Authors: Tom Bale
M
onday morning dawned
, warm and fragrant, with a brilliant blue sky and a gauzy layer of mist slowly clearing from the lake. The sort of weather that could only herald a new beginning.
Yesterday had been almost bizarre in its ordinariness, a shocking contrast to the Sunday before, when they had fought their way free, and two Sundays ago, when the dying man had stumbled into their garden. Rob had noticed how they were all prone to sudden flashbacks: one of them might drift out of a conversation mid-sentence, or stop with a task half-complete and stare at nothing for a few seconds; usually a little touch or a few words of support was sufficient to shake off the grip of unwanted memories.
On Saturday night Rob and Wendy had made love with a passion, an intensity that was virtually unprecedented, certainly in the last decade or so. They’d clung to one another, kissing and clawing and writhing as if it were
right now
that their lives hung in the balance. After a night of restful sleep, Rob had troubled over the conversation that had preceded it – the sense he’d had that Wendy wanted to tell him something, but also that she was afraid; afraid of whatever it was that he was keeping from her.
He knew he couldn’t say – not even if it risked the marriage. There was too much at stake for her; even more for Georgia.
R
ob was
a little nervous at first, going into the office, but Cerys had visited him at home last week, and passed on the message that he didn’t want a lot of fuss.
Once he’d got through the initial greetings and sent the engineers on their way, he could relax and enjoy the mundane demands of his job. He was reviewing a quote for a heating system at a new leisure centre near Southampton when Cerys answered the phone, then cleared her throat.
‘Personal call for you. Says he’s “Julie’s boy”?’
For Rob there was a microsecond of confusion, then he shut down his reaction, nodded casually and picked up his own handset. ‘Give me a second, could you?’
Cerys jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll do us a coffee.’
He introduced himself, and heard Kyle take a breath. ‘I said I’d come back.’
‘So you did. Where are you?’
A disgusted snort. ‘The plan’s changed, Rob. I’m leaving this shitty country for good.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
‘But I need money. Fifty grand in cash and I’ll leave you alone.’
Rob started to laugh. ‘Don’t be stupid—’
‘It’s doable, Rob – and you
will
do it, or else I’ll tell the cops about Ilsa.’
Rob swallowed. ‘What?’
‘You know I didn’t kill Ilsa. Georgia did.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Then why do you sound so worried? Without money, I won’t last long – and if I’m caught, that’s what I’m going to tell them.’
‘The police will never believe it. You’ve got no proof.’
‘How do you know I haven’t?’ A quick, taunting laugh. ‘Anyway, I don’t have to prove it. If I’m caught, I’ll admit to everything I did – all of it – but I’ll go on insisting that Ilsa was murdered by Georgia. And you know what. . .
someone
out there will believe it. If not the cops, then a crusading lawyer, or a blogger, a schoolmate of Georgia’s. . .’
Rob knew he was right. Evidence didn’t matter a jot these days, not in the court of public opinion. Even if the police didn’t believe Kyle – and Rob thought DI Toner might well be persuaded – the rumours and gossip alone would be enough to destroy Georgia’s life.
‘Fifty grand.’ Taking the silence for victory, Kyle was quietly gloating. ‘It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind. . . isn’t it,
Dad
?’
Rob felt sick. But he remembered how that instinct for self-preservation had worked for him before; now it was needed again.
‘Where do we meet?’ he said.
T
he handover was set
for Wednesday, after Rob argued that he needed time to get the cash together. Kyle wanted to meet at five a.m., but the location wouldn’t be revealed until Rob was underway. Leave Petersfield at four thirty, he was told, and head towards the town of Arundel, in the neighbouring county of West Sussex. Rob gave his mobile number but didn’t get a number in return.
He wasn’t surprised. The fear of such a move had lain at the back of his mind ever since he’d set eyes on Ilsa’s mutilated corpse. While Georgia kept watch on the path, Rob had dragged the body deep into the reeds, staggering barefoot through the muddy water until he found a place where it could be submerged. He’d taken the knife that Georgia had used and buried it deep in the mud, more than fifty yards away, promising his daughter that the salt water, the mud and the rain would obliterate any evidence that might incriminate her.
‘Without proof, there’s nothing the police can do. You just have to stick to the story.’
‘But isn’t it wrong, to lie about this?’
The question had pleased him – a reassuring sign that Georgia
did
have a moral compass, despite what she’d done. Rob told her, quite sincerely, that he had no qualms about Ilsa’s death, and neither should she. The woman had posed a lethal threat to them all. And the same was true of Kyle – given the nature of the man, it would hardly be a miscarriage of justice if he went to prison for Ilsa’s murder.
After coming under some pressure during his own police interview, he’d been terrified that Georgia wouldn’t survive a similar ordeal. But with DS Husein particularly vocal in his support of the family, it had turned out to be a relatively easy-going conversation. As she later described it to Rob, whenever the interview threatened to stray into dangerous territory, Georgia had broken down in tears, reinforcing her status as a victim.
Now Rob’s plan was threatened by the one man who knew for sure that he and Georgia had lied. He was up against a formidable adversary, someone who’d succeeded in the past precisely because he had been underestimated.
Rob couldn’t afford to make that mistake himself.
O
n Tuesday Josh
decided to return to Canterbury for a couple of days. Evan was driving him, and would stay to help sort out the flat. With a shyness that amused his parents, Josh muttered something about possibly bringing Ruby back for the weekend – ‘If that’s all right with you guys?’
For Rob, their absence was a stroke of luck. That night he lay in bed, fidgeting, until Wendy stirred, at which point he said, ‘Too restless, sorry. I’ll sleep in Josh’s room.’
‘You don’t have to,’ she said as he climbed out.
‘No, you were sound. It’s not fair.’
Sleeping alone meant he could set his alarm for three forty-five and not have to worry about waking her, or being asked where he was going. If he had to provide an explanation, he’d prefer to do it
after
he’d gone out, rather than before.
He didn’t expect to sleep at all, but at some time around one he zonked out and woke to the vibration of the phone. Less than three hours, yet he felt wide awake and refreshed. He gazed around the room that Josh had repopulated with books and clothes, wet towels and chocolate wrappers; papers from his degree course that were as baffling to Rob as hieroglyphs on a tomb.
Even so
, he thought. . .
‘We’re more alike than I ever knew, you and I,’ he murmured, and was overcome by a wave of the most intense and fragile love for his son – for both his sons, and for his daughter – and he wondered if it was the result of a premonition; a gut instinct that he would never see them again.
No. Couldn’t think like that.
D
ressing in jeans
, t-shirt and fleece, he crept downstairs, collected the bag from its hiding place in the study and slipped out of the house at just after four. The day was cool but dry and very still, the midsummer twilight a luminous shade of grey.
Rob left the driver’s door ajar until he was on the road, then shut it firmly and picked up speed, praying that Wendy hadn’t been woken by the noise. His phone was beside him on the passenger seat, but he’d switched it off. The bag was in the footwell: not all of the money that Kyle had demanded, but a substantial amount.
Arundel was about twenty-five miles away. He’d visited the town often as a child – though never the famous castle, as the entry charges were considered exorbitant by his dad. He and Wendy had brought their own kids here a few times, and it was a favourite location for the two of them to mooch round the antique shops before enjoying a pub lunch.
This early in the morning Rob was able to take the Land Rover up to sixty or seventy, even on the narrow country roads, swinging it around the bends with what in other circumstances would have been a joyous exhilaration. He was on the A27 within twenty minutes, well ahead of schedule.
Rob doubted that Arundel would be the location for the handover. It was far too public, even at this early hour, and Kyle’s image had been plastered over newspapers and TV for the past week and a half. Just yesterday there had been some minor hysteria on Sky News when a man who vaguely resembled him had been tackled while shopping in Wakefield.
By meeting Rob at all, Kyle was taking a considerable risk. Was that courage on his part, or stupidity?
More likely desperation, Rob decided. Then came a thunderbolt of an idea:
Was this a trap?
Kyle might have handed himself in to the police, then negotiated a deal whereby he would help them to incriminate Rob – and, by extension, Georgia – in return for a lighter sentence.
Oh, Christ
. His hands felt clammy on the steering wheel. Since Monday he’d thought of little else but this meeting, so how was this possibility only now occurring to him?
He took a few deep breaths and decided that he was too committed to call it off at this stage. If he was caught, he would confess at once to Ilsa’s murder. Unless they had solid evidence to the contrary, they would have to prosecute him, rather than Georgia.
He reached the outskirts of the town, went left at the roundabout into Maltravers Street and rolled to a halt at the kerb, wondering if his fate had already been sealed.
I
t was
four thirty when he switched on his phone. No messages yet, so he sat and waited. A fox emerged from a garden and gave him an imperious glance. A racing bike flew past, the rider almost as thin and tubular as his bike, which made Rob think of Tim, and then Dawn, and then the big, big trouble he might be in. . .
His phone buzzed with a message: ‘
Castle car park
’
Rob started the engine. If Kyle had texted it must mean he was already in place. But it still seemed like an odd location to him.
He was there a couple of minutes later. As he’d expected, it was quiet but not completely deserted. Rob spotted two elderly women in hiking gear, studying a map; there was a man walking his dog towards the river path, and presumably a couple of people getting friendly in a car with steamed-up windows, parked in the corner on its own.
After pulling in, Rob picked up his phone again. He felt self-conscious, exposed, and there was no better prop than a phone.
He waited ten minutes. Three young men staggered back to their car, laughing and singing after what must have been a long and enjoyable night. No other movement at all; and then, at ten to five, his phone buzzed.
‘
Dover Lane. Go 1 mile, watch for overturned bird feeder, then right along track
’
While he was reading it, another text came in:
‘
Tell no one. I am WATCHING you
’
His instinct was to look around, which he suppressed for a second, and then thought: why shouldn’t he? There was no one in sight, but lots of places to hide: parked cars, trees, the museum building. Was Kyle here, right now, or was it a bluff?
Suddenly irritated, he called the number from the texts and put the phone to his ear, still checking the car park for movement. The phone rang six, seven times, and he imagined Kyle’s frustration. But what was he going to do?
The ringing stopped. Silence, then a harsh voice: ‘Follow instructions.’
‘Where the fuck is Dover Lane? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘On the A27. Go east past the station. It’s not far after that, a turning on the left.’
‘A27, east past the station, left turn soon after. Got it. And it’s a bird feeder I’m looking for?’
‘Ten minutes. If you’re not there, I have a statement ready for the cops.’
‘I’ll be there. Right along the track after the bird feeder, yeah?’ Rob chuckled. ‘Hey – if you’re watching me now, why not pop over here and I’ll give you a lift?’
An angry exclamation. ‘Ten minutes.’ And the connection was cut.
I
t was full daylight now
, but muted by low cloud. Rob pulled back on to the main road, which even at this time of the morning wasn’t particularly quiet. He wondered how well Kyle had thought out his plans. Presumably he had his own transport, or he wouldn’t be able to reach the rendezvous in time. Unless he had been bluffing about being in the car park?
Too many questions, all pointless. Rob drove past the town’s railway station and then slowed, searching for the junction. It was mostly trees on his left, and open farmland to his right. He also kept an eye on his mirror, in case Kyle was coming up behind him.
After making the turn, he found himself on a narrow lane heading north, with grass verges on each side and a few large properties set well back behind high hedges. Then into more woodland, and finally he spotted a bird table, presumably lifted from a nearby garden, lying just off the road at the opening to a path through the trees.
It was a dirt track, only just wide enough for the Land Rover. The ground was firm, rutted with previous tyre marks, but nothing that looked particularly recent. Rob eased his way along at about five miles an hour, alert to a possible ambush from the side.
