Hanging Hill Part 30

35.

An odd, non-reflective sky hung over Kelvin's cottage. As if the world sensed what lived there and wanted to blanket it. To suffocate it slowly. A few rooks cawed in the lime trees on the lane, and the mill stream babbled softly. The two women sat in Sally's Ka, parked at the top of the lane next to Zoe's car, abandoned this morning in her escape. They could see down past the hedgerow, with its new soft leaves, to the front of Kelvin's cottage. It was deserted.

'It's what I expected.' Next to her, Zoe took off the sungla.s.ses Sally had lent her, tipped down the sun visor and checked her reflection in the mirror. She seemed in control but Sally knew it was an act. She used the cuff of the blouse also Sally's to dab at a cut on her mouth. She was wearing a little of Sally's makeup too some concealer over the red and grey bruises that were already starting across her right cheekbone. Eventually she shook her head, as if her appearance was a losing battle, and closed the mirror. 'It's all gone wrong for him now because I survived. It wasn't supposed to happen that way. I was supposed to die. Now he's scared. He's on the run. It's like I guessed there won't be any of Lorne's things in there. Or mine.'

Sally bit her lip and leaned forward a little, anxiously scanning the scene. An apple tree on the other side of David Goldrab's garden had dropped its blossom. It had blown in dirty white drifts along the lane and lay in complex scrawls around Kelvin's derelict garage. She didn't like this. Didn't like it at all. When he'd been here, in the cottage, her fear at least had been contained in one place. Now it could be anywhere anywhere out there. Like a virus released on the wind.

'What about the photos though? If he's got any evidence against me photos or something they might still be in there.'

'I promise you, there's nothing in that house. I went through it. There were pictures ... but not of you. Anyway, he's not organized enough to have done that. He'd have needed a long-range lens.'

'Are you sure?'

'I'm sure. I swear.'

Sally rubbed the gooseb.u.mps on her arms. 'Plan B, then?'

'Plan B it is. Just a few more hoops to jump through. Come on, let's get a wriggle on.'

She climbed out, got into her Mondeo and started the engine. Sally followed in the Ka, driving slowly down to the cottage. They parked at the top of the driveway. They left the doors open, keys in the ignition if Kelvin did reappear he couldn't take both cars at once. They'd have a precious few seconds to start the engine of the other to make their escape. Anyway, Zoe insisted, he wasn't going to show his face again. Not round here.

They wandered around the house, trying to find a way in. But he'd worked fast, and since Zoe had escaped he'd padlocked everything Sally had never seen so many padlocks. Some of the windows had been nailed closed, there were planks hammered across the back and front doors, and the french windows in the first-floor room had been boarded up. They found a garage neither of them had noticed before. According to Zoe, Kelvin drove a Land Rover she'd made a call in the police station and had its registration number on a sc.r.a.p of paper in her pocket but it wasn't here now. There was just an oil stain on the floor and wheel tracks outside on the ground.

Zoe stopped near the mill. She squatted down and tugged at the rusty chain that wound through a grate covering a hole. She tested the padlock. It came open with a creak.

'You do your thing,' she told Sally. She dragged the chain out of the grate and lifted it off. 'I'm going to check in there.'

She bent double and went in, disappearing from view. Sally watched her go. Then, with a glance around at the stillness, she pulled on the nitrile gloves Zoe had given her, and began to dig with the gardening fork they'd brought. The ground was soft, if stony, and soon she'd created a yellowish scar. She felt in the pocket of her duffel coat for the tin. Fingers trembling, she removed the lid and tipped out the contents. Planting the teeth had been Zoe's suggestion, which was ironic, considering how Sally hadn't done it earlier because she'd thought Zoe would have found a better way. Now Sally knew about the rapes, though, she'd changed her mind about doing the right thing by Kelvin. Zoe hadn't asked how Sally had had the nerve to remove David's teeth how she'd managed to mastermind getting rid of his body all on her own, or whether someone else was involved. Sally had a feeling she knew, though.

Now she dropped the teeth into the hole and stirred them a little, letting them mingle with the soil. She filled in the hole, covered it crudely with the turf she'd dug out. Seeing those human teeth, with their fillings and vulnerable roots, she felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. You're a monster, a voice said in her head. You've become a monster.

