Page 33 of The Bodies

THIRTY

To his stepsister, Max says, ‘I’ve been seeing Drew.’

Joseph, who just moments ago was fearing an even more damning revelation, sinks into himself like a punctured inflatable mattress.

Across the table, Tilly recoils, then laughs in astonishment. ‘What? No, you haven’t. Since when?’

‘A few weeks. We were going to tell you.’

She looks at him stonily. ‘Bullshit. I don’t even know why you’d say that.’

‘Because it’s true.’

‘No, Max, it’s bollocks. Drew’s seeing an older guy, not a younger one. And certainly not you.’

‘I’m not saying she hasn’t been seeing someone else too.

In fact, I think she may well have been.

’ The boy glances at his father. Then his gaze returns to his stepsister, his expression pleading.

‘I know we should have told you, Tilly. We just didn’t know how.

We didn’t want you to feel you were somehow being edged out. ’

Max pauses. Then he adds, ‘Whatever you might be thinking, this doesn’t change anything else, anything at all. It certainly doesn’t change anything between us. I swear to you.’

Holding his breath, Joseph studies Tilly’s reaction.

She sits there a while, blank-faced, and he wonders if she’s recalling – and reframing – all her recent interactions with her stepbrother and her best friend.

Finally, reaching across the table, she squeezes Max’s hand.

‘You should have told me,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t have felt edged out, far from it.

But I get why you didn’t. Maybe Drew went out last night to split up with this older guy. ’

Erin’s hand is still encircling Max’s wrist. Now, though, she removes it. ‘When was the last time you saw Drew?’

‘In the garden, yesterday afternoon,’ the boy says.

‘And last night?’

‘Last night?’

‘Max, if Drew’s disappeared, and the police find out you’ve been seeing her, they’ll want to know your whereabouts last night.’

‘He was here, Mum. With me. We heated some microwave meals and watched Oppenheimer , just the two of us.’ When Erin looks at Joseph for confirmation, Tilly adds: ‘No point asking him, he left us to it, but it’s the truth, I swear. If something’s happened to Drew, Max has nothing to do with it.’

Erin turns to Joseph. ‘You went out last night, too?’

‘Mum, seriously, stop. I don’t understand why you’re being so suspicious.’

‘I’m just trying to get my head around this. Joe?’

‘I went to the bungalow,’ he says. ‘Like I told you. With you in London, it felt like a good opportunity.’

He feels Tilly’s eyes on him and doesn’t want to meet them. The note he’d written last night, before leaving to bury the dead man, had explained that he was visiting a friend. But if he repeats that lie in front of Erin, she’ll want to know which friend, and to that he has no answer.

Silence, now, around the table. Joseph tries to work out what everyone’s thinking.

Through Erin, Max has learned that his father broke his promise to keep the relationship with Drew secret.

Tilly now knows about the relationship, too.

From the strange look Tilly gave Joseph a few minutes ago, he fears she might think he’s the older guy Drew’s been seeing – and now he’s contradicted himself over his movements.

What his wife is thinking, he can’t begin to imagine.

‘OK,’ Erin says, pushing back from the table. ‘There’s no point sitting around talking. Let’s box up all this food and take it over to Enoch’s. Odds-on he hasn’t eaten. Right now, the best way we can help Drew is by helping her dad. So let’s go over there and do that.’

Joseph drives, despite everyone’s protestations about his knee. Erin takes the passenger seat, a cooler bag filled with Chinese food on her lap.

Head-down in her phone, Tilly provides a running commentary of what she’s learned.

It’s always bad news. Or possibly good news.

Joseph is so dizzy with stress, and so exhausted from lack of sleep, that it’s increasingly difficult to differentiate.

What might be good news for him and Max is necessarily terrible for everyone else.

He finds himself hoping, beyond rationality, that Tilly’s next update will reveal that Drew’s been found safe and well, that the girl has called Enoch to explain she smoked too much weed and fell asleep, that she got drunk and passed out somewhere, that her blood is pumping, warm, around her body and she’s alive, alive, alive.

He feels Erin’s eyes on him as he negotiates Crompton’s streets.

It’s obvious she wants to say something.

Perhaps she’s waiting until there’s no chance of anyone else overhearing.

Rarely has he met anyone with intuition as keen as hers.

Better that he tell her the truth than she figure it out for herself, but he can’t even begin to work out how to have that conversation – nor where it would likely lead.

