Page 8 of The Bodies

SEVEN

What he exposes is no longer a face. It’s a reddish, blackish crust from which rise the recognizable contours of a human skull. There are teeth, splintered into points. A ruined eye.

The damage is so severe, so shocking and grotesque, that all Joseph can do is stare.

His mouth floods with saliva. Before he can react, a fat bead of it rolls down the shaft of the torch still gripped between his teeth.

It extends from the bezel and into that crusted mass.

For a moment, he’s connected to the dead man by a single, glistening filament – until, with a splash, it breaks.

Joseph flinches. And when the light pans back and forth it gives the illusion of movement – a tongue moving inside a black mouth – as if his saliva has brought about a revival of sorts, a reanimation.

Instead of a stranger’s voice, though, Joseph hears his son’s: He was in so much pain. I thought it was for the best .

Beneath the cloying richness of blood and butchered flesh he smells a woody cologne similar to one he used to wear.

It throws him into fresh turmoil, reinforces his awareness that he can’t think of this as a corpse, however gruesome its presentation.

This is a human being, recently passed, who demands not just respect but reverence.

Joseph has made promises to Max, to Max’s late mother, and he’ll die before seeing the boy go to prison. But the consequences of those choices don’t weigh lightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers. ‘You didn’t deserve this. I can’t make it right, but I hope you’re at peace. He … I know how it sounds, but he’s a good kid, I swear. He’s just lost. That’s my fault, not his. I’ve got to find a way to bring him back.’

Briefly, Joseph closes his eyes. Ahead is another task as vital as it is distasteful. Slicing through more of the tarp, he exposes the rest of the body.

The dead man is wearing navy shorts, deck shoes and a short-sleeved linen shirt saturated with blood.

His skin looks grey rather than summer dark, perhaps due to whichever processes of death have already begun.

On his forearm is a raised mole the size of a ten pence piece.

Hairs have sprouted from it like the spines of a cactus.

An Omega Seamaster hangs from his left wrist. Encircling the pinkie finger of his right hand is a gold signet ring, set with a green stone. Joseph stares at it, emotions roiling inside him. It’s a while before he can tear his eyes away.

Overall, the dead man looks in good shape. The pair of them might be similar in age. It’s hard to tell.

Joseph presses his hand to the left front pocket of the shorts. Through the material he feels nothing but cold thigh muscle. He slides his hand into the pocket regardless, but it’s as empty as he suspected.

Checking the right front pocket is more difficult.

The dead man lies in the foetal position, partially on his side.

Joseph has to reach his arms around the torso, bringing his face to within a few inches of that gruesome reddish-black mask.

This close, it’s clear that decomposition has already started.

The odour of meat bloat mixed with cologne curdles his stomach, makes him want to retch.

The right front pocket is empty, too. Joseph slides his fingers into the two back pockets and finds nothing there either.

Max returns with the duct tape and two oil-stained blankets. ‘What’re you doing?’ he asks. ‘I had him all sealed up.’

‘Looking for a phone.’

‘Dad, come on. You think I’ve been driving him around this whole time without even checking if a phone was pinging away in his pocket?’

‘Did you find one?’

‘No.’

‘That’s weird.’

‘Is it?’

Joseph maintains eye contact. ‘You don’t think?’

‘Maybe.’

‘There’s no wallet, either.’

The boy shrugs.

‘You didn’t find anything – personal possessions, whatever – near where you hit him?’

‘No.’

Joseph frowns, continues to study his son. ‘And you checked?’

‘Dad, there was nothing.’

‘You’re positive?’

‘Yes. Why do you want his wallet?’

‘So I can figure out who he is – and who might be looking for him. He’s going to be missed by someone, I guarantee it. He’s wearing a watch that could pay your first year’s tuition fees.’

‘There wasn’t a phone,’ Max says. ‘Nor a wallet.’

Joseph doesn’t push it further. He takes the duct tape and reseals the tarp’s severed edges. Rolling the top flap back into position, he re-ties the bungees and throws the blankets over the top. Then he shuts the boot and locks the car.

Against the far wall leans his mother’s shopping bike and an ancient Dawes racer. Indicating them with his torch, he says, ‘Let’s go.’

They peddle home through sleeping streets.

Joseph uses the silence to focus on what comes next.

He’s on a timer, now. The dead man can’t stay in his mother’s garage long – twenty-four hours, maybe; forty-eight at best. He has an incredibly short window in which to figure out a cover story, analyse its holes and ensure they’re all plugged.

Most pressing is what he’ll tell Erin. Doubtless she’ll want to know why he kept her out of the kitchen tonight – and, at some point, the whereabouts of Max’s car.