'Empty.' Zoe came out of the hole, doubled up, brus.h.i.+ng cobwebs from her head. 'Nothing. It's an ice house.' She rattled the padlock. Opened and closed it a couple of times. 'I don't know if this was locked before or not. I didn't try.'

Sally straightened, pushed her hands into the small of her back and bent backwards a little to get the cricks from her muscles. 'Why? Do you think there was something in there?'

'I don't know. Maybe something was. Gone now. Taken away in the Land Rover.'

'What sort of thing?'

Zoe dusted her hands off. She touched her nose tentatively, and looked up. The clouds that all day had been loitering near the horizon had, in the last few minutes, slipped almost unnoticed across the sky, thinning themselves out in a flat, opaque blanket of grey. The air seemed to have dropped several degrees in temperature almost as if winter had changed its mind and was coming back to claim the world.

'Zoe?'

She turned her eyes to Sally's. They were very dark and serious. 'Nothing. Nothing for you to worry about.'

36.

It had taken some nerve, looking at her face in the mirror, but at least her nose wasn't broken, Zoe was sure of that, and when she'd cleared the blood away she saw it just looked fat as if she'd been born that way, with a big nose and small eyes. There was a split at the top of her mouth, but it could pa.s.s as an infected cold sore. Even so she looked crazy in Sally's clothes. They were too wide in the waist and too short. After they'd been to Kelvin's the two women separated for a while Sally to speak to Millie, and Zoe to go to her house to tidy up before they met again for the next step in the plan. Visiting Philippa Wood.

Zoe parked outside her house, checked the sungla.s.ses were straight in case any of the neighbours were home, jumped out of the car and went to the front door. She had the key in the lock when she heard a voice behind her.

'Zoe?'

She turned and saw Ben coming up the path.

'Zoe?'

'Oh, no,' she muttered. 'Not now.'

She got inside and turned to slam the door, but he was already there his hand on the panel, pus.h.i.+ng at it.

'Zoe? Where the h.e.l.l have you been?'

'None of your business.' She tried to close the door, but he put his shoulder against it.

'I've tried calling.'

'My phone's broken. I dropped it. Please go away.'

'No. I want to speak to you.'

'Well, I don't want to speak to you. Go away. Please, Ben, please.'

'Only when you've listened to me.'

'Another time.'

She wedged her foot against the skirting-board of the small entrance hall and put all her weight behind the door. Ben answered with his own weight on the other side. There was a moment or two of silence when they concentrated on the struggle. Then, after a slight wavering, the door flew open and Ben walked in, his back straight, looking around as if he was quite at home and had been invited in.

'I don't appreciate this.' She walked past him, her head down. 'I really don't.'

'I'm sorry. Just let me speak. That's all I want.'

She went to the table and sat there, sungla.s.ses on, head twisted away as if she was intent on looking out of the window. She kept her elbow on the table, and her hand on the side of her head to block his view of her face.

'Ralph Hernandez didn't do it.'

'Oh,' she said dully. 'Well, whoopee to that. How do you know? Did your little fortune teller look in her crystal ball?'

'No. He had an alibi for that night. Complete stranger saw him about the time Lorne was killed. He was in Clifton, seriously considering jumping off Suicide Bridge. He didn't tell us because he didn't want his parents to know. Catholics. He'd rather lie and tell them he was out with friends than admit what was going through his head. His friends told him to lie said they'd back him up.'

'Great. Thanks for telling me.' She wriggled her fingers in a little wave. ''Bye.'

He didn't answer. A long silence rolled out. She was tempted to turn to him but she knew he'd be staring right at her.

'It seems weird saying this to the back of your head,' he said eventually, 'but I'm going to say it anyway and hope it sinks in. I'm going to say I'm sorry. About everything.'

She gave a careless shrug. 'Don't be sorry. It's a free world. You f.u.c.k, Ben, who you want to f.u.c.k. It was nice when you wanted it to be me. That changed, end of story.'

'It didn't change. That's just it. I never wanted it to be anyone but you I was f.u.c.king. Except, unlike you, I wanted it to be something more than just d.i.c.k meeting p.u.s.s.y. I wanted more than that. Of course, in your world that's some kind of failure.'

Zoe didn't answer. She stared out of the window at the cars all parked there.

'But I've thought about it and thought about it, and from where I'm sitting I haven't committed a crime. It's not wrong to want something more, is it? I thought that was how the world went round.'