He’d gone a couple of hundred yards when he spotted something coming towards him. It was a motorbike, small and low-powered. The rider was wearing long shorts, a dark quilted jacket and a white helmet. He slowed, raised a hand and gestured at Rob to pull in.
Rob did so, coming to a stop with perhaps thirty or forty yards between them. The rider, a slight figure who could only be Kyle, jabbed a hand to his right. Rob considered shouting out but decided just to follow instructions for now.
Stuffing the phone into his pocket, he picked up the bag and set off through the trees, with Kyle moving on a parallel course. The earth beneath him was sometimes firm, sometimes soft and mulchy. The ground rose a little, then fell away, and Rob saw a clearing up ahead.
Kyle angled his route towards Rob, only now removing the helmet. With some twenty feet between them he ordered Rob to stop, then turned a slow circle before taking a few more paces.
‘Just you and me,’ Rob said.
‘Good. You’ve got the money?’
Rob hefted the bag, which Kyle eyed suspiciously. Now they were closer he could see that Kyle’s clothes were filthy, and he looked half-crazed with exhaustion, his face white, eyes bloodshot. His hair was lank and unwashed, and there was a rash of angry spots on his neck. Rob guessed he’d been living rough.
‘I could have dropped this off at the car park.’ Rob’s voice was calm enough, but there was a slight tremor in one of his legs.
‘I want to count it.’ Kyle took another step, dropping the helmet to the ground.
‘I’ll save you the time. There’s fifteen thousand.’
Kyle’s mouth dropped open. ‘You’re taking the piss?’
‘It’s a lot of money.’
‘I said fifty.’ Kyle took another step forward.
‘It’s the most I could lay my hands on in the time. I’ll write you a cheque for the rest, if you want?’
Kyle let out an incoherent snarl, then gestured angrily at the bag. ‘Open it.’
‘Okay.’ As Rob started to kneel down, he sensed Kyle’s movement, one hand reaching behind him and drawing a knife, and now he understood why the young man was taking such a risk.
Kyle wanted money
and
revenge.
R
ob straightened up
, dodging sideways as Kyle lunged with the knife. His first swipe missed and before he could raise the weapon again Rob threw himself at Kyle and managed to get hold of his wrist, squeezing it with all his strength. Kyle tried to break free but Rob wouldn’t let go; it meant Kyle couldn’t use the knife, but he didn’t drop it, either. Both men wrestled and swore, then fell to the ground, Rob conscious all the time that the blade was only inches from his face. He kneed Kyle in the stomach and Kyle retaliated with a head butt that missed its target but still caught Rob painfully on his jaw. Then, somehow, Kyle pivoted on the ground and found a way to get up; he wrenched one hand free and used his knuckles to club at Rob’s head.
For a second Rob was disorientated, and Kyle was too fast, too desperate. Rob shut his eyes, almost giving up, almost accepting that his carefully thought-out plan had turned into what the Americans called a
clusterfuck
—
And then he thought:
No
. Kyle was leaning back to get more weight and momentum into a thrust of the knife. Rob let his body go limp, and when the knife came slicing down he bucked and twisted in one big violent motion that tipped Kyle sideways, the blade gouging out a divot of earth as Kyle lost his grip on the handle and fell; with a surge of energy and hope, Rob threw himself on to the younger, lighter man, who was now disarmed and off-balance.
Rob slammed his forearm down on Kyle’s neck, the impact hard and heavy. He felt the sickening, sinewy pop of something rupturing. Kyle’s eyes bulged and snot burst from his nose. He let out a long and terrible hiss of pain. His teeth, when he bared them, were slicked with blood.
‘You would have killed me,’ Rob growled, pressing harder still, riding out a few feeble blows of protest, ignoring a spasm of Kyle’s knee that caught him in the groin. ‘That’s why I’m doing this, and I’m sorry, truly. Because I lied to you.’
