Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

‘What?’

‘I saw Auntie Zoë.’

Sally had opened her mouth to reply before what Millie had said sunk in. When it did she closed it. It was the last thing she’d expected. Zoë hadn’t been mentioned in their house for years. Years and years. In all of Millie’s lifetime they’d run into her twice – once in the high street, when Millie had been about five. That time Zoë had stopped and smiled at Millie, said, ‘You must be Millie,’ then looked at her watch, and added, ‘Well, got to go.’ The second time, two years later, the two women had simply nodded in acknowledgement and carried on their way. Afterwards Sally had been quiet for hours. These days, sometimes, she dreamed about Zoë – wondered what it would be like to see her again. Now she pushed the hair gently out of Millie’s face. She hadn’t even realized she knew Zoë’s name. ‘You mean you – uh – saw her walking down the street? Or you spoke to her?’

‘We went to see her at the police station. The head said we could take the morning off to do it. Nial and Peter and Ralph had something to tell her.’

‘Ralph? The Spanish one?’

‘He’s half Spanish. And he was seeing Lorne.’

‘ Seeing her?’

‘Yes, and he tried to keep it secret. But it’s out now and it’s no big deal. I mean, he was seeing her, but he didn’t kill her, Mum. He didn’t have anything to do with it.’

So Isabelle had been right, Sally thought. About the secrets. The whispering. She wondered how it could be that the children they’d given birth to could have gone from curly-haired toddlers sitting on their laps to complete human beings with secrets and codes and plans.

‘He stayed at the station. With Auntie Zoë. She was, like, so nice to him. So nice.’

Sally heard the admiration in her voice. Unmistakable. She knew what it felt like to admire Zoë. ‘How is she? Zoë, I mean.’

‘She’s fine.’ Millie sniffed. ‘Fine.’

‘Fine?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘How did she look?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sally hesitated. ‘Is she tall? Years ago she always seemed quite tall to me.’

‘Yeah,’ Millie said. ‘She is. Really tall. Really, really tall. The way I’d like to be.’

‘What’s her hair like? She had amazing hair.’

‘Still has. It’s like mine – sort of reddy colour. A bit mad, actually – and it looked wet. Why?’

‘I don’t know. Just wondering.’ She gave a small, rueful smile, then said, ‘She’s doing well in her job, I suppose. She’s really clever, you know. You’d never think we were related.’

‘She’s got her own office and stuff. She doesn’t seem the type to be in an office, though.’

‘Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. She’s…’ Millie searched for the right word and failed to find it. ‘She’s just too cool to be in the police. That’s all. She’s just too cool.’

The most private ladies’ toilet at Bath police station was on the ground floor, just past the front office. Zoë walked through the foyer with her head lowered, in case anyone saw her, and pushed the door open. The toilets were empty. Just the smell of bleach and the vague plink-plink of a leaky cistern in one of the cubicles. She ignored her reflection and went straight along the line of doors, choosing the last one, furthest from the entrance. She went inside, closed the toilet lid, locked the door, pulled off her jacket and dropped it on the floor. She sat down, her elbows on her knees, her head in her hands.

Actually, I already am…

It was none of her business who Ben slept with. There had never been any promises like that. It had never been part of the deal. But it had never been part of the deal either that he’d freeze over the way he had. She’d known him for years. Years and years they’d worked together before they’d started sleeping together – he should know every inch of her personality by now. So what had changed? It couldn’t be that he’d got a glimpse inside her, seen the nasty dark thing she worked so hard to keep down. No, it couldn’t. She was sure he couldn’t see that. Then what?

She dragged her sleeve up, rolled it tightly at the biceps, the way an addict would. She found a spare centimetre of skin and used the nails on her thumb and forefinger to find a demi-lune of flesh. She closed her eyes and dug them in. Harder and harder. The pain was like a sweet black thread moving through her body. Like a drug. She put her head back and breathed slowly while it moved up to her chest, wrapped itself round her lungs and heart and made everything go dark and still. The blood rose up in the pinched flesh and slid coldly down her arm to splash on to the white tiles. She didn’t let go. Just held it there. Held it and held it.

And then, when she was sure the scream had been stopped, she dropped her hand. She opened her eyes and blinked at the white light, the blood all over her nails, the cold Formica of the toilet door.

Ben was nothing. He didn’t matter. It would be a battle, but slowly it would pass. She was exhausted, wrung out with the case, and she needed space to breathe. She would take some time off work – God knew, she had enough time owing. She’d take the Shovelhead and disappear for a while. Sleep rough and drink Guinness out of the can. Forget the case, lose interest in who had killed Lorne, let the memory of that nightclub in Bristol be whipped out of her head by the slipstream on the motorway.

She unravelled some toilet tissue and began to clean herself up. She bent over to wipe the blood off the floor and saw her wallet had spilled out of her jacket. She paused, the tissue wodged on the floor. Peeping out from one of the compartments was a curved pink sliver of card: the top of the business card she’d been given at Zebedee Juice.

‘ Shit .’ She sat up again, leaning back against the cistern, the bloody tissue hanging limp in her hand, her head lolling. The fluorescent tubes pulsed on the ceiling above her. ‘OK, Lorne,’ she muttered. ‘OK. I’ll give you one more day. Twelve more hours. And then, I’m sorry, but I’m out of it.’

When Sally came out of Millie’s room she was surprised to find Nial in the kitchen, standing awkwardly near the table, arms folded, head lowered. ‘I thought you’d gone.’

‘Yeah I… I sort of needed to make myself scarce.’ He gestured out of the window to where the van was parked. ‘They needed a bit of time. You know, before I drop Peter home.’

She looked up and saw Peter and Sophie on the back seat of the van, locked together in a kiss. Peter must have been standing up because he looked much bigger and taller than Sophie, bearing down on her, pushing her into the seat with his mouth. Sophie wasn’t resisting. In fact, quite the opposite. She was clinging to his neck as if she was afraid he’d disappear. There were a few moments of uneasy silence. Then Nial cleared his throat, said in a small voice, ‘She’s in love with him, isn’t she?’

‘It certainly looks like it.’

‘I don’t mean Sophie, I mean Millie. Millie’s in love with Peter.’

She turned woodenly to him, hardly believing what she thought he was saying. ‘Nial?’ she said curiously. ‘You don’t mean you…’

He gave a weak, embarrassed smile. ‘Yeah, well – nothing I can do about it, is there?’

She stared back at him. Good God, what a mess. No reciprocity – no returns. Sophie in love with Peter, Millie in love with Peter, and Nial in love with Millie. Poor little Nial. It was like watching elephants in a circus ring, each with its trunk linked round the tail of the animal in front, plodding on, blind to the futility of it all. Really and truly, life just wasn’t fair.