He’s spent his entire adult life being honest. Now, he’ll have to become a liar – and a competent one, at that. If he fails, Max will go to prison, and Joseph will have broken the most sacrosanct vow he’d made to his late wife: to protect their son from further harm.

As they arrive home, he checks the neighbouring houses. Ralph Erikson’s windows are now dark like all the others. After shutting the bikes in the shed, he unlocks the back door and leads Max inside. ‘Straight up to bed,’ he says. ‘Get some sleep. We’ll talk more in the morning.’

Max looks for a moment like he’ll reply. Like he wants to get something off his chest. Instead, nodding, he disappears upstairs.

Joseph goes into the living room. In the mirror over the fireplace, he examines his reflection. His eyes look different. Like they’re missing something important.

If I hadn’t given Max the car, he couldn’t have driven out there to visit Drew tonight. And if I hadn’t married Erin, Max wouldn’t have met Tilly or Drew. He’d have had no reason to be in those woods .

There are fresh stains on his T-shirt, he sees.

Probably from when he leaned in close to search the dead man’s pockets.

Stripping it off, he bags it in a Sainsbury’s carrier and hides it at the back of a kitchen cupboard.

Then he retrieves his ridiculous tomahawk from the worktop.

Foolish to have left it in plain view. If he’s to help Max survive this, he’ll have to think faster and clearer.

One thing he wants to understand is what the dead man was doing in Jack-O’-Lantern Woods.

If he was walking out there so late, surely he’d have been carrying a phone.

Joseph didn’t find any car keys in his pockets, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any.

He can’t rely on Max’s claim that no belongings remain at the scene – the stakes are simply too high.

If he’s learned anything from books and TV, it’s that guilty parties shouldn’t revisit crime scenes. And yet that’s exactly what he feels he must do.

Upstairs, he pauses outside his bedroom.

Beyond the landing window the sky is beginning to lighten.

From Erin’s breathing, it sounds like she’s gone back to sleep.

He wonders if she’s faking – and then he flinches from that thought.

He’s just hidden a body inside his late mother’s house – and already he’s projecting his dishonesty on to his wife.

Joseph hears movement behind him. Turning, he sees Tilly emerge from her bedroom.

His stepdaughter is barefoot, in a white cotton nightdress featuring a yellow Pokémon.

She might be the same age as Max but she’s several years younger in looks.

Her dark hair, recently styled by Drew, is messy from sleep.

Tilly pauses when she notices him, rubs her eyes. ‘Joe?’

‘Hi, sweetheart.’

‘Is that an axe?’

He looks down at the tomahawk. ‘Your mum thought she heard an intruder. But coast is clear.’

‘Lucky for the intruder,’ Tilly mutters, padding past him to the bathroom.

Joseph goes into his bedroom, closes the door.

He returns the tomahawk to its hiding place.

In the ensuite, he switches on the light.

In the mirror over the sink he sees, once again, that look of something missing in his eyes.

When he breathes, he smells the dead man’s clotted blood.

He grips the basin, thinks for a moment that he’ll vomit.

From the family bathroom, he hears the toilet flush.

Closing the ensuite door, Joseph strips off the rest of his clothes.

He unwinds the clingfilm from around his torso and flushes the blood-soaked sheets of kitchen roll down the toilet.

He showers carefully. Afterwards, he cuts a wide length of Elastoplast and secures it across his abdomen.

Then he rummages through the medicine cabinet for the bottle of Sauvage, still in its packaging, that Erin bought him last Christmas.

Peeling off the cellophane, he tears open the box and douses himself.

It’s a good smell, different to what he smelled on the dead man.

He sprays it on his fingers and dabs the skin beneath his nose.

Once he’s cleaned his teeth, he creeps into the bedroom, dons fresh underwear and lies down beside Erin.

She sighs and mutters something in sleep. For the first time in months, Joseph feels the urge to spoon up to her, press his face into her hair, but even after his shower he doesn’t feel clean enough. His hands have touched death tonight. He doesn’t want to transfer that to his wife.

And physical intimacy now, when it’s been absent for so long, might make Erin question what’s changed. So Joseph remains on his back, eyes open and gritty.

Claire, if you’re watching, if you’re seeing all this, please tell me what to do. Tell me how to protect our son. Show me what he needs.

He listens to the darkness, heart thumping. Claire doesn’t respond, but suddenly the answer is clear. Climbing out of bed, he tiptoes along the hall and slips inside his son’s room.

Max is lying on his bed, eyes closed, still fully dressed.

Carefully, Joseph lies down beside him. He listens to his son’s breathing for a while.

Finally, he hugs him close. ‘I love you,’ he whispers.

‘I’ll always love you. I might not have been here for you in the past. But I’m here for you now, no matter what. ’

Max’s breathing changes, just slightly.

Exhaustion falls over Joseph like a cloak.