Hanging Hill Part 14

'I didn't mean it was nothing. I was just thinking you're so unhappy. Unsettled.'

Millie s.h.i.+vered. 'Yeah it's been such a b.l.o.o.d.y horrible day. Everything's wrong. It's been just pants.'

'Everything?'

She nodded miserably.

'Like what?'

'I don't think you want to know that.'

'I do.'

Millie gave a long-suffering sigh and stretched her blouse so the cuff came down over her knuckles and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them. 'OK but I warned you.'

'What?'

'I saw Auntie Zoe.'

Sally had opened her mouth to reply before what Millie had said sunk in. When it did she closed it. It was the last thing she'd expected. Zoe hadn't been mentioned in their house for years. Years and years. In all of Millie's lifetime they'd run into her twice once in the high street, when Millie had been about five. That time Zoe had stopped and smiled at Millie, said, 'You must be Millie,' then looked at her watch, and added, 'Well, got to go.' The second time, two years later, the two women had simply nodded in acknowledgement and carried on their way. Afterwards Sally had been quiet for hours. These days, sometimes, she dreamed about Zoe wondered what it would be like to see her again. Now she pushed the hair gently out of Millie's face. She hadn't even realized she knew Zoe's name. 'You mean you uh saw her walking down the street? Or you spoke to her?'

'We went to see her at the police station. The head said we could take the morning off to do it. Nial and Peter and Ralph had something to tell her.'

'Ralph? The Spanish one?'

'He's half half Spanish. And he was seeing Lorne.' Spanish. And he was seeing Lorne.'

'Seeing her?' her?'

'Yes, and he tried to keep it secret. But it's out now and it's no big deal. I mean, he was seeing her, but he didn't kill kill her, Mum. He didn't have anything to do with it.' her, Mum. He didn't have anything to do with it.'

So Isabelle had been right, Sally thought. About the secrets. The whispering. She wondered how it could be that the children they'd given birth to could have gone from curly-haired toddlers sitting on their laps to complete human beings with secrets and codes and plans.

'He stayed at the station. With Auntie Zoe. She was, like, so so nice to him. So nice.' nice to him. So nice.'

Sally heard the admiration in her voice. Unmistakable. She knew what it felt like to admire Zoe. 'How is she? Zoe, I mean.'

'She's fine.' Millie sniffed. 'Fine.'

'Fine?'

'That's what I said.'

'How did she look?'

'What do you mean?'

'I don't know.' Sally hesitated. 'Is she tall? Years ago she always seemed quite tall to me.'

'Yeah,' Millie said. 'She is. Really tall. Really, really really tall. The way I'd like to be.' tall. The way I'd like to be.'

'What's her hair like? She had amazing hair.'

'Still has. It's like mine sort of reddy colour. A bit mad, actually and it looked wet. Why?'

'I don't know. Just wondering.' She gave a small, rueful smile, then said, 'She's doing well in her job, I suppose. She's really clever, you know. You'd never think we were related.'

'She's got her own office and stuff. She doesn't seem the type to be in an office, though.'

'Why?'

'Oh, I don't know. She's ...' Millie searched for the right word and failed to find it. 'She's just too cool to be in the police. That's all. She's just too cool.'

33.

The most private ladies' toilet at Bath police station was on the ground floor, just past the front office. Zoe walked through the foyer with her head lowered, in case anyone saw her, and pushed the door open. The toilets were empty. Just the smell of bleach and the vague plink-plink of a leaky cistern in one of the cubicles. She ignored her reflection and went straight along the line of doors, choosing the last one, furthest from the entrance. She went inside, closed the toilet lid, locked the door, pulled off her jacket and dropped it on the floor. She sat down, her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands.

Actually, I already am ...

It was none of her business who Ben slept with. There had never been any promises like that. It had never been part of the deal. But it had never been part of the deal either that he'd freeze over the way he had. She'd known him for years. Years and years they'd worked together before they'd started sleeping together he should know every inch of her personality by now. So what had changed? It couldn't be that he'd got a glimpse inside her, seen the nasty dark thing she worked so hard to keep down. No, it couldn't. She was sure he couldn't see that. Then what?

She dragged her sleeve up, rolled it tightly at the biceps, the way an addict would. She found a spare centimetre of skin and used the nails on her thumb and forefinger to find a demi-lune of flesh. She closed her eyes and dug them in. Harder and harder. The pain was like a sweet black thread moving through her body. Like a drug. She put her head back and breathed slowly while it moved up to her chest, wrapped itself round her lungs and heart and made everything go dark and still. The blood rose up in the pinched flesh and slid coldly down her arm to splash on to the white tiles. She didn't let go. Just held it there. Held it and held it.

And then, when she was sure the scream had been stopped, she dropped her hand. She opened her eyes and blinked at the white light, the blood all over her nails, the cold Formica of the toilet door.

