by Luca Veste
I didn’t have any answer for that, so kept my mouth shut and tried to concentrate on the road ahead. Suppressed a yawn as tiredness washed over me.
I wondered if I’d ever sleep again. Whether I would forever see the battered face of the man as we rolled him into an unmarked grave.
A grave only we knew about.
Whether we had done the right thing in moving the young lad, I knew there was nothing else we could have done. Not if we wanted to avoid questions that would have been impossible to answer. It was the right thing to do. That didn’t mean Alexandra was wrong. That was the problem. What we had done – to save ourselves – would haunt us for years to come.
Maybe forever.
Something had seemed to pass across her eyes at one point. I wasn’t sure what it was, or if I wanted to know.
We had placed him in a sleeping bag, but that didn’t mean I was sure we hadn’t left behind some evidence. Careful wasn’t sure.
Once it was done, we had packed up our tents and left.
I could still feel the dirt under my fingernails, even though I’d washed my hands over and over.
‘I need to stop,’ Michelle said and her voice didn’t sound like her own. ‘I need to get out.’
‘There’ll be services on the motorway . . .’
‘I need to stop now.’
I glanced in the rear-view mirror, seeing Michelle staring straight back at me. There was a look in her eyes, as if she were daring me to disagree or go against her wishes. I sighed and shook my head. ‘Hang on.’
There was a layby a hundred yards or so ahead; I pulled into it and shut off the engine. Michelle was out of the car as soon as it came to a stop. Alexandra didn’t move beside me. I stepped out, needing the fresh air to try and keep me awake.
The smell of countryside assaulted me as I stepped out and away from the road. Then, the sound of Michelle’s throat evacuating her stomach contents onto the grass verge only compounded the situation.
Everything was hell.
A good few minutes passed and then I saw Chris slowing down. He pulled over and his car went silent. I raised a hand to acknowledge him, then felt in my pockets for cigarettes that weren’t there. I really wished I still smoked at that point. I’d never really missed it, but could think of nothing better right then.
I noticed something else wasn’t there.
I opened my car door and rummaged around the front seat, sticking my hand down the gaps that ran alongside it and silently cursing. Alexandra turned her head slowly to me, her brow furrowed in confusion. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I can’t find it,’ I said, not waiting for a response. I ran round to the boot, hearing the sound of Chris’s car door opening and shutting. His voice asking something, but I wasn’t listening. I pulled the boot open, then began shifting things around. We’d left quickly early that morning, barely packing anything up properly at all. There was a mess of stuff piled up, shoved in without regard or forethought. I began pulling things out and delving into half-filled backpacks and hidden pockets.
‘What’s going on?’
I ignored Chris and continued filling the layby with various items from our weekend stay. I pulled out clothes – all of them mixed together, to be sorted at a different time. I didn’t wait to see if they were mine or not, simply pulled them all out, going through each thing individually.
The clothes I had been wearing the previous night were buried in a bag near the bottom. A thought came to me then – if we’d been trying to cover our tracks, we should have burned them out in the woods. Or tried to get rid of them some other way. Maybe one of the large industrial-sized bins at the festival. Instead, if we were pulled over now, we’d all have clothes with a stranger’s DNA on them. A stranger we had killed.
‘Matt, what’s going on?’
The boot was empty now, but it still wasn’t there. I turned around, surprised to see Chris standing right behind me. ‘It’s not here.’
‘What isn’t?’
I shook my head and jogged towards the back of his car. ‘Open the boot, maybe it got tossed in there.’
‘Matt, you need to calm down and tell me what’s going on.’
A car blazed past us doing over sixty, but I was only faintly aware of it. I turned to Chris and he flinched. I must have looked crazed enough for him to take a step back from me.
‘It’s my wallet,’ I said eventually, once I realised it wasn’t there any longer. ‘It was in my pocket when . . . It’s not here anymore.’
Chris sucked in air past his teeth. ‘Are you joking?’
‘Do I look like I am? It was in the jeans I was wearing when it happened. I just threw them on from last night. My phone was in the tent, but I’d left my wallet in the back pocket.’
‘Right, right. Well, we were using those woods for the past three days. It’s not like we wouldn’t have a good story to tell anyone if it was found.’
I shook my head. I realised I was wringing my hands together, but couldn’t stop. When I spoke, my voice sounded alien to me – shaking and on the verge of full panic. ‘I can’t just leave it there. They’ll ask questions and we won’t be able to answer them all. We’re gonna look guilty as hell and that’s the end for us.’
I heard a car door open and close. Stuart emerged from the side of the car and joined us at the open boot. ‘What’s going on?’
I looked at Chris, then at Stuart. ‘We have to go back.’
Ten
It was different in the woods now it was daytime. The trees seemed to move more easily, there were no dark shadows or strange noises. Or silences.
The stillness of it was almost offensive to me. As if it hadn’t understood what had occurred within its tree-lined walls the night before and adjusted accordingly. It should have changed in some way. Instead, it was sitting there like nothing had happened.
