Local Gone Missing(68)

Kevin didn’t speak. He walked forward into the spotlight and bent over the figure to slap him on the side of the head.

“Stop faking!” he shouted into the gray face. “Where’s my money?”

The body on the floor didn’t move.

“Oh, God, is he breathing?” Toby wailed.

“Shut up!” Kevin snarled. “Help me get him upright.”

Toby didn’t move. “I’m not touching him,” he said.

“Get over here!” Kevin roared, and Toby jerked to attention.

He couldn’t see any part of Charlie he was willing to get hold of. The dead man looked like a human chrysalis curled on its side, the torchlight bouncing off the plastic film that still attached him to the chair.

“He’s a con man,” Kevin said. “He’s full of tricks.”

“This isn’t a trick. Can’t you see he’s dead?”

“He can’t be. He fucking well can’t be. I won’t let him be. I’ll wake him up.”

And Kevin picked up the tire wrench. And stroked Charlie’s face with the cold metal before raising it above his head.

Toby thought his chest was going to explode. “Stop! Stop!” he screamed. “We need to get out of here. They’ll say we killed him. Oh, God, have we killed him?”

Kevin lowered the weapon and sank down on his haunches. “Shut up! Let’s get the cling film off him. It’ll have our fingerprints all over it.”

Toby ripped through the layers with a small penknife on his key ring, gathering the plastic into a compact ball while Kevin paced the room.

Neither said a word as the seconds ticked by. It felt like days since they’d walked in, but when Toby looked at his watch, it was just fifteen minutes. Finally, Kevin spoke.

“We need to move him. We can make it look like he died in a fall. There’s a coal cellar down the corridor. I was going to put Charlie in it first off but there was an open hatch and I thought someone might hear us. Where’s the gag? He must have spat it out. And his bag? I thought I brought it in here. We’ll have to get rid of everything.”

Toby looked round and stuffed the filthy towel into the ball of cling film. But the bag wasn’t anywhere and he couldn’t remember if he’d even seen it. Maybe he’d just heard Kevin mention it.

“Forget it,” Kevin said. “It must still be in the shed. Let’s get on with this.”

They both raced to take Charlie’s legs. And Toby won. There was no way he was going to be at the head end. He knew it was a crazy idea but he didn’t have an alternative. He just wanted to get out of there but he knew Kevin wouldn’t let him.

He dropped Charlie’s legs twice, his hands slippery with fear, but they eventually got him into the cellar. Toby smelled the dirt floor and the faint scent of diesel as they hauled Charlie under the gaping hatch, gasping for breath, the adrenaline beginning to ebb.

Kevin tried to arrange the legs and arms into a star shape—relying on comic book images of fatal falls, Toby thought—but they wouldn’t budge.

“He needs an injury,” Kevin muttered as if alone, and Toby wondered if Kevin even remembered he was there. “He needs a fatal head injury from the fall.”

Toby squeezed his eyes tight shut as Kevin hit Charlie with the wrench. But he heard the blow, the soft thud of bone devastated by metal, and knew he would never unhear it. Neither said another word. There was nothing left to say.





NOW





Fifty-one


FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019





Elise


Elise sat at the window with her one cup of decaf for the day. Mulling. The many faces of Charlie Perry. And she wondered if she was anywhere close to knowing who he really was. She wasn’t alone. His neighbors had seen only what he’d allowed—the charming, twinkling version—and she wondered what he’d been like once the door of his caravan closed.

She looked through her case file, searching for him. And stopped at the black-and-white photo of Birdie. Charlie hadn’t told anyone in Ebbing about the attack that had left her brain damaged. He’d let them believe it had been the result of an accident. But why would he hide that? It was a random tragedy. It wasn’t as if it would make people think less of him, would it? But did he think it would?

She rang Caro.

“You’re not supposed to be working today, remember?” Caro said. “You are way over your hours already. Get off the phone or I’ll tell McBride.”

“Shut up, Sergeant. Look, I want to talk to Charlie’s old neighbors in London.”

Caro sighed loudly. “But this case is all about Ebbing, isn’t it? We’ve got the unfaithful wife and her lover in the frame—and now Pauline says Charlie had been up to his old tricks. We need to be looking for the people he’s been conning to raise money, not digging into some ancient case that was solved twenty years ago.”

“Yes, yes, but the bottom line is that our victim is not the man people thought he was. He had secrets and we’re missing something. I just feel it in my waters.”

“Thanks for that image,” Caro laughed. “Okay, but we’d better get a wiggle on—the inquest opens this afternoon and the coroner will use Charlie’s real name. I imagine the press will be straight on the trail. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”