Page 26 of The Bodies

TWENTY-FOUR

The room tilts. Joseph freezes in the doorway. If this is a hallucination, it isn’t dissipating. The dead man watches him, fingers steepled in his lap. Somehow, his terrible facial injuries have healed. No blood, no broken bone, no shattered teeth.

Joseph blinks, tries to unstick his muscles. Slowly, he turns his gaze towards Erin. Despite her relaxed pose, he sees a noticeable tension in her expression, a tightening of the muscles around her mouth.

‘Joe,’ she says, uncurling her foot from beneath her. ‘I’d like you to meet someone.’

Joseph turns to Max, behind him, and flicks his head towards the stairs. ‘Give us a few minutes,’ he says, and closes the door before the boy catches sight of their guest.

The dead man stands, extends his hand. There’s no grave dirt beneath his nails. No indication that he clawed his way out of the pit Joseph dug last night. There’s no stink of putrefaction rolling off him. His palm, when Joseph shakes it, is cool but not cold.

‘Joe, this is Gabriel Roth. Gabriel, this is my husband, Joe,’ Erin says. ‘Gabriel’s here about his brother.’

Joseph’s ears pop, then roar with equalizing pressure. He sways on his feet, tries to anchor himself. Not a hallucination, then. Nor some kind of demonic reanimation. But that still doesn’t explain Gabriel Roth’s presence in his living room. Joseph retrieves his hand, tries to focus.

They have to be twins. There’s no other explanation. Standing this close to a duplicate of someone he so recently buried is too hideous to bear. He goes to the sofa, sits beside his wife, runs his tongue around his mouth and tries to work up some moisture. ‘Your brother?’

Gabriel’s eyes are unsettlingly intense. ‘Angus Roth,’ he says, enunciating the name as if it’s a deity. ‘I take it you’ve met?’

Joseph tries to slow his breathing. He wonders if anyone’s noticed the rapid rise and fall of his chest. ‘I don’t believe so. At least, not that I recall.’

‘Gabriel’s concerned about his brother’s wellbeing,’ Erin explains. ‘Apparently, nobody’s heard from Angus since Thursday. And he hasn’t returned any of my team’s calls.’

Joseph tries to digest that last comment, but it sticks in his throat like a fishbone. He turns to his wife, confused. ‘You know him?’

‘Remember that regional fundraiser I took you to last Christmas, at Huntington Manor? Angus was one of the guests. Afterwards, he made a significant donation. We’ve kept the conversation going since, hoping to develop the partnership.’

‘I’ve been going through Angus’s contacts,’ Gabriel says. ‘Which is where I found your wife’s details.’

It’s starting to feel like the steel blades of a food processor are spinning inside Joseph’s head, pulping his brain to soup.

He remembers the fundraiser – a black-tie event Erin had arranged for affluent donors and prospects.

She’d rented tuxes for Joseph and Max, had given Tilly and Drew money for new outfits.

Joseph doesn’t remember meeting the dead man that night, but Erin had introduced him to lots of people.

That all six of them were at the same event surely can’t be a coincidence.

Which means Joseph needs to re-evaluate everything, including Max’s claim that the chain of tragedies since Friday began with a random car accident.

He thinks of the damage to the Honda, or lack of it, along with his son’s explanation that the killing blow was a kindness intended to end suffering.

He replays, too, what his wife has just revealed. Erin’s donor recruitment campaigns, targeting specific high-net-worth individuals, stand little chance of resistance. It’s why she’s so sought after in the industry. Had Angus Roth lived, no doubt his wallet would shortly have grown much lighter.

With a lurch, Joseph remembers that the man’s physical wallet is still in his back pocket – and that Gabriel Roth is within touching distance of learning what happened to his twin.

His head pounds as if he’s being strangled, as if the blood has nowhere to go.

He wants to loosen his collar, gasp for breath.

Across the room Gabriel watches him, unblinking. Finally, he turns his attention to Erin. ‘When was the last time you saw each other?’

‘We caught up for coffee last week. He said he’d be in touch again soon.’

‘You’ve had no contact since? No emails, texts?’

‘I left him a voicemail. So did my PA, I think. But we didn’t hear back.’

‘How close would you say you’ve grown to him?’

‘Getting closer. Obviously, the charity’s keen to encourage his philanthropy. I really hope he’s OK. If there’s anything I or my team can do to help, we’ll be ready and willing the moment you ask.’

