Tuesday, 17 May — present day
The man placed the final cone across Station Road and propped up the Road Closed sign facing Borrowash to the north. No traffic would be crossing the bridges in this Derbyshire village for the next half-hour. At first he’d considered blocking the road a precaution too far on such a minor route, especially at three in the morning, but when disposing of the dead, nothing was too much trouble.
He walked calmly back to the vehicle, climbed in and, without turning on the engine, rolled back down the slope over the railway bridge. Having reversed into the drive of a lone farmhouse, barely visible through the trees, he turned the ignition and drove slowly back on to the second bridge, spanning the River Derwent, before coming to a halt.
He skipped out, leaving the engine running, opened the back doors and pulled out the trolley. The metal legs unfolded and the man pushed the trolley to the low bridge wall. He stepped down on the brake. The pale waxy body was a late-middle-aged male, naked apart from the loincloth covering his genitalia. The man bent his head over the corpse, sniffing along its length. He caressed the dead face with latex fingers then rubbed them together, feeling the waxy film of make-up lubricate his gloves.
Finally he stood, a crooked smile on his face, and ran his fingers through the corpse’s washed and trimmed hair.
‘Good as new.’ He checked the stitching on the man’s flank then prepared to lift the body. The scars beneath the corpse’s nose drew the man’s eye and he frowned. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ He placed his hands under the body and rolled it off the trolley and over the bridge wall, sending it crashing into the swirling water below. A couple of horses, grazing in a dark field, lifted their heads towards the noise for a moment before resuming their meal.
He watched the body disappear and an inert arm seemed to wave a last lazy farewell as it sank.
‘Travel safe through the dark waters of chaos, my friend.’
After a moment transfixed by the soothing rhythms of the water, he rolled the trolley back into the vehicle and closed the doors, then walked the 100 yards back to the railway bridge to stack the cones on to the pavement. He left the cones in a pile — they wouldn’t be noticed — but carried the Road Closed sign over to his vehicle and shoved it into the back.
Driving half a mile south towards Elvaston Castle on the dark highway, the man drew to a halt at another line of cones blocking the road. Once again, he skipped out, this time stacking both the cones and the Road Closed sign neatly in the back of the vehicle then drove on into the night.