by A J Waines
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Just do what I say. Let’s go.’
We worked quickly and in bursts, to focus all our energy. Even though there were two of us, and the man had a slight build, he was heavy and the stairs were narrow.
We’d started calling him Charlie now – somehow it made the situation seem less dreadful. We sat him on the top step and had to bump him down each one, wrapped in the sheet like a big sack of luggage. It kept coming loose and every so often I’d see the buckle on his belt, a shoelace, the stubble on his chin and remember he was a real person.
Dragging him down was horrible; even though he was dead, it seemed cruel – disrespectful – to be putting him through that. I’ll never forget that sound; the thud as his shoulders humped down to the next step. Thirteen of them in all; they were interminable. I winced at every single one, thinking his body was going to split apart with the impact.
When we reached the kitchen, we left Charlie on the floor, tightly bound in the bedsheet, leaning against the fridge.
‘We’ll just have to pray it’s too early for the others to come back,’ said Karen, fully geared up for the task.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. My brain, my gut, my conscience were all telling me to stop. I wanted to yell at Karen and make her see that moving the body – and hiding him – was so wrong. We had to tell the police and brace ourselves for the consequences. Then I remembered Karen’s face when she found me sleepwalking and imagined myself being led to a cell for the rest of my life – and I lost my nerve.
Karen turned and dragged my hands away from my crumpled face. ‘Come on, Alice. There’s no room for pussy-footing around. We’ve got to do this as fast as we can.’ She opened the door and a blast of freezing air made me snatch a breath.
‘Byre, first,’ she said.
Once outside, the bleak chill of morning was a blessing. Its rawness brought me to my senses. Ahead of us, the sun was sliding slowly upwards behind the black spindled fingers of the trees. The snow had done its job of covering everything and the sky was heavy with more to come.
Karen’s car had melted into the landscape in one dome-shaped blob; all paths were gone, boulders and shrubs were hidden. The detail was disguised. It was going to be our best friend.
Because of our position, I could see mountains, dips and swathes of land, valley after valley unfolding in white for miles. The scene would have been enchanting if we hadn’t had a body to dispose of.
Once inside the byre I’d been expecting abandoned stalls, buckets on their sides and piles of rotting hay, but the place was being refurbished into a studio. Instead of the ammonia-rife stench of manure, emulsion caught in my nostrils. There was a series of modern recessed down-lights in the beams and radiators leaning against the walls ready to be installed. Apart from a spot in the roof where snow must have recently broken through, the conversion was well underway.
Karen tracked down a rusty wheelbarrow leaning up against an old cow stall. ‘Look for something thick to cover him with,’ she said.
I found a tatty tarpaulin squashed into a metal bathtub and we made slow progress back to the cottage, Karen trundling the barrow with difficulty into the drifts ahead of us. At least the snow was muffling all the sounds we made.
‘We’ve got to get him in without any faffing about,’ she instructed, opening the back door. ‘Imagine he’s a heavy sack of potatoes, okay? Don’t drop him.’
On the count of three we dragged him outside and heaved him into the wheelbarrow, laying the tarpaulin over him. We tucked it in at the sides, but there must have been a gap, as one of his arms flopped out onto the snow. Karen dared to squash it under the sheet. It was at least thirty-two hours since he’d died and the rigor mortis was starting to wear off.
‘What’s that on his wrist?’ I asked. A line of black ran around the spot where his hand joined his arm.
‘It’s just an elastic band, I think,’ she said. ‘People use them to help give up bad habits.’
I’d heard of the idea. You ping the elastic when you’re tempted to eat chocolate or have a cigarette. Charlie wouldn’t need to worry about that anymore.
Karen wiped her nose with her glove. ‘Perhaps he was trying to give up breaking and entering.’
I hoped she didn’t expect me to laugh.
The snow meant we made slow progress back to the byre. His weight was slumped to the left and his feet bobbed up and down over the edge, as we went. Once we reached the track, I kept looking up thinking I heard the sound of a car engine – Stuart in his Land Rover or Jodie and Mark coming back in a taxi.