Ben was nothing. He didn't matter. It would be a battle, but slowly it would pa.s.s. She was exhausted, wrung out with the case, and she needed s.p.a.ce to breathe. She would take some time off work G.o.d knew, she had enough time owing. She'd take the Shovelhead and disappear for a while. Sleep rough and drink Guinness out of the can. Forget the case, lose interest in who had killed Lorne, let the memory of that nightclub in Bristol be whipped out of her head by the slipstream on the motorway.

She unravelled some toilet tissue and began to clean herself up. She bent over to wipe the blood off the floor and saw her wallet had spilled out of her jacket. She paused, the tissue wodged on the floor. Peeping out from one of the compartments was a curved pink sliver of card: the top of the business card she'd been given at Zebedee Juice.

's.h.i.+t.' She sat up again, leaning back against the cistern, the b.l.o.o.d.y tissue hanging limp in her hand, her head lolling. The fluorescent tubes pulsed on the ceiling above her. 'OK, Lorne,' she muttered. 'OK. I'll give you one more day. Twelve more hours. And then, I'm sorry, but I'm out of it.'

34.

When Sally came out of Millie's room she was surprised to find Nial in the kitchen, standing awkwardly near the table, arms folded, head lowered. 'I thought you'd gone.'

'Yeah I ... I sort of needed to make myself scarce.' He gestured out of the window to where the van was parked. 'They needed a bit of time. You know, before I drop Peter home.'

She looked up and saw Peter and Sophie on the back seat of the van, locked together in a kiss. Peter must have been standing up because he looked much bigger and taller than Sophie, bearing down on her, pus.h.i.+ng her into the seat with his mouth. Sophie wasn't resisting. In fact, quite the opposite. She was clinging to his neck as if she was afraid he'd disappear. There were a few moments of uneasy silence. Then Nial cleared his throat, said in a small voice, 'She's in love with him, isn't she?'

'It certainly looks like it.'

'I don't mean Sophie, I mean Millie. Millie's in love with Peter.'

She turned woodenly to him, hardly believing what she thought he was saying. 'Nial?' she said curiously. 'You don't mean you ...'

He gave a weak, embarra.s.sed smile. 'Yeah, well nothing I can do about it, is there?'

She stared back at him. Good G.o.d, what a mess. No reciprocity no returns. Sophie in love with Peter, Millie in love with Peter, and Nial in love with Millie. Poor little Nial. It was like watching elephants in a circus ring, each with its trunk linked round the tail of the animal in front, plodding on, blind to the futility of it all. Really and truly, life just wasn't fair.

She sighed. 'Oh, G.o.d, you're probably right. At the moment. But you wait. You wait.'

'What?'

'One day, Nial, Millie will see you in a different light. I promise you that.'

He blinked. 'Do you?'

'Oh, yes oh, yes.' And in saying it she prayed, with all the hope in the world, that she was right.

35.

Zoe had taken a sleeping pill last night she'd needed something, anything, to help escape the persistent voice in her head. At first it had been bliss, sending her sliding over the edge into oblivion. But she woke with a jolt five hours later, the first light of dawn at the window and the same clawing pain in her centre that she'd gone to sleep with. She didn't look at her reflection when she got dressed. She sat on the edge of the bed and carefully wound a bandage around the wound on her arm, holding its end in her teeth. She selected a heavy black-cotton s.h.i.+rt with sleeves that b.u.t.toned securely at the wrists. She pushed her arm into it gingerly, not wanting to make it bleed again. She was an old hand at this.

She drove across town with the radio on, trying to keep her mood up, but the sight of the battered sign in the doorway of Holden's Agency, the steps up to it, covered with chewing gum and stained with G.o.d only knew what, sent her resilience for the day down another notch. She hesitated suddenly reluctant. But it was too late. Through the wire-meshed gla.s.s the man inside had noticed her. He came to the door and swung it open. He was suntanned, in his sixties, wearing a cheap pinstriped suit and a neat white s.h.i.+rt that were both a size too small. He was obviously trying to beat the smoking habit, because he had a Nicorette inhalator tucked in his breast pocket and the faint tang of tobacco smoke lingering around him.

'Hi.' He gave her his hand to shake. It was huge and meaty and he had the big grin of a Texan car salesman. She expected him to say, 'How can I be of a.s.sistance to you, ma'am?'

'Zoe,' she said.

'Mike. Mike Holden. What can I do you for? You're not looking for the health-food shop, are you? It's round the corner.'

'No I-' She fumbled for her warrant card. Gave it a quick flash. 'I'm from CID. In Bath.'

Holden paused at the sight of it. 'Wendy? Is it Wendy? Has something happened to her? Just say it if it has. I've been preparing myself.'

'Wendy? No. It's an investigation. Something that happened in Bath. No bad news.'

He took a step back, breathing slowly, calming himself. 'That's good. Good.' He looked her up and down seemed to notice her for the first time. 'I'm sorry no manners. You'd better come in.'

