Page 54 of The Bodies

FORTY-NINE

It’s a devastating blow, bone-cracking and tooth-shattering.

Angus staggers, trips, falls. Drew, still lying prone, can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.

His mouth is a mush of pulverized flesh and broken teeth.

It looks like his jaw has detached. He splutters, coughs, launches a fountain of blood drops that glitter like rubies in the glare of the Lexus’s headlights.

As he elbows himself backwards across the leaf litter, Tilly walks him down.

‘Tilz, stop, what the fuck!’ Drew yells, because she doesn’t understand what’s happening, here.

She’d agreed to lure Angus to this part of Jack-O’-Lantern Woods, had agreed to kiss him so that Tilly could film their liaison, had even agreed to a little harmless action in the front seats. She hadn’t agreed to this.

Tilly lifts the log above her head. Angus raises an arm to block it. There’s a crack of breaking bone.

Drew screams, sits up straight.

Tilly’s third swing goes undefended. The damage it inflicts is cataclysmic, driving Angus’s nose and cheekbone inside his skull. He twitches once, his heels kicking. Then he lies still.

Tilly drops the log and kneels at Angus’s side. She looks grimly satisfied.

Drew tries to catch her breath, angling the burner phone away from Tilly’s eyeline. Despite the fog of her horror, instinct tells her to keep recording – because her friend has clearly gone nuts. ‘What did you do?’ she moans, climbing to her feet. Then she shrieks the same words.

‘He was attacking you,’ Tilly says. ‘I stopped him.’

Drew chokes, sobs. The awful reality of what she’s just witnessed – and her own unwitting role in it – is starting to sink in. Perhaps even more shocking than Angus’s brutalization is her friend’s calm demeanour.

Never, before tonight, has she seen Tilly display any capacity for violence. She’d heard the story of what had happened at school, but she’d believed her friend’s version of those events, had thought Tilly’s actions justified. ‘Is he breathing?’ she asks. ‘He might still be alive.’

Tilly leans over Angus. ‘Hey, dickhead. Are you breathing?’ She prods his chest. Then she places her ear close to his ruined mouth. ‘I’d say he’s officially checked out.’

‘No,’ Drew groans. ‘No, no, no, I don’t … Why, Tilz? You’d already put him down. You didn’t have to—’

‘He got what he deserved. This piece of shit would’ve wrecked my mum’s marriage, torn my family apart.’

Drew puts one hand on the bonnet, steadies herself. ‘But that was the whole point of this. You’d film us in the car, show him the footage, scare him off.’

‘And I did film you. But this is better.’

Drew sags, can’t believe what she’s hearing.

She slides the burner phone behind her back, tucking it inside the belt of her minidress.

She doesn’t know if the mic will still capture their exchange – or if she’ll need that.

She does know Tilly mustn’t find out she’d decided to make her own recording of tonight’s liaison – protection in case things went south. ‘What’re we going to do?’

Tilly searches Angus’s pockets, removing a wallet, a phone and a set of keys. ‘First thing you’re going to do is get his car out of here. Move it to another part of these woods.’

‘Me?’

‘I can’t drive, Drewster, so it has to be you. Besides, you’ve already draped yourself across the seats. No point adding my DNA to the mix.’ She stands, walks over. Drew stiffens, resisting the urge to back away.

‘Listen to me carefully,’ Tilly says, ‘because this is important. If you do as I say, no one will ever connect this back to you. Other than move the car, all you have to do is keep quiet. The last thing I want is to see you thrown in jail. Honestly, it would break my heart.’

Drew’s mouth falls open. She glances at Angus, gags when she sees his cratered face. ‘Why would I be jailed?’

‘Think about it: you’re the one who contacted him, who flirted with him these last few weeks, who lured him to the woods under false pretences. Whereas there’s not even any proof I was here.’

‘But that’s … I didn’t even …’

‘I know. And it sucks, believe me. But that’s how these things work.’

Drew shakes her head, her panic rising. This simply doesn’t feel real. ‘We should call the police, explain what happened. Tell them the truth – that he attacked me.’

‘You lured him out here, Drewster – and then I killed him. However we try to frame it, it’s going to look premeditated.’

‘What are you saying? You want us to walk away? Pretend it never happened? Just leave him lying here?’

‘Of course not. Better that he disappear than he’s found like this. We’ll drag him somewhere more discrete. Then I’ll persuade Max to help us get rid of him.’

‘My God. Max? You can’t be serious.’

‘Trust me. Max is a puppy. He’ll do anything I ask.

When I tell him what’s happened, and he sees all the ways this might end, there’s no chance in the world he won’t help.

If Joseph finds out about my mum’s affair with this shithead it’ll break him.

Even more so if we get locked up for trying to stop it. Max won’t want that, I guarantee it.’

Drew closes her eyes, because she knows Max probably would help, that Tilly would manipulate him as easily as she manipulated her into contacting Angus. ‘You can’t drag him into this. It’s not fair.’

‘Of course it’s fair. He gets to protect his dad.’

‘But he’s starting medical school next month.’

‘So? He’s not Jesus. He’s no better than you or me. Besides, by the time I’ve worked my magic he’ll think it was his idea anyway. Right now, all we need to do is make sure none of this traces back to us.’

Tilly takes out her phone. As her fingers move across the screen, her face is bathed in ghoulish blue light. ‘There,’ she says. ‘I’ve deleted my footage. And tomorrow I’ll get a new phone and destroy this one, just to be doubly sure. I’ve already got Angus’s. Where’s yours?’

‘I left it at home, like you asked.’

‘What about the one I bought you to WhatsApp him?’

‘That’s at home, too,’ Drew says, feeling it press against her spine.

‘Why would you leave it?’

She opens her arms. ‘Look at me, Tilz. This dress doesn’t exactly have pockets.’

‘You didn’t bring a bag?’

‘Do you see one?’

Tilly studies her closely. She waits a beat, then tosses Drew the car keys. ‘When you get home, you smash that phone to bits and get rid of it. Understand?’

‘Sure.’

‘You’d better get moving.’