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‘I took Max. Harder to escape a lecture when you’re trapped inside a moving vehicle.’
She nods, as if something just clicked inside her head. ‘And then you cycled home, the pair of you.’
‘How’d you know that?’
‘I took the gazebo out of the shed earlier and saw the bikes.’ Erin searches his face. ‘Joe, is everything really OK?’
‘Of course.’
‘You’d tell me if it wasn’t?’
‘Everything’s fine.’
Joseph’s heart is a stone in his chest as he says that. Because his wife looks like she believes him – and because lying to her was far easier than he’d imagined. She comes over. After a moment’s hesitation, she loops her arms around his neck,breathes him in. ‘Idolove that scent on you. Did you get a new shirt?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Do I get a sneak peek?’
Again, he baulks at her closeness. Because this simply isn’t how things have been. ‘There’s loads to do, remember?’
‘It’s only a barbecue and drinks.’
Joseph disentangles himself, can’t bring himself to look at her. As he leaves the room, he feels Erin’s gaze like two scorch marks on his neck.
TEN
Upstairs, Joseph undresses and peels off the blood-encrusted Elastoplast. He showers, redresses his wound and puts on his new shirt. Then he douses himself in cologne until he can no longer smell the ghost stench of the dead man.
With the ensuite door locked, he sits on the toilet and goes back online. This time he doesn’t check news sites; in hindsight, the police won’t be searching for an adult male missing for less than twenty-four hours. Nor will any journalist be reporting the disappearance. If he’s lucky, a missing person report might not even have been made. His focus, right now, should be appropriate disposal of the body.
The internet, as usual, offers a wealth of advice from people with no clue. Joseph dismisses almost all of it. He’s not going to build a funeral pyre, pour an acid bath, feed body parts to wild pigs or hire a wood chipper and spray a nearby forest with gore. His only real option is burial – and for that he needs a suitable location.
Jack-O’-Lantern Woods is a non-starter for obvious reasons. His late mother still retains her allotment in Saddle Bank, but that feels like another short-cut to disaster.
Crompton is reasonably close to the South Downs. It might be his best bet. After another ten minutes of internetsurfing he settles on Black Down in West Sussex, an hour’s drive from home. He’ll go tonight, once the barbecue’s over and Erin’s asleep.
Downstairs, making himself useful, he reels out extension cables, plugs in speakers and lights, buffs drinking glasses, makes ice cubes and stocks the overflow fridge with beer and wine.
While he’s setting up outside, Erin prepares four different salads and the same number of desserts. Mid-afternoon she disappears into town and returns a few hours later with styled hair, a new outfit and freshly lacquered nails.
The first guests arrive around five. All are cul-de-sac neighbours: the Robinsons, the Taylors and Ralph Erikson, the insomniac widower whose house was lit up last night.
The Robinsons live next door. Gemma Robinson, a keen runner, is close to Erin’s age. This afternoon she’s swapped her Lycra and running shoes for a floral summer dress and strappy leather sandals.
‘Youdoscrub up well, Joe Carver,’ Gemma remarks. She breathes deep as she embraces him, clearly another fan of his new cologne.
Joseph mumbles his thanks. Then he shakes Greg Robinson’s hand and welcomes the other arrivals. With every physical interaction he imagines himself transferring a trace of the dead man’s essence to his guests’ skin. Quickly the thought grows too much, and he retreats to the safety of his shed on the pretext of fetching charcoal. When he turns to shut the door, Erin is standing on the threshold, so close that he lurches backwards, nearly colliding with the lawnmower.
‘Whoah, there, Jumpy,’ she laughs. ‘Here, I got you a present in town. Now’s probably a good time to give it to you.’
She hands him a black box, long and narrow. It looks, to Joseph, like a miniature coffin. For a moment, he’s too disquieted to open it – worried, irrationally, that it’ll containa tiny replica of the dead man, complete with a tiny caved-in face.
Clenching his teeth, he prises off the lid. Inside is a seven-inch Victorinox meat cleaver with a polished maple-wood handle. Carefully, he removes it from the box. The blade gleams when he angles it.
‘I know you’ve always wanted one,’ Erin says. ‘It’ll go through ribs, beef bones, you name it.’
Joseph looks past her to his neighbours drinking and chatting on the lawn. He imagines a journalist interviewing one of them a few weeks from now: