Page 47 of Tell No One
“How do I clean the grout?” Tag asked quietly.
“There’s a grout cleaner under the sink.” Delaney caught hold of his arm. “This is going to be okay. But we have act quickly to get rid of the bodies and I need your help. I’m going to bring their car up to the house, put them in the boot, drive away and I want you to follow in my car.”
“I can’t.”
Christ!“You have to.”
“No, I mean I can’t drive.”
Delaney groaned. “Then you’ll learn. It’s not difficult.”Thank God it’s an automatic.He’d wanted a manual transmission, but liked the BMW M4 enough to buy it anyway.
He ran down the road and the Honda’s lights flashed as the vehicle unlocked. He sat in the driver’s seat. The interior was clean but smelled vaguely of cigarettes. There were no phones in the glove box as he’d hoped, just rental docs. There was nothing in the car that gave away who’d sent the men or who they were. He turned on the ignition and checked the sat nav. He was disappointed but not surprised to find the log was empty. Whoever had been sent to kill him had been cautious enough not to use it. The rental company would have wiped the details after its previous use.
Back at the house, he reversed up to his car and opened the boot of the Honda. It was two in the morning and it was cutting it fine to get this done in time. He went in to get the picnic blanket and used it to line the boot. Then tossed in the disguise he’d used at Chason’s. That could be disposed of as well.
Tag had done a good job with the floor and put the guns in a plastic bag. Delaney pocketed the keys to his convertible.
“Grab his feet.” Delaney took hold of the man’s shoulders.
Tag sucked in a breath but did as Delaney had told him. Once both men and the guns were in the boot of their own car and the lid was down, Delaney gave Tag the keys to the convertible.
“Get comfortable. Move the seat so you can reach the pedals.”
Delaney went back into the house to return his backpack into the compartment behind the fridge, then locked up and let himself take a breath before he returned to crouch at Tag’s side.
“It’s an automatic. Easy to drive. Two pedals. Only use your right foot. Pedal nearest me is the brake. The other makes the car move. The lights will come on automatically when you turn on the engine. This lever works the indicator. Push up to turn left, down for right. This is the gear stick. It’s in P for park. The car won’t move until you put it into D for drive. You need your foot on the brake to do that. You need to reverse to get off the drive. R for reverse. You probably won’t need to do that again. Remember, foot on the brake to move the stick to the right position. You have to try and keep up with me once you get the hang of it. This needs to be done while it’s still dark.”
Tag nodded and Delaney kissed him. He felt Tag gasp into his mouth and he clutched at Delaney.
“I know you’re shocked and scared,” Delaney said. “But you can do this. Those men would have killed us.” Actually, what they’d probably have done was tortured them until they got what they wanted, then killed them. Interesting thought as to whether Delaney could have let them torture Tag without telling them what they wanted to know. Hopefully before then, he’d have reversed the situation. “I’ll pull up a little way down the road and then come back and sit next to you while you reverse off the drive. I want you to do it in case you have to reverse again.”
He fucking hoped Tag could do this or he’d have to go on his own, but that left him without a way of getting back, and this house was no longer safe. But when he returned to Tag, the engine was on and Tag had the seat belt on too.
“Well done. Now put it into R for reverse.”
Tag was slow but he managed to get onto the road without hitting anything, then put the car into drive and moved forward.
“Stop before you hit the Honda.”
The car came to a gentle halt.
“A natural.” Delaney encouraged. “It’s important to remember that if you’re in Neutral, if you don’t have your foot on the brake, the car will keep moving. If you need to stop, move your indicators up and down and I’ll see. And try not to strangle the wheel.”
“Okay.”
“Gentle movements with it. You don’t need to wrench at it to change direction.”
Tag nodded.
He was so slow at first that Delaney worried this wasn’t going to work, but after a couple of miles, Tag drew closer to him and Delaney increased his speed. At least at this time in the morning, there was virtually no traffic and they reached Broughton Crematorium with no incidents.
Delaney had an arrangement with a man who worked there and this was the second time he’d had to make use of the place, which was conveniently old with no CCTV. This relied on the codes not changing, though he was supposed to be notified if they did.
Tag followed him off the main road, through gates that opened once Delaney tapped in the numbers, and closed behind them as they went down the drive to the building in the distance. He pulled up by the rear door and switched the engine off as Tag came to a jerky halt behind him.
They carried both bodies into the cremation chamber and put them on the floor. Delaney sent Tag back to the Honda to close the boot and get everything else that had been in there. The room had no windows so there was no issue putting on the light. He set the controls on the panel of one of the furnaces that took the heaviest corpses.
“You know how to do this?” Tag whispered at his back.
