"You're going to make me do bad things to you, sweetheart." | Frank Rider is the new teacher. His favourite word is 'detention'. He's iniquitous, rude and vicious. To get on his bad side would be suicide. Unfortunately for Cleo, she's already dived...
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CHAPTER LXVI
DEATH AND TIME were schoolgirls in pigtails. Best friends 'til (as ironic as this was) death due them part. Or God. Or whoever, whatever was in the universe. Tartan skirts, clammy hand-holding with homemade tacky bracelets, and an inability to be separated. With death came time. With time came death. Congenital twins. A devious, Machiavellian pair.
Death was a wound. Time was salt. The product: an intensified ache.
It had been an hour since the murder. A sloppy crime, one a rookie detective could solve with their eyes closed. The clean-up was arduous; there were splashes of blood on the maroon-painted wall, a soaked sofa where the body was slumped over, a stubborn and stained hardwood flooring, brain matter flung to the furthest corner of the room, and a decomposing body to dispose of. I handed Eton bleach and rubber gloves, ordering him to scrub until his skin wore away and his wrists pleaded for a rest, and left him as I embraced the turbulent storm outside, a shovel as my companion.
My clothes were soaked in a matter of seconds, wrapped to my body like cling-film. I brushed my hair from my face with my arm, clearing my vision slightly, and with vigorous efforts, dug into the soft soil on the other side of the shed. The earthly smell was intoxicating, and as I hallowed out the ground I thought of my older brother. He hadn't spoken since his initial sob. Silent, hunched, watching inattentively as Eton scrubbed. He was a shell of who he was a couple of hours before. I hoped on crossed fingers that he wouldn't become a liability. Some part of me wanted his co-operation, I recalled the fondness, the familiarity, the brotherly-love of childhood that refused to allow me to walk back into the house and shoot him dead where he sat. It was a flaw, a shortcoming I owned and accepted: unable to dislodge the soul-deep attachment I had to my childhood, a lifetime where life was much simple. ABC, 123, finger-painting, innocence, Lady Luck, Eton and I, an inseparable pair in a murder. Now it was the worry of forensics, of mobile phones, government tracking, recklessness and smugness, and mouths that remained agape, moving animatedly, forever speaking.
I wasn't obtuse, a thick-headed egomaniac, unaware of plots against me, of liabilities and false promises of loyalties. I knew what I was doing and I would deal with the consequences even as control seemed harder and harder to maintain. It was all a matter of time. Speaking of... I squatted, pushing my hands – palm side up – under the sodden roll of rug. Dry, he had to be around a hundred and sixty pounds. Wet, wrapped in a rug, it was as if he was a couple hundred pounds heavier. I grunted, rolling him over into the makeshift grave. He toppled in, a thud I didn't hear. I straightened, my nails with a line of mud shoved deep under, pushing my thumb under the nail of the middle finger, scraping away distractedly. I thought of what I would grow over the body, perhaps blackberries.
There were tomatoes, potatoes, radishes, mint and onions. It was time for something sweeter.
When I returned to the house, I set the shovel by the door leading to the basement and went upstairs to take a hot shower. Tension eased from my shoulders as the water pelleted down on my bare back. I scrubbed my arms rigorously with soap and a hand towel. The puddle of water by my feet was a mixture of brown with red swirls. I finished with the room steamy, a mimic of a sauna.
