Page 34 of The Bodies

THIRTY-ONE

Enoch nods, but he doesn’t relinquish the phone. ‘Tell me,’ he says. ‘I’ll type it in.’

Bristling at his lack of trust, Tilly says, ‘One-six-three, zero-one-one.’

Joseph glances at Max. Only after the boy’s shoulders have risen and fallen in a tiny don’t-worry-we’re-not-screwed shrug does Joseph notice that Erin is watching, forehead creased and mouth pinched.

‘ What? ’ she mouths, and Joseph repeats his son’s shrug. When her eyes narrow, his stomach feels like it’s being fed through an old-fashioned mangle.

Tilly presses her head against Enoch’s shoulder, peering at the phone screen. ‘Check WhatsApp,’ she says. ‘OK, scroll down a bit. Let’s see who’s contacted her.’

The pair spend the next few minutes in silence, opening and reading Drew’s messages. Joseph stands by the window, conscious of his wife’s gaze, trying to figure out how he’d be behaving were he innocent. ‘Shall I sort the food?’ he asks.

‘You might need to wash up first,’ Erin mutters.

Joseph nods, but he can’t bring himself to leave while Enoch and Tilly are still investigating.

‘It’s all just people telling her to get in touch,’ Tilly says eventually. ‘Mostly from after I put the word out. We should check her texts and call history. We can look at Snapchat, I guess – see if there’s anything she hasn’t opened.’

For the next minute, Joseph watches his stepdaughter navigate the device for the evidence that might put him away. Finally, his nerves defeat him. He retreats to the kitchen, fills the sink and begins to wash the dirty crockery.

On the windowsill stands an old school photo of Drew. The image is curled and sun-faded, but the girl’s stare is no less intense than in Joseph’s kitchen yesterday: I know what you did for Max, and I think it’s really brave.

Doubtless, she wouldn’t think that now.

Joseph’s about to angle Drew’s photo away from him when his wife appears in the doorway. She grabs a tea towel and begins to dry the dishes. Fortunately, Enoch’s proximity seems to still her tongue.

Once everything’s been put away, they reheat the Chinese food. Then all five of them squeeze around Enoch’s tiny Formica table, Tilly perched on a stool because there aren’t enough chairs.

Enoch sinks three beers as he eats. Joseph drinks two more.

That means he won’t be driving home, but he doubts Erin would let him after his near-miss on the way here.

Nor will he be visiting the bungalow later, or heading out to Black Down.

Considering how long the last grave took to dig, he simply doesn’t have enough time.

Right now, Joseph’s not even sure if he’ll make that trip at all. Burying the dead man was bad enough. He can’t imagine burying Drew. Certainly not as he sits at her father’s table, drinking her father’s beer. And yet he can’t leave her in the car much longer.

‘You want me to call the police again?’ Erin asks Enoch.

‘No point. They won’t do anything till tomorrow. Best thing I can do, they said, is stay here in case she walks in through the front door.’

‘What about other places she might go? Bars, clubs, gyms?’

‘I’ve contacted them all,’ Tilly says. ‘And I’ve posted photos to their social media, too.’

‘You called the salon?’

‘She never showed up this morning. Never even told them beforehand.’

‘Which ain’t like her,’ Enoch adds. ‘She loves that job. It’s like her second home. Third home,’ he adds, cracking open another beer.

‘You checked the hospitals?’

‘Course.’

‘OK, listen,’ Erin says. ‘We’ll clear away this food, make some space.

And then we’ll write an action plan, allocate tasks.

Drew will most likely show up any moment, but better that we plan now for the alternative than start from scratch should we get there.

We need to compile a contact list of everyone she knows: names, numbers, something we can hand to the police the moment they get involved.

We need photos of Drew, too – good ones, that show her in the best light.

I brought my laptop. We can mock up some flyers.

Also, and I don’t want to frighten you, Enoch, but they’ll probably ask for a DNA sample, from Drew’s toothbrush or something similar. ’

Enoch stares at her, his eyes even smaller than before. Just like earlier, he looks like he’s trying to decide whether she’s an ally to be welcomed or a threat whose lights he needs to punch out.

Eventually, lifting his chin, he reaches out and rubs Erin’s side, his fingers close to the swell of her breast. His touch is more sensual than fraternal, grimly opportunistic.

Erin doesn’t flinch, but she does throw Tilly another look.

Whatever her true feelings, she masks them with an empathetic smile.

Five minutes later, they clear the table and Erin sets up her laptop. Joseph finds a jar of coffee in Enoch’s cupboard and boils a kettle. Tilly paces between the kitchen and the living room, checking her phone for updates.

