No Longer Safe (16 page)

I took a quick bath, then tuned in to the local
radio in my room. The weather dominated the broadcast; more heavy snow was on
its way. There was no more news about Brody – no mention that they had a name
for the abductor. They must either still be looking into it or have dismissed
me as a crank caller.

I went to the window and watched as tiny flecks of white began
spilling from the sky. Flakes landed on the glass inches from my face clinging
on in single star shapes. I thanked each one, willing it to stay there; more
snow meant Charlie would remain hidden and we were safe – for now.

I must have entered the kitchen without making a sound,
because it was a few seconds before either of them registered my presence. At
first, I thought Mark was leaning, hip to hip against Jodie at the sink, but
when they whisked around, I saw it was Karen. She had a towelling turban on her
head so I couldn’t see any of her hair.

They broke apart awkwardly and I was tempted to apologise,
only doing so would have highlighted the fact that something had been going on
between them. They both looked daggers at me. I wasn’t sure if I’d caught them
in the middle of a steamy argument or in a moment of forbidden passion. Either
way, it left me unnerved.

‘I’m getting supper ready,’ I said, walking purposefully
towards the larder.

‘I had an idea, didn’t I?’ said Mark. Karen gave him a blank
look. ‘I thought I’d go over to Duncaird to get a takeaway from the pub,’ he
went on. ‘They do burgers and chips to go, apparently. I’ve checked the lane
and it’s passable. Save you the bother tonight, Alice.’

‘Oh. Great. Thanks.’

Karen walked past me to the fire and I joined her. She was
sitting with her knees up against her chin. She had let her hair down – it was
still wet and hung like solid spikes over her eyes. Underneath, her pupils
caught the flickering of the flames and glowed like black beetles.

I tilted the rocking chair towards the fire and sat down. I
heard Mark’s voice in the hall then the door-knocker rapped twice. There were
more voices – a female voice, jovial, light-hearted and Mark’s sullen tones in
reply. Then I heard him call Jodie and the door slammed.

After that, it went quiet.

The silence between Karen and I opened into a frosty chasm
and I hugged myself, instinctively, as I built myself up to asking the burning
question.

‘Karen? Why did you invite me here?’

She didn’t move, kept her gaze on the mercurial flames.

‘Karen?’ I repeated.

She slowly turned to face me. ‘You’ve changed a lot since
Uni, haven’t you? You were so innocent and, dare I say, easily led, back then.’

‘I know. I was more like thirteen, instead of eighteen,’ I
admitted.

Karen pursed her lips. ‘I asked you as a way of saying
sorry. I should have kept in touch and I failed miserably.’ Her gaze went back
to the fire and I waited, but she added nothing else.

I wanted to ask about Charlie, but the others could return
and barge in at any moment.

I was getting increasingly jittery about the fact that we’d
simply left him in the byre, lying there, ‘waiting’. Waiting for us to decide
his fate. We were going to have to do something with him one of these days – he
couldn’t stay where he was for ever. And we’d have to act soon, because every
time the temperature crept above freezing his body was sinking into
increasingly foul states of decay.

I left Karen and went through to the kitchen, just as the
others came back. Mark dropped a white plastic bag on the table and we tipped
the burgers out onto our plates. I gathered cutlery and Jodie found tomato
sauce. Karen sat down and didn’t say a word.

‘Stuart was in the pub,’ said Jodie, without any preamble.
She was picking out the small chips and adding the larger ones to Mark’s plate.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘On his own?’

‘I knew you were going to ask that,’ Mark said. ‘He was with
a stunning red-head and they left arm in arm.’

‘No – he wasn’t!’ interjected Jodie. ‘He was talking to some
other guy.’

‘They looked a bit shifty, actually – seriously,’ added
Mark. ‘They were poring over a map – very intense. Then Stuart handed him an
envelope.’

‘You’re right,’ said Jodie, nodding. ‘It did look dodgy.
Stuart kept looking up – you know the way people do when they’re checking to
see if anyone’s watching them. A bit of a giveaway if you ask me.’

Stuart had told me he didn’t know anyone around here. I
didn’t know what to think.

We were all mucking in with the washing up, later,
when Karen idly asked Mark who had been at the door before they went out for
the takeaway.

‘The biddy who owns the place, I think. Mrs Eller…’

‘Ellington,’ Karen corrected.

‘Yeah – that’s it.’ He opened the back door with his roll-up
nipped between his fingers, ready to light up. A blast of freezing air made me
take a step back. ‘I dunno what she wanted – something about needing to get
into the barn – the byre – whatever it’s called.’

I shot round, a dirty plate in my hand. Karen stood
perfectly still.

‘When…when does she need to get in?’ she asked.

‘It’s no big deal. She said she has a key – it was just a
courtesy call in case we saw any strange blokes down the track. She’s got
re-fitters or decorators coming.’

