Hanging Hill Part 10

She got one of the DCs to start warrants on the bus companies' CCTV, then spent some time in the office looking at all the routes that pa.s.sed through the stop near the ca.n.a.l. They snaked out for miles in every direction there was no knowing which she'd come from. She could have been travelling from almost any direction, she could have changed routes she could even have gone as far afield as Bristol in the time she'd been away from home. Zoe fished out the camera chip she'd found in Lorne's bedroom and balanced it thoughtfully on her finger, considering it. Twice already she'd almost taken it into Ben's office. But each time she'd stopped herself. She wasn't sure who she was protecting by not speaking up Lorne or herself. In the end she got up and pulled on her jacket. She needed to know more before she did anything.

The agency was in the centre of Bath. 'No. 1, Milsom Street', said the sign, and under it, written in tall, thin letters, 'The Zebedee Juice Agency'. It was above a boutique, and when Zoe came up the stairs she found a wide room, daylight pouring into it through a vast gla.s.s dome in the ceiling. There was no reception desk, just an array of red sofas dotted with faux faux-fur cus.h.i.+ons and piles of magazines on black lacquer tables. On the wall in an unframed LCD screen a video played silently faces, boys and girls, morphing one into another.

The manager, a girl dressed in a polo-neck, denim shorts and spiked heels with metallic shadow on her eyelids, jumped up to greet Zoe with a neurotic-sounding 'Hi, hi hi!' She was twitchy, kept rubbing her nose and swallowing, and it didn't take a genius to see she was itching to get to her next line of c.o.ke. Still, Zoe supposed, you didn't get that super-thin look without a bit of help.

She poured two long gla.s.ses of Bottlegreen lemon gra.s.s presse and took Zoe to sit near the window. In the street below shoppers and tourists bustled in and out of the shops. The manager admitted she'd half been expecting a visit from the police she added that maybe she should have called them herself, because she remembered Lorne well. She'd come in with her mother a month ago. She'd been a very nice-looking girl, if a bit short and a little on the heavy side for the catwalk. And her eyebrows had been plucked to within an inch of their lives. 'Most of our models aren't what you or I would call conventionally pretty. Some of them, if you saw them in the street, you'd almost call ugly. What's hot at the moment is a very animal look. You want to be able to see the ethnicity of a model. If someone walks in the room and I think, Yeah, he's got all the anger of his race behind him, that's when I know I'm on to a winner.'

'Lorne wasn't like that?'

'No. Glamour, maybe, but not right for the ramp. Never.'

'Did you tell her that?'

'Yes.'

'And how did she react?'

'She was upset. But it's what happens all the time, girls coming in here all hopeful, going away completely miserable, rejected.'

'What about Mrs Wood? What was her reaction?'

'Oh, relief. You'd be surprised I get that reaction more than anything else. Mothers just humouring their daughters, but they're over the moon when someone else points out what they've secretly thought all along and just can't bring themselves to say. The girls, though ...' She gave a small shake of her head. 'Even when you've said it over and over some of the girls still won't listen to you. For some of them it's like a hunger eats away at them. They won't take no for an answer. All they care about is seeing themselves staring up out of some glossy page somewhere. Those are the ones I worry about. Those are the ones that'll end up places they really don't want to be.'

'Places they don't want to be?'

The manager wrinkled her brow. 'Yes you know what I mean.'

Zoe held her eyes. For a moment she'd thought the emphasis in that sentence had been on 'you'. As in You, DI Benedict, know exactly what I'm talking about. So don't pretend you don't You, DI Benedict, know exactly what I'm talking about. So don't pretend you don't. She found herself wanting an explanation wanting to say, 'What the h.e.l.l do you mean?', but then she caught herself. This girl was twenty if she was a day. There was no way she knew anything about what had happened all those years ago.

'So,' she said levelly, 'what do you do if you get a girl like that who won't be put off?'

