by DH Smith
‘OK,’ called Maggie.
Jack and David picked up the body. They carried it through the open gate. This was the tricky part, on the pavement. If anyone were to come, there’d be no hiding place. Jack stumbled, as David pushed as he was backing over the kerb, and dropped the end.
‘Careful!’ he hissed.
‘Sorry.’
Jack picked the end up. And led David, with his end, to the kerb and down carefully, until they were parallel to the boot of the car with their burden. The boot was empty, as a cab driver’s needed to be for passengers’ luggage. And so it was easy enough for them to lift the bag and contents over the lip and lay it inside. They shifted the load somewhat, bent the legs, then, satisfied, Jack was about to close the lid when Bessie ran out of the garden gate carrying two spades.
‘Don’t forget these!’ she called.
‘Good girl,’ said Jack.
She beamed.
He put the spades in the boot. And slammed it shut.
‘Let’s go,’ said David.
He had Frank’s car door open. Jack could see from his stance he was not quite so confident under the night sky. This was no longer the jolly jape it seemed in the nursery.
Jack took the kerbside seat. Maggie was behind them in her car, waiting.
David drove off. Maggie waited a little before heading after. She was to keep some way back so it wouldn’t look as if she were following them. The plan was to wait for her at any turn off.
‘I’ve been walking in Epping Forest lots of times,’ David said to Jack as he drove. ‘I know a quiet car park. Be there in twenty minutes or so. Barring accidents.’
Jack was shaky. It was one thing being in Anne’s flat, door shut, but now they were ferrying a corpse across town. One that had been murdered, or was it manslaughter, or however adjudged, they were accessories to some dark deed. He wondered whether David was regretting his involvement. It’s a guy thing to say yes to the damsel in distress, but then, hey presto, you’re in distress too. Anne was safe at home, and her two bit players driving with a hot corpse in the boot.
Explain that to a nosy cop.
Perverting the course of justice or something like that. What might they get for that? A year, two years? Jack had little idea. And had no wish to find out.
Of course, they could turn back – and undo what they’d done. Put the corpse back in the sitting room, take it out of the bag and lay it out on the sofa, all ready for the police. But movement, in any direction, has its own momentum. It takes a lot of energy to stop and then to reverse. To begin with, he’d have to persuade David. Perhaps he wouldn’t need much persuading. Could be he was having second thoughts as he drove down the road that crossed Wanstead Flats, the grassed area, dark and empty to the dim street lights on the other side. Jack knew it on a Sunday morning, full of the yells and energy of football players. He could make out no movement in its flat sleepiness. Though he did know a guy who went running in the early hours. Let’s hope he was done and gone.
There was little other traffic, and that was disturbing. They were too obvious on the road, so late. So early.
They were grown ups, they had a choice. That’s what the law said, unless you were mad. Though it could be argued this mission was a sort of madness. Though that wouldn’t wash in a court of law. They could keep driving, keep up the bravado, the devil may care option. Do the knightly duty to the fair lady. And bury the body in the woods. Or, as law-abiding citizens, they could take the body back to the place of the crime, phone the police. And they’d be in the clear. More or less.
There’d be some awkward questions about all the moving of the body. It wouldn’t look good. But what they were doing, if caught, would look a hundred times worse. They were in the hands of chance. So much could go wrong on this simple enterprise.
They turned into Wanstead High Street, heading towards Snaresbrook. The shops were shuttered, not a soul on the street. David knew the way. And didn’t need Frank’s Satnav. In fact, all the better, David said not to write in the journey. It would be stuck in the history, and if it ever came to it, forensics could trace the route back to the house.
Forensics, all that crime scene stuff, thought Jack. Fibres and DNA all over the place. Over himself, the flat, the hallway. The body and the bag. So much to think about. Wiping off fingerprints in the car. It would be found, sooner or later.
‘There’s a cop behind,’ exclaimed David. ‘He’s flashing me to stop.’
‘All we need,’ said Jack wearily. Mischance on their tail, with a loaded dice.
