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‘So you’ll help me?’
‘I couldn’t possibly. Let’s keep in touch.’
Teri stands. Saul’s hand, when she shakes it, is wet and gross.
‘I have a condition,’ he says. ‘It makes me sweat.’
‘Do you mean a habit?’
‘Like a nun’s habit?’
‘Not exactly.’
He winks. ‘OK, Horse Balls. Let’s tango again when the moon is full and witches are abroad.’ With that, he bows out.
Upstairs in her room, Teri puts on to hangers the clothes she rescued from Thornecroft and arranges her scant toiletries. Then, sitting on the bed, she takes out her notebookand opens it to the most recent entry. There, in her own handwriting, are two words: Barbie Girl. Beneath them, the mobile number she memorized from Angus’s WhatsApp.
Teri stares at it for a while, fingernails tapping her teeth. She keys the number into her phone, hesitates. Then she goes to the window and stares at the car park four storeys below. ‘Well, Horse Balls?’ she mutters. ‘Are you going to use them or not?’
Holding her breath, Teri hits the call button.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Staring at the empty patch of concrete in his mother’s garage, Joseph can’t quite process what he’s seeing. He shuffles forward another step, almost expecting to feel resistance, as if his mother’s car might still be there, albeit somehow rendered invisible.
Erin is speaking, but he doesn’t really hear her. There’s a buzzing in his ears like a faulty dimmer switch.
The car can’t be gone. It can’t be gone.
The car is gone.
Pressure on his right arm. Erin, gently shaking him. Joseph screws up his face, turns his head left and right. He sees the glass demijohn he kicked over during his last visit. The knocked-over rake.
There’s a small, dark stain near the main swing door. He thinks it’s probably his blood, from where he crashed down yesterday and ripped open his knee. Or perhaps it’s the blood from Max’s hands, Sunday night.
‘Where’s the car?’ Erin asks. ‘You said you parked it here.’
‘I did.’
‘Joe—’
‘I did!’
She turns towards him. ‘So where’s it gone?’
He has no answer. Did Max come over and move it after the viewing? Did their paths somehow not cross? He can think of no other explanation. And yet without one their conversation following the police visit makes no sense:
We’ve got to move her, Dad.
I know.
We’ve got to do it now.
Listen. This has blown up. People are watching us. We can’t afford a single mistake.
We can’t afford to wait, either. Erin—
Leave Erin to me.