“Twenty past four.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s Sunday. You’ve been asleep for hours.”
“I took sleeping pills. I had to, I couldn’t stand to stay awake.”
“All right.”
He heard the warning in Carl’s voice and heeded it. Jake put the coffee cup to his lips. He wondered if he would ever feel hungry again.
“You’d better eat something,” said Carl. Veronica nodded.
“I can’t. I feel sick.”
“Eat something, Jake. Go on.”
Veronica’s voice was so soft, so oddly maternal that it brought tears to his eyes. Slowly, he nodded and moved towards the fridge.
“Where is she?”
He had to ask it, if only to rid himself of the dread that he was going to stumble across the body in some unexpected place, lodged behind the sofa, or hidden in one of the spare bedrooms.
There was a moment’s silence. Jake felt a sudden, queasy swoop of vertigo. They didn’t know what he was talking about – he’d imagined the whole thing, had dreamt the whole hideous business up in his drug-infected sleep. He felt a wild burst of relief, relief that Carl’s voice put a sudden, violent end to.
“It’s in the dining room.”
So it had happened. Of course, he’d known that all along. Jake felt for a kitchen chair and manoeuvred himself into it. His legs were shaking.
“Christ, you look awful. You look like you’re about to faint.”
Veronica put a hand on his shoulder.
“God, what are we going to do? I can’t bear it, I can’t –“
“Come on,” Carl said roughly. “Don’t be such a fucking wuss. I’ve told you, we’ll sort it out, no one will know, no one will ever find out and then the three of us can forget this ever happened. It’ll just be like nothing ever happened.”
They dozed again for an hour, curled up on the sofas in the living room. Jake needed the warmth and immediacy of the others. It was an antidote to the colder presence, whose chill he could feel seeping through the house, snaking from the dark cavern of the dining room, a cold ribbon of air reaching the kitchen and hallway. He pressed himself closer to Veronica, shivering. He was beginning to realise the enormity of the task they’d set themselves but there was no help for it - the need to empty the house of the corpse was paramount. He’d never be able to set foot in this place again if she – it – remained in the house.
They waited for it to get dark, beginning to drink again. It was the only way any of them could contemplate getting through the night that was to follow. At the first taste of alcohol, Jake’s stomach clenched and he tensed, waiting to see if he could keep it down. Somehow, he was able to and by the time twilight had smudged the windows of the living room, he was just right, drunk enough to not be able to think too closely about what they were about to do, not too drunk to be incapable.
It was full dark before Carl would let them open the kitchen door to the garden. There was a thin slice of moon caught in the branches of the beech tree and the leaves and grasses whispered in the night breeze. The three of them stood on the patio, in the dark. Carl wouldn’t let them turn on the kitchen light.
“I’m going to go and unlock the shed. It’ll be too small in there for more than a couple of us to dig so Jake and I will do it. V, you can take over when we get tired.”
“Take over?” said Veronica faintly.
“Come on, V, this has to be a joint effort. We’re all in this together.”
“Okay.” She looked utterly miserable, as far as Jake could see in the dim light. “What am I going to wear?”
“What?”
“I can’t dig in my pyjamas.”
“For God’s sake – just borrow a pair of my jeans. Everything we wear will have to be washed anyway, if not burnt.”
“I’m burning mine,” said Jake. “I can’t have these clothes in my wardrobe ever again.”
Carl said nothing but his breathing was indicative of impatience. He left them in the kitchen and walked towards the shed, kicking through the overgrown lawn. Jake strained his eyes to follow the blacker outline of his brother. He heard the clink of the padlock on the door of the shed.
“Go and get changed,” he said to Veronica.
It took them all night, literally all night. The shed was floored with old boards, stippled with woodworm. Carl prised them up from the foundations, working by torchlight, he and Jake holding their breath at every creak and snap of the wood. Eventually, they cleared a space through to the hard-packed earth below. Spiders scurried away from the beam of the torch and Jake saw the twisting pink glint of an earthworm. He felt his stomach clench again. They were going to lower her into this earth, into the worms, clog her hair with dirt… He took a firmer grip on the torch, trying to steady the beam.
The earth was packed hard, dried solid after weeks of hot weather. Their shovels scraped miserable little slices of dirt at each thrust, until Carl brought a watering can and poured water over the ground. That made it a little easier but after an hour, their hands were blistered and their backs aching from the unaccustomed exertion. Veronica took a turn, breaking her long polished nails on the handle of the spade, her curtain of blonde hair falling in front of her sweating face. The interior of the shed filled with stink of nervous exertion.
Eventually they’d cleared a trench that they thought would be big enough. Veronica leant against the wall of the shed, panting with exhaustion. Jake looked at her, dully conscious of her need for support and comfort but not quite able to give it. Carl stood gingerly up and put his hands into the small of his back, grunting. His hands were raw with broken blisters.
“Right,” he said and Jake was shocked at how quiet his voice was, how unsteady. He felt the anxiety twist sharper and deeper. He needed Carl to be the strong one, to stay focused, to know what to do. What would they do without him?
“Carl – “ he said, unsure of what he wanted to say.
“Right,” said Carl again, ignoring him. “I think that’s about deep enough.”
Veronica’s breathing was mostly under control. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face with her grimy hand.
“What now?”
Carl sighed. “Now is the tricky part. You two go inside and hold the door open for me.”
Veronica’s voice was tiny. “Are you going to – “
“Get it? Yes. I’ll carry it out here. You need to hold the door.”
They waited in the kitchen. Jake held the back of a chair to stop his hands from shaking. He was horribly afraid of seeing the body, of seeing what terrible damage two days of decay had done. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as he’d anticipated. Carl carried her through the kitchen, the body securely trussed in a white sheet. There were stains on the sheet that Jake didn’t look at too closely. Carl carried her small body easily, held against him like a strong bridegroom carries his bride. The white sheet made a lighter patch against the blackness of the garden. Jake and Veronica watched from the kitchen window, watched Carl and his fluttering white burden move into darkness until the door of the shed swung behind them and cut them off from view.
Veronica sat down heavily at the kitchen table. She was weeping again, monotonously, the tears running in a slow, steady trickle over her stubble-grazed chin to fall in tiny drips on the table. Jake filled a glass with water and drank it down slowly, suddenly ferociously thirsty. He could feel the blood thudding in his head. His back ached fiercely. He yearned for sleep, for the oblivion that sleep brings.
“It’s almost over,” he said to himself. Veronica heard him.
“Thank God,” she said, her voice clogged with tears.
The kitchen door opening made them both jump. Carl was back, minus his white-wrapped burden. He looked more exhausted than Jake had ever seen him.
“Jake, I need your help.”
Jake swallowed. “With what?”
“Don’t panic. It’s nothing like that. I need you to help me put the boards back. I’ve put the earth back already.”