Karen sent me to get his rucksack, which we’d left leaning against the wall next to the sloping grit bin, under the kitchen window. It was now transformed into a snowman.
Karen had manoeuvred the wheelbarrow under the hole in the roof when I reached her. A white cascade had tumbled through the broken tiles, spilling out over the surrounding concrete.
‘We’ll leave him here – just until we work out what to do with him.’ she said. ‘We can bury him under all this snow.’
I sniffed and picked up a shovel.
‘Wait – we’ll need thicker sheets to cover him properly first,’ she added.
I found a green pond liner and laid it over the tarpaulin so nothing – his clothes, his skin – was visible. I used a spade while Karen tipped the snow over him. In the end, he looked like a heap of bricks or compost covered in snow that had come in through the hole in the roof.
We returned the wheelbarrow to the corner, hung up the tools and turned to go. Had I not been so petrified by the whole process, I would have been impressed. We made a good team.
‘Can we lock it?’ I asked.
‘Yes – there’s a padlock for the main and side doors. The keys are on my key ring for the cottage.’
As soon as we got back to the cottage the backlash of emotional upset and exhaustion took its toll. I sat holding my head in my hands at the kitchen table, feeling as if every ounce of energy had been sucked out of me. All I could say was we were extremely lucky no one saw us.
Mel was wanting attention by now, so Karen went to her. Moments later, a waft of lemon air-freshener pervaded the whole house. Karen really had thought of everything.
I set the fire going for something to do and waited for Karen to come down with the baby.
‘She’s fed and changed.’ Karen put her down on the mat in front of the fireguard and tipped a few toys out for her to play with.
‘You know it’s too late to report it now, don’t you?’ she said seriously. ‘There’s going to be DNA from both of us all over everything.’
I nodded.
‘We’re in this together – you and me,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘We’ve got to look out for each other and make sure our stories match up.’ She ran through what we needed to be clear on: no, we hadn’t seen anyone hanging around; yes, we were out this morning enjoying the snow and we’d been using the air-freshener because Mel had been sick.
‘Got it?’
It was just as well she knew I was good at following instructions. ‘Yes. Fine,’ I said, gnawing at my broken nails. The reality of what we’d done was beginning to sink in. We’d interfered with a crime scene right at the start. In fact, we’d gone past the point of no return some time ago, but moving him – hiding him – truly sealed our position. We’d committed a crime.
But that wasn’t the worst of it for me. I had to live with the knowledge that it could have been me who’d killed him.
Chapter 22
I needed to get out of the cottage after what had happened. I needed to walk away – even though I knew I would have to come back to it again.
First, however, I had to make sure my room looked normal. I pulled on rubber gloves, dropped the rag rug Charlie had been lying on into the bath and ran cold water over it. The stain dissolved into red-brown liquid and I frantically helped it on its way towards the plughole, swooshing the water with my hands, squeezing dollops of disinfectant onto the
flow. I scrubbed the rug like my life depended on it, rinsed and scrubbed again. I squeezed out as much water as I could and hung the rug in the lean-to, because I couldn’t bear to have it near me.
We agreed to tell the others that I’d spilt coffee on it.
I set out after that, desperate to get away from our crime and all signs of it. Nothing Karen could say now could pacify me; I had to wrestle with my own conscience on this one. I knew what we were doing was terribly wrong, but I couldn’t see any other way.
I’d taken a well-worn leaflet that had a map of a short circular walk from the pile on the dresser. It was the only one I could find that was less than three miles and included the words ‘well sign-posted’ in the description. Otherwise, I risked getting lost again.
I made sure I had my phone, as well as the camera, and stomped my way through the snow, following the route which led to a farm, on to a small tarn, then off across open fields. Towards the end, just when the landscape was starting to get familiar, I turned a corner and there was the loch.
I had to shake my head at the wonder of it. So still and expansive. It was how I wanted my internal world to be, but that was way out of my reach for the time being.