‘Just keep calm,’ said David as he pulled over. ‘It can’t be much.’
They’d stopped by the roadside. The police car pulled up behind. David let his window down as the police officer got out and walked to their car. He was in uniform with a flat cap. A young man, tall.
He bent down to speak. ‘You know, you were speeding back there, sir.’
‘Sorry, officer,’ said David. ‘Nothing else on the road, I hardly noticed.’
The officer looked around the car.
‘What are you doing out this time of night?’
‘I’m a cab driver,’ said David. ‘This is my fare.’ He indicated Jack beside him.
The officer looked to Jack.
‘Might I ask what you’re doing up so late, sir?’
‘I’ve been at my astronomy club,’ said Jack, thinking quickly. ‘Looking at the moon. You don’t get many nights as clear as this,’ he burbled, ‘and with the moon in its third quarter it’s a good time to take photos of craters near the terminator…’
‘What’s Arnie Schwarzenegger doing up there?’
For a second, Jack didn’t know what the man was talking about. Then it clicked and he saw the policeman smiling.
‘Good one,’ he said with a half grin, the best he could manage. ‘The terminator is the line between light and dark. I’ll show you.’ He had his phone out and was fiddling with pictures he’d taken with Mia last night, trying to still the shake in his hands. ‘There. That group of craters. See how the shadow makes ‘em stand out.’
‘Yeh,’ said the policeman, nodding. ‘That’s pretty good for a phone…’
‘Got better ones back at the club,’ he said. ‘With a proper astro camera.’
The policeman turned to David and bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘Speeding though. I don’t smell drink on you.’
‘No, officer. This is my livelihood. Drinking is out of the question. And I was hardly over the speed limit.’
The officer thought for a few seconds. Jack wondered whether David was going to be breathalysed, just to check. Then there’d be all the hassle with driving licences… And the cop would find out this wasn’t David’s car. And they’d have to come up with more lies. All it needed was a request to open the boot. And then it was all up. He held his breath. And hoped.
‘I should book you for speeding,’ said the young policeman, scratching the side of his neck. ‘You were doing 35 miles per hour in a built up area, maybe a bit more… But you were no danger, there’s no traffic and you are sober. So rather than inflict myself with an hour’s paperwork – drive on. And count yourself lucky. But I suggest you stick to the speed limit, sir.’
They thanked him profusely.
The policeman left. And they drove off, with David keeping a close eye on the speed. Maggie had driven ahead some way and stopped. She allowed them to come past and then followed in their wake.
Chapter 32
Anne took the sofa. She had Bessie scrubbing the carpet. And was impressed. The girl was down on all fours scrubbing away, specifically the bloody bits, she’d told her. Go over and over them. Scrub every last bit out.
And she was certainly working at it, a washing up bowl full of suds at her side.
Anne gathered up the bits of glass. She put them on the table in a heap as she picked them up, like a magpie collecting treasure. Her intention was to wrap them in newspaper before putting them in a bin bag. The glass had got everywhere, first by t
he bashing, and then exacerbated by Jack moving the sofa to drag the body out of the room.
She wondered how they were getting on. Had they got to the forest yet? Did police patrol it late at night, for just such events?
What a lot she’d thrown on everyone!
Just suppose she had called the police immediately. Then sat there until they’d come. She could hardly imagine that, but suppose. Then what?
She certainly knew some of it from her past experience. Her flat would become a crime scene for at least a few days. She could say goodbye to her current nursery children. They’d have to find other providers, and would they then come back to a premises where someone had been killed? If, that is, she were free for them to come back.
She would be taken to the station for questioning. They’d tell her she could have a lawyer present. And then it would begin. It wouldn’t take them long to find who she was. Her past form. And might they then suspect that she had really murdered her husband six years ago? And here she was doing it again.
A serial killer.
Who’d fooled them once. They’d make sure she didn’t this time.
Or could there be another tale? Frank certainly was a racist and a bully. She could get witnesses to that. Maybe he had a police record. Even for rape? Why should she be the first?
