Hanging Hill

forms from the Intelligence Bureau to the phone company. He got to a separate folder. Hesitated. ‘Not nice, this part.’

‘Fuck off, Ben, I’m a police officer too.’

He shrugged and pulled out the photos. Four of them. They showed Lorne splayed out on the ground in the nettles. In the first she was alive, her eyes on the person taking the photo. She was holding out her hand, a universal pleading gesture. Tears ran down the sides of her face and her nose was thick and crusted with blood. In the second picture she was still alive, but the silver gaffer tape holding the ball in her mouth was there, and her expression had changed utterly. In this one she knew she was dying.

‘These were taken on her own phone. He didn’t even bother to hide them. But…’ Ben shuffled the papers ‘… something was hidden on the phone. You’ve heard of data-recovery software? The boys in High Tech use it to find all the kiddie-porn the perverts think they’ve got rid of by hitting Delete. We used it on the phone. Didn’t find much that had been hidden. Except three texts that had been deleted the morning after she died.’

He held out the paper to Zoe, pointed to the places that had been highlighted in pink. She read: Hi L. Good 2 cu 2day. U looked hot. Spk soon

Then, lower down: don’t u fucking bother to acknowledge ur mates any more? I’m not a rapist u know – grin – not going to lay a hand on u. U looked lovely. i think u r lovely i love u. 4 true

And on the last page: This is pain like I never knew you give me pain babe. Don’t ever think it isn’t true

‘These were deleted?’

‘Yes. Nothing exactly incriminating in them, is there? Apart from the fact they were deleted. Which kind of puts a red light over them.’

Zoe couldn’t drag her eyes away from the photo of Lorne looking into the camera. Her expression looked as if she still wasn’t sure whether this was a joke or not. As if she was thinking, He’s not serious. He’s going to stop it and let me go.

‘You think this person – the text person-’

‘He set Kelvin up. Planted the fleece, the phone and the earring at his house. Probably cannot believe his luck that Kelvin’s dead – that he’s not around to deny it all.’

‘Is there a name?’ She shuffled through the pages. ‘He doesn’t sign the texts. Is there a name?’

‘A number – look here.’ He put a finger on a number that had been highlighted in green. ‘But no name. The computer geeks think the address list was copied over – nothing they can do to recover it.’

Zoe pushed the papers aside. She put her hands to her temples, thinking hard. The words Kelvin had said when he found her in his house came back: Don’t think you’ll get away with this again. As if he’d known someone had broken into his house before her. Damn it all to hell, why hadn’t she thought of all this before? Someone else out there? Someone who had done this unspeakable thing to Lorne? And Kelvin just set up? Kelvin just the lout, the one capable of assault and battery, maybe, of doing what he’d done to her, but not capable of killing a teenage girl?

‘OK,’ she said, after a while. ‘We dial it.’

Ben smiled. ‘I love you. Here’s the phone.’

She took it from him, set it to speaker, tapped in *67 to block her phone from registering on caller ID, then dialled the number. She gazed out of the window as the call connected. There was a line of puffy clouds moving across the horizon above Bath. A pigeon sat on the window-ledge, watching her beadily. The phone rang and rang in the silence. They were just starting to expect an answerphone message when the phone clicked and a voice said, ‘Hello?’

Ben held a finger to his lips, but Zoe cancelled the call and sat back, dropping the phone on the table with a clatter. She was cold. So cold she was shaking. She’d been wrong. All along she had been wrong and Debbie and Ben had been right.

‘Why did you do that?’ Ben said, standing up. ‘Why the hell did you hang up? He might never answer again.’

‘We don’t need to call again. I know whose voice that was.’

6

Sally was helping Millie sort out the containers of juice and crisps and the hopeful bags of fruit she’d insisted on putting in. They got the picnic hamper half into the camper, then found it wouldn’t go any further. Sally looked to the front of the van for Nial to help. He was at the offside wheel, prodding the tyre with his foot, his phone up to his ear.

‘Hello?’ He went to the driver’s seat and leaned inside to turn off the music. ‘Hello?’ he said into the phone.

‘Who is it?’ called Millie. ‘Peter?’

‘I don’t know.’ Nial gave the screen a look. He switched the phone off and put it in the back pocket of his jeans.

‘Nial?’ Sally said. ‘Any chance you could help us back here…?’

He came round to them, took the hamper and gave it a good shove inside. Then the three of them piled all the sleeping bags and cagoules on top of it. Nial slammed the door and smiled. ‘I suppose that’s us, then.’

‘Wait.’ Sally fished in the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a pack of cards. ‘Since you’re going to be hippies for the whole weekend, I thought you might like these.’

Millie swooped on them. ‘Your tarots? Mum – you can’t. They took ages.’

‘It’s OK. My new company have copies of them. In fact, next year you might even see them on the stalls at Glasto. Please.’ She pushed them at her. ‘I want you to have them. Enjoy them.’

‘Oh, Mum. Mum!’ Millie jumped up and down like a three-year-old. She tipped them out of the box and began shuffling through them, holding them out for Nial to see. ‘Do you remember these? Look – there’s me. The Princess of Wands.’

‘What happened to it?’ Nial frowned at the card. ‘Her face is ruined.’

Sally smiled, thinking of how scared that image had made her when she’d first seen it. She’d painted a new card for the printers, but she hadn’t got rid of the original. It had no power over her now. ‘I don’t know. It’s nothing. There are others of her.’

‘The Magus and the Priestess.’ Millie was still happily flicking through the cards. ‘And – oh, my God, that’s Dad, isn’t it? Dad, and – bleck – Melissa. And Sophie, and Pete. And look – here’s you, Nial.’

Nial took the card from her and studied it.

‘Do you like it?’ Sally asked.

‘It’s great.’ He turned the card to the light and inspected it, looked at the places the pegs had left a mark where it had been hung up to dry. ‘The Prince of Swords. What does it mean?’

‘It means clever,’ said Millie.

‘And intelligent,’ Sally added.

‘Except,’ Millie said, ‘if you turn it upside down it means treacherous and untrustworthy. The trickster.’ She laughed the open-mouthed little-kid’s laugh she still hadn’t ironed out, no matter how cool she tried to be. ‘See? Mum, you always had Nial sussed. The trickster.’

‘That’s me,’ Nial said, handing back the two cards. ‘The trickster.’

Millie pushed all the cards back into their box and put them on the dashboard. In the house the phone was ringing.

‘Aren’t you going to get that?’ Nial said. ‘Cos we’ve got to go. Got to get that space. The ravers, they are a- coming.’

‘I’ll get it later – they can leave a message.’

Nial got into the van and put the key in the ignition. Millie clambered into the passenger seat next to him. She’d found a ridiculous Stetson somewhere and now she opened the window and waved it out. ‘Yee-hah, Mum. Yee- hah.’