Page 9 of The Bodies

EIGHT

He wakes as he always does, into the before and not the now ; into a world unblemished by shame or regret.

It survives for the space of a breath before folding.

Joseph’s heart collapses through the bed, through both floors of the house, through millions of tons of earth, through crust and mantle and right into molten rock.

There, abandoned by gravity, it ignites and burns – until he clenches his fists and his heart rockets upwards, trailing smoke and ashes, back towards duty and a crisis almost too awful to comprehend.

He gasps, opens his eyes, tightens his arms around empty space. And realizes he’s in Max’s bed, all alone.

Bright sunlight is pouring through the window.

Joseph checks the bedside clock, sees it’s past nine.

He springs off the mattress, hurries to his room and pulls on jeans and a shirt.

During the night, the smell of the dead man has returned, hovering at the periphery of his senses.

In the ensuite, he spritzes himself with cologne until the stench has gone.

Downstairs, Tilly is eating a bowl of muesli at the breakfast bar. Behind her, the kitchen’s bifold doors are open to the garden. Outside, it’s a perfect August morning. Blue sky, bright sunshine. The air is fragrant with lavender and geranium.

By the nearest worktop, Erin is fussing over the espresso machine. ‘The dead finally rise,’ she says, her blue eyes appraising him.

Joseph cringes, wondering for a stupid second if she knows something. But it was only a throwaway comment, more for her daughter’s ears than his, there to paper over what might otherwise have been a silence. The coolness of her gaze tells the real story.

He knows he hurt her again last night. Recently, the distance between them has felt like an ocean, as if they’re two life rafts pulled apart by opposing currents. His fault, not hers. Like so many other things.

This morning, Erin looks full of summer vigour: denim cut-offs, yellow gypsy top, blonde hair piled up. Her skin is smooth and clear – the product, he suspects, of a clean diet and an even cleaner conscience.

Tilly, hearing her mother’s words, raises an eyebrow. ‘He was roaming the house with a war axe last night, like some kind of Viking. Or did I dream that?’

‘No dream,’ Erin replies. ‘Just me, mistaking Max for a burglar. I heard someone downstairs and sent our Viking, here, to investigate. Where did you get that thing?’ she asks Joseph. ‘I’m really not sure I want it in the house.’

‘I—’

‘Hey, Thor,’ Tilly says. ‘Does it come back like a boomerang if you throw it?’

‘Thor carries a hammer, not an axe,’ Erin tells her, handing Joseph a cup of coffee. She lifts her nose and inhales. ‘Is that the one I bought you last Christmas?’

For a moment, Joseph doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Then, recalling his cologne, he mumbles an acknowledgement.

Erin examines him with interest. ‘Congratulations, you finally took it out of the box. You want some toast?’

‘Thanks, but I’m not hungry.’

She tilts her head. ‘Was everything OK last night? You slept in Max’s room.’

‘All good. Have you seen him?’

‘I think Sally offered him extra hours this weekend. He must have left first thing. Oh – weird one. Have you seen the washing-up bowl? Or the dish scrubber?’

Joseph shrugs.

‘So why has he run off with them?’

‘Because … teenager?’ Tilly suggests, as if she isn’t one herself.

‘I’ll pick up replacements while I’m in town,’ Joseph says.

Erin pastes on a grin, again for her daughter’s benefit over his. ‘I think we’ve got enough teenagers. You’re going into Crompton?’

‘I need a new shirt,’ he tells her, because it’s the first explanation that enters his head.

‘New scent, new clothes. Did someone order me a Joe Carver Mark Two as an early birthday present? Don’t forget we’re hosting the neighbours tonight. You’re on barbecue duty.’

Joseph grimaces, because the party had completely slipped his mind, and because this endless charade in front of Tilly is exhausting. Glancing out of the window, thinking of his mother’s airless garage and the dead man wrapped in plastic, he asks, ‘What’s the forecast today?’

‘Hot,’ Erin says. ‘And I mean Death Valley hot. You might want some lotion if you’re going out – I don’t want you burning, and frightening away all our guests. You can collect my meat order from Samsons while you’re on the high street. Save me a trip.’

‘Can I get a lift into town with you, Axe Man?’ Tilly asks.

