Mainlander

by Will Smith

  She hooked her arms under Mrs Le Boutillier’s shoulders and walked backwards through the hall, dragging the woman behind her. She opened the door with one hand, then grabbed the shopping trolley and hurled it on to the landing. The old woman hissed as her right foot bumped over the doorframe.

  Shutting the door behind her, Emma kicked the trolley down the stairs. Ian had disappeared.

  ‘The stairs are too difficult so I’m going to try to ease you down the banister.’

  Mrs Le Boutillier grimaced. Emma took her down a few steps to where the gap between the stairs and the landing began to widen. She then laid her over the banister as carefully as she could so that her feet were off the steps and, descending first to take her weight, slid her down.

  The woman’s eyes were bulging and her face reddening, so Emma tried to hurry to minimise the discomfort. She heard a faint splatter above the wind and looked down to see that Mrs Le Boutillier had vomited. She emitted a low gasp and shut her eyes. They were now at the bottom of the stairs. Emma held Mrs Le Boutillier steady to stop her falling off the banister as she pulled the trolley towards her with a foot, then leant down to grab it.

  She brought the older woman upright. ‘Edna? Are you okay?’ Her head was lolling. Emma took movement as a positive sign. ‘I’m going to try to keep your left leg straight to take all the weight off your right.’ She pulled the umbrella out of the trolley and used a stowed plastic rain hat to tie it to her neighbour’s left thigh. She took the belt off Mrs Le Boutillier’s raincoat and completed the splint by tying the brolly to her calf, then put Mrs Le Boutillier’s left leg into the shopping trolley, leaving the right outside.

  ‘Okay, Edna, here we go,’ said Emma, stroking the woman’s hair. She leant forward and pulled Mrs Le Boutillier behind her, wrapping her free arm around her.

  ‘It’ll be a bit windy, but it looks like the rain’s stopped.’ Emma pushed the door open, blocking it with her foot, and hauled the woman out behind her. The wind made every step a lunge, and by the time they’d reached the gate Emma’s left arm was feeling the strain of holding Mrs Le Boutillier in place. If she leant too far forward her back was in agony, but if she stood upright her passenger would lean over to the side.

  As they set off, the streets were deserted, save for refuse and a lone dustbin that rolled along and smashed into a parked car. The way ahead was increasingly hazardous. There was zero chance of meeting a passer-by on foot unless they were also making for the hospital, and she couldn’t see a single moving vehicle. She heard a smash and turned as far as she could behind her to see that some scaffolding had come down. She blocked out the terror and pulled forward against the gale.

  The streetlights juddered, and every time she passed one, she worried that it would come down. The General Hospital lay ahead and to the left, but she decided to cross Parade Gardens rather than run the gauntlet of lights, roof tiles and television aerials.

  Twenty feet into the park she knew she’d made a mistake: fallen branches of varying sizes were catching under the wheels of the trolley, and the trees were whipping around violently. She decided to leave the path and walk across the grass, bringing them nearer to one of the hospital entrances. The wheels of the shopping trolley were locking. Emma felt herself sinking to her knees. She bent forward as far she could and lifted Mrs Le Boutillier and the trolley on to her back, gritted her teeth and staggered forward. Her foot caught in something and she tripped forward, then crashed sideways into a raised flower bed, jarring her hip as she tried to stop the two of them toppling over.

  The road was in sight now, so she bent forward again, took the strain and lurched towards it. Inexplicable strength flowed from within and she found herself stepping into the road, not thinking to check for traffic. A car hooted and swerved round her. She reached the pavement. A&E was on the other side of the building, but she just wanted to get inside, so she dragged herself to the door twenty feet up the road and collapsed on the floor of the ENT reception area, where Mrs Le Boutillier startled a security guard with a tortured scream.

  Moments later, a doctor and three nurses were lifting her on to a stretcher, and Emma was helped to a chair, where she sat in a daze, clutching her side as a nurse said they should probably check her out.

  ‘How do you feel?’ asked the nurse.

