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  “Well, I’m going to have to, I’m afraid,” Des said blandly, “otherwise I’ll be working for nothing. It’s going to take me more than double the time to dig the hole, time I hadn’t included in that quote.” At least he looked honest about it, but his time wasn’t her problem. “Come on, Mrs. S. See my dilemma and help me out here?”

  She looked around the garden, at the hole, the digger, his tools lying around, his radio, his tea mug, actually her tea mug, and the pile of soil next to the Great Orange Machine. She was aware of him still rattling on but was someplace else, someplace outside of her normal self but looking in at the situation and not hearing a word of what he was saying. She stood there in the quiet of the garden overlooking the empty fields, only dimly aware of him jabbering on in his own defence and trying to get more money out of the job. A clarity hit – took over, really – and she knew just what she was going to do. Slipping on some nearby gloves, she picked up the spade he’d left lying nearby and turned towards him. His back was now to her as he pointed to a nearby area of the garden, still saying words she wasn’t comprehending. As calm as anything, Madeline lifted the spade and, harnessing all the excess energy bubbling inside of her, swung it with all her might at the side of his temple.

  The metal connected to his skull with a sickening thump, and he went down like a paper airplane. The air was deathly quiet apart from the great orange thing gently throbbing in the corner. She stood for a second or two, still calm, and totally in control of what she’d had just done. She didn’t feel any panic: no bad feeling, no ‘what have I done?’ Nothing. She let out a breath and looked around, mainly to see if anyone was there, although there was no reason they would be: it was her back garden and it wasn’t overlooked by the neighbours in the slightest. There was no one. She calmly bent down and checked his neck for a pulse. It was still present. Madeline hadn’t killed the man, merely knocked him unconscious. Was she disappointed? She wasn’t quite sure.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Madeline stood there wondering how she was going to get out of this little situation. When Des woke up he was going to be pissed at her, to say the least. And she’d most certainly be in trouble. Grievous bodily harm carried a sentence if he pressed charges, and why wouldn’t he? Being whacked around the head with a spade couldn’t go unpunished. She looked at the hole, she looked at the great big orange machine with its engine still running, and she looked at the body of Des lying prone at her feet.

  “Damn it! It’s his own silly fault he’s lying there,” she told herself. “If he hadn’t wanted more money and pissed me off on top of the damn phone bill, he’d still be stood upright.”

  Now there was a mess to clean up. She bent over him, grabbed his mobile phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the call log. Nothing since yesterday and no texts either, so she turned it off. Luckily it was an older-style phone, an old ‘flip top’ one, well before smartphones, so it only received calls and texts, nothing else. Madeline knew from watching enough episodes of CSI that they couldn’t track it if it was turned off, and she’d just have to worry about pinging telephone towers later, although with no GPS or data capability, it probably couldn’t be placed anyway. Luck was in her favour.

  But who knew he was at her place? He probably ran his business off the back of a cigarette packet, and she hoped that meant no one knew, but it was an issue that needed resolving. What little she did know about him was that he lived alone, so he probably wouldn’t be missed for a while if he didn’t make it home at the end of the day. But someone would miss him after that. Probably.

  She went back into his pocket to retrieve his van keys – another item to dispose of. She slipped the phone and keys into her own pocket and took stock for a moment. His cap lay nearby. What to do with the little problem of his prostrate body – let him live and risk his wrath, or finish him off? How the hell was she going to be able to explain away what she’d done when he woke up? That just couldn’t be allowed to happen. She realised she had to finish him off. And now.

  She glanced at the garage; the car inside had a decent-sized boot. She glanced over at the shed and the plastic bin bags and tools she knew were in there, and then glanced at the grave-sized hole that had started all this bloody mess. Finally, turning her attention once again to Des lying there on the hard ground, Madeline knew there wasn’t long to decide, so she’d have to go for the quickest option, and one she could manage all on her own. That ruled out getting him into the boot of her car or putting him in bin bags in the shed and disposing of him later someplace. And cutting him up was not going to be easy or pleasant. The hole it had to be.

