Hanging Hill (18 page)

‘I need some start-up capital.’

‘From me? Well, I would, my old friend, but they say bukkake doesn’t sell any more. Did you know that? Apparently more women are watching porn. Apparently they don’t get off on seeing some slag getting wanked over by twenty men. God knows why, it’s a mystery to me, but you do hear the word “degrading” bandied around, these days.’

Sally massaged her temples. So what she’d seen on the video had a name. Bukkake. Somehow it made it worse, to put a word to it, made it more real. No pretending she’d dreamed it.

‘Course, maybe you could flog it to the gay market – could be a new opening. I mean, it was always beyond me why any red-blooded male would want to watch a bunch of other men jacking off. Where’s the hetero in that formula, eh?’

Jake ignored the dig. ‘I was thinking we’d go forty:sixty. You put in the copying facility, the packaging and the marketing. I put in the product.’

David was still for a moment. ‘Forty:sixty? Who’s the forty?’

‘You. Let them go out at six ninety-nine. The same strategy we had with the last series.’

David got to his feet. He went to the fridge and poured himself another glass of champagne. He closed the door and stood for a moment or two, his back to Jake, as if he was composing himself. Then he came back and sat down. ‘Look, boyo, we had a falling-out the other day when you were here. I was rude, I grant you.’

‘Yeah – you were pissed off.’

‘Pissed off. That’s right. And I told you not to come back. You chose to ignore that. So you must, I think, be asking yourself why the hell I let you back in today. Aren’t you?’

‘I dunno. Maybe.’

‘Let me explain. I opened the door to you for one reason. Curiosity. I’m a curious man, see, always have been. Used to love, as a child, going to the zoo. Nice family outing to see the monkeys playing with their peckers, know what I mean? Used to be curious about that and I’m like that even now. For example, I’m intrigued by the amazing variety of things some of the Kosovan slags’ll shove up their snatches for a few euro. That, believe me, never fails to make me curious. And Jake, my old friend, that’s why I’m welcoming you in here.’

‘Because you’re curious?’

David laughed expansively. He leaned over and slapped Jake on the knee. ‘Oh, I love it – I love your expression. You think I’m going to ask you to pull out your pecker like those monkeys, doncha? Or ram an onion up your jacksy? Don’t worry – I’m not going to ask you that, though I’m sure you would, you being a bum-boy and all. No – I’ve seen your legendary whanger enough times to satisfy that curiosity, eh? Like half of Britain. Sad your one-handed audience can’t applaud, isn’t it? Might make you feel better about yourself. No, Jake, I’m not curious about any of that. And yet I am still curious. Still curious …’

‘About what?’ Jake blurted.

‘About what the
fuck
you were
thinking
!’ He rammed a finger hard into his temple. Spittle flew out of his mouth. ‘Have you fucking
lost
it up here in old Mission Command, boyo, mincing back, trying to sell me my own fucking speciality?
I
’m the bukkake king, you queer piece of shit.
I
’m the one got you started. I
made
you, Jake.
I. Made
.
You
.’ He shook his head sorrowfully. Let out all his breath wearily and opened his hands as if he despaired. ‘Honestly, Jake, if you had an extra brain it’d be lonely. Now, get the fuck out of my house. And this time don’t come back.’

Jake stared at him.

‘What’re you fucking looking at? You deaf or something?’ David slammed a fist on the table, making the DVDs rattle. Jake jumped to his feet and hastily swept the DVDs into the bag. Throwing it over his shoulder, he backed out towards the door, his hands up. David followed him as far as the hallway, then swung loosely around the banister and disappeared from Sally’s view up the stairs.

Going for the crossbow. He had to be.

She got up and went quietly to the door. Jake was outside on the gravel, patting his coat, trying to find his keys, glancing anxiously at David, who had come downstairs and was standing a few feet away in the sunshine, his back to her, the crossbow raised. She looked across the kitchen to the utility room – just ten feet to cover, then she’d be out. She was about to scamper across when there was a loud thwack and a bolt was fired. A fountain of gravel spurted into the air about ten feet away on the driveway near the jeep. Jake put his hands in the air defensively.

‘What’s wrong, boyo?’ David called pleasantly. ‘Still struggling with the meaning of “fuck off”?’

In an act of defiance, Jake stooped, snatched up a handful of gravel, and threw it at him. Then, before David could react, he was in the jeep, powering up the driveway, the automatic gates swinging open to let him go. And Jake was gone, the butterfly flash of his jeep bumping along the tiny lane that wound down to the road.

David trudged back into the house. Immediately he caught sight of Sally shrinking back into the atrium.

‘What’re you staring at?’ He glanced over his shoulder as if there might be someone else in the hallway who was making her gawp like that. ‘What? So I lost my temper. Don’t get all weepy on me, Princess – if you hadn’t been cunting around with my private affairs I wouldn’t’ve been so pissed off in the first place.’

Sally gaped at him, lost for words. Her face was on fire. She was thinking about the girl in the video, strapped to the floor.

‘
What?
’ His chin jutted forward aggressively. ‘Don’t give me that fucking superior-bitch look – I’m fed up with seeing it. You stand here in
my
house judging me? Well, there’s a simple solution to that. You fuck off. If you don’t like it, then just fuck right off.’

She was still for a moment longer. Then she turned on her heel and began to walk towards the utility room. ‘You bastard,’ she muttered, under her breath.

‘I beg your pardon?’

She shook her head. Kept walking.

‘You’ll apologize for that,’ he yelled behind her. ‘You’ll fucking apologize.’

She got to the door of the utility room. Mercifully it opened smoothly and she was out in the sun, her bag over her shoulder, her jacket bundled up in the cleaning kit. She was trembling but she didn’t run, just went fast and steady, her head up and straight, ferreting around with one hand in her bag for her keys. She could hear him behind her. Also not running. But keeping pace.

‘I said
apologize
. Say it. Tell you what, I’ll make it easy for you – give you the script. “I’m truly sorry, David, for calling you a bastard. I’m sorry.” Just say it and it’s over.’

As she got to the bottom of the path and swung the little gate open, the keys in her bag suddenly seemed to leap into her hand. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she thought, hoisting them out and aiming them at the car. The locking system beeped