  ‘Good,’ Emma replied. ‘I feel good.’

  20

  LOUISE

  Friday, 16 October 1987

  ‘Where’s the rock?’

  ‘I don’t know – out there somewhere.’

  ‘We should get rid of it.’

  ‘It’s a rock.’

  ‘It’s a murder weapon.’

  ‘How do we get rid of a rock? Throw it in a volcano?’

  ‘Throw it in the sea,’ replied Danny, with what Louise extrapolated from the gloom would be a piercing glance.

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Of course. Getting rid of the rock’s easy. He’s the problem.’

  Danny and Louise were crouched inside the clump of roofed rocks that he had identified as a dolmen. If Debbie had been there, she would have been able to tell them it was Le Dolmen du Couperon, a late Neolithic Gallery Grave from 3000 BC, and the adjacent hut was a guardhouse from 1689, which had served as a magazine for a long-disappeared battery that had once commanded Rozel Bay. Minutes after she had killed Billy, Louise had pulled his body inside, panicking she might be discovered, discounting the doorless guardhouse, unable to still her somersaulting mind enough to grasp the unlikelihood of ramblers venturing out in such flattening winds. She had then sat hyperventilating, not knowing what to do. She hadn’t the strength to drag the body to the water and couldn’t dig a deep enough hole with her bare hands to bury it – in any case, there wasn’t anything approaching a wilderness on the Island that would allow a shallow grave to remain undisturbed. Ironically the one man who could have helped her with the disposal of a body was lying dead before her. There was only one other person to turn to, the only person she knew would do anything for her, although she couldn’t be sure his love would stretch to this.

  She had gingerly made her way back to the car, her legs feeling like they might give way at any moment. The wind knocked her on to her back and she lay there, staring at darkened grass blades and willing the whole world away. She could just lie there and let the night take her. With a bit of luck she’d be blown clean off the Island and bounced like a skimming stone all the way home across the sea. Except home was now even less of an option than it had been before. She sat up and half slid, half crabbed down the slope towards the car.

  Billy had left it running. She had never driven before, but understood the basic principles. A few shudders and clutch burns later, she had managed to turn round in the car park and was heading up the hill. She drove in a straight line so she could be sure of finding her way back, and where a T-junction forced her to make a turn, she memorised an English version of the name of the road she was leaving. La Rue des Pelles became Pellet Road. Soon after the turn she came to a hamlet with a phone box. She pulled over, and found herself having to push the car door open with both feet against the wind.

  She called the restaurant he worked in first, but there was a recorded message saying they had closed early because of the weather.

  She called his home and his flatmate, Vicky, who always scowled at Louise for giving him the runaround, took delight in telling her he was asleep.

  ‘Wake him up. Please.’ Louise had to be careful.

  ‘Don’t you think he deserves a little peace, after what you did to him today?’

  Shit. ‘What do you mean? What’s he said I’ve done?’

  ‘Nothing. He didn’t even say he’d been with you. But I can tell when he comes home with that hollowed-out look that you probably led him on and broke his heart again.’

  ‘Please, just get him on the phone.’

  ‘No. You’re not good for him.’

  Louise kicked the base of the phone box in an effort to lance her rage, but it only seemed to stoke it.


  ‘What goes on between Danny and me is none of your fucking business. You’re not his mum.’

  ‘And what are you?’

  ‘If you want him, have him. It’s not my fault he doesn’t want you. That’s the fault of your fat ankles and shit perm.’

  ‘Oh, piss off, you Scouse bitch!’

  Louise could feel the dial tone about to come on, when in the background she heard Danny’s voice. A hand was placed over the receiver and muted the raised voices. There was then a bang and a clatter, which she imagined was the handset being flung down against the wall, and Danny was on the line.

  ‘What do you want, Lou?’

  ‘Danny, I can’t explain on the phone. Something bad’s happened, something really bad. You’re the only person can help me.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Just come.’

  ‘You come here.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Don’t mind Vicky.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with Vicky. Just come. Please. Please.’

