Hanging Hill Part 3

8.

Some cops disliked post-mortems. Others were fascinated by them and could talk about them for hours, reeling out lists of technical terms like a doctor. Zoe found that once you convinced yourself to look at the body as a piece of meat as long as you saw it as nothing else the most overwhelming thing, sometimes, about a PM was how tedious it was. It was full of recording details, taking photos, weighing even the tiniest organs, the most insignificant glands. And the human body in death wasn't pink and red, but yellow. Or grey. It was only the initial cut the thoracic-abdominal Y cut she found difficult. The zipper, the cops called it. Most of them would stand away from the table during 'the zipper', avoiding the release of gases. Because she hated that part, and because it was in Zoe always to push herself, it was the part when she would stand the closest to the table. No masks or mints or smelly ointment to put up her nose. The most she would allow herself was a pinch of the nose and a squint. While Lorne's body was opened Zoe stood next to her, half of her wanting to hold her hand, squeeze it while it happened, stop it hurting. Stupid, she thought, as the mortician wordlessly lined up the implements, rib spreaders and a range of cordless Stryker saws. Like she could change any of this s.h.i.t.

Pathologists hated being pressed for conclusions before the examination was complete. Just hated it. Still, it was their job to resist and the police's job to persist, so from time to time Ben or Zoe would fire out a question, which the pathologist would answer with a disapproving click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and a few caustic comments muttered under his breath about the basic, unscientific impatience impatience of the police, and why was it people couldn't wait for a proper of the police, and why was it people couldn't wait for a proper report report instead of taking his words out of context and handing them on a instead of taking his words out of context and handing them on a plate plate to some jumped-up defence brief? But slowly, as the afternoon wore on, he began grudgingly to hand out small details. Lorne's v.a.g.i.n.a and a.n.u.s had tears to them, he remarked, but they hadn't bled. Evidence that the rape could have happened just before or just after her death. He swabbed her, but couldn't immediately see any s.e.m.e.n in there, so maybe a condom had been used. Or she'd been raped using an object. There was an injury to the back of her head, probably the result of a fall. He guessed she'd been attacked from the front, which was consistent with the damage done to her face. And there'd been a blow to the stomach a kick maybe that had caused internal bleeding. to some jumped-up defence brief? But slowly, as the afternoon wore on, he began grudgingly to hand out small details. Lorne's v.a.g.i.n.a and a.n.u.s had tears to them, he remarked, but they hadn't bled. Evidence that the rape could have happened just before or just after her death. He swabbed her, but couldn't immediately see any s.e.m.e.n in there, so maybe a condom had been used. Or she'd been raped using an object. There was an injury to the back of her head, probably the result of a fall. He guessed she'd been attacked from the front, which was consistent with the damage done to her face. And there'd been a blow to the stomach a kick maybe that had caused internal bleeding.

'Is that what she died of?'

He shook his head, thoughtfully examining the inside wall of her abdomen. 'No,' he said after a while. 'It would have killed her eventually. But ...' He pushed a finger into the thickened lump of blood that had gathered around her spleen. 'No. There's not as much blood as you'd expect with the artery to the spleen ruptured like this. She'd have died shortly after the injury.'

'How?'

He raised his chin and looked at Ben steadily. Then, without expression, he pointed to the silver duct tape and the tennis ball, which had now been removed and sealed in a bag on the exhibits bench. 'I'm not saying anything officially, and I need to look at her brain first, but if your nose looked like that and you had a ball jammed in your mouth, how do you think you'd breathe?'

'She suffocated suffocated?' said Zoe.

'I expect that's what my report will say.' He clicked off the torch and turned to face them. 'So? You want to know how it happened? He hit her like this here across the zygomatic arch.' The pathologist raised a hand and, in slow motion, mimed hitting his own face with a fist. 'Just once. Her cheekbone's broken, her nose is broken she falls backwards. Then, probably when she's on the floor, completely dazed, he forces the tennis ball and the duct tape over her mouth. The blood in her nose is starting to clot at this point and, before you know it, both airways are obstructed.' Using the back of his wrist, he pushed his gla.s.ses up his nose. 'Fairly horrible.'

'You're not saying it was an accident she died?' asked Ben.

The pathologist frowned. 'What does that mean?'

'It's important the guy could say he didn't mean to kill her. That he was just trying to keep her quiet. I'm picturing defence briefs and manslaughter pleas is all.'

'He could have removed the tape. Even when she was unconscious her breathing response would have kicked in automatically if he'd taken the tape off and shaken her. He could have saved her.'

