Page 23 of The Bodies

TWENTY-ONE

It’s a two-storey building clad in grey concrete, designed by someone whose intention appears to have been the suffocation of all hope from those compelled to enter.

Staring at it, Joseph knows the last sand in his timer is running out. The police are already at Angus Roth’s house. Pretty soon, Enoch Cullen will report his daughter missing. Meanwhile, Max’s mental health seems like it’s falling apart.

His phone buzzes against his leg. When he checks the screen, he sees a message from Erin:

Afternoon meeting cancelled. Catching an early train. Can you please grab something for dinner?

Joseph sends a reply. Then he switches off the ignition and closes his eyes.

Erin will be back in a few hours. Tilly is already home.

He has a duty to protect them from not just physical harm, but the fallout from what’s already happened.

He has a duty to ensure that Drew’s death is the last – and that no more families suffer.

But he also has a duty to Claire. And, of course, to Max.

Which one of those ranks highest? Truthfully, painfully, he can’t answer.

It was a kindness, what I did.

Joseph’s jaw claps shut so hard he catches his cheek in his teeth. He tastes blood, makes a decision. And then the passenger door opens and Max slides in next to him.

‘Dad,’ the boy says.

He looks ill, desperately so, his eyes red and rheumy and his skin grey, as if life is draining from him by the second and he’s only a few hours from death. Turning his attention to the police station, Max hunches forward in his seat. ‘Miserable-looking place, don’t you think?’

Joseph stares through the windscreen, his heart knocking against his ribs. A woman walks past, pushing a pram. An older man passes in the opposite direction, carrying shopping. Twenty yards away, a courier van bumps two wheels on to the pavement and the driver hops out.

This is how a hostage must feel, looking at the street from inside a bank, an embassy, or some other everyday place where horror has descended without warning. Suddenly, a single sheet of glass separates normality from nightmare. On one side life continues. On the other life is paused, suspended.

Max says, ‘I woke up and you weren’t there.’

‘I needed to get out of the house for a while.’

‘To Hocombe Hill?’

‘Among other places.’ Joseph purses his lips. ‘How did you know that? How did you find me?’

‘I was tracking you on the Life360 app. I figured you might end up in Crompton so that’s where I headed. I wasn’t expecting you to come here. Why did you?’

‘I don’t know.’

Max’s shoulder twitches. He rubs at it, tries to hold himself still.

‘You know what I think? I think you were about to walk in there and confess to something you haven’t done.

And that scares the shit out of me, Dad, because I’d have had to go in there straight after you and tell them you were lying. ’

Max pauses, turns his head. Softly, he adds, ‘Unless I’ve got that wrong. And you came here to tell them about me.’

Joseph avoids his son’s gaze. This no longer feels like a hostage situation.

The car has become an ocean submersible, miles below the surface, subjected to pressures beyond its tolerance.

Any moment, cracks will filigree the windscreen.

A millisecond later, the car will squish flat, liquidizing them both. Perhaps that will be a mercy.

A kindness.

‘Is that what you were about to do?’ the boy asks. ‘I deserve to know, don’t you think?’

Joseph watches as a man a few years younger than himself passes the car, arm in arm with a woman a few years younger than Claire would have been had she lived. His teeth squeal in his mouth. ‘Of course not,’ he whispers.

‘Is that what you want to do?’

‘It couldn’t be further from what I want.’

‘What do you want, Dad?’

‘Max,’ Joseph says, his voice cracking. ‘I want you to survive this. I want …’ He pauses long enough to wrest back control of his emotions. ‘I want to make sure this isn’t the end for you. I want to keep my promises to your mum. I want you to have a good life.’

He closes his mouth, inspects the windscreen for cracks, wonders if the car is about to implode.

Max turns in his seat until he’s facing his father directly. ‘Even if that means hiding the truth about Drew?’

Here it is, then. The decision that will damn him.

‘Even if it means that.’

Now that he’s said it, Joseph knows there’s no going back. He searches his son’s face, appealing to the boy he loves. ‘But Max, this has to stop. It must.’

‘It will. It already has.’

‘No matter what happens from this point, however bad things get, you never, ever do anything like this again.’

‘I won’t,’ Max says, and it’s almost a wail of anguish.

‘Promise me.’

‘Dad, I swear it.’

‘How did Drew die? Tell me what happened.’

Max seems to shrivel in his seat – as if it’s not just life that’s leaving him but actual, physical matter. ‘You don’t need to hear that.’

‘But I should hear it. Because I’m part of it. And because I’ll have to live with that girl’s death, and the consequences for all those who loved her, as much as you will.’

‘Dad,’ he says. ‘There’s so much I’d like to say to you that I can’t. So much I’d like to go back and change. There’s no good option in front of me any more. No safe route through. I can’t—’

He chokes, seems to dry-heave. ‘I don’t even know how to protect you.

As for what happens tomorrow, next week, next month …

It’s all so … I don’t want to talk about Drew.

I’m not going to talk about her. Certainly not to you.

I wanted to shield you from this. If Erin hadn’t sent you downstairs, Friday night, maybe you wouldn’t be looking at me the way you’re looking at me now – like I’m some kind of sick freak.

This is an awful situation, I realize that – beyond awful.

I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it. And that still won’t be enough.’

Joseph is silent for a while. He doesn’t like the way Max’s voice changed, just then, when he mentioned Erin. As if the boy has somehow decided this is her fault, just because she asked Joseph to investigate what she thought might be a burglar.

His eyes drift towards the police station.

He wonders if they’ve set up an incident room in there, or whether that kind of thing happens at the regional headquarters.

Reaching out, he squeezes Max’s shoulder.

‘I don’t think you’re a sick freak,’ he says.

‘I’d never think that. I do think you might need help with some of this stuff, but we can figure that out together. We can.’

Max puts his hands on the dash, braces himself. ‘I can’t even … I do love you, Dad,’ he says, and Joseph is surprised by the depth of emotion in his son’s voice. ‘You give yourself such a hard time – especially about Mum. I wish you wouldn’t.’

Joseph’s throat is so tight it’s hard to speak. ‘I love you, too,’ he says. ‘Always will.’

‘The other night … I lied. I said I was glad Mum wasn’t around to see this. But I wish, more than anything, she was here.’

‘I know you do.’

‘Fucking hell,’ the boy moans. ‘It feels like only yesterday since she died. It never gets easier.’

Joseph closes his eyes, a brief respite. ‘Let’s walk back to the high street, grab an early lunch. Then we can pick out some flowers and go and see her.’