Hanging Hill Part 6

'It's just, you know, I'm a woman so I've got a memory like an elephant, can never wipe that slate clean. Know what I'm saying? And the thing I will never never forget about you, Peggie, is you lying to the police. Every time you get your a.r.s.e hauled in you tell lies. Now tell me. Did you see anything?' forget about you, Peggie, is you lying to the police. Every time you get your a.r.s.e hauled in you tell lies. Now tell me. Did you see anything?'

He blinked at her. A line of sweat had started on his lip. He lowered his head and kicked at the dirt a little. 'Dunno. I might've done. Might've seen her with one of the boys. Walking down there, near the ca.n.a.l.'

'One of the boys boys? What do you mean, "one of the boys"?'

'Schoolkid. They went into that wood over there.'

For a moment Zoe genuinely didn't know what to say. She stared at the top of his head, gleaming and gelled, thinking that Debbie Harry would have loved to hear that come out of his mouth. To confirm her theory. But then Jake s.h.i.+fted and kicked the dirt some more and twitched and avoided her eyes, and suddenly she got it. He hadn't seen Lorne with anyone he hadn't seen a thing. He'd been sitting out here all day, dealing to the pupils of Faulkener's, and probably some of them had already told him that the police were questioning all the boys. He wanted her off his case, so he was just parroting back what he thought she wanted to hear.

She sighed. Swung her keys round on her index finger. Another unmarked car had just pulled into the driveway of the school. Swimming against the tide.

'Pleasant though it always is to pa.s.s the time of day with you, Peggie,' she said nicely, 'I'll let you get back to work now. I mean, you're going to need the money, what with those rear indicators being illegal and the fines I'm going to slap on you if I see you hanging around here again.'

15.

The Woods' house was set in gardens that rambled for almost an acre up from the ca.n.a.l towpath. The narrow driveway led through an imposing grove of redwood trees, with well-tended lawns stretching away on either side, then cl.u.s.ters of outbuildings and greenhouses. A ride-on mower sat in the sun and a wheelbarrow full of dead bindweed had been abandoned on the hard-standing. The house itself was comparatively small and unprepossessing a thirties pebble-dashed box, neat and well maintained but unimaginative. A uPVC conservatory had been added at the back, inside which sat floral armchairs and a dining table covered with a white linen tablecloth.

Zoe parked and walked around the side of the house. The liaison officer the family had been a.s.signed had warned the Woods of Zoe's visit. He'd told them she had no news, that she was coming to ask questions, so they wouldn't all gather to stare expectantly at her. Lorne's father was in the garden and didn't even look up when she pa.s.sed. He wore a swagman's hat, complete with dangling corks, a Singha beer T-s.h.i.+rt, and shorts. He was using a chainsaw to cut a felled birch into logs, and although he must have seen her, he kept his back turned to the house. According to the paperwork he was a project manager in the construction business. Zoe guessed he wasn't of the right social stratum to be down the boozer mounting posses to lynch whoever it was who'd killed his daughter. But he'd be picturing it nevertheless. He'd be having intellectual arguments with himself, huge battles of reason, about the role and logic of the justice system. About forgiveness and humanity. He'd be cutting the log and imagining it was Lorne's killer he was hacking into.

From the patio bench a tall, sorrowful-looking lad watched her approach. He sat with his elbows on his knees and was jiggling slightly, as if he was ready to jump up at any moment. He had a shock of sandy hair, and the chinos and sweats.h.i.+rt he wore seemed to have been slept in. This must be Lorne's brother, driven home overnight from his university in Durham. He gave her an embarra.s.sed nod, held up his hand to indicate the front door, then went back to his nervous jiggling.

The door was open a crack. Zoe pushed it further and found herself in a hallway filled with framed photos. Horse photos: gymkhanas, ponies clearing jumps, difficult ones triple oxers and cross-country walls. A young Lorne grinning from under a riding hat, arms round the neck of a black pony, its browband bristling with rosettes.

'h.e.l.lo?'

'In here,' came a voice from the end of the corridor. Zoe continued on and found, in the kitchen, the liaison officer sitting hunched over a computer, and Mrs Wood, standing at the worktop, scratching furiously in a small notebook. She was dressed in corduroy trousers and a Joules Elephant Polo T-s.h.i.+rt, a ma.s.s of curly hair tied back from her face. The moment she turned to face her Zoe noted two things. The first was that Mrs Philippa Wood had once been Miss Philippa Snow and had been at Zoe's boarding-school nearly twenty years ago. The second was that Mrs Wood really hadn't accepted her daughter was dead. She was smiling grimly, a pragmatic expression on her face, as if she was determined to get through this visit from the police as soon as possible.

