Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

Debbie Harry, who had been sitting at the back of the room in silence, gave a delicate little cough. She looked very young and fresh and pretty, dressed in a white lace blouse, her hair tied back. ‘While speculation is a good thing, it is just that. Speculation.’

‘More speculative than saying “all like her” means everyone likes her? What if it means he’s going to go after anyone who’s like Lorne?’

‘Well,’ Debbie said, suddenly soothing, ‘I’ve always been very clear in stating my case in this forum: that my opinions are only guidance. That you really, really – all of you – must form your own conclusions. And always keep an open mind.’

‘Yes. And I heard you say that. But I might be the only one who did, because I look around and I see a whole room full of investigators all too happy to accept a bit of guidance from you because it means they don’t need to use their brains. Sorry, guys, it’s true. You’ve accepted her parameters, so if we’re really going to work this case like a psychology seminar, then let’s go for it. Let’s all of us write up a thousand interpretations of these sentences. Then have a seance to decide which is right.’

‘Hang on, hang on.’ The superintendent held up his hand. ‘There’s vindictiveness creeping in here. It’s the last thing we need.’

‘Vindictiveness?’

Debbie nodded regretfully. As if it hurt her to be attacked, but that she, the adult, was prepared to be grown-up about it. She gave Zoë a sympathetic smile. ‘Well, I didn’t want to be the one to say it, but I have wondered if I’m stirring things up for you, Detective Benedict. Just a feeling that something about me is tapping into something very painful for you.’

Zoë opened her mouth to answer, then saw that everyone was staring at her. She got it. They all thought she was jealous. Jealous of this idiotic jumped-up psychology student with her one-size-too-tight blouses and her soft hair. She shot Ben a look, half expecting, or hoping, he’d say something in her defence, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. He had focused his eyes on the photos of the sex offenders on the board as if he was far more interested in them.

‘Jesus.’ Bad-temperedly she snatched up her keys and her helmet. ‘Welcome to the new age of policing. Anyone in here who gives a shit about justice, you’d better start saying your prayers.’ She saluted the superintendent, clicked her heels together and, the team staring at her as if she was completely mad, left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Sally had decided that Millie had to go to school, whatever happened. She had some free slots at work that morning, so she drove her to Kingsmead, and promised to pick her up next to the sports hall at home time. Jake the Peg’s purple jeep was nowhere to be seen. Even so, she watched Millie all the way until she’d gone into the building.

Her job that morning was just around the corner from the school – in one of the most expensive streets in the city. Most of the houses were elegant detached villas, built in Victorian times. The Farrow and Ball paint fad had arrived here, and all the doors and windows seemed to be painted in muted greys and greens; bay trees in faux -lead pots lined either side of neat gravel paths while pots of woody lavender and rosemary were dotted everywhere. Steve had a house at the other end of the road from Sally’s cleaning job, so on Wednesdays she’d got into the habit of going on to his afterwards. Sometimes they’d eat lunch. More often they’d end up in bed.

His house was a little smaller than the others in the street, but otherwise very similar – a stone-flagged doorstep, an old-fashioned bell with a wire pulley that rang a proper chime inside. At one o’clock she stood outside, listening to the bell in the hallway and thinking about David and what had happened with Jake. She was ready to tell Steve all about it. But the moment he opened the front door, she saw the mood was all wrong.

‘Hi, gorgeous.’ He kissed her briefly, but it was a distracted kiss. Just a peck on the side of the face before he turned and went back down the corridor towards the kitchen.

She followed him thoughtfully, watching his retreating back. He was dressed in shorts and a paint-spattered T-shirt with ‘Queensland: beautiful one day, perfect the next’ printed across the back. There was something heavy about his shoulders, which wasn’t right. ‘Are you OK?’ she said, when they got into the kitchen.

‘Hmm?’

‘I said, is everything all right?’

‘Yes, yes. I was going to make you lunch – there’s tuna in the fridge – but I got busy sorting out all the tools you need for the house. And while I was going through them I got hit.’ He slapped the back of his neck, as if a mosquito had landed there. ‘Right here, by the bloody carpentry muse.’ He gestured to the adjoining living room, where dustsheets lay on the floor covered with curls of planed wood. A nail gun had been balanced on a Black & Decker Workmate and a toolkit sat under it. ‘Trying to fix that doorframe, but I’m just making a cock-up of it.’

‘I’ll cook.’ Sally unfastened her HomeMaids tabard. ‘You get on with it.’

‘Sally, I-’

‘What?’

He shook his head. Turned away. ‘Nothing. There’s, uh…’ he waved a hand vaguely at the cupboards ‘… sesame oil in the one at the end, if you want it.’

He went back to the living room. Sally folded the tabard and put it on the worktop, watching him carefully. He stopped in the doorway, looped up a professional-style tool-belt, bristling with chisels and hammer handles, and strapped it to his waist. Then he picked up the nail gun, switched it on, and began firing nails into the doorframe. He didn’t once turn to look at her. Over the months she’d learned that, from time to time, Steve had moods like this, when something would preoccupy him. One or two clients would leave him quiet and introspective for days, as if he’d peeped into a world he wished he hadn’t known about. Maybe now he was thinking about an upcoming trip he was supposed to be making on Saturday – a client in Seattle he needed to visit. That, or maybe the meeting he’d had yesterday in London: he’d been anxious about that before he’d left, before Millie had got up. He’d been vague about who he was meeting – perhaps it had been Mooney. The one whose name she was supposed to forget.

She went back to the fridge. Tuna steaks in greaseproof paper oozed red on the middle shelf. There was a pot of basil that looked to have been bought from the farmers’ market, some gherkins and, when she delved deep, an old jar of capers. She’d make salsa verde . She took the ingredients out and began to chop, her eyes sliding across the room to Steve as she worked. Every time he drove a nail into the doorframe she jumped.

She’d finished the sauce and was heating the oil in the pan with her back to the room when the sound of a nail being fired was followed by a loud clatter. She put down the pan and turned. He was standing with his side to her, his left hand placed high on the doorframe, the other pressed against the wall. The nail gun was on the floor where it had fallen, turning slowly on its axis. He had his head down and was perfectly still, except for his left leg, which was moving spasmodically up and down as if he was kicking himself. He looked sideways at her, his face grey, pinched.

‘Think I’ve fucked my hand, Sally, if you’ll forgive the expression.’ His teeth were clenched. He jerked his head in the direction of his left hand, not raising his eyes to it. ‘Gun hit a knot, slipped. I’ve got to assume I’ve really fucked it. Would you have a look?’

She turned off the gas and hurried across to him. The hand looked normal at first glance, just as if it was resting there, the fingers pointing up to the ceiling, but, closer to it, she saw what had happened. He’d skewered himself to the wall. She stood on tiptoe and examined it.