When Erin falls silent, Gabriel doesn’t acknowledge her offer. ‘Do you know anyone else locally I should be talking to? Anyone who might have fallen through the cracks?’

‘Not really. As I said, it’s a relatively new partnership.’

‘Did he ever mention if he was seeing someone?’

‘I think he lives with his partner.’

‘I meant someone new. Someone a lot younger.’

Erin frowns, shakes her head.

Gabriel returns his gaze to Joseph. Then, standing, he says, ‘Thank you for making the time.’

Erin stands, too. Barefoot, she’s a good eight inches shorter than their guest. Joseph is conscious of how vulnerable she looks.

He wants to climb off the sofa and put himself between them, but he’s worried that Angus Roth’s wallet will fall from his pocket and that Gabriel will recognize it.

There’s something badly off about the man.

Something malignant lurking close to the surface.

He glances around the room, mentally locating his various home defence weapons: the screwdriver tucked beneath his sofa cushion; the Stanley knife taped behind one of the radiators; the pewter candlestick bases at either end of the mantelpiece. His other weapons are too far away to be of use.

Gabriel digs into his pocket and removes an identical Montblanc wallet. From it he withdraws a card and hands it to Erin. ‘My number,’ he says. ‘Should Angus get in touch.’

For a moment he looks like he’s going to say more.

But then something catches his eye. He crosses the room to a cabinet on which stands a collection of framed photographs.

He picks one up and examines it: a shot of Erin at the Huntingdon Manor fundraiser, her arms around Tilly and Drew.

Tilly’s hair is longer, pre-dating her recent pixie cut. Drew’s is blonde instead of blue.

‘Your daughters?’ Gabriel asks.

Erin smiles. ‘One is.’

He taps the glass with a nail. ‘Got to be this one. You can see the resemblance, clear as day.’ He replaces the frame and picks up another. ‘Your son?’

Erin’s smile grows a fraction tighter. She throws Joseph a subtle eyebrow.

Gabriel glances up. ‘He has more of his father’s look, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Probably because I’m his stepmother.’

‘That would explain it.’

The man has grown very still. Joseph slides his hand behind him, into the gap between the sofa back and the seat cushion.

His fingers brush the screwdriver’s resin handle, then curl around it.

He doesn’t know what’s happening here but he knows it isn’t good.

Even Erin has started to look nervous – and that’s not something he sees often, if at all.

After what feels like a minute, but is probably no more than a handful of seconds, Gabriel replaces the photo frame. ‘You have a beautiful family,’ he tells Erin.

‘Thank you.’

‘Families are precious.’

‘They are.’

‘And vulnerable.’

‘Vulnerable?’

‘More vulnerable than you might think. But we do what we can to keep them safe.’

Erin’s smile has reached its tolerance. She folds her arms, unfolds them. Then she moves to the door and opens it, revealing Max.

The boy lurches upright, realizes he’s been caught. When he sees their guest, his facial muscles slacken.

‘And here he is,’ Gabriel says.

Max steps backwards, nearly collides with the bannisters. His brain seems to be performing the same paroxysms as Joseph’s a few minutes ago.

‘I’ll show you out,’ Erin says. As she leads Gabriel to the front door, the boy’s hands tighten into fists.

Worried that his son is about to do something that will sink them both, Joseph jumps up. Only as he steps into the hall does he realize he’s still clutching the screwdriver.

Erin opens the front door. Gabriel walks to his car without looking back.

Once the Mercedes has reversed off the drive, Erin turns towards her stepson, eyes flashing. ‘That was inappropriate. Why on earth were you eavesdropping?’

‘Because I … Who was that?’

‘The brother of a work contact.’

‘What was he doing here?’

‘He’s concerned about his brother. Why?’

Max’s eyes flare. And in that moment a memory comes to Joseph from last summer, of the fawn that had watched from the undergrowth as he’d killed its mother.

The fawn couldn’t have comprehended the death sentence Joseph had just served it too, but it had understood well enough that something seismic had happened.

Right now, his son looks similarly stricken.

‘Max,’ Erin says, her voice softening. ‘Is everything OK?’

When she steps towards him, he steps back. When he reaches the stairs, he charges up them to his room.

Erin watches his departure. Then, indicating the kitchen with a flick of her head, she leads Joseph along the hall and shuts the door. At the table near the bifold doors, she makes him sit. ‘This feels like déjà vu.’

