22
It was raining so Zoe took the Mondeo. She parked near the locked gates to Sydney Gardens and prised her way through the bushes. The park was officially closed, but unofficially it was open to business. Everywhere she looked she saw young men loitering, standing casually, hands in pockets, or leaning against trees. One or two were actually sitting on the ground, lounging as if it was midday in August and not a rainy night. As she passed most of them melted away into the bushes.
The gate in the wall was set to open out on to the canal but not to allow anyone in at night. A police sign had been placed next to it, warning people that the towpath to the east was blocked due to an incident and advising them to find a different route. Zoe flicked out her torch and shone it at the ground. The rain had eased but earlier it had been heavy enough to fill to the brim the holes left by footsteps in the mud. The little pools glinted back at her in the light. She negotiated round the mud, squeezing through the bushes along the edge, and opened the gate. On the other side of the wall a single Victorian-style streetlamp threw down a yellow glow in a circle on the gravel and the canal water. Zoe ran the torch along the ground and found what she’d expected to find about ten feet away.
A slight depression spanned the path. Maybe some pipe-laying underneath had caused a dip, or a fault in the material. Whatever the cause, it had only taken the smallest amount of rain to join the scattering of puddles into one large lake. There was no way round it. You’d either have to splosh through it or take a running jump. And, she thought, looking back at the gate, if you’d just come through that gate and you were wearing shoes that had got muddy, you would probably use the opportunity to rinse off the mud.
If Lorne had come on to the towpath here she could have cleaned her shoes, and yet there’d still been mud on them when she died. Maybe there was another entrance to the canal, another place she’d stepped in the mud nearer the crime scene. Zoe set off down the path, her hood pulled up, keeping the beam on the ground, sweeping it from side to side. The temperature had dropped and smoke was coming from one or two of the barges, which had shut their doors and lit their wood-burning stoves. The chatter of TVs and the flickering blue light came through the windows.
She’d gone about three hundred yards when a small break in the trees to her left made her stop. It was a tiny space, no more than a badger run. It rose up, away from the path, then fell into darkness on the other side. Pushing aside the brambles and trees that crowded into the opening, she shone the light down. She smiled. Mud. And in it there were two clear shoe prints. They looked at a glance to be an almost exact match to Lorne’s muddied ballet pumps.
‘Oh, Lorne,’ she murmured. ‘You weren’t shopping on Saturday at all. You’ve been lying to us.’
23
The next morning Millie refused point blank to go to school. She said it was going to be crazy, anyway, with everyone talking about Lorne, and all the speculation, but Sally knew it was more to do with the guy in the purple jeep sitting outside Kingsmead. She wasn’t going to force her, but she wasn’t going to leave her at Peppercorn alone, not after last night. She called Isabelle, but she was going to be in meetings all day, so, in spite of herself, she called Julian. He too was working all day.
‘Please, Mum,’ Millie begged. ‘
She looked at Millie for a long time. This was impossible. Either take her fifteen-year-old daughter to the house of a pornographer or let her take her chances with the drug-dealing loan shark. God, what a tangled web. Still, she had to make a decision.
‘You’ll spend four hours sitting in the back of the car.’
‘I don’t care. I’ll take a book. I won’t be in the way.’
Sally sighed. ‘Go and make a sandwich. Then get dressed – and I mean
It was another fine day, the sun already high in the sky, last night’s rain just a memory, but all the way to Lightpil House Sally worried. She kept thinking about what Steve had said – about the girls in Kosovo, some of them not even women yet. And then, conversely, she started worrying that David wouldn’t let Millie stay, that they’d have to get straight back in the car and turn round, that she’d lose the extra four hundred and eighty pounds a month she’d factored into her sums.
When they pulled into the parking area Millie opened the window and leaned out, blinking in the sun and gazing up at Lightpil House as if she was driving on to a movie set. David Goldrab must have been waiting because before Sally could park he was coming down the long path to meet them. He was wearing his towelling robe and FitFlops, a glass of green tea in his hand, and a digital heart monitor on his wrist, as if he’d just come off one of the treadmills in the gym on the first floor. Sally pulled on the handbrake and watched him, wondering what he’d do when he saw Millie. Sure enough, when he caught sight of her in the front seat he frowned. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Millie,’ she said, bracing herself for an argument. ‘My daughter. She won’t get in the way.’
David bent down at the driver’s window, hands on his thighs, and gave Millie a long, appraising look. ‘You staying with us, are you?’
‘She’ll be out here in the car. She won’t bother us.’
‘Like pheasants, do you, Princess?’
Millie glanced at her mother.
‘It’s all right,’ said David. ‘It’s not a trick question. Got to learn to answer questions with honesty. If a person asks you a trick question the only person it shows up is them. So – do you like baby pheasants or not?’
‘She’s staying in the car.’
‘Sally, please. She’s not a two-year-old. She needs something to occupy herself. Won’t come to any harm – better than being cooped up in this…’ He paused and gazed at the little Ka, trying to find words to describe its lowliness. ‘Yeah. Anyway – better you run around in the sunshine, Princess. Now, answer the question. Do you like pheasants?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then I’ll show you where to go and have a look.’
‘Don’t go out of the grounds,’ Sally said. ‘And take your phone.’
Millie rolled her eyes. ‘I heard you,’ she hissed. ‘OK?’
Sally took a few deep breaths. She unbuckled her belt and got out of the car. Millie climbed out of the passenger seat and flattened her blouse with her palms, looking around, clearly impressed by everything she saw and amazed that her mother could somehow, in whatever context, be part of it.
‘See that path down there at the side of the house?’ David came round the front of the car and pointed down to the edge of the property. ‘You follow that and you’ll find a gate. There’s a padlock. Code’s 1983. My date of birth.’ He gave a laugh. Neither Sally nor Millie joined in. ‘Go through and there’s a shed. Full of the little buggers. When you’re done, come and sit on the terrace. Mum’ll make you a lemonade. Won’t you, Sally?’
Millie glanced at her mother. Sally hesitated, feeling sick. But she jerked her head to tell Millie to go. To get on with it. ‘Phone,’ she mouthed at her. ‘Keep your
With another uncertain look at David, Millie set off down the path. He folded his arms and watched her go. She was very thin in her jeans, which were big in the leg but tight on the hips, and her hair bounced and gleamed in the sunlight. Sally watched the way he was eyeing her daughter. She slammed the car door, louder than she needed to, and he turned to her with a lazy smile.
‘What? Oh, Sally, I’m disappointed. You think I’m checking her out, don’t you? What do you take me for?’ He looked back at Millie, who was just disappearing behind the flower borders. ‘Do you think I’m some kind of pervert? A man of my age? A girl of that age? She’s far, far too old for me.’
Sally stiffened and he roared with laughter, nudging her arm. ‘I’m