'Pippa Wood.' She gave Zoe's hand a firm shake. If she recognized her she didn't say anything. 'Coffee? It'll take just a moment.'

Zoe exchanged a glance with the liaison officer, who gave a slow nod, as if to say, 'I told you so. It hasn't reached her yet.'

'Please. Black, with two sugars.' She folded her arms and leaned against the counter top, watching her switch on the kettle and get down mugs from the cupboards. 'I know you spoke to the police yesterday, Mrs Wood, and the day before that when Lorne went missing. I don't want you to think we're ha.s.sling you. I just wanted to see if anything had come up for you overnight. Anything you recalled anything in your statement you wanted to change or add to.'

'Not really.' She held out an opened biscuit tin containing brownies and sponge fingers. Zoe hadn't seen sponge fingers in years. She took one. Pippa snapped the lid back on. 'She got home from school at one they do a half-day on Sat.u.r.day. She got changed and went into town. Completely normal.'

'She did that often?'

'Yes. She liked to go shopping. Some of the places in the centre stay open till six, even later.'

'And she didn't say she was meeting anyone?'

'No.' She got milk from the fridge. 'She liked to be on her own.'

'What was she shopping for?'

'The usual. Clothes. Window-shopping, of course, because I don't let her have money just to waste. She thought she was going to London to be a model any money I'd given her she'd have squandered on that pipedream. We're trying to teach her the value of money, what's a sensible spend and what isn't, but with Lorne, it's in one ear and out the other. Her brother, on the other hand ...' She shook her head, as if life was a mystery to her. 'Isn't it amazing how two children, the same genes, can turn out so differently?'

'What's a "sensible" spend?'

Pippa scrutinized Zoe, as if she was wondering whether this was a trick question. 'Well, not clothes, of course. At least, not the sort of clothes she wants. Something practical, maybe.' She gave the leg of her own trousers a shake as an ill.u.s.tration. 'But not these things she goes for, covered in glitter they fall apart after one wash.'

At school Zoe and Pippa had been in different years, but now Zoe was remembering something of her reputation. Super sporty, captain of the hockey team, crazy about horses. And as hard as nails.

'Did she have a horse?'

'Not any longer. She did have, but she wouldn't look after him. I'd have kept him, but I didn't send him out to be broken in, did it myself, so he was never going to be happy with me on his back and he was too small, anyway. Now it's just the mare and the five-year-old.'

Zoe nibbled thoughtfully at the sponge finger, her hand cupped under it so as not to drop the sugar crusting on the kitchen floor. There had been a time years ago when she'd done a routine enquiry on a twelve-year-old girl who'd been thrown and trampled by her horse, and was lying in a coma in Intensive Care. The mother had been in tears during the interview. But in tears for what might happen to the horse, not to her daughter. All that came out of her mouth was: 'It wasn't his fault. He got scared she shouldn't have had him on the road. It wasn't his fault.' Zoe licked her fingers carefully, then leaned a little way out of the kitchen door and peered at the staircase. 'Is her room up there?'

'There've been some teams in it already. They took her computer. They left about an hour ago.'

'Could I have a look?'

'Of course you can. You'll forgive me if I don't come with you.'

Zoe carried the coffee into the hallway and went slowly up the stairs, past all the gymkhana photos. It stuck in her head, that line: Any money I'd given her she'd have squandered on that pipedream Any money I'd given her she'd have squandered on that pipedream. It was years since she'd been living at home with her parents, and all the pain that had entailed, but the memory came back to her as sharp as cold air. Never quite measuring up. Wanting nothing more than to escape.

Lorne's room with a poster of the Sugababes Blu-tacked on the door was opposite the top of the stairs, next to the family bathroom. The persistent buzz of Mr Wood's chainsaw was more m.u.f.fled here. Zoe pushed opened the door, went inside and stood for a while, taking in the room.

