Four days earlier
Toby
Toby was dressed in black for the showdown. It had seemed appropriate as he pulled on black jeans that were slightly too snug and a polo neck in the dark as Saul slept in the next room. Kevin had clearly had a similar thought but his clothes fitted him. He looked the part but Toby just felt ridiculous—and sick—when he met him at the back door to Tall Trees.
“Come on,” Kevin whispered out of the dark.
Toby could see a tire wrench in Kevin’s hand. “What’s that for?”
“Never mind that. Are you ready?”
Toby wanted to ask, Ready for what? but he didn’t dare. He didn’t want to know. He’d been so full of it earlier. Testosterone pumping as he’d helped secure their prisoner, and talking like a gangster. But he wasn’t a gangster—he was a successful restaurateur leading a foodie revolution in Ebbing.
“Kevin,” he said, but his partner was already leading the way downstairs and flinging the door open.
They both just stood there when Kevin’s torch lit up the scene.
“Oh, God!” Toby breathed.
Kevin didn’t speak. He walked forward into the spotlight and bent over the figure to slap him on the side of the head.
“Stop faking!” he shouted into the gray face. “Where’s my money?”
The body on the floor didn’t move.
“Oh, God, is he breathing?” Toby wailed.
“Shut up!” Kevin snarled. “Help me get him upright.”
Toby didn’t move. “I’m not touching him,” he said.
“Get over here!” Kevin roared, and Toby jerked to attention.
He couldn’t see any part of Charlie he was willing to get hold of. The dead man looked like a human chrysalis curled on its side, the torchlight bouncing off the plastic film that still attached him to the chair.
“He’s a con man,” Kevin said. “He’s full of tricks.”
“This isn’t a trick. Can’t you see he’s dead?”
“He can’t be. He fucking well can’t be. I won’t let him be. I’ll wake him up.”
And Kevin picked up the tire wrench. And stroked Charlie’s face with the cold metal before raising it above his head.
Toby thought his chest was going to explode. “Stop! Stop!” he screamed. “We need to get out of here. They’ll say we killed him. Oh, God, have we killed him?”
Kevin lowered the weapon and sank down on his haunches. “Shut up! Let’s get the cling film off him. It’ll have our fingerprints all over it.”
Toby ripped through the layers with a small penknife on his key ring, gathering the plastic into a compact ball while Kevin paced the room.
Neither said a word as the seconds ticked by. It felt like days since they’d walked in, but when Toby looked at his watch, it was just fifteen minutes. Finally, Kevin spoke.
“We need to move him. We can make it look like he died in a fall. There’s a coal cellar down the corridor. I was going to put Charlie in it first off but there was an open hatch and I thought someone might hear us. Where’s the gag? He must have spat it out. And his bag? I thought I brought it in here. We’ll have to get rid of everything.”
Toby looked round and stuffed the filthy towel into the ball of cling film. But the bag wasn’t anywhere and he couldn’t remember if he’d even seen it. Maybe he’d just heard Kevin mention it.
“Forget it,” Kevin said. “It must still be in the shed. Let’s get on with this.”
They both raced to take Charlie’s legs. And Toby won. There was no way he was going to be at the head end. He knew it was a crazy idea but he didn’t have an alternative. He just wanted to get out of there but he knew Kevin wouldn’t let him.
He dropped Charlie’s legs twice, his hands slippery with fear, but they eventually got him into the cellar. Toby smelled the dirt floor and the faint scent of diesel as they hauled Charlie under the gaping hatch, gasping for breath, the adrenaline beginning to ebb.
Kevin tried to arrange the legs and arms into a star shape—relying on comic book images of fatal falls, Toby thought—but they wouldn’t budge.
“He needs an injury,” Kevin muttered as if alone, and Toby wondered if Kevin even remembered he was there. “He needs a fatal head injury from the fall.”
Toby squeezed his eyes tight shut as Kevin hit Charlie with the wrench. But he heard the blow, the soft thud of bone devastated by metal, and knew he would never unhear it. Neither said another word. There was nothing left to say.