The agency manager picked up a little pile of business cards in a plastic holder on one of the tables. She pulled one out and pa.s.sed it to Zoe. 'We tell them they're better off doing glamour and give them one of these. Want one?'

Zoe took the card. Studied it. It was shaped like a pair of lips. It read: 'Holden's Agency. Where dreams come true'. 'Did you give one to Lorne?'

The manager ran a finger inside her polo-neck, thinking about this. 'I don't know,' she said, after a while. 'Probably not, because her mum was here. I can't recall exactly.'

'She didn't take one anyway?'

'Maybe. I honestly couldn't say.'

Zoe tucked the card into her wallet. She sipped her drink thoughtfully, her eyes on the windows in the department store opposite. Something was niggling at her, something she'd seen, or something the manager had said in the last ten minutes. It wouldn't come to her. She put her gla.s.s on the table. 'Lorne didn't mention a boyfriend, did she? At any point when she was here did she mention any names?'

'No. Not that I can recall.'

'Do you have a catalogue? Of your models?'

'Sure.' She opened a drawer to show Zoe a stack of pink-bound notebooks and a box of pink memory sticks. All with the name 'Zebedee Juice' emblazoned in lime green. 'Hard copy or a stick?'

'One of these'll do.' She took a book. 'I want to check if you've got any models with the initials "RH".'

'RH?' While Zoe flicked through the catalogue the manager sat with her thumb in her mouth, her eyes to the ceiling, mentally running a tally of her clients. By the time Zoe got to the end she was shaking her head. 'No. And not even with their real names.'

'Staff?'

'No. There's only me, and Moons.h.i.+ne who comes in in the afternoon. Her real name is Sarah Brown.'

'Nothing else you can remember that sticks in your mind about Lorne? Anything that you think could be important? Anyone she spoke about?'

'No. I've been thinking about it. Ever since I saw the news and put two and two together about it being the same girl who was here, I've been going through it. And I honestly can't remember anything about the meeting that was odd.'

'OK. Can I keep this book?'

'Of course please. Be my guest.'

'One last thing, and then I'll go. What do you think about Lorne? Do you think she was one of the ones who'd end up in those those places you were were talking about? Did she have the places you were were talking about? Did she have the hunger hunger?'

The manager gave a short laugh. 'Did she have the hunger? My G.o.d. I don't think there's a girl who walked through that door in the last two years who had it any worse.'

25.

David Goldrab spoke into the intercom, released the gates and told Jake to park at the front, come in through the front door, which was open, and wait in the hall. Then he disappeared upstairs to the bedroom to get dressed. The moment he left the office Sally dialled Millie's number, her fingers shaking on the keypad. She stood at the window as the call went through and watched Millie on the lawn, frowning down at the phone. She seemed to be considering ignoring it. After a moment, though, she changed her mind and held it to her ear.

'Yeah, what?'

'He's followed us. He's here.'

'Who?'

'The guy in the jeep. Jake. That's his name. Jake.'

Millie jolted at that. She got to her feet and stood for a moment, half frozen, not knowing which way to go.

'It's OK.' Sally crept to the doorway and put her head into the gap, peering down the corridor. She could just see the hallway a huge, galleried atrium with a central staircase done in granite and marble with black and white tiles on the floor. Jake was near the front door. His ebony hair was gelled into spikes, his distressed jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt showing off his muscles and the trim line of his belly.

'He's in the house,' she whispered into the phone. 'Don't worry he's in the hall at the front. He can't see you.'

She held the phone to her chest and cautiously leaned out of the doorway again to watch him. He seemed smaller and much less confident now he wasn't in his car. He kept bending a little to crane his neck up the stairs to see where David had disappeared to.

Sally ducked back into the office. 'I'm not sure what he's up to,' she hissed. 'It's weird maybe he's here just to see David. Go and hide somewhere somewhere in the trees where he won't see you from the back of the house. I'll call you as soon as I know something.'

