Then she started the engine and pulled out into the road. She drove home – to Alice’s house – and unlocked the door. The phone pinged with a reply.

No. He left to meet you earlier. He took the bus. Have you called him?

I tried. He didn’t answer.

I’ll try him. He wanted to see you.

She could only imagine what Ned’s mum had put up with. The moodiness, the tears, the pathetic, heartbroken, lovelorn wet blanket of a son. No doubt she was worried he would never find another girlfriend.

Well, he wouldn’t now. She was better off without him.

Don’t worry. I’ll call him tomorrow. I’m home now.

She put the phone on the table – she didn’t need any tracking data showing where she was about to go – and headed back to the car.

She had found the place earlier on Google Maps. In Perth she’d wanted the bodies to be found. She enjoyed reading about them in the press, enjoyed the thrill of seeing her work displayed for the world.

But not this time. This time she needed the body to be gone for ever.

No body, no crime. Just another missing person.

She’d had no choice but to kill him. He’d brought it on himself. She could have ignored his phone calls, refused to see him, told him a thousand times it was over. But he would have kept coming. She could have moved to London, Paris, Bangkok, and one day he would have showed up on her doorstep.

Or maybe not. Maybe he would have found some pride and walked away. It was a risk she couldn’t take.

And then there was the thrill of it. Once she had started to plan to kill him, once she had started to anticipate the moment, imagine the swing of the hammer – well, once the idea was in her head there was no getting it out.

Once the needle was in the addict’s hand and the vein was raised, the outcome was fixed. There was no turning away.

So here she was.

Calm. Centred. In control.

Satiated, for now.

She had memorized the route. A slag heap next to a deep, toxic pool of sludge from a long-ceased mining operation. It was due to be filled in in the coming years, tons of dirt poured into it in an attempt to hide the scars.

A toxic legacy, buried.

That was fine by her. It could bury her toxic legacy too.

There was no one there when she arrived.

No one to see her cut a hole in the wire fence.

No one to see her drag his body to the edge of the pit of sludge.

No one to hear the pop and hiss as it sank into the filth.

She waved as his body disappeared.

‘Bye Ned,’ she said.

Sunday, 29 August 2021

DI Wynne