Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

There was a knock at the door. She made sure her shirt was straight and tucked in and that her cuffs were buttoned, then swivelled the chair to the door. ‘Yup?’

Ben put his head round the door.

‘Oh.’ Her head felt suddenly heavy, her feet like lead. ‘Ben.’

‘Hi.’

They regarded each other without speaking. Somewhere down the corridor a phone rang. A door at the other end of the building banged. What, she wondered, was the grown-up way to deal with Ben? How would a normal person address what had happened between them? She didn’t know. Hadn’t a clue.

Eventually Ben saved her by speaking. ‘Have you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘About Ralph?’

‘What about him?’

‘I thought you should be the first to know.’ He glanced up at her whiteboard, where Ralph’s name was written with a big red line through it. For the first time she noticed dark rings under Ben’s eyes. He’d been working hard. ‘He tried to commit suicide. Two hours ago. His mother found him.’

‘Christ.’ She remembered Ralph crouching here on the floor, his back to the wall, his tears wetting the carpet. ‘Is he going to be OK?’

‘They don’t know yet. He left a note, though. It said, “Lorne, I’m sorry.”’

Zoë leaned back in the chair, her hands resting on her thighs, her eyes closed. She felt the long, hard drag of the past few days hanging on her.

‘Zoë?’

She dropped her chin. Opened one eye and locked it on him. ‘What?’

He scratched his head, glanced at the whiteboard, then back at her. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing. Just thought you should know.’

Sally took a long time to go back to sleep after the dream. It seemed she’d slept only minutes before Steve’s alarm was going off. He had a meeting to attend, he’d told her, in London. He hadn’t said what, but they both knew it was with Mooney. To get the money. He showered and dressed while Sally lay in bed, trying to get rid of the dregs of the dream. He didn’t eat breakfast, but walked around anxiously, drinking a mug of coffee, hunting for his keys and his sat nav. He told Sally not to call him, he’d call her.

She sat at the window in her dressing-gown and watched the car pull left out of the driveway, which led away from the lane along a narrow track into the woods. It was down there, in true Famous Five style, that they’d dug a hole under the trunk of a tree and buried David’s teeth and ring in a tin. She waited at the window until, twenty minutes later, Steve’s car reappeared from the woods and sailed past the drive. Yes. He was going to see Mooney. He was going to get the money. And tomorrow he was going to America to get his other business finished. He was good at keeping things contained, she thought. He had to be, with his job. She envied that. He had no idea what it was like in her head at the moment. The mess and the confusion. The awfulness of being interviewed yesterday by Zoë.

There was a pile of dead brushwood that she’d collected back in December and hadn’t got round to burning. During the winter it had become wet and rotten, but over the last few days the high, bright sunshine had dried it out. She didn’t have to be at work until lunchtime, and she didn’t want to stay in the cottage thinking about Steve going away tomorrow, or about the curious light in Zoë’s eyes when she had said, ‘Why are you nervous, Sally?’, so she pulled on jeans and wellingtons and assembled the things she needed to make a bonfire. In the garage she found the can of paraffin they’d used to burn David’s belongings and all their bloodied clothes. Her old gardening gloves were in the greenhouse. They had been sitting on the window-sill for months and had dried into stiff leather claws. She had to crack and soften them before they’d slip on to her hands.

The place they’d had the fire five nights ago was still black and grey with ash. There was a screw or a nail from something, she wasn’t sure what, embedded in the soil. She pushed it further into the earth with her toe, then piled the brushwood on top of it, going back and forth across the garden, until there was lichen on her clothes and a long trail of debris across the lawn where she’d walked. The paraffin was easier to manage than she’d expected. As she worked some of the resolve she’d felt the other night in the car came back to her. She could do things. She could do this on her own. She could keep going as if nothing had happened. She could maybe even do some research and make a start on the thatch – wouldn’t that be something! She could be as strong as Zoë. She watched the embers lift off, borne on the oily flame tips, watched them take to the air and whisk away to the fields, leaving grey speckles on the new skin of green. When the fire had reached its peak and was starting to die a little, she turned away to get a rake to keep it all together and saw a car sitting in the driveway behind her.

She hadn’t heard it over the roar and crackle of the flames. It was blue and beaten up and she recognized it from yesterday. In the driver’s seat – as if Sally had magicked her there – was Zoë, in a white T-shirt and a leather jacket, a beanie pulled down over her mad splay of red hair. Sally stared at her as she swung out of the car. The confidence of a cowboy. It must be so nice to be in that body, with those well-spaced legs, those capable arms. No clothes that felt too tight around the waist or old, frayed bras stretching and sagging.

Zoë looked serious as she came towards her. ‘Where’s Millie?’

‘At Julian’s. Why?’

‘Have you got time to talk?’

‘I’ve…’ She glanced at the can of paraffin. ‘I’ve got this to burn.’ She pushed her hair off her face with the back of her wrist. ‘Then I’ve got work.’

‘That’s OK. I won’t be long.’

‘I’ve got to wash all Millie’s school clothes too.’

‘Like I said, I won’t be long.’

Sally was silent for a moment. She looked out at the fields. She saw the lane that wound its way up to the motorway. Steve would be at Victoria by now. ‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘Oh, this and that. Actually…’ she glanced at the cottage ‘… I’d like a cup of tea. If that’s not too much trouble.’

Sally kept her gaze on the fields, trying to guess what was coming. She’d never been any good at reading her sister. That was just the way it was. She put down her rake and went towards the cottage, pulling off her gloves. Zoë followed, stooping to get through the low doorway. While Sally boiled the kettle, scooped tea into the pot, Zoë wandered around the kitchen, picking up things from the shelves and examining them, stopping to peer at a painting Sally had done of a tulip tree. ‘So,’ she said, ‘this is where you live now.’ She studied a photo of Millie and the other kids – Sophie, Nial and Peter – pictured walking in a line across a ploughed field. ‘You going to tell me about it? What happened to Julian?’

‘There’s nothing to tell. He found a girlfriend. They’ve got a baby.’

‘Is Millie OK with it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I saw her the other day, Millie.’

‘I know.’

‘She looked well. She’s growing up fast. She’s very pretty. Is she well behaved?

‘Not really. No.’

Zoë gave a small smile and Sally stopped spooning tea.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Is that what you came to talk about? Millie?’

‘In a way. There’s some news. Ralph Hernandez – her friend? He’s going to be OK but he tried to kill himself this morning.’

‘ Ralph? ’ She put the tin down with a clunk. ‘Oh, good Lord,’ she muttered. ‘It just doesn’t seem to stop.’

‘We’ve got someone talking to the headmaster at Kingsmead. I guess he’ll decide how to break the news to the kids.’