Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

weeks would require a certain deftness of touch. He needed also to

develop ways to explain it all, so far as they were feasible, against the event that the practicalities mounted and defeated him. He applied

cold logic, telling himself that it was in such circumstances that he performed best. He would act calmly, suppressing all anxiety, and

take one rational step after another. Speed would be critical.

Roy surveyed the scene, walking a few yards in each direction

down the two intersecting roads. It was potentially doable, if risky.

He returned to the vehicle and looked again at what remained of

Bob Mannion. Shocking. Oh dear, oh dear. The next tasks were

going to be unpleasant in the extreme, but there was no shirking

them. He collected the blanket from the cab. No doubt the driver

would miss it and scratch his head, but needs must.

Bob’s torso remained adhered to the chassis. It looked now as if

he was leaning, drunk, against the side of the truck for support. Roy laid the blanket out flat, eased it under Bob’s feet and positioned it with care. He took a good grip of Bob under the arms and, after a

deep breath, pulled him backwards. In life Bob would have been a

featherweight, so the practical elements of this posed fewer issues than the conceptual. Eventually Bob came free with a sucking

squish and Roy laid him on the blanket, taking care not to look too 98

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closely. The blanket had just enough play for Roy to use the corner to wipe away the girder end of the chassis on which Bob had been

impaled. He then set about the grisly business of emptying Bob’s

pockets without getting any of that mess over himself. He could not entirely avoid catching sight of Bob’s face: he looked contented,

almost angelic. He would have been pleased that his quiff remained, immobile. At least Roy could reason he seemed at peace and could

not have suffered.

That part of the job, at least, was over. Good Lord, it had begun

to rain. This was the last thing Roy required. The background score to his efforts was no longer that deathly quiet but the patter of rain on ice. Water began to run down his neck. He shivered.

Parallel to the larger of the roads was a large drainage channel,

one of the network of waterways that had been constructed at vari-

ous points since the seventeenth century to take water away from

these lands and make them agriculturally viable. This channel

would feed into the Middle Level Main Drain, no doubt, and even-

tually into the Great Ouse river before it flowed into the North Sea.

The channel was old, badly if at all maintained and overgrown,

clogged, it seemed, with weeds and reeds. Evidently it had been

ignored for many years. Beggars could not be choosers, though. He

was not wagering on Bob’s body ever reaching the sea.

Stepping carefully down the steep banks of the ditch with a

crunch of the iced grasses at each tentative pace, he finally reached the water’s edge. The surface was solid. Roy estimated that at this, its narrowest point, the ditch was about two yards across. It would have to do. Holding on to a thin branch of a tree that grew at

forty- five degrees from the bank, he brought the heel of his boot

down experimentally on the frozen surface. He met resistance. He

tried once more, with greater force, and broke through. A gush of

cold brackish liquid covered his ankle as he slipped slightly. He

steadied himself and pulled his foot out of the water. Fetching the crank handle from the lorry, he set about enlarging the aperture, in which he intended Bob’s body to reside. It was makeshift, he knew,

but there was nothing else for it.

With both hands, Roy dragged the blanket to the edge of the

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ditch and positioned it carefully, before pulling on one side. Bob’s body toppled down the bank, rolled and with a plop fell into the

water.

The surface settled and the body rose slightly, floating but sitting low in the water. Roy could see clearly Bob’s back, pierced by the

square hole, his hands and his feet. He scrambled down the bank.

There was nothing he could use to weight the body down. It was

something he should have considered before he placed it in the

water. He did what he could, nudging the body into the side of the

channel less visible from the road and covering it with icy fronds of undergrowth that he managed to tease away from the bank.

The effect was not professional but just, just might suffice. The

body would probably only be found in a determined search, which

was unlikely provided he managed things appropriately in the next

hours and days. Anyway, the die was cast and he should not fret. He had done his best. He tried to blow warmth and life back into his

frozen hands as he walked back to the lorry. The moment of the

next decision was upon him.

He decided he must dispose of the motorcycle. He could not risk

attempting to start it again and ride it back to the village. No one could see him, on a motorbike or otherwise, and imagine he was

Bob Mannion. If, however, he could get the truck motor started, he

should have the time to implement the plan that he was already

sketching out in his mind. If not he would have to trudge those

miles back to the nearest house and then improvise.

He walked over to the motorcycle and inhaled the heady strong

smell of petrol. Righting the machine, he tried to kick- start it, without success. There was only one thing for it. The channel where he

had deposited Bob’s body was far too narrow to accommodate the

motorcycle with any semblance of disguise. He walked along the

road to which the channel ran parallel, searching for a point at

which it broadened. About half a mile away, at the next intersection of roads, the channel fed into a wider, perpendicular body of water, which had already begun trickling.

Roy was conscious of precious time slipping through the hour-

glass, never to be recovered, and of his potentially exposed position 100

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in the next phase. He paused, and spoke to himself in the silence,

his breath wreathing away into the mist. Panic never does any good.

Risk is life. Just function.

He returned to collect the motorcycle. Leaning his weight against

the handlebars, he pushed. His boots slipped on the ice and he bent further and heaved, achieving first a tiny movement, then greater

momentum. Shortly the truck disappeared from view behind him

as if it had never existed and none of it had happened. Except that he held the evidence to the contrary in his hands. He pushed on, his shoulders and thighs aching with the effort, deliberately mindless

until he had reached the point he had set himself. He was punctili-

ous in not stopping short of the mark even though it was arbitrary.

A yard or two wouldn’t have made any difference. But it would have

made a difference in his mind.

It was raining harder and he was becoming wetter. The channel

here was much wider and deeper. The water was beginning to flow

again, bit by bit. The thaw seemed to be setting in, and quickly.

Roy wheeled the motorcycle to the edge of the bank and pushed

it with a heave. It clattered down the steep bank and hit the water at speed. The front wheel dug in and the motorcycle somersaulted.

Most of the frame disappeared from view, but both wheels pro-

truded from the water.

He sighed. There was nothing else for it. Angrily, he pulled off his boots, socks and trousers and scrambled down to the edge of the