The office was clean and less depressing than it was on the outside. It had the smell of a kitchen showroom, with industrial-grade brown carpet and a few pieces of furniture that looked a little lost in the large area. On one wall there was a line of framed black-and-white prints. Girls in bikinis, girls in swimsuits. Nothing topless.

'You're a model agency.'

Holden nodded. He sat at his desk, gestured for her to take a chair and turned a book towards her. 'Our portfolio.'

She leafed through it and saw what the manager at Zebedee Juice had meant. These were nothing like the feral, challenging creatures on the morphing screen. These were pretty, s.e.xy and well fed. Lorne would fit well in this portfolio. 'Some of them are topless.'

He nodded. 'That's what we do. Everything from swimsuits to lingerie to page three. This year we've had two girls in the Pirelli calendar and we've had page three eighteen times. The West Country produces some of the best-looking girls in the land. It's the warmth and the rain.' He winked. 'And the clotted cream. You know all that fat.'

'These girls, these models, do they go further than topless?'

'Of course. The human body is a great instrument for artistic expression. If a girl is liberated, comfortable being naked, then she can get a lot of satisfaction from this sort of work. Most of them love it really love it.'

'Do you believe that? Or, rather, do you expect me to believe that? I mean, really they're in it for the money.'

He was silent. Only his jaw showed agitation: it moved, very slightly, from side to side, as if he was working a piece of food out from his teeth. At last he raised his hands. 'You're not stupid and neither am I. Of course not. They do it for the money. And most of the time it's not cos they have to it's not cos they were trafficked, or cos they're having to put food in the mouths of their disabled babies or their dying mothers or whatever. Not even to feed their drug addiction, because most of them are clean. No in my experience most of the time they're doing it cos it's easier than standing behind a till at Top Shop for eight hours a day. Quicker and easier and, honestly, you get more respect from the photographer than you do from your average shopper. And I say hats off to them. Not that I've ever, in my ten years in the business, ever ever seen a girl do something sensible with the money. No investing it or anything like that. They spend it on clothes and, frankly, t.i.t jobs. So they can what? Go on doing modelling. A bit of a mindless cycle, if you think about it men getting what they think they want from women, women getting what they think they want from men.' seen a girl do something sensible with the money. No investing it or anything like that. They spend it on clothes and, frankly, t.i.t jobs. So they can what? Go on doing modelling. A bit of a mindless cycle, if you think about it men getting what they think they want from women, women getting what they think they want from men.'

Actually, Mr Holden, Zoe thought, not all of them spend their money on clothes and t.i.t jobs. Some of them spend it on escaping something. Buying their freedom. 'Have you been watching the news? The local news? There was a murder in Bath the other day.'

'I know. Young girl. Pretty. Lorraine, was it? Lorraine someone.'

'Lorne. Lorne Wood. The name doesn't ring a bell?'

He frowned. 'I don't think so.'

'You don't remember her coming to you?'

'She was a schoolgirl, I thought.'

'Yes, but she wanted to model. And she might not have used her real name.'

She pulled from her satchel a laminated set of pictures that the reprographics unit had produced. A set of photos of Lorne. The billions poured into developing facial-recognition technology had done little more than raise an important issue: the human face is so multi-faceted that it can vary wildly just from the smallest change in angle and lighting. The chief constable had picked up on this and now the force was inclined to use a selection of photographs for identification purposes. On this sheet many of the photos collected from Lorne's wall had been collaged. Zoe leaned half out of her chair and placed the sheet under Holden's nose.

He looked at them. Frowned. Shook his head slowly. 'Don't think so. I get scores of photos from girls who think they're going to be on page three, or the cover of FHM FHM. The faces, I'll be honest, merge into one eventually, but I don't think I remember her.'

She took the sheet back and sat for a moment, eyes on Lorne's Hollywood smile. None of these looked anything like the photos on the camera chip. They were in a totally different mood. She reached into her pocket for her iPhone, to which she'd transferred all the photos from Lorne's chip, and brought up one of Lorne in underwear on the bed. Not the topless one. She'd protect Lorne from that at least. 'How about that?'

This time Holden's face changed. 'OK,' he said quietly. 'That alters things. I do recognize her.' He went to a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder, riffled through the photos and printed pages in it. 'I would never have recognized her from the other photos but seeing that, I remember.' He pulled out a photo and held it up. It was one of the topless ones from the camera chip, printed out. 'She emailed it to me didn't use that name, though. Called herself ' he checked on the back ' Cherie. Cherie Garnett.'

Zoe's whole body felt tired. She wasn't glad she'd been right, just enormously depressed. 'And? What did you say?'

'Nah. I thought there was something a bit suspicious about it, to be honest. I thought right away she was younger than she said she was.'

'That stopped you, did it?'

He raised his eyebrows. 'It's a serious offence. You really can't be too careful. I told her I'd keep her on file.'

'So you told her no. Are you sure?'

'I'm sure.'