  Madeline grabbed his arms, pulled them back over his head, and dragged him the short distance towards the trench, then rolled him over so he fell inside. With a thud, he landed at the bottom. She held her breath, stood very still and looked into the hole. Was he going to stir now? There was no obvious movement, and she allowed herself to breathe again. It seemed she was still safe, so she made her way over to the great orange machine, climbed into the driver’s seat and looked at all the knobs and levers. How hard could it be to get the bucket to pick up soil and drop it in the hole a few times? She tested each lever in turn to see what it did and found it surprisingly easy to manoeuvre the whole thing. Co-ordination had never been a problem for her, and now it could be her saviour. She concentrated on the end where his head lay first, hoping he would suffocate quickly, and worked methodically down from there. It was only about thirty minutes or so before the whole thing was completely filled in. Satisfied, she drove the digger over the top of the offending spot a few times to flatten the soil down and generally neaten the previously dug area. Job done – for now.

  Stepping out of the cab, she realised she needed to put the rest of her impromptu plan together: she had to clear the rest of the mess and evidence away. And quickly. First there was the small matter of his damn van sitting out the front of her house. She grabbed her own gardening gloves from the potting shed along with an old gardening shirt that was once Gordon’s and could pass for one of Des’s, went over and picked up the cap that had fallen off his head, checked her pocket again for his keys and phone and set off. Putting the cap on as she went, she kept her shoulders down and walked along the side of the house. She just hoped nobody in the quiet little cul-de-sac had decided to come home early. As it was only around lunchtime, that wasn’t likely. Eyes low, she unlocked the van and slipped inside, where she let out the breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. She did a quick scan of the area. All was clear, so she put the key in the ignition and slowly pulled away. She wasn’t really sure where to head, apart from keeping to the back roads and away from any known cameras.

  How the bloody hell was an average Joe supposed to know where they all were exactly?

  Madeline hadn’t driven for long when an idea sprang to mind. What about if she left the van by the river at the reserve, threw the phone in the water and walked back home the back way through the fields? She would look just like any other dog walker, but without the dog, and not draw any attention to herself – just someone out for a walk on a nice day. Looking at the old shirt, she realised she’d be an unkempt someone, but she was running out of time: she had to make a decision, and fast. It had to be the reserve.

  It’s not as if I’ve lain in bed dreaming of this day, conjuring up the perfect landscaper murder plot. Really.

  Less than 10 minutes later she pulled into the little car park area, hoping to be alone. It was deserted, so she said a little prayer of thanks. Parking up as close to the river and the little jetty as possible, she did one last check for nosey folks and then got out, leaving the van unlocked. With a bit of luck, some hoody-wearing youths would nick it later and set fire to it. She checked she’d not left anything of her own inside the van, threw the phone into the river then took the gloves and cap off. She deposited these inside her shirt to dispose of when she passed a rubbish bin on the way back. She’d left the keys in the ignition in the hope someone woul
d think he’d just parked up and gone for a pee, or perhaps even had committed suicide. And of course it would make the van easier for an opportunist to nick. She needed Rent-a-Thug.

  She paused for one last recon: Had she covered all the really important aspects that could lead this sorry mess back to her doorstop? She hoped so. Taking a deep breath, she set out down the road towards the shops and home. She left the gloves in one rubbish bin outside the chip shop, and dropped the cap in someone’s wheelie bin that stood handy, ready for emptying, on the pavement. By the time the contents of both had been deposited on the landfill site somewhere later today, they would be impossible to find – at least, she hoped so, because her DNA was all over them.

  Walking along, Madeline slipped off the old shirt covering her own and placed that in another wheelie bin, then took the grassy pathway that led up from the edge of town via the fields. One of the exit points was near her house, and a route she’d taken many times.

