The Cove by Dunnett Gregg

Author:Dunnett, Gregg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Old Map Books
Published: 2021-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was a ten minute drive from the house to the school, but what with putting on her mask, and walking Molly the last few hundred metres from where she had found a regular spot to park, and then driving back again, it was nearly forty minutes later when Christine’s car rolled back in through the open gates of the parking area. The bin however, was still there.

The white Audi, belonging to Rodney Slaughter, was parked where it usually was, and the Slaughters’ front door was shut, though Christine didn’t know if Janet was back from her run or not. She stopped the car and waited. Both the houses in front of her had small windows that overlooked the parking area, but they were high up in the walls, and at least in her house, designed to allow a little light to come inside, rather than offering views. She supposed the same was true of the Slaughters’ windows. Which meant as long as no one came outside, or arrived from the road, she could look in the bin and no one would see her doing so. The thought of it made her nervous, but she was determined.

She pulled the handle to open the car door, and waited a few more seconds, the seal broke and the outside sounds flowed in, her breath coming fast. But there was no one around. It was now or never. She pushed the door wide and climbed out. So far there was nothing abnormal about her actions, but she felt how she diverged from normal as she walked away from the car, not to her front door, but to her neighbour’s wheelie bin. If Janet came back now, panting through the gate, there was little Christine would be able to say to explain her actions. But what she had to do would only take a few seconds.

She got to the bin, and put her hand on the lid. She took a last look around. There was still no one. She held her breath.

And lifted the lid.

There was a smell. Not awful, but certainly unpleasant – the general smell of rubbish, that had sat waiting to be collected. The council here operated a system of alternating between collecting recycling and refuse, one bin each week, so it would have been two weeks since the Slaughters’ bin was last emptied. That probably explained why it was so full. There were tins of food, which should have been recycled, but hadn’t been. There were white plastic bags, with plastic wrapping poking out of them, tied up by their handles, probably they came from the kitchen waste bin. But there was nothing obviously gruesome. Nothing that explained the blood outside their wall. She dropped the lid again and stepped back, feeling a rush of relief and – and what? Stupidity? A sense that she was losing her mind?

But still she was alone, and something made her look again. Just to be sure. And this time she began poking

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