterile brand new bin, plastic forks and all. He seemed small in the wide kitchen, but quite real and vital. Molly could see the tendons in his arm move as he took the empty beer bottles, glass clattering, and placed them next to the unused sink, turning on the water and carefully washing his hands. Molly watched his shoulder blades move through his T-shirt.

Jim then leant on the sink as he dried his hands on paper tissues Molly passed to him. They were the only thing they had, and those were 'borrowed' from the take-away. Jim had shown no inclination to unpack yet.

"Where do you want to sleep? Sofa, floor, or with me?" Jim threw a carefully aimed tissue and it plopped straight into the open bin. He tucked his hands in his pockets, eyes glittering.

Molly never knew quite how far he was joking- quite how far it was a tease -or how much he really meant it. In that way. That was the thing about Jim though; he could say the most cringing awkward dirty horrible things (not that this was one of those) and felt no shame. Shame was not in his emotional vocabulary, along with several other things, thought Molly.

"I think I'll be fine with the sofa."

"Though we both know what your real answer would be."

"Of course." She smiled, suddenly tired again, and stood up and wished him good night.

He smiled, lopsidedly, and stayed by the sink as she went to search her bags for a toothbrush and the T-shirt she wore in bed. She noticed that there were already a duvet thrown onto the sofa, an oddly thoughtful act for someone who forgot food, tissues and general household necessities. Not to mention killed his parents.

Molly heard Jim leave the kitchen, and heard the noises in the flat as he washed, and searched for things in the boxes in the corridor. Just as she turned out the light barefoot and shivering in the cold empty room (no curtains yet, the street light cast melting shadows on the boards) his voice sing-songed faintly across the flat, almost hushed, "Night-night Molly Mols."

She leant on the cool door frame, "Goodnight Jim."

There was no reply, so Molly returned to the sofa and curled up into it like a foetus, curled under the duvet as the cars drove past outside. Their lights and the lack of curtains made the shadows slink along the walls in time to their movement, disappearing as they reached the end in a gush of rushing light. Molly found it quite comforting.

She fell asleep quickly, and dreamt of white walls and light, of Jim's brown eyes, and of blood.

She knew she was going to be happy in London.