Kyle’s eyes seemed to widen further, and the tiny veins inside them were bursting. His tongue came out, bleeding where he’d bitten it in the struggle, and a noise issued from his throat, the air straining through his crushed windpipe; sounds that were possibly intended as speech, but could never form words that anyone would understand.
Rob decided it was a question, if it was anything. So he answered.
‘I don’t know. . . if you’re my son, or not. . .’ Gasping himself, because of the effort it required, not to let up the pressure. ‘But I
did
recognise your mum’s picture, and I
did
go out with her.’
T
here were
other things he could have said – like the fact that Kyle might possibly be his own flesh and blood, but when it came down to it Rob cared much, much more for Georgia than he did for this stranger who had tried to destroy them all.
Because of that, Rob was prepared to lie to his wife, to his kids, to the police; even, if necessary, to himself.
Kyle went on staring at him, but he wasn’t seeing anything, and for a time neither was Rob. What brought him back was the sound of his heart, like a jackhammer, and when he raised his head the world around him seemed to be rocking back and forth, the trees blurring in and out of focus. Two strange shadows came bobbing towards him: a hallucination, he thought, until one of them said, ‘Rob?’ and then: ‘Shit, are you all right?’
He didn’t have time to react before they were on him, immensely strong hands lifting him away from the body. He tried to stand but was urged instead to sit, to put his head between his knees and take deep breaths.
‘You’ve had a shock,’ Jason said. ‘Hell of a fucking shock, by the look of it.’
Rob followed the advice, and was vaguely aware of some muttering between Jason and the other man, whom he recognised from the poker nights as his silent investor, the reclusive Collins.
After a couple of minutes, when he felt a little better, Jason came over and crouched down, gave him a wry appraisal and said, ‘Looks like you did the job.’
Rob nodded, swallowing back an urge to vomit. ‘He had a knife. Went for me.’
‘Did he? Shit.’
‘Thought you weren’t going to make it.’
‘Nah, wasn’t easy, finding our way here.’ Jason looked apologetic. ‘Still, got the right result, eh?’
With that, he glanced at Kyle. Rob followed his gaze and the knowledge struck him, for the first time, that the young man was dead.
‘We should be getting on.’ This was Collins, a squat, dangerous-looking man in his forties. He was standing over the body, but keeping a watchful eye on their surroundings.
‘He’s right,’ Jason said. ‘Don’t wanna push our luck.’
Rob stood up, brushing off mud and leaves. Jason tapped the bag with his foot. ‘This the cash?’
‘Yeah. All yours.’
‘Expenses only,’ Jason said, as if he’d been accused of overcharging. He nodded towards his colleague. ‘A drink or two for this one.’
‘Dirty work, disposal,’ Collins said, and then chuckled. ‘Well, sometimes.’
Rob wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly. His ears were ringing, a sort of feedback whine. Both men were surveying the woods, and Rob felt a quiver of fear. If they decided he couldn’t be trusted, they might kill him now, and take the money. . .
Jason pointed. ‘Truck’s over that way. Oh, and I’d better have the phone back.’
‘Of course.’ Rob took out the cheap phone Jason had supplied him. They’d had an open connection when he rang Kyle from the car park, enabling him to pass on details of the rendezvous. All Jason’s idea.
The two men had put gloves on and were standing each side of the body, preparing to lift it. They had an efficient, professional air which nagged at Rob.
‘What do you mean, the disposal is
sometimes
dirty work?’
‘This one’s gonna vanish, and never be seen again,’ Jason said. ‘That’s all you need to know.’
Rob understood that, but he couldn’t help pushing. ‘The method is different, though, sometimes?’ Which was more diplomatic than asking,
How often have you done this
?
Jason made a clicking noise, like a friendly warning, but Collins was already saying, ‘Water’s easiest.’
‘Water?’ Rob turned on him, ignoring the fact that Jason had hauled Kyle’s body up and thrown it over his shoulder as though it were a bag of cement.
‘Yeah. Nothing cleaner than an accident at sea, you know?’ Collins sniggered. ‘Swimming. Scuba diving. Water-skiing.’