From the moment I set out, I’d been running a never-ending series of mind-videos through my head about what might have happened to Charlie. How had he died? Had I really hit him with something? Would we ever know?
Then my questions turned to darker fears: Would Karen and I get away with it? Would one of us slip up and give ourselves away? What was the next step in our plan? We couldn’t leave Charlie in the byre.
And Karen? She’d stepped in demonstrating an allegiance towards me that went far beyond friendship. She was risking serious trouble to protect me. I didn’t know how I could possibly repay her.
‘You look cold,’ came a voice to my right. I jumped and the woman put her hand on my arm and apologised. ‘I thought you’d seen me,’ she said.
‘Sorry – I was miles away.’
‘Well – that’s a good thing, eh?’ She turned to share my view. ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’
I smiled at her misunderstanding.
‘You live around here?’ she asked. Her chin was buried inside a thick scarf that wrapped around her neck several times. She had kind eyes; the sort that seemed to listen to you, as well as look.
‘No – I’m in one of the holiday cottages, just over there,’ I pointed to a bank of trees to the east.
‘Ah – we’re on holiday too, my husband and I – over the other side of the loch.’
We found ourselves walking down towards the water’s edge together. ‘It’s like another world here,’ she said. ‘I live in the centre of Dunfermline – and I’d forgotten what it’s like to slow down.’
She brushed a tuft of snow away from my shoulder that had fallen from a branch above. It was the sort of thing Karen would have done.
‘Fancy a walk around to the other side?’ she said. ‘It’s a fair distance, but I can make you a hot chocolate and there’s lemon meringue pie, too.’
The chance for a bracing walk without getting lost ticked all the right boxes. ‘Sounds good,’ I said, my forced tone sounding rather flat.
She must have picked up that I wasn’t in the best of spirits. ‘Malcolm can take you back later, if you like – he’s out painting just now.’
‘Isn’t it too cold to stand still?’
She chuckled. ‘He’s a hardy soul. He takes a flask of coffee with him and every half an hour or so he retreats to the car and listens to the radio.’
I laughed. ‘Nice.’
‘Come on,’ she said, pointing towards a stile at the corner of the field. ‘I’m Nina.’ I gave her my name and gloved hand in return.
I couldn’t believe I was acting as if the horrors of that morning had never taken place. It was as if I’d shifted into autopilot, being polite and interested, when the grave sin I’d just committed should have brought me to my knees.
My energy was flagging by the time we arrived at Nina’s cottage. It was grander than ours. The walls and fences were intact; the garden tended to. This was what our cottage might have looked like, if it had been higher up the list of Mrs Ellington’s renovations.
Once indoors, I could sense the radiating warmth of that blissful combination of central heating and double-glazing. I removed my boots and she showed me through to a conservatory in the sun at the back, overlooking a long sloping lawn.
‘Ours belongs to Mrs Ellington,’ I said.
The conservatory was bigger than our sitting room and decorated in dusky blue with Wedgwood dishes on the walls, a cross-stitched sampler beside a chunky Welsh dresser.
‘Yes, she owns this one too. She runs about six of them, I think.’ Now that she’d peeled off her outdoor clothes I could see Nina was in her forties, with grey roots already creeping though her dark brown hair. She looked slim and fit, with the poise and apparent unflappability I always associated with someone who practised yoga on a regular basis.
‘Ours is a lot more basic,’ I said. ‘We don’t even have a landline.’
‘Oh – they all have telephones – I’m sure of it. There’s free wifi here, too. Not that we’re using it much. Malcolm insisted on bringing the laptop, but I keep telling him off every time he opens it. I’ll get the drinks.’
She padded off in her sheepskin slippers as I stood in the bay of the window looking out towards the horizon. A movement caught my eye and a tall stag came into my line of sight in the distance. It stopped and stood alert and elegant, as if it was staring straight at me. We were locked in a moment together, neither moving a muscle.
It both unnerved and thrilled me. The deer stood there, like it was accusing me, like it knew what I’d done. I shuddered and turned to grab my camera, but by the time I’d pulled it from the case, the deer had gone.