‘When?’ I said.

‘Who are you two? Bill and Ben?’ He stared at his grubby
trainers. ‘Tomorrow…lunchtime? I dunno. I wasn’t really listening.’

Karen’s eyes flashed at me as I dropped the plate into the
soapy water.

‘I’m going to fix my nails,’ Jodie called out to Mark and
anyone else who was interested. I gave her a weak smile and watched her go.
With Mark outside, Karen nudged the back door with her foot, so it was nearly
closed, and dragged me into the sitting room.

My throat had shrunk to the diameter of a straw. ‘Oh shit,
oh shit,’ I chanted, turning in little circles.

She pulled at my arm. ‘Stop it,’ she hissed. ‘Stop this
right now!’

I made myself stand still in front of the low flames and
watched them spit and crackle, then break open one after another.

‘It’s too dark to do anything now,’ Karen whispered. ‘We’ll
have to do it early tomorrow morning.’

‘Do WHAT?! What are we going to do with him?’

‘Do with who?’ said Mark, easing open the connecting door.

‘None of your business,’ snarled Karen. ‘Go away.’ He
sniggered and backed up in jerky robot steps, pulling the door towards him.

All the while, there was a latent curdling in my stomach.
Somehow we had to find a way out of this impossible mess we’d created for
ourselves.

‘I don’t know yet,’ she said, twisting her lip to one side.
‘Meet me in the morning at seven-thirty on the dot.’ She turned at the sound of
the wailing baby monitor and left the room.

I closed my eyes and fought the urge to take in too much
air.
Slow and easy breaths. Slow and easy
.
I couldn’t afford to have a panic attack now. I needed to conserve all my
energy so I didn’t fall apart.

My head felt like it was trapped inside a spin
dryer by the time I got into bed. The sleepwalking incident had pointed the
finger at me, but as time went on, I was having more and more doubts. A thought
suddenly occurred to me. What if Karen wanted to let me carry on believing it
was me, when in fact she was the one who’d killed him? It made sense
logistically. Once Charlie had got into my room,
she
could have hit him from behind.

I reached for my bottle of sleeping tablets. How else was I
meant to sleep at night with all this turmoil going on in my head? Not only
that, but by tomorrow morning we needed to come up with one hell of a
magnificent plan for getting rid of Charlie. And I didn’t have a clue.

Dawn was still off-stage, hovering in the wings
when my alarm went off. I opened the curtains and brought my hand to my mouth.
I’d never seen a snowfall like this; tall drifts were banked up against the
trees, the walls, blocking up all the gates and fences. Icicles hung like
tubular bells from the edge of the bird table. Such a dramatic transformation
had taken place in silence, overnight.

As I reluctantly peeled off my bathrobe, I felt a blast of
cold, as though I’d thrown open the window.

I crept downstairs and pulled on my coat and boots at the
front door. When I tried to open it, nothing happened. I couldn’t even get the
key into the lock; icicles must have formed over the keyhole. I went from room to
room – every windowpane was splintered with frost, an L-shaped frill on the
outside like a Christmas card.

Shit.

I heard a door open upstairs and Karen crept down to join
me, holding her finger to her mouth.

‘Kitchen,’ she whispered.

I followed her to the back door. This one did open, but with
an odd creak. We were greeted with a thick wall of snow reaching to a foot
below the top of the door frame. It was shoulder height; I couldn’t believe it.

‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered, the powdery tufts
blowing into my face. ‘We can’t get out.’

Her frown softened. ‘No one can get in, either. That’s good.
No one can reach
us
.’

‘Yeah, but that won’t put off workmen who live around here.
They must deal with these conditions all the time.’

‘Okay – but it’ll take them longer than normal to get
through to us. The snow against the house is only a drift – over there it’s
about a foot high at the most. We’ll just have to be quick.’

‘There’s a shovel in the scullery,’ I said, louder than I
meant to.

‘Keep the bloody noise down,’ she hissed, flapping her
gloved hands at me as she headed, instead, for the cellar door in the hall.

‘What if Mel wakes up?’ I whispered, when she came back, a
spade in her hand.

‘She won’t.’

Time slipped by as we chipped and chipped, hacking at the
white mound that had tried to seal us in.

‘It’s going to take us ages,’ I said, stopping and leaning
against the cupboard inside the door. We hadn’t even made it outside yet.

‘Stop moaning and get on with it,’ she instructed without
stopping.

When we finally crossed the threshold, having built
waist-high banks of snow on either side of us, I was exhausted. The chill bit
into my fingers and turned our breath into clouds of fog.

A gnawing, icy wind came at us in repeated harsh bursts. It
was a spiteful and vindictive cold – that made you want to do only one thing –
turn back.

‘Right, now we make a path,’ said Karen getting on with it.