  In her casual attire she blended in quite nicely. She made use of the time to think. Yes, she hadn’t really wanted to kill him – that part had been an accident, of sorts – but she’d done it, so that left her with several problems. As she walked, she ran through what she’d done to cover her tracks so far and where she might have an issue to sort out, one that could attract unwanted police attention. The body was gone for sure, never to be smelled or seen for years to come, if ever, but she was left with all that loose dirt from digging that couldn’t be explained – yet. The van was gone, but could possibly be linked back to being at her place if anyone had seen it parked up, so she filed that to the back of her mind to come back to as another loose end that needed tying up. His bloody great orange machine was still stood in the garden: how the hell could she explain that away? The phone wouldn’t work again after a soaking, and any of Madeline’s DNA should be lost on a landfill site by the end of the day, but she did need to clean his shovel off, then make it dirty again.

  She brought the outstanding points together and let them rumble round inside her head, hoping a solution would show itself by the time she reached her gate. She’d heard that if you tell yourself to figure something out or try and remember something you’ve forgotten, and put a time to it – say you need the answer in two hours’ time – then tell yourself to forget it until that given time, invariably your unconscious computer will come back to you with the answer. Worked nine times out of ten, roughly.

  So that’s what she did. Madeline gave herself until she got back to the garden to figure out the issue of all that loose dirt scattered across the lawn, the van, the shovel and the great orange machine, then put it out of her head until then.

  An hour later, she arrived back hot, sweaty and exhausted again at the house along with the solution to two of her problems. It was 2 pm, time to get a wriggle on, but her stomach howled in protest at the lack of food. The long walk back had made her feel like she was running on empty so she headed indoors to make a quick sandwich and survey the plan again while she ate. Would it really work? She grabbed ham, mustard and a couple of slices of bread and put a sandwich together quickly, then took it outside and sat on a canvas chair on the little patio in the shade for five stressful minutes.

  The sandwich barely hit the sides of her mouth as she chewed and swallowed it down in a hurry, eager to get on with the next phase of ‘operation cover-up.’ A couple of minutes later, still with the last mouthful of ham sandwich going round like a cement mixer, she headed to the shed for a new set of gloves and made her way over to the great orange machine. She pretty much had the machine figured out, though that had only been for moving the original soil back into a hole that he’d dug. This next plan involved Madeline actually digging another hole, which was going to take much more intellect. And time. She climbed up into the cab as it sat at the scene of the crime and looked at the various knobs and levers again that she’d used for filling in the ‘grave.’

  You can’t refer to it as a sodding grave, woman. It was a hole, okay?

  The plan was simple. Dig another hole three or four metres away but still near enough to the original one, and pile the loose dirt from that one on top of the site of the original hole, the one where Des now lay dead – presumably – which would then mask the loose stuff lying around. Ingenious! It would also explain what Des had been doing here and why his van had been parked out front. If he was reported missing, and he would be eventually, his disappearance would likely be in the paper or on the local news. If someone had seen his van here they would then come forward. And Madeline would say yes, he had been here that day, though he was bloody unreliable and hadn’t come back. He’d probably gone off to start another job, pissing another customer off by trying to overcharge them while he was at it. She could even add, “When you see him, tell him I’ve still a pond to be dug,” though that sounded callous even to her own ears.

  Her plan took care of both aspects – she hoped. The great orange machine would just have to sit and wait it out. It wasn’t something she could easily remove herself: she couldn’t exactly drive it into the river without drawing attention and looking like she was trying to dispose of it, now, could she? It had to stay put for now. Maybe someone would come and pick it up, that ‘Queenie’ bloke Sid perhaps. Right – she could ring old Sid to pick it up in a week or two.

  It was much harder and slower digging the new hole. The ground was so damn hard – just like Des had complained. Madeline’s hole digging was nowhere near as neat as Des’s, but she got on with it the best she could. Within a couple of hours there was a tidy pile of soil on top of the original hole, the one containing a dead landscaper, so that part of the plan was complete. There really was no way to tell there was any other loose soil lying around, or a body underneath the ground: the new pile masked it all perfectly. And she had dug a semblance of a hole, though not as neat or as deep as his had been. She sat back in the cab to survey the work and was pleased with her efforts.

