Page 45 of The Bodies
FORTY
Outside, the day is as idyllic as it was. The flotilla of white clouds overhead looks like it’s sailed straight off a Constable canvas. Dell Stephano has put away his hedge cutter and is sweeping up the trimmings. When he sees Joseph and Erin emerge from the bungalow, he waves in greeting.
Joseph waves back. Then he takes Erin’s hand.
Holding it firmly, he warns her not to engage Dell in conversation.
She does as he asks, which is a relief, because he has no plan should she try to shake herself free.
He’s hardly going to club his wife around the head with the hammer hidden inside his shirtsleeve.
Certainly not in front of witnesses , eh, Joe?
Joseph snarls at that voice, tries to smother it.
He unlocks the car and opens the passenger door for Erin. As he walks around to the driver’s side, he slides out the hammer from his sleeve, dropping it into the door well as climbs behind the wheel. Then he tries to settle his nerves and catch his breath.
He’s still sweating. His shirt clings against his skin. Mopping his brow again, he reverses off the drive. Erin watches him, silent.
Joseph follows the curve of his mother’s road, turns right at the junction and accelerates.
Erin can’t open the door, escape. Nor can she call the police.
For a while he can concentrate on an even more significant problem – the likely whereabouts of his mother’s Honda, and the resultant whereabouts of Drew.
Could a burglar, finding nothing of value inside the bungalow, have decided to steal the car?
Might someone be driving it away from Saddle Bank at this very moment, ignorant of its cargo?
If that’s true, Joseph is powerless to control what happens next, but he doesn’t believe that’s the explanation.
Did Max move the car first thing? He hadn’t said anything, and it wouldn’t have slipped his mind. Which means if he is responsible, he’s clearly lost all trust in his father.
‘I’m scared, Joe.’
‘Me too.’
‘I’m so sorry for what I did. I didn’t want to lose you, I still don’t. I thought I already had.’
‘I don’t want to lose you, either,’ Joseph mutters, keeping his eyes on the road.
As he changes up a gear, he hears a tapping sound and worries for a moment that the car is playing up – or, even worse, that someone is locked in the boot.
When he glances down, he realizes that his wedding ring is rattling against the gearstick, his left hand violently shaking.
The more he tries to control it, the worse the shaking becomes.
If Max did take the car, where might he have driven it? Even without Drew’s body, the vehicle is a forensic examiner’s wet dream.
Turning on to their street, Joseph drives along it to the cul-de-sac. Their driveway is clear: no Honda, no police cars. He pulls up and kills the engine.
Erin stares through the windscreen at the house. ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ she whispers.
‘It’s your home,’ he tells her. ‘Our home.’
‘It doesn’t feel like it. Not right now.’ She glances at him. ‘What if I’m right, Joe? Just tell me, before we go inside.’
He looks at her, tries to think. Back at the bungalow he’d told himself that of the eight billion people on the planet, there was only one he’d do anything to save. But is that what he really believes?
‘Remember what you told Max last night?’ he asks. ‘That our house was his sanctuary? That what happens out here doesn’t affect what happens in there? That there are no recriminations, only love?’
‘You’re taking it out of context.’
‘Am I? If Max has broken a law, hurt someone, we’ll do the responsible thing.
Obviously, we will. But the moment you go to the police you’ll paint a giant target on his back – and right now you don’t even have good reason.
That’s why we speak to him first, give him every opportunity to explain.
’ He pauses, tries to work out what she’s thinking. ‘Will you promise me?’
Erin’s chest swells. Then she opens the door and swings her legs out of the car.
Joseph climbs out, too. Positioning his torso to avoid Ralph Erikson’s camera, he retrieves the hammer from the door well and slides it inside his trousers.
Hooking the head over his belt and covering it with his shirt, he accompanies his wife up the drive.
His heart is beating like a bird flapping broken wings.
Eight billion souls. A thought with which to damn himself.
Eight billion souls in exchange for one.
So many times, on TV, he’s seen someone incapacitated by blunt force trauma suffer no lasting damage. But he knows from the YouTube guy that such outcomes can’t be predicted – and certainly aren’t guaranteed.
If Erin tries to call the police, will he physically attempt to stop her? That he’s even asking the question demonstrates just how far he’s fallen. He loves this woman. And yet he’s lied to her repeatedly, has buried her dead lover, has concealed from her the truth about Drew.
All to protect his son. Because without Max, there’s nothing left for him in this life.
Erin unlocks the front door. Joseph – his vision stuttering, his left hand twitching as if in horror of what it might soon have to do – follows her inside.