Jim often let himself into Molly's flat, even though she'd never given him the keys. She suspected that the very low rent she paid was something to do with him too, but she never asked. Some people might have felt insulted by the favours Jim casually tossed at her, but Molly didn't care. It was his choice, and she benefited from it. She didn't feel indebted to him in any way and she knew he didn't want her to. That wasn't the point of it.

As well as the rent, she also liked the bodies.

They started with a text late one night, maybe a year or so after the 'meeting Sebastian' incident:

Make it up to you with a prezzie- it'll arrive tomorrow. -Jim xx

What he was making up to her she couldn't recall. Whatever the reason, the present was, however, wonderful:

A young woman. An interesting death, not obvious, a puzzle, a riddle. Jim left clues. The width and spacing of the bruise marks on her upper arm (the size of Sebastian's hand). The neat scratches, thin, not deep on her left hand (like a grid for noughts and crosses). It was a game, searching, guessing, testing.

It took her two days. Lab tests took time. When Molly worked out how they'd done it, she texted Jim back and asked him if she he wanted her to cover it up, to lie. (Mysterious poisonings get interest, she thought.) Jim's response was quick and irritable:

No. I'll just have to try harder next time so you can't figure it out. -Jim x

Molly smiled to herself and set to clearing up the lab, nodding and looking vaguely worried in response to her colleagues shocked chatter about the odd death. She left work only half an hour late, and bought some wine on the way home.

Jim was already there, lying on her sofa, still as stone except for the slight rise and fall of his chest. Molly thought it'd be prettier if he wasn't breathing, but that had other implications. As she quietly walked past him quietly in her tights he didn't move -if he was actually asleep, anyway.

In her small neat kitchen Molly opened a bottle of the wine, and put some pasta on, moving contentedly, silence permeating the flat except for the gentle hiss of steam from the pan, and the sounds of the crockery- the gritty chink of plates and the harsher stinging noise of the cutlery.

She set two places even though she didn't imagine Jim would eat much. He never seemed to, though he wasn't as thin as he used to be any more. Now he was just slender. He looked older, more mature, but healthier: successful crime obviously gave him a healthy glow. Molly herself had changed little over the last year. She worked at the same place, followed the same mundane rituals or early mornings and commuting and work and going to the shops and cooking, bath, bed. She'd let her hair grow out from it's harsh bob so it hung in mousy waves just brushing her shoulders. She still wore a lot of black like in her student days; black mascara her only real vanity.

Molly drained the pasta, blinking in the rolling waves of hot steam, and put it back into the saucepan with a lid on to keep warm while she went to get Jim. He was texting, still lying down, the phone held up in front of his face his arms straight up in the air. He'd left his shoes by the door and his socked feet were crossed over the sofa arm. His head rested on the other arm.

He was just wearing his pale grey shirt and black tie, black narrow suit trousers, and deep red socks, like wine. Just the material of the clothes told Molly that the shirt probably cost more than her entire outfit. It suited him though, but Molly couldn't tell if 'it' was smug satisfaction, money, or fine tailoring.

Molly perched by his feet and waited for him to send the text. He typed deftly, then lowered the phone, and dropped it to one side onto the carpet casually. It hit the floor with a thump.

"Dinner?" His voice was low and amiable, and he nudged her off the arm of the sofa with his feet, so he could swing his legs down and get up.

They ate in the kitchen at Molly's battered light wooden table. Molly didn't mention the present, and let Jim set the conversation, moaning about a stupid client, about a film he saw that was utterly ridiculous, about a book he'd read by a fellow maths graduate that was the biggest load of nonsense imaginable.

They could almost have been a normal couple.

Molly was a messy person by nature. Entropy, she insisted to Jim's frustrated sighs about the state of her flat. He told her she was misusing the word and actually it didn't apply to socks, or dirty dishes but was a scientific principle. Today though, he let her leave their plates stacked haphazardly on the table.