  A glance at her wristwatch told her it was gone 4 pm, time to stop being ‘Mad Madeline’ and get back to being ‘Mild Madeline’ before Gordon got home or someone else came knocking. She turned the engine off and left the machine right where it was, giving the steering wheel a quick wipe round with an oily rag that was in the cab. It was more from watching CSI than from need, because her skin hadn’t touched it directly, but she wanted to be extra careful – she was a novice at killing a person, after all. As she headed indoors to get cleaned up, exhaustion from the last few hours enveloped her and she desperately wanted to crash, but that would have to wait.

  It’s bloody hard work killing someone, you know!

  “Better start thinking about getting dinner on,” she told herself as she entered the house and dropped her dirty gear in the laundry. Twenty minutes later she was showered and pouring her first gin and tonic of the day. It was slightly earlier than usual, but then this hadn’t been the usual sort of day.

  Early the following morning, while Madeline stood in the kitchen in her nightdress waiting for the kettle to boil, she looked out of the window at the great orange machine in the distance, and the deadly secret that lay under the pile of earth beneath it. To her surprise she’d slept unusually soundly last night, one of the best night’s sleeps she’d had in a good long time. She put it down to all her stresses being released in one go. She smiled to herself and then spoke it out loud to Dexter, who was busy weaving his way between her legs encouraging her to get his breakfast.

  “I’m not advising going around killing landscapers or anyone else who pisses you off, but it was a good alternative to a chemical sleeping tablet.”

  Dexter purred loudly.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rose stood staring at Des’s dinner in the fridge. She’d made a lovely cottage pie with cheese on top, another one of his favourites. She couldn’t believe he’d taken the money, her grocery money, though she shouldn’t have been surprised; it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. But usually her brother put it back, thinking he’d gotten awa
y with it before she’d noticed. This time, though, he hadn’t, and she hadn’t seen him either, which was strange. No call, no nothing, and the cottage pie she’d saved for him was sitting in the fridge staring back at her like it was her fault. Since he hadn’t returned any of her calls, she decided to drop in at his place before she went off to work and make sure he was okay.

  Her toast popped up and she spread it with copious amounts of butter and lemon curd, causing a little puddle on the plate. Taking a big bite, she relished the lemony flavour. A little butter dribbled down her chin, which she wiped with the back of her hand and licked. Waste not, want not. Rose didn’t have any vices to speak of, but real butter was her downfall and no amount of lecturing from friends could persuade her otherwise. If that was the worst she had, then so be it. Her philosophy had always been that it took a dairyman to make butter, and a chemist to make margarine, and if you ask which one flies prefer, they’d go for butter every time. She finished the two slices of toast with Des on her mind, then wiped the little plate clean with her index finger, not wanting to waste a drop of the delicious lemon and butter. The clock on the kitchen wall told her she had just five minutes before she had to leave.

  Unsurprisingly, there was no answer at his place, and no van in the driveway either. He should have been at work himself by now, so she let herself in with the spare key she kept on her keyring. They’d always kept a spare each, just in case it was ever needed. She called out as she opened the front door, though she already knew he wasn’t in. Nothing in the kitchen had been touched and it looked the same as it always did, reasonably neat and tidy for a man in his forties who lived on his own. As she made her way upstairs to check in his bedroom, the house was as still and as quiet as a morgue. It was obvious he wasn’t in, and probably hadn’t been since yesterday; she could just sense it. There were no smells, no last night’s dinner, no burnt toast for breakfast, no deodorant lingering in the bathroom doorway. The bathroom towels hadn’t been used this morning. No, she knew he definitely hadn’t been home since yesterday. Now what should she do? She left the house and locked up after herself, deciding she’d keep trying him until lunchtime today. After that? Well, then she’d just have to call the police and report him missing.