Hanging Hill Part 21

'Is Mr Drago here?'

'No! Him asleep.' He eyed the card warily. 'You police?'

'That's right. What's your name?'

'Angel. Why?'

'OK, Angel. I think I'll come in, if you don't mind.'

He tutted, but swivelled haughtily on his heels and disappeared into the house. She followed. The underpants, she saw, had 'Kitty' emblazoned on the b.u.t.tocks.

If the place was a typical thirties house on the outside, inside it was anything but. The front room where most families would have had a gas fire, a TV, a sofa had been turned into a gym with lots of black and chrome equipment. One wall was painted lime green, with a blown-up black-and-white image of a young man looking coquettishly over his shoulder. The back room, which led out to the kitchen, was the living area, with sixties geometric wallpaper, suede furniture and different-coloured neon tubes suspended from the ceiling. It was very cold, but Angel didn't seem to notice. He yelled up at the ceiling, 'JAAAAKE. JAAAKE. Important you come now.' Then he went into the little kitchenette and began making tea, breaking off every now and again to execute a demi-plie, holding the fridge handle to balance himself.

There was the sound of someone falling out of bed overhead. Zoe found a seat and sat with her back to the wall, in the corner, where there was a precious pocket of warmth. No wonder it was cold the windows were open. Original thirties leaded panes, propped open on metal latches. When they were kids, at Christmas Sally would paint each pane of gla.s.s in their bedroom windows. Every one a different colour. Silver, green, red.

''S b.l.o.o.d.y freezing in here.' Jake came in, swaddled in a duvet, his teeth chattering. He scowled at Zoe, but he wasn't awake enough for a fight. He seemed more worried about the heating. 'What've you got against a bit of warmth?' he yelled at Angel. 'You f.u.c.king freak of nature.'

'Listen her,' Angel said sarcastically. 'She Wicked White Witch on the sleigh. Ice Queen.'

'Shut up,' Jake said. 'Shut up.'

'Ooh crooooooel crooooooel. Yours is a problem in the blood.' He p.r.o.nounced it blod blod. 'Not enough to go round your whole body. Problem starts in the little fingers and we all know where it ends.'

'Shut up up.'

Angel made a small disgusted click in the back of his throat, put his chin up and flicked back a hand, as if it was no surprise to him, none at all, that a person as ignorant and crude as Jake would have brought the police to his house as if that was to be expected of people like him. He turned on a heel, his nose in the air, and disappeared upstairs, slamming the door.

'Ignore him.' Jake closed the window bad-temperedly and put his hand on the radiator to check it for warmth. He found none. He bent and turned the valve on full. 'Tried to teach him some manners, didn't I? But with his lot, what do you expect?'

Zoe examined the mug she'd been given. It had pictures of Billie Holiday hand-painted in pinks and greens. 'How did you keep this secret from us all these years?' She nodded to the door through which Angel had huffed off. 'Jake the Peg and his boyfriend. I admit it wasn't what I'd expected. And even more spectacular, in the revelations stakes, Jake the Peg the p.o.r.n star the p.o.r.n star? You slipped that one by us, no pun intended. But you're a celebrity! I've been watching some of your appearances recently. At the office. They all have. Funny, thinking about it now, but you always seemed so much smaller in the flesh.'

Jake looked steadily at her. He sat down. 'I know why you're here.'

'Do you? Go on, then. Tell me.'

'Jake does barely legals, innit? Because there was them school-girls in it? But see that vid with the yellow spine over there? On the shelf? Get it out. Go on. It's a vid of each of them girls, with their pa.s.sports held up to the camera. Proof they was all eighteen.'

'Barely legals? Funny that's not why I'm here.'

Jake frowned. 'I'm telling you I do my homework, man, learn the law. This is proper business now and I'm clean. Easy.'

'I'm sure you are, Jake, I'm sure you are. I've always had absolute faith in you. But that's not why I'm here. I want to talk to you about Lorne Wood.'

He sucked his teeth, rolled his eyes. 'Yeah. You asked me about her already. What do you want to know now?'

'I want you to revisit your memory. Have a double-check in the grey matter. Sometimes things slip our minds.'

'We talked about this.'

'Yes, but I asked you whether you saw her outside the school. What I didn't ask you was whether she ever turned up on one of your sets.'

'Her?' Jake gave a short sarcastic laugh. 'No f.u.c.king way. Too cla.s.sy.'

'You sure? You sure David Goldrab never introduced you two?'

Jake's face changed. It went flat. 'Goldrab? What's he got to do with anything?'

'You do know him? Don't you?'

'See, you ask that question like I'm some kind of eejit, man. Like I'm some eight-year-old. But I ain't. Because what I worked out is I don't got to answer that. And I don't got to because you already know the answer. Or else you wouldn't've asked it.'

'I'm impressed. Is there no end to your talents?'

'And whatever he's said about me, whatever he's told you, it's because he hates me.'

'He hasn't said anything about you.'

'It should be him you're nosing around, not me. He's a h.o.m.ophobe. You can get him for discrimination and that.'

