‘Yeah,’ Cathy says softly, moving away from him. They went walking in those woods yesterday to cool down. As they stumbled over exposed tree roots, holding on to branches for support, they had talked about how Lydia and Joe were trying – unsuccessfully – to get pregnant. Cathy had said not very much at all, which was exactly what Joe had wanted, why he had asked Cathy to go, and not Frannie. They’d returned relaxed and tired, and opened a bottle of red wine.

‘Cathy and I need to dig,’ Joe says. She’s bigger than Frannie, but she’s meticulous too. Frannie would rush it.

‘It needs to be really deep,’ Cathy says. In the darkness, her voice is disembodied. Joe moves the beam of his torch to her. Her expression is blank, totally blank, a woman in shock.

‘You need to burn this blood,’ Joe says to Frannie, gesturing around.

‘How?’

‘You need to light every bit of it and burn it. Nobody ever goes up that road. Ever. We’ll just say we had a cookout on the grass. Make it look like a big barbecue. A bonfire. Something like that,’ Cathy says. Her words are matter of fact but her tone is kind, as it always is.

‘Okay,’ Frannie says in a small voice. ‘But won’t people wonder why we had a … I mean – next to the road?’

‘I know,’ Cathy says with a shrug. ‘We’ll have to deal with that question when it comes to it. Get the car close to the house and clean it up too. Hose it down. But prioritize the blood.’ She swallows. She looks at Joe. ‘The grave needs to be seven feet,’ she says.

‘I know.’

‘Because of sniffer dogs,’ she adds needlessly. Joe nods. Spaniels. German shepherds. He sees their noses quivering during his examinations of them. They can tell when their owner is due back from work by how much of them they can still smell in the air.

‘And then?’ Frannie stands opposite Joe, her bloody hands on her hips, leaving two perfect handprints against her bare skin in the torchlight.

Cathy doesn’t answer her, just stands looking at the body for a few seconds more. She points to the feet of the body. Joe picks them up easily, like it – he, he – is a fallen soldier, and follows Cathy, holding the shoulders, into the gloom of the woods.

Part I

PREVENTING A LAWFUL BURIAL

7.

Joe

Joe is already out of breath by the time they reach the woods, his hands slipping on the body’s rubbery ankles. He reaches to wipe sweat away from his forehead. His muscles are shaking. He is so unfit. Joe hates the gym, once spent a week going before work like other people seem to be able to do and was useless all day, dropping scalpels and mainlining Mars Bars to recover.

A little way in, Cathy stops, placing her end of the body on the ground, where it settles at an odd angle. ‘Here?’ Cathy says.