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CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

Protestations of innocence, by their very nature, rely for their success on an element of reasonable doubt. In its absence, the customary citation of mitigating circumstances—I was drunk; I didn’t see the sign; she told me she was eighteen—rarely acquits the red-handed perpetrator of even the most minor infraction. Inevitably, therefore, there comes a time in every man’s life when, like it or not, he has little option but to address his own culpability.

Sammy had lost all of her sparkle. I’d stashed her in the barn eight nights ago, with the intention of returning to the grim task of her disposal once blinkered and numb from drink. Neither weather nor wildlife had been kind to her; the foxes, who had seemingly conspired en masse to drag her off to the woods, had given up halfway and simply stripped her from the toes up, to the extent that the long bones of her legs lay amid a mulchy black stain on the grass several feet from the rest of her. Thanks to the crows, her hair was patchy and matted, eyes absent from their sockets. Her blackened skin had shifted and torn as the tissue began to slide from her bones; it hung ragged over a crooked pelvis, trailing slippery, putrid flesh.

A haze of flies swirled around her, mingling with the army of beetles crawling inside to feast and spawn; the grass around her writhed with a million glistening maggots. Sammy neither looked nor smelled her best.

Fairey turned to me with an expression of wounded disbelief; teeth clenched, nostrils flared and whistling, eyes narrowed in hesitant accusation. He slowly and silently shook his head, clearly at a loss for adequate words.

It takes a strong and wise man to admit to his mistakes, to confess his sins and accept that the game is up. Face the music with dignity and humility. Stand tall and take the heat. “It’s not what it looks like,” I said.

He opened his mouth to speak then, but the only sound was a faint gurgle as, without warning, he unleashed a stream of thick orange vomit onto his shoes. His eyes bulged, and his chest heaved, and he doubled over, flattening the grass with the remains of his breakfast. He staggered back, a rope of glutinous bile swinging back and forth from his lip as he fumbled for his mobile phone.

For the sake of convenience, I let him hook it from his pocket before stepping in and planting my elbow in the hinge of his jaw. He toppled with a groan but clung tight to the mobile as he went down; I stepped on his throat and twisted his fingers but he was determined not to let go.

“Get off me,” he croaked, squirming around underfoot.

“Give me the phone, then,” I said.

“Fuck off, get off me.”

“Give me the phone, and I will.”

He gritted his teeth and thrashed his legs and squeezed his clammy fist shut, clawing at my leg with his free hand. “You’re not fucking having it,” he snarled.

Without the necessary balance to effectively crush his windpipe, I lifted my foot and shook it free of his grasping fingers before bringing it down hard in the center of his face. His nose cracked like a walnut and his upper lip split open, filling his mouth with blood. When he didn’t let go of the phone, I did it again, snapping his front teeth off at the gum. He struggled and gagged, but still refused to loosen his grip. The third kick popped his cheekbone and the fourth shattered his jaw, at which point the phone finally jumped right out of his hand.

His disjointed face coated entirely in blood, he coughed a mouthful onto the grass along with his teeth and a chunk of lip. “Huck,” he rasped through a tight-eyed grimace. “I’ll huckin ha ya, ya hunt.”

A swift kick to the temple shut him up.

Mindful of the need to contain the situation in some way I hadn’t yet thought of, and sick to my stomach at having been caught unarmed, I slipped from behind the barn and headed for the drive, settling for a busy stride over an attention-grabbing sprint. Constable Keith was still waiting obediently by the car, prodding away at his touch screen. If Fairey stayed down, my unhurried pace and man-on-an-errand expression should give him no cause for concern.

His first glance was fleeting and casual, and I met it with a weary, tight-lipped smile. His second, however, stopped my heart. It followed the first by a fraction of a second, riding on a violent snap of the constable’s head, and carried that look of confused horror that was rapidly coming to symbolize my morning.

And then there was Erica, not so much hiding as staring out the kitchen window, hand raised to her brow to block out the sun. I was sure I didn’t want to see what they were staring at, but I glanced behind me as I walked; sure enough, Fairey was up on his knees, clinging to the corner of the barn with one arm and weakly waving the other above his bloody, misshapen head. He quickly lost his balance, falling face-first into the weeds.

This was not the ideal scenario. Keith and I both knew I’d never make the hundred-yard dash faster than he could dial a phone number, but I was damned if I wasn’t going to try. I broke into a run as he jabbed feebly at the screen, trying to back out of whatever application he was stuck in. Annoyingly, he didn’t drop it. He didn’t bend down to pick it up and crack his head on the car. He simply fumbled and swiped aimlessly for a split second before dragging his eyes away from me long enough to find his fingers.

