They wandered around the house, trying to find a way in. But he’d worked fast, and since Zoe had escaped he’d padlocked everything – Sally had never seen so many padlocks. Some of the windows had been nailed closed, there were planks hammered across the back and front doors, and the french windows in the first-floor room had been boarded up. They found a garage neither of them had noticed before. According to Zoe, Kelvin drove a Land Rover – she’d made a call in the police station and had its registration number on a scrap of paper in her pocket – but it wasn’t here now. There was just an oil stain on the floor and wheel tracks outside on the ground.
Zoe stopped near the mill. She squatted down and tugged at the rusty chain that wound through a grate covering a hole. She tested the padlock. It came open with a creak.
‘You do your thing,’ she told Sally. She dragged the chain out of the grate and lifted it off. ‘I’m going to check in there.’
She bent double and went in, disappearing from view. Sally watched her go. Then, with a glance around at the stillness, she pulled on the nitrile gloves Zoe had given her, and began to dig with the gardening fork they’d brought. The ground was soft, if stony, and soon she’d created a yellowish scar. She felt in the pocket of her duffel coat for the tin. Fingers trembling, she removed the lid and tipped out the contents. Planting the teeth had been Zoe’s suggestion, which was ironic, considering how Sally hadn’t done it earlier because she’d thought Zoe would have found a better way. Now Sally knew about the rapes, though, she’d changed her mind about doing the right thing by Kelvin. Zoe hadn’t asked how Sally had had the nerve to remove David’s teeth – how she’d managed to mastermind getting rid of his body all on her own, or whether someone else was involved. Sally had a feeling she knew, though.
Now she dropped the teeth into the hole and stirred them a little, letting them mingle with the soil. She filled in the hole, covered it crudely with the turf she’d dug out. Seeing those human teeth, with their fillings and vulnerable roots, she felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. You’re a monster, a voice said in her head. You’ve become a monster.
‘Empty.’ Zoe came out of the hole, doubled up, brushing cobwebs from her head. ‘Nothing. It’s an ice house.’ She rattled the padlock. Opened and closed it a couple of times. ‘I don’t know if this was locked before or not. I didn’t try.’
Sally straightened, pushed her hands into the small of her back and bent backwards a little to get the cricks from her muscles. ‘Why? Do you think there was something in there?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe something was. Gone now. Taken away in the Land Rover.’
‘What sort of thing?’
Zoe dusted her hands off. She touched her nose tentatively, and looked up. The clouds that all day had been loitering near the horizon had, in the last few minutes, slipped almost unnoticed across the sky, thinning themselves out in a flat, opaque blanket of grey. The air seemed to have dropped several degrees in temperature – almost as if winter had changed its mind and was coming back to claim the world.
‘Zoe?’
She turned her eyes to Sally’s. They were very dark and serious. ‘Nothing. Nothing for you to worry about.’
36
It had taken some nerve, looking at her face in the mirror, but at least her nose wasn’t broken, Zoe was sure of that, and when she’d cleared the blood away she saw it just looked fat – as if she’d been born that way, with a big nose and small eyes. There was a split at the top of her mouth, but it could pass as an infected cold sore. Even so she looked crazy in Sally’s clothes. They were too wide in the waist and too short. After they’d been to Kelvin’s the two women separated for a while – Sally to speak to Millie, and Zoe to go to her house to tidy up before they met again for the next step in the plan. Visiting Philippa Wood.
Zoe parked outside her house, checked the sunglasses were straight in case any of the neighbours were home, jumped out of the car and went to the front door. She had the key in the lock when she heard a voice behind her.
‘Zoe?’
She turned and saw Ben coming up the path.
‘Zoe?’
‘Oh, no,’ she muttered. ‘Not now.’
She got inside and turned to slam the door, but he was already there – his hand on the panel, pushing at it.
‘Zoe? Where the hell have you been?’
‘None of your business.’ She tried to close the door, but he put his shoulder against it.
‘I’ve tried calling.’
‘My phone’s broken. I dropped it. Please go away.’
‘No. I want to speak to you.’
‘Well, I don’t want to speak to you. Go away. Please, Ben, please.’
‘Only when you’ve listened to me.’
‘Another time.’
She wedged her foot against the skirting-board of the small entrance hall and put all her weight behind the door. Ben answered with his own weight on the other side. There was a moment or two of silence when they concentrated on the struggle. Then, after a slight wavering, the door flew open and Ben walked in, his back straight, looking around as if he was quite at home and had been invited in.
‘I don’t appreciate this.’ She walked past him, her head down. ‘I really don’t.’
‘I’m sorry. Just let me speak. That’s all I want.’
She went to the table and sat there, sunglasses on, head twisted away as if she was intent on looking out of the window. She kept her elbow on the table, and her hand on the side of her head to block his view of her face.
‘Ralph Hernandez didn’t do it.’
‘Oh,’ she said dully. ‘Well, whoopee to that. How do you know? Did your little fortune teller look in her crystal ball?’
‘No. He had an alibi for that night. Complete stranger saw him about the time Lorne was killed. He was in Clifton, seriously considering jumping off Suicide Bridge. He didn’t tell us because he didn’t want his parents to know. Catholics. He’d rather lie and tell them he was out with friends than admit what was going through his head. His friends told him to lie – said they’d back him up.’
‘Great. Thanks for telling me.’ She wriggled her fingers in a little wave. ‘’Bye.’
He didn’t answer. A long silence rolled out. She was tempted to turn to him but she knew he’d be staring right at her.
‘It seems weird saying this to the back of your head,’ he said eventually, ‘but I’m going to say it anyway and hope it sinks in. I’m going to say I’m sorry. About everything.’
She gave a careless shrug. ‘Don’t be sorry. It’s a free world. You fuck, Ben, who you want to fuck. It was nice when you wanted it to be me. That changed, end of story.’
‘It didn’t change. That’s just it. I never wanted it to be anyone but you I was fucking. Except, unlike you, I wanted it to be something more than just dick meeting pussy. I wanted more than that. Of course, in your world that’s some kind of failure.’
Zoe didn’t answer. She stared out of the window at the cars all parked there.
‘But I’ve thought about it and thought about it, and from where I’m sitting I haven’t committed a crime. It’s not wrong to want something more, is it? I thought that was how the world went round.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, in a dry voice. ‘Whatever floats your boat. But all of this is academic because it’s too late now.’
‘Debbie, you mean?’
‘Miss Personality.’
‘I’m not stupid, Zoe. I can see through her.’
‘Can you? Interesting. What do you see?’