Lorne had been privileged Faulkener's would have set the Woods back twelve to fifteen grand a year, probably, and here there were little giveaways of her lifestyle that pinned her as a cut above the ordinary: a framed photo of her in front of the Sydney Opera House, another of her dressed in a strapless ballgown, debutante smile on her face, age all of thirteen, Zoe guessed. Aside from that, what was most distressing about the room was its sheer normality. Exactly the sort of teenage girl's bedroom that would be replicated in hundreds of other homes across Bath. No pictures of horses; instead it was posters of girl bands dressed in what looked like lingerie. On the wall next to the window a corkboard was covered with photos Lorne pictured on a climbing wall, tongue out to the camera, delighted grin on her face; Lorne with three other girls crammed into a photo booth; Lorne in a floaty white dress, a flower circlet on her ankle; Lorne in a strawberry-design swimsuit the epitome of every teenage boy's fantasy. Her hair changed too, from one shot to the next, from bright blonde, cut in a fringe, to Goth, sullen black, complete with a magenta streak in the fringe. Zoe wondered how that had gone down at Faulkener's School. At her boarding-school hair dye would have been an expellable offence, but that school's speciality had been turning out no-nonsense girls. Like her. And like Pippa Wood downstairs.

She put down her cup, pulled a pair of gloves out of her pocket, put them on and opened a drawer. Underwear, in a bundle, perhaps from Lorne's own untidiness or perhaps because the police team had been untidy knickers to one side, bras to the other. Another drawer had school socks and tights, another hair accessories, hundreds of them bursting out. She went to a small multicoloured chest of drawers and peered into the top drawer. More underwear. A stack of red gymkhana rosettes. Perhaps Lorne hadn't been allowed to throw them away so she'd done the next best thing and kept them well out of sight.

Out of sight ... ...

She straightened and scanned the room. When Lorne had gone missing the OIC had come in here with a Support Group team looking for clues to her disappearance. Zoe had read through his notes and there hadn't been anything much. But a girl like Lorne? Tension between her and her mother? There had to be something the OIC had missed. She sat on the bed, her hands resting on her lap, and concentrated on summoning up the feeling she'd had earlier. The sudden, shuddering connection to her own teenage self. If this had been her her room, where would room, where would she she have hidden things? have hidden things?

At boarding-school the dorms had been small just four to a room. There had been a cupboard stretching the length of one wall and each girl had been allocated a section in it for her clothes. They had also been given a small bedside table each. Not much scope for hiding things you didn't want others to see. Zoe had found a way, though. Her eyes trailed to Lorne's bedside table, which was piled with magazines. She pushed herself off the bed, lay down on the floor, and reached a hand up under the table. She found just the smooth wood of the base. She got up, moved to the desk and did the same. Nothing. She went to the wardrobe. This time when she pushed her fingers underneath she found, taped to the base, a solid, block-shaped object encased in a plastic bag.

She peeled away the tape, removed the package and sat on the bed with it on her lap. Inside the plastic bag she found a small book, complete with a lock in the shape of a heart, a key in it. On the front of it were scrawled the words: 'Mum, if you've found this then I can't stop you reading it. But don't forget that you will have betrayed my trust.' Zoe smiled for the little human part of Lorne that had just peeped out. More human than Pippa downstairs, still fretting that her daughter wasn't remotely interested in horses.

Zoe opened the book, and leafed through the pages. Lorne had pasted the pages with paper cut-out flowers, and little stickers in the shape of eyes that blinked and jiggled when you moved them. Most of the earlier dates had no entry, but for the last few weeks it seemed Lorne had become an inveterate scribbler. Every page was crammed to the margins with notes in a tiny, barely legible scrawl. Zoe took her reading gla.s.ses from the breast pocket of her s.h.i.+rt, carried the book to the window, where the light was good, and read.

Most of the stuff was predictable teenage angst. Every day Lorne had recorded her weight and the number of calories she'd eaten, then a long, sometimes desperate commentary on how her hair looked awful, how fat she was getting. She made plans for how much she would eat at weekends. Zoe had read surveys that said at least seventy per cent of teenage girls were always on a diet. She'd spent her own teens worrying about the streak-of-p.i.s.s insults her gangly frame got her but to be always worrying about what food you put in your mouth, what kind of a h.e.l.l prison was that?

More than once the initials 'RH' came up.