The noise of a door closing upstairs echoed down the stairs. Sally ended the call and jerked her head back through the door. Jake was still in the hall, tightening his belt, pulling his shoulders back, watching David come along the landing.

'Jake! Jake the Peg!' David smiled expansively from the top of the stairs. He was wearing a well-cut white s.h.i.+rt over jeans. His feet were bare as he padded down, his arms open as if greeting a long-lost friend. He stopped a few stairs from the bottom and sat so he was a little above Jake's eye level, forcing him to look up. 'It's been too long. How's things? How's the extra leg, mate?' He held his hands at his crotch to mime an enormous phallus. 'Still getting out and about, is it? Making lots of new friends?'

'Yeah, yeah.' Jake nodded nervously. He folded his arms tight across his chest, his hands tucked under them. 'Everything's wicked. Ticking over. Had a bit of a business proposal and thought I'd y'know drop drop in. Talk to you about it.' in. Talk to you about it.'

'Yeah I saw you "dropping in". I'll be honest I was a bit taken aback you'd think I had the same gate code six months on. Thought that was a bit disrespectful, but ... you know how I am. Never dwell on things. If you feel at home enough to plug my code into my gate, after not seeing me in all this time, I reckoned that means you just feel comfortable around me.' He took a toothpick from his pocket and began studiously picking his teeth, his hand over his mouth, his eyes on Jake. 'So, Jakey, Jakey, Jakey, my extra-legged boy, Jake. What you bin up to, boyo? Just, from time to time you do hear some stupid rumours. Last I heard you were up to a bit of jiggery-pokery with the old no-no stuff. Selling it on to the rich kids hanging around outside the posh schools, like a lonely t.u.r.d in a lake, or so I've heard. Course I never listen to that nonsense, cos I'm sure it ain't true.'

'Nah ...' Jake s.h.i.+fted anxiously. 'Course it ain't.'

'So how you bringing home the corn, these days, then, matey boy? Now that you're not cracking off the money shots for me?'

'Oh, you know. Been doing my thing. Hoeing my row.'

David made a small sound in his throat as if he found this incredibly funny. He had to put a finger to his head and bend slightly at the waist to stop himself laughing like a horse.

'What?'

'Nothing. It's just ...' He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, then gave in to another spasm of giggles. He checked it and sat straight, his face still twitching. 'It's just "hoeing my row". The images it conjures up, mate. Hoeing my-' He couldn't get the words out. Again he doubled up with silent contortions.

Jake watched stonily, the huge muscles in his arms twitching slightly. 'Sounds like they're funny. The images.'

'They are,' David said, his voice tight, as if he was on the verge of hysteria. 'Very funny. They're poof images. One poof hoeing the other poof's row. You know, one poof ploughing into another's glory hole. That's what it made me think of.' David wiped his eyes again. Got himself under control. 'My mother is a relatively intelligent woman. I mean, apart from the three times she opened her legs to my father, she isn't altogether thick. Do you know what she used to say to me when I was a nipper? She used to say, "There are several people you should never trust, son. You should never trust a cop, you should never trust a skinny chef, you should never trust a fat beggar. Never trust an Arab or a bloke whose eyebrows meet in the middle. Never trust a man in black shoes and white socks and never trust a black man in a fez. But do you know who was at the top of her never-trust list? The creme de la creme creme de la creme of untrustworthiness?' of untrustworthiness?'

'No.' Jake said it almost soundlessly.

'The poofs. The f.u.c.king poofters.'

'What're you talking about?'

