How to Kill Your Friends

by Phil Kurthausen

  The car stank with their sweat and also the smell of a thousand other summer days’ sweat and dirt, which was triggered by the blazing sun and the heat from the engine. But it was a car and it was moving away from Barcelona.

  Meredith had told Edu all about Carlos and the money, leaving out, of course, anything about the real reason why she had needed to get the bag back. He had become very angry when she told him about Carlos trying to sexually assault her and for one moment she had thought he was going to turn the car back and get his friends together to deliver street justice, but she had explained to him she just wanted to get away for a while, that Barcelona had become too much, too hot, too dangerous.

  He had eventually calmed down and the monotony of the drive and the heat had proven to be a calming as well as a stultifying influence.

  ‘I’m sorry you didn’t get to plaster the town hall with your paintballs,’ she said to him once they had cleared the city limits.

  He had winked at her. ‘Social justice was delivered, no? It means so much more when it is personal. And as for Diada, there will be another one next year and another the year after that. I would much prefer to spend the time with you, like this.’ And he reached out and placed his left hand over her right hand.

  And when the sun came up and he put on his Ray-Bans she didn’t mind so much.

  She had slept and when she woke, they were high in the Serranía de Ronda mountain range. Meredith had left the route in Edu’s hands, and the romantic that he was, he had avoided the autoroutes and driven a more scenic route, taking them up past Benehavís. He said it wouldn’t add much time on at all and they would still be able to make the ferry to Tangiers. The country up here was sublime. They passed through cork forests and stopped for coffee at a small pueblo blanco which hung high and parched on the side of one of the mountains.

  While they sat watching the vultures climb on warm updraughts of air he leaned across the table and put both of his hands on hers. ‘Listen, why don’t I come with you to Morocco? We can take the car across and drive it down south. I have friends who have done this before. We can drive to Marrakech and then just keep going until we hit Dakar. I’ve always wanted to go to Dakar, though I never knew it until now.’ And he grinned and then looked at her hopefully.

  Meredith didn’t know how to respond. Her plan had been to land in Morocco and then fall into the backpacking scene where she could be anybody, just another privileged lost girl travelling the world and picking up trinkets. Nobody gave them a second glance. But without him, she would have been maimed or worse by now, and she realised that what she wanted from The Squad wasn’t money and fame, but a sense of belonging, a place, and somewhere to call home.

  She squeezed his hand back and smiled without thinking. ‘I think that would be awesome. I’m ready for a new adventure.’

  She meant it but didn’t know what would happen when they reached the port. If the DNA tests had come back then it was possible that Fernández would have gone to the hotel to arrest her and when she found out she wasn’t there she would surely put an immediate call to flag her passport at ports and airports and that would be the end of things. She had considered using Olivia’s passport but that was also bound to be flagged already so she would dispose of that on the ferry, if they got on, by throwing it overboard.

  And when they landed in Morocco, should Edu find out about the DNA results, she could explain to him that there was a mistake and if he didn’t believe her it would be easy to get away from him there. Yes, it could all work. There was a way it could work.

  He kissed her across the table and she felt, for a moment, happy.

  Back in the car, Meredith kept the radio tuned to a music channel which had a continuous diet of classic rock tunes, which she enjoyed. However, the real reason she wanted to listen to the news bulletins was to hear if there were any developments on her case. But there was nothing. As they began to descend, via a series of switchbacks, to the plain and Tarifa, she began to feel more confident that they would make the ferry and get on it before the DNA results were back. She also kept an eye on her mobile phone as she was sure that Fernández, upon discovering that Meredith was no longer in the hotel, would call her immediately.

  About halfway down the mountain, there was a loud bang and the car lost traction and slid across the road before coming to a stuttering halt on the verge with Edu barely in control.

  ‘Shit,’ he said.

  They both got out and Meredith could see straight away that the rear passenger side tyre was flat.