'You obviously didn't hear me. I said, he hasn't said anything about you. Because, at the moment, he's not saying very much at all.'

Jake creased his forehead. He pulled the duvet tightly around him. His feet poking out of the bottom were bottle-tanned, the nails neatly cut and shining subtly with clear varnish. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

'It means that the last trace we have of him is Thursday, the twelfth of May. His mother spoke to him in the morning, didn't hear from him again. n.o.body has.'

That stopped Jake in his tracks. 'Right,' he said slowly. 'Right.'

'When was the last time you saw him?'

'Thursday, the twelfth of May. Four days ago. I've tried to wipe it from my mind. He stopped giving me my proper respect, know what I mean?'

'That'll be the day he went missing.' She sipped her tea. 'Did you have an amicable meeting that day?'

'No. But you know that because you got it all on camera on his spy cameras. Like when he a.s.saulted me? Saw that, did you?'

'We did. Care to tell me what the disagreement was about?'

'About him being f.u.c.ked up. Bein' a h.o.m.ophobe. Can't stand the sight of me since he heard about-' He jerked his head to the ceiling to indicate Angel.

'And he tried to shoot you because of it?'

'Yeah.'

'Did you come back later that day? Or had your meeting come to a how can we put it? a natural conclusion at that point?'

Jake rolled his eyes again. 'You having a joke? No I never went back. Never will.'

'I don't know about this, Jake. Something's not right. You were the last person to see this guy alive.'

'Yes, except there are whole streetfuls of people who'd like to see that d.i.c.k go missing. Why are you chewing me me out about it?' out about it?'

'Streetfuls of people want him to go missing?' Zoe scooped out her iPhone. 'That sounds interesting. I'm sure you won't take offence if I record this.'

'I would.'

She lowered the phone. 'That's fair, Jake, not to want to have your voice on record. But let me put it on my notepad. You have my guarantee it won't have your voice on it.'

He raised his nose disdainfully. He unfurled a hand in her direction, held it open. She looked at it for a moment. Then she clicked the phone into Notes Notes and pa.s.sed it to him. He gave the phone a brief derisory scan, as if it was a bit of roadkill she'd brought in for him to inspect, then thrust it back at her. She took it and began tapping in words as he spoke. and pa.s.sed it to him. He gave the phone a brief derisory scan, as if it was a bit of roadkill she'd brought in for him to inspect, then thrust it back at her. She took it and began tapping in words as he spoke.

'He's got enemies.' He gave the phone a suspicious look, but began to reel off names anyway, counting them on his fingers. 'There's this girl from Ess.e.x called Candi. I'm telling you, she would shoot shoot him. In the street, tomorrow, if she saw him.' him. In the street, tomorrow, if she saw him.'

'A girl? A woman? Making a grown man disappear? I don't know we don't usually put women in the frame for something like this.'

'Candi? I mean, f.u.c.k, man, she'd eat your eyes out, that one. She's got a habit and she lives with some guy called Fraser, I don't know where exactly somewhere over that side of the world. Then there's this ex-SAS guy. Built like that.' He held out his arms to indicate the man's height and size. 'Always used to hang around the shoots he's got an itch about David, know what I mean? Spanner, they called him. Don't know why. Think his real name was Anthony or something. But ... nah he'd never have the b.a.l.l.s for it. But there's another one. One I really think is whacked enough to do it.'

Zoe stopped tapping and looked up at him.

'I never knew his name.' Jake's voice was sober and low when he said 'his', as if speaking the word alone could bring h.e.l.lfire down into his little thirties semi. 'But he was the type, you know. He'd get in and out and no one would've seen a thing.'

'Who was he?'

'Dunno. Only met him once when he was down for a shoot. That's how David done his business, innit? He's got some gamekeeper raises pheasants for him and these dudes visit when there's a shoot organized. This guy came down and was mouthing off. He was something in the military. The what d'ya call it? Ministry of you know ...'

'Defence? The Ministry of Defence?'

'Yeah.'

'Christian name?'

'Dunno. David just called him "mate". They knew each other in Kosovo. And that's all I know about him. Otherwise, swear' he held his hands up 'I'd give it to you.'

'Any others?'

'No.'

Zoe tapped the last few words in, saved it, then clicked the phone off and put it into her pocket. She took a moment or two to regroup, then leaned forward to him, her elbows on her knees.

'What?'

'I've still got a problem, Jake. I mean, meet my eyes and tell me I look convinced you had nothing to do with Goldrab going missing.'

'What the f.u.c.k're you talking about?'

'None of those names gets you off the hook. Do they?'

'But I've got an alibi for that afternoon. Which is good news.'

'Depending on your perspective. Who is it? Angel? Because he he'd convince a jury.'

Jake gave her a sly smile, the diamond in his front tooth glinting at her, as if this was the most satisfying thing he'd done in years. 'That's the easiest question you've asked, sista. I tore my jeans when David was shooting at me. When I seen what I done I go straight into town and buy a new pair. River Island. Their workers'll remember me and for sure they've got a CCTV there.'

