Pip took a step back and she hauled.
She tried to not think about what she was doing. Build a barrier inside her mind, a fence to keep it out. It was just one of the boxes to tick, that’s what she told herself. Focus on that. Just a task to tick off in the plan, like all the plans she’d ever made, even the small ones, even the mundane. This was no different.
Except it was, that dark voice reminded her, the one that hid at the back beside the shame, unpicking her barrier piece by piece. Because it was late at night, in that in-between time when too-late became too-early, and Pip Fitz-Amobi was dragging a dead body.
Dead Jason was heavy and Pip’s progress was slow, her mind trying to distance itself from the thing in her hands, from her hands themselves.
It was a little easier as she moved from small stones to grass, checking behind her every two steps, so she didn’t trip.
Ravi remained behind on the gravel. ‘I’ll start on the boot of the car, then,’ he said. ‘Hoover every inch.’
‘Wipe down the plastic sides too,’ Pip called, the breath struggling in her chest. ‘I touched those.’
He shot her a thumbs up and turned away.
Pip leaned Jason against her leg for a moment, to take the weight, give her arms a break. The muscles in her shoulders were already screaming. But she had to keep going. This was her job, her burden.
She dragged him to the trees, Max’s trainers crunching the first of the fallen leaves. Pip laid him down for two minutes, stretched out her aching arms, moved her head side to side to crack her neck. Stared up at the moon to ask it what the fuck she was doing. Then she picked him up again.
Hauled him between those trees and around that one. Leaves bunching up around Jason’s feet as he dragged them with him, collecting them for his final resting place.
Pip didn’t go in far. She didn’t need to. They were about fifty feet into the woodland, where the trees started to bunch close together, barring the way. A distant hum of Ravi and the vacuum cleaner. Pip checked behind her, spotting the trunk of a larger tree, old and gnarled. That would do.
She dragged Jason around that tree, and then laid him down. The plastic tarp rustled and dried-out leaves whispered dark threats to Pip as he settled into the ground, face down in the tarp.
She bent to one side of him and pushed, rolling his stiffening body over. Now he was face up, and the blood inside would settle along his back once again.
The tarp had shifted slightly, as she’d flipped him over, one corner slipping down to show her his dead face one last time. To etch that image into the underside of her eyelids forever, a new horror waiting for her in the dark whenever she blinked. Jason Bell. The Slough Strangler. The DT Killer. The monster that had chased Andie Bell away, creating this jagged circle, this awful merry-go-round they were all stuck on.
But at least Pip was still alive, to be haunted by his face. If it were the other way around, as it should have been, Jason wouldn’t have cared enough to be haunted by hers. He’d tried to take it away from her. He would have enjoyed seeing her like this, face wrapped up in tape, skin mottling to the colour of bruise, body hard like it was made from concrete and not flesh. A wrapped-up doll, and a trophy to always remember how the sight of dead-her had made him feel. Elated. Excited. Powerful.
So yes, Pip would remember his dead face, and she would be glad to. Because it meant she didn’t have to be afraid of him any more. She had won and he was dead, and the sight of it, the proof, that was her trophy, whether she wanted it or not.
She unfolded that same side of tarp, uncovering half of him, from his face to his legs, and pulled out the sandwich bag from Max’s pocket.
She opened the seal and dipped her gloved hand inside, pinching some of the dark blonde hairs. Crouching low, she dropped them, sprinkled them over Jason’s shirt, two tucked under his collar. His dead hand was rigid and wouldn’t open, but Pip slid a couple of hairs in through the gap between his thumb and forefinger, coming to rest against his palm. There were only a few left in the bag now, the weak moonlight showed her. She pulled out just one more, tucking it in under the nail of Jason’s right thumb.
She straightened up, resealing the bag to put it away. She studied him, creating the scene in that dark place in her mind, bringing the plan to life behind her eyes. They’d tussled, fought. Knocked over a row of shelves in the storeroom. Jason had punched Max in the face, giving him a black eye, maybe pulling some of his hair out at the same time. Look, there it was, stuck under one nail, and in the creases of his fingers, snagging on his clothes. Max had walked away angry and come back even angrier, creeping up on Jason in the storeroom, a hammer gripped in his hand. Undone Jason’s head. A rage kill. Heat of the moment. Calmed down and realized what he’d done. Covered him and dragged him through the trees. Should have covered your hair, Max, while you were attempting to clear up a murder scene. He’d managed to clear up his prints from the weapon, and the room he killed Jason in, but he’d forgotten about his hair, hadn’t he? Too fair, too fine to see it. Too panicked after killing a man.