  ‘I don’t want to go out in this weather – it’s not safe.’

  ‘If you don’t come, that’s it, I’m over. I’m gone. You won’t see me again. Because I’ll be … Just come, please …’ Louise bit her lip. ‘If you love me, come.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Saie Bay, up from the car park. There’s a bunch of rocks and a hut.’

  ‘There’s no phone box there.’

  ‘I found one up the road.’

  ‘Why don’t I come there? The address will be on the phone somewhere.’

  ‘I need to go back to the bay.’

  ‘Why? How are you going to get there? Are you walking, in this wind?’

  ‘Driving.’

  ‘Driving? You? Whose car? You don’t have a licence.’

  ‘I’m running out of money, just come.’

  ‘Couldn’t you drive to me first?’

  ‘I don’t know the way.’

  ‘Look, stay by the phone box, tell me where it is.’

  ‘No!’ said Louise, but the pips sounded and the line went dead. She smacked the handset against the wall of the box. She couldn’t wait here – what if someone came and offered help, thinking she had broken down? What if a police car passed? She was blocking a lane in a banged-up car with ten grand cash in the back. She couldn’t risk being picked up five minutes’ drive from a corpse, whose blood she could still taste in her mouth.

  She drove slowly back to the car park, the most hazardous part being the three-point turn she attempted by the phone box. It ended up as a ten-point turn, the last two points of which were witnessed by a waiting Mini, whose driver wound down the window as he passed to say something, insult or a warning, that was lost in the gusts.

  She parked the car and sat. She shook from panic and cold; the vehicle shook from the wind. She prayed that Danny would come. Her breathing had calmed and she worked out how to run the heating. She tried to think of how to explain things to Danny, where to start, what to admit, what to avoid, what to embellish, what to falsify. What if he freaked and wanted to go straight to the police? She could imply that she would expose his part in Rob’s blackmail, and his plans to subvert the housing laws, although that would be her blackmailing him, not a good move with respect to their long-term relationship. She was still going over the options when a light appeared down the lane behind her. She sank down in the seat, wary of an encounter with a stranger.

  The light came closer and Danny banged on the window, holding his bike with the other hand. Louise moved into the passenger seat and gestured for him to get in. He disappeared round the back to put his bike in the boot.

  He opened the door and jumped in. ‘Sorry, the weather’s fucking terrifying. Didn’t want the bike to blow away.’

  ‘Danny …’

  ‘I nearly got killed twice coming over here, Lou.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Before you tell me why, just know this is the last time I’ll help you. I’m doing this because I care about you, and to prove I don’t just do things because I want to sleep with you, like you said earlier. You treat me like a mug, Lou, and this is the final favour I do for you.’

  This did not sound promising. God knew what he thought she was going to tell him, but the reality was so far off the scale that she daren’t risk it. Better to invent a milder peril, get him to take her home, then go on the run. What could tie her to Billy anyway? Nothing. Her prints were on the car, though. Torch it? Drive it into the sea?

  ‘Well?’ he said. ‘What is it? I’m not buying your fucking hotel for you, I’ll tell you that. I don’t want your money, not the way you treat me. You want me to drive this stolen car back where you took it? Is it Rob de la Haye’s? Or did you buy it with your hush money and you need me to show you how the wipers work?’

  ‘My ex came back. He just got out of prison. He found out about the money. I had to tell him.’

  ‘You’ve an ex out of prison? I don’t want to know any of this. If you’re back with him, fine, suits us both.’ Danny reached to open the door.

  ‘He tried to cut my face open. So I hit him with a rock. I killed him. His body’s up there …’ Suddenly Louise was crying and struggling for breath. ‘He puts knives in people’s mouths, Danny. That’s how he gets his kicks …’ She paused, staring at her knees and hoping for a hug, a word of comfort, of understanding, a declaration that all would be made right. Danny remained silent. ‘I was taking him to Rob – he wanted more money. Otherwise he was going to wait for you to come round and fuck you up, or he’d just take it out on me. But I couldn’t take him to Rob – the police would have got involved – although maybe I should just have fucking taken him there and he’d be in a cell by now. Me too, but not for murder, and Rob would probably want it hushed up anyway, although Billy would have yelled about it and landed me in it and – and – and just fucking say something!’ she screamed. ‘Or go, just go! I’ll sit here and wait for the cops!’

