‘Really. You did the job.’
‘But you helped. We did it together. Like partners.’
‘Don’t argue. Just take it.’
She bit her lip. Looked at the rucksack. It was bulging. Ever since Thursday night she hadn’t been able to look at a bag stuffed full of anything without picturing those carrier bags lined up on the lawn at Peppercorn. The red paste pressing against the plastic. She pulled her eyes away. Fiddled with the lid of Steve’s cafetiere.
‘Millie got another call today from Jake.’
‘That’s fine. We’ll sort it tonight.’
‘I don’t know if I want to.’
‘Well, we’re going to have to. We’ll do it tonight and tomorrow I’m going to America. You know that, don’t you, that I’m still going to America?’
She nodded.
‘Are you going to be OK?’
‘Yes,’ she said distantly. ‘I’ll be fine.’
But she wasn’t fine, of course. Her head was full of static and images. David Goldrab. The smells. The way the colour had crept into Zoe’s cheeks when she was standing in the kitchen this morning. The ‘pattern’. And now she thought that, whatever part of the pattern between humans she and Steve had made in the last few days, it was ugly and wrong. And that whatever happened now, it couldn’t be changed. The ugly, knobbly part would become an uneven, deviating vein in the fabric that would, with time, be woven over and built on, as the generations kept moving. On down the line.
16
Zoe spent the rest of the day in the office, following up leads and answering emails. She still hadn’t heard from Dominic Mooney so she put in one last call but was told he was still ‘in a meeting’. By the time she left the office the sun was low, the roofs and high windows of Bath gilded with the last of the light, as if they’d been dipped in gold. It would be dark by the time she got home. She could have a Jerry’s and ginger and watch the stars come out – on her own, while Ben and Debbie were doing whatever it was they did, wherever it was they did it. The welts and sores on her arms ached dully as she went into the car park.
She came to a halt. A guy dressed in red chinos and a blazer was standing in her way. He was very tall and thin and looked like an Asian version of David Bowie, with his jet-black hair gelled up in spikes. Even in her heeled boots she stood an inch or so shorter than him – not usual for her. She took a sidestep to go round him and he mirrored her movement, blocking her. She did it again, going left this time, and again he barred her way.
She laughed. ‘Very good. I like the way you do that.’
‘I wouldn’t laugh if I were you.’ He was from Scotland. Somewhere posh, Edinburgh perhaps. ‘If this was the movies it’d be the bit where I hit you on the head and throw you in the back of the Chrysler.’
She put her head on one side and scrutinized him. ‘Do I know you?’
‘Captain Zhang.’ He produced a card and held it up to her. ‘In the movie you’d wake up tied to a chair, a spotlight on your face. Never trust the Chinaman – don’t they teach you anything in your job?’
‘Give me that.’ She made a grab for his card, but he returned it neatly to his pocket. ‘Special Investigative Branch. SIB. But you can call us the Feds.’
‘The
‘Well, I do.’
She shrugged, tried to walk round him. He barred her way again.
‘Do you want a fight?’ she asked. ‘See who wins?’
‘I’d win.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
Zhang sighed, as if he was trying to keep his patience. ‘We need to speak to you, Inspector Benedict. We need a frank and meaningful talk about Dominic Mooney. I think if you’re patient you’ll find we’re all singing off the same hymn sheet – no need for any arm-wrestling.’
She looked at Zhang very carefully. Dominic Mooney. The MoD guy she’d called. ‘OK. You’ve got my attention now. You really have.’
‘Good.’ He fastened his blazer and smoothed the front, as if something in the encounter had made it go awry. ‘That’s what I was hoping for.’
‘So?’ She turned, opening her hand to indicate all the vehicles lined up in the car park. ‘Which boot are you going to lock me in?’
17
Twerton was Bath’s crippled cousin. Its humpbacked secret brother. No one in the nice northern squares and crescents of the city could say the name without putting on a cod country-bumpkin accent and tucking their tongue in the corner of their mouth like a congenital idiot. Anything that went wrong in the city seemed to emanate from there, or have a connection. It was where Jake the Peg could be found when he wasn’t loitering outside one of the classier public schools.
‘Whatever happens, you stay in your seat.’
In the passenger seat Sally shot a sideways look at Steve. ‘Why? What’re you going to do?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve done this before, trust me.’
She clenched the envelope between her knees, her palms sweating and slick. She’d got Millie to call Jake to tell him the money was ready, then driven her over to Isabelle’s for the evening. She and Steve had directions to where Jake was waiting, but in truth, she thought, as they pulled up, you could have found him by instinct alone. He was parked at a bus stop in front of a row of shops. One or two were open, lit with pools of light – a fish-and-chip shop, an off-licence, an all-night convenience store. Otherwise the street was dark.
Steve pulled the car up alongside so it was partly blocking the road. He didn’t seem to mind other traffic getting stuck. He didn’t seem to mind witnesses.
‘Hello.’ Engine still running, he wound down the window and held up his mobile phone to Jake. Clicked the
Jake jerked a hand in front of his face. He opened the window and leaned over, yelling, ‘What the fuck you think you’re doing? Turn the fucking thing off.’
‘Not if you want your money back.’
‘
He leaned through the window to grab the phone, but Steve held it out of his reach. ‘You take the phone, you don’t get the money.’
‘Give me the fucking phone.’ He made a swipe for it. ‘Or you can double what you owe me.’
‘Do you want the money or not?’
‘Giss the fucking phone.’
He leaned in again and this time Steve pressed the electric-window button. Jake realized what was happening just in time and pulled back to avoid being squashed. ‘Shit.
