Hanging Hill Part 7

'Goodbye,' she said, and turned away abruptly, closing the door behind her.

Zoe was left standing in the sunlight with the sound of Mr Wood's saw, and the low chug-chug-chug of a barge going past on the ca.n.a.l.

17.

All day at work people talked about Lorne Wood. Every place Sally cleaned someone would mention it, would shake their head and say how terrible it was as if she was one of their own children. Sally didn't much want to talk about it, she didn't want to think about how easily it could have been Millie. This morning she'd taken the spoiled tarot card out of the pack and hidden it in a drawer. The remainder were wrapped in a cloth inside her tote bag because today she was working near the hippie shop, and there might be an opportunity to go in and show the cards to the owner. But in the end she couldn't summon up the courage. Instead she locked them in the boot of the car and tried to stop thinking about them.

It was the day she sometimes picked up Millie from school, rather than let her take the bus. She parked in a street opposite, along with all the other mothers, their windows open to watch the gates. Nial and Peter came out and pa.s.sed, holding up a hand to say hi to her, then, after a short interval, Sophie on her own. The moment she saw Sally she hurried over to the car. 'Mrs Benedict, Millie's still in the cla.s.sroom. She wants you to go and get her.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. She's upset.'

Sally locked the car and went inside quickly, hurrying down the vaulted-stone corridors. The cla.s.sroom was at the other side of the school it was very old-fas.h.i.+oned, lined with bookshelves, stuffed with books and learning aids. Light came through the tall mullioned windows. At one of the individual desks that faced the windows, Millie sat with her head drooping forward. When she heard the door open she turned. Her face was tight, as if a hand was holding it from behind and forcing her head to move.

'Mum.'

She came and stood at the desk. 'Are you OK? I saw Sophie.'

'I don't feel well, Mum. Can you bring the car in through the back entrance and pick me up next to the sports hall?'

'What's wrong? You should have called.'

'Nothing. I mean it's my stomach. It's just a bit-'

'Your stomach?'

'It's crampy.'

'Your period?'

'No just I don't know. It feels a bit squirmy.'

Sally examined Millie's face. She'd never been good at knowing when her daughter was lying. But right now she suspected that whatever was wrong with Millie it had nothing to do with her stomach. She looked as if she was hiding something. 'Did you speak to Matron?'

She shook her head, moved her eyes from Sally's scrutiny and stared out of the window. 'Please, Mum, can you just get the car?'

'Is this about Lorne? Are you upset?'

'No.'

'Then is it Glas...o...b..ry? Because, Millie, I can't change my mind, darling.'

'No. It's not not. I just feel ill. I swear swear.'

Sally sighed. 'OK. I'll be waiting round the side in five minutes.'

She picked up the car from the street and stopped it in the courtyard that faced the modern buildings of the new sports hall. Millie came out, her school blazer draped over her shoulders, her face down, and got quickly into the car. 'Can we go straight home?'

'You'll have to tell me what's happening.'

'Please.' She curled into the seat and pulled her knees up. 'Please, Mum.'

'Either you tell me what's going on or we're going to the doctor's.'

'No, Mum, I feel better now. I just want to go home.'

Sally put the car in gear and drove to the end of the tarmac drive, stopping at the intersection. She indicated left. Millie jerked sideways in her seat, her hand shooting out to grab the steering-wheel. 'No! Wait wait, Mum, please wait. Don't.'

'What is it?'

Millie was trembling. Her face was white, but Sally knew it wasn't pain. If she had to put a finger on it she'd have said it was fear. 'Millie?'

'Go right. Right Right.'

'But left is the way home.'

'We can go the back way. All my friends are out there. They'll do the L on the forehead thing if they see me taken off by Mummy. Loser.'

'No one's there. They've gone.'

'Can we just go the back way, Mum? Please go right.'

Sally took the car out of gear. 'I'm sorry, Millie, but it's left. Unless you tell me what's going on.'

'Oh, G.o.d G.o.d!' She screwed up her fists. 'OK, OK. Just let me give me a moment to ...' She shuffled down the seat so she was crushed in the footwell.

'What are you doing?'

'There's someone out there. In a purple jeep. I've got to avoid him.'

'Who?'

'Just someone.'

Down on the floor Millie's face was white, her pupils dilated, She wasn't just afraid she was terrified. As if there was a monster out in the street. Sally eyed the phone in its holster on the dashboard and wondered who she could call. Isabelle? Steve?

'Please, Mum! Can we go?'

