He was inside the pool house, he came to realise, standing in the bathroom. He was shivering, unwell. Thank God, there was a toilet and a tap that worked. He used the toilet, his guts liquid. Then he ran water into his cupped palms and splashed his face, drinking a few mouthfuls before he straightened up. His stomach lurched, a warning to move carefully, slowly.
Outside, the pool was still. The water was grey, the air oddly dim so he had to strain his eyes to see what he knew was there: abandoned wine glasses, the dress hanging limp on the lounger, the body … He glanced up and understood why the light had changed: heavy, blue-black clouds boiled overhead now, swollen with rain.
How could he hide this?
The body was in water which would wash away any traces of his sweat and his – his saliva. But if his—
He stopped. Balked. Remade the thought so it was bearable.
If his DNA was inside it—
you don’t need a condom I promise it’s fine
do it now
His DNA was inside the body. That was a fact. They would find it, when they did a post-mortem. He wasn’t the sort to get arrested; his DNA wouldn’t be on file. But if the police traced him somehow and tested him, they would match it. Then he wouldn’t be able to deny that they’d had sex.
Which was a problem on so many levels, he couldn’t even form the words to list them.
He couldn’t hide the body. He couldn’t bury it. There was no way he could lift it out of the water on his own, even if he was prepared to touch it, which he wasn’t. He couldn’t burn it: the thing was waterlogged. Even in this heat it would barely smoulder.
He couldn’t do anything but hope no one found the body for a while, long enough for it to decompose. The flies were already at work. A few days should be enough. A week would be better.
He had no idea if he had minutes or months before someone came looking.
He cleaned up the pool house, wiping down everything he might have touched. When he walked outside the air felt even hotter, charged with electricity. A low growl of thunder echoed on the right. Rain would come, sooner or later. Rain that would wash away his vomit, that would disperse all the traces of him from the poolside.
The body was a shadow in the water, still and horrible. He went through the gap in the hedge and trudged around the side of the house again. Something moved on the terrace as he came level with it and he flinched before he realised what it was: a magpie strutting along the balustrade, watching him. The house’s blank windows stared at him too as he stumbled across the wide expanse of straw-like lawn, his only thought to get away.