The man’s eyes are trained sleepily on the ground. Dressed in scruffy jeans that hang somewhere around his hips, he has the bow-legged slouch of a man still under the influence of something. Yawning widely, he lifts his grubby t-shirt to scratch a pale, hairy belly. White earbud wires dangle through ginger-blond dreadlocks.
Hester darts behind a tree with surprising grace. But Melissa can clearly see Jamie’s wrapped body, right-angled half off the decorator’s trolley.
Her senses are cranked up painfully high. The dripping of rain through the trees fills all the space inside her skull; the green of the woods is too bright. Her own sour sweat and fear are choking her with their stink.
Somehow, the man still hasn’t seen them. Reaching the riverbank, he unzips his fly then pees, simultaneously letting out an audible fart. Briefly looking up at the river, he turns back the way he has come and trudges back in the direction of his tent.
For several moments Melissa remains rooted to where she stands. Relief begins to pump through her veins, sweet as balm. But it is short-lived because this must surely herald the start of the day for the crusty camper. He might even be about to start packing up the tent.
She hurries to where Hester crouches behind a tree, her face drawn now.
‘We have to hurry,’ says Melissa in a hoarse whisper. ‘Help me get him back onto the trolley and let’s go.’
Hester says nothing, but nods in agreement.
Melissa squats down next to Jamie’s slumped torso and tries to grasp the loose plastic to haul him back onto the trolley. Hester ineffectually pushes at his head but, within a few moments, he is more or less ready to be moved again anyway.
Renewed fear gives Melissa the strength to move faster now and the trolley bumps and rolls along the rough forest path alongside the river.
When they get to the foot of the bridge they both stand straighter and scan all around to see if anyone is within sight, either here or across the river. But all seems to be clear, and together they begin the laborious business of pulling the burdensome trolley up the uneven brick of the bridge.
Melissa is bathed in sweat and her rain-sodden hoodie feels as though it is twice its usual weight. Her legs shake with exertion and muscles in her shoulders scream and cramp. She’s baring her teeth as they hit a section of brick that sticks up and catches on the trolley wheels.
‘Come on you fucker,’ she hisses.
Registering the prim look from Hester, she thinks, Just say something. Try it. See what happens. The thought of tipping Hester over the bridge and watching the water seal over her head shocks Melissa. She briefly wonders what she is turning into.
Gasping with exhaustion, the women stand at the apex of the bridge and gaze down at Jamie as though a solution to the next impossible thing will magically present itself. He looks so big and heavy. Far too solid and large to be lifted and put into the water.
‘Okay,’ says Hester, breathing hard. ‘We have to get it upright and then we can tip it over.’
It is illogical to mind, but Hester has been doing this all night; referring to Jamie as though he is nothing but an inconvenient parcel. She calls her fucking dog ‘he’ but an actual human being is treated like … nothing.
That plastic shroud contains a person. A person she tasted and touched just last night. Someone who once made her laugh so hard at his impression of Kathie’s Glasgow accent that Coke had squirted out of her nose.
Regret pounds inside her with a sickening, steady beat. You killed him. You killed him, you killed him …
Wordlessly, the two women haul the bulky body into an upright position. Melissa’s muscles shriek but, thanks to all that Pilates and yoga she filled her empty days with for the last few years, her body is stronger than she thinks. Soon Jamie is slumped against the wall of the bridge. Pushing hair soaked with rain and sweat from her face, Melissa looks around. If anyone was watching, if the police suddenly swarmed through the trees, she would still push Jamie into the water. Events now are a runaway vehicle that can’t be stopped. Forward motion is the only thing possible.
‘Right, when I say so, heave him forward and over, okay?’ she pants.
Hester nods, cat’s bottom mouth drawn tight.
‘One, two, three—HEAVE!’ says Melissa.
Jamie topples forward and then slithers impossibly fast into thin air. There is a loud splash and the two women peer over at the water as one. Jamie bobs and floats in the fast-moving water then drifts sideways towards the riverbank, where he rests against the reeds, trapped.
‘Shit, no!’ whispers Melissa, sleeved hands covering the lower half of her face. ‘He’s not heavy enough to sink! What are we going to do?’
Hester is muttering quietly to herself and Melissa realizes she is praying. They watch as the body moves with agonizing slowness, bobbing and twisting at the side of the river. Then water starts to seep inexorably into the plastic sheeting and the women watch breathlessly as it begins to sink. But first it turns over and some of the sheeting works free so that Jamie’s entire head is exposed.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Melissa feels tears and nausea rise at once at the filmed eyes that gaze up at them in the grey-doughy face.
‘I’m so sorry, Jamie,’ she whispers and feels Hester’s sharp gaze on her. ‘I’m so very, very sorry.’
She can’t move from the spot now and doesn’t even notice that the rain has stopped. She doesn’t see that the sun is breaking through the clouds. A swathe of gold brightens the stretch of river ahead and the air is suddenly suffused with birdsong.
Jamie takes one last, almost lazy, roll in the water and then he is gone.