and saw her wallet had spilled out of her jacket. She paused, the tissue wodged on the floor. Peeping out from one of the compartments was a curved pink sliver of card: the top of the business card she’d been given at Zebedee Juice.
‘
34
When Sally came out of Millie’s room she was surprised to find Nial in the kitchen, standing awkwardly near the table, arms folded, head lowered. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘Yeah I… I sort of needed to make myself scarce.’ He gestured out of the window to where the van was parked. ‘They needed a bit of time. You know, before I drop Peter home.’
She looked up and saw Peter and Sophie on the back seat of the van, locked together in a kiss. Peter must have been standing up because he looked much bigger and taller than Sophie, bearing down on her, pushing her into the seat with his mouth. Sophie wasn’t resisting. In fact, quite the opposite. She was clinging to his neck as if she was afraid he’d disappear. There were a few moments of uneasy silence. Then Nial cleared his throat, said in a small voice, ‘She’s in love with him, isn’t she?’
‘It certainly looks like it.’
‘I don’t mean Sophie, I mean Millie. Millie’s in love with Peter.’
She turned woodenly to him, hardly believing what she thought he was saying. ‘Nial?’ she said curiously. ‘You don’t mean you…’
He gave a weak, embarrassed smile. ‘Yeah, well – nothing I can do about it, is there?’
She stared back at him. Good God, what a mess. No reciprocity – no returns. Sophie in love with Peter, Millie in love with Peter, and Nial in love with Millie. Poor little Nial. It was like watching elephants in a circus ring, each with its trunk linked round the tail of the animal in front, plodding on, blind to the futility of it all. Really and truly, life just wasn’t fair.
She sighed. ‘Oh, God, you’re probably right. At the moment. But you wait. You wait.’
‘What?’
‘One day, Nial, Millie will see you in a different light. I promise you that.’
He blinked. ‘Do you?’
‘Oh, yes – oh, yes.’ And in saying it she prayed, with all the hope in the world, that she was right.
35
Zoe had taken a sleeping pill last night – she’d needed something, anything, to help escape the persistent voice in her head. At first it had been bliss, sending her sliding over the edge into oblivion. But she woke with a jolt five hours later, the first light of dawn at the window and the same clawing pain in her centre that she’d gone to sleep with. She didn’t look at her reflection when she got dressed. She sat on the edge of the bed and carefully wound a bandage around the wound on her arm, holding its end in her teeth. She selected a heavy black-cotton shirt with sleeves that buttoned securely at the wrists. She pushed her arm into it gingerly, not wanting to make it bleed again. She was an old hand at this.
She drove across town with the radio on, trying to keep her mood up, but the sight of the battered sign in the doorway of Holden’s Agency, the steps up to it, covered with chewing gum and stained with God only knew what, sent her resilience for the day down another notch. She hesitated – suddenly reluctant. But it was too late. Through the wire-meshed glass the man inside had noticed her. He came to the door and swung it open. He was suntanned, in his sixties, wearing a cheap pinstriped suit and a neat white shirt that were both a size too small. He was obviously trying to beat the smoking habit, because he had a Nicorette inhalator tucked in his breast pocket and the faint tang of tobacco smoke lingering around him.
‘Hi.’ He gave her his hand to shake. It was huge and meaty and he had the big grin of a Texan car salesman. She expected him to say, ‘How can I be of assistance to you, ma’am?’
‘Zoe,’ she said.
‘Mike. Mike Holden. What can I do you for? You’re not looking for the health-food shop, are you? It’s round the corner.’
‘No – I-’ She fumbled for her warrant card. Gave it a quick flash. ‘I’m from CID. In Bath.’
Holden paused at the sight of it. ‘Wendy? Is it Wendy? Has something happened to her? Just say it if it has. I’ve been preparing myself.’
‘Wendy? No. It’s an investigation. Something that happened in Bath. No bad news.’
He took a step back, breathing slowly, calming himself. ‘That’s good. Good.’ He looked her up and down – seemed to notice her for the first time. ‘I’m sorry – no manners. You’d better come in.’
The office was clean and less depressing than it was on the outside. It had the smell of a kitchen showroom, with industrial-grade brown carpet and a few pieces of furniture that looked a little lost in the large area. On one wall there was a line of framed black-and-white prints. Girls in bikinis, girls in swimsuits. Nothing topless.
‘You’re a model agency.’
Holden nodded. He sat at his desk, gestured for her to take a chair and turned a book towards her. ‘Our portfolio.’
She leafed through it and saw what the manager at Zebedee Juice had meant. These were nothing like the feral, challenging creatures on the morphing screen. These were pretty, sexy and well fed. Lorne would fit well in this portfolio. ‘Some of them are topless.’
He nodded. ‘That’s what we do. Everything from swimsuits to lingerie to page three. This year we’ve had two girls in the Pirelli calendar and we’ve had page three eighteen times. The West Country produces some of the best- looking girls in the land. It’s the warmth and the rain.’ He winked. ‘And the clotted cream. You know – all that fat.’
‘These girls, these models, do they go further than topless?’
‘Of course. The human body is a great instrument for artistic expression. If a girl is liberated, comfortable being naked, then she can get a lot of satisfaction from this sort of work. Most of them love it – really love it.’
‘Do you believe that? Or, rather, do you expect me to believe that? I mean, really they’re in it for the money.’
He was silent. Only his jaw showed agitation: it moved, very slightly, from side to side, as if he was working a piece of food out from his teeth. At last he raised his hands. ‘You’re not stupid and neither am I. Of course not. They do it for the money. And most of the time it’s not cos they have to – it’s not cos they were trafficked, or cos they’re having to put food in the mouths of their disabled babies or their dying mothers or whatever. Not even to feed their drug addiction, because most of them are clean. No – in my experience most of the time they’re doing it cos it’s easier than standing behind a till at Top Shop for eight hours a day. Quicker and easier – and, honestly, you get more respect from the photographer than you do from your average shopper. And I say hats off to them. Not that I’ve ever, in my ten years in the business,
Actually, Mr Holden, Zoe thought, not all of them spend their money on clothes and tit jobs. Some of them spend it on escaping something. Buying their freedom. ‘Have you been watching the news? The local news? There was a murder in Bath the other day.’
‘I know. Young girl. Pretty. Lorraine, was it? Lorraine someone.’
‘Lorne. Lorne Wood. The name doesn’t ring a bell?’
He frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’