I was slowly losing it. I wasn’t sure how long I could hold on for, without giving up and waiting for the police to take me away. Calling 999 and telling them everything we had done. I shook the thought away and tried to concentrate.
We parked up on the other side of the woods this time. Google Maps had informed us that there was another way in, which saved us trying to wade our way through a festival that was now over. The traffic and witnesses would be easier to avoid.
Stuart came with me. The others stayed behind at the cars. We walked without talking for the first five or ten minutes – silently trudging through, as if we were out for a walk, rather than for what we were actually doing.
Retrieving evidence. That’s what they would call it.
It took us half an hour of walking before we found the first clearing. We wordlessly took an area each and began searching.
‘What’s it look like?’ Stuart asked quietly, after brushing aside branches and leaves for a few minutes. ‘I mean what colour is it?’
‘Black, with the LFC badge embossed on the front.’
Stuart chuckled, then stopped almost as quickly as he’d begun. ‘Should have guessed.’
I was about to respond in kind – it had always been our go-to way of winding each other up, the Liverpool versus Manchester thing – but kept quiet when I remembered everything that had happened in the past twelve hours.
It was difficult to believe it had only been that long. I felt like I had aged ten years since the previous day.
Perhaps this was how we would be now. This would be our new normal. None of the laughter and in-jokes we’d had before. What we’d done collectively would be with us always, hanging over us like a dark cloud. Ready to empty and drench us with our sins.
‘We shouldn’t have buried him,’ Stuart said, turning to me as he swiped a foot along the ground, his voice cold and wearied. He had always been the guy in the group who hadn’t aged. Unlined face and dimples in his cheeks. Now, there was darkness under his eyes and a weathered look to his skin. ‘I think that was a mistake.’
‘I think the whole thing was a bit of a mistake . . .’
‘I know, I know. I just wonder if we acted too quick. We were all running on adrenaline, fear, exhaustion. That’s before we get to the hangovers and shock. We were too ready to believe we wouldn’t have been able to get through this. I’m sure they would have realised the truth quickly enough. We should have just called someone. We’re going to have to live with this forever now.’
‘Yeah, we are. But that would have been the case anyway.’
‘I guess that’s our punishment.’
I looked over at Stuart for a little longer, then turned back to the ground. There was something in his tone that made me look over at him again, but he was getting further and further out of sight.
We were murderers. That was all I could be certain of at that moment. Whether we had murdered a serial killer, or some random attacker, I wasn’t sure there was much difference. Not for me. I had been responsible for ending someone’s life. That was enough.
‘Maybe it’ll be like grief,’ Stuart said, emerging from the tree line ahead. ‘You don’t get past it, you just learn how to live with it, you know?’
I did. I remembered my dad’s funeral and how I’d only got through that day with the help of my friends. They had picked me up and brought me back to life. Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to see any of them again.
Alexandra . . . I hoped that was different.
‘I don’t know,’ I said eventually, my eyes scanning the ground, my heart pounding against my chest the closer we got to where we’d buried the dead man. ‘Grief is something that is done to us. Someone is taken from us and then we’re left behind. We did this to ourselves.’
‘He was going to kill me, Matt,’ Stuart said, stopping and turning to face me more fully. He folded his arms across his chest and I could see grazes and the beginning of a bruise on his arm, running from his elbow to his wrist. ‘I don’t know why, but I think we can work that out. Problem is, we’ll never know for certain, will we? Because even when they find that young lad, they won’t know his killer is underground. Literally. So, not only did we kill someone, we also robbed who knows how many people of seeing any justice for it.’
‘He won’t be able to do it again. Isn’t that justice enough?’
Stuart shrugged his shoulders, but it seemed as if it took some effort to do so.
We continued on, searching the entire area we had moved through the night before. I grew increasingly desperate, as it became more and more apparent that I wasn’t going to find it. I imagined some police dog retrieving it in a slobbering mouth, dropping it at a copper’s feet, and them opening it up. Seeing the driving licence, the bank cards, all with my name on.
I traipsed through the ever-thickening forest, scouring every possible place I could. Stuart was beside me the entire way, but I knew he was thinking the same as me.
‘I ran off when Alexandra disappeared,’ I said, grasping Stuart’s shoulder as I almost fell over a fallen log. He winced immediately and I mumbled an apology before continuing. ‘Do you remember though? When she went off, I ran after her. I don’t know where I went.’
‘I watched you go, mate,’ Stuart replied, rubbing his shoulder and looking at me with something approaching pity in his eyes. He knew what I knew. ‘I’ve . . . we’ve looked everywhere. I know it seemed massive last night, but you were running in circles, Matt. If it was here, we would have found it by now.’
‘Where is it then?’
We both looked around us as my voice reverberated around the trees and settled above us.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ Stuart said, making a calm down motion with his hands. ‘Can you think of anywhere else it could be?’
I shook my head, but I knew that wasn’t true. It wasn’t where we’d been camping. Not in the woods, as far as we could tell. I looked up at Stuart and he knew what I was going to say without another word.
‘We best hurry up then,’ Stuart said, biting on his lower lip and shaking his head. ‘If he hasn’t been found yet, it won’t be long.’
