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“Was there enough air? Could you breathe?”
He was gasping. He clenched his eyes shut and opened them again, twice, three times, like he was trying to clear his vision. It was a minute before he could speak.
“There was enough air,” he said. “It was just, being in there... with him. Fuck.” I hugged him, and this time he was the one to push me away. He held me at arm’s length. “What’s the plan, Lee? What are we going to do with him?”
I moved around him and closed the trunk. “The first thing we’re going to do is go inside. You’re going to take off those clothes and put them in a plastic bag. You’re going to shower and change and then you’re going to make those phone calls or video calls. I don’t care who you call, just make it as normal as you can, okay? I’m going to make breakfast and we’re going to follow as normal a routine as possible for the next hour. And then... then we’ll deal with him.”
Andy did what I asked. He called two suppliers and put a pause on some orders he’d already placed for jobs that had just been cancelled. He sent another text message to Craig. I plugged my phone in to charge and replied to a text message that Julie Bradley had sent me, asking how I was. I called Matthew Wright. He didn’t answer the phone, so I left a message. I got some messages from journalists, which I ignored. And an hour after we came home we went back out to the barn, and we buried Simon. First we crowbarred up the bricks that formed the barn floor and stacked them neatly to one side. There was a thick layer of fine stone and sand underneath, and clay underneath that, but Andy’s mini excavator was parked in the barn, and we used it to dig a grave that was eight feet deep. Andy slid the body into it, but before he let the body go he cut long holes in the plastic bags, either side.
“Should we use quicklime, or something?” I asked. I had some idea that lime did something to remains to make them decompose quicker.
“I don’t have any,” Andy said. “I use ready-mixed concrete. Also, it wouldn’t help. It would just dry out the corpse and preserve it. We want decomposition. We won’t need to worry about the smell. Not when we’re burying this deep.”
He got back into the excavator and started pushing dirt into the hole. I went to the barn window, feeling shaken. I checked to make sure that no one was coming. The press had so far shown us the courtesy of not coming onto our property, but that could always change. And Matthew Wright could choose to stop by. There was no one there. We were lucky that Andy had everything we needed to relay the floor—bags of sand and stone dust. We got to work. By lunchtime Andy was brushing dirt across the bricks, to make them look like they’d never been moved. We stood back, dirty and tired. The barn looked like it always had.
We went inside and got into the shower together. We held on to each other as if we’d been parted for years. We got clean and got dressed. I was the first one downstairs. I called the supermarket, apologized for abandoning my cart that morning, and explained that there’d been a journalist following me and I had panicked. The store said they could deliver my shopping later in the day, and I accepted their kind offer. Then I made coffee. Andy came in. His eyes were old and haunted.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
I shook my head. “No. We’re not doing this.” I took his hand. “We’re never going to talk about it again. Do you understand me? Last night never happened.”
His eyes searched mine.
“We went to bed at ten o’clock. You didn’t sleep well. Nightmares. In the morning you slept in. By the time you woke up I’d already gone downstairs. You stayed in bed. You looked at your phone, sent some emails, and watched basketball on ESPN. You heard me leave for the supermarket and you got out of bed when you heard me come back. We had a late breakfast together. That’s what happened, Andy.”
He poured two cups of coffee.
“That’s what happened,” he said. He didn’t look like himself, not yet, but he would, given enough time. “I need to go and dig a drainage trench, or something. Someone might have heard the excavator. We should have an obvious explanation for that.” It was good that he was thinking that way. Thinking ahead. He held my gaze. “And tomorrow we’re going to get Grace back. I don’t care about journalists or principals or anyone else. We’re going to fight for this family. And we’re staying together.”
“Yes.”
He turned and pulled my chair closer to his, close enough that he could put his hands to my face and rest his forehead against mine. Then he just stayed there, holding on.
“I love you,” I said.
“We can do this,” he said.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Matthew
On Saturday morning Matthew drove to headquarters. The place was mostly empty. Weekends were always quieter. Sarah Jane was there. She didn’t seem surprised to see him.
“Anything on the phone data?”
She shook her head. “I spoke to a guy who told me we’ve been moved onto a priority list, and we should get something next week, possibly the week after. The only way we’d get it faster would be if we could prove that there was imminent danger to life. They tell me a missing girl is not enough.”
“Fuck ’em,” he said. “We’re going to get this bastard without their help.” His buddy the prosecutor had agreed that Rita Gallo’s statement was enough to justify a search of the Jordans’ Waitsfield home. They’d decided to wait to submit the warrant application until the morning, as the judge on call over the weekend was a little more police friendly. But Matthew expected to have that warrant on his desk by 10:00 A.M. at the latest, and then, then they would see.
“The Jordans have agreed to hand over the GPS data on their cars,” Sarah Jane said. “Their lawyer called and said if we wanted to send over a technician to download the data, that wouldn’t be an issue.”
Matthew made a face. “If they’re handing over the data, then there’s nothing there that will help us.”
“I figured,” Sarah Jane said. “But I checked. They actually have four vehicles. Rory Jordan drives a BMW X7, and Jamie has an X5. Simon drives the Jeep Wrangler. But there’s a fourth vehicle, registered in Rory’s name—a fifteen-year-old Dodge Ram. I’m guessing that doesn’t have GPS. I bet they hand over the data to the BMWs and the Jeep. And I bet that’ll be squeaky clean. But if Simon went back to Stowe to move her, he would have taken the Dodge Ram. He’s not stupid.”
Matthew nodded. It made sense.