I began scooping away the snow with the shovel, carving out
a groove towards the track. The scene before me melted into a blur as my eyes
watered with the cold.

Karen was right, by the time we reached the track, the level
of snow had dropped and only reached our knees. She stood upright and rubbed
sweat from her forehead with her scarf. I turned around and stared at the bank
of snow that had come crashing against the walls of the cottage like a freak
frozen wave.

‘Bloody hell…’

‘Good,’ said Karen, ignoring me. ‘It’s barely light – there
won’t be anybody about.’

We managed to scramble through the snow from then on. I
pulled up my hood and kept my head down against the gusts. An even fiercer wind
was brewing and it was snowing again, coming down in large flakes. Clusters of
them caught on my eyelashes and blinded me for a second. I brushed them away
impatiently.

‘Are you going to tell me what the plan is?’ I demanded,
catching up with her.

‘Tell me your ideas, first,’ she deflected.

Before I’d been sucked down into sleep by my sleeping tablet
last night, I’d run through all the murder plots I could think of, from films
and police dramas.

‘We could make it look like he fell in the byre. There’s
already a hole in the roof – we could make it look like a beam came down on top
of him…’

‘Stage an “accident”?’

‘Yeah. It would explain why he was covered in snow.’

‘We can’t risk it – the wound on his head wouldn’t match.
And where are we going to get a massive wooden beam big enough to have fallen
down and killed him?’ I pictured the byre. She had a point; there’d been
nothing that big lying around. ‘In any case, anyone who comes to the byre will
know the hole has been there a while. It didn’t just happen overnight. Mrs
Ellington wouldn’t be fooled.’

‘Yeah – but maybe with a fresh fall of heavy snow, like we
had last night…it would have taken more of the roof down…’ I was clutching at
straws. I knew we wouldn’t get away with it that way.

I was wheezing by the time we got there. While Karen
unlocked the padlock on the side door, I leant against a stack of wooden
pallets to get my breath back. I glanced out at the horizon. I could see that
dawn was already on our heels keen to catch up with us; the sky splashed with
blood red streaks.

‘Perhaps we could leave him by the roadside,’ I said. ‘Make
it look like he was hit by a car.’

Karen put her hands on her hips. ‘It’s the same problem –
his injuries won’t be consistent.’

‘Mmm – how about we move the body again,’ I suggested
wearily, ‘hide him in the woods?’ I was fed up by now; I was the only one
coming up with all the ideas and Karen was shooting them down, one by one.

‘Bury him?’ She thought about it, but not for long. We were
standing by the icy mound by now, like relatives in a cemetery visiting a new
grave. ‘The ground will be rock solid. No – we have to get rid of him for
good.’

As if we hadn’t done enough already, the idea of getting rid
of his body
for ever
felt like an
unforgiveable sin. Until now, there had always been the potential to come clean
and tell the police the truth. Once the body was gone that door would be
closed. My gut was telling me, however, that it was all we could do.

By now, following my phone call, the police would be out
looking for him. We’d gone too far – there were no other options, if we were
going to stay out of prison. Nevertheless, I knew, once we’d disposed of him
for good, it would eat away at me for the rest of my life. I’d brought my phone
with me and glanced down at the number nine on the keypad. I was tempted to
press it.

Karen saw what I was doing and swung me round, roughly.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she growled, pressing a torch into my other hand.
‘Come on, we’ve got a job to do. We’ve got to clear away all this snow and get
him back into the wheelbarrow.’

I did as I was told from then on, moving like a zombie,
following instructions, trying not to look, trying not to think about what we
were doing. Charlie was floppy when we got to him, but bloated and stinking
like no other smell I’d ever come across, the snow having melted and refrozen
in stages. I had to squeeze my nostrils shut as we stood over him. I was glad
I’d not eaten any breakfast, but still I wretched, bringing up liquid.

‘For fuck’s sake, Alice. Get something to clear that up.’

I rummaged around in the boxes near the newly installed sink
at the back and managed to find a full bottle of disinfectant. I inhaled long
and hard on opening it, sniffing the rich antiseptic fumes in an attempt to
drown out the putrefying stink that was following me around.

I drizzled the neat liquid over the mess and used an
old-fashioned mop, dipped in snow, to clear it away. Karen waited for me, her
arms folded.

‘Okay – on the count of three…’ She grabbed Charlie’s
shoulders, I took his ankles and we swung him into the barrow. We stuffed the
tarpaulin around him, covering him as quickly as we could. Karen lifted the
handles and started to push the barrow round to the side door. I was struggling
to keep it from tipping over with one hand, training the torch beam on the
floor with the other. Thank goodness he had a small frame.

A sudden shudder of hysteria made me want to laugh. We probably
looked farcical, like a scene from Laurel and Hardy; two hapless creatures
struggling with an unwieldy body in a wheelbarrow. It might have been funny had
it not been so abhorrent.