April fourteenth. Saw RH. He's mega with the fat-tie thing. Christina says he likes me. I don't know. Wore my Hard Candy blue eyeshadow. Totally lus.h.!.+RH was talking to that girl in the sixth form that's supposed to have a flat in New York. Nela says her name is Mathilda but I thought Tillie though maybe that's short for it. Quite pretty with blonde hair but she's got really fat calves. She shouldn't wear leggings. Yuk.Went to Katinka's after school. And got some hair colour going to do it when Alice comes over at the weekend. Mum's going to FREEEEEEEEEEAKKKK!!!!! EEEEEKKK!!!Read about this girl who was on holiday in Goa with her family. She was just sitting on the beach and a scout from Storm in London saw her. Her first job she got 1,000 and the editor of Vogue saw her and put her on the front page. Now she lives in New York, New York!!!! And she's from Weston b.l.o.o.d.y super Mare! I look at her and I think if you can do it Vogue saw her and put her on the front page. Now she lives in New York, New York!!!! And she's from Weston b.l.o.o.d.y super Mare! I look at her and I think if you can do it ... ...

The next page was taken up with nothing but the initials 'LW' entwined with 'RH'. On the page after that, on 20 April, a note said: Kissed him!!!!! I am officially in LOVE!!!!!! Can't tell anyone. He said his mum would kill him if she knew. She's a complete witch. He says he's going to apply to University College and Imperial, so when I've got my totally lush flat in Chelsea (ha ha!) he can come and see me anytime we feel like it and his bats.h.i.+t crazy mother can't get us.

Zoe turned the page. If Debbie Harry saw this and the comments on his dominating mother, she'd hang, draw and quarter RH. Whoever he was.

Zeb Juice are going to see me!!! Can't believe it. That's given me a boost I can't believe. I'm going to call some of the others too. I'm going to wear my pink heels and blue jeans. Shopping list, get Noodlehead Curl Boost, St Tropez Bronzing Mist Marie Claire says it's legend. 30. But, doh, brain freeze about where I'm going to get that money from. If I walk home every day and save all my bus fares and all my tuck money I still won't have enough ...

After that the pages hadn't been written on. Instead they'd been filled with flowers and hearts and sketches of a girl Lorne herself, presumably dressed in bikinis and high-heeled boots. Zoe flicked through the remaining pages. There was nothing else of any interest. She closed the diary, and as she did, she noticed a small pocket on the back. When she inserted her nail she found a tiny object in there. An eight-milligram camera chip.

She sorted around on the desk until she found the camera it belonged to, plugged in the chip and began clicking through the photos. Lorne was pictured here, right in this bedroom. From the awkward position it looked as though she'd taken them herself using an automatic timer. In the first three she was dressed in a bikini standing full length. But it was the fourth and subsequent shots that made Zoe sit down on the bed, dismayed. Lorne appeared dressed in suspenders, stockings and a basque, poised coquettishly on the floor, legs crossed. In the last two she had taken the basque off and was looking provocatively into the camera, her tongue held lightly at her glossed lips.

Zoe clicked through them twice, a huge wave of sadness coming over her. Why would a nice middle-cla.s.s girl like Lorne do something like that? Lots of reasons, of course maybe it was nothing more sinister than an impressionable schoolgirl trying to ease herself into her own s.e.xuality. Or maybe to impress a boyfriend. But it could also be nastier than that. An old ghost came to Zoe then, going pitter-patter around the corners of her mind thinking that it could be because Lorne had learned to dislike herself early. Maybe when she realized her brother was the star in their mother's eyes she'd begun struggling to find a way to escape. Zoe knew what that felt like. Maybe that was what these photos were about.

Outside, the noise of Mr Wood's chainsaw cut through the silence. She took the card out of the camera and held it in the palm of her hand, trying to decide if the photos were important the portal to a whole separate side of Lorne that no one was mentioning. Whether they were connected to her modelling dream and just how desperate she had been to make that dream come true. No, she told herself, probably lots of teenage girls had photos of themselves like this, hidden somewhere from Mum and Dad. It would be better just to leave them in the diary, taped out of sight, never to be seen again. Or destroy the chip.

Or treat it as an investigative lead.

She raised her eyes to the window, saw the frondy leaves of a silver birch moving gently against the blue sky. Some time pa.s.sed. Thirty seconds. A minute. Then she got to her feet and shoved the card into her back jeans pocket. 'Sorry, Lorne,' she murmured. 'But I'm not sure. Not yet.'

16.

Downstairs in the conservatory, Pippa was sitting with the liaison officer. She had a diary open on her lap and seemed to be going through her plans for the next month or so. Maybe they were discussing funerals, press conferences. Outside, Mr Wood was still thras.h.i.+ng the life out of the tree. When Pippa heard Zoe come down she stopped talking. She closed the book and came through into the hallway. 'All finished?'

