womenfolk if they got caught putting it around. The men of the village would take them out and bury them up to their necks. Except instead of stoning…’ She broke off. Gave a nasty smile. ‘Nah, you’re the detective. You go and find out. But, anyway, it’s what he built his empire on. Bukkake, the nastier the better. I’ve seen some of it – looked like some sort of snuff movie, really dirty. Gritty. You’d think looking at it the girl was going to be butchered. Still, it sold by the shedload – just stacks of the stuff. Makes you wonder about human nature, don’t it?’
‘OK,’ Zoe said, very slowly, ‘what’s he doing now? Where is he?’
‘Oh, he’s mega. Mega-mega.’ She waved a hand in the air as if they were talking about a different universe. ‘Private jet, probably, servants. The works. He’s up there, now, sweetie, and there’s no taking him down.’
‘Which country?’
‘Here. In the UK.’
In the UK. Zoe cleared her throat. She’d just changed her mind about having a week off. ‘You mean, in this area?’
‘I think so, yes. And, believe me, if he set his eyes on a girl like that one on your photos he’d get dollar signs lighting up in his eyes. Why? What’s happened to her? Is she hurt?’
‘You don’t know his real name? Do you? London Tarn?’
Jacqui gave a low, guttural laugh. ‘No. If I knew his real name I’d be after him. For that tenner he borrowed off me in the nineties.’ She tapped another column of ash off her cigarette. ‘I mean, fifteen years. The interest he owes me, I could fly round the world. Go and say hi to my customers in South America, eh?’
38
The sun had already left the north-facing slopes outside Bath. The garden at Peppercorn Cottage would be in darkness. But the fields up at Lightpil House were slightly angled towards the sun and got more daytime. Another two or three minutes. The sun melted down over the hill, spread itself out, and then it was gone, leaving just a few flecks of grey cloud in the amber sky.
Sally couldn’t move David Goldrab’s body so she’d reversed her car to block the entrance to the parking area so it couldn’t be seen. Not that anyone ever came up here. Then she found a cardigan in the Ka, pulled it on and sat on the bonnet with her knees drawn up. She wondered what on earth to do. The muscles in David’s face had tightened, drawing his eyes wider and wider open, as if he was amazed by a rock that lay a few feet from his face. It was cold. She could hear everything around her, as if her ears were on stalks – the hedgerows, the fields, the faint shift of breeze in the grass, the dry rustle of a bird moving in the branches.
After a while she saw that the blood on her hands had dried. She did her best to flake some of it off with her nails. She cleaned off the phone, too, on the sleeves of her cardigan and dialled Isabelle’s number. ‘It’s me.’
‘Hey.’ A pause. ‘Sally? You OK?’
‘Yes. I mean – I’m…’ She used her fingers to press her lips together for a moment. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘I’m a bit… Issie, did you pick up Millie from school like you said?’
‘Yes – she’s fine.’
‘They haven’t gone out?’
‘No – they’re all watching TV. Why?’
‘Can she stay with you tonight?’
‘Of course. Sally? Is there anything I can do? You sound terrible.’
‘No. I’m fine. I’ll come and get her in the morning. And… Issie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you, Issie. For everything you are. And everything you do.’
‘Sally? Are you sure everything’s all right?’
‘I’m fine. I promise. Absolutely fine.’
She hung up. Her hands were trembling so much she had to put the phone down on the car bonnet to jab the next number into it. Steve answered after three rings and she snatched it up.
‘It’s me.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘Something’s happened. We need to speak. You need to come to me.’
‘OK…’ he said cautiously. ‘Where are you?’
‘No. I can’t – I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t say on the phone.’
There was a pause while Steve seemed to think about this. Then he said, ‘OK. Don’t. Think carefully about every word. Are you near your place?’
‘Further.’
‘Further south? Further north?’
‘North. But not far.’
‘Then you’re…’ He trailed off. ‘Oh,’ he said dully. ‘Do you mean you’re at the house of someone we’ve spoken about recently?’
‘Yes. There’s a car-parking place. Take a right fork as you come to the house. Don’t go past the front, there are cameras. Steve, can you – can you hurry?’
She hung up. A sound – very distant in the evening air – of a car revving on the road to the racecourse. Then headlights coming through the tree-line. She lowered her head, cowering, even though it would come nowhere near Lightpil. It changed gear and continued up the hill. But she pressed her forehead against the cold windscreen, trying to disappear, trying to bring something peaceful into her head. Millie’s face, maybe.
It wouldn’t come. All that came was a bright zigzagging light, like the after-image of a firework.
About ten minutes later another car on the main road indicated left and came off on the small turning. Slowly it climbed the road that snaked around the bottom of Hanging Hill. She saw the sweep of headlights and slithered off the bonnet, going to crouch behind the shrubbery at the edge of the parking area as the lights came nearer. The lights turned into the track, rattled over the cattle grid, then came to a halt. It was Steve.
He got out, and, silhouetted, tall against the darkening sky, pulled on a fleece, glancing around himself. She pushed herself out of the hedge and stood there, the cardigan wrapped tight around her to cover the blood on her clothes.
‘What?’ he whispered. ‘What’s happening?’
She didn’t answer. Head down, hands tucked into her armpits, she walked around her car and led the way into the parking area. He followed without a word, his feet crunching in the gravel. At the back of the Ford Sally stopped. Steve stood next to her and they were silent for a long time, looking at David Goldrab’s body. His running T-shirt was rucked up, showing his thick, tanned torso, his hair matted with blood. His face seemed calcified, his mouth widening around his gums. She realized she could still smell him. Just a little of his essence, streaking the grey air.
Steve crouched next to the body. Putting his bandaged hand tentatively in the gravel he leaned closer, peering at David’s face. Then he rocked back on his heels and wiped his hands. ‘Jesus. Jesus.’
‘There was an argument. He followed me out to the car and hit me on the back of the head. He was forcing me into the boot. Your nail gun was in there and I had to-’ She drew her hands down her face, felt the soreness where he’d pushed her into the boot lid. ‘My God, my God, Steve. It was over so quickly. It wasn’t what I meant to happen.’
Steve let all his breath out at once. He came and hugged her. She could feel his pulse jack-hammering against her own. The awful crackle of David’s dried blood on her clothing.
‘It just happened,’ she said. ‘Just like that.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘No one’s going to believe it was an accident.’
She cried then – long, drawn-out sobs. Steve said nothing, just kept his hands on her back, rubbing her soothingly. When at last she’d stopped, he let her go and walked back to the parking area’s entrance. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out at the landscape. She knew what he was seeing – the whole of the valley spread out. The beginnings of the city on the horizon. Her childhood land. The places she’d dreamed in, the places