  Edu said, ‘Won’t take me a minute to fix it. No hay un problema.’ And then he went to the boot of the car and opened it. He took out a black cloth bag and then set about jacking up the car. ‘Can you pass me that tyre iron,’ he said, after the car was jacked up.

  Meredith, who had been admiring the sublime view out to the Mediterranean, wandered back over to the car and picked up the tyre iron from the ground behind him and passed him it. He was sweating heavily and his check shirt and jeans were stained with the red dust that covered everything on the mountain. Since they had stopped there had been no passing traffic and the only sound was that of a million cicadas, the ubiquitous soundtrack to this intense Spanish heat. He loosened the wheel nuts and then handed her back the tyre iron before removing the wheel. Meredith wandered back over to the edge of the road and looked out across the slope that tumbled down to Tarifa and the sea. They had plenty of time to catch the ferry.

  ‘Meredith, what’s this?’

  She turned round and saw that Edu was standing at the rear of the car looking into the trunk. Meredith sauntered over to join him and slipped her arm around his waist. He moved away brusquely and then she looked in the trunk and saw why.

  Her bag was open, the stack of banknotes visible and there on the top, where he must have put it after looking at it, was Olivia’s passport.

  ‘How can you have Olivia’s passport?’ He began to back away from her, a look of confusion on his face as he came to terms with what this must mean.

  She raised her left arm and outstretched her palm in a ‘keep calm’ gesture, but he knocked her hand away.

  ‘It’s nothing Edu, I can explain it all,’ she said, and slowly stepped towards him.

  ‘Nothing? You can only have that, if…’ He paused. ‘The police think she is on the run or has killed herself. But if you have her passport that must mean… fuck…’ He looked at her with wide, confused eyes.

  She swung the tyre iron and it connected, with a dull thud, to Edu’s left temple. He sank, almost in slow motion, to his knees, and then he tried to say something to her. It may have been, ‘I love you,’ but she wasn’t sure that she hadn’t just imagined this. She swung the iron once more and hit him again. He slumped, with a ghastly thud, to one side.

  Meredith felt sick in a way that she hadn’t before but she had to act quickly. She grabbed him by his heels and dragged him to the side of the road where a minute before she had been admiring the view. The edge dropped away here into a dense scrubland with thick bushes and she rolled him over. His body fell a few feet and then stopped.

  She considered climbing down and covering him up but he wasn’t visible from the road and it would take someone standing on the side of the road in this exact spot to find his body so she left it as it was. It was the right thing to do, she was sure.

  She needed to tighten the nuts on the rear wheel and then lower the jack and once she had done that, she checked the area. Apart from the wheel marks, you would never know anyone was here and they would be gone after one quick rainfall.

  Meredith jumped in the driver’s seat and began the drive down to Tarifa.

  31

  Meredith had no choice but to present her own passport to the border guard. Olivia’s would have undoubtedly triggered a warning.

  He grunted and looked at it, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, and then he looked at the computer screen in front of him. This is it, thought Meredith. There would be another look and
then he would make a call and ask her to step out of her car. From there it would be windowless offices, vans and then a courtroom and finally a small cell to hold her until she was in her fifties, if she was lucky.

  She smiled at the guard but he was too busy checking the screen to notice. If he asked her to get out of the car, she could just gun the engine and swing the car around, make a break for it and go out in a hail of gunfire or worse, be wounded and then arrested. But she knew this wouldn’t happen, she would just wait here for her fate.

  He turned his head away from the screen. A middle-aged, paunchy man, probably bored with his job, his family, his life choices and heading for a cardiac event. This was the man who would deliver her to justice.

  She saw herself in the mirrored shades, two images of her face reflected back at her. She tried the smile again and even in the lenses it looked the most real, beautiful thing she had ever managed. The guard made a deep noise from his throat and then handed back her passport.

  ‘Have a pleasant trip,’ he said, and then he tried a flirty smile of his own that revealed nothing but nicotine-stained teeth.

