Masters of the House (9 page)

“People would see us and see you're too young to be driving.”

“They wouldn't care, not late at night. They just want to get home. It's only the police we'd have to worry about.”

Annie recognised his determination and accepted defeat.

“What about tools? What would you need?”

“A spade and a big fork, I should think. . . . I'm going to get the car out now.”

“Why, Matthew? Why now?”

“It may take a while to start. People are watching telly now. If I had trouble starting it after midnight they might get out of bed to see who it was.”

That seemed to Annie to make sense. She nodded and sat
rigid in her chair—but what was there to fear now? She heard him fetch the car keys from the kitchen, go out the front door, and run to the garage, on the far side of the house, where the road ended and gave away to field—that field across which they often walked to the supermarket. She heard him open the front gate, open the garage door, then get into the car. Four, five times she heard him try to start it. Then she heard him pause for a while. Dad had always said that was what you should do. (That was when he
was
Dad.) When he tried again the car started, and she heard him backing it towards the front gates. He left it running. She hoped he would come back in—she hated being there on her own—but she heard him going round to the back. He must be getting the spade and fork. How could he bear to go past
that
? She heard him come back, put the tools in the car, then turn off the ignition and shut the doors slowly. Now she had the awesome feeling of a die having been cast. It was as if a door had shut decisively, or perhaps as if the ceiling had started coming down, was lower by a foot and getting lower and lower until it eventually would crush them. Now they were committed—for better or worse, and she was quite unsure which it would be.

“I put the tools in the back,” said Matthew, when he'd come back in, locking the front door behind him. “We'll put her in the boot.”

“But Matthew—all that blood!”

“I know. I think we'd better put a plastic bag over her—at least, over the top part. One of those black garbage bags.”

“Oh, God!” whimpered Annie. Then a thought struck her. “Matthew—what if she's still alive?”

“She isn't. She was dead when we saw her. Otherwise she'd have been breathing, choking. I went close. There was no breathing. She was dead.”

“Don't you go stiff when you die? If she goes stiff we might not be able to get her into the boot.”

Matthew's mouth dropped open.

“Oh, God! I hadn't thought of that! How long is it before you go stiff?”

“I don't know.”

“I'll have to do it now. That would probably be best anyway, while people are occupied.”

“I'll help.”

He was anxious to shield her all he could.

“No . . . well, not yet. I'll get it ready. Then you may have to help me round with it. I don't think I could do it on my own, and I might make a lot of noise.” He saw her reluctance. “I'm sorry. There's no other way. You can take the legs.”

“All right. . . . It'll be quicker and quieter. Don't put any lights on outside.”

It was the most horrible thing he had ever done in his life, and it was only the darkness that saved it from being simply intolerable. He averted his eyes as he fetched an empty black plastic bag from the garbage bins, but there was no avoiding seeing it when he came back to the dim light under the kitchen window and had to pull the bag over her head, down over her shoulders, past the aggressive breasts with the dreadful gashes, down to her waist and beyond. The woman was in a slumped, almost crouching position, and Matthew decided this would make it easier to get her into the boot of the car. He suddenly remembered an old door—the door from the kitchen into the hall, which his father had replaced in a burst of d.i.y. a year or so before. It was still down the bottom of the garden, waiting to be taken to the dump. He ran into the gloom and with difficulty brought it back to the house. He lay it on the ground by the body, then—with manifest physical
reluctance, for he hated touching her—he pushed and shoved the body onto it, using just his feet when he could. He surveyed his work with satisfaction. This would make it easier for Annie to help him to get it into the car.

“Have you got a big bath towel?” he asked, when he went back into the house. “Or a sheet? So we can put it over her and no one will know what it is if they look out of their windows.”

Annie nodded and went to fetch a large dark blue bath towel. Matthew led the way outside and threw the towel over her legs before Annie had a chance to see.

“Right. I've put her on that old door. You don't need to touch her. You take the bottom and I'll take the top. We'll take her to the car now and get it done with.” But as they carried the bier and the body round the side of the house he said: “Stop. I was a fool to leave the car in the drive. We should do this in the garage. Wait here a sec.”

Annie didn't like to say that she had hated waiting for him alone in the house but that she hated the thought of waiting in the dark driveway still more. She heard him go round to the front, heard the sound of the car being driven into the garage. Then he was back. Without a word they picked up their burden and took it through the front garden and into the garage. Matthew had already opened the boot. He now pulled the doors almost to, rested the old door on the bottom of the car boot, then eased the body gently in. When he was sure there were no bits of her poking out, he closed the boot and set the door against the far wall of the garage, and then they both crept back into the house.

“So far so good,” said Matthew, as if this was some kind of Boy Scouts' initiative test.

“I think the waiting will be worst of all,” said Annie.

“There's a lot to think about,” said Matthew. “How shall I
dress? How can I make myself look older, just in case a police car passes?”

That was an awful thought. They turned down the sound of the television set and sat there working it all out. Matthew fetched a cap of his father's and found that it almost fitted. It shielded his face if it was worn at an angle. All his father's coats and jackets looked quite ridiculous on him; but he knew that his body was a boy's, not a man's, and had to be hidden. They finally decided on his duffel coat, which was bulky and not at all childish in style.

“I could be digging now,” he said, when they had looked at the clock for the hundredth time. “I could take the tools over there, find a place and start digging a hole.”

“No. The tools are in the back of the car. You've been in and out of the garage two or three times already tonight. Go too often and someone's going to be looking out. Think about driving the car.”