Fortunately, that was the moment at which Erica caught up. Even at a gallop from sixty yards away, I could see the situation dawn across her face as she looked from the constable to me and back to the constable. Her jaw dropped, and her eyes bulged, and she mouthed the word
shit
as she scrambled for the door. And then, as she burst headlong from the house, she answered very concisely the question still forming in my mind—the one about where she’d hidden the gun.

“Stop!” she screamed, lifting her shirt and pulling the .38 from the back of her jeans. The detective spun around in horror as she strode toward him, cocking the pistol and leveling it directly at his face.

“Jesus!” he yelped, pressing his back to the car and throwing his hands up in front of him as though preparing to deflect her bullets. “Don’t shoot! Think about it!”

I was at her side then, catching my breath and holding my hand out for the gun. “Erica...”

She tightened her grip, shot me a furious glare. “What the fuck’s going on?” she snapped.

“Slight problem.” I looked behind me to where Fairey was flailing about in the grass, presumably with no better idea than I had of where he was trying to crawl to. “Left a bit of, um...”

“We can resolve this,” Keith stuttered. “Whatever’s gone on—”

“Shut up.” Erica’s aim was rock-steady, her voice unwavering. “What do we do?” she said.

“
We
don’t do anything.” My hand renewed its request for the revolver. “
You
give me the gun and fetch me the keys to the van, and then you go back inside and stay there while I sort this mess out.”

She thought for a moment, chewed her lip through a long, hard look at the constable. “Fine,” she said. She relaxed her aim and handed me the gun, then went to the door and reached around for the hook on the inside wall. “I’ll go and be the good little housewife, shall I? Clear the table, do the dishes, pull the garden fork out of the floor...” She tossed me my full set of keys—something else she clearly hadn’t seen fit to hide.

“Whatever you’re inclined to do,” I said.

“Call me if you need any help.”

“Naturally.”

She gave Keith a respectful nod before turning her back and retreating into the house, closing the door behind her.

I was relieved by her compliance. As tough as she thought she was, and as much as I hadn’t quite come up with a plan yet, I didn’t want her to see what happened next.

Due to my lingering headache and general nausea, it took me a full two hours to clean up. It took six bin bags, some imaginative folding and more than a little soil-turning, but by eleven o’clock I was loaded and ready to go.

I went straight to the bathroom to peel off my blood-soaked clothes and scrub my hands and face. In the bedroom, I discovered a wardrobe filled with skirts and dresses, lace-trimmed tops and bootleg jeans. She’d moved me into the spare room.

I found Erica downstairs, curled up on the sofa in front of a home makeover show. She tucked in her feet to make extra room, and I sat down beside her with a weary sigh.

“You can put my bedroom back how you found it, for a start,” I said.

She tensed just a twitch; I sensed her pulse quicken and her breathing stiffen, but she had it under control in a moment and a deep breath and her chin tilted high with a roll of her neck. “Understood,” she agreed. “Are you all done?”

I nodded. “Everything I can do here.”

“I managed to get the fork out.”

“Yes, thank you, I found it.”

“The kitchen’s spotless, apart from the floor. You’ve ruined two of the boards.”

“Sorry,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why. It was my floor. “I’ve got some spare ones.”

“If you tell me where they are, I’ll have a crack at it.”

“They need cutting. I’ll do it tomorrow.”

She raised an eyebrow and smirked to herself. “Well, you’re the man,” she muttered.

“I didn’t mean it like that. And thank you for cleaning the kitchen.”

“I vacuumed and dusted in here, too.”

“I noticed,” I lied. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

We watched the rest of the program in silence; Erica with an expression of fascination and wonderment, me with a road map of the county swirling around in my head.

“I think we should do that in here,” she mused as the credits rolled.

“Do what? I wasn’t listening.”

“Shutters,” she said. “Over the windows, instead of curtains. Cup of tea?”

“Excellent idea,” I agreed.

“What, the tea or the shut—”

“I’ll make it while you go and put on something summery.”

“Summery?”

“Light and airy.”

Brow furrowed, eyes narrow. “Okay, obvious question, but why do I need to put on something summery to drink tea?”

“Because,” I said, “when we’ve drunk it, we’re going for a drive in the country.”

CHAPTER
THIRTY

Not for the first time, I was in a heap of trouble.

