Hanging Hill Part 12

'What?'

He shook his head. Turned away. 'Nothing. There's, uh ...' he waved a hand vaguely at the cupboards '... sesame oil in the one at the end, if you want it.'

He went back to the living room. Sally folded the tabard and put it on the worktop, watching him carefully. He stopped in the doorway, looped up a professional-style tool-belt, bristling with chisels and hammer handles, and strapped it to his waist. Then he picked up the nail gun, switched it on, and began firing nails into the doorframe. He didn't once turn to look at her. Over the months she'd learned that, from time to time, Steve had moods like this, when something would preoccupy him. One or two clients would leave him quiet and introspective for days, as if he'd peeped into a world he wished he hadn't known about. Maybe now he was thinking about an upcoming trip he was supposed to be making on Sat.u.r.day a client in Seattle he needed to visit. That, or maybe the meeting he'd had yesterday in London: he'd been anxious about that before he'd left, before Millie had got up. He'd been vague about who he was meeting perhaps it had been Mooney. The one whose name she was supposed to forget.

She went back to the fridge. Tuna steaks in greaseproof paper oozed red on the middle shelf. There was a pot of basil that looked to have been bought from the farmers' market, some gherkins and, when she delved deep, an old jar of capers. She'd make salsa verde salsa verde. She took the ingredients out and began to chop, her eyes sliding across the room to Steve as she worked. Every time he drove a nail into the doorframe she jumped.

She'd finished the sauce and was heating the oil in the pan with her back to the room when the sound of a nail being fired was followed by a loud clatter. She put down the pan and turned. He was standing with his side to her, his left hand placed high on the doorframe, the other pressed against the wall. The nail gun was on the floor where it had fallen, turning slowly on its axis. He had his head down and was perfectly still, except for his left leg, which was moving spasmodically up and down as if he was kicking himself. He looked sideways at her, his face grey, pinched.

'Think I've f.u.c.ked my hand, Sally, if you'll forgive the expression.' His teeth were clenched. He jerked his head in the direction of his left hand, not raising his eyes to it. 'Gun hit a knot, slipped. I've got to a.s.sume I've really f.u.c.ked it. Would you have a look?'

She turned off the gas and hurried across to him. The hand looked normal at first glance, just as if it was resting there, the fingers pointing up to the ceiling, but, closer to it, she saw what had happened. He'd skewered himself to the wall. She stood on tiptoe and examined it.

'What?' he said tightly. 'What can you see?'

She could see the steely gleam of a nail head poking out from the fleshy pad below his thumb. She could see a single, oily line of blood running from the site of the wound to the wrist, where it split into a delta that continued down through the hair on his arm. And she could picture more she could imagine the musculature and bone structure inside, because it was what she'd seen almost thirty years ago on the X-ray of her own hand after the accident with Zoe. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to get past that image. It always made her feel inescapably sad. 'I'm not sure,' she said. 'I don't know about these things.'

'OK.' He wiped his face with his free hand. 'See that hacksaw?'

She crouched and rummaged through the toolkit. 'This?'

'No. That one.'

'What?' She picked it up shakily. 'What've I got to do?'

'Cut the nail. Between my hand and the wall.'

'Cut it?'

'Yes. Please, Sally, just do it. I'm not asking you to cut my hand off.'

'OK, OK.' She went quickly to the cupboard under the sink and pulled out two rolls of kitchen towel. She got a chair, sc.r.a.ped it up to where he stood and climbed on it to inspect the wound. Tongue between her teeth, she pressed the area around it. Steve winced and sucked in a breath, rolled his head around once or twice as if he was trying to release a crick in his neck. The skin on his thumb was stretched sideways: the nail had only pierced the side of the muscle. It wasn't as bad as she'd thought.

'OK.' Her heart was thumping. 'I don't think it's too serious.'

'Just do it.'

Her hands were slippery with sweat but she pushed her fingers between the wall and his flesh and gently pulled at it, pus.h.i.+ng it along the nail away from the wall, until about a centimetre of the shaft was visible between skin and wall.

'Jesus.' He dropped his head, teeth clenched, and his foot kicked harder. 'Jesus f.u.c.king Christ.'

Tentatively she raised the hacksaw, edging the blade into the s.p.a.ce between the wall and the hand, lowering it until it bit into the shaft of the nail. Steve stopped talking and went still. His eyes rested on her face. She moved the saw back and forth experimentally once or twice. He'd gone curiously quiet. She adjusted the blade and felt it lock into the metal, knew it was right, and began to saw.

'Sally,' he whispered suddenly, while she worked, 'I really need you.'

Her eyes shot to him and she saw something she'd never seen in them before something naked and scared. When he had said 'need' he had meant more than just needing her to cut him away from the wall. It was a bigger 'need' than that. She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could the blade slipped through the metal and the nail came apart. Steve's hand dropped and the head of the nail fell out of it. He took a couple of steps back and she jumped off the chair and caught him, lifted the hand and held wads of kitchen towels round it to stem the blood. She made him sit down, his hand positioned on his shoulder.