David gave a slow smile. 'You're a f.u.c.king queer, Jake. A b.u.mboy, a s.h.i.+rt-lifting f.a.ggoty s.h.i.+t-stirrer. Now, I ain't saying that's your fault. What the scientists are saying, these days, and I don't know if you've heard this, but what they're saying is that you can't help it you can't help it. Apparently it's in your biology. You can't be blamed for it it's in your genes.' He held his hands out in amazement, as if to say, 'How weird is that?' 'Yeah, according to the mad professors it's nothing to do with you all being a bunch of perverts, it's all down to some f.u.c.k-up in the chromosome department. So I can't blame you, Jake, for the simple fact of you being a t.u.r.d-tickler what you do with your a.r.s.e is your lookout but I can can blame you, and this is where I start to feel twitchy, like, what I can blame you for ...' he leaned forward '... is not having the f.u.c.king good manners to blame you, and this is where I start to feel twitchy, like, what I can blame you for ...' he leaned forward '... is not having the f.u.c.king good manners to mention mention it to me. Jake the Peg with his extra leg and turns out the leg's not got its lead up for the bit of gash lying on the bed. It's got it up maybe for one of the it to me. Jake the Peg with his extra leg and turns out the leg's not got its lead up for the bit of gash lying on the bed. It's got it up maybe for one of the crew crew members. Or, G.o.d forgive me for saying it, maybe even for members. Or, G.o.d forgive me for saying it, maybe even for me me. And he never mentions it. That That, you see,' he jabbed his fingers in the air, 'that is what I call ignorance.' is what I call ignorance.'

David lowered his hand and put it on the banister. For a moment it looked as if he might swing his legs up and kick Jake in the chin. But he didn't. He simply pulled himself to his feet.

Jake swallowed. He didn't step back. He put his hands into his jeans pockets defiantly. 'I'm not a poof.'

'Liar.' David's face didn't change. 'You are.'

'OK so what if I was was? Don't mean anything, does it? This isn't the Stone Age there's human rights now. You can't get away with calling me a poof.'

David made a tutting noise. He shook his head disapprovingly. 'Playing the poofter discrimination card? It's against the rules, boyo. As bad as playing the race card.' He dropped his head to one side and put on a fake bright voice: 'We are sorry, your poof card has been denied. Please be advised that your poof card account has been closed. This decision was based on your account history of excessive over-limit spending. Please destroy your card immediately as it will no longer be honoured. Now, see that crossbow on the wall? Up there.'

Jake raised his eyes. Sally couldn't see up to the galleried landing, but she knew what was up there. A crossbow mounted in a cabinet with a picture light trained above it. In the back of the cabinet there was a framed photograph of the sun setting over the African bush.

'I shot a f.u.c.king hippo with that. Back in the days when white law-abiding people who worked hard had rights, before someone took them away from us and started handing them out to animals and blacks and poofters and I don't care how how politically incorrect you think I am, politically incorrect you think I am, you you, my son, are not welcome here. Now ' he gave a peremptory jerk of the head, indicating the door ' now, get that tart of a car off my gravel before I get my friend up there off its stand and shoot you in your fancy little pink-boy derriere derriere.'

Jake kept his chin up, staring at the crossbow. There was a long silence. Sally could see his Adam's apple going up and down, as if he wanted to speak. Then he seemed to change his mind. He dropped his chin and without another word, without meeting David's eyes one more time, he turned and left the house. There was the sound of his feet crunching on the gravel, the high-pitched squeak of a remote locking device, and the slam of a car door. Then the sound of the car leaving, going slowly.

Shakily, Sally separated herself from the wall and dialled Millie's number.

26.

The incident stayed with Sally all day. Even when Jake had gone, and she'd spoken to Millie and knew she was safe out in the garden, even when she'd spent three hours struggling with the database and things at Lightpil House had quietened down, with David wandering around, champagne in hand, muttering incessantly about cla.s.s and the immorality of h.o.m.os.e.xuality, she was still uneasy. There wasn't really any doubt in her mind now that Steve had been right, that what lay under the surface of David Goldrab's life was wide and deep. She had the feeling it could all just crack open at a moment's notice.

She gave Millie a long lecture about it in the car on the way back. 'This is serious stuff. Jake is not not good news. These are really unpleasant people you're getting involved with.' good news. These are really unpleasant people you're getting involved with.'