'I don't know,' she said, in a dry voice. 'Whatever floats your boat. But all of this is academic because it's too late now.'

'Debbie, you mean?'

'Miss Personality.'

'I'm not stupid, Zoe. I can see through her.'

'Can you? Interesting. What do you see?'

He sighed. 'Probably the same as you see. You can't trust anything she says. She didn't know what she was talking about with Ralph Hernandez and now she's walking round the office like she owns it, turning up to every meeting. A sterling careerist.'

'Oh, you noticed.'

'And the truth is, I don't even fancy her.'

'You did well, then, you know, to sleep with someone you didn't fancy.'

'You've never had an anger s.h.a.g?'

She nearly turned to him then. 'A what what?'

'I was angry with you. I was doing anything I could to get you out of my head. You're in my head, Zoe. I can't get you out. I wish I could, but I can't.'

'Sorry I'm not more impressed.' She shook her head. Her neck was stiff and painful. As if she had a fever. 'It's just if I was fixated on someone the last thing I could do is sleep with someone else.'

'Well, I'm a man and you're a woman. So maybe you wouldn't understand. And how the h.e.l.l would you know what you could and couldn't do? You've never been fixated on anyone in your life.'

She was silent, her teeth clenched so tight she thought they might crack. 'Have you finished now?' she murmured eventually.

'Look at me, Zoe.' He sat down opposite her.

She twisted her head further away, bent it slightly and pretended to be scratching her scalp.

'Just look at me. Is that so difficult? Come on.' He reached out and took her arm. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, but he leaned forward and grabbed it again, this time brus.h.i.+ng against the sungla.s.ses, knocking them slightly. She fumbled up her free hand to push them back on, but he'd already seen. He sat back on the chair, the air knocked out of him. 'Jesus. What the h.e.l.l?'

's.h.i.+t, Ben.' She sat with her head lowered, pressing the gla.s.ses against her face. 'I mean, s.h.i.+t, I asked you not to come in.'

'What the f.u.c.k happened to you?'

'It doesn't matter. Really it doesn't matter.'

He slammed his hands on the table and stood up so he was towering above her. 'Yes, it does does matter, Zoe. It matter, Zoe. It does does matter. I matter. I am am allowed to give a toss about you. Handcuff me, read me my rights, but I do.' allowed to give a toss about you. Handcuff me, read me my rights, but I do.'

She could feel herself trembling could feel a cold, hard ball of something ease its way into her throat. 'There's no need to be like that,' she said evenly.

'Just tell me. Who did it? Where did you report it?'

'I haven't,' she mumbled.

'What?'

'I said I haven't reported it. OK?' She sat back a bit, rubbing her arms, embarra.s.sed. She was going to end up crying again if she wasn't careful. 'And I'm not going to. I keep saying it doesn't matter. Please leave it.'

Ben was silent for a long time. Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket. 'I'm going to report it.' He was jabbing in a number. 'Whoever did that needs to be spoken to.'

'No.' She made a lunge for the phone, throwing herself across the table.

He twisted away, holding it out of her reach. 'Then tell me who did it. Or I report it.'

'Please, Ben.' She was definitely going to cry now. 'Jesus. Just please.' She pushed her chair back with a squeal and stood up. Everything was spiralling away, getting out of control. 'Just please, please please-'

'Please what?'

'Just please don't,' she begged. 'Don't call anyone.'

37.

Sally felt like a wire stretched to its limit. She was shaking with tension and her jaw kept clicking as she drove, as if she was cold. The dark clouds had got even lower and were leaching a fine, almost invisible drizzle, but the lights were on in the windows when she arrived at the school, fighting the oncoming gloom. It looked so homely, the school, so normal that her throat tightened. That normality the simple, unremarkable fact of doors closed, lights on, coats hanging on hooks and hockey boots lying in muddy heaps all of that might never come back to her. She might have stepped out of its reach for ever.

She phoned and managed to catch Millie on her afternoon break. She said she could sneak out for a few minutes no one would notice. Sally waited at the gate, clutching her umbrella. She couldn't help checking around the street to make sure no one was watching her. She wasn't good at hiding things she didn't know how people did it.

'Hi, Mum.' Millie's expression was bright. But when she saw her mother's face the smile dropped. 'Oh. Are you OK?'

'I'm fine. Are you?'

'No, you're not. What's up?'