Page 13

For a moment, Joseph can’t work out what’s happening. Then the realization hits him that the white eyes were intent on different prey. He groans, swears, wipes sweat from his forehead.
In the passenger seat, Max exhales explosively. Then he leans forward in his seat. ‘Are we going where I think we’re going?’
A few minutes later they arrive in Saddle Bank, where winding residential roads serve widely spaced bungalows. This is where Joseph’s mother had lived for the last fifteen years of her life. Her home has been up for sale since probate. So far, thanks to a tanking housing market, there’s been little interest.
The clicker for her electric garage door is on the key fob. Joseph pulls on to the driveway, activates the door and rolls into the garage. Once he’s turned off the engine he presses the clicker again, sealing them in darkness.
Bringing the dead man to his mother’s feels worse than obscene, but Joseph can think of nowhere else. He sits in silence for a while, recalling the near-miss with police. ‘We’ll leave the car here,’ he says, retrieving his torch. ‘Just until I’ve figured out what to do. First, though, I’ve got to see what we’re dealing with.’
Opening his door, he edges along the Honda. He rests his hand on the boot lid, gathering his courage. Then he swings it open, dials up the torch’s brightness and clicks it on.
White light with the brilliance of burning magnesium fills the boot. In its incandescence, there’s nowhere for the horror to hide. The green tarpaulin glitters, each ridge and hollow thrown into a sharp relief of light and shadow. Earlier, Joseph had relied on touch to confirm what lay beneath. Now, it’s obvious from the shape alone.
Max climbs out of the car. ‘Dad, you don’t need to—’
‘Quiet,’ Joseph snaps, more harshly than he’d intended – because it won’t take much to dissuade him from this task, and he knows he can’t avoid it. From his pocket he takes a second torch and hands it to his son. ‘Last time I was here, I left a roll of duct tape on the workbench. See if you can find it. There should be a few old blankets kicking around, too.’
With Max occupied, and with his own torch gripped between his teeth, Joseph unclips the bungees securing the tarpaulin and rolls back the first layer. With his knife, he slices through the remaining material. Doing this in semi-darkness, the colours of his surroundings corrupted by white LED light, makes the job even more ghastly.
Finally, he eases aside the tarp’s severed edges – and confirms that five years after Claire’s death, the wheels of his life have once again jumped the rails and plunged into the realms of nightmare.
SEVEN
What he exposes is no longer a face. It’s a reddish, blackish crust from which rise the recognizable contours of a human skull. There are teeth, splintered into points. A ruined eye.
The damage is so severe, so shocking and grotesque, that all Joseph can do is stare. His mouth floods with saliva. Before he can react, a fat bead of it rolls down the shaft of the torch still gripped between his teeth. It extends from the bezel and into that crusted mass. For a moment, he’s connected to the dead man by a single, glistening filament – until, with a splash, it breaks.
Joseph flinches. And when the light pans back and forth it gives the illusion of movement – a tongue moving inside a black mouth – as if his saliva has brought about a revival of sorts, a reanimation.
Instead of a stranger’s voice, though, Joseph hears his son’s:He was in so much pain. I thought it was for the best.
Beneath the cloying richness of blood and butchered flesh he smells a woody cologne similar to one he used to wear. It throws him into fresh turmoil, reinforces his awareness that he can’t think of this as a corpse, however gruesome its presentation. This is a human being, recently passed, who demands not just respect but reverence.
Joseph has made promises to Max, to Max’s late mother, and he’ll die before seeing the boy go to prison. But the consequences of those choices don’t weigh lightly.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘You didn’t deserve this. I can’t make it right, but I hope you’re at peace. He … I know how it sounds, but he’s a good kid, I swear. He’s just lost. That’s my fault, not his. I’ve got to find a way to bring him back.’
Briefly, Joseph closes his eyes. Ahead is another task as vital as it is distasteful. Slicing through more of the tarp, he exposes the rest of the body.
The dead man is wearing navy shorts, deck shoes and a short-sleeved linen shirt saturated with blood. His skin looks grey rather than summer dark, perhaps due to whichever processes of death have already begun. On his forearm is a raised mole the size of a ten pence piece. Hairs have sprouted from it like the spines of a cactus.
An Omega Seamaster hangs from his left wrist. Encircling the pinkie finger of his right hand is a gold signet ring, set with a green stone. Joseph stares at it, emotions roiling inside him. It’s a while before he can tear his eyes away.
Overall, the dead man looks in good shape. The pair of them might be similar in age. It’s hard to tell.
Joseph presses his hand to the left front pocket of the shorts. Through the material he feels nothing but cold thigh muscle. He slides his hand into the pocket regardless, but it’s as empty as he suspected.
Checking the right front pocket is more difficult. The dead man lies in the foetal position, partially on his side. Joseph has to reach his arms around the torso, bringing his face to within a few inches of that gruesome reddish-black mask. This close, it’s clear that decomposition has already started. The odour of meat bloat mixed with cologne curdles his stomach, makes him want to retch.
The right front pocket is empty, too. Joseph slides hisfingers into the two back pockets and finds nothing there either.
Max returns with the duct tape and two oil-stained blankets. ‘What’re you doing?’ he asks. ‘I had him all sealed up.’
‘Looking for a phone.’
‘Dad, come on. You think I’ve been driving him around this whole time without even checking if a phone was pinging away in his pocket?’
‘Did you find one?’