CHAPTER 22

Darkness. How oppressive it was when you weren’t near the woman you loved. I was glad that Cope was separated from me by the side of the box. There was no particular reason why he might have touched me if he hadn’t been, but the exclusion of that possibility made the ordeal easier to bear.

     I was lying on the floor of the van between the box and the side wall. The former was only eighteen inches high, but during the previous evening’s dress rehearsal Ellie had assured me that, even if Lay insisted on putting the dog in the back, rather than letting her do so, he wouldn’t notice me in the van’s dim interior. His attention, she averred, would be distracted by the sleeping bags.

     ‘What about the dog?’ I queried. ‘I gather they have a rather good sense of smell…?’

     ‘I’ll make sure it has plenty of chocolate to gorge itself on,’ she replied. ‘It’ll be far more interested in that than you, while the supply lasts. Lay won’t be suspicious – he was quite apologetic about having to bring it along at all. Once the back doors are shut, I somehow don’t think he’ll spare a thought for little Rex.’

     We lay in silence. It must be worse for Cope, I thought, even though the lid isn’t screwed down and Ellie propped up one end of it a little so he won’t suffocate. I took a quick glance at my watch, pressing the small button to illuminate the display. She’d been gone for nearly fifteen minutes. I wondered what sort of tale Lay had told his wife, to account for his longer than usual absence. My thoughts shifted to what we were about to do, and the long journey north afterwards. Just me and Ellie – Lay wouldn’t count by then, and Cope would be on his way home. I’d always loved travelling, and this promised to be the most memorable trip I’d been on for a decade.

     Then I realised what I was doing. Trying not to think of her with him. They should be on their way to the van by now. They might be holding hands…

     No, they wouldn’t. He’d want to avoid being noticed, and so, of course, would she, but for very different reasons. She’d found an ideal spot to park the van, she told us, not overlooked and a good distance beyond what appeared to be the estate’s dog-walking limit.