Only while Joseph is stirring water into the cups does he notice Max’s absence.

His son isn’t in the living room or the downstairs hall.

There’s no ground-floor cloakroom to check.

On a hunch, he excuses himself and climbs the stairs.

Reaching the upper landing, he pokes his head into the bathroom.

Max isn’t inside. Nor is he in Enoch’s cluttered bedroom.

At the back of the house Joseph discovers a box room that must be Drew’s.

It’s a sad little space. Even sadder, now. Drew had done her best to improve it, covering the peeling walls with poster prints of exotic landscapes in cheap plastic frames; destinations that perhaps she’d one day hoped to visit.

On the bed is a collection of cuddly toys; on the windowsill, a single dusty athletics trophy. A mannequin head stands on Drew’s dresser; over it hangs a blonde wig so startlingly convincing that the hair must surely be real.

Max, his back to the door, is standing opposite a bureau, the middle drawer gaping open. In one hand he holds a pink bra embroidered with tiny flowers. With the other he’s raking through the rest of Drew’s underwear.

Joseph tries to ignore what it looks like – because it looks like his son is hunting for the bra’s companion piece, intending to complete a trophy. And it’s not that. It’s not.

‘What’re you doing?’ he asks softly.

Max twists around, his eyes showing white. ‘Dad,’ he begins. ‘I was just … I thought I’d check her room. See if …’ He looks at the bra, blinks. ‘If …’

‘Put it back,’ Joseph whispers. ‘Close the drawer. Go downstairs.’

Max rolls his tongue around his teeth. Then, his face flushed, he does as his father asks.

Outside, it grows dark. Enoch’s house phone doesn’t ring and Drew doesn’t walk through the front door. Joseph brews more coffee. Enoch drinks another beer.

By eleven p.m., work on the action plan has slowed. Conversation dries up, too. The tick of the wall clock grows louder, as sinister as an old-fashioned movie bomb timer.

By midnight, even Tilly looks like she’s flagging.

Joseph starts wondering how much longer Erin intends to stay.

He’s due in the office tomorrow, not that he can afford to go; not with Drew’s body still inside the Honda; and not with the bungalow still available for viewings because he’s too worried about how it might look should he suddenly take it off the market.

At one a.m., Enoch belches and announces he’s going to bed.

It’s the trigger for a general exodus. Tilly and Erin take turns to embrace him.

Enoch clutches Erin far longer than is comfortable for her or anyone watching.

Joseph, next in line, shakes hands as briefly as etiquette will allow.

Max slides past without touching Enoch at all.

Erin drives them home. As soon as they’re through the front door, Max and Tilly go up to bed. Joseph limps into the kitchen. ‘You want a drink?’ he asks Erin. He knows that a confrontation is coming. Maybe, if he blunts her intuition with alcohol, he’ll struggle through.

‘It’s late,’ she says.

‘I know.’

Erin massages her neck. Then she sighs. ‘Bar tender, pour me a cognac.’

From somewhere he finds a laugh. ‘You want to drink cognac in this heat?’

‘I know what I want in this heat, but cognac first, with ice. And yes, I know a puppy dies somewhere whenever I mention cognac and ice in the same breath. I hope it wasn’t a cute one.’

She throws her bag on to the sofa near the bifold doors and slumps down next to it. ‘God, that was hard. Not just hard, actually. Kind of weird. Enoch’s a strange guy.’

Joseph grunts. ‘Even a missing daughter didn’t stop him from copping a feel.’

‘Jealous?’

‘What?’

‘I saw the way you were looking at him.’

‘How did you expect me to look?’

She shrugs. ‘I like it when you get all protective.’

Joseph drops ice cubes into Erin’s cognac. This isn’t the interrogation he was expecting. Something’s going on here; he just can’t figure out what. Opening the fridge, he grabs another beer.

‘Careful,’ his wife says, sipping her drink. ‘Once I finish this, I want you fully functional.’

He flinches at that, hadn’t expected it at all.

Is Erin switching tack? Is this an alternative ploy to get him talking?

Or has Drew’s disappearance highlighted her own mortality, and sex is how she intends to fight back?

Maybe the drama of current events has energized her.

She always seems most alive when she’s at the heart of a crisis, directing the response.

Her actions at Enoch’s, developing a plan for the rest of them to implement, were classic Erin.

Joseph feels her gaze as he pours beer into a glass. When he meets it, he’s surprised by its raw hunger. How long has it been since they were intimate? More than a few months, he thinks. Probably not even this year.