Hanging Hill

She guided her inside, kicking the door closed, and helped her down the corridor. Zoe limped painfully along, grunting slightly with each step. In the bathroom Sally turned on the taps, then collected the towels Millie had left lying around that morning, and dumped them in the laundry basket.

‘Here.’ She put a clean towel around Zoe. ‘You’re shivering.’

‘I won’t outstay my welcome. I promise.’

‘Shut up.’ She switched on the heated towel rail, and brought flannels and clean towels from the airing cupboard. While the bath ran she went to the kitchen and prepared a tray with a tall jug of mineral water and a pot of coffee. Even as a child Zoe had drunk loads of coffee. Black and strong.

Back in the bathroom Zoe had peeled off her clothes and was climbing into the bath. Sally put the tray on the window-sill and watched her. It was strange enough to see another woman’s naked body in her bathroom, but to see her own sister’s. To see all the skin and muscle and flesh that Zoe walked around in, the covering that she lived in day to day and was so used to she didn’t even look at. Not so different from Sally’s, with the dimples and the small pouches and sags and records of life, except that Zoe was so tall and slim. And something else – she was covered with injuries. Welts and cuts and bruises everywhere. Some looked old, some new. She winced as she settled in the bath, soaked a flannel and held it to her face. The nails on her right hand were broken and black with blood.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Sally said. ‘More beautiful than I ever was. Mum and Dad always said you were the beautiful one.’

There was a silence. Then Zoe began to cry. She pressed the flannel into her face, leaned forward and took long, convulsive breaths, her shoulders shaking and shuddering. Sally sat on the edge of the bath and put a hand on her sister’s naked back, looking at the vertebrae standing white and sharp under her skin. She waited for the spasms to slow. For the awful, racking sobs to fade.

‘It’s OK now. It’s OK.’

‘I was raped, Sally. I was.’

Sally took a deep breath, held it, then exhaled. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Tell me.’

‘The man who killed Lorne Wood. He raped me – I got away. I’m supposed to be dead.’

‘The man who killed Lorne? But I thought Ralph Hernan-’

Zoe shook her head. ‘It wasn’t him.’

Sally didn’t move for a few moments. Then she reached for the towel. ‘You shouldn’t be in the bath. Get out. They have to test you.’

‘No.’ She pulled her knees up to her chin and hugged them. ‘No, Sally. I’m not going to the police.’

‘You’ve got to.’

‘I can’t. I can’t.’ She dropped her forehead on to her knees and cried some more, shaking her head. ‘You think I’ve been strong and independent all my life, don’t you? But that’s wrong. I was stupid. When I left school I was stupid. All the money I got to travel the world? I told Mum and Dad I’d got a magazine to pay for it – that I was working for them.’

‘The travel magazine.’

‘Oh, God – it never existed. I got the money from doing stupid stuff.’

‘Stupid stuff,’ Sally said hollowly. She was thinking about the way Millie had got her money, from Jake. That had been stupid. ‘What stupid stuff?’

‘Nightclubs. You know the sort of thing. The sort of place David Goldrab would have hung around. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done and I regret it. Oh, Christ.’ She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, avoiding touching her nose. ‘I’ve spent the rest of my life regretting it. The rest of my life.’

‘You took your clothes off? Stripping? Or pole-dancing or something?’

She nodded miserably.

Sally frowned. ‘But that’s – that’s nothing. I thought you meant something really serious.’

Zoe raised her tear-stained face, puzzled. Sally opened her hands apologetically. ‘Well, I can think of worse. It’s just…’ She faltered. ‘You? It seems so…’

‘I had to make some money fast. I had to get out of the house – you know why.’

‘But it’s the sort of thing someone would do if they…’ Sally groped for the word. ‘Well, if they didn’t much like themselves.’

There was a beat of silence. Zoe’s face was rigid. Then Sally got it.

‘But, Zoe – how could you? I mean… you’re beautiful and brave and you’re clever. So clever.’

‘Please stop saying that.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Well, I’m not very clever now, am I? I’ve been raped and I can’t do a thing about it.’

‘You can. We’re going to report it.’

‘No! I can’t. I can’t go and report this bastard to them because…’ She shook her head. ‘He knows me, this guy. From the clubs – he used to work in one of them as a handyman. He gave me the creeps, the way he was always watching me. He’d use it in his defence. I’d have to stand up in the witness box and his fucking brief would point out to everyone that I used to…’ She wiped her eyes angrily. ‘I can’t tell them. I can’t say a thing.’

Sally tapped her mouth thoughtfully with her fingernails. ‘There has to be a way. Who is he?’

‘You know him. You won’t remember him but we were at nursery school together, can you believe? Kelvin Burford. He-’

She broke off. Sally had sat forward and was gaping at her, her mouth open. ‘You’re not joking? Are you?’

‘Of course I’m not jok- What is it?’

‘Good God.’ Sally stood up. ‘Good God. Kelvin?’

‘Yes. Christ almighty, Sally.’ Zoe rubbed the tears off her face and stared at her sister. ‘What the hell have I said?’

34

Zoe had drunk all the water and the coffee and life was coming back into her now that Kelvin was washed off her. She dried herself and carefully cleaned her face with tissues and cotton buds. She dabbed some antiseptic cream on the cuts, then put on a towelling robe she found hanging on the back of the door. She did it all without looking in the mirror. From time to time she opened the door a crack and peered out into the cottage, wondering where on earth Sally had gone, what was keeping her. What the hell had she said to make her jump up like that?

After a long time there was a knock at the door. When Zoe opened it Sally was standing there in silence, holding an open bottle of wine and two glasses between her fingers. Her face was very white and serious.

‘Wine?’ said Zoe. ‘At two in the afternoon?’

‘I’ve decided to become an alcoholic. Just for the duration of my middle years.’ She filled a glass and rested it on the edge of the washbasin. ‘That’s yours.’

Zoe took it and sat on the rim of the bath, studying her sister. Something had changed in her face. She was a different person from the one who’d opened the front door to her and run the bath. As if something important had happened in the ten minutes she’d been gone. ‘Come on, then, Sally. What is it?’

There was a small pause. Then, without looking her in the eye, Sally pulled a handful of tissues out of her cardigan pocket. They were creased and dirty and had lipstick on them. She got down on the floor, pushed the bath mat away, and spread them out, making sure they were all lined up. Letters appeared – a phrase scribbled back to front. Zoe squinted and slowly made out the sentence: You won’t get away with it. Evil bitch. She shook her head, mystified. ‘I don’t get it. What’s this?’

‘Kelvin Burford. He wrote it on the seat of my car.’

She squatted down. Read it again slowly. Her head began to throb. The lipstick was the same shade as the one Kelvin had used on Lorne. But that detail hadn’t been given out to the public. No one knew about the messages in