  ‘If it happened like you said, that’s the best thing to do. Call the police. He came at you with a knife, you hit him with a rock.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘You might not go to prison. But the longer we leave it the worse it looks.’

  ‘Whether I go to prison or not, I’m dead if this gets out. If Billy’s family know I killed him, they’ll come for me.’

  ‘What – are they like Mafia or something?’

  ‘Yes. They’re gangsters, Danny. That’s the world I grew up in. It’s what I came here to get away from.’

  ‘Jesus, Lou. I don’t know what to …’ Danny tailed off. ‘I mean, me being here, you telling me this. If I don’t tell the police, I’m …’

  ‘If you tell the police, I’m dead. Billy’s family’ll kill me, Danny! I may as well jump off a cliff right now. Jesus Christ, shit fuck fuck!’ She beat her fists on the dashboard.

  Danny grabbed her wrists. ‘Shut up! Get a grip!’

  Louise snapped back into the moment. She’d never seen Danny exhibit command.

  ‘You’re not bullshitting me?’ he said. ‘About what’ll happen?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘Where’s the body?’

  ‘I told you, up there, under some big stone thing. I dragged it inside.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They helped each other up to the dolmen, the light from Danny’s bike showing the way, then crawled inside. Danny scanned Billy’s corpse, then sat staring into space.

  ‘We need the knife too,’ he said eventually.

  ‘To cut him up?’

  ‘Jesus, is it that big?’

  ‘Probably not. You’ll know, you cut up meat. Should we get your kitchen knives?’

  ‘We’re not cutting him up. It would take ages, it’s fucking disgusting and then we’ve got ten little bits of body to get rid of instead of one big one.’

  ‘Chuck
the bits in the sea, feed them to something?’

  ‘You can’t fart in this Island without everyone you know smelling it. You think we can go round chucking feet and hands off breakwaters and no one’s going to spot it?’

  ‘Not tonight they won’t.’

  ‘It’s lethal out there. Besides, I’m not cutting up a body. I feel sick just thinking about it.’

  ‘Why d’you want the knife, then?’

  ‘I don’t want some kid finding it. Plus it’s evidence. Would he always have it on him?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘We leave it with him, don’t want his family suspecting anything.’

  ‘We’re just going to leave the body somewhere?’

  ‘Yeah, I tried to cut down La Rue des Fontanelles on my way here …’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Starts as a road, goes down to a dirt track, comes out over there, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is, I couldn’t get through. A tree’s come down and it’s blocking the way. I nearly went into it – it’s on a bend. So we put him in the car and roll it down the hill. It’ll hit the tree and look like an accident.’

  ‘That’s fucking brilliant. Unless someone sees us.’

  ‘You said yourself, no one’s going to be out tonight. We’ve got to risk it, it’s our only chance. Take the light, find the rock and the knife. Don’t touch the knife – fingerprints. I’ll pull him out.’

  Danny crawled out and started dragging Billy by the ankles, while Louise scoured the ground for the weapons. She found the knife easily; the rock took a bit longer. She was looking for a stone with a bloody edge, and was beginning to assume the rain had washed it off when she spotted it. The sight of blood and what might have been a chip of temple made her fall to all fours and dry-heave to the point at which she thought she would pass out. Danny pulled her up and held her.

  ‘Oh, my God, I killed him. I killed him. I used to love him. And I killed him.’

  ‘He tried to kill you, Lou. He deserved it.’

  She put her head on his shoulder.

  He held her away from him. ‘We don’t have time for this.’ He looked down towards the car. ‘We can’t drag him all the way because he’ll get covered in mud and grass – it’ll look weird when he’s found. Rain’s fine, no one can avoid that tonight. We have to carry him.’