So Matthew sat there, thinking about all his father had told him in those days when he was a real father to him: how to release the clutch slowly, gently; how to change gear without that horrible shrieking and shuddering; how to brake and secure the car with the hand brake. He'd watched his father so intently when they went out on family outings. Driving had been the symbol of his father's adulthood, of his headship of the family. Matthew had known—thought—that one day he would be head of his own family, would drive a car on family expeditions. That's how he had thought of himself all those times he had sat in the car in the drive, changing gear, putting on the hand brake, going backwards and forwards in and out of the garage.

They switched the television off when they usually did and then decided to sit in the dark. But this became too spooky because they couldn't resist wondering to themselves who else
had been out there in the back garden—who it was who had done it. They crept into the kitchen and put the light on.

“That knife is still out there!” said Matthew suddenly. “We've got to get rid of it.”

“Tomorrow's Monday. The garbage men come.”

“That's an idea. Have we got any kitchen rubbish? I'll put it at the bottom of a bin bag and put things on top.”

They got together all the rubbish they could find and a couple of old newspapers. Then they turned the lights off again; and Matthew crept out, wrapped the knife in the newspapers and put it at the bottom of the bag, piling the rubbish on top of it. Then he ran back to the kitchen; and they sat around the table, wondering what else they had forgotten.

Time had never passed so slowly. Impossible to do anything else but intolerable to keep talking about the horror of what they had found and the horror of what they were about to do. From time to time they quietly opened the front door and listened to the sound of the traffic as it slowly died away to almost nothing.

At ten to twelve Matthew said, “We could do it now.”

Annie hesitated for a moment, then nodded. Matthew took the car keys; they turned off the kitchen light, then they crept out of the back door and locked it. There were no lights from the house next door or the house opposite, but that didn't mean there was no one looking out of the window. They scuttled round to the front and into the garage. The inside of the car seemed like a refuge until Annie remembered what was in the boot and drew in her breath sharply.

“Don't think about that,” said Matthew, understanding at once. “I can't if I'm going to drive.”

The car started at the second attempt, and Matthew left it in neutral and pressed the accelerator a couple of times as he
had been shown long ago. Then he pressed hard on the clutch, put the gears into reverse and swung round in the driving seat. He found he could barely see over the back of the seat, but he would not risk asking Annie to get out and guide him. He only had to go straight until he was through the gates. He prayed, then gently, slowly, he let the clutch out and backed the car down the drive, past the gateposts and out into the road.

“Marvellous!” said Annie. “Don't forget to put the lights on.”

He had forgotten the headlights!

“Of course not,” he said. He fiddled with the little stick on the steering wheel and eventually got some dim light. “That should be enough.”

Darkness was what he preferred. If he could, he would have driven in total darkness. That would prevent any passing policeman from seeing who was driving and stopping them—except that he
would
stop them because it was illegal. Now he trod on the clutch again and put the car into first. Then he eased her with agonising slowness along Calverley Row until he got to the junction with the Shipley Road. When he braked her there the engine stopped.

“Don't worry,” said Annie. “It's still cold.”

It started at once. There was no traffic at all on the road, and Matthew's spirits rose again. But when he tried to drive out and turn right towards the roundabout, the car began that awful kangaroo motion he had dreaded. He slammed in the clutch and then started again, releasing it gently as he turned into the still empty road. This time the car started smoothly, and they began coasting downhill towards the roundabout.

“Don't go into it unless it's quite clear,” said Annie.

Two cars sped around the roundabout on their way towards Horsforth. Matthew stopped to let them go, then eased the car into the circle, driving round the edge and then out to the right
onto the Ring Road. Annie rather thought he should have gone into the centre of it, but she said nothing. What did it matter, with nothing on the road? They started along the Ring Road towards the next roundabout, where they would have to turn right again.

“I've never been in second gear,” said Matthew, his voice breaking.

“Stay in first. People will just think there's something wrong with the car.”

“No. They'll look at us. We don't want them looking.”

His heart throbbed as he put the car into neutral, then across, then up into second, as his father had often shown him but never allowed him to do. Miraculously it worked and went smoothly in. It seemed almost as if the car was relaxing, from the tension of first gear to the mature calm of second.

“Great!” said Matthew. “Maybe I can stay in second all the time now.”

They approached the second roundabout. There were two cars coming towards them on the Ring Road, but they were a long way away. Matthew drove into the roundabout, this time driving in to the centre, then round it and out to the right. He didn't need to slow down much, and the car coasted along in second.

“We've done it!” said Annie. “Nearly.”

The Greatbuys Supermarket had been built on farming land a quarter of a mile from the Ring Road, part of the seventies drift out of the city centres. If this had been daytime Matthew would have needed to turn across the stream of traffic to drive into the car park, but there was no stream of traffic. He slowed down, tugged at the wheel, but as he began to turn, the car died on him again.

“Damn!” He turned the ignition angrily.

“You're still in second,” said Annie.

Matthew closed his eyes, suddenly conscious that his forehead was damp with sweat. He concentrated hard, changed down into first, then slowly eased up the clutch and drove into the empty supermarket car park. It was dark and uninviting. He turned in the direction of the little coppice of trees and the field that led across to Calverley Row and home. He parked it neatly, nose into the wall, then he braked and turned the ignition off. They sat for a moment getting their breath.

“You were wonderful, “ said Annie. “I never thought you could do it.”

But they both knew the really bad bit was still to come. Just how bad it was to be, they realised when, silently, they got out of the car, took the spade and fork out of the back, jumped onto the low wall of the car park and over into the coppice. It was pitch-black in there. None of the light from the road reached through the dark trunks of the trees.

“Matthew, what if—” Annie began.