Right now, company is the last thing Joseph needs, but he knows he has to act normally – and normally he’d agree to his stepdaughter’s request without complaint.

Before they leave the house, he returns to his bedroom and closes the door. From the back of his wardrobe he retrieves the bereavement box he keeps there and places it on the bed. Holding his breath, he removes the lid.

When Joseph sees the first few items – Claire’s passport, a pair of her sunglasses, a battered copy of Perfume , her favourite novel – emotions crash over him like breaking waves.

He delves into the box regardless. His fingers press past old concert tickets, anniversary cards, a silk scarf.

At the bottom he finds Claire’s iPhone, still in its sequinned case, which he slips into his pocket before returning the box to the cupboard.

He pauses there, closes his eyes. Is he doing the right thing?

Last night, had the steady drip-feed of revelations affected his thinking?

At first, he’d thought he was dealing with a tragic accident.

Only as he was preparing to drive to Jack-O’-Lantern Woods and take responsibility had he learned that the dead man survived the initial impact, and that Max had intervened to cut short his suffering.

Would he have acted differently if he’d known that from the start? It’s not too late to change his mind about how he handles this.

Downstairs, still reeling from his encounter with the touchstones of his previous life, Joseph grabs his keys and calls to his stepdaughter that he’s leaving.

Crompton isn’t huge. A single high street intersected by two roads into which more shops and restaurants have spilled. There’s a roundabout at one end, a cenotaph at the other.

‘You can drop me at the Grind House,’ Tilly says. From her pocket she retrieves Max’s phone. ‘Guess which med-school-student-in-waiting forgot this when he left for work? Step-sis rides to the rescue as usual.’

‘You should have said. I could have saved you the trip.’

Tilly grins, shakes her head. ‘Leverage, dear Joseph. This way Max owes me a favour. Got to keep him sweet.’

‘For what?’

‘Free carrot cake, for a start.’

‘You’re your mother’s daughter.’

‘ Naturellement .’

Joseph pulls up outside the coffee shop. Tilly unclips her seatbelt, hesitating with one hand on the door. ‘Joe?’

He glances over.

‘What you told Mum – is everything really OK? Last night I thought I heard … I don’t know. Were you and Max up late talking? Wasn’t he meant to be staying at a friend’s?’

Joseph reaches for the aircon, thinks better of it. ‘Just university chat. Everything’s fine.’

‘You’re going to miss him. Aren’t you?’

‘Everyone leaves home eventually,’ he says, because no words exist to describe his turmoil at Max’s upcoming departure. Now, even more so.

‘Well – you’ve still got me and Mum. We’re not going anywhere.’

‘You’ll be off some day, no doubt.’

‘Uh-uh. I’m staying right here. Got to look after Mum. And my current favourite stepdad.’

‘Noted, regarding the current.’

Tilly grins. ‘And for as long as you continue to behave.’ She leans over to kiss his cheek, then swings open the door. ‘Black,’ she says, glancing over her shoulder. ‘The shirt, I mean. If in doubt, choose black.’

Joseph thanks her, waves her off. He parks in the multistorey above the Sainsbury’s and takes the stairs back to ground level.

On his way he passes two CCTV cameras and forces himself not to look.

He doesn’t see any cameras outside the vape shop on the high street, where he pays cash for a 120 GB data-only SIM card.

In the Costa Coffee opposite, he orders an Americano and carries it to an empty table.

Then he takes out Claire’s iPhone. His thumb slides over the case, feeling the empty spaces where some of the sequins have come loose.

You like how I’ve ABBA’d it up, Joe?

I’m sure Benny and Bjorn would be proud.

When he pops the phone from its case, a scrap of notepaper falls into his lap. With shaking fingers he unfolds it. There, in his late wife’s handwriting, he sees a list:

Max school shoes

Washing machine guy

Max dentist appt

Joe passport photo

Clothes for Friday

Make hair appt

Toby birthday present

Call Jane

Suddenly, it feels as if all the air’s been sucked out of the coffee shop. He’s looking at a simple to-do list, hurriedly scrawled and long since forgotten. And yet it radiates the aura of a sacred artifact, his own Rosetta Stone.