The plan had at the time appeared foolproof, albeit tinged with paranoia. In an effort to distance myself from the fate of Detectives Fairey and Burke and their dirty blue Ford, I’d chosen to contain their disposal to a remote and privately owned location under the jurisdiction of my neighboring constabulary. If they burned well enough, if the local landowner took his time discovering the wreck and dragging it somewhere it might become a public nuisance, and, crucially, if my belief was correct that Fairey’s visit was strictly off the record, it could be weeks before CID knew what had hit them. Job done.

I’d performed reasonably well up to this point; I’d accomplished the straightforward task of disabling the detectives’ phones, and consequently triggering their last traceable signal, at a picnic stop fifteen miles in the opposite direction, close to the regional police headquarters, and I’d made the onward journey entirely without incident. I had one simple thing to do before I could go home and forget all about this ridiculous mess.

Thing was, though, I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t even want to look. I’d lifted the Ford’s trunk a mere hand’s width and been overcome by waves of nausea and panic; the former had failed to manifest, thank God, but the latter had rendered me a statue. And now, my mind was swamped with an irrational desire to undo what I’d already done; to drag my hindsight back in time and just talk to Fairey on the damn doorstep.

Erica, on the other hand, was a picture of tranquility. She stood beside the open door of the van, arms folded, drumming her fingers to a Rolling Stones cover on the radio and gazing vacantly into the dirt at her feet. She’d played her own part with the utmost efficiency; driven to the BP station on the bypass and filled up both the Transit and a small collection of jerry cans before following me out here to the arse-end of nowhere. She’d stuck to the B-roads, avoiding prying eyes and speed traps. She hadn’t passed the same house twice or stopped to ask for directions, and she’d arrived mere moments after I had, despite what had to have been a lengthy pit stop. Her navigation and timekeeping, then, were exemplary. And therein lay the problem.

I’d been counting on a window of at least ten minutes to gather my thoughts, tidy one or two loose ends and mask the omission of a minor detail from her earlier briefing. And now, with the plan in tatters, it was surely only a matter of time before she noticed my inactivity and, in all probability, posed the two questions I was least prepared to answer: “Why are you staring at me?” and “How long does it take to set fire to a car?” She’d already brained me once over a minor lapse in concentration; thank God she was on the far side of the car and couldn’t see what I was doing, because if she found out what was going on in my head right now, there was no telling what she might do.

Sure enough, as I stood there gawping at her, she straightened and shook her head clear, glanced over her shoulder toward the road before looking at me quizzically and mouthing the words
hurry up
.

She’d given me no choice. I gave the trunk a tug and let it swish up over my head to shed light on the root of my anxiety. Two at least semirespected officers of the law, bloody and bruised, folded double, bound and gagged with twine and rags but still, regrettably, very much alive.

My rationalization had had something to do with the intricacies of forensic pathology as applied to a worst-case exhumation scenario; saw marks, spatter patterns, soil samples—I couldn’t remember exactly, but I was confident that it made sense at the time.

Of course, it was also an out-and-out lie. My predicament had nothing to do with science; it was being driven by a twenty-year-old waitress with Elizabethan curls and a sailor’s mouth. Whether out of concern for her peace of mind or, more selfishly perhaps, to avoid arousing her abhorrence, I’d striven to shield her from the ugly truth. She was under no illusions, I knew that, but the sound of gunshots and a bandsaw paints all too colorful a picture, and while there were still blanks for her mind to fill, she held the reins to her own distress. As such, I’d been happy to let her file those two quiet hours in the drawer marked
Left Unsaid
. I’d told her we were coming here to destroy the car, nothing more, and I’d considered it a harmless half-truth. Unfortunately, it had the bite of a fully grown lie.

I steeled myself. There was no other option, so I closed my mind to the muffled cries and writhing limbs and bulging eyes. I studied the bare underside of the parcel shelf, the heating elements in the glass, the shifting contours of my hand as I emptied two cans of petrol into the trunk. I implored myself to do the right thing, to at least knock these poor bastards unconscious, but I could feel Erica’s eyes on me, a mere sideways step from an awkward revelation, and the best I could do as I slammed down the hatch was an unconvincing muttered apology.

I emptied the remaining fuel over the seats and in the footwells, and set the empty cans in the back of the van. I took the box of matches from Erica’s outstretched hand and lined one up, ready to strike. “Stay back,” I told her, struggling against a sudden cold sweat to keep my voice from cracking. And then things just got worse.

The match refused to ignite, each swipe at the box whittling down the head until all that remained was a grubby bent stick. I tossed it aside and slid out another, which snapped in half at the fifth strike. Somebody was trying to tell me something.

I took a deep breath and steadied my fingers, and the third match lit up first time. I glanced at Erica to ensure she was out of harm’s way; looked back down to see the flame peter out in the breeze.

