‘Is this something you taught her?’
‘What?’ says the teacher, her face screwed up quite melodramatically.
‘Is it in your class plan?’
‘No, it’s not,’ says Miss Hammond, looking flustered and turning around as if looking for support. ‘She’s the pet monitor this week. Her job was to look after the hamster.’
‘I think she was clearly trying to, Miss Hammond. We all make mistakes.’
‘I’m concerned about her lack of basic empathy.’
‘And I’m concerned about your lack of basic pedagogy,’ I say, quite firmly.
‘When I told her it was dead, she smiled at me,’ she says, wringing her hands.
‘Do you want me to pay for the hamster?’
‘It’s not about money.’
‘Well, the learning point here is that you should teach the children about risks if you give them responsibility. I mean, that’s your job.’ I shake my head and look the teacher straight in the eye. ‘I hope she’s not traumatized by your accusation. I don’t want to make a complaint against you, Miss Hammond, so let’s just put it down to experience, shall we?’
Chapter7Tapping
Returning from school with Nathan and Nelly, plus a little shopping from Sainsbury’s (bleach, bin bags, Marigolds and parcel tape), I discover Aimée in her bedroom in the loft extension. I know she’s there because the boiler is going at full blast, which means someone is showering. She doesn’t respond to texts, so I turn off the boiler.
Not too long after, my disgruntled employee arrives with her hair wrapped in a towel and gives me a withering look. I respond with a gesture of my hand to the stacks of party dishes that she was tasked with clearing, push Nathan and Nelly into her arms, and point outside. Aimée makes a noise that sounds like a growl and tells me it’s too dark. I flick a switch, and the garden lights up like a stage set.
I rush straight upstairs, take out the bag of clothes awaiting the charity shop and change into an old pair of pyjamas. I head down to the utility room, tie my hair back, pull on the new Marigolds, grab the bleach and bin bags, plus a mop, several old sheets, and a bucket of water.
The living room smells like a bus shelter on a Saturday night – a heady mix of blood and urine. I stare at the man’s bloody face and wonder who he is. In truth, I’ve been preoccupied with the task of clearing him up rather than wondering about his identity.
I kneel beside the body and search him. I find a white hand-kerchief in his back pocket which is stained dark red, and a car key fob and phone in his jacket. I put the key fob back and try to open his phone.
The home screen shows a photograph of a grinning woman and a child, probably his family, but no one I recognize. I try to open it using face recognition, but his features are too bloody. I take a sheet, dip it in the bucket and start to clean. As his eyes and nose reappear, I feel I’ve seen him before, and recently too. I try to place him but nothing comes. I point the phone at him again, but it won’t open. I imagine it’s designed to reject the dead to avoid situations just like this.
I switch off his phone in case it can be tracked, and put it in a Jiffy bag. I use the sheets to mop up the blood, although the Sarouk rug has done an excellent job of absorbing most of it – a quality the man at Liberty failed to mention. I stuff the bloody sheets into bin liners, tie them shut, then wipe up the residue and turn to the body.
Time is of the essence, not least because I’ve got a spaghetti bolognaise to make before six, and have to get rid of the corpse and change before Stephen arrives home. He’s not been himself lately, in fact not since his father died a year ago, and there’s no doubt that a dead body would exacerbate his rather tiresome morbidity. When most men find life pointless and meaningless, they play golf, but Stephen prefers to mope.
I’ve no idea how to remove the body. Strictly speaking he’s ‘organic waste’, but he certainly won’t fit in the little green bin that Haringey supplies for the purpose of composting.
There’s no time to dig a pit, and even if I did, I imagine Purdy would investigate – she’s dug up several of Nelly’s deceased guinea pigs, which seem to die at an alarming rate.
The only option is to remove him from the premises, which is difficult because he’s heavy and rather messy. Wrapping him up carefully is vital. I find that the clingfilm is almost out and the bin liners I bought are only 70 litres – I’d need one for each limb.
I search the kitchen for larger bin-bags, and see Nelly andNathan bouncing on the new trampoline. Nelly is throwing Nathan about like a rag doll, but he seems to be laughing. Aimée is less engaged. She’s sitting in the vicinity of the children, staring at her phone with her head still in a towel.
I don’t know why Nelly dotes on her. It might be because she lets Nelly use her make-up, but I think it’s because Nelly’s attitude is so similar to Aimee’s own Parisian disdain for the world.
Stephen thinks Nelly is more like me than Aimée, which means he thinks she’s cold and detached, and his mother, Madeleine, actually refers to Nelly as ‘the maniacal one’.
As I stare into the garden, I have a sudden thought and head for the garage. I rejoice as I see that Stephen hasn’t taken the gallons of thick plastic wrap from the trampoline to the dump. I’ve found my body-wrap. I now realize my single roll of parcel tape will be inadequate and search for duct tape. I come back with half a roll of masking tape and three rolls of Sellotape, one of which has a Christmas theme.
In the living room, I flatten the plastic as it’s not very malleable, then begin the dance of the dead. I lift his legs, drag the plastic under them with my foot, and with a heave, slide it just under his buttocks. It’s rather like changing a nappy, but significantly larger.
I wriggle and tug the plastic under his torso, pull it under his head, and am pausing for a moment to dwell on my accomplishment when I hear three sharp taps on the window.
Chapter8Corpse