'Just one or two questions.'

'That's OK. I want to help.'

'Lorne had a big circle of friends?'

'A big circle? Oh, G.o.d, yes. I couldn't keep up with it. From the moment she hit fifteen and I gave her a phone and keys to the house I only ever saw her when she brought people back here. They're a nightmare, teenagers, absolute nightmare. Sometimes you just want to crawl under a ...' She trailed off. As if it had just dawned on her that there'd never be another teenager to make her life a misery. 'Yes, well ...' She rubbed her arms convulsively and glanced back at the kitchen. 'Yes. Anyway, did you want some more coffee?'

'That's OK,' Zoe said gently. 'I've had enough to send me to the moon and back. Can I ask you, though, about her friends? Were they mostly from the school?'

'No.' Pippa shook her head. 'No, not really. They were from all over. She was always talking to people. And I think with the way she looked she she had lots of boys who recognized her. I don't know where she gets it from not me, that's for sure.'

'But not one special boyfriend?'

'No.'

'Can I ask you the million-dollar question?'

'What? Was she a virgin? Is that it?'

'Someone's going to have to ask it eventually. It's not that she's in the defence stand here. It's just that we need to build a better picture.'

'Yes, I know. I've already been told by the-' She glanced back to where the liaison officer was sitting, studying his laptop. 'I know it's an important question. He said it would be, said it could be relevant.' She put her finger to her forehead and kept it there, as if she was concentrating very hard on something. Like keeping her balance. 'I don't know, is the honest truth. If you wanted me to put money on it I'd say no. But please don't tell other people that. I don't want it gossiped about.'

'You don't remember anyone with the initials "RH", do you?'

'No. Doesn't ring any bells. Why?'

'Just wondering. What about the name Zeb Juice? Does that mean anything to you?'

Pippa gave an exasperated sigh. 'Yes, I'm afraid so. Zebedee Juice. It's an agency in George Street.'

'An agency?'

'Modelling. I told you Lorne was under the impression she'd be the next Kate Moss, so when the agency agreed to see her I was worried very worried. As you can imagine.'

'What sort of modelling do they deal with?'

'What sort? Well I don't know. The usual, of course. Fas.h.i.+ony stuff. Catwalk.'

So not the kind of modelling in the pictures. Zoe felt better to hear that. 'What happened when she went to the agency?'

'They told her she wasn't tall enough. They weren't interested, thank G.o.d.'

'You were pleased?'

'Of course I was pleased.' Pippa sounded faintly annoyed. 'What mother wouldn't be? It was a ridiculous dream.'

Zoe didn't answer that. Outside the conservatory four magpies had appeared on the lawn and were hopping around, making feints at each other. One for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a boy One for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a boy. She could still see the big brother outside, sitting awkwardly on the bench. The one who'd got it all right in his mother's eyes.

'Is that all? Is that all you need?'

'For the time being. Yes, it is. Thank you.'

She felt in her pocket for her car keys and was halfway out of the door when Pippa said suddenly, 'I was at school with you, wasn't I?'

Zoe turned back slowly. 'I didn't like to point it out.'

'You were good at games and you were clever. Really clever. You used to win all the quizzes. Did you go to university? Everyone said you would.'

'University? No. I dropped out. Travelled the world and ended up back here. Broke my father's back financially, putting me and my sister through school, and look what I did to repay him.' She gave a rueful smile. 'Went into the cops.'

'I didn't know you had a sister.'

'No,' she said slowly. 'She went to a different school softer than the one we were at. The sort that turns out good wives.'

'How come you went to different schools?'

'Oh, you know,' she said evasively. 'We couldn't get on somehow. Like you said amazing how you combine the same genes and get two totally different people.'

'And you?' Pippa said. 'How about you? Did you have children?'

'No.'

Pippa took a breath to reply and in that second, in the slight pause, Zoe saw the cracks. The human being in there. As if the terrified Pippa Wood, the one who wouldn't know where to begin or end dealing with this horror, had peeped out of her eyes. It was a flash, just a fleeting moment, a panicked, screaming Pica.s.so face, a terror that Zoe was going to answer, Oh, yes. I have a beautiful daughter. Just like Lorne. Except mine's alive Oh, yes. I have a beautiful daughter. Just like Lorne. Except mine's alive. It was basic human envy the envy that the sick, the grieving and the old have for the young and the healthy. And the living. Then the look was gone, and the calm mask was back.