'Take deep breaths.'

He shook his head. His T-s.h.i.+rt had dark circles of sweat at the neck and under the arms. There was a fine spatter of blood on the floor and the tools were scattered all over the place. After a minute or two, he spoke. 'Yesterday was the most f.u.c.king awful day, Sally.'

'Yes.' She crouched, peering up into his grey face. 'Something's happened, hasn't it?'

He looked up at the ceiling as if he was trying to find a steady place to rest his eyes and keep everything together. 'It's work. f.u.c.king c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p c.r.a.p.'

'Is it America?'

'No. G.o.d, no that's a breeze. It was the meeting. In London. With ... You know who I was meeting.'

Mooney, she thought. I was right. 'What happened?'

There was a long silence. Then he turned his grey eyes back to her and looked at her seriously. 'I got offered a novel way to earn thirty K. No tax. Would solve all your problems in the blink of an eye.'

'What?'

'Killing David Goldrab.'

She put her head to one side and gave a small smile. 'Yeah,' she said. 'Right. I'll kill him and you steal all his champagne.'

Steve didn't laugh, just went on staring at her.

'What? You look weird, Steve. Don't scare me.'

'But I'm serious. That's what they offered me at the meeting yesterday. I sat in the Wolseley in Piccadilly drinking two-hundred-quid-a-bottle champagne and got offered thirty K to off David Goldrab. I told you it was going to be dark.'

They stared at each other, stony-faced with shock.

After a moment he shook his head. 'No forget it. I didn't say that.'

'Yes, you did.' She straightened, groped blindly for the sofa behind her. Sat down with a b.u.mp on the arm. 'It's not true is it?'

His eyes flickered across her face. 'Good G.o.d, Sally, what the h.e.l.l have I wandered into?' His shoulders slumped wearily. 'It's like being in a b.l.o.o.d.y Tarantino movie.'

'You're serious? You're really serious?'

'f.u.c.k, yes. Yes Yes.'

'Do people really do things like that? In real life?'

He shrugged, as mystified as she was. 'Apparently. I mean, Christ, I always kind of knew it happened from time to time to people in my job. You'd hear about it this and that bent PI giving some ex-IRA guy ten K to drive a Range Rover over someone's wife in their driveway. Just like I always knew the really s.h.i.+t stuff in life existed. The reality of all the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who walk the streets unchallenged. They're not stopped because they're dressed in Armani suits, drive high-end Audis and get called "sir", but they're psychos just the same, for their ruthlessness and for the scalps they take. I knew all that that lives were being destroyed under the veneer. I knew complete and utter bare-faced greed really existed. And on some level I knew things like this must happen. People must get killed for a price.' He leaned back in the chair, clutching his hand. 'I just never, ever ever, thought it would come near me.'

Sally let all her breath out. She gazed up at the ceiling, spent time fitting this into her head. After a while, when neither of them had moved, she said, 'Steve?'

'What?'

'Those people. Weren't they nervous when you said no?'

He was silent for a moment. Then he unwrapped his hand and inspected the wound. Licked his finger and rubbed at the blood.

She lowered her chin and squinted at him. 'Steve?'

'What?'

'You did say no. Didn't you?'

'Of course I did.' He didn't meet her eyes. 'What else do you think I'd have said?'

30.

Zoe strode down the corridor from the incident room to find five teenagers standing moodily outside her office. The three boys had spiked hair and wore their school trousers belted under their skinny b.u.t.tocks. The girls were straight out of St Trinian's, with school skirts rolled up at the waist to show their legs and s.h.i.+rts tied at the waist like Daisy Duke.

'Auntie Zoe?' said the smaller of the two girls. 'I'm sorry to bother you.'

That stopped Zoe in her tracks. She leaned a little closer, peering at the girl. 'Millie? Jesus. I didn't recognize you.' Jesus. I didn't recognize you.'

'What's wrong with me?' Millie put both hands on her hair, as if to check it was still there. 'What?'

'Nothing. I just ...' She'd only ever seen Millie in photos Mum and Dad had sent, and twice in the flesh, in the street, just in pa.s.sing. But she was pretty really pretty. It took a moment for Zoe to gather her wits. 'What do you want? Aren't you supposed to be in school?'

'The headmaster let us come here. We've been waiting to speak to you. Can we do it in private?'

'Yes. Of course. Come in, come in.' She unlocked her office and kicked the door open, scanned the room quickly for anything the kids shouldn't see post-mortem photos or notes on Lorne's case. 'There aren't any chairs. Sorry about that.'

''S OK,' said the tallest boy. 'We won't be staying.'

Zoe closed the door. Then she sat on the desk and regarded them all carefully. She had to stop herself staring directly at Millie, though she monitored her out of the corner of her eye. Was it her imagination or did Millie look more like her, Zoe, and less like Sally? 'What can I do for you all?'

