‘I don’t know. But somewhere that’s not his home. Can you imagine what that’ll do to him?’
Gemma chewed her lip. She turned to look at the body again.
‘So what do you suggest?’
6
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Why did you bring him in here if you don’t know?’
‘Like I said, I was panicking. I needed time to think. Talk it over with you.’
‘So now we’ve talked it over, what do we do?’
‘I still don’t know.’
They stood staring at the body, not speaking for a full minute.
‘Oh, God,’ Gemma said. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe we’re standing here discussing what we should do about a dead body lying on our sofa. Who the hell is he anyway, this guy who carries a gun around with him?’
‘That’s not all he’s got,’ Scott said. He knelt on the carpet and opened up the backpack. ‘Look at this.’ He showed her the money and the bags of white powder.
‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘Well, I don’t think it’s flour. He doesn’t strike me as someone who did much baking.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah. And that’s another thing. This guy is no low-level druggie. He’ll have friends in low places. Friends who won’t take kindly to someone bumping him off. If they ever hear about what Daniel did to him—’
‘All right! Stop it, Scott! I get the idea. But I still don’t know what you think we can do about it. He can’t stay here.’
Scott went to the body and started patting it down.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Trying to find out more about him.’
One of the jacket pockets seemed full. Scott reached into it and pulled out a wallet and mobile phone. He opened up the wallet and took out a bank card.
‘His name is Joseph Cobb. Mean anything to you?’
Gemma shook her head.
Scott pressed a button on the phone. The screen flared into life.
‘It needs a passcode. There’s no way we’ll ever—’
He almost dropped the phone when it rang in his hand. The caller was ‘Timely Taxis’.
‘Who is it?’ Gemma said.
‘Taxi firm.’
‘Answer it.’
‘What?’
‘He must have called for a taxi. Tell them you’ve already left.’
‘What?’
‘Just do it!’
Scott thumbed the answer button.
‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Mr Cobb? Taxi here for you.’
‘Oh. Sorry, I don’t need one now. Mate of mine gave me a lift.’
‘For fuck’s sake.’ The driver ended the call.
‘What was that about?’ Scott asked his wife.
‘Put them off the scent.’
‘Who? What scent?’
‘I don’t know. It’s what you do, isn’t it? I’ve never covered up a crime before.’
It struck Scott how far out of their depth they both were. They were a law-abiding family, and he was plunging them into an alien world. He began to doubt they could survive for very long here.
‘Gem . . .’ he began.
‘Give me the phone.’
‘What?’
‘The phone!’
He handed it over. Gemma tried removing the back cover, then gave up and took the phone to the kitchen counter, where she used a rolling pin to accomplish the task in an instant.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Taking out the battery and the SIM card.’
‘Why?’
‘They do it on television programmes. Stops the phone being traced, I think.’
She pulled out the guts of the phone, then hit it a few more times with the rolling pin before tossing the pieces into the pedal bin.
‘Gem,’ he said when she came back to him, ‘are we doing the right thing?’
‘What? You’ve just been telling me—’
‘I know. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we should come clean, like you said. Face the music.’
Gemma brought her hands to her cheeks. She was clearly floundering too.
‘We need to mull it over,’ she said. ‘We can’t rush into anything. Whatever we decide, we have to be sure it’s the right thing. Where did all this happen, anyway?’
‘By the lift. Cobb came up with us from the eighth floor.’
‘He was coming up to this floor?’
‘No. Daniel had a conversation with him. Cobb said he wanted to leave the building, but he must have pressed the up button by mistake.’
‘Then . . . that’s good. If there was no reason for him to come up to this floor, nobody will come looking for him here. And now if anyone asks the taxi firm, they’ll say he left the building.’
Scott watched as his wife’s eyes darted, her brain frantically working through the possible scenarios, just as his own had done in the corridor. She was on side, but a part of him still wished that she wasn’t, and that instead she would insist on going to the police and throwing the family on their mercy.
‘We can’t tell Daniel,’ Gemma said. ‘The less he knows, the better.’
Scott looked at the closed door. ‘He’ll be worrying about it now. He already believes he’s killed a man. Even Daniel understands how bad that is.’
Gemma suddenly marched towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ll be right back.’
She returned with a folded sheet in her hands. She unfurled it and draped it over Cobb’s body.
‘Why are you doing that?’ Scott asked.
‘Because I don’t want to stress Daniel out any more than he already is. Let’s get him in here, give him his tea, and then put him to bed, just like we do every night. We have to behave like this is just another normal day.’
‘Gemma, it’s hardly a normal—’
‘I know that! But if we’re going to get through this, we have to keep Daniel in the dark. Get him in here. And try to act casual.’
Acting anything other than terrified seemed one hell of a feat at the moment. Scott took a deep breath before rapping on Daniel’s door and then breezing in. He found his son moping on the bed.
‘Time to eat,’ Scott said. ‘Hungry?’
Daniel lifted large, sad eyes. ‘Dad?’
‘Yes, son?’
‘Who’s that man?’
‘He . . . His name’s Joseph Cobb. He just told me.’
A flicker of brightness. ‘He told you? You mean he’s not dead?’
‘Dead? No, of course not. He was unconscious, that’s all. You knocked him out.’
‘Unconscious?’
‘Yeah. You’ve seen Adam-9 knock people out before, haven’t you?’
Daniel nodded. ‘But now he’s okay?’
‘Kind of. He’s gone back to sleep. He needs to rest for a while. Anyway, food time. Coming?’
Daniel stood. He shambled after his father. As he entered the living area, he stopped and looked down at the sheet-covered mound on the sofa.
‘Why’s he all covered up if he’s not dead?’
‘I told you, he needs to sleep. We had to cover his face because it’s so bright in here. Isn’t that right, Gem? He needs to sleep after Daniel knocked him out.’
‘Y-yes,’ Gemma answered. ‘That’s right. Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine in a few hours. Come and sit at the table so we can eat.’
Daniel moved towards the dining table near the window, but all the time he kept his eyes on the sofa. He ended up crashing into the table and almost upending it.
‘Careful,’ Scott said, shifting everything back into its rightful place. ‘Come on, lad. Sit down.’
They all took their seats. Gemma began ladling out thick stew onto their plates. She glanced worriedly at Scott and he returned a subtle shake of his head.
‘Help yourself to bread,’ Scott said. ‘You must be starving.’
They ate in near silence. Scott gave up trying to chivvy Daniel along, and instead sank into his own dark contemplation. He guessed that Gemma was doing the same. Every so often, he found his gaze drifting to the corpse at the far side of the room. He did it so frequently that Daniel noticed and turned to look too. When he faced forward, Scott flashed him a fake smile of reassurance and swore to himself not to glance that way again.
Scott struggled to get any food inside him. Each mouthful objected to being forced down his gullet; it just squatted there, filling his cheeks and making him want to heave. He side-eyed Gemma’s plate and saw that her chunks of meat and vegetables were also being herded around in slow circles.
A minute later, Gemma yelped and jumped out of her chair. Scott immediately followed her line of sight to Cobb’s body. One of Cobb’s arms had slipped from the sofa, and his pale hand was now resting on the carpet.
‘Maybe he’s coming round already!’ Scott said, the falsity of the optimism in his voice so pronounced it was embarrassing. ‘I’ll check on him, shall I?’
As he stood up, he gestured to Gemma to retake her seat and stay calm. He went to the sofa, feeling Daniel’s eyes burning into his back. Using his body to block Daniel’s view, he raised the sheet from Cobb’s head and quickly replaced it again, before tucking the man’s arm back into position.
‘Not quite,’ he announced, coming back to the table. ‘Another couple of hours, I think.’
He couldn’t face Daniel as he said this. He didn’t enjoy lying to his son, let alone perpetrating such an immense charade. He had the uneasy feeling that Daniel could see right through him, and that his disappointment in his hero was intensifying with every painful second.
Silence descended again. Scott gave up even the pretence of enjoying his meal. He returned his thoughts to their predicament, and he hunted frantically for solutions. He wanted to pray for a guiding light, while knowing that any appeal to a higher presence would result in advice he didn’t want right now. He needed an escape – a simple and effective means of airbrushing this whole unsavoury episode out of their lives.
And, as time ticked away, he became more and more certain of one thing.
Neither he nor Gemma had any intention of going to the police.
He knew this without even asking his wife. Knew her mind almost as well as his own.
It was as though the passage of time had closed that avenue off to them. It had been a now-or-never moment, a once-in-a-lifetime offer, a ship that had sailed.
So, he thought, the decision is made. We are where we are.
Joseph Cobb must disappear.
7
They waited patiently while Daniel finished his meal. They waited patiently while he watched a little television. They waited patiently while he washed and undressed and climbed into bed. They patiently answered all his questions about the dead man who was, according to them, very much alive.
They could have speeded up the process by sending Daniel straight to bed after dessert, but it would merely have seeded more doubt in his already suspicious mind.
So they waited. And when they were alone and the quietness became unbearable, they spoke.
‘He’s a drug-dealing, gun-carrying, violent piece of shit,’ Gemma said.
‘Yeah,’ Scott said, ‘but he’s got his bad points too.’
Gemma didn’t laugh, and Scott wondered why he’d even tried to inject humour into this situation. He guessed his mind had endured enough of the grimness of reality.
‘He doesn’t deserve better,’ Gemma continued. ‘Why should our Daniel suffer because of this worthless scum?’
Scott realised that she was attempting to make peace with her decision.
‘Then we’re agreed?’ he asked.
Gemma looked into his eyes. ‘I don’t think we have a choice, do you?’
‘No.’
‘This man started it. He picked a fight with the wrong people, and now he’s paid for it. Daniel has been through enough. We have to protect him now. We have to save him.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m right, aren’t I? I mean, we’re doing the right thing?’
‘Yes.’
She threw her arms around him, pressed her face into his shoulder.
‘So . . .’ she said, ‘what happens now?’
He pulled away so that he could look her in the eye. ‘What happens now is that you get washed and you have an early night.’
She looked puzzled. ‘What?’
‘You heard me. Take a bath and try to relax, then go to bed.’
‘Scott? I don’t—’
‘I’ll sort it. Okay? Just stay in the bedroom and leave it to me. By the morning he’ll be gone. It’ll be as if he was never here.’
She shook her head. ‘No. We’re in this together now. You can’t manage this alone.’
‘I can. Trust me. I’ve come up with a plan. It’ll work.’
Gemma glanced at the shrouded corpse. ‘What will you—?’
‘You don’t need to know. It’s best if you don’t know.’
He watched her try to read his mind. After a few seconds, he sensed a jolt of understanding.
Gemma nodded, then stepped away from him. She seemed suddenly very small and frightened.
‘I’ll do that,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a bath. I . . . I always sleep better after a bath.’
She walked towards the bathroom, then halted and turned.
‘You’ll be careful?’ she said. ‘You won’t do anything stupid?’
‘No. I promise.’
He watched her leave the room. When he heard the bath taps running, he sat down and stared at the body.
What he had decided was that Gemma shouldn’t be involved any more than she already was. If this all went wrong, he’d like to be able to say that it was all his doing, that Gemma tried to talk him out of it, and that she had no idea he was planning to dispose of the body.
He put on the television, keeping the sound low. He saw a blur of images that meant little to him, but they helped to kill time.
Gemma came back into the living room, wrapped in a thick bathrobe. She sat on the arm of his chair and kissed the top of his head. She smelt lovely. She smelt of life.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said.
‘What about?’
‘You said you’re going to make it all go away.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘All of it.’
‘Yes. What are you—?’
‘It’s just that . . . there’s a lot of money in that bag.’
‘Gemma—’
‘I mean there must be thousands there, right?’
‘Gemma, no.’
‘I just—’
‘No. We can’t. It wouldn’t be right. It’s dirty money. Drug money. We can’t profit from what happened. Besides, it might be traceable. Every time we spent one of those notes we’d be looking over our shoulder.’
She nodded slowly. He didn’t blame her for thinking that way. It had crossed his own mind too. A sum of money like that could solve a lot of their problems.
‘How long are you going to stay up?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. A few hours. I have to make sure I’m not seen.’
‘You’re going out, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere. It doesn’t matter.’
She nodded. ‘Would you like me to stay up with you for a while?’
He stroked the back of her hand. ‘No. You go to bed. Get some rest. Like I said, tomorrow this will all seem like a dream.’
She kissed him again. As she walked away, he said, ‘Gemma?’
‘Yes?’
‘Take a sleeping tablet and put in some earplugs. And if you hear anything, don’t get up. Do you understand?’
She opened her mouth to question him, then thought better of it. But she looked frightened again.
And when she left the room, she almost seemed relieved to get out of there.
&
nbsp; 8
The garage seemed eerie at two o’clock in the morning, but Scott had no plans to stay very long. He put on as few lights as possible to avoid attracting unwanted attention. If the police did come knocking, he would tell them he had been out with friends and had left his house keys here. He had it all worked out, and he hated that he had been forced into thinking like a criminal.
The Audi 4x4 he had worked on with Daniel was still here, but he rejected it as being too new and flashy – its owner would probably notice if he left even the tiniest mark on it. Like a speck of blood, for example.
He went outside to the fenced-off compound at the rear, and played a torch over the customer vehicles awaiting work. The choice came to a grand total of two cars. The Fiat 500 was far too small, which left only an old silver Toyota Avensis. It had been towed in with a wrecked gearbox, but that had now been fixed.
Scott turned his torch onto the registration plate. It would have to do.
He went back inside for a while, then returned with the key to the Toyota, some black insulation tape, a pair of scissors, and a rag coated with a mixture of old engine oil, axle grease and brake dust. A few minutes later and the car had a new registration: a 1 turned into a T, an F into a P, a 3 into a B. Then he dabbed the rag on and around the registration plates, blurring the characters. It wouldn’t stand close inspection, but with any luck that would never happen.
He unlocked the gates of the compound, then drove the car out onto the street. He left it there while he closed and locked the garage up again, then drove home. It was only a ten-minute journey, but for every second of it he dreaded the blue flashing lights of the police, pulling him over for having dodgy plates.
He parked as close as he could get to the rear door of the block of flats. The short walk to the door felt more like a marathon, his heart now hammering in his chest. He prayed that Biggo and his mates hadn’t assembled here while he’d been gone, then cursed himself for having planted his image so firmly in their minds.
But the lobby was empty. Scott summoned the lift and travelled back up to the top storey. As he passed the eighth floor, the memories of what had happened only hours ago came crashing back in waves that made him nauseous.
The lift reached its destination and its doors opened. When Scott stepped out, he paused in the corridor for a moment while he scanned it for any signs of the extreme violence that had taken place. He could see nothing. Not a trace.
The Rule Page 6