Page 62 of The Bodies

FIFTY-SEVEN

When he falls to his knees, he barely feels the impact. The world smears, an Expressionist palette of scarlet and black. The air drains of warmth, becomes frozen. This can’t be real , he thinks. That’s not his boy hanging there. Because Max has a future, a whole life to live.

But Drew had a future too. As did Enoch, and Angus Roth.

He hears commotion behind him, sounds of a struggle, and turns to find a swarm of busy shadow. When it resolves, he sees Erin lying prone – and Gabriel, crossbow in hand, standing over her.

Joseph turns away, no longer cares. His gaze returns to the silhouetted oak – and the silhouetted form hanging from it. He gets a foot under him. Tries to stand.

Once he’s struggled to his feet, he limps up the sloping lawn. It doesn’t matter what’s behind him, doesn’t matter how much his body is hurting. All he wants is to be with his son. He’ll gladly die in the attempt.

He’s halfway to the tree when his perspective begins to shift. The flat silhouettes of the objects arrayed at its base take on depth, revealing their relative positions.

Joseph staggers, nearly falls, recovers himself – doesn’t know if he can trust what his eyes are showing him. Because from this angle Max’s feet don’t look like they’re swinging freely. Instead, the tips of his trainers appear to be touching a chair seat.

Gasping, Joseph breaks into a run. When he reaches the oak, he discovers that his hope was justified and that Max, by standing on the balls of his feet, has just enough rope to breathe.

‘Dad,’ the boy croaks.

‘I’m here,’ Joseph says. ‘I’ve got you. I’m not going to leave you.’

But even though this feels like a reprieve, he knows it isn’t; because Gabriel Roth put that noose around his son’s neck and waited for him to arrive.

‘Please,’ Max whispers. ‘Help me. I can’t … stand much longer.’

‘You can. You will. You’re strong, Max. Just hold on.’

Joseph glances behind him, sees Gabriel Roth marching Erin across the grass. The knife he stripped off earlier now hangs from Gabriel’s belt.

Turning his back, he tries to fish the key from his breast pocket, but the cuffs frustrate him, and by the time he’s figured out how to dig for it with his thumbs it’s too late. Gabriel grabs his shoulder, wrenches it around.

Joseph stares at him, this man who intends to kill his son. The day’s dying light has turned Gabriel’s eyes to precious stones.

He feels a rush of blood through his arteries – some primal instinct switching off his pain, readying muscle and sinew for one last burst of violence.

If he acts now, with his hands still cuffed, he’s guaranteed to fail, but every second he hesitates is a second closer to losing Max.

He thinks about slamming his forehead into Gabriel’s face, but he’s unlikely to incapacitate him with a single blow.

One kick of that chair is all it’ll take to set his son swinging.

He looks at Erin, sees the torment scribed into her face.

Their eyes meet for just a moment before she sweeps the rest of garden with her gaze.

He knows she’s searching for Tilly, that she cannot comprehend why her daughter isn’t here, nor what that might mean.

He wants to scream at her for what she’s done, even though he understands the desperation that made her do it.

Worst of all is the knowledge that Joseph now has no choice but to respond, actively working against the woman he loves and who he knows loves him too.

Gabriel wraps his fist around the cuffs, gives them a shake. Satisfied, he turns to Erin. ‘Key.’

She blinks, looks at him in bewilderment. Finally, his words seem to penetrate. ‘Where’s Tilly?’ she asks. ‘You said—’

‘I know what I said. Key.’

‘Gabriel,’ she begs. ‘Please. I just want to see that she’s OK.’

In response, he drives his fist into Joseph’s stomach. ‘Key. Now.’

Joseph collapses, gaping, on to the grass.

‘My back pocket,’ Erin moans.

Gabriel finds the key and lobs it across the garden. Then, his attention still on Erin, he points to one of the chairs. ‘Sit.’

She glances left and right, a cornered prey animal contemplating its last move.

Watching her, trying to sit upright despite his body’s shrieks of protest, Joseph fears his wife is about to do something stupid, that in her desperation to find Tilly she’ll try to run; and that Gabriel will either put an arrow in her back or, worse, kick away Max’s chair as punishment.

‘Erin,’ he hisses. ‘Just do it.’

She casts him a panicked look, and perhaps something in his expression pacifies her, just a little, because she sinks down as instructed, her bound hands clutched between her knees.

Gabriel places the crossbow on the grass. He pulls more zip ties from his pocket and begins to secure her to the chair.

Joseph looks at the weapon. He stands little chance of reaching it before Gabriel, an even smaller chance of firing it while cuffed. Instead, moving slowly, he brings his hands towards his chest and inverts his thumbs. He’s sliding them into his breast pocket when Max, above him, starts to gasp.

The boy’s heels touch the seat and the noose tightens. Max chokes, barks out a cough. His face darkens. From somewhere he finds the strength to raise himself up again, but the noose doesn’t loosen completely. His lungs whistle as he tries to suck in air.