Zoe stood in silence, gazing down at Lorne. Now that the tape had been removed her jaw hung open in a slack grin. Her tongue was a swollen grey piece of gristle lodged among the white enamel of teeth. Earlier, walking along the ca.n.a.l path, Zoe had been excited, motivated and full of energy. Not any more. She glanced up, found Ben watching her and turned away quickly, fishing out her phone and pretending to be looking at something important there. She didn't want anyone to think she wasn't holding it together. Particularly not Ben.

Peppercorn Cottage was so remote. So completely isolated. It was one of the things Sally loved about it that she didn't have any neighbours overlooking, no one to stare and judge her, no one to say, 'Look there. Look how that Sally Ca.s.sidy's gone to rack and ruin. Look how she's letting the place fall in around her ears.' A little stone-built place set down quite alone amid miles of practical, unfussy farmland less than a mile from Isabelle's house. It had a rambling garden and a view that went on for ever and it was called Peppercorn because, years ago, it had attracted a peppercorn rent. It was the most higgledy-piggledy cottage Sally had ever seen: everything went in steps the floors, the roof, even the bricks were askew. Not a straight line in sight. In the last year and a half she and Millie had crammed it full of the craft they did in their spare time. The kitchen was stacked with things the eggcups glazed and studded with paste gems, the little portraits of the pets they'd owned over the years pinned crazily to the walls, the boiled-sweet Christmas stars still hanging in the windows like stained gla.s.s, filtering the sunlight in coloured topaz dots. So unlike the house in Sion Road that they'd lived in with Julian.

The living room was at the back, looking out over flat fields, not another building as far as the eye could see. That night Sally left the curtains open to the night and sat curled on the sofa with Steve, sipping wine and staring in disbelief at the TV. Lorne Wood's death was on the national news and the top story on the local news.

'I can't believe it,' Sally murmured, her lips on the rim of her gla.s.s. 'Lorne. Look at her she can't be dead. She was so pretty.'

'Nice-looking girl,' Steve said. 'It'll get more coverage than if she wasn't.'

'All the boys were crazy about her. Crazy. And on the towpath towpath of all places. Millie and I used to go there all the time.' of all places. Millie and I used to go there all the time.'

'It's still a towpath. You still can.'

Sally shivered. She ran her hands up and down the gooseb.u.mps on her arms and inched closer to Steve, trying to steal some of his body warmth. She and Steve had been together for four months now. On nights like tonight, when Millie was at Julian's, Sally would go to Steve's or he would come over to the cottage, bringing armfuls of treats, cases of wine and nice cheeses from the delis in the town centre. Tonight, though, she wished Millie was with them and not down at Sion Road. After a while, when she couldn't relax, couldn't stop the shivering, she swung her legs off the sofa, found her phone and dialled Millie's mobile. It was answered after just two rings. 'Mum.' She sounded half scared, half excited. 'Have you seen it? On the news? They murdered murdered her.' her.'

'That's why I'm calling. Are you OK?'

'It's Lorne they murdered. Not me.'

Sally paused, a little thrown off by Millie's dismissiveness. 'I'm sorry. It's just I thought with the way you used to be so close to Lorne you'd-'

'We weren't close, Mum.'

'She seemed to be with you all the time.'

'No you just think she was. But really she preferred her mates at Faulkener's and, anyway, I like Sophie better.'

'Even so, it must be upsetting.'

'No really, I mean I'm shocked but I'm not crying my eyes out. It was ages ages ago. I haven't seen her for ago. I haven't seen her for ages ages.'

Sally looked up at the window, at the lonely moon lifting itself from the horizon. Bloated and red. Millie was a proper teenager now. To her a year really was an age. 'OK,' she said, after a while. 'Just one thing if you want to go out tonight will you speak to me first? Let me know where you're going?'

'I'm not going out. I'm staying in. With them them.' She meant Julian and his new wife, Melissa. 'Worse luck. And it's the Glasto meeting tonight.'

'The Glasto meeting?'

'I told you about this, Mum. Peter and Nial are going to pick up their camper-vans the day after tomorrow. They're going to meet tonight to talk about it. Didn't Isabelle tell you?'

Sally nibbled at the side of her thumbnail. She'd forgotten it was all so close. The boys were going to Glas...o...b..ry with Peter's older brother and his friends. Peter and Nial had pa.s.sed their driving tests and had been working like slaves for months, saving up money to buy two beaten-up old VW camper-vans they'd discovered rotting on a farm in Yate. Their parents, impressed by their determination, had chipped in to make up the shortfall and the insurance premiums. Millie hadn't stopped talking about going with them to the festival, but the tickets were nearly two hundred pounds. There was no way. Absolutely no way.

'Mum? Didn't Isabelle say?'

'No. And, anyway, I don't suppose there'll be any meetings tonight. Not with this news.'