Sally swallowed and put the car in gear. She inched it out over the junction and peered up and down the street. Her palms were sweating on the vinyl steering-wheel. The street was quieter now the schoolkids had indeed gone, but, on the far side of the road, its nose facing the school gates, was parked a strange-looking purple four-wheel drive. It had bull-bars, a snorkel, and what looked like daggers embedded in the wheels.

Sally pulled the Ka out into the road.

'Is he there?' Millie dragged the blazer over her head and shrank further into the footwell, her hands over her head. 'Is he? Oh, my G.o.d, I'm so so dead.' dead.'

Sally pulled up alongside the purple car. She let the car stop in the middle of the road, and turned woodenly to look at the man. He was mixed race, with a little pencil moustache and very s.h.i.+ny gelled hair. He wore a tight white T-s.h.i.+rt and a thick gold necklace. At first he didn't notice her. He was watching the gates of the school. Then he sensed her presence. He turned, met her eyes and gave her a slow smile, revealing a single diamond mounted in one of his front teeth. 'What?' he mouthed. 'What?'

She floored the accelerator and the little car shot down the hill, screeching, making pedestrians stop and stare.

'Mum? What's happening? Was he there?' What's happening? Was he there?'

At the bottom of the hill she glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw that he hadn't attempted to follow. She swung the car left past the big nineteenth-century church on the fork, then to the right, then left again, putting as much distance as she could between themselves and the man. She didn't stop until she'd reached Peppercorn, way out in the deserted countryside. She got out and stood on the lawn, breathing the sulphury smell of the engine and the organic waft of cow manure and gra.s.s scanning the valley where the line of commuters wound its sluggish way towards the motorway. When she was sure nothing had followed them she went back to the car and opened the door. Millie ventured out from under the blazer, her hair mussed and sticking out all over the place, a bleary, lost look on her face. She crawled out, limp and exhausted, her head hanging.

'Can we go inside now?'

Sally carried all her work gear into the cottage and put it in a pile in the corner. Then she went into the bedroom, Millie following. Sally kicked off her shoes and pulled back the covers.

'What?'

'Get in.'

'But it's only five o'-'

'Please.'

Millie obediently kicked off her shoes and crawled on to the bed. Sally checked the curtains were drawn tight, then switched off the light and got in next to her daughter, embracing her from behind, her head resting on her back. She didn't speak. She lay there, listening to Millie breathing, her eyes on the slit of light between the curtains. She counted in her head, slowly and rhythmically moving herself through the minutes, through the silence.

It was almost a quarter of an hour before Millie spoke. 'I'm sorry.'

Sally nodded. She was sure it was true.

'He's involved in drugs.'

'Oh, G.o.d,' she said wearily. 'Oh, G.o.d.'

'He sells drugs in the school, and at Faulkener's too. He goes back and forth between the two. I don't take them, Mum. I don't. I tried it once with Nial and Soph. Please, please, don't tell Isabelle please. We hated it. It made my heart race and I thought I was going to die, but everyone at school's done it, honestly you'd be so shocked, Mum, at who's done it. The prefects have, some of the ones in the hockey teams. They do it before they have a match. It's like it's totally normal.'

Sally pressed her head tighter into her daughter's back. This was what the tarot card had been trying to warn her about, this happening behind her back. G.o.d, she really was as dumb as Julian had always said. 'Is that why you're avoiding him, that man? Because of the drugs?'

'No. I don't take drugs, Mum. I swear. I swear on everything.'

'Is it something to do with Lorne Wood? With what happened to her?'

Millie turned round and gave her mother an odd look. 'No. Of course not. Why do you think it would have anything to do with that?'

'Then what?'

'Money.'

'What money?'

'He lent me some money.' She hitched in a breath, started to cry quietly. 'Oh, Mum, I honestly thought it would be OK, I honestly did. I never thought it was going to turn out like this.'

Sally blinked dry-eyed in the darkness. Millie borrowing money? From someone like that? This was a dream. 'It can't be much.' She paused, then added tentatively, 'Can it?'

Millie curled herself into a ball, her shoulders shaking, saying over and over, 'Oh s.h.i.+t oh s.h.i.+t oh s.h.i.+t. Mum, if you and Dad hadn't split up it would never have happened. I'd have the money if you were still together.'

'Is this about Glas...o...b..ry?'

'No it's about Malta. If you and Dad were still together I could have gone on that school trip to Malta.'

'You did did go to Malta.' go to Malta.'