Nina came back with the hot chocolate and pie she’d promised. I was surprised to find myself hungry. Perhaps it was because I’d been swept up into this serene world, a million miles from the one I’d walked away from.
The chocolate had a thick froth on the top. It was creamy – warming and calming me as it went down. I really needed this. It was such a relief to be with someone who didn’t know about what had happened. Someone welcoming and open, who made me feel at home.
Then I thought about Stuart. I really liked him. I wanted nothing more than the chance to take things further with him.
I’d only eaten one mouthful of lemon meringue pie when Nina noticed my camera on the stool.
‘That looks a good one,’ she said.
‘It’s my hobby,’ I said, picking it up and showing it to her. ‘I do landscapes mostly.’
‘Fancy that? I’ve just started a beginners’ evening class in photography.’
‘My uncle was a keen photographer – just amateur.’ She was wide-eyed so I carried on. ‘He was highly commended in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition a couple of years ago.’
‘I went down to London to see that, last year – at the Natural History Museum. It was amazing. Your uncle must have been extremely good. Which category?’
‘Botanical – like me, he loved trees with unusual backlighting – and close-ups of insects, too.’ I grimaced, ‘I’m not much into those, personally.’
I asked about the type of camera she used and she went to fetch it – a Nikon P600, probably worth about four hundred pounds. ‘Malcolm says I should wait and see if I’ve got any talent before we splash out on a better one.’
I held mine out for her. It cost about twice as much, before you started adding on the extras, like lenses and tripods. The same uncle had left me money in his will, unexpectedly – it was my only indulgence. Even my parents approved. ‘Do you want to have a go?’
We spent the next twenty minutes sizing up potential shots from the conservatory and then went outside. We tried to fix my camera to her tripod, but my Fujifilm was too big, so we continued with handheld frames.
‘Now, w
ait,’ I told her, ‘until that cloud starts to shift so the sun doesn’t flood the whole scene. I’ll tell you when.’ She curled her tongue as she concentrated. ‘Now…’ She pressed the shutter release and there was a satisfying click.
‘Wow,’ she said, it’s so slick to use.
‘With any camera, it’s the quality of light that makes all the difference,’ I explained. ‘It’s best to shoot early in the morning or late afternoon when the sun is lower, with less contrast. You’ll get more subtle moody shades.’
I explained a few other basic ideas she hadn’t yet covered on her course.
‘Thanks for the tips,’ she said.
It was satisfying to feel I could make a difference. I thought again about the idea of teaching and it felt a good fit.
We scuttled back inside to get warm and sat by the fire in the sitting room to finish our pies.
‘Fancy a tipple?’ she said, leaning over and whispering as if we weren’t alone. ‘I know it’s early, but Malcolm found this amazing single malt over at the Lors Valley.’ She nudged my arm. ‘Go on!’
‘I’d love one,’ I said, not being a whisky person at all, but thinking it might do me good.
As she poured, I pictured the decanter Dad kept in a small cabinet in our dining room at home. It was the only alcohol he allowed himself and one bottle lasted him the whole year. I remembered trying it once when I was about fifteen. It burned my throat and made me cough and mum came rushing in, catching me red-handed. She slapped me hard and made me save my meagre pocket money for months to buy Dad a new bottle, even though I’d only taken a spoonful. I’d never touched whisky since.
As Nina handed over the glass, the fumes reached me and I wished I’d asked for coffee instead.
She asked what I did for a living and whether I had children. I told her about my decision to try teaching and, like Stuart, she sounded sincerely interested. ‘You should speak to my sister; she’s just started teaching five-year-olds at a school in Peckham. She’s in Malta, just now, on a dig for amateur archaeologists.’
‘I’d love to do something like that,’ I said, tipping the drink to my mouth, but keeping my lips nipped shut. ‘Take time out to discover relics and bones from the past.’ I dry swallowed, suddenly remembering the little tomb Karen and I had made only that morning. An intense wave of giddiness passed through my head.