They went into the living room.

Molly decided that she had to say something about the woman.

"Thank you for making work more interesting."

Jim was poking at her bookcase in distain. He sighed and crossed to the sofa, sitting down in a flop on the seat. "Sorry I couldn't get you a handsome young man; it was an idea I had at short notice."

Molly smile slightly. She was standing at the end of the sofa and absent mindedly she curled a piece of her hair round a finger. "I've got you instead."

Jim looked at her and raised his eyebrows, but patted the seat next to him, flopping back into the well used cushions as though it were his home. He reached for the TV controller as Molly sat down next to him, the sofa cushions tipping in at the middle with their combined weight. Molly leant into him and he put an arm round her.

Jim flicked channels with his other hand.

"Just don't go dissecting me right now, I think, because you won't find much of a heart."

Molly looked at him quizzically even though he wasn't looking at her face, but at the TV screen which cast flickering shadows over his features. "That's a very un-you like thing to say."

Jim made a 'that was obvious' face, and sucked in air through his teeth. He shifted his seat a little and turned to face her so their faces were very close.

"It's only an un-me like thing to say if you think that I meant it was bad thing. And obviously, anatomically I do have one." He smiled, and it was wide and full of long teeth with lazy eyes. Molly didn't move. Jim leant forwards and kissed her nose.

Molly felt like saying how un-Jim like that was too, but she didn't. He turned back to the TV and leant back into the seats. There was a pause. The news started and Jim watched without interest, and turned the sound down low.

He wrinkled his nose.

"Oh look at us Molly-Mols, playing happy families, playing normal."

"And?"

"It's such a stupid waste of life."

"Why are you doing it then?"

"I'm just testing the water, don't be- oh gods don't get sentimental or I'll have to- just- that's a stupid thing to say. We're not just people. " He spat out the word with distain, and took his arm away, crossing his ankles again and moved his shoulder irritably where Molly leant into him. She shifted her pressure off a little.

Molly thought about speaking, but there wasn't much to say.

"You know, I was kind of pissed off that you figured it out so quickly. Half admiration, half annoyance. Was it me being too obvious, or was it Sebastian? I bet it was Sebastian."

"Or I could just be very good."

"Or that. I think it was Sebastian. It was the arm wasn't it? I told him to be gentle, but no, leave a massive bruise right there so you can see that we had to hold her, and then…"

"That did help."

"Sebastian. Stupid boy."

Molly tilted her head to catch Jim's expression, it was half smile which went as quickly as it came. Jim rolled his eyes, "I'll just have to tell him off later."

Molly made a faint noise of assent, "Hm," and Jim looked at her with a flashing smile, very bright in the gloom of the room and the TV. "Jealous?"

"You always ask."

"You never answer."

"You don't generally go for answers though do you?"

Jim chuckled in the dark, leaning back into the cushions again. "I'm not a serial rapist you know."

Molly laughed, an odd sound, "I didn't quite mean that. I meant about reading people."

Jim smiled lazily, "I know."

"Oh you're just being irritating." Molly shoved his shoulder, "Can I get you more wine?"

"Trying to get me drunk now are we?"

Molly stood up and kicked his legs with her socked toe, "Wine or not?"

"M'kay."

When she came back with two glasses Jim was texting again, he accepted his glass without looking at her. Molly perched on the sofa arm so as not to rock him. A few taps, sent.

Jim looked at her and she couldn't read his eyes in the dark, twisting to face him though she sat facing out from the sofa. Molly thought that should turn a light on but the harsh yellow and blinking seemed very unappealing. She put her wine down on the floor.

"Was the lady a one-off, or are you going to send any more my way?"

"As many as you desire my princess." Jim faked a posh English accent rather convincingly. Molly thought his expression was irritated though, in the gloom. He took a drink of wine then also set the glass down on the floor by his phone.

There was a dark pause that filled the room like a question.

