‘To take him out?’ Ravi checked.
Pip could tell he’d been about to make an oven-ready-type joke, but had reconsidered. ‘Yes. We’re going to flip him again, but I don’t want the rigor to be too advanced, he needs to still be stiff when they find him. I feel like it must be over forty degrees in there now, maybe even higher. Hopefully it’s brought his temperature back up to somewhere in the low thirties. He’ll start to cool again, once he’s outside, zero point eight degrees every hour until he reaches ambient temperature.’
‘Explain that to me in getting away with murder terms?’ Ravi said, fiddling with the top of the jerry can.
‘Well, if he’s found and the ME initially examines him at the scene around 6 a.m. – in three and a half hours’ time – working the zero-point-eight-degree rule backward, it should show that he died more like nine o’clock, ten o’clock. The rate of rigor and lividity should support that too.’
‘OK,’ Ravi said. ‘Let’s take him out, then.’
He followed her outside to Jason’s car, peering in the window.
‘Hold on.’ Pip dropped to her knees beside her open rucksack. ‘I need the things I took from Max’s.’
She pulled out the freezer bag containing Max’s grey hoodie, and the one with his white trainers and cap. Ravi reached for the bag with the shoes.
‘What are you doing?’ Pip said, harder than she meant to, making him flinch and retract his hand.
‘Putting on Max’s shoes?’ he said uncertainly. ‘I thought we wanted to leave track marks through the mud, where we dump the body. The tread pattern of the shoes.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Pip said, pulling something else out of her bag. The five balled-up pairs of socks. ‘That’s why I brought these. I’m putting on the trainers. I’m dragging him out there.’ She undid her Converse shoes and started pulling on the socks, a pair at a time, padding out her feet.
‘I can help,’ Ravi said, watching her.
‘No, you can’t.’ Pip slid her first bulked-up foot into Max’s trainer, doing the laces up tight. ‘There can only be one set of tracks. Just Max’s. And you’re not dumping the body, I’m not letting you do that. It should be me. I killed him, I got us into this.’ She tied the second shoe and stood, testing out her grip against the gravel. Her feet budged a little up and down as she stepped, but it would be fine.
‘I mean, you didn’t get us into this, he did,’ Ravi said, gesturing with his thumb, back towards Jason’s body. ‘You sure you can do it?’
‘If Max can drag Jason’s body through the trees, then so can I.’ Pip unsealed the bag with Max’s hoodie and pulled it on over her own. Ravi helped her, careful not to disturb the hat covering her head, making sure she left none of her hairs behind on its collar.
‘You’re good,’ Ravi said, taking a step back to look at her. ‘I can at least help you get him out of the car.’
Yes, he could at least help with that. Pip nodded, walking over to the back door of the car, on the side where Jason’s head was. Ravi looped around her to the other side.
They opened the doors at the same time.
‘Whoa,’ Ravi said, doubling back. ‘It’s getting hot in here.’
‘Don’t!’ Pip said firmly, across the back seat.
‘What?’ He glared at her, over the tarp. ‘I wasn’t going to sing the song. Even I know when it’s stepping over a line.’
‘Sure.’
‘What I meant is that it’s really hot in here,’ he said. ‘Higher than forties, I’d say. That was almost opening the oven and the heat slaps you in the face hot.’
‘Right,’ Pip sniffed. ‘You push him this way, I’ll drag him out.’
Pip managed to pull him out of the car, using Ravi’s momentum from the other side. Jason’s tarp-wrapped feet landed on the gravel with a crash.
‘Got him?’ Ravi asked, coming around.
‘Yeah.’ Pip laid him gently down. She stepped back to her rucksack, opening up the front pocket, and pulled out the sandwich bag with the small clump of Max’s hair sealed inside. ‘Need this,’ she explained to Ravi, shoving it in the front pocket of Max’s hoodie.
‘You gonna keep him in the tarp?’ Ravi watched her as she returned to the body, struggling to pick Jason up beneath the shoulders again, his arms now stiff and unyielding.
‘Yeah, he can stay in the tarp,’ Pip said, grunting with the effort as she tried to drag Jason’s trailing feet through the stones, glad the tarp was there, so Jason’s face-down dead face wasn’t watching her as she did. ‘Max could have tried to cover him too.’