Joseph has made his choice – he intends to protect Max no matter what – but he doesn’t expect that from Erin.

Certainly not once she learns of her stepson’s deeds. And her husband’s.

‘Joe, red light,’ Erin says. Gripping her seat, she shouts, ‘Joe, red light !’

By the time her words penetrate, it’s too late to react.

Joseph shoots across the junction without slowing.

He senses a vehicle speeding towards his driver’s door, hears a shriek of brakes, a horn, and by the time he’s unlocked his arms he’s rocketed through the lights.

In his rear-view mirror he sees a car slewed round in the road.

‘Jesus!’ Erin yells, unsticking her hands from the door rest. ‘Joe, wake up! I told you I should drive. What’s got into you?’

‘Sorry,’ Joseph mutters. In the rear-view mirror, he catches Max’s eyes, mouths another apology.

Enoch Cullen lives in a two-bedroom terraced house on the Larchwood council estate, ten minutes from the Carvers’. A rotting and bird-shit-caked caravan sits on the front drive; inside, what looks like worthless junk is piled to half the height of the windows.

Joseph parks on the road and switches off the engine. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘I’m not saying we should keep it a secret indefinitely, but I’m not sure how much it helps the situation by telling Enoch about Max and Drew.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Erin asks. ‘That we lie?’

‘No, I’m not saying that.’ He takes a breath. ‘I just don’t think it’ll come up, so I don’t see the point in offering it.’

‘Good with me,’ Tilly says. She glances at her stepbrother for confirmation.

‘I guess,’ he adds.

When they throw open the rear doors and climb out, Erin remains in the passenger seat. She stares at Joseph long and hard. Then, shaking her head, she climbs out too.

They have to knock twice before Enoch answers. His eyes are red with booze and small with animosity. He doesn’t look scared, not yet. Rather, he seems like he’s seething with a cold-burning rage that could explode into violence at any moment.

‘Erin,’ Enoch hisses, as if he’s unsure whether to greet her or bury his fist in her face. His shoulders drop a little when she hugs him, and when her lips graze his cheek he closes his eyes like a man receiving a rubdown after a day spent breaking rocks.

‘We brought food,’ she says.

‘You brought the whole clan,’ he replies, squinting past her.

He looks Joseph up and down before offering his hand.

Joseph really doesn’t want to touch it. Coming here was bad enough, but feigning solidarity with the father of Max’s victim feels like his worst atrocity yet.

He shakes hands because he has to, because decisions of conscience are a luxury for the innocent.

Enoch’s grip is hot and slimy, as if he’s in the throes of a fever. ‘Swear to God,’ he whispers in Joseph’s ear. ‘If someone’s hurt her, I will bury him in the ground while he’s still breathing. I will fucking bury him.’

Inside, the house is a mess. Towers of unwashed crockery stand on the kitchen’s food-spattered worktop, among toolboxes and engine parts resting on oil-spotted rags.

In the living room, DVD cases are piled around the TV.

Against one wall lean the door panels of what looks like an old kitchen.

In the corner, an artificial Christmas tree has burst from its cardboard box.

‘Have you contacted Drew’s mum?’ Erin asks.

‘I’ve left messages, but Paula’s in Ibiza,’ Enoch says. ‘She’ll be coked up to the eyeballs for the next week, spreading her legs for any dickhead that’ll have her.’

Erin glances at her daughter, straightens. ‘And you’ve been over to her place? Made sure Drew isn’t there?’

‘I have and she isn’t. Neighbours ain’t seen her, either.’ From his pocket Enoch pulls out an iPhone in a fake leather case decorated with turquoise rhinestones. ‘I did find this, though, up in her room. It’s never usually more than a few inches from her right hand.’

The room fades to monochrome, Drew’s phone the only point of colour. Joseph sees every detail in bright, laser-focused clarity – the scuffed and hairy edges of the fake leather, the rhinestones catching and bejewelling the light.

The evidence on it – photos, web searches, location history – might be enough to send him and Max to jail. He could seize it from Enoch’s fingers, smash it to bits, but then what? He might as well unravel an enormous banner stencilled with GUILTY and wave it in everyone’s faces.

‘I recharged it,’ Enoch says. ‘But I can’t unlock it – I don’t know the code.’

That’s one bit of good news , Joseph thinks.

‘I do,’ Tilly says, a moment later. ‘Pass it to me.’