Yes, there could have been others. But instead, she was in a third tale. A buried body in the forest… Over which she had no control. They could do it well or badly. She was here, they were there. Dependent.
The corpse could stay buried forever, undiscovered, rotting to nothing. Or be found… And then what? That depended whether it was in a week or ten years. They’d emptied his pockets. So no easy trace, unless there was something they’d overlooked; there was often something. And the car that he had was just being dumped – how long before that was picked up and cops came here asking questions?
So many complexities. They were giving her a headache.
Bessie was singing tunelessly. The poor girl was happy. Anne had done someone some good. Though there’d be complications there as well, with the service charge for the flat coming in and bills for gas and electricity. How would all that get paid? The girl had no money. And even if Frank had, she couldn’t get at it. Officially, he was still alive.
A tangle was growing. In the meantime, pick up glass, scrub the sofa. And look after Bessie. She had a duty there. Do something for the girl. Time someone did. Then if all this went wrong, at least she could say…
What a mess of an evening!
Dinner with a builder, such a good start. All the cooking and planning and dressing up… Then he’d arrived and it was all going so well. And if Jack hadn’t had to run off to rescue his daughter, Frank would never have got in. Or if he had, would have been seen off. They’d have had a wonderful meal. Talked and talked, ended up in bed making love, and so on and so forth. Violins and sunsets. A honeymoon in the Caribbean.
And maybe somewhere, in an alternative universe, that was what was progressing. Instead of gathering glass, cleaning blood off the carpet and sofa, and burying a body in the woods, she and Jack were spooned together, sleeping the night away.
Chapter 33
They lifted the body out of the boot and laid it on the ground. Maggie was with them. They were in a car park on the edge of the forest. Really, just a muddied clearing, on a side road off the Epping New Road. It was raining slightly and the moon was covered in cloud, just showing as a glow in smudgy charcoal.
David said, ‘I want to get rid of his car. If that policeman had asked for my driving licence…’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Jack. ‘We’d have got ourselves knotted in lies.’
‘There’s another car park half a mile back. Let’s leave the body in the forest temporarily. Dump his car, then come back here.’
‘I don’t like leaving the body,’ said Maggie.
‘There’s no one about,’ insisted David. ‘It’ll be safe enough. Why should anyone look in the forest?’
Maggie agreed reluctantly.
David and Jack carried the body, Maggie walked ahead with the torch shining downwards. They went in perhaps fifty metres, and found a thick holly tree. They dragged the corpse underneath the low foliage, and covered it in leaves. The party then walked back out to the car park.
David and Jack drove ahead in Frank’s Aurora. Maggie followed in hers. The road was deserted. It was not a main road through the forest but a side road off the arterial. Fairmead Road, wherever that was. David seemed to know his way and kept his speed down. And Jack didn’t comment. He felt somewhat safer, now unencumbered. Nothing to be found in their boot by any prying cop.
‘Don’t you wonder why we are doing this?’ he said.
‘I’ve been thinking about nothing else,’ said David.
‘Be a bastard, taking the body back now,’ said Jack.
‘I am most definitely not driving anywhere with a body in the boot,’ exclaimed David. ‘That copper had me shitting bricks. Though that was fast thinking, your moon stuff.’
‘You as taxi driver was pretty sharp.’
‘Black man, driving this late. What else could I be?’
They drew into the car park with Maggie following.
‘We need to give the inside a good wiping,’ said David. ‘What have you got?’
‘Nothing,’ said Jack. ‘We emptied everything out of his damned bloody car.’
‘Maggie’ll have something.’
She had a box of tissue in hers. They took a handful each and wiped the inside of Frank’s car. The steering wheel, the seating, the door handles, the fascia, the windows. Maggie wiped down the boot, both inside and outside. And finally, the door handles were wiped clean.
They stepped away from the vehicle as if it were red hot.
Maggie collected the used tissues and was about to put them in a nearby litter bin.