My head was pounding now, teeth clenched, hands trembling and slippery with sweat. My rising blood pressure made my fingers rigid and useless. I fumbled angrily with the matchbox until it escaped my grasp, spilling its contents onto the ground. It was all I could do not to scream.

I don’t know why I let Erica pick it up. Something in her voice maybe, as she giggled and said, “Come here” or the familiar way she braced her hand against the small of my back as she swooped down to gather the matches. Whatever it was, it pulled the plug. The panic drained instantly, emptied my head and steadied my nerves and allowed me to watch her with pin-sharp clarity as she set light to the corner of the box.

“I can tell you never went to Brownies.” She laughed, and with that she was away from me, scurrying toward the car.

“Erica—”

“Duck!” she yelled, amply drowning out my weak objection as the matchbox sailed out of her hand. She turned on her toes, sprinted back toward where I stood in all my slack-jawed ineffectuality beside the van, and as the first pillar of flame leaped from the Ford, she barreled into me, threw her arms around my neck and hauled herself onto my back, pressed her cheek against mine and whooped with childlike joy.

The fire took immediate hold. Ravenous, angry flames filled the car, exploding from the floor and the seats to curl across the ceiling, deforming and devouring, noisily sucking in air through the open window and exhaling a column of acrid smoke. Within seconds, its rasping breath became a furious roar, the flames whipped to a frenzy by falling globs of molten foam. Blackened glass buckled and shattered, a thousand vivid tongues lapping at the edges of the roof; paint blistered and consumed, plastic trim returned to oil. And finally, as a thin trail of smoke began to seep out below the tailgate, I decided enough was enough.

“We have to go,” I muttered, shaking Erica from my back and turning her away from the blaze.

“But it’s so cool,” she protested, craning her neck for one last look.

I opened the driver’s door for her, guided her to the step. “We haven’t got time,” I said. “You can drive. You know the way.”

She affected a cartoonish pout as she climbed into the cab. “You ruin all my fun,” she whimpered, and slammed the door behind her.

Despite the playful grin creeping across her face, I got the distinct and chilling impression that she wasn’t joking.

* * *

The light on the answering machine was flashing. According to the display, I had two messages. I knew who they were from, and I was longing to hear her voice, but right now I was in no fit state to take it in, even without Erica standing over my shoulder.

“Aren’t you going to listen to those? They might be important,” she suggested as she filled the kettle.

“You know I’m not,” I replied. My head was pounding again. “Jesus, I think I need a doctor.”

She delved into the drawer below the toaster and pulled out a box of Nurofen; popped two into her palm and poured me a glass of water. “Open wide,” she said. She slipped the pills into my mouth and then, after a moment’s hesitation, gently trailed her fingertips down the side of my face. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispered.

I rode the wave of goose bumps, stunned and melted in equal measure and in neither case able to improve on a nod.

“We should start packing,” she decided, sounding nothing like the idea had just occurred to her.

“For what?” although I already knew.

“They’re going to come looking for the two policemen you just set fire to,” she explained, slowly, each syllable clipped and clear as though she were reading
See Spot Run
to a toddler. “We can’t very well stay here, can we?”

She was probably right. I don’t know; it was all just noise in my head.

“I’m going to run a bath,” she said. “I’m dirty and smoky. Swallow those, bring me a cup of tea and I’ll do you something special for dinner. Deal?”

Try as I might, I couldn’t say no.

The kettle boiled and cooled twice as I stood over it, my attention the subject of an intense battle between the flashing message light and the spider hanging outside the window.

I was stirred by a distant cry, a loaded enquiry as to whether I was still alive. Third time lucky, I poured the tea and carried it carefully to the top of the stairs where, despite my stealth, my presence was clearly felt.

Her voice floated on a trail of humidity from behind the bathroom door. “I’m in here,” she sang to an accompaniment of rippling water.

Uneasy, I nudged the door open with my toe, taking a step back to avoid anything that may have been aimed at my head. All that rose to greet me, though, was steam.

Erica was up to her neck in a sea of bubbles, eyes closed, resting her head with a contented smile. She didn’t stir as I set the tea down on the side of the bath.

“I’ll leave it there for you,” I said, and turned toward the door, resisting a sudden urge to linger.

I’d barely taken a step when, with cat-like precision, she pounced. With one swift swipe, she hooked her fingers into the back of my leg, freezing my breath in my throat. Her arm aside, she hadn’t moved a muscle. “Not so fast,” she purred. “I need you to scrub my back.”