'Yes, but I could have gone without having to-' She began to sob loudly. 'This is such a mess. I'm such an idiot.'

Sally lifted her head. 'Dad paid for the trip to Malta.'

'He didn't didn't. In the end Melissa said he couldn't. I couldn't tell you I thought you'd stop me going.'

'So how on earth did you ...? Oh, Millie. You're telling me you got the money from him him. From that man? But it must have been a lot lot. A lot of money.'

'You're making it sound awful. You don't understand understand you haven't got a you haven't got a clue clue what it's like. Everyone else's parents are together. The whole cla.s.s is going skiing in the autumn except Thomas and he doesn't count, and Selma is going to New York at half-term. She'll probably get loads of clothes while she's there too and that's before you even what it's like. Everyone else's parents are together. The whole cla.s.s is going skiing in the autumn except Thomas and he doesn't count, and Selma is going to New York at half-term. She'll probably get loads of clothes while she's there too and that's before you even get get to who's going to Glasto. It's to who's going to Glasto. It's horrible horrible being me, Mum. You've got no idea, it's horrible.' being me, Mum. You've got no idea, it's horrible.'

'How much do you owe him?'

'He's saying because I didn't pay it back when I should have he's got to charge me interest.'

'That's completely illegal. We'll have to go to the police. We can drive there now.'

'No. No, Mum. You can't.' Millie twisted around, stared over her shoulder at her mother. 'You can't go to the police you just can't. I'll get expelled and everyone'll find out none of the parents'll let me hang out with my friends. Dad'll find out Peter and Nial and Sophie'll all find out. And he'll hurt me next time. Really. If he finds out I went to the police I'll be dead, Mum. Please Please please. I'll do anything. I'll stop school and go to one of the state schools, then Dad can give the money he's giving Kingsmead to me. I'll do please. I'll do anything. I'll stop school and go to one of the state schools, then Dad can give the money he's giving Kingsmead to me. I'll do anything anything. Just please please don't go to the police I can't bear it if you tell anyone.' don't go to the police I can't bear it if you tell anyone.'

'How much do you owe him, Millie?'

Millie went quiet and still, as if she was crawling inside herself, rooting around to find a place where she was safe. 'Four ...' she murmured after a while '... thousand. He kept adding interest, Mum, he kept making it more.'

Sally closed her eyes, rested her forehead against Millie's hot back. She pictured Isabelle's kitchen littered with expensive food and drink; she saw Melissa planting exotic shrubs in the garden at Sion Road; she saw David Goldrab swinging himself into his giant car. She saw all the mothers and fathers outside Kingsmead and knew that she was looking into a different world. That in the year and a half since she'd been divorced from Julian, she and Millie had slipped noiselessly and uncomplainingly over an invisible barrier into a place they'd never come back from. And it was all because of money.

18.

For the first time since Zoe had known him, Ben's appearance was less than perfect at that evening's team meeting. Last night's wine and lack of sleep were starting to show. He had the beginning of a five o'clock shadow on his jaw and his s.h.i.+rt was creased at the back. To her annoyance she found that creased s.h.i.+rt slightly endearing.

'It's all a bit disappointing,' he said, addressing the a.s.sembled team. 'I admit it hasn't been a good day. First of all we're still waiting for a single sighting. Unbelievable, I know, considering how usually a case with this much media will pop up scores of sightings all over the place. And Lorne, a striking girl, known to people, walking all that way home and not one person claiming they saw her. Nothing on any of the shops' CCTV equipment, and none of the shop a.s.sistants remember anything either though, according to her family, she did have a habit of browsing and not buying. So, nothing very encouraging on that.'

He rolled up his sleeves. It had been hot today. Hot enough to make those creases and so hot that summer seemed to have arrived already. Out in the streets almond blossom, blown in from the gardens and the parks, lay in drifts in the gutters. Zoe hadn't said anything to Ben about the camera chip. She wasn't sure how and when she'd do it. Whether she'd do it at all. The chip was still in her back pocket.

'Our witness at the ca.n.a.l reported a conversation with Lorne that really didn't tally with the conversation the OIC was told about when she went missing. So I spent an hour talking to Alice, the friend Lorne was on the phone to, and although she admitted Lorne was more upset than she'd originally said, she was evasive when I pushed her on why why she was upset.' He took a sip of coffee, set the cup down carefully. 'So, let me just make an intuitive comment here. She was protecting someone.' she was upset.' He took a sip of coffee, set the cup down carefully. 'So, let me just make an intuitive comment here. She was protecting someone.'