‘Not this one,’ said Jack. ‘Just in case.’
She nodded.
‘I’m half asleep,’ she yawned. ‘Let’s get this job done with.’
They piled into her car and drove back to the first car park. There, Maggie put the dirty tissues in a litter bin, going to the trouble of pushing them deep down into the detritus. And then cleaned her hands on a wipe. She offered them round.
‘When we’ve done,’ said Jack, refusing a wipe.
‘Why the hell aren’t we wearing gloves?’ said David.
‘Because, darling,’ said Maggie sweetly, ‘we’ve never done this before.’
And Jack thought, sod it, he’d known he needed gloves, to hold the string round the bag. He’d thought of it earlier and forgotten in the bustle of leaving the house. Too bad now. They were here with what they had, not what they wanted.
They headed back into the forest to retrieve the corpse. It was easier without their burden. Maggie was ahead with the torch, David had the spades which Maggie had thoughtfully tied together.
They came to the holly tree. Jack and David ducked under its canopy.
‘It’s gone!’ exclaimed Jack, scrabbling about.
‘Can’t have done,’ cried David as he kicked old leaves.
‘Shut up, the two of you,’ hissed Maggie.
‘Someone’s taken the body,’ said Jack. ‘While we were at the other car park…’
‘I don’t believe it,’ cried David. ‘Ten minutes, fifteen at most, we were gone.’
They were groping about in the tent of the holly tree, down on their knees, swishing the leaves.
Maggie came under with the torch and shone it in their faces.
‘You pair of idiots!’ she exclaimed. ‘Wrong tree.’
They came out.
She shone the torch a little way ahead. ‘That one.’
They found the body there with little trouble, and pulled it out onto the path.
‘Let’s carry it sideways,’ said Jack, ‘then no one has to walk backwards.’
David took the head, Jack the legs, holding it under the strings. The path was wide enough f
or them to handle their package sideways. Maggie took the lead, the two spades over a shoulder and the torch in her free hand. She held the beam downwards. The order was not to chatter, only essential talk.
The way was shadowy, half-bare trees silhouetted against the night sky. The path was rutted with cycle tracks, boot prints and horseshoes. In places it was wet and muddy. Here they had to take care, go slow or go round, with Maggie directing them.
They had to stop for a minute or so, from time to time, to get the string stress out of their hands. Jack cursed himself for forgetting gloves. So obvious. What else had he forgotten?
After about quarter of an hour, Jack said, ‘Let’s get off the main drag and find somewhere to bury it.’
They took a narrow path where Jack had to walk backwards with Maggie just ahead leading him. They went along the path for a few minutes, brambles and twigs pressing in. At a clearer patch they stopped. And put down the body for a break.
‘We have to go off track,’ said Maggie.
David wiped his brow with his sleeve, breathing heavily. ‘Weighty bugger. That string is cutting my hands in half,’ he said. ‘I must go to the gym again.’
Jack too was feeling the effort but was in better shape. This was manual work and he did plenty of that without the need of a gym. His hands were more calloused but the string still bit.
They left the path and headed into the thicket. The density made it slow work, ducking under branches, pushing through undergrowth. About a hundred metres away from the path, in an area free of trees, they stopped and put down their burden.
‘Good a place as any,’ said Jack.
Maggie cut the strings round the spades and gave them one each. Jack cleared away the fallen leaves on a patch of ground and tested the earth under it with a spade. With some hard pushing from his boot, it went into the fullness of the blade.
‘Let’s get digging,’ he said.
They dug for a couple of hours. There were tree roots to impede them, the ground was claggy in places. And then came the difficulty of standing and digging in the hole with two spades as the hole got deeper. And so they had to take it in shifts. It was drizzling, not at all heavily, but enough that over time they were soaked through. David was plainly exhausted, Jack pushed on making his shifts longer, though he was tired enough. He knew the body needed to be at least a couple of feet down to evade discovery, and that meant a hole at least three feet in depth. Deeper still was better.