Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

water. It was shockingly cold, though he had to wade in only a couple of paces in order to reach the motorcycle. The water came up just

above his knees. He pushed hard and shortly the motorcycle keeled

over on to its side, invisible now. It was the best he could hope for.

Clambering up to the roadside and carrying his clothes and boots,

he ran and slithered on the ice back to the truck as quickly as he

could. Using those parts of the blanket that were not already dirtied and dampened by the spillage of Bob’s body matter, he wiped himself off as best he could. He put on all of his clothes and his boots and sat on the step of the cab briefly, shuddering violently. But this was survival and he had to move.

He located the truck’s crank handle and placed it in position after 101

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checking that the gearbox was in neutral. He turned the handle

twice to prime the engine before climbing into the cab. The vehicle had a choke control, which he pulled to halfway. He knew this was

guesswork, and he knew equally that this beast might well rebel,

fling the handle in the opposite direction and break his arm as he

tried to crank it. His only other option was that long walk in cold, wet clothes.

This was the moment. Despite the cold he took off his overcoat

and cap to permit the best possible attack and bent in position carefully before grabbing the handle and turning it with as much force as he could muster. Nothing. He tried a second time. Again nothing.

The third time he tried, the vehicle seemed to rock slightly as if something might have happened, though Roy was unsure what. At his

fourth attempt the engine spluttered, coughed, fell and then splut-

tered again. Roy leapt back and jumped into the cab. He jabbed the

accelerator with his foot and throaty, hesitant life came to the motor.

Keeping his foot on the throttle, he eased the choke control in. The throatiness disappeared gradually and the petrol engine whined. At

length he decided he could safely remove his foot from the acceler-

ator. The engine idled safely enough. He felt joy. The plan was still on.

He tossed the filthy blanket in the ditch where Bob’s body lay and

retrieved the crank handle before climbing back into the cab,

depressing the clutch and clunking the gearstick into first. He

applied a little throttle and gently, ever so softly under his heavy boots, released the clutch. The wheels began to spin at first but then found traction. The truck moved forward and, gingerly, he turned it so that it faced down the road towards town. The manoeuvre was

not straightforward on these narrow roads. It was difficult, given

the cold that numbed his body and his state of high alert, to sum-

mon the necessary deftness of touch on throttle and clutch. He

succeeded, however, and then, edging forward and eventually reach-

ing a moderate speed, he drove to Essenham.

Yes, flooding. That was all it had been. Bloody flooding.

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7

Mr Cole and the driver were drinking tea in the garage.

‘Got her going, then?’ said Mr Cole in that facile rustic drawl.

‘Bob, was it?’

‘Bob never turned up. I fiddled under the bonnet and got her

started on me own.’

‘Where’s Bob, then?’

‘Search me,’ said Roy. ‘I waited ages. Then gave up. You sure

someone went to his place?’

‘Course I bloody am. Me bloody wife went over there. Mrs Man-

nion said she’d get him up.’

‘I reckon he’ll still be in bed. Anyway, all’s well.’

‘You look bloody freezing. You’re shivering. And wet.’

‘Yes, well. It has been a bit cold in case you hadn’t noticed. And

it’s been raining for the past hour or so.’

‘The thaw’s started, then?’

‘Maybe. Anyhow, I’m going home to warm up and get a bath.’

The driver grunted without gratitude as Roy handed over the

keys. He felt some anticipatory pleasure at the man’s confusion and displeasure when eventually he discovered that his blanket had

disappeared.

He did not go directly home. If challenged, he would have said

that he had gone to check whether Bob was still in bed. As usual the Mannions’ back door was unlocked. He opened it and called cautiously, ‘Anybody home?’

There was no reply. The Mannions, staunch attenders, would be

at church. He had reckoned on this and, looking at the kitchen

clock, calculated he might have twenty minutes. The warm fug of

the kitchen was enticing and the aroma of roasting beef beguiling,

but after a further precautionary shout and having warmed his

hands briefly on the Aga, Roy was on his way upstairs.

It was as if Bob had just risen. The covers were pulled across the

bed untidily, crumpled sheets and a pillow crushed in the corner

against the wall evidence of a disturbed night’s sleep, and the pink 103

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candlewick bedspread had been tossed to the floor. It felt cold, yet his smell remained, that distinctive aftershave he wore each day, to Mr Cole’s amusement, among that indefinable mixture of male

sweat and pheromones. Clothes were scattered around and on the

glass- covered top of the incongruously feminine dressing table were a pile of old newspapers and some loose change. Bob Mannion had

not been a tidy person.

Roy pulled a battered suitcase down from the top of the ward-

robe, conscious that these might be the most perilous moments of

all. He loaded the case with a selection of Bob’s clothes, chosen at random. At the back of the wardrobe he found an old shoebox.

Inside were a number of letters, which he scanned without interest.

Most, which he discarded, were from Sheila. He stuffed what letters there were from the bank into his jacket pocket, together with the

chequebook he found in the box. In his pocket he already had Bob’s

house key and wallet containing four pounds and his driving licence.

Now, the difficult part. He searched among Bob’s belongings for

a scrap of paper and eventually found a small pad of Basildon Bond.

He knew Bob’s handwriting well, from the invoices and receipts

that he had written out very deliberately and with evident concen-

tration at the garage. Thankfully, Bob was not a proficient writer.

Roy would have described him as semi- literate at best. Rather than attempting copperplate, Bob had always written in laborious capital letters, which were relatively easy to mimic. Roy kept the message

short:

SORRY. GONE TO WORK AT MR HURSTS STABELS.

COUDNT TELL YOU OR SHEILA. PLEASE LET HER NO. I

HAVE TO DO THIS. DONT FOLLOW ME. SORRY AGIAN.

YOUR SON ROBERT MANNION

That would do. Roy knew of no Hurst’s stables, but that didn’t

matter. It would make the job of investigation impossible if, as he surely would, Mr Mannion elected to try to find his son.

Roy tidied the bed, put the remaining clothes in a single pile on

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the floor and placed Bob’s key on the note, which he left on the

dressing table.

It was time, once he had secreted the suitcase at the garage, for

that bath and some sleep.

8

The thaw was upon them and temperatures rose to the low sixties.

It was a bizarre feeling, having survived that winter and emerged

into a life once more.

Roy did not return to the remote location where he had left Bob’s

body. Nevertheless he fretted. The thaw had led to a swelling of the rivers and waterways. He feared each day that Bob’s body might float away in the flood and drift downstream, washing up somewhere. He