'But as an alibi it doesn't work because, of course, we don't know exactly when Goldrab went missing. It was probably that afternoon some time, because his mother couldn't reach him on the phone in the evening, but we can't say for sure. You could have come back later and dealt with him then. Say, six or seven o'clock.'

'That's OK too. Straight after I got the new jeans I went to the cinema. With my mates. I used my credit card and there were six of us. And then we spent the rest of the night in the Slug on George Street. So wherever David Goldrab was going that night, whoever he met, it weren't me. But none of that matters, does it?'

Zoe raised an eyebrow. 'Doesn't it?'

'Nah,' he said, with a smug smile. 'Because David hasn't been killed killed. David Mr clever f.u.c.king Goldrab oh, no, not him. He He has has disappeared disappeared himself.' himself.'

12.

The air above the field was full of drifting white b.u.t.terflies. Like fairies floating on the wind, they trailed past Sally's face, blocking the sunlight, alighting on her shoulders and hands. To her right she could see shapes, indistinct in the blizzard. They were important, instinctively she knew they were, and she began to walk towards them, her hands shielding her face from the insects. The first shape was big, standing high, a giant, moving white ma.s.s. A car, she saw, as she got nearer she could make out wing mirrors and headlights through the throng. She clapped her hands and the b.u.t.terflies lifted in a cloud, spun and flapped. Underneath them the car bonnet was black and shiny, and Sally saw it was Steve's Audi. Which meant, she was sure, that the shape on the ground, ten feet away, coc.o.o.ned in white, was David Goldrab.

Her heart began to pound, a giant drum, filling her chest. She took a few steps, crunching on b.u.t.terflies, breaking their bodies under her shoes. David lay on his back, motionless, his arms folded across his chest, as if he was in a sarcophagus, b.u.t.terflies covering his face. She didn't want to approach, but she knew she had to. She got to within a foot, and although every sense was telling her not to, she crouched near his head, stretched her hand out towards him.

The body moved. It rolled towards her and began to sit up. A hand shot out and gripped her. The b.u.t.terflies swarmed away from the face but it wasn't David under there. It was Zoe, sitting up and looking beseechingly at Sally, as if she was at the bottom of a very deep hole, and Sally was the only light she could see.

'Sally?' A hand was shaking her. 'Sally? Wake up.'

She covered her face with her hands. 'What?' she mumbled.

'You were crying.'

She opened her eyes. The room was dark, the bedside clock casting just a faint glow. Three o'clock. Steve was lying behind her, his hand on her shoulder. She touched her fingers lightly to her face and found her cheeks were wet.

13.

He has disappeared himself ...

Jake's words kept knocking at Zoe. She'd been almost certain for a while that Goldrab was dead, but now she wasn't so sure. It hadn't occurred to her before that he could disappear himself. But now she saw it was feasible, and the thought made her more than uneasy. If he wasn't dead it meant he could come back at any time, walk into her life and cut her down in one swipe. Because that was the sort of b.a.s.t.a.r.d he was.

The next day she got straight to work, ploughing through the list Jake had given her, putting out feelers calls to Ess.e.x Police to track down Candi and Fraser, and to SOCA to see if there were any clues as to who 'Spanner' might be. She used the parliamentary website, Dodspeople, to search hundreds of CVs for MoD people who'd done time in Kosovo, and the more digging she did the more convinced she became that the person to start with was a guy named Dominic Mooney. Mooney was now head of intelligence at one of the Foreign Office departments, but what interested her was that he had spent time with the Civil Secretariat in Kosovo at the beginning of the decade and had done three years as the director of a unit set up in Pritina to monitor and investigate prost.i.tution and trafficking. If any of his staff in Kosovo had had contact with Goldrab, or had been up to anything suspicious, Mooney would be the one to know.

She put in a call to him in Whitehall, but he was out at a meeting, so she left a message with his secretary, then began systematically working her way through her list of other tasks. She spoke to the gardening company in Swindon, but they didn't have much to tell her Goldrab was reclusive, paid them by direct debit, and often the workers would be at Lightpil for eight hours solid without seeing or speaking to him. It was much the same story at the pool company, and at the stables where Goldrab kept his horse, Bruiser. He rode most days, though usually on his own, and paid the livery fees also by direct debit. In fact, no one Zoe spoke to had had any inkling of what Goldrab was like as a person, let alone any idea if he was unhappy or making plans to leave.

DC Goods called from town. Zoe had told him that Jake the Peg was in trouble again and given him the task of finding support for Jake's alibi. Already he was unearthing evidence: the staff at River Island remembered him, and they had the CCTV footage to prove it. From a glance at the photo, the manager of the cinema too was almost certain she remembered Jake. She was having a look at the time-coded CCTV footage even as they spoke. His alibi for that night seemed watertight. Zoe found she wasn't much surprised at that: it had felt too easy a solution for Jake to have been the one who had made Goldrab disappear.