Hanging Hill

She pushed the door open. He was sitting at his desk, his elbows planted on either side of the stack of paperwork. He faced her but, she noticed, his eyes didn’t meet hers. There was a blank, polite smile pasted on his face. ‘What’s happening?’ she said.

‘With?’

‘You know what with. With Ralph. Are you still interviewing him? Did you get him an appropriate adult from Social Services?’

‘He’s seventeen. Doesn’t need one.’

‘I promised him his parents wouldn’t be involved. Not unless he agreed to it.’

‘Yes. And that’s what we’re working on. Him agreeing to it. They’re going to find out eventually.’

Zoe let all the air out of her lungs. She came forward and sat on the chair opposite him. Ben eyed her, one of his eyebrows slightly raised, as if he really didn’t appreciate the way she was making herself at home. ‘It’s not him,’ she said. ‘It’s just not. He’s too young. Don’t you remember, all those courses – how these sorts of crimes take time to build? He’s just a kid. He nicely and neatly fits a profile you’ve been sold, but it’s a flawed profile. Please see that. It’s flawed.’

Ben gave her a calm smile. ‘I like to think I’m too much of a professional to be trammelled by psychological profiling, flawed or not. That would be a huge mistake – remember what our trainers used to say? “To assume makes an ass out of you and me.”’

Zoe sighed. ‘Come on, Ben – I know you too well.’

He tapped his pen on the desk. ‘Ralph Hernandez is a person of interest. That’s all I can say at this point.’

‘A “person of interest”? Oh, for God’s sake – you are such a bloody moron it’s just not true.’

‘Am I, Zoe? Have you got any better leads than this?’

‘I gave you this “lead”. I handed it to you on a plate and I really, really thought you’d do the honourable thing. Just goes to show how much I know about the world, doesn’t it?’

At that moment the door opened. Zoe swivelled round. Debbie was standing there, serene in her white lacy clothes. She had started to speak, but when she saw Zoe her face changed. ‘Aaah,’ she said apologetically. ‘Sorry.’ She held up a hand and backed out of the room. ‘Crap timing – not my strong point.’

She closed the door. There was a moment’s silence. Then Zoe turned back to face Ben. She shook her head and gave a small, mirthless laugh. ‘Funny,’ she said. ‘You never usually let anyone in without knocking. Unless they’re… you know…’ She made her hands into a cup on the desk. ‘Unless they’re inner circle. Is she inner circle now?’

Ben stared back at her stonily. ‘Have you got any better leads than Ralph Hernandez?’

‘So whatever she says you’ll believe it? You’ll convict that kid in there because of it?’

‘My alternative is what? Choosing anyone, any route, any lead, just anyone because they don’t fit the profile she drew up? I’ve been watching your inquiries, Zoe, and what it boils down to is that you’d rather let the killer go free than have Debbie be right. So who is worse? You or me?’

Zoe’s face burned. ‘This is all because of whatever it was I said the other night, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Well, Ben, let’s be honest. One minute we were fine – doing fine. The next, everything’s gone. Just…’ she flattened her hand and mimed an aeroplane flying ‘… like that. Gone. And you’re hostile and distant, and, frankly, acting like a dickhead.’

Ben gave her a cold look. ‘We’ve got no future, Zoe.’

‘What? Because I don’t pretend to give a shit about people I really don’t give a shit about? Because I don’t make a pantomime about how caring and simpatico I bloody am? Is that my sin?’

‘Why do you have to insist you’re bad?’

‘Because I am.’

‘Why do you insist you don’t care for anything?’

‘Because I don’t. Because I don’t care for anything and I don’t need anything.’

‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘don’t jump all over me and make me feel small when I say this, but, Zoe, some people like to be needed.’

‘Like to be needed? Well, that’s not me.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘It’s not fucking bullshit.’ She pushed her chair back and leaned across the desk, putting her face close to his. ‘I drove around the world on my own. I don’t need you or anyone else. That’s why I’m solid and I’m efficient. And anyway…’ She took a breath. Tried to put a bit more width and height into her shoulders. ‘It doesn’t matter because next thing we know you’ll be having it off with Miss Cracker out there.’

He held her gaze. He had still, clear green eyes. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I already am.’

Zoe stared at him. Something inside her was falling away. Dropping and dropping down into the floor. ‘What?’ she murmured. ‘What did you say?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But it’s true.’

She was motionless, absolutely speechless. The scars on her arms ached, made her want to rip her sleeves up, but she held herself steady. She wouldn’t let him know he’d poleaxed her.

‘OK,’ she managed to say. ‘Then I suppose it’s time I went.’

He nodded. The politeness, the openness of the nod, was the worst of it. This wasn’t hurting him at all.

‘But I’m right about Ralph,’ she said. ‘One hundred per cent right. He didn’t kill Lorne.’

‘Of course, Zoe.’ He turned his computer screen around and put on his glasses. ‘You’re always right.’

32

Sally called the NHS helpline. The woman she spoke to said Steve should go to his GP, but Steve had looked carefully at the wound and said that would be overreacting, that really it was just a hole in the skin, nothing more. Together they disinfected and bandaged it, cleared up the blood and put the nail gun, chisels and hacksaw into the boot of her car ready for the DIY on her house. After that they got on with lunch – eating the tuna, picking through a bowlful of mango and raspberry sorbet, drinking coffee, and loading the dishwasher shoulder to shoulder, all without alluding to the conversation about David Goldrab. As if they’d decided, in a curious telepathic manner, to pretend it hadn’t happened. It wasn’t that they were solemn either – in fact, they were light-hearted, making jokes about Steve’s wound going gangrenous. How would it be if he lost his arm and had to walk around like Nelson for the rest of his life? Sally wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing. If shady, raw acts like contract killings really happened, or if she’d somehow misunderstood what Steve was saying.

She got a text from Millie, who said she was getting a lift home in Nial’s camper-van, and not to worry about coming to school, she’d see her at Peppercorn. She sounded happy, not nervous. Even so, Sally still made sure she was home by four thirty, waiting by the window in plenty of time to see Nial’s half-painted van trundling along the driveway. Peter was sitting on the back seat, shades on, one arm draped casually around Sophie’s shoulders. All of them were in summer school uniform, their hair gelled, spiked and decorated as much as they could get away with at Kingsmead. The van stopped and Millie got out without a word to the others. She slammed the door and strode up the path, her face like thunder.

‘What’s going on?’

She walked straight past Sally, down the corridor, into the bedroom and slammed the door. When Sally padded softly after her and listened, she could hear muffled sobbing coming from inside. As if Millie was crying into the pillow. She opened the door, tiptoed in and sat on the end of the bed, resting her hand on Millie’s ankle. ‘Millie?’

At first Sally thought she hadn’t heard. Then Millie sat up and threw herself at her mother, arms round her neck, head pressed against her chest, like a drowning victim. Sobbing as if her heart would break.

‘What on earth’s happened?’ Sally pushed her back so she could see her face. ‘Is it him? Jake? Did you see him?’