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After dark, Marina went out with a blanket-wrapped bundle in a spare baby stroller. Sometimes the only way to get a toddler to sleep is to walk them around and around the block. But she walked farther than that; she walked upstream along the Thames to a path under a bridge, where she carefully lifted the contents of the stroller one by one and dumped them into the river. Three pieces of Xavier’s legs—one thigh and two calves with feet still attached, weighted with bricks—and the compostable food waste bag containing the solid parts that were left of Xavier’s head. They made four discreet splashes and sank beneath the murky water.

It was probably wrong, but she got a certain satisfaction in the idea that the food waste bag would decay, and fish would be eating Xavier’s face, maybe nibbling on his skull, removing evidence of the bullet wound, and not a carb in sight.

Then she made her way back to her house with a much lighter burden. Nobody notices a mother pushing a baby, after all.

* * *

Lilah took a bus. The bookshop tote bags could hold an arm each, cut into two, but she worried because they didn’t resemble books that much. Still, people carried all sorts of things in tote bags, even quite heavy things, sometimes. She was also a bit anxious about leakage, but they’d packaged up the arms very well, and the tote bags were lined with nappies, with sanitary towels to fill in the gaps.

She went in the opposite direction from Marina. She’d had a vision of going as far as Westminster Bridge and reciting Wordsworth as she sent pieces of Zachary plummeting down to the river. Sweet revenge: earth has not any thing to show more fair. She and Dad had loved that poem. Zachary had probably lied about reading poetry, too.

But in the end she decided the bridge would be way too busy; instead she emptied her tote bags somewhere in the vicinity of Kingston.

* * *

Opal found what looked like an old army backpack in the attic—Marina explained that it probably had belonged to her grandfather, Nana Sylvia’s favorite husband, who had been a captain. Fortunately, Zander had been rather short-waisted and so it was roomy enough to hold Zander’s torso. She set off on a run. Zander’s torso was heavy, but weight-bearing exercise is especially important for menopausal women, to ward off osteoporosis, so it was all good. She reminded herself to do a TikTok about this soon, preferably after she’d got rid of the torso. She ran to Wandsworth Park.

The main problem wasn’t carrying the torso; it was getting it out of the damned rucksack. Getting it in had been a three-woman job—one to lift, one to hold the bag open, one to hold the bag upright—and Opal had not fully appreciated that she would be taking it out again herself, in the dark, in a relatively open area. It wasn’t the weight so much as the awkwardness. First she tried lifting it out, but the backpack kept getting caught on the wrapping and she couldn’t shake it loose without risking tearing it open and spilling blood and who knew what else all over the grass. The torso was the part with the most problematic contents.

Then she put the backpack on the ground, intending to use gravity to help her: the heavier torso would stay put while she painstakingly slid the backpack off it. This was slightly less awkward, but it was slow going. She’d just freed the shoulders when she heard a noise behind her and froze.

She looked over her shoulder. It was too dark to see clearly. Looked like a young man probably from the way he moved. There was an orange spark and she could smell the odor of weed. He was approaching on the path and had probably seen her silhouette against the light reflecting off the water.

She thought fast. There was no way she could get the torso all the way back into the backpack, put it on, and run out of there before he reached her. She had no weapon on her except her bare hands and a spare key to Marina’s house. No phone, not that that would do any good anyway. Years of tae kwon do classes and a bad attitude meant that these days Opal rarely felt threatened in dark spaces with strange men, but this was different. She was trying to dispose of a body undetected.

“You okay there, man?”

She decided to style it out. “All right, mate.”

He approached. Damn. “What you trying to do there, sister?”

“Need a place to sleep for the night.” She hoped that it was too dark for him to see her Lululemon exercise gear, or her latex gloves, or that the plastic-wrapped torso did not resemble a sleeping bag.

“I hear ya, but it’s not safe here, sister. Police patrol here regular. They’ll move you on.”

“Good tip. Thanks.”

“There’s a church on Putney Bridge Road, five-ten minutes away, they let folk sleep there in the churchyard, no questions.” He gestured away from the river.

“Thank you. Okay, I’ll try there.”

He held his lit spliff to her. “Need something to help you sleep?”

“No thanks, mate, I want to keep a clear head.”

He seemed to accept that. “Give you a hand packing that up.” He reached for the torso.

“No, no, no, it’s good.” She put herself between him and the bag. He seemed kind, but she’d kick him in the balls if she had to.

But he drew back to a respectful distance. “You take care now. Listen, you take this.” He reached behind his ear and held out something small and white. It was an unlit spliff. “It’s only a little one. If you don’t want it, you can sell it and buy something to eat.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“No worries.” He walked off unhurriedly. Opal waited until he was far enough away and then stuffed the torso back into the pack.

She resumed jogging in the opposite direction to where he’d gone and less than ten minutes later passed a policeman. She kept breathing steadily, inwardly thanking the man with the spliff for the warning, and headed for Wandsworth Bridge.

* * *

When Opal got back, Marina was in the kitchen cooking something that smelled out of this world. “What is it?” Opal asked, stripping off her gloves and washing her hands in the sink, scrubbing under her nails, which were perfectly clean.

“It’s a mushroom stroganoff with polenta. We need a proper meal. And after everything, I thought we’d prefer vegetarian.”

Opal leaned over her shoulder and breathed in the aroma. Her stomach growled loudly. “That smells so much better than my usual post-workout meal.”

“Which is?”

“Steamed fish and salad. And a chlorella smoothie for dessert.”

Marina grimaced. “The healthy eating is working for you because you look great, but on Saturday nights maybe you should splash out a little and have some butter.”

Lilah came in about fifteen minutes later and groaned with how good it smelled. “I’ve never had such a big appetite in my life,” she confessed.

“It’s the workout,” said Opal.

“I hope it’s not a taste for murder.” Marina chopped parsley into a fine chiffonade while they watched. She said, “This is a different knife, by the way.”

“I was wondering.”

“Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes.”

“Can you make it thirty?” asked Opal. “I need another shower.”

“Me too,” said Lilah. “I can still smell him in my hair when I turn my head too quickly.”

“Try a vinegar rinse.” Marina got out a bottle of cider vinegar for her. “I’ll keep the food warm until you’re both ready. Did you both get everything squared away?”

“It was worryingly easy,” said Lilah.

“I almost got caught,” said Opal.

“What?”

“How?”

“I did get caught,” Opal amended. “But I think I found the nicest man in London. Literally a guardian angel. He warned me that the cops were coming, and then he gave me this.” She produced the spliff.

Lilah wrinkled her nose. “What’s that?”

“Illegal drugs.” Opal grinned. “From the smell, they’re good ones. We’re doing them after dinner.”