“Is it that easy, do you think? To make Joel Ingram disappear?”
Is it that easy, I wanted to ask,to bury him?
But I didn’t ask.
I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.
———
I was glad it was dark, so we didn’t have to look at him long as we stripped his body naked and tossed him into the hole we had dug. It was worryingly easy to take apart each button, to throw him like he wasn’t ahimat all.
I’d suspected I was past saving for a long time, but Harper’svolatility meant she obviously cared. And that meant she was obviously hurting.
“I can do this,” I offered. “You don’t have to.”
“No,” she said, as she slid a sock off. “I have to. It’ll hit me later, I think. When I’m in his house. In our bed. The enormity of all of this. But right now it doesn’t bother me so much to do what needs to be done.”
She had a smudge of mud on her cheek, and I wanted desperately to wipe it away, but no part of me was clean enough to do that without making it worse. But that’s what we did, I suppose, made each other filthier and filthier.
I looked away, unclasping Joel’s watch.
The pit was so low we had to drop him down, and he hit the earth with a dull thud.
I didn’t trust Harper’s resolve entirely, not when it came to the worst of it. “Can you scan the area with the torch and check we haven’t left anything?” I asked.
The moment her back turned I brought my shovel down hard into Joel’s face.
“What?” she shrieked, and I did it again.
“Making it harder to identify him from dental records,” I said. I didn’t know if it worked that way, but anything that made it more troublesome for all involved or a more chaotic scene to piece together had to be good for us.
Harper looked away. “I’ll make sure to burn his comb and toothbrush with the rest of his things. They’ll have to go to arelative for DNA and his mother’s in a care home in Valencia. I’m not sure they’ll go to the fuss.”
He’s Joel Ingram, I wanted to say,they’ll go to the fuss.
But Harper was calm, and I didn’t want to ruin it.
We piled the mud back on quickly and tossed around a few leaves and sticks to make the ground look as undisturbed as we could.
Then we set back off toward the car.
We’d brought a compass this time. We wouldn’t be lost in this forest again.
———
When Harper got home she was going to wash the mud off the number plates then burn everything and dispose of the ashes: his clothes, the blood-soaked rags, the map to Barlam Thicket, and enough of Joel’s belongings to imply he really had skipped town. Meanwhile I would be partying in London like nothing had ever happened.
I crawled into the back of the car to dress myself for my grand return. I wiped flecks of mud off my skin with the inside of the clothes I’d been wearing—which were also ready to be burned, and wrestled into my sequins.
Harper had to pull over to do the buttons up for me, her fingers deft and hurried.
“I don’t want you whoring yourself out for me,” she said. “I don’t like this part of the plan.”
“Harper, at this point I’m doing it for me too. I need to make sure I’m seen very far away from here.”
“I don’t like it,” she said again.
Back in the car, she hurtled toward London, and I let her, despite my fear of those grinding mechanics and the risk of being pulled over. Anything we could do to make it all go a bit quicker was appreciated. It was already half past three. If it were anyone but Caleb I’d worry I’d missed my chance.
