Mo Hayder: Pig Island

I stood there in silence, toying with the idea of putting my fingers on the phone connectors. Instead I pulled off my coat and went and sat at the kitchen table in the semi-dark, moodily necking a bottle of Newkie Brown. The fathers outside the Crosby nightclub kept coming back to me.

'Joe?' When she finished the call she appeared in the kitchen doorway, eyes bright, chin lowered, a little-girl smile on her face. 'I've been naughty, haven't I?'

'You're going to do it?'

'Friday.'

'Friday? You really think that's safe? Before we know if it was your dad or not?'

'But it was him.'

'He looked so different.'

Her shoulders slumped. 'Not this again.'

I sighed and rubbed my temples wearily. 'I don't know. I really don't know. I don't like it.' I dropped my hands and looked at the window, thinking about the security locks on them. They hadn't been used in years — like we had anything worth robbing — and I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen the key. It was probably in the old coffee jar on the basement shelf. Danso, I told myself again, would've called if there was a problem.

'Joe,' she said, coming and putting her hands on my shoulders. She swung her leg over my legs and sat on my lap facing me, her skirt bunched up between her thighs so her legs were exposed. I could smell the coffee she'd drunk and the cold cream they'd used to take off the makeup. 'Why don't you believe me? It was him.'

'And why can't you wait until we're sure? They'll have the DNA any time now. I'm going to call Danso in the morning.'

'But it was him, Joe. And, anyway, it's not like I'm going to say anything.' She shifted a little, pulling the skirt out of the way so her bare thighs pressed against my jeans. 'I won't say where I live.'

'You're going to have to wait till I've spoken to Finn. You could mess up the contract if you're not careful. He's not going to like it.'

'He is. He'll love it.' She took my hands and eased them up under the skirt, forcing my fingers between her legs. She hadn't got knickers on. She was damp and warm and I could feel the hard pressure of the deformed leg pressing down on my knuckles. 'I promise, I promise,' she whispered, closing her eyes and moving her hips in a circular motion. 'I won't say a word about you.'

She wasn't trying to antagonize me. She totally wasn't. I wasn't in her thoughts at all, I knew that. All she was doing was wanting to be heard. She was nineteen, for Christ's sake, and if everything she did when the Mail came to interview her seemed like she was giving me the finger, it was my own fault.

I'd talked to Finn and he didn't love it. Not one bit. He'd gone through the contract with a fine-tooth comb and unless she talked about the massacre itself there wasn't a thing he could do to stop her, but he was furious. I'd called Danso over and over again and I kept getting his answer-service, so I left all these messages telling him to call me if the DNA didn't match. But he didn't get back to me. It was starting to seem like I couldn't stand in front of this landslide and hold it back. All of which made me the bad tempered-arsehole boyfriend during the Mail interview, hovering behind the journalist and signalling to Angeline over her head if I thought she was giving stuff away.

She kept losing her grip — being careless about what she was saying. At one point she said, 'I can't talk about that because Joe and I…'

'Angeline,' I said significantly, 'you're, uh-'

'Oh, yeah,' she said. 'What was I thinking? What I meant to say was…'

I spent the rest of the time staring at her furiously, waiting for the wrong word, the wrong expression. After a while she got fed up with me hovering and took the journalist into the kitchen, where the pair of them sat in a girlie huddle, drinking tea and smoking. I kept making excuses to come in: to boil the kettle, or wander through into the garden. Every time I did it they'd stop giggling and turn to me with sweet, empty smiles, waiting politely for me to go so they could get on with the interview.

I didn't know if she'd stuck to her promise until the article came out three days later. It was a Monday, and although I'd set the alarm for seven, when I woke up the bed was already empty. I knew where she'd gone — down to the newsagent's to get the paper. I was still in bed, rubbing my head and trying to wake up, when the phone rang. It was Danso, his usually austere voice weary and tense.

'Well, you sound crap.'

'I feel it. Been up all night and come straight here to the airport. We're on the Tarmac now.'

'We?'

'Me and Sancho Struthers. My travelling companion.'

'Not off to Miami, then. Or do you take him on your holidays too?'

He didn't laugh. 'Joe,' he said, 'are you going anywhere today?'

'Me? Only the corner shop. I'm staying in. Got a book to write.'

'We're on our way to Heathrow. Be with you in a couple of hours. Need a little consultation if that's OK.'

'A consultation? What's up?'

He hesitated. 'It's a lot to go into on an open line, Joe, if you're with me. Shall we hold it till we're face to face?'

I threw off the covers and swung my feet out of bed. Something in his voice had set a bell ringing in the back of my head. 'It's not him, is it? That sad sack on the slab in Dumfries, that's not Malachi. I've left messages, Peter, about this. Been waiting for you to call.'

There was a silence. Just the sound of static on the line and the steady thrum of a small-engined jet.

'Peter? Can you hear me? I said, it's not him, is it?'

'It's not him,' he said eventually. 'The DNA's wrong.'

'Fucking knew it.' I stood up. 'He found someone who looked like him. The suicide note, everything, he just wanted you off his back for a few weeks.'

'No. We don't think he did this one — think it's coincidence.' He lowered his voice — probably getting the evils from the other passengers. 'The Dumfries guy's an ex-squaddie, not been right since Desert Storm. Threatening suicide for years.'

'Peter,' I said, pacing up and down the room, tapping out the words in the air, 'how long does DNA take?'

'Not long. It's-'

'Exactly. Not long. You said Friday — that's three days ago. You've known three days, and I've left messages asking you to let me know if-'

'Joe, listen-'

'To let me know if there wasn't a match and in the meantime Angeline's gone to the fucking newspapers and given them her story.' I went to the window and flicked open the curtains, expecting to see her coming down the street. 'He'll read it this morning and know where she is and-'

I broke off. Something in the street outside had caught my eye.

'Peter?' My blood had gone a bit slow, a bit cold. 'Peter, you bastard? What's happening? What aren't you telling me?' I opened the window and leaned out, my breath steaming in the air, condensation wetting my naked shoulder. 'There's a fucking squad car in the street outside with his lights on. What the fuck's going on?'

'He's from Salusbury Road. Joe? Joe! Listen. He's just there as a precaution.'

'A precaution? Jesus fucking Christ — you'd better tell me what's going on.'

'Maybe you'll stay in the house today. You've got no reason to go out, eh? Cancel the shopping trip. I'm going to text you the number of the local nick — they know all about the situation.'

'The situation?'

'The plane's taxiing, Joe — I'm getting the evil eye from the stewardess.'

'Listen,' I hissed, 'Angeline's out. What am I going to do about-'

'Just relax. There's nothing to worry about,' he said, and the phone went dead in my hand.

I punched in 1471 then 3 but his answer-service picked up. I hung up and stared at the phone, the blood thumping in my ears. 'You bastards,' I said. 'You knew about this.' I looked out of the window. The streetlights were still on, the orange mixing with the flashing blue light. When I went to the bed and put my hand on the side where Angeline slept it was cold. The newsagent's was only a five-minute walk. Fear came up into my mouth like stomach acid.