We were halfway across the road when we both stopped. We were lit up. I turned my head and squinted straight into the lights of a Tesla.
Fucking electric cars.
They were so quiet. Creeping up on you without any warning.
We both blinked in the beam of the headlights: killers caught in their glare. A spotlight on body disposal.
We were holding separate ends of a long, rolled-up tarpaulin. At 11 p.m. at night. On a deserted country road.
“Fuuuuck,” I let out quietly.
The driver’s car door opened as the lights were dimmed. And out stepped an elderly man. “Now I know what you two are up to!”
I remained silent.
“Good evening, sir,” Fox stammered out.
Yeah, as if manners were going to help us.
“Fly-tippers!” the man exclaimed.
“What?” Fox and I looked at each other.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to dob you in. This is my perfect spot to do it too!” He leaned on the car door as he grinned at us. “What do these councils expect if they make it so bloody difficult to get rid of anything?”
“Yes!” Fox smiled. “Those pencil-pushers are ruining everything.”
“Quite right. Fuckin’ bureaucracy!” I chipped in.
The man chuckled away. Fox and I joined in laughing. My arms were about to go. Danny was bloody heavy.
“Well, we’d better get on.” Fox cleared his throat. “In case someone who isn’t an ally comes across us!”
“Hah! Too bloody right. Keep it up!” Still chuckling, the man got back into his car. We quickly got out of the road and carried on toward the undergrowth. We both dropped Danny as soon as the Tesla drove off.
“Now what?” I stretched out my throbbing arms.
“Well, we can’t dump him here now, can we?”
We took a minute’s rest, then hoisted Danny back up and walked as fast as we could across the road before dropping him back into my boot.
We got into the car. I let out a long breath. “That was too fucking close.”
We sat quietly for a moment.
Fox shook his head. “Of all the things that could’ve ended us, I did not have running over your ex-boyfriend on the shortlist.”
“You sure that old man won’t be a problem?”
“Only if a body is found too near to here. Then he might put two and two together.”
We both took this in. It meant another car journey. We’d need to head further afield and choose somewhere even more discreet.
Fox looked down at his phone. “We’re twenty-two miles from the graveyard, and a funeral is booked in there for tomorrow.” Jenny had hacked the calendar of a local church’s booking system. She had discovered that the gravediggers usually prepared the holes the day before a funeral. The best place to bury a body was underneath one. No one checked an empty grave before placing a coffin inside it.
“I can’t dig in this!” I motioned at my outfit. “It’s Stella McCartney.”
“We’ve just established we cannot let Danny be found. It’s the safest solution.”