‘What does?

‘Putting you in the chair. Demanding you talk.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Joe, come on. I’m not stupid. Things have been weird in this house for days.

I know you know what I mean. I thought, maybe, that I’d been imagining it, that when I got back from London everything would be back to normal – or as normal as it’s been – but it’s all just as strange as it was.

We don’t keep secrets. At least, we never did.

Has something happened, between you and Max? Is he in some kind of trouble?’

‘Like what?’

‘I was hoping you might tell me. I still don’t understand why you felt the need to drive him over to your mother’s place in the middle of the night. Nor why you slept in his bed afterwards. Now he’s creeping around, listening at doors. He looks scared as hell.’

‘He’s about to start university, with all the stresses and insecurities that brings. I think we can forgive him a few road bumps in the lead-up.’

Erin takes both his hands, squeezes. ‘What about you and me? Are we OK? Even vaguely? Because it certainly doesn’t feel like it. We haven’t really talked since the barbecue. If there’s something you want to say, I’d rather you just took the plunge and came out with it.’

‘Like what?’

Erin leans closer, searches his eyes. ‘I don’t know. But you’re jumpy as hell. Worse than Max, even. You’ve started talking in your sleep, thrashing about.’

‘Honestly, Erin, there’s nothing.’

She holds his gaze, squeezes his hands harder. And Joseph recalls his conversation with Max at Claire’s graveside:

Do you still love her, Dad?

Of course I do.

Are you sure? Because you don’t act like you do.

I love her as much as I always did.

I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It’s just … if things keep going the way they are, you’re going to lose her. The only reason I’m telling you is because I don’t want you to end up alone.

At the time, he’d angrily shrugged Max off.

The boy’s analysis had been clinical – sharp enough to cut.

Now, though, Joseph sees that his anger had blinded him to something important: not merely the truth of his son’s words, but the love, empathy and understanding wrapped up in them.

They were, indisputably, the thoughts not of a monster but of the boy he raised with Claire.

Is there a clue in that? A source of hope?

He forces himself to study Erin’s face, seeing the laughter lines and worry lines that have begun to appear around her eyes and mouth, the subtle signs of aging.

One of the intimacies of love rarely described is the slow reveal of a partner’s mortality, evidenced in degradations of flesh.

Taking that journey together, Joseph knows, is a painful privilege – but it’s filled with as much beauty as pain.

Because the essence of a person never diminishes until it leaves, even if mind and body do.

Time and experience leave scars that tell stories as poignant as those left by childbirth.

The pain of Claire’s passing nearly broke him; but he’d accompany her on that journey again, a thousand times, and die another thousand at the end.

And now, here, he has the same painful privilege. His love for Erin is different to his love for Claire – maybe it’s only possible to love one person a certain way – but this love is just as real, just as strong. In some ways, tempered by the loss in which it was forged, it’s even stronger.

The realization forces him to confront another truth: just as he has to protect his son from the situation unfolding around them, he has to protect his wife. What’s almost too unbearable to contemplate is the knowledge that he might not manage to do both.

He watches the delicate movement of Erin’s throat as she swallows.

The gentle pulse of blood in her neck. If she stares into his eyes much longer, she’ll doubtless read the truth in them.

Fortunately, his wife’s instinct for when to press and when to relent seems as reliable as ever.

Releasing his hands, she stands. ‘That guy creeped me out.’

‘Me too.’

‘The way he was looking at those photographs, staring at Tilly and Drew.’

‘And Max,’ Joseph says. ‘What’s his brother like?’

‘Kind of intense. But nothing like that. Did you pick something up for dinner?’

‘Ah, shit. Sorry.’

‘When Tilly gets home, how about I phone in an order to Mr Wu’s? I’ve a hankering for some chicken chow mein and crispy chilli beef.’

‘Deal,’ Joseph says, although he can’t think of anything worse. Since his huge lunch at Meghan’s, he’s started to feel nauseous again – and his intensified awareness of what’s at stake has hardly reawakened his appetite.

Erin slaps his shoulder, smiles. ‘I’ve got one bit of good news. The estate agent called while you were out. We finally got a viewing on your mother’s place.’

Joseph blinks. ‘When?’

Erin looks at her watch. ‘Actually,’ she says, ‘right about now.’