But the plan worked, in theory. How to get away with murder.
Jason Bell was dead, but he wasn’t dead yet; he would be in a few hours. And Max Hastings would be the one who killed him. Finally locked away where he belonged.
‘They deserve it,’ Pip said, standing back. ‘They both deserve it, don’t they?’ It was too late for Jason, but Max… She hated him, down to the very core of who she was, but was that blinding her, leading her?
‘Yes,’ he reassured her, though she knew he hated him just as much. ‘They’ve hurt people. Jason killed five women; he would have killed you. He started everything that led to Andie and Sal dying. So did Max. Max will carry on hurting people if we do nothing. We know that. They deserve this, both of them.’ He gently tapped his finger in that safe space under her chin, pulling her face up to look at him. ‘It’s a choice between you or Max, and I choose you. I’m not losing you.’
And Pip didn’t say but she couldn’t help thinking of Elliot Ward, who’d made a choice exactly like this, making Sal a killer to save himself and his daughters. And there Pip was too, in that messy, confusing grey area, dragging Ravi in with her. The end and the beginning.
‘OK,’ she nodded, talking herself back into it. The plan was binding and they were in it now, and time was not on their side. ‘A few things still left to work out, but the most important is the –’
‘Refrigerating and heating up the dead body,’ Ravi finished the sentence for her, glancing again at those abandoned feet. He still hadn’t seen the body up close, seen what Pip had done to Jason. Pip hoped Ravi wouldn’t change his mind when he did, wouldn’t look at her any different. He pointed to the brick building behind them, separate to the corrugated-iron building with the chemical storeroom off its side. ‘That building there looks more like an office building, where the office staff work. There’s probably a kitchen in there, right? With a fridge and a freezer?’
‘Yeah, there probably is.’ Pip nodded. ‘But not humansized.’
Ravi blew out a mouthful of air, his face tight and tense. ‘Again, why couldn’t Jason Bell have owned a meat-processing factory with giant fridges?’
‘Let’s go have a look around,’ Pip said, turning back to the open metal door, and Jason’s feet lying across the threshold. ‘We have his keys.’ She nodded at them, still in the lock where Jason had left them. ‘He’s the owner, he must have a key to every door here. And he told me the security alarms were disabled everywhere, and the CCTV cameras. He told me he had all weekend, if he wanted it. So, we should be fine.’
‘Yeah, good idea,’ Ravi said, but he didn’t take a step forward, because stepping towards that door also meant stepping towards the dead body.
Pip went first, holding her breath as she walked over, eyes stalling on Jason’s broken-open head. She blinked, dragging her gaze away, and pulled the heavy ring of keys out the door. ‘We need to make sure we remember everything we’ve touched – I’ve touched – so we can wipe it down later,’ she said, cradling the keys in her hand. ‘Come on, this way.’
Pip stepped over Jason, avoiding the halo of blood around his head. Ravi followed close behind and Pip saw his eyes lingering, blinking hard as though he might wish it all away.
A small cough as he picked up his pace behind her.
They didn’t say anything. What was there to say?
It took a few attempts for Pip to find the right key for the door at the end of the storeroom, by the workbench. She pushed it open into a dark and cavernous room.
Ravi pulled his sleeve up over his fingers and flicked on the light switch.
The room came into view in flickers, as the overhead lights settled into their buzzy glow. This building must have once been a barn, Pip realized, staring up into its impossibly high ceiling. And laid out before them were rows and rows and rows of machines. Lawnmowers, strimmers, leaf blowers, machines she didn’t even understand, and tables with smaller tools like hedge cutters. Over on the right were large machines Pip assumed must be ride-on mowers, covered over with black tarp. There were shelves with more metal tools, glinting in the light, and red jerry cans, and bags of soil.
Pip turned to Ravi, his eyes taking in the room, feverish and fast. ‘What’s that?’ He pointed to a bright orange machine, tall, with a funnel-shaped top.
‘I think that’s a shredder,’ she said. ‘Or a wood-chipper, whatever it’s called. Branches go in and it shreds them to tiny little pieces.’