I held on to my forehead, suddenly too hot, stars starting
to sparkle in front of my eyes. I steadied myself against the wall.

‘What are you doing? Come on – let’s go,’ said Karen, and we
steered him out into the breaking daylight. The near distance was clear and
snowbound, the far distance pure mist. I couldn’t see the outline of any trees
or mountains. That was good – one factor in our favour.

‘What if someone sees us?’ I said, switching off the torch
and dropping it into my pocket.

‘They won’t. Just keep moving.’

‘What about his rucksack?’ It was still lying on the floor
under the pond liner.

‘We’ll burn it later.’

It was hard going at first, ploughing against the
snowdrifts; awkward mounds had swollen in our path like carbuncles. We took it
in turns to push the wheelbarrow, then tried for a bit with a handle each.

I knew straight away where we were going. It was the obvious
place. With every minute that passed, the mist grew thinner and before long we
could see for miles. Thankfully, the clouds remained and the sun didn’t break
through, as we trundled with our burden through stretches of wasteland. It was
wild and hostile – everything I was feeling inside at the disgrace of this
terrible wrongdoing.

The path opened out and we had to cross the corner of a
field to get down to the water’s edge. Overnight, the loch had been
transformed, giving the false appearance of a steaming cauldron. I could barely
see the water; I tried to locate landmarks on the horizon, but could only guess
at the expanse of it. At this spot, the temperature seemed to dip below
freezing and wasn’t about to get any warmer. Flecks of snow were turning my
cheeks to ice.

We stood back on the bank with Charlie in front of us like a
child in a pram.

‘Now what?’ I said.

Karen was searching along the water’s edge. Of course; the
boats – Karen had told us that at least one was always left on each side. We
both scoured the shore, batting away the reeds with our gloved hands. Then I
spotted one, half-hidden, wrapped up in the curling mist like an Impressionist
painting. It appeared to be floating away, but I soon realised the boat was
still and it was the mist that was moving.

We dragged it onto the bank and, after several ugly
attempts, managed to tip Charlie inside. Karen got into the boat while I followed
her instructions and found rocks for his pockets. I dropped them into the boat
and got in.

We took an oar each, although it was clear early on that
Karen was stronger. She kept tutting and waiting for me to straighten the boat
up. We kept going until we could see the far side of the lake with the same
degree of haziness as we could see the place we’d come from.

‘This is probably about the middle,’ she said. ‘Start
filling every pocket you can find.’

I’d forgotten we’d have to touch him like this. She started
with his jacket pockets and I couldn’t help turning away. She nudged my elbow
and pushed a stone into my hand. Silent tears came as I made myself press it
into the back of his jeans. Then another. She tucked in his t-shirt and dropped
a bundle down the front and back, against his torso. I was glad of the tears;
they turned his limbs before me into indeterminate blobs.

I couldn’t believe Karen was being so matter of fact about
it. She tugged him across the edge of the boat so his head was almost touching
the water.

‘Wait,’ I said, outrage catching my throat. ‘Shouldn’t we
say something – a prayer or something?’

‘Do what you like – I’m getting him in.’

She huffed and puffed and managed to tip his whole body
overboard without my help. The splash sounded loud and lasted too long in my
ears. I looked up, scanning the horizon. We were exposed in the boat. If the
mist cleared, as it was doing in patches, we’d be spotted straight away.

‘Right,’ said Karen. ‘Row with all you’ve got, back the way
we came. We need to mess up our tracks.’

We sploshed and splashed furiously in an attempt to turn the
boat and get back to the bank as quickly as possible. I was nearly sick with
fatigue, my head on fire, by the time we reached the shore.

‘There will be DNA in the boat,’ I said, staring into its
shell.

‘Let’s smash it up and sink it,’ she said, grabbing a sharp
boulder from the edge of the water. I looked up – knowing we were going to be
making a noise. I saw movement to my right.

‘There’s someone there,’ I said in a loud whisper, my breath
in snatches. ‘We’ve been seen.’

I felt sweat prickle under my arms. I was starting to feel
trapped. Everything was collapsing. What we were doing was terribly wrong. It
had been wrong from the start. If only Karen had been able to get through to
the police when she’d made that first call. If only there had been a landline
in the cottage.

Karen brought the rock down on to the ribs of the boat.
‘Just get on with it,’ she said. ‘Anyone will think the noise is someone
chopping firewood.’

We battered the boat with all the energy we had left and
gradually it splintered and several planks gave way. We set it off into the
water with a brusque shove and then threw more stones at it, willing it to
sink. It rocked and floated, rocked and still floated.

‘Nothing’s happening,’ I wailed. It was too late to reach
out for it, the rope had sunk and the boat itself was too far away, bobbing
innocently on the surface.

We stared at it and slowly the boat listed to one side, then
steadily – barely perceptibly – it tipped all the way in.