'We need some help,' said the tall boy. He was blond and good-looking. You could tell from the body language of the rest of the group that he was the alpha male. That he threw his weight around and generally got what he wanted. 'It's about Lorne Wood.'

'Right.' Zoe glanced cautiously from face to face. 'OK. And I take it from the way we're all standing here, the way that you approached me, that you want, for the time being, to have a private chat?'

'For the time being.'

'That's fair enough. But before we start I'd like to get your names. I give you my word it won't go any further. Here.' She pulled out a spiral-bound jotter and handed the bigger boy a pen. He studied it for a moment, unsure. Zoe nodded. 'You have my word,' she repeated. 'You really do.'

Reluctantly he took it, bent over the desk and wrote Peter Cyrus Peter Cyrus. He handed the pen to Millie, who glanced at Zoe, looked about to say something, but instead bent over and wrote Millie Benedict Millie Benedict. Benedict, Zoe noticed, not Ca.s.sidy. So it was true what she'd heard: Sally really had divorced Julian. And here was Millie using Sally's name instead of her father's. What did that say about the separation?

The other teenagers lined up and took turns to write on the pad.

Nial Sweetman, Sophie Sweetman, Ralph Hernandez.

Ralph Hernandez.

Zoe stared at the name, moving her jaw from side to side. She put on a calm smile and raised her head to him. She hadn't taken much notice of him until now. He was slight, medium height, with wiry dark hair and olive skin. Apart from his tie, which was knotted the way they all seemed to these days, puffed up and wide, like some seventies TV cop's, he was dressed more conventionally than the others, in that at least his trousers appeared to almost fit him and the spikes in his hair weren't totally outlandish. His fierce brown eyes were bloodshot.

'So.' She forced her voice to sound casual. 'What can I do for you all?'

There was a moment's silence. Then the one called Nial nudged the one called Peter. Sophie and Millie kept still, their eyes on the floor. Ralph rubbed the back of his sleeve nervously across his forehead.

'It's like this,' said Peter. 'Ralph's scared.'

'Concerned,' Ralph corrected. 'A little concerned. That's all.'

'I see. And why are you concerned?'

'I was ...' He scratched his arms. 'I was ...'

'He was with Lorne,' Peter said, 'the night she was killed.'

Zoe cupped her chin with her fingers. Gave the teenagers a ruminative look. In her chest her heart was knocking like a tomtom. Here was Debbie and Ben's 'killer'. All five foot ten of him. And meanwhile, if she was right about that message on Lorne, the real killer was out there somewhere. Maybe thinking about number two. 'OK,' she said calmly. 'And obviously there was a reason you didn't mention this before.'

'I've never told my parents I'd got a girlfriend. And Lorne never told anyone about me either. It was supposed to be a secret.'

'His parents are Catholic. They find that sort of thing a bit you know.'

'Can you help him?' Nial asked. 'He doesn't know what to do.'

'Help? I'm not sure about help. This is serious. I know you know that you're not stupid. But we'll take this slowly. Ralph, Lorne was your girlfriend. How long had you been seeing her?'

'Only a couple of weeks. But I loved her. I mean that. She was the one for me.' There was something tight in his voice that said he wasn't lying. 'Please,' he said, and for a moment he sounded like a little kid. A kid left out in the rain and begging to come inside. 'Please, I just don't know what to do.' He straightened against the wall and put his head back against the plaster, shaking it. 'Honestly, I think I'd be better off dead.'

'Come on,' she said, leaning forward, 'let's take a deep breath, shall we?' Technically she should be thinking about calling in the child-protection units, with a minor saying things about wanting to die, but she'd never get the story out of him if she did that. 'OK? You OK?'

After a moment or two he licked his lips and muttered, 'Yeah.'

'And calmly now, Ralph, just calmly, knowing how awful you feel about all of this, and knowing how much you want to help us catch whoever did this to Lorne, take me through what happened that night.'

The room fell quiet. All the other teenagers had their attention on him. He lowered his eyes to his hands, which he held in tight fists. 'She told her mum she was shopping, but actually she was meeting me. Up near Beckford's Tower. Where we always met.'

Beckford's. The great Victorian monument that drunken farmers were supposed to have used to find their way home at night, with its neocla.s.sical belvedere, its gilded lantern. It stood in a cemetery at the top of Lansdown and could be seen from all across the city. It was also on one of the bus routes that came through the stop near the ca.n.a.l. Zoe sighed. Lorne must have been on the bus because she'd been up at Beckford's with Ralph. 'So, what time was that?'

'About five thirty, I think.'

'How long were you there?'

'I'm really not sure. It could have been an hour. It could have been an hour and a half.'

'You don't know?'

'I didn't check my watch. I just didn't. Otherwise I'd tell you.'

So, up to ninety minutes maximum. Add to that the ten minutes or so bus ride to the centre of town and there was still the outside chance Lorne had gone somewhere after leaving Ralph before going to the ca.n.a.l.