Molly sighed, "I'm sorry I'm being mundane today. But why do you keep- acting? I know you can act, and- you hate normal."

Molly always said things that shouldn't be said, but this was Jim, this was what he was there for.

There was pause again as Jim twisted his jaw sideways, and then slowly a smile crawled up and onto his face. (At least Molly thought so; it was hard to see his features.)

"I'm an actor darling, it's my job." He drew his vowels out long and ugly, still in that English accent. She could see his teeth, white in the dark, "You know me..."

Jim stood up with a crunch of sofa cushion and slowly walked round face Molly who was still on her sofa arm. She turned back to face him too. Standing directly in front of her his legs touched hers, and he reached out a hand to touch the line of her jaw, gently, with fingertips.

"Just don't you turn into someone normal, like this too, okay? I tried to make it up with the body; and I know you need my guiding light, and I've been busy with little Seb and work, but really." He paused, "You can still work for me whenever you like, you know."

Molly closed her eyes, tiredly. "I know."

She felt Jim's finger ghost across her eyelid.

All of a sudden Jim grabbed Molly by the waist and stepped forwards to press to her, his legs sliding between hers. Her forehead pressed into his chest as his fingers curled into the soft flesh of her waist through her T-shirt. He stood stock still as Molly relaxed and let her hands rest gently on his hips. They stayed like that for a few long seconds, his breath tickling her hair against her forehead, as he leant down over her, their bodies close, his mouth over the crown of her head.

His proximity was warm, his shirt beneath her fingers was silky.

"So do you want me to stay here tonight, or?" Jim's voice was very low, velvet. The TV hissed faintly about horrors in the background.

Molly tilted up her face to his and found his mouth, and kissed him gently. His lips were cool and not as soft as she'd imagined. He tasted of wine and smelt of Jim. She had to stretch up to reach from her lower position on the arm of the sofa. Jim half returned the kiss but Molly pulled back.

"No. Go back to your Sebastian."

Jim leant back from her in surprise and snorted in annoyance and amusement. He leant his head back to sneer in derision to the room, looking down at her seriously. "You are ordinary." He shook his head, "For one, that's none of your fucking business, two, you surely don't believe we're dating like- like that do you? Three, I don't think that you or I are the kinds of creature to go in for loyalty or some other artificial concept, and four if it even matters we're not fucking, yet." His fingers dug into her waist, slightly painfully.

"No."

"Not yet." Jim smiled, then it clouded and he shook his head raising his eyes to the ceiling. "So I attempt everyday romance, like normal people, and you don't even go in for that." Jim let go of her and stepped backwards, brushing creases of his shirt. "I'll just keep sending you dead bodies then."

Molly sighed, smiled gently, "Okay."

Jim's face suddenly switched back to normal as he leant past her and turned the light on. It flickered into life with a blinding artificial yellow as the bulb warmed up. His face switched with it, back to happy cheery Jim. He twisted his mouth and looked about the room.

"Well, I'd best be off them."

Molly nodded as he crossed the carpet to pick up his phone and tucked it into his trouser pocket, and drained the rest of his wine.

"See you then." Jim walked back and leant in to kiss her cheek, then dead eyed wandered out of the room to get his things. In an age old habit Molly didn't follow, just listened as he put his shoes and jacket on, then let himself out.

The door slammed gently.

The flat was quiet again.

Molly stood up to turn the TV off but accidentally kicked over the wine glass by her feet, not catching it in time as the red liquid drooled out in a rush onto her light carpet. On reflex she nearly ran to get a cloth, but instead froze and just watched it as the liquid sank slowly down into the pile. She squatted next to it and pressed her fingers into the soft fabric so the wine welled up around them.

Oh well, stains tell you you've lived.

She righted the now empty glass and crossed to turn the TV off, then back to turn the light off, then the one in the kitchen.

Lights, one by one, and then in the dark flat she went to bed.

Molly wondered if Jim would send her body another as early as tomorrow.