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‘No.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Is it?’
Joseph maintains eye contact. ‘You don’t think?’
‘Maybe.’
‘There’s no wallet, either.’
The boy shrugs.
‘You didn’t find anything – personal possessions, whatever – near where you hit him?’
‘No.’
Joseph frowns, continues to study his son. ‘And you checked?’
‘Dad, there was nothing.’
‘You’re positive?’
‘Yes. Why do you want his wallet?’
‘So I can figure out who he is – and who might be looking for him. He’s going to be missed by someone, I guarantee it. He’s wearing a watch that could pay your first year’s tuition fees.’
‘There wasn’t a phone,’ Max says. ‘Nor a wallet.’
Joseph doesn’t push it further. He takes the duct tape and reseals the tarp’s severed edges. Rolling the top flap back into position, he re-ties the bungees and throws the blankets over the top. Then he shuts the boot and locks the car.
Against the far wall leans his mother’s shopping bike andan ancient Dawes racer. Indicating them with his torch, he says, ‘Let’s go.’
They peddle home through sleeping streets. Joseph uses the silence to focus on what comes next. He’s on a timer, now. The dead man can’t stay in his mother’s garage long – twenty-four hours, maybe; forty-eight at best. He has an incredibly short window in which to figure out a cover story, analyse its holes and ensure they’re all plugged. Most pressing is what he’ll tell Erin. Doubtless she’ll want to know why he kept her out of the kitchen tonight – and, at some point, the whereabouts of Max’s car.
He’s spent his entire adult life being honest. Now, he’ll have to become a liar – and a competent one, at that. If he fails, Max will go to prison, and Joseph will have broken the most sacrosanct vow he’d made to his late wife: to protect their son from further harm.
As they arrive home, he checks the neighbouring houses. Ralph Erikson’s windows are now dark like all the others. After shutting the bikes in the shed, he unlocks the back door and leads Max inside. ‘Straight up to bed,’ he says. ‘Get some sleep. We’ll talk more in the morning.’
Max looks for a moment like he’ll reply. Like he wants to get something off his chest. Instead, nodding, he disappears upstairs.
Joseph goes into the living room. In the mirror over the fireplace, he examines his reflection. His eyes look different. Like they’re missing something important.
If I hadn’t given Max the car, he couldn’t have driven out there to visit Drew tonight. And if I hadn’t married Erin, Max wouldn’t have met Tilly or Drew. He’d have had no reason to be in those woods.
There are fresh stains on his T-shirt, he sees. Probably from when he leaned in close to search the dead man’s pockets. Stripping it off, he bags it in a Sainsbury’s carrier andhides it at the back of a kitchen cupboard. Then he retrieves his ridiculous tomahawk from the worktop. Foolish to have left it in plain view. If he’s to help Max survive this, he’ll have to think faster and clearer.
One thing he wants to understand is what the dead man was doing in Jack-O’-Lantern Woods. If he was walking out there so late, surely he’d have been carrying a phone. Joseph didn’t find any car keys in his pockets, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any. He can’t rely on Max’s claim that no belongings remain at the scene – the stakes are simply too high.
If he’s learned anything from books and TV, it’s that guilty parties shouldn’t revisit crime scenes. And yet that’s exactly what he feels he must do.
Upstairs, he pauses outside his bedroom. Beyond the landing window the sky is beginning to lighten. From Erin’s breathing, it sounds like she’s gone back to sleep. He wonders if she’s faking – and then he flinches from that thought. He’s just hidden a body inside his late mother’s house – and already he’s projecting his dishonesty on to his wife.
Joseph hears movement behind him. Turning, he sees Tilly emerge from her bedroom. His stepdaughter is barefoot, in a white cotton nightdress featuring a yellow Pokémon. She might be the same age as Max but she’s several years younger in looks. Her dark hair, recently styled by Drew, is messy from sleep.
Tilly pauses when she notices him, rubs her eyes. ‘Joe?’
‘Hi, sweetheart.’