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imagined. ‘I need you to help me get rid of the body.’
    Sonia gave a gasp and took a step backwards so she was almost against the door. ‘Get rid of it?’ she said weakly. I noted that she was saying ‘it’ not ‘he’, as if she was trying to forget that here was a man she had once known, had not long ago talked to, argued and laughed with. ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘If we got rid of it, maybe nobody would look. Not for a long time at least.’
    ‘You are serious? You think that you and me – No, Bonnie. No. You don’t know what you’re saying.’
    ‘I couldn’t do it on my own,’ I said. ‘I tried to think of a way but I couldn’t.’
    ‘This is crazy. Look at him. He’s big. We can’t just – I mean, how?’ She gave a small, high laugh that stopped as abruptly as it had started, though the harsh sound seemed to hang in the room. ‘You’ve been watching too many films.’
    ‘It’s the only thing I can think of.’
    ‘It’s mad – and it would be horrible. I feel sick even thinking about it. Have you allowed yourself to imagine what it would be like? He’s dead. He’ll be starting to go hard or something soon.’
    ‘Oh, no! Don’t.’
    ‘What? Don’t talk about it? If you can’t even bear to talk about it, how will you actually do it? That’s what happens, isn’t it? Everything starts to change.’
    ‘Oh, God.’
    ‘You don’t want to touch him. The dead aren’t like the living.’
    ‘I have to, Sonia.’
    ‘It’s a crime, don’t forget. Maybe that doesn’t mean so much to you, not now, but for me…’ She stopped and swallowed hard. ‘Covering it up, blocking the investigation. We could go to prison for a long, long time. I could, I mean. Have you thought about that?’
    She stood over me, her face blazing, and my head sank back onto my knees.
    ‘You’re right and this was unforgivable,’ I mumbled. ‘Get out of here this minute, and I’m terribly sorry I ever rang you. I mean it. Go.’
    ‘Get up, Bonnie.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Stand up. I can’t talk to you while you’re crouching on the floor like that.’
    I stumbled upright. The room seemed to sway around me. ‘I feel drunk,’ I said. ‘Or as if I’ve got flu.’
    ‘You really thought we could just get rid of it?’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘You were right and you should go.’
    ‘How? I mean, how on earth would we even get his body out of this flat without being seen? And then what?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘When does Liza get back?’
    ‘September. But we can’t just leave his body here for her to discover.’ For the briefest second I allowed myself to think of decomposition and decay, of his body seeping and crumbling into the carpet. My stomach turned and I whimpered.
    ‘So?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The only thing I’ve thought about is getting rid of it. Making it go away.’
    ‘Yes, that,’ said Sonia, grimly, pulling back her mouth again. She almost looked as though she was smiling. But she wasn’t.
    ‘Which is why I knew I needed someone. You. I needed you.’
    ‘Did you think about how you – we – would do it?’
    ‘I just thought about putting it somewhere where it would never be found.’
    ‘Brilliant. Like where?’
    ‘Like really, really deep woodland where nobody ever goes.’
    ‘For God’s sake, Bonnie, this is England,’ said Sonia. ‘There aren’t deep woodlands where nobody goes. And if there were, how would you – how would we – get it there? I can tell you that, wherever you put it, someone walking their dog would find it. When you read in the papers about bodies being found, that’s what happens. A man walking his dog.’
    ‘Couldn’t we bury it somewhere?’
    ‘Where? That’s got all the problems of finding somewhere to dump the body without being seen, and then when you’re there you have to dig a huge hole, deep enough so it doesn’t get dug up by scavengers. There’s a reason why they make graves six feet deep. And, wherever you do it, it