It took us another twenty minutes to make our way to the far end of the woods. I had called Alexandra on the way and told her to move the cars further afield, given how long it was taking us to come back. She gave me a non-committal grunt in response, which I hoped was agreement.
I ended the call and took a breath in. I didn’t think I’d ever be back there. At that place. My muscles felt weak and tired, exhaustion threatening to take hold at any second. I kept my eyes peeled on the ground as we moved, hoping against hope that I’d spot my wallet on the way there.
As the trees began to open and become more sporadic, a large field opened up. We skirted along the edge of it, as we had done the previous night. We could hear traffic more clearly now, as we came closer to the country roads that bordered the farmland here. They connected to the A-roads further down, finally merging onto the motorway. In the daylight, the view was something to behold. We were on a rise, meaning we could see across the field and beyond, green-belt land as far as we could see.
I wished I could spend some time appreciating it.
Instead, we slowed as we approached the place we had found the previous night, closer to humanity than nature. Hoping the young lad would be found sooner rather than later. Now, I hoped he hadn’t been found at all.
In fact, I wanted to go back a few hours and run from the woods entirely.
We reached the thin copse of shorter trees and then the clearing where we had left the body the previous night. I could still feel the weight of him in my hands. The disgust I felt for disturbing his final resting place. It had felt like a final act of despicability in a night that had been nothing but that.
We would be irrevocably changed forever – that was the legacy of that night.
We had left him near the edge, hoping he would be noticed by someone passing alongside the road. An early-morning jogger, or a dog walker maybe. We could hear traffic quite clearly now, through the high bushes that almost blocked out the view from the road. A car went past every twenty seconds or so.
I heard three drive by before I took in what I was seeing.
It was almost midday, I hadn’t slept, so I still checked with Stuart first. I looked across at him, but he was seemingly struggling with the same disbelief as me.
‘Are you sure we . . .’
‘Yes,’ Stuart replied, before I had the chance to finish the sentence. ‘I remember the way that tree was positioned over there. The way we came in – the way it all looked six hours ago.’
The clearing was empty.
The body had gone.
We had left him in that clearing, removing him from the sleeping bag we’d carried for an hour. Laid him on the ground and then left him there. Alone.
And now he wasn’t there.
I could feel eyes on us.
I looked around, waiting for the inevitable. I knew what Stuart was saying, even as I stopped listening and the world disappeared around me. It went silent as I blocked out what was happening, closed my eyes and waited. I could almost picture them now, a swarm of police officers, emerging from between trees, from the road, from the bushes. They had known we would return because my wallet had been found. They would be coming from all angles, trapping us in there, so we had no escape. I scrunched my eyes shut tighter and didn’t move as the hand laid itself on my shoulder.
It gripped me harder, as it began to shake. I thought of my mum. We barely spoke, but I still loved her enough to think about how she would feel about this. The attention it would bring. She’d had me late in life and was in her seventies now. Dad was gone. I was all she had left and even though we weren’t close, she knew where I was.
I remembered joking with her and Dad a few months before he died, about how it had taken them so long to find each other, that they couldn’t really moan about it taking so long for Alexandra and I to settle down with each other. I was just following their lead.
I thought about the aunties and uncles and cousins and extended family. How they would have to face scrutiny from al
l who knew them and me. Whether they could answer the questions that would fly at them.
Did you know he was a killer?
I would need a solicitor. A good one. I didn’t know any, other than the one we had dealt with when buying the house. I doubted they would specialise in both house purchases and murder defences.
I thought about the questions I couldn’t answer. When the hand would slip from my shoulder and slide the handcuffs over my wrists. That would be it.
I wouldn’t be free for a long time.
I thought about Alexandra.
I thought about Alexandra.
I thought about Alexandra.
When I opened my eyes – as two hands now lay on my shoulders, moving me back and forth – I could feel the wetness on my cheeks.
The world came back in an instant. Noise returned; smells, too.
Stuart was there.
In front of me.
Holding my wallet in one hand, as he shook me back and forth. A panicked expression on his face.
‘He’s gone,’ he was saying and I could see the same wetness rolling down his cheeks. ‘We have to get out of here. Now.’
I looked around, expecting the police to be there, but there was nothing to see.
There was nothing.
No body that we had moved. No young man, dead on the ground. Mutilated and discarded. Left here, by us, to be found.
He wasn’t there.
Stuart grabbed me again, handing me my wallet that I placed in my pocket in a daze. ‘We have to go, Matt.’
‘Where . . .’
‘I don’t know,’ Stuart said, pulling me away now. I didn’t resist. ‘I don’t know.’
One Year Later
Eleven
I wanted to be home. Safe, surrounded by the familiar. I didn’t need this. No one ever did. It’s all a con, a ruse, a way of extracting cash from your wallet. Money for old rope. That’s what I was thinking as I booked the appointment. As I left the house that morning. As I drove the few miles to the place. As I waited in the reception area, with the plastic plants and old magazines. As I knocked on the door and entered the office.