‘Jesus Christ, he’s an eighteen-year-old fucking boy!’ Joseph shouts. ‘He had nothing to do with this! Cut him down!’

From the base of the tree Gabriel retrieves a second rope, a noose already tied at one end. He throws its loose coils over the bough and strides towards Joseph, who snatches his thumbs from his pocket just in time.

Gabriel fits the noose, grabbing Joseph by the hair and forcing back his head until it’s done.

‘I’m not interested in creating a spectacle,’ he says.

‘Or drawing this out to cause more pain. This isn’t about vengeance.

It’s about righting a wrong. I just want to get it done.

’ He goes to the loose end of rope hanging from the tree and pulls until it’s taut.

Joseph scrabbles up because he has to. ‘Max didn’t kill your brother,’ he says, through clenched teeth. ‘And nor did I. Drew Cullen lured him into the woods, Thursday night. Tilly killed him, and Sunday night she killed Drew.’

Erin stiffens in her chair. ‘Joe, what are you saying? That’s not true .’

‘No,’ Gabriel says. ‘It isn’t. And he knows it.’ He drags over a chair. ‘Climb up.’

‘Listen to me,’ Joseph hisses, his words coming faster.

‘Because if this really is about justice, about righting a wrong, then you need to hear what I’ve got to say.

Your brother was sleeping with my wife – I’m guessing you already know that.

Somehow Tilly found out about it and used Drew to set him up.

Her plan was to film Angus and scare him off.

But when it backfired, Tilly killed him.

‘She’s a damaged kid. I had no idea how damaged. But Max isn’t responsible. She is.’

Erin’s back arches. ‘Joe, that’s ridiculous. She’s not capable and you know it.’

As Joseph meets his wife’s gaze, his heart crashes away from him. He wonders how it’s possible to feel such overwhelming hate and also such overwhelming love.

‘Tell the truth,’ he begs her. ‘Erin, for fuck’s sake. You can see what’s going to happen if you don’t.’

‘I am, Joe,’ she sobs. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Gabriel points at the chair. ‘Up. Now.’

Erin’s sobs grow louder. ‘Can we please slow this down? You don’t have to do this, Gabriel. There must be another way.’

‘Tilly killed your brother,’ Joseph says. ‘And then she killed Drew to stop her talking.’

‘Joe,’ Erin moans, ‘you fucking buried him!’

He flinches at that, thinks that his wife, albeit unwittingly, might just have buried him, too. He feels the rope chafe at his neck. Sees Gabriel’s eyes burning even more brightly than they were. With Erin deploying all her guile to make him a liar, perhaps his only defence is the truth.

‘Yes, I did,’ he says. And with his admission it feels like the whole world has frozen on its axis, waiting in anticipation of what comes next.

‘Because at the time I thought your brother’s death was a tragic accident.

I was scared for my son, what that might mean for him, and I didn’t want one tragedy to become two. ’

‘Dad,’ Max croaks. ‘Don’t do this.’

Joseph’s mouth is so dry it’s difficult to speak. ‘I put Angus in my car and drove him to Black Down. If you don’t know, it’s a beauty spot fifty or so miles south of here. I can take you there if you want. He’s buried in rough ground a hundred yards from a road I found near the summit.

‘Max isn’t the reason this happened. If he’s guilty of anything it’s na?vety, but that’s not a crime that deserves his life as punishment. Tilly killed your brother, Gabriel. She killed Drew, too. And then I covered it up.’

Gabriel waits a beat, as if satisfying himself that he’s heard everything. Then he whispers, ‘Up.’

And with that, Joseph realizes he’s failed. He doubts he even has the strength to climb on to the chair, but when Gabriel pulls on the rope, he finds it from somewhere. Even once he’s up there, the pressure around his neck doesn’t slacken. He feels his head beginning to swell.

Beside him, Max’s heels drop a second time. The boy makes a sound like tearing tape. This time he looks too exhausted to lift himself back up.

‘Erin,’ Joseph pleads. ‘You can’t just sit there and let this happen. Please. For God’s sake – do the right thing before it’s too late.’

Gabriel turns to her. ‘You want me to cut down his son? Put your daughter up there instead?’

Joseph stares at his wife. Never has he seen such an agony of conflicting emotions in a human face. She glances at him, tears rolling down her cheeks. And then, teeth clenched, she shakes her head.

Gabriel begins to secure the rope’s loose coils around the tree trunk.

So much adrenalin is rushing through Joseph’s system that his teeth start clattering inside his mouth. He looks at his son, at his wife. He looks at the first stars beginning to glimmer in a red sky.

And then, addressing Gabriel, he says, ‘If you don’t believe my words, at least believe your eyes. Drew captured your brother’s death on her phone. She filmed it from start to finish. It’s a hard watch, but you need to see it, because it’ll show you that everything I just told you was the truth.’