'There is. They're going ahead I asked Nial.'

'Well, there's no point in you going to a meeting if you're not going to Glas...o...b..ry, is there? I'm sorry but we've talked about this already.'

There was a long silence at the end of the phone.

'Millie? Is there any point in you going?'

She gave a long-suffering sigh. 'I suppose not.'

'OK. Now, you get an early night. School in the morning.'

'All right.' Sally hung up and sat for a while with the phone face down on her lap.

Steve leaned across the sofa and put his hand on her shoulder. 'You OK?'

'Yes.'

'Said something you didn't like?'

She didn't answer. On screen the stuff about Lorne had stopped and the newscaster was talking about more spending cuts. Factories closing. The country going down the drain. Jobs disappearing every second.

'Sally? It's natural to be upset. It's so close to home.'

She looked up at the moon again, a longing tugging at her. It would be nice to be able to tell him the truth that it wasn't just Lorne, that it wasn't just Millie. That it was everything. That it was David Goldrab saying, I promise not to call you a c.u.n.t I promise not to call you a c.u.n.t, and the thatch falling in, and the stain on the kitchen ceiling, and Isabelle's look of dismay when Sally had said she was planning to sell the tarot. That it was having no one to turn to. Basically it was because of reality. She wished she could tell him that.

9.

Bath was nestled, like Rome, in a pocket between seven hills. There were hot springs deep in the earth that kept the old spa baths supplied, kept the people warm and stopped snow settling in the streets. The Romans were the first to build on it, but successive generations had kept up the determination to live there in the warm whole cities had crumbled and been rebuilt. The past existed in multicoloured strata below the citizens of Bath: like walking on layer cake, every footstep crossed whole lifetimes.

Zoe had grown up in the city. Even though she and Sally had been sent away as children, to separate boarding-schools, even though her parents had moved long ago to Spain, Bath was still her home. Now she lived high on one of the surrounding hills, where the city had spread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A Victorian terraced house, all her own. The back garden was tiny, with just enough room for a few plant pots and a shed, but the inside was s.p.a.cious for a person living alone, with three large, high-ceilinged bedrooms on the first floor, and at ground level a single room she'd made by knocking down the interior walls. It stretched thirty-five feet from front to back door and was arranged into two living areas the kitchen-diner at the front, with a scrubbed wooden table in the bay window, and a TV-watching area at the back, with sofas and her DVDs and CDs. In the middle, where the dividing wall would have been, sat Zoe's hog.

The bike was a cla.s.sic a black 1980 Harley Superglide Shovelhead and had been her only friend on the year she toured the world. It had cost her two and a half thousand pounds and some long, sleepless nights when a drive belt gave up or the carburettor jets blocked in the middle of an Asian mountain range. But she still treasured it and rode it to work now and then. That night, at half past eleven, when the city outside the bay window was lit up like a carpet of lights, the bike was still cooling off, its engine making little noises. Ben Parris turned from Zoe's fridge and came to crouch in front of it. He was carrying a saucer of milk, which he put at the front wheel. 'There you go, favoured object.' He patted the tyre. 'Fill your boots. And never forget how loved you are.'

'It's not a b.l.o.o.d.y affectation, you know.' Sitting at the table next to the window, Zoe upended the bottle of wine into her gla.s.s. 'I don't have anywhere else to put it. It's as simple as that.'

'There's a back garden.'

'But no way into it except through the house. I'd have to wheel the bike across the floor every day anyway so I may as well park it there.'

'How about out the front on the road?'

'Oh, stop. Now you're really talking madness.'

'It's nice to see something so loved.'

'Treasured,' she corrected. 'Treasured.'

He straightened and came to the table. 'Mind you ...' he picked up his own gla.s.s and turned to look around the room '... you in a house at all is a bit of a revelation. Before we got together I sort of pictured you living in the back of a jeep or something. But look.' He opened his hands, spun around as if he was amazed. 'You've got curtains. And heating. And real live electric lights.'

'I know. It's so cool, isn't it?' She leaned across to the wall and flicked the kitchen light on and off. 'I mean, look at that. Magic. Sometimes I even flush the toilet. Just for fun.'

Ben carried his gla.s.s around the room, idly turning over pots and gla.s.ses and books, studying the photo collage on her wall, which had never been planned but had started as a couple of photos Blu-tacked there to keep them out of the way and grown to cover the entire wall. Talking of first impressions, Amy in the barge had been right, Zoe thought. Ben really was hysterically good-looking. Almost ridiculous that anyone could look that good. And his appearance, she had to admit, did make you wonder about him. She'd worked with him for years and it had come as a total shock to find that, not only was he heteros.e.xual, he was full-throttle heteros.e.xual. When he'd first kissed her, in the car park at a colleague's drunken retirement party, her response had been to blurt out, 'Oh, Ben, don't t.i.t around. What're we going to do if you come home with me? Share waxing secrets?'

