AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A bump. He stops, but another second, two, passes before he takes it in.
He jumps out onto the driveway. Sees a little red ankle boot. A moment later, he is standing over the body of next door’s child.
‘Fuck.’ He scans the road. There is no one. No one. He scoops her up. Reaches down once again. Grabs the plastic bag of bread she’s dropped on the pavement. Into the open house he runs, heart thudding, head throbbing. From upstairs comes Jen’s voice, soothing Jasmine, bribing her.
‘OK, two more minutes. I’ll put Cosima in the car then I’m coming back and you have to be ready, OK? No, Jasmine, not those shoes, please…’
The utility door is shut. The kitchen door is locked.
He throws the body over his shoulder. It is so small, so light. His fingers scrabble through his keys. Christ, come on, come on, there, thank God, the key to the kitchen door. He opens the site, eyes darting, scalp itching. The washing machine? No, too risky. She might not fit. No, she definitely won’t. Come on, come on, Johnnie Boy. You’ve got twenty seconds. The garden? He takes a step, his torso twisting left then right. Something falls to the ground – a cuddly toy of some kind. A monkey? God knows. Christ, he doesn’t even know the child’s name. But there’s no time for this. There’s no fucking time.
The trench.
She wandered in. She fell.
Good enough. It’ll have to be.
No one knows he is here. No one.
He throws her, gags as her head cracks against the ridge before she falls, rolls, lands on her back, horribly, limbs all wrong. She stares at him, eyes glassy as a doll’s. He throws the bag of bread in after her; it lands by her head, by her hand. It looks like she’s fallen. Yes, she’s fallen in. The bag has flown out of her hand. The new truth is already rehearsing itself in his mind. A tragedy.
The kitchen door beckons: come out, Johnnie Boy. Come out now. Run.
The utility-room door is still shut. No noise comes from within. No one knows he is here. No one knows what he has just done. If he leaves the kitchen door open, there will be no one to say it was him. Neil will come out and… Yes, Neil will come out and think there has been a terrible accident. This has been a terrible accident. She fell. The bag flew out of her hand. A tragedy.
It will be Neil’s fault.
Professional negligence.
No one will believe the word of a builder over his. And on Friday, Neil was so aggressive with him, so keen to pin the mistake with the steels on him, like he had a point to prove.
An accident. A tragedy. Professional negligence. She fell.
It’s not perfect. But it has to work. Johnnie cannot be anywhere near this. He’s worked too hard to get this far. The mortgage on this place is a heart condition waiting to happen, and that’s without the extension, the lighting, the hand-made units and the Cayenne. His throat is already stripped raw with acid reflux from all the stress he has to bear. If he admits to running over a kid, it will ruin him. There’s Jasmine’s care going forward to think about. Neil hasn’t even got kids. He’s young. He’ll get two years, three, tops, whereas he, Johnnie, will never come back from this. He can’t do that to his kids. He loves those kids. He loves Jen.
From the new truth, another truth grows: he’s doing it for his family.
At his hairline, sweat prickles.
He slows to a walk as he steps out of the house. The chap from over the road is wheeling his green bin down his pathway. Christ. One minute earlier and he would have seen.
‘Hello,’ Johnnie calls out, waves, even though he doesn’t usually. This chap can witness him, witness nothing happening, nothing untoward. Take a good look. ‘Starting to rain, I think.’
‘Looks like it.’ The man raises a hand before parking his bin and returning via his side gate to the back garden.
By the time Jen comes out, Johnnie is in the car, engine running. He pushes the sweat from his forehead into his hair, wipes his face with a tissue from the glove compartment, drums the steering wheel to the music.
Jen is swearing at the car seat. Jasmine is still in the fucking house.For God’s sake, come on, woman, he wants to say, but presses his lips tight. The radio blares. He’s desperate to turn it down but daren’t do anything he wouldn’t normally in case she looks at him. Looks at him and says,what the hell is wrong with you? But she doesn’t look at him; she is intent on the car-seat clip, which is fiddly at the best of times. He didn’t check the drive. Oh God, he didn’t check for blood. She wasn’t bleeding. She wasn’t bleeding, was she? Dead, yes – probably – but not bleeding. Oh God, he can’t go down for this; he will not go down for a stupid accident that wasn’t… and the thought occurs to him only now… wasn’t even his fault. That’s right. This is not his fault. He is not to blame. Who the hell lets their two-year-old roam around without supervision? The parents. It was the parents’ fault, not his at all.
‘Finally,’ Jen says and heads back into the house.
He closes and opens his eyes. Closes, opens. God, the agony. The prolonged torture of it all.Come on, Jen. Come on, come on, come on.
A minute later and finally Jasmine comes out of the house.
There is still no one on the street. He’s not yet used to suburbia. It’s like no one even lives here sometimes.
Another minute or two and Jen jumps into the passenger seat beside him.
