Mo Hayder - Hanging Hill

The numbers at this end were high, so the Mooneys’ would be at the other. She swung the Shovelhead into a U-turn and nosed it out of the street back on to the North Circular. Took a right then another right until she came to the other end of the street, found a place to pull over. She put down the kickstand, pulled out the key, and walked back a few yards, taking off her helmet. From the cover of a curved brick wall she could peer down the road to the houses. The Mooneys’ was the big fifties detached thing, with spike-topped walls and a brick driveway, the borders planted with kerria, its egg-yolk-yellow blossom balls motionless in the sun. No civil servant should live in a place like that – even the ones who made more than the Prime Minister.

She weighed up her options. There were no cars on the driveway, the doors were closed on the double garage and the gates were closed too. One of the windows on the first floor stood open. Just a crack. She inched forward a little, out of the din of the traffic on the main road, and concentrated on that open window. The Steppenwolf guitar was still grinding in her head, but there was something else. She was sure of it. Something frenetic pounding out of the house. A woman’s voice, rapping out South-London-gone-Hollywood R &B. The sort of thing those who really lived on those streets shrank from, and only rich suburban white kids thought was radical. Zoë gave the open window a small ironic smile. Jason. It had to be. Sometimes things were just too damned easy.

She sauntered back to the bike, pulling on her helmet, bounced it off its kickstand and pulled the Leatherman knife she carried everywhere out of her jacket pocket. She bent over, reached into the space above the cylinder head and gave one of the ceramic spark-plug insulators a sharp tap. It cracked instantly. She got back on the Shovelhead, started the engine and headed into the avenue, the bike’s full-throated roar bouncing off the houses beyond their big front gardens. About fifty yards up, the roar became a cough, then a stuttering choke. It died to nothing and the bike freewheeled to a stop about ten yards past the Mooneys’ driveway. She climbed off it, removed her helmet, shook out her hair, opened the saddlebag and began pulling out tools. A set of pipe grips – completely the wrong thing for the job. She got down on the pavement, lay on her side and began struggling to get the grips around the insulator.

She didn’t hear Jason approaching. The first she knew of it was when his feet appeared about a yard away: tanned, in a pair of battered Ripcurl sandals, their braiding bleached to shreds by sun and sand. She looked at them for a few seconds. Then she pushed herself away from the bike and rolled herself up to a sitting position, her feet in the gutter.

‘I’m sorry. Hope I’m not inconveniencing anyone. I should be out of your way in less than ten.’

‘It’s misfiring. I can tell just by the sound.’ Jason looked thinner than he did on his Facebook pictures. And the photos he’d chosen had made his lower jaw look squarer than it was in real life. But his face was open, his eyes wide-spaced and pale blue. No trace of malice or slyness in them. He was wearing a T-shirt with the logo ‘Oh Christ. You’re going to try and cheer me up. Aren’t you?’ ‘I heard you coming down the street. I closed my eyes and I thought, It’s an FXE Superglide Shovelhead, isn’t it? An ’80. I was wrong about the year, but I got the make and model.’ Jason shook his head. He looked awestruck. ‘And of all the houses you could have broken down in front of – I mean, I’m a total hog insect . You couldn’t have planned it any better. Have you looked at the plugs?’

‘It’s what I’m doing now. I could have had it sorted in a couple of seconds if I had a plug socket. Have to make do with these.’ She held up the grips.

‘Jesus. You’ve got to see my workshop. It’s got everything. Come on, come on.’

She hesitated. Looked around the avenue. ‘You sure?’

‘Of course. Come on. I swear this is pure karma at work.’

Together, they wheeled the Shovelhead into the driveway, the cast-iron gates sliding closed behind them. There was the sound of a water feature coming from somewhere at the side of the house. ‘Great place,’ Zoë said, as Jason opened the garage door. ‘Someone’s doing very nicely.’

‘My parents. They’re away. It’s just me and the tortoises. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a tortoise? Trust me, they don’t know their hogs.’

‘I don’t know many people who know their hogs. Not the way you do.’

That pleased him. He gave a broad smile and held out his hand. ‘I’m Jason.’

‘Evie.’ She shook it. ‘It’s nice to meet another hog freak. You total nerd.’

He grinned and pointed a finger at himself. ‘Remember this face. Technical genius. One day I’m going to land a probe on Mars. You see if I don’t.’

Inside the garage there was a red four-by-four and the Harley. He spent some time showing it to her, letting her run her fingers over a welding job he’d done himself to see just how ‘awesomely smooth’ it was. Then he went to his workbench at the back of the garage and scanned the tools mounted on the wall, murmuring under his breath until he came to the item he wanted. ‘A magnetic one for this, I think,’ he said, selecting a plug socket. He knelt down on the cool garage floor next to the bike. While he tinkered Zoë unzipped her jacket and made a show of wandering along the workbench, pretending to study the labels and the mountings. With her back turned to him she slipped the pipe grips from out of her T-shirt, crouched and left them on the floor. She might need to come back. Then she leaned against the bench, arms folded, head tilted back. From here she could see through the door that led into the house. It was slightly ajar. Beyond it there were glimpses of Dominic Mooney’s life – a pale-blue carpet, a polished mahogany hall table, artificial arum lilies in a vase. Jason must have turned the hip-hop off, because the place was quiet, just the sound of a grandfather clock ticking somewhere.

‘It won’t take long. The insulation’s cracked.’

‘Is it? Good job you were here, eh?’ She nodded into the house. ‘I don’t suppose I could… uh?’ She held out her hands to show how grimy they were. ‘I’ve been in the saddle all day and I’d love to just wash my hands.’

‘First on the left.’ He didn’t look up. ‘Use the towel on the metal ring and not the folded ones, the ones with the lace and shit. Those are for guests. Mum’ll castrate me if they get used.’

Zoë sauntered into the house, the zips on her jacket jingling. She went into the cloakroom and splashed her face. There were nice toiletries – good stuff, like Champney’s handwash and an Italian moisturizer in a stone bottle with gold script on it. She took the towel off the ring and wandered into the hallway, drying her hands. The noises of Jason tinkering came from the garage. He was totally absorbed, so she quickly put her head round all of the doors leading from the hall. The living room was huge, carpeted with something patterned and furnished like a hotel, with ornately upholstered sofas. The fitted mahogany shelves were crammed with books and photo albums. French windows led on to a large, walled garden, filled with sunshine. Leaning against the windows was a tennis racket and a tube of balls. Funny, she thought, eyeing them. She’d never really given much thought to how many people had tennis balls knocking around their house.

She went to the kitchen doorway and gave that a quick scan: country-style with wooden units, dried hops draped across the pelmets, utensils in a rustic terracotta jug. A gingham tea-towel. It didn’t seem like the house of a person who’d kill someone or pay someone else to do it. Even so, there was something, just something, about this place that said Mooney could easily be responsible for David Goldrab’s microwave dinner going hard back in Bath.