He'd taken a step back, nonplussed. 'What?'

'Oh, come on.' She'd given him a playful poke in the chest. 'You're gay.'

'I am not.'

'Bet you are.'

'Bet I'm not.'

'OK. I bet there's not a single body hair on you. Bet you go to the barber's and get a weekly BSC.'

'A what what?'

'Back, sack and cr ...' She'd trailed off. 'Ben come on,' she said lamely. 'Don't mess around.'

'What? You head case I'm not gay gay. Je-susssss.' He undid his shirt and showed her his chest. 'And I've got body hair. See?'

Zoe glanced down at his chest and clamped her hand over her mouth. 'Good G.o.d.'

'And more down here too. Hang on.' He was tugging at his zip. 'I'll show you.'

And that had been Zoe and Ben spoken for, stuck into a twenty-four-hour mission for Ben to prove to her how ungay he was. She'd emerged from it screaming and giggling and doing a naked jig at the open window, like a rain dance, singing a victorious whoop-whoop-whoop out across the city. That had been five months ago and they were still sleeping together. He wasn't intimidated by her height, or her messy thatch of red hair, or her never-ending legs, which should have been in a kick-boxing movie. He didn't care about her drinking and her tempers or the fact she couldn't cook. He was addicted to her.

Or, rather, he had been. But lately, she thought, something was different. Recently a serious note had crept into the equation. That resilient, good-humoured man, the one who'd come back at Zoe in a blink, had transformed into someone quieter. It wasn't a change she could put her finger on, just something about the length of silences between sentences. The way his eyes sometimes strayed in the middle of conversations.

Now, while Zoe pulled another bottle from the rack and shoved in the corkscrew, Ben went to the little pantry to get a bag of crisps. He stood for a while, considering what was on the shelves. 'You've got stacks and stacks of food in here.'

She didn't glance up. 'Yeah in case I get ill and can't go out.'

'You couldn't just ask someone to go out and shop for you?'

Zoe stopped struggling with the corkscrew and raised her eyes to him. Just ask ask someone? Who the h.e.l.l was she supposed to ask? Her parents weren't here she spoke to them sometimes on the phone, visited them in Spain every now and then, when she felt she ought to, but they were thousands of miles away and, honestly, things had always been strained with them. She hadn't seen Sally in eighteen years at least, not properly to speak to, just briefly in the street and that was all the family she had locally. As for friends, well, they were all cops and bikers. Not exactly born nursemaids, any of them. someone? Who the h.e.l.l was she supposed to ask? Her parents weren't here she spoke to them sometimes on the phone, visited them in Spain every now and then, when she felt she ought to, but they were thousands of miles away and, honestly, things had always been strained with them. She hadn't seen Sally in eighteen years at least, not properly to speak to, just briefly in the street and that was all the family she had locally. As for friends, well, they were all cops and bikers. Not exactly born nursemaids, any of them.

'I mean, you'd do it for someone if they needed it, wouldn't you?'

'That's not the point.'

'What is the point, then?'

She went back to opening the cork. 'Being prepared for the unexpected. Didn't they do a module on that in training? I'm sure I remember it.' She topped up her gla.s.s and set it to one side. Then she reached into her bike satchel and pulled out the file on Lorne. She spread the photos of the post-mortem on the table. Ben emptied the crisps into a bowl, brought it over to the table and looked down at the images.

'"All like her"?' Zoe used her forefinger to trace the words on Lorne's leg. 'What does that mean?'

'I don't know.'

'There are letters missing. Before and after. They're smudged.'

'That's just part of the message. I guess it's up to us to fill in the rest. If it's important.'

She picked up the photo of Lorne's abdomen. The words 'no one'. 'What the h.e.l.l?' she murmured. 'I mean, really he's nuts, isn't he? What's he talking about "no one"?'

'I don't know.'

'That she's no one to him? That she's nothing. Dispensable? Or that no one understands him him?'

Ben sat down. 'G.o.d knows. b.l.o.o.d.y nightmare, isn't it? And I keep going back to what she said outside the barge: "I've had enough." I spoke to the OIC when she was missing, and there was nothing unusual about the chat she was having, according to her mate at the other end of the line.'

'Alice.'

'Alice. So when Lorne said, "I've had enough," what was she talking about? And why didn't Alice say anything about it?' He gazed wearily into his drink, sloshed it from side to side. 'Someone's going to have to speak to her parents in the morning.'

'The family liaison's with them overnight.'