Once Tim and Robert had hoisted her into the trunk, Pru came jogging out with bottles of water, Lucozade and Coke. Edmund was glad he was terrible at cleaning the car out and even worse at finishing bottles of drink. She stopped at every drop of blood and poured a little liquid on it. The biggest amount of blood—where the woman had lain to rest—took a whole large bottle of water and a half-empty bottle of Coke for good measure. With the empty bottles under her arms, Pru used a rag to slosh around the water and scrub some of the blood away. The resulting effect was wet patches that did seem red, but looked more like some kind of dark drink spillage than blood. And luckily there weren’t enough spatters to draw attention—the only one that might being the main one. Edmund looked at them and couldn’t see anything but blood, but he supposed that a member of the public wouldn’t even bat an eye, especially when they were going forty miles an hour just interested in getting where they were going. And if they thought it was blood, they’d probably just think it was a badger or a rabbit that had got clipped by a car. That happened a lot out here in the country. It might just work.

Edmund started walking toward the car. Pru was just rejoining the others, who were huddled around the open car trunk. They all seemed to be looking in at the body. Edmund didn’t understand why. Other than to say sorry, he wanted nothing to do with the body. And that made him feel even more guilty. Tim and Robert had had to touch her—clean up his mess.

We’re in this together. All of us. We always have been, and we always will be. We need everyone, here. All of us. Where we’re at our best. There’s no weak links here. We’re all as great as each other.

That was what Tim had said to Robert, and he had to believe that. It was true that everyone was in trouble. Maybe not equal to him, but trouble nonetheless. Letting someone operate a vehicle who you know is drunk is just as illegal as driving it yourself. But Edmund still felt an immense amount of gratitude to everyone. This would never not feel like his crime—at least not to him—but everyone was helping him.