Typical that Claire had prioritized the tasks benefitting him or Max. Incredible that he doesn’t even remember Toby or Jane. Their names trigger no memories whatsoever, belonging firmly to the before and not the now .

Joseph refolds the slip of paper and tucks it into his wallet.

Using the tool that came in the package, he swaps Claire’s old SIM card with the one he just bought.

Then he connects her phone to a brick charger in his pocket and switches it on.

The Apple logo appears, replaced a few seconds later by Claire’s old screensaver.

It’s a snapshot from six years ago, taken by a waiter in a Tuscan restaurant – Claire and Joseph and Max, surrounded by fairy lights and raising their glasses to the night.

Claire is resplendent. Max is guffawing.

Joseph – his face unmarked by the fathomless loss to afflict him a year later – is barely recognizable.

The image blurs. Air rushes back into the shop.

He clutches the table, breathes deep, rocks back and forth until he’s fully returned to the present.

Then he goes online and searches crompton missing person.

When nothing comes up, he tries again at a county level, but the most recent news story is from a week ago, about a young woman from neighbouring Shipley reported missing four days prior.

Joseph sweeps the coffee shop with his gaze. Then he types how long corpse start decomposing .

The answer, he discovers, is between twenty-four and seventy-two hours. During the first stage, autolysis, a build-up of carbon dioxide leads to increased acidity in the tissues, causing cell membranes to rupture.

The second stage is bloat. Enzymes leaked during autolysis begin to produce gas. The corpse increases in size, sometimes dramatically. Bacteria, reproducing exponentially, cause skin discolouration. An unpleasant odour attracts insects and carrion feeders.

The third stage, he learns, is active decay. Fluids begin to leak from orifices. Organs and muscle start to liquefy.

Joseph stops reading, waits for his nausea to pass. Then he adds hot weather to his search query and confirms that when the ambient temperature is higher, a corpse produces gas at a much faster rate, creating more openings in the skin for flies to lay their eggs.

He stands up so abruptly that a couple at the next table reel away from him. Stumbling out of the Costa, Joseph leans against a lamppost and recovers his breath. He needs to dispose of the dead man urgently, and think about what to do with the Honda once it’s done.

Fortunate, at least, that he hasn’t yet transferred ownership from his mother.

He has her death certificate and a copy of her will naming him as executor, which means he can sell the car without ever registering as its owner.

Whether that will prevent police from linking it to him or Max, should either of them fall under suspicion, he doesn’t know.

It might depend on whether an ANPR camera snapped the Honda last night – and whether the patrol car that followed him from the BP garage was equipped with one.

Because if police start with the Honda, rather than with Max, its connection to Joseph will doubtless be unearthed.

The only men’s tailoring business in Crompton is Grayson’s, a dark and Dickensian establishment with crown glass bay windows and uneven floors.

Inside, Joseph parts with three times more than he’d usually spend and walks out with a Stenstroms shirt in black linen.

In a homewares shop five doors down he buys a washing-up bowl, a mop and a dish scrubber. Then he visits Samsons.

Erin’s meat order is far larger than he’d expected.

The butcher takes a while to box it all up.

Joseph stands in the sweltering heat, his nose filling with the smell of raw meat.

While he waits, he stares through the glass-sided display at the neat rows of steaks, short ribs, topside joints, briskets, gammon hams and pale slabs of pork belly the colour of the dead man’s flesh.

From the back he hears what sounds like bones being cut by a band saw. At the end of the counter he sees another butcher feeding a smoked bacon through an aluminium slicer. As he’s paying Erin’s bill, a wasp flies into the wall-mounted zapper and is fried with a crackle that makes him jump.

Joseph carries his purchases to the car, his stomach flopping.

Halfway up the steps of the multistorey, he feels the wound across his abdomen split open again, as if the butcher just ran the slicer over his skin.

Grimacing with pain, he pauses in the stairwell to check his clothes.

Fortunately, the Elastoplast seems to have stopped any blood from leaking through.

After dropping off the meat, he retraces his steps to the high street. He’ll have to buy something in Sainsbury’s to validate his parking, but first he wants to check on Max.

As he recalls his son’s words from last night – It was a kindness, what I did – an image comes to him of the dead man’s ruined face. Batting it away, he hurries across the street.