Taking the basin back to the bedroom to position it strategically beside Danielle, he decides he’ll walk home. After the fight this evening, he doesn’t want to stay over as planned and the taxis are taking the piss. And he doesn’t want to risk sitting downstairs with her annoyed dad. Kissing her on the head, irritated at himself for cracking up so easily, he turns off the light, pulls her door and makes his way back down the stairs. Closing the front door behind him, he wraps his jacket around him as the crisp night air cuts at his neck. That’s when he hears murmurs coming from behind the garage. Who could that be? They’re relatively secluded out here. Curiosity taking over, he pads around the corner.
He’s met with the darkness of the shadows. Straining his eyes, he begins to see two figures. He steps forward and his mouth falls open. Danielle’s da has Ritchie against the wall by the scruff of the neck, Ritchie’s arms and legs flying around blindly. Her da’s face is inches from Ritchie’s, spitting words he still can’t make out from this far away. Should he interrupt them? Cough to announce his presence? Or walk on like he’d seen nothing? Just as he’s battling with himself, he sees Ritchie lift an object from beside him and swipe it towards his da’s head. He gasps as they both fall to the ground. Several seconds pass before Ritchie starts breathing again, crawling forward to observe the mess he’d made.
“What the fuck have ye done?”
Chapter Eighty-Four:
2019
_____
Backing away, Danielle hits the wall. Shaking her head. She can’t be hearing this. This can’t be real. Her brother and her boyfriend. In cahoots. All this time, they knew. When she cried herself to sleep. The whole family sick with worry. Thinking he’d left them. That he’d taken his own life. That he was somewhere alone and scared. And the whole time, they knew he was behind the garage. Dead.
“That’s why you were so adamant for us not to move,” realisation kicking in as she stares at Richie, who looks a lot greyer than ten minutes ago, “because you knew they would’ve found him?”
He nods, not even bringing himself to look her in the eye.
“And you?” she rounds on Chris, “you… Helped?”
The two boys share a moment of alliance as they finally look at each other.
“I didn’t know what to do,” Chris bites his bottom lip to stop it trembling, “we just sort of stared at him. Hopin’ he’d move. That he’d gasp for a breath. Neither of us wantin’ to touch him. To actually see if he’d stopped breathin’. After a while, Ritchie checked. He was dead. We didn’t know what to do, honestly. Next thing I know, Ritchie has a shovel in his hand. He grabs a foot and begs me to take the other. He was so heavy; we could barely move him. He was a big guy, like. Thoughts of takin’ him somewhere secluded abandoned, we decided to just bury him there, beside the garage. The old barbeque placed over his restin’ place, so we’d know where he was and to hide the recently upturned soil.”
Danielle shakes her head once more, clenching her eyes shut like that will stop the memories flooding her brain. She remembers packing away the garage before they moved months ago. Seeing the old barbeque, deciding to throw it in the skip. Asking Michelle for a hand on lifting it. Treading on their father’s corpse.
“We walked for miles through the fields with the shovel and the hammer. We buried the hammer, then threw the shovel away. It took us ages to get home. We were drenched right through by the time we got into the kitchen… My head was up my hole, I just didn’t know what to do. So, I just got into bed with ye, somehow wantin’ to be close to ye. Protect ye.”
The thought now turns Danielle’s stomach, knowing she was lying in bed beside him when he was fresh from burying her father. Hiding all this from her. Even today when they kissed. She doesn’t know him at all.
“The next mornin’, I genuinely forgot what happened. I mean, I was so far gone. Seein’ him lyin’ dead… It was soberin’. But I must’ve just blocked it from my brain. But then when I got downstairs, it all came floodin’ back. Seein’ the detectives… That’s why I boked.”
“And you?” she glares towards Ritchie, awfully quiet despite the fact that he was the murderer here, “what did you do?”
“I went back to fetch the car and drove around all night. I drove around the whole country, basically. I was in Lisburn when Ma rang to tell me she had booked the flight home.”
“So, that night when you ‘arrived home’” she air quotes, “you were even lying to us about that?”
She feels sick. Watching him nod, hiding his face embarrassedly. Who can lie about something like this? Turning back once more to Chris, she bites her bottom lip to stop herself blubbering, mustering all her courage.
“So… Whatever this was… This thing we’ve been doing… It was only to protect your own back? Don’t come near me!” she almost squeals as he shakes his head and steps forward. “You only wanted to get back in contact with me to keep this a secret… Or to see how the investigation was going. Don’t fuckin’ lie to me.”
“I’m not, D… Honestly, that isn’t why. I mean, aye, a selfish part of me wanted to know… But it also made me realise that I’m still mad about ye… I wanted to
