Hanging Hill Part 20

'I'm not married any more.'

'No.' Zoe 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.'

Zoe 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 Marysieka. 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.'

Zoe'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.' Zoe 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.'

Zoe's attention wandered distractedly back to Sally's hands. The faintly deformed finger. G.o.d, 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,' Zoe 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 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-' 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.'

Zoe 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?'

'I don't know. I didn't hear him say he would.'

'We found a crossbow in the utility room. You saw that this morning, didn't you saw where we found it?'

Sally nodded.

'You don't know how it came to be in there, do you?' She was monitoring Sally's fingers. They were tearing at the label now. 'Seems a strange place to put a crossbow. And then leave all your doors open and go out for a drive.'

'It was always on the stand on the landing. I used to clean the case.'

'You never saw him use it?'

'No.'

'And you haven't been back to Lightpil since last Tuesday? And you weren't there Thursday, for example? That was the last time anyone spoke to him.'

She shook her head. Wrapped her arms around herself as if someone had suddenly opened the window.

'What's making you nervous, Sally? Why the nerves?'

'What?'

'You're shaking.'

'No, I'm not.'

'Yes, you are. You're shaking like a leaf. And fidgeting.'

'It's been a shock.'

'Goldrab going missing? The Lucozade's supposed to help you with that. Isn't it working?'

'I didn't expect to see you.' She shivered, looked away again and hugged herself harder, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. 'That's all. Can I go now?'

Zoe didn't speak for a moment or two. She twirled the pen thoughtfully. 'I heard about the divorce,' she said eventually. 'Mum and Dad didn't say, but you do hear things around this town, don't you? I was sorry about it all.'

'Yes. Well. That was a long time ago now.'

'If you don't mind me asking, why did you leave?'

'I didn't leave. He left me.'

Zoe stopped twirling the pen. 'He left left you you?'

'Yes. More than a year and a half ago.'

She didn't know what to say. She studied her sister really studied her. An attractive woman coming up for middle age, but no stunning beauty. Her hair had lost the pure, lemony blonde streaks of childhood and was coa.r.s.er now. The clothing under the tabard, though nice, was well-worn and threadbare. She was working as a cleaner a cleaner and housekeeper for a p.o.r.nographer. Julian had left her and she was bringing up Millie alone. Out of nowhere, an enormous, awful wave came up inside Zoe. An overwhelming urge to stand and hug her sister.

She coughed. Pushed her hair out of her eyes.

'Right.' She handed Sally the statement. 'If you'd just put a signature there, you can go. Told you it wouldn't take long, didn't I?'

10.

When Sally had gone, Zoe sat staring into s.p.a.ce. It was ten minutes before she shook herself, and began to think about Lorne and Goldrab again.

She started by doling out some tasks for her DCs. Then she leafed through her messages, checked her emails and put in a request to recla.s.sify David Goldrab's status as a misper. If he really was dead, the question remained: why? If he'd had a hand in Lorne's death, could he have been killed because because of it? In revenge? Lorne's dad, maybe? Or had Goldrab known who Lorne's killer was and died because he'd threatened to reveal what he knew? Or and this was the eventuality she was struggling with maybe Lorne's connection to the p.o.r.n industry really had stopped with the approach to Holden's Agency and Goldrab's disappearance was entirely unconnected. Either way she wouldn't be completely at rest until she knew for sure he was dead until she had seen his body on a slab in the mortuary, seen it cut down the middle the way Lorne's had been. Perhaps then that jumpy thing in her would roll back a bit. Keep its peace. of it? In revenge? Lorne's dad, maybe? Or had Goldrab known who Lorne's killer was and died because he'd threatened to reveal what he knew? Or and this was the eventuality she was struggling with maybe Lorne's connection to the p.o.r.n industry really had stopped with the approach to Holden's Agency and Goldrab's disappearance was entirely unconnected. Either way she wouldn't be completely at rest until she knew for sure he was dead until she had seen his body on a slab in the mortuary, seen it cut down the middle the way Lorne's had been. Perhaps then that jumpy thing in her would roll back a bit. Keep its peace.

But what about Sally? And all that had happened in their pasts? What would make that that poisonous thorn go away? An apology? she thought, rubbing her knuckles. How the h.e.l.l did you go about apologizing for something like that? poisonous thorn go away? An apology? she thought, rubbing her knuckles. How the h.e.l.l did you go about apologizing for something like that?

Another message popped up this time from the high-tech unit who, in less than two hours, had cracked through the administrator pa.s.sword page on the CCTV and a.n.a.lysed the footage from the front of Lightpil House. She read the email quickly: the team had found no record of Goldrab leaving the house on the Thursday. He'd been out to the stables in the morning, had come back at ten and hadn't been picked up by the CCTV camera since. Which must mean he'd exited through the side entrance not covered by the camera. What the team had found, however, was five-minute footage of a serious altercation that had taken place outside the house at about three p.m. that same day. She closed the office blinds again, and watched the segments of video they'd attached to the email. A suntanned young man next to a jeep, dodging crossbow bolts. Jake the Peg jumping like a monkey on hot coals.

Jake, she thought, tapping the screen. Jake the Peg. Sally was right, you naughty boy.

11.

Jake the Peg's home was on the road from Bath to Bristol and didn't look as if it belonged to a p.o.r.n star. Apart from the small security camera trained on the jeep that stood outside, it was an ordinary thirties house with metal lattice windows and deco-inspired stained-gla.s.s porches the type of building that had survived the bombing during the war because it was part of the suburban sprawl and too remote from the vital organs of the city to have interested the Germans. Zoe pulled up at just after four o'clock to find the curtains still closed. She sat for a while, considering the house. It was a bit like her parents' place had been. People who lived in a place like that shouldn't have been able to afford to send two children to boarding-school. Not unless they had very good reason to separate them. Very good reason. Earlier today in the office Sally had looked broken. Really broken. Julian Julian had left had left her her. Not the other way round. That didn't fit at all.

Zoe locked the car, went up the path, rang the bell and stood on the doorstep, listening for movement inside. After three or four minutes had elapsed she rang the bell again. This time there was a m.u.f.fled thump, then someone called out, 'Coming, coming.'

The boy who answered the door couldn't have been much more than seventeen. But what he lacked in maturity he made up for in sa.s.s. Dusky brown maybe from Vietnam or the Philippines his hair was shaved at the sides and neck, with an area on top that had been teased into a small pompadour. He wore a gold chain and an iPhone holder velcroed to his upper arm. Aside from that, he was naked except for a pair of tight pink boxers, with 'Wow' printed across the crotch. When he saw Zoe's warrant card he laid a hand on his chest as if to say this just wasn't the sort of thing that happened to him every day did anyone mind if he fainted?