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And in that moment of utter loneliness, he wishes, bitterly and keenly, that he had known his father. Wishes he could call him now and ask him what to do. There was never anyone to ask; he’s had to figure it all out for himself. He knows what he’s doing is wrong, off-the-scale wrong, but what the hell else can he do? If he doesn’t sort it, there is no one, no one else.
He grits his teeth. ‘Come on.’
Another blast of staggered breath. He opens the door. Steps out onto the street. It is still raining, though not as heavily now. He pulls the Lovegoods’ door closed and walks as slowly as he dares past Matt and Ava’s house. Eyes front, head locked, he presses on towards his own house. No sign of the dogs. He just has to keep the bag off the ground.
Halfway down the road, twenty metres, no more, from his home, his throat blocks at the sight of two police officers coming out of number 58.
He recognises PC Peak, smiles and raises his free hand. ‘Just dumping my tools in the van,’ he offers. ‘It’s all open at the back, don’t want them getting nicked.’
With a perfunctory nod, they carry on to number 56.
The urge to run is almost too much. His lips purse, as if to whistle, but he stops himself. At the van, he levels his key fob and clicks. The central locking clunks; the tail lights flash. It is all he can do not to look around. It is all he can do to put Abi inside the bleak metal shell. As if she were no more than this: a bag of tools, valuables to be locked away in case of thieves.
‘I’m so sorry, baby girl,’ he whispers. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’
And later, much later, his beautiful god-daughter still in the cold van, his best friend’s face looms over him in the dark and empty building site, eyes creased up in agony as he confesses.
‘It was me. I left the door open.’
The thin, wet frame of the man in his arms, weeping for his fatal mistake.
‘Don’t tell her,’ he hears himself say, astounded at how easily the words fall from him, as if they have in fact been spoken by somebody else. ‘There’s nothing to be gained.’ And on and on – a sleight of hand with which he transfers the weight of guilt so that he can absolve himself of the larger blame and save his life: ‘No police, no Ava, no one else. It ends here. Our secret. I’ve got your back.’
This – this is the moment he becomes a monster, he thinks. In the depths of his best friend’s personal abyss, he sees only his own chance – to step in as the keeper of another’s secret so that his own might remain buried. And then, later, in wild panic, when he realises he’s left Abi’s coat in the Lovegoods’ washing machine, when he says goodbye to Matt in the pretence of going to bed, only to make a frantic dash in the dark, back across the splintering, cobwebbed fences, when he hides in the black scrubby garden of Johnnie Lovegood’s dream home and sees the man he loathes at the loft window, leaning out, smoking a joint, floating above it all, riding his life like a luxury cruise while he, Neil, crouches filthy and sweating and crying in the shadows, he will see clearly the unfairness of it all. Johnnie, who is also to blame, smoking a bloody joint, enjoying his peace of mind in his soon-to-be state-of-the art show home, the home that Neil will build for him. He wants to run up there and punch him, hard, in his smug little face. But no.
Violence can’t save him. Only stealth. He must get the coat into the river. He must try to somehow make it through this night. And tomorrow he will lay the bag in the trench and concrete in the steels. It is all he can think of. It is all he’s got.
He grabs the coat, escapes once again over the back fence. Up to the lock he runs, lungs tight, the metal of blood in his mouth. Over the bridge towards Ham. No sign of the police. On the water, nothing stirs – not even an arrow of ducks disturbs the black water. The houseboats are mostly dark, one or two lit from within by the warm glow of an oil lamp. A damp, cold smell rises from the water. The breeze rustles in the scrappy branches of the spindly riverside trees. At least it has stopped raining.
Richmond is three miles away. He’s not sure he can run three metres. His bones ache, his skin is freezing. He is so tired. He is so fucking tired. But the rest of his life depends on now. All around is silent. The loud, fast, foetal heartbeat he knows is coming from his own mind. A memory from an early scan, Bella’s face lighting up in wonder. The galloping sound of life, of a family he almost had, only for that blessed noise to cease. Until now. Now, it has chosen to visit him, to torture him.
And so, tortured and snivelling, freezing and wretched, he runs the miles up to Richmond, where he drops his beloved god-daughter’s coat, and weeps as it falls pale and blue into the deep black water.
It is 3 a.m. by the time he gets home. He has never felt so completely wrecked, so alone. Everything hurts, inside and out. And, like a child, he cannot stop crying. In the dark hallway, he strips. The washing machine is empty; his heart threatens to explode at the sight. Where are his overalls from this morning? He runs upstairs, naked, checks in the bathroom cupboard and almost cries out with relief to find them there, folded along with other clothes, airing in the warmth in a neat pile. Bella will have emptied the washing machine when she got in and put his stuff in the dryer. She won’t have thought twice about it. Back downstairs, he loads his filthy jeans, T-shirt, raincoat, socks and pants into the machine and sets it to wash. Still shivering, teeth chattering now, he takes a long shower, increasing the temperature by degrees, warming himself through.
In bed, he curls himself around Bella’s warm naked body. He presses his nose between her shoulder blades and breathes her in. She smells of perfume and the oily scent of her skin at night. Aromatherapy. She is what he needs. She is all he needs.
‘Hey,’ she whispers, stirring, then shifting, sitting up.
‘We didn’t find her,’ he says, and it’s enough to send her into floods of tears.
‘Oh my God,’ she says through her fingers. ‘Oh my poor darling Abi. I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it. Poor Matt and Ava, oh my God.’
He rubs her back. ‘I know. I know.’
There is nothing he can do but let her cry. He waits it out until at last she plucks a handful of tissues from the box on her bedside table and presses it to her eyes.
‘You’ve been gone ages,’ she says, blowing her nose. ‘What time is it?’
‘Late. Listen, there’s nothing we can do now. Let’s go to sleep, eh? We’ll search again in the morning.’
She nods, her breath still shuddering in her chest as, dopey and obedient with tiredness, she lies down, rolls her back to him and pulls his legs to hers with the hook of her big toe.
I can’t lose this, he thinks, wrapping his arm around her waist, returning his face to that place between her shoulder blades.I’d do the time; gladly, I would, but I can’t lose this. Everything I have done, I have done for her. For us.
‘I love you,’ he whispers into her neck. And he feels it, oh God, he feels it.
‘I love you too,’ she slurs. ‘You’re my hero, you know that.’