'Well, you're the one working for one of them,' Millie replied sullenly, and, of course, Sally couldn't argue with that. Now Julian wasn't around to shelter them, she and Millie had crossed that line and she was beginning to see how different everything on this side was.

'I'm thinking of a solution. I will come up with something.'

'Will you?' Millie stared out of the window, a bored, disbelieving expression on her face. 'Will you really?'

Sally was exhausted by the time they turned into the driveway at Peppercorn, and the last thing she felt like was seeing people. But there were two camper-vans parked in the garden Isabelle and the teenagers were standing there, waiting for her. She pulled on the handbrake. She'd completely forgotten that today was the day Peter and Nial would pick up the camper-vans they'd been saving for. Two rusting old heaps with mud and manure all the way up to the wheel arches. She had to force a smile on to her face as she got out. But as it turned out no one else was in the party mood either. They might have pretended they were celebrating the vans' arrival, but there was an underlying tension. An unspoken ghost flitting between them. Lorne Wood. Dead at sixteen.

'Their first lesson in mortality,' Isabelle said, when she and Sally were on their own at last. They'd each poured a gla.s.s of the nice wine Steve was always bringing to Peppercorn, and had gone into the living room. 'It's a difficult one. They're taking this badly.'

'Millie didn't want to go to school today. She said it was because the police might be there. Were they?'

'No. But they were at Faulkener's the second day in a row. Sophie got a text from one of the girls. Apparently the place came to a standstill the police think one of the boys did it.'

'One of the boys?' Sally looked at Isabelle's face, the salt-and-pepper strands of hair and the clear blue eyes. 'Seriously?'

'The police stopped the kids using their phones. They kept them shut in the school all day. It sounded like a frenzy some of the parents have been complaining to the head.'

The two women stood at the french windows, gazing out reflectively at the kids and the vans. Sally had painted each of the kids several times. She'd loved doing it it was like capturing their emerging personalities, tethering a tiny piece of their fleeting souls to something, even if it was just oil paint and canvas. Because, she thought now, if there was one thing she knew for sure, things were changing for them fast. Faster than anyone could have predicted.

'Nial says the girls are scared.' Isabelle gave a sad smile. Outside, Nial was bent over, using a Magic Marker to sketch on his van the patterns he was going to paint. 'He half thinks he's going to be the white knight just the way you painted him in those cards. Protect them all. Like that's going to happen with Pete around.'

It sounded about right, Sally thought. Sweet little Nial, secretly her favourite of the boys. Too small, too timid, he was totally overshadowed by Peter. He was good-looking, but in the way that wouldn't show itself properly until he was in his thirties. When handsome boys like Peter would be getting heavy and losing their hair, the boys like Nial would be growing into their looks. Just now he was still too small and feminine for the girls to notice him. Her favourite tarot card depicted him as the Prince of Swords, on the one hand angry and sometimes vengeful, on the other reserved and hugely intelligent. The sort who could lead rebellions with his insightful ideas. She'd chosen to clothe him in a robe of velvet and brocade, blue, to bring out his eyes.

'Do you think they're right?' she said. 'To be scared, I mean. Do you think it was one of the other schoolkids?'

'G.o.d, I don't know. But there is one thing I can tell you.' She nodded at the teenagers. 'There's something they're not saying.'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know, but I do know my son. And there's something he's not saying. Something he really wants to say but can't. He and Peter are really secretive at the moment.' She used her toe to push the gla.s.s door open a little more. The sound of birds singing came through it, with the bleat of lambs and the distant noise of traffic on the motorway. She was silent for a while. Then she said, 'Peter was in love with Lorne did you know that?'

'Yes. I mean, I suppose everyone was in a way.'

'I think she wasn't interested in him, but he loved her. So did Nial, I imagine. But ...' she said, lowering her voice a little '... I think the thing with Peter was what really finished Millie's friends.h.i.+p with her.'

Sally shot her a look. 'Millie's friends.h.i.+p?'

'You mean you don't know?'