Jake made his way to the bathroom shakily. He had the worst hangover of his entire life – his whole body felt as if it had been dipped into a vat of poison. He bent over the toilet again but there was nothing left inside him to come up, leaving him doubled up, dry-heaving until it felt as if he was about to turn himself inside out. His head throbbed. He sat back against the bath, feeling the cool porcelain against his sweating back. Slowly the nausea and chills ebbed slightly, just slightly, enough so he could eventually get up. Somehow, he managed to get himself in the shower and stood on trembling legs beneath the hot gush of water. He watched the soap scum flood past his feet and felt a tiny, marginally bit better, as if some of the past night’s sins were washing away down the plughole.

The relief didn’t last long. He wrapped himself in a towel and plodded back to his bedroom, past Carl’s closed door. Then he heard something that froze him to the spot. Panting, moans, the creaking of the bed growing in urgency. They were having sex. He couldn’t believe it. For a moment, he felt the black despair about him chill white with shock, and the fleeting thought came and went: my brother is not normal.

He made it back to bed, somehow. Jake lay beneath the covers, gripping the edge of the duvet with shaking hands. I can’t deal with this. No human being should have to deal with this. He closed his eyes tight, trying to block out the world. He wanted to go back to sleep but he knew blissful unconsciousness would elude him. After a moment, he sat up again and ransacked his bedside table, searching for the sleeping pills he had once been prescribed. Thank you God, there were two left in the little brown bottle. He swallowed both and lay back down, trying to breathe deeply and think of nothing, counting down the minutes to oblivion.

Chapter Twenty-Three

They were sat at the kitchen table when he came downstairs. He’d paused on the landing, afraid to look down at the floor below. He had waited up there for several minutes, gripping the banister, unable to bring himself to move. Then, cringing, he moved to the top of the stairs and looked down.

There was nothing there on the hallway floor. The black and white tiles looked oddly more real, more there. Jake blinked. Then he realised that they’d been washed, the usual film of dust and grime cleared away. Now they sparkled in the light that came flooding through the fanlight of the door.

He walked downstairs slowly, holding onto the banisters at every step. He couldn’t, couldn’t, bring himself to walk over the very spot that she’d landed. One of the tiles was cracked across, a thin white thread across the black surface, and he wondered queasily if it had broken under the impact of her head. Or had it always been like that? He knew he’d never be able to look at it again without wondering.

Jake paused in the doorway to the kitchen, when he realised Carl and Veronica were already in there. They were both sat silently at the table, the scraps of their breakfast meal scattered across its surface. They both looked at him, wordlessly and Jake could feel a blush rising in his face, scorching his skin. He dropped his gaze to the dirty kitchen floor.

“Do you want coffee?” Carl said tonelessly. Jake had to swallow before he was able to reply.

“Thanks.”

He sat down at the table, no longer able to trust his legs.

Veronica looked down at her plate. He had never seen her look worse – she looked wretched, fading away before his eyes. The skin of her face was scraped red with stubble rash. Mine or Carl’s, he wondered and felt his empty stomach clench. He couldn’t believe that less than twenty four hours ago, he’d been inside her. How was it possible? And this morning he’d heard them both fucking, after Carl had removed the dead body of a girl from their hallway floor. Jake closed his eyes briefly. I hope he washed his hands first, he thought, sickened.

He heard the clink of a cup being set down in front of him and muttered his thanks.

“What time is it?” he asked. He’d totally lost track of the hours.

Veronica answered him. Her voice sounded as if she was coming down with a cold.

“Twenty past four.”

“What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday. You’ve been asleep for hours.”

“I took sleeping pills. I had to, I couldn’t stand to stay awake.”

“All right.”

He heard the warning in Carl’s voice and heeded it. Jake put the coffee cup to his lips. He wondered if he would ever feel hungry again.

“You’d better eat something,” said Carl. Veronica nodded.

“I can’t. I feel sick.”

“Eat something, Jake. Go on.”

Veronica’s voice was so soft, so oddly maternal that it brought tears to his eyes. Slowly, he nodded and moved towards the fridge.

“Where is she?”

He had to ask it, if only to rid himself of the dread that he was going to stumble across the body in some unexpected place, lodged behind the sofa, or hidden in one of the spare bedrooms.

There was a moment’s silence. Jake felt a sudden, queasy swoop of vertigo. They didn’t know what he was talking about – he’d imagined the whole thing, had dreamt the whole hideous business up in his drug-infected sleep. He felt a wild burst of relief, relief that Carl’s voice put a sudden, violent end to.

“It’s in the dining room.”

So it had happened. Of course, he’d known that all along. Jake felt for a kitchen chair and manoeuvred himself into it. His legs were shaking.

“Christ, you look awful. You look like you’re about to faint.”

Veronica put a hand on his shoulder.

“God, what are we going to do? I can’t bear it, I can’t –“

“Come on,” Carl said roughly. “Don’t be such a fucking wuss. I’ve told you, we’ll sort it out, no one will know, no one will ever find out and then the three of us can forget this ever happened. It’ll just be like nothing ever happened.”

They dozed again for an hour, curled up on the sofas in the living room. Jake needed the warmth and immediacy of the others. It was an antidote to the colder presence, whose chill he could feel seeping through the house, snaking from the dark cavern of the dining room, a cold ribbon of air reaching the kitchen and hallway. He pressed himself closer to Veronica, shivering. He was beginning to realise the enormity of the task they’d set themselves but there was no help for it - the need to empty the house of the corpse was paramount. He’d never be able to set foot in this place again if she – it – remained in the house.

They waited for it to get dark, beginning to drink again. It was the only way any of them could contemplate getting through the night that was to follow. At the first taste of alcohol, Jake’s stomach clenched and he tensed, waiting to see if he could keep it down. Somehow, he was able to and by the time twilight had smudged the windows of the living room, he was just right, drunk enough to not be able to think too closely about what they were about to do, not too drunk to be incapable.

It was full dark before Carl would let them open the kitchen door to the garden. There was a thin slice of moon caught in the branches of the beech tree and the leaves and grasses whispered in the night breeze. The three of them stood on the patio, in the dark. Carl wouldn’t let them turn on the kitchen light.

“I’m going to go and unlock the shed. It’ll be too small in there for more than a couple of us to dig so Jake and I will do it. V, you can take over when we get tired.”

“Take over?” said Veronica faintly.

“Come on, V, this has to be a joint effort. We’re all in this together.”

“Okay.” She looked utterly miserable, as far as Jake could see in the dim light. “What am I going to wear?”

“What?”

“I can’t dig in my pyjamas.”