  Meredith slowly drove the car forward, joining the rear of the queue of vehicles waiting to board the ferry to Tangiers. There were many old cars, filled with families, eating, arguing, laughing, and camper vans with friends and lovers, and hers seemed to be the only vehicle with a sole occupant. She sighed and to kill time whilst she waited for the ferry to start boarding, she tuned the radio into a news channel and checked her mobile phone. She had considered turning it off, but what was the point? Her passport use identified her location and she would throw her mobile phone from the ferry, together with Olivia’s passport, so she could not be tracked in Morocco.

  She managed to catch a news bulletin but there was still nothing about the case so she assumed the DNA result had not been released yet.

  She opened Instagram and The Squad’s profile. The last picture was of her, Olivia, Dylan and Richard sitting by the pool at Soho House. They were all grinning and Dylan was holding up two fingers behind her head. She scrolled down, revealing more of The Squad’s history, the early images of just Amy, Olivia and Richard. They grew younger and happier as she scrolled. Eventually, the earliest images were just of Amy alone at the start of her online journey. Meredith came to an image, it must have been four years old, of Amy, sitting outside a coffee shop in London, sipping a soy latte and she had foam on her lips. She was smiling with her eyes and it was the type of innocence that sold well and would eventually lead to Adam’s attention and many followers.

  But here she was not alone of course: there was someone behind the camera. Olivia in all probability.

  And that was the trick, Meredith had come to realise, as she sat in the car, in the heat, waiting to board a ferry that would take her away from Spain and away from people. She had had nobody and never would. She had come close with The Squad and then Edu but now she was alone.

  But maybe that wasn’t the case.

  Annik, the painter she had met at the MACBA outside of Tangiers, and in the bottom of Meredith’s bag was the drinks mat with her address on it.

  The car in front of her suddenly started and its rear red brake lights came on, as did all the others ahead of her. Meredith turned the key and Edu’s Xsara juddered back to life.

  Slowly, the cars began to move forward. And then Meredith noticed that stationed just before the ramp were two armed police officers. These were of a very different type to the border guard. These men looked alert, toned and professional. One of them looked at the occupants of the cars and the other was scrutinising the drivers. Each of them held automatic weapons and they looked poised and ready. Was this it then?

  Meredith let the clutch go and inched the car forward.

  At that moment a message notification flashed up on her phone. It was from Fernández. She reached down for the phone which was on the passenger seat and put it into her lap.

  She was the next car in line and her stomach felt like it was cramping with anxiety. Carefully, and trying not to stall the car, she drove forward.

  One of the policemen was young and had a square chin and dark, pitiless eyes that betrayed no emotion.

  It was hot and her window was already rolled down. The policeman looked in and then winked at her. ‘Just checking for terrorists. You go right on, Señora.’

  She smiled at him and he blushed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and as the car moved forward, she let out a breath of pure released tension. The car bumped as it hit the steel ramp that led to the bowels of the ferry and then she was inside and it was dark and cool in here. She brought the car to a stop and switched off the engine.

  Meredith picked up the phone in her lap. She knew that she could still be stopped at the Moroccan border or the police could just board the ferry and pull her off. She hesitated for a second and then opened the message.

  DNA on the towel was a false positive. Nothing further needed from you at this time. Fernández.

  She leaned back in the seat and was rewarded with a scent from the headrest that was the ingrained smell of Edu’s cologne and sweat. She wondered how long it would take for his smell to disappear from the car, from the world. Only a matter of weeks, she thought. It was a shame about Edu. She could maybe have loved him or pretended for a while, but he was gone now and until she met Annik, she was alone. It was the way it had to be.

  Meredith watched as the passengers in front of her left their car. There were two small children; a boy and a girl, a wife wearing a hijab, who looked harassed as she tried to marshal the children who had immediately started to fight. And then the father stepped out of the driver’s side and he smiled, a smile so genuine, so full of love and pride. It was a smile that no one else saw, including his wife and children, apart from Meredith, and she began to cry.

  THE END

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