Hanging Hill

‘This is going to get some CSI into a world of trouble.’ Zoe pulled the scarf out of her pocket. ‘Don’t like doing it.’

‘CSI?’

‘The crime-scene guys who are supposed to’ve searched this site. If it works I’m going to have some serious karma to pay back.’ She bit her lip and surveyed the clearing, then nodded back towards the path. ‘You stay here. Watch the canal. If anyone comes, don’t shout, just walk back in here to me. We’ll go out that way – between the trees. OK?’

‘OK.’

Sally stood, hands in her pockets, glancing up and down the path where the puddles reflected the light of the barges. Behind her, Zoe made her way through the undergrowth. She’d told a colleague in her team what they were doing. Ben, his name was. He didn’t know anything about what had happened to David Goldrab – that was always going to be a secret between the sisters – but he did know what Kelvin had done to Zoe and to Lorne. Sally felt a little better knowing someone else was helping; not that Zoe wasn’t capable all on her own. She looked back and saw her in the clearing, on tiptoe, draping the scarf over a tree branch. Totally capable. A few moments later she trudged back to Sally, wiping her hands as she came.

‘Anyone?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t think it’s going to rain again.’ Zoe looked up at the sky as they began to walk to the car. A little cloudy still. The moon was sending down a cool, diffuse light that gave everything monster outlines. ‘I really don’t.’ She fished in her pocket for her phone and pushed a key. ‘But I’ll need to tell Ben to make sure someone finds it ASAP.’

Sally kept walking, watching her sister out of the corner of her eye. She sensed Ben was more than just a trusted friend to her.

Then the call connected and she heard a man’s voice – Ben, she supposed – speaking excitedly. She heard the words ‘I was just about to call you,’ then something inaudible that made Zoe stop dead in her tracks. Sally paused too, and turned to her sister.

‘Are you sure?’ Zoe muttered into the phone. Her expression had changed completely. ‘A hundred per cent?’

‘What?’ Sally hissed. ‘What is it?’

Zoe flapped a hand at her to be quiet. She turned away and walked a few steps in the opposite direction, her finger in her ear so she could hear better what Ben was saying. She listened for a while, then muttered a few short questions. When she hung up, she came back at a trot, beckoning to Sally to get back to the car.

‘Zoe?’ she said, breaking into a jog alongside her. ‘What?’

‘Ben’s in Gloucester docks.’

‘And?’

‘Kelvin’s got a mate – a friend from the army who owns a barge moored there.’

‘A barge?’

‘We were looking for a barge right from the beginning. Thought there had been a houseboat here that night. This has to be the same one. It’s locked. Ben’s waiting for Gloucestershire Support Group boys to arrive and break in but…’

‘But what?’

‘He thinks there’s someone inside it. I think we’ve found him. I think we’ve found Kelvin.’

42

Sally drove fast up Lansdown Hill, Zoe in the passenger seat, drumming her fingers on the steering-wheel, glancing at the dashboard clock, calculating how long it would take to get to Gloucester. The traffic was thin now. It would take less than ten minutes to pick up Millie from the Sweetmans, then for Sally to drop Zoe off at her car. From there, with luck and a tailwind, Zoe could be at the docks within the hour.

Her mind was racing. Had the barge simply motored away, on the night of Lorne’s killing, along the canal system? She scrabbled in her memory – trying to decide if the Kennet and Avon canal connected into Gloucester. She couldn’t recall – but she could remember that the Gloucester docks were less than a mile from the red-light areas of Barton Street and Midland Road. She wondered if Kelvin’s ‘army friend’ had taken the photo of that pile of dead bodies in Iraq, and what – what – would be on that barge? Her hand kept drifting to the pocket where her phone was, wanting to call Ben, because it seemed to her that whichever way she pictured the barge she also saw blood drifting away from it in the water, swirling in oily curlicues. She wanted to tell him to be careful, to wait until she got there.

Sally indicated left and turned the car into Isabelle’s long driveway. Zoe’s phone rang, making her jump. She snatched it out of her pocket. It was Ben.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine.’ He sounded rushed. Excited. She could hear he was walking. Could hear traffic going past him as if he was on a busy city road. ‘But, Zoe, where are you? Have you left yet?’

‘I’m just picking up my niece. I’ll be back at my car in five and on my way.’

‘No. Don’t come to Gloucester.’

‘What?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Shit.’ She sat back in her seat, deflated. She shot Sally a sideways glance as they bounced along the track. ‘Not there,’ she muttered. ‘Not there.’

‘How come?’

‘How come, Ben?’

‘The support team kicked the door in. His mate was on board, pissed as a parrot, but he hasn’t seen Kelvin in weeks. The barge hasn’t been anywhere near Bath, hasn’t left Gloucester in over a year – the harbour master confirmed that. So I went back to the phone thing. You know I couldn’t get anything about his mobile, needed superintendent authority on that. Well, someone at BT owes me a favour and-’

‘And?’

‘Burford made several calls to a number in Solihull this lunchtime. Turns out his sister lives there.’

‘Solihull? That’s about – what? A forty-minute drive if you take the-’

She broke off. Sally was slowing the car down and the headlights had picked out a vehicle, parked at an untidy angle up ahead in the driveway. A Land Rover.

‘That’s funny,’ Sally began, as Zoe leaned forward. ‘I thought Isabelle wasn’t-’

‘Stop!’

Sally slammed on the brakes. She stared out of the windscreen at the mud-covered Land Rover. Zoe made frantic motioning signals. ‘Go back.’ She swivelled her head to look out of the back window. ‘Go on. Do it.’

Sally slammed the gearstick into reverse and the car lurched back twenty yards, bumping over potholes and the grass verge. Ben’s voice was coming from the tinny little phone speaker. ‘Zoe? What’s happening?’

‘In there. Put it in there. Fast.’

Sally jumped the car back another ten yards, shoving it in behind a row of laurels. She switched the engine off, and killed the headlights. Zoe sat forward in her seat, peering down the driveway.

‘Zoe?’

She lifted the phone numbly, a ball of adrenalin clenched in her chest. ‘Yes.’

‘Are you OK?’

‘We’re OK,’ she said dully. ‘But listen. I really don’t think Kelvin’s in Solihull.’