Mo Hayder: Hanging Hill

© 2011

The funeral was held in an Anglican church on a hill just outside the ancient spa town of Bath. Over a thousand years old, the church was no bigger than a chapel, and its driveway was too small for the reporters and photographers who jostled each other for a good vantage-point. It was a warm day, the smells of grass and honeysuckle drifting across the graveyard as the mourners arrived. Some deer, which were used to coming here in the afternoons to nibble moss from the gravestones, were startled by the activity. They bounded away, leaping the low stone walls and disappearing into the surrounding forests.

As people filed into the church two women stayed outside, sitting motionless on a bench under a white buddleia. Butterflies swatted and flitted around the blooms over their heads but the women didn’t raise their eyes to look. They were united in their silence – in their numbness and disbelief at the string of events that had led them to this place. Sally and Zoë Benedict. Sisters, though no one would know it to look at them. The tall, rangy one was Zoë, the elder by a year; her sister Sally, much smaller and more contained, still had the round, uncluttered face of a child. She sat looking down at her small hands and the tissue she’d been kneading and tearing into shreds.

‘It’s harder than I expected,’ she said. ‘I mean – I don’t know if I can go in. I thought I could, but now I’m not so sure.’

‘Me neither,’ Zoë murmured. ‘Me neither.’

They sat for a while in silence. One or two people came up the steps – people they didn’t recognize. Then some of Millie’s friends: Peter and Nial. Awkward-looking in their formal suits, their formal expressions.

‘His sister’s here,’ Zoë said, after a while. ‘I spoke to her on the steps.’

‘His sister? I didn’t know he had one.’

‘He does.’

‘Strange to think he’d have a family. What does she look like?’

‘Nothing like him, thank God. But she’s asked if she can speak to you.’

‘What does she want?’

Zoë shrugged. ‘To apologize, I suppose.’

‘What did you say?’

‘What do you think I said? No. Of course the answer’s no. She’s gone inside.’ She glanced over her shoulder at the doors to the church. The vicar was standing there, talking in a quiet voice to Steve Finder, Sally’s new boyfriend. He was a good man, Zoë thought, the sort who could hold Sally together without ever suffocating her. She needed someone like that. He glanced up, caught Zoë looking at him and nodded. He held up his wrist, tapping his watch to indicate it was time. The vicar put his hands on the doors, ready to draw them closed. Zoë got to her feet. ‘Come on. We may as well get it over with.’

Sally didn’t move. ‘I need to ask you something, Zoë. About what happened.’

Zoë hesitated. This wasn’t the right time to be talking about it. They couldn’t change the past by discussing it. But she sat down again. ‘OK.’

‘It’s going to sound strange.’ Sally turned the bits of tissue over and over in her hands. ‘But do you think, looking back… do you think you could have seen it coming?’

‘Oh, Sally – no. No, I don’t. Being a cop doesn’t make you a psychic. Whatever the public wish.’

‘I just wondered. Because…’

‘Because what?’

‘Because looking back I think I could have seen it. I think I got a warning about it. I know that sounds nuts, but I think I did. A warning. Or a premonition. Or some kind of foresight, whatever you call it.’

‘No, Sally. That’s crazy.’

‘I know – and at the time that’s what I thought. I thought it was stupid. But now I can’t help thinking that if I’d been paying attention, if I’d foreseen all of this…’ she opened her hands to indicate the church, the hearse pulled up at the bottom of the steps, the outside-broadcast units and the photographers ‘… I could have stopped it.’

Zoë thought about this for a while. There had been a time, not so long ago, when she’d have laughed at a statement like that. But now she wasn’t so sure. The world was a strange place. She glanced up at Steve and the vicar, then back at her sister. ‘You never told me about a “warning”. What sort of warning? When did it happen?’

‘When?’ Sally shook her head. ‘I’m not completely sure. But I think it was the day the business with Lorne Wood started.’

It had been a spring afternoon in early May, the time of year when the evenings were lengthening, and the primulas and tulips under the trees had long frayed and gone blowsy. The signs of warmer weather had made everyone optimistic, and for the first time in months Sally had come to Isabelle’s for lunch. The sun was still high in the sky and their teenage children were out in the garden, while the two women opened a bottle of wine and stayed in the kitchen. The windows were open, the gingham curtains fluttering lightly in the breeze, and from her place at the table Sally watched the teenagers. They’d known each other since nursery, but it wasn’t until the last twelve months or so that Millie had shown any interest in coming up here to Isabelle’s house. Now, however, they were a gang – a proper little group – two girls, two boys, two years apart in age, but at the same private school, Kingsmead. Sophie, Isabelle’s youngest at fifteen, was doing handstands in the garden, her dark ringlets bouncing all over the place. Millie, the same age, but a head shorter, was holding her legs up. The girls were dressed in similar jeans and halter-necks, though Millie’s clothes were faded and threadbare in comparison to Sophie’s.

‘I’ll have to do something about that,’ Sally said ruminatively. ‘Her school uniform is falling to pieces too. I went to Matron to see if I could get a second-hand one, but she didn’t have any left in Millie’s size. Seems all the parents at Kingsmead want second-hand now.’

‘That’s a sign of the times,’ said Isabelle. She was making treacle tart – weighting the pastry base with the handful of marbles she kept in a jar on top of the fridge. The butter and golden syrup were bubbling in the pan, filling the kitchen with a heavy, nutty smell. ‘I’ve always passed on Sophie’s things to Matron.’ She dropped the marbles and pushed the pie dish into the oven. ‘But from now on I’ll save them for Millie. Sophie’s a size up from her.’

She wiped her floury hands on her apron and stood for a moment, studying her friend. Sally knew what she was thinking – that Sally’s face was pale and lined, that her hair wasn’t clean. She was probably seeing the pink HomeMaids cleaning-agency tabard she wore over her faded jeans and floral top and feeling pity. Sally didn’t mind. She was slowly, after all this time, beginning to get used to pity. It was the divorce, of course. The divorce and Julian’s new wife and baby.

‘I wish I could do something more to help.’

‘You do help, Isabelle.’ She smiled. ‘You still talk to me. Which is more than some of the other mums at Kingsmead do.’

‘Is it that bad? Still?’

Worse, she thought. But she smiled. ‘It’ll be fine.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. I mean – I’ve spoken to the bank manager and I’ve moved all my loans around so I’m not paying so much interest. And I’m getting more hours with the agency now.’

‘I don’t know how you do it, working like you do.’

Sally shrugged. ‘Other people do it.’

‘Yes, but other people are used to it.’