Page 36

Joseph’s stomach somersaults. Teeth clenched and temples throbbing, he puts his foot down and gets out of there. None of this is good. None of it.
Back at home, he grabs a bottle of Evian from the fridge and drinks till his thirst is slaked. In the garden, Tilly and Drew are still draped across their sun loungers. Watching them from the bifold doors, Joseph wonders how much Drew knows.
Has Max told her everything? Or an edited version? Surely he didn’t make the same claim he made to his father: that he’d done the dead man a kindness by staving in his skull.
Joseph recalls Erin’s assessment of his son’s relationship:This is just a bit of summer fun until they go their separate ways.
If she’s right, what happens after the break-up? Drew might stay quiet for now, but what might she do once they split? Admittedly, that’s not a concern for the next twenty-four hours, nor perhaps even the next few weeks. But it’s still another tsunami rushing towards him.
So intensely is Joseph focused on these thoughts that it’s a while before he notices that Drew has turned her face towards the bifold doors. Her sunglasses obscure the focus of her gaze, but then she raises them – and he realizes she’s been watching him all along. Worse, he sees that Tilly, her expression faintly mystified, has noticed their wordless exchange. Conscious of just how creepy he must look, he abandons the kitchen for the hall.
Briefly, Joseph considers doing what he failed to do earlier – confronting his son about the wallet. Because if Max lied about that, it’s possible he lied about the dead man’s phone. If he hasn’t turned it off, it’ll lead anyone searching for it straight here.
Despite the danger, Joseph isn’t ready to look into his son’s eyes and listen to another lie. Instead, he goes upstairs and locks himself inside the ensuite. Taking out Claire’s iPhone, he opens the browser.
He’s always assumed that a grave should be six feet deep, but he finds no modern-day justification for that online. The practice seems to have sprung up during the plague years of the sixteen hundreds; back then, the deeper the victims were buried the better, and six feet was likely the maximum depth a man could dig while comfortably shovelling soil over the lip.
These days, most cemetery graves run to a depth of four feet, allowing three feet to the top of the coffin. Joseph isn’t burying a coffin – he’s burying a man wrapped in a tarp – butfour feet still seems a good target. At that depth there’s little chance of scavengers uncovering the remains, or a storm washing away the topsoil.
He’s about to unlock the door when he remembers Max’s mention of cadaver dogs. Back online he goes, where he discovers a number of facts to make him nauseous, among them that American cadaver dogs are often trained on rotting human placentas. Finally, he lands on a site that claims they can detect human remains even under fifteen feet of soil. There’s zero chance of him digging down that far, so he may as well accept that if a dog is deployed he’s fucked.
Joseph checks his watch, sees that it’s gone three. If he sets off from his mother’s bungalow in four hours’ time, he’ll arrive at Black Down near sunset. That’ll give him a while to pick out a grave site before the sky grows fully dark. After brushing his teeth a second time, he daubs more Sauvage on his upper lip.
At six thirty, he leaves a note in the kitchen, saying that he’s off to see a friend, will be back late, and that the fridge is stocked with ready meals for anyone who gets hungry. Then he fetches a bike from the shed and walks it through the side gate. Ten minutes later, he arrives at his mother’s bungalow in Saddle Bank.
The stench hits him the moment he steps inside the garage, immeasurably worse than last night. Decomposition seems to be progressing far quicker than his online research had suggested. Joseph breathes through his mouth, but the tainted air still fills his lungs. While he hunts around for his father’s old pickaxe, three huge bluebottles perform aeronautic displays. He flails wildly whenever they come close – and when one of them lands on his arm he cries out in disgust.
He discovers the pickaxe in a pile of rusting garden tools. Holding his breath, he opens the Honda’s boot. Three more flies loop out of it. Dry-heaving, Joseph tosses the pickaxe inside and slams shut the lid.
Back in the bungalow, he fills the bathroom basin with cold water and submerges his face until his breath runs out. Then, returning to the garage, he climbs into the car and uses the remote to raise the garage door. For the second time in twenty-four hours, he reverses on to the driveway and drives the dead man to Black Down.
SEVENTEEN
When he arrives, the sun is a red fire on the horizon. By the time he’s picked out a grave site, the sky is purpling. He breaks ground shortly after.
The pickaxe helps. Joseph works in shifts of twenty minutes’ swinging or shovelling soil, followed by five minutes’ deep breathing. After the first hour, he’s drunk half the water he’s brought along. Ten minutes into the second hour, he’s finished the bottle.
The stars come out. The temperature begins to drop. Joseph opens the Honda’s boot so the stench of decomposition can dissipate.
‘You have any kids?’ he asks, as he continues to dig. ‘I hope not. I don’t mean that unkindly. But the fewer people you’ve left behind, the fewer people we’ll hurt. Being dead is pretty shit, I’ll grant you, but I guarantee you one thing – being left behind isreallyshit.’
Joseph pauses, wipes sweat from his forehead. He’s down to a depth of three feet. Not deep enough to fool a cadaver dog – but another foot or so should be good enough to deter scavengers.
‘Were you a religious man?’ he asks. ‘Claire and I – we never really took Max to church. And after what happened …Well, I could never reconcile myself to a God who allowed that. Erin’s the same way.’
From the car boot, the dead man doesn’t comment. In all likelihood, he probably doesn’t give much of a toss.
‘I know I said it before,’ Joseph continues, ‘but Max is a good kid. He’s just …’
Lost?
Is that what you were about to say? Because we’re all fucking lost, aren’t we? Some of us more than others. But we don’t all go around doing kindnesses for strangers by shattering their skulls after driving over them.
Joseph runs his tongue around his teeth and spits. He climbs out of the hole, throws down his spade and inspects his work. ‘OK, I think that’s about as good as I can make it. I’m sorry you won’t get a gravestone. Or even a coffin, come to think of it.’
He gazes around him at the moon-touched heath, at the dome of stars above and the ragged sails of travelling night clouds. ‘But you do get all this. From what I’ve seen of cemeteries, I’d say you’re better off.’
Returning to the car, he stares at the tarp-wrapped bundle. ‘I’ll be as gentle as I can. But I’m on my own, here – so things might get a little bumpy.’