Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

The sun was high in the sky when they arrived at Lightpil House. They stopped the little pink Smart car in the gravel car park at the foot of the estate. Sally couldn’t take her eyes off the ground. But there was no blood left, no stain. Nothing. She got out and gazed up at the house. The place seemed much quieter than usual but, of course, that was because she knew. She followed the other women up the path. Danuta had taken off her high heels and put them in her cleaning kit so she could walk barefoot. Everywhere flowers were coming out – the fluffy purple balls of allium, and already some bleeding hearts, their white drooping flowers like little bells. You’d never guess what had happened here. It would be the last thing you’d picture.

The utility-room door stood open, as it often did. They walked in, putting down their cleaning kits. The place was exactly as Sally had left it. Maybe cobwebs were already forming, growing on the ornate wall lamps, maybe dust was settling on the surfaces, the computers and huge TVs, but it all looked exactly the way it had been. The champagne glasses were still on the table where David and Jake had sat drinking.

‘No list,’ Danuta said, lifting a couple of newspapers and checking under them. ‘Bloody fat man, you didn’t leave a list.’

‘Dum-de-dum-de-dah,’ Marysieńka hummed. She went to the doorway and shouted into the hall, ‘Mr Goldrab?’

Silence.

‘Mr Goldrab?’ She wandered to the bottom of the stairs, pulling on her rubber gloves, looking up to the landing. ‘You there?’ She waited a moment. When there was no answer she wandered back into the kitchen, shrugging. ‘Not here.’

She flicked on the coffee-maker, opened the fridge, got out some milk and filled the frother while Danuta rummaged for mugs. Sally put her kit down and made a play of pulling things out, getting ready for a job that wasn’t going to happen. She was concentrating so hard on making it look natural that it took her a moment to realize the girls had gone quiet. They had stopped what they were doing and were standing, hands frozen on milk bottles and coffee cups, their faces turned to the door.

When she turned she saw why. A woman was standing in the doorway. Very tall, dressed in jeans, her red hair loose across her shoulders, a police card thrust out at arm’s length. Sally stared at her, her heart doing a low, disorienting swoop in her chest.

There was a moment’s silence. Then the woman lowered the card with a frown. ‘Sally?’ she said. ‘ Sally? ’

‘Sally Cassidy.’ Zoë wrote the name. She’d interviewed both the Polish girls already and let them go. Now she and Sally were in her office, the door closed. ‘I’m using your married name.’

‘I’m not married any more.’

‘No.’ Zoë raised her head and studied her. Sally sat on the other side of the desk, her hands in her lap. She had her hair tied back, no makeup on, and she was wearing a little pink tabard with ‘HomeMaids’ emblazoned on it. In front of her was a Lucozade bottle one of the Polish girls had given her for the shock because she was taking it badly, Goldrab going missing. Her face was pale under the freckles, and her lips had a bluish tinge. ‘But I’ll still use it. Because I shouldn’t be interviewing you, you being my sister.’

‘OK. I understand.’

Zoë put a line under the name. Then another. This was weird. So weird. ‘Sally,’ she said, ‘how long has it been now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Years. Must be.’

‘Must be.’

‘Yes. Well.’ She tapped her pen on the desk. ‘We don’t have to take all day about this. I’ll ask you the same questions I asked Danuta and Marysieńka. Then you can go.’

‘My answers won’t be the same.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’ve been working for David privately. We had an arrangement.’

‘An arrangement?’

‘I didn’t tell the girls and I didn’t tell the agency, but yes. I worked for him and he was paying me direct.’

‘The girls said he cut their hours recently – changed their day?’

‘Yes, because I’d started working for him.’ Sally linked her hands on the table. ‘He didn’t need them.’

Zoë’s eyes went to the hands, to the little finger on the right, which was crooked. You had to know it was there – it was just the faintest deviation in the joint, making the finger turn in on itself. She dragged her eyes away, concentrated on her notes. It would be so easy to go back to that hand, back to the accident and the moment her life had changed. She tapped her biro harder on the desk. One, two, three. Snapped herself back to the interview. ‘When you say working, what were you doing exactly?’

‘He called me the housekeeper. I was cleaning, like before, but I was doing admin for him too. I’ve only done a few days so far.’

‘A few.’

‘Yes.’

‘Over how many days?’

Sally hesitated. ‘One. Just the one.’

‘One. You don’t seem sure about that.’

‘No, I am sure. Quite sure.’

‘What day was it?’

‘Last Tuesday. A week ago.’

‘Tuesday. You’re certain it was Tuesday?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you haven’t been back since?’

‘No.’

‘And you worked for his business?’

‘For the house. I was paying bills, hiring people to do jobs around the place.’

‘Lightpil House is huge. The gardens – he must have needed someone to maintain them?’

‘The gardeners come once a week. The Pultman brothers. They’re from Swindon.’

‘Pultman.’ Zoë noted it carefully. ‘And the pool man. He was from a company in Keynsham. Anyone else?’

‘Not that I can think of.’

‘Does David talk to you a lot?’

‘Not really.’

‘Not really? What does that mean?’

Sally picked at the label on the bottle. ‘Just means not a lot.’

Zoë’s attention wandered distractedly back to Sally’s hands. The faintly deformed finger. God, but the past was coming back in droves these days. Just like the snow outside the window in her dream. ‘So? Apart from today, the last time you were there was when?’

‘Last Tuesday. Like I said.’

‘You didn’t notice anything suspicious?’

Sally fiddled more with the label. ‘No. Not really.’

‘And he didn’t say anything about planning to go away?’

She shook her head.

‘You see,’ Zoë said, ‘everything in that house is telling me something’s happened to Mr Goldrab. Now, I’ll be honest, I’m floundering a bit. If he’s come to harm I’m stuck – because I don’t know where to start. So if you remember anything, anything at all – doesn’t matter how small or insignificant it is, just something that you can add to this – please say it because I-’

‘Jake,’ Sally said abruptly. ‘Jake.’

Zoë stopped writing. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He turned up when I was there. David called him Jake the Peg.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Not very tall. His hair cut quite short. Maybe mixed race, I wasn’t quite sure.’

‘Drives a purple Shogun jeep?’

‘Yes. Do you know him?’

‘You could say that.’ She tipped her head on one side. ‘So, Sally. When Jake turned up, what exactly happened?’

‘It got nasty. There was an argument. Then he went.’

‘An argument? About what?’

‘Jake hadn’t been over for months – then he turned up and tried to use David’s gate code. I think that’s what it was about. I was in the office and they were in the hallway so I couldn’t hear it all. They were shouting for a while – then Jake left.’

‘He didn’t say he’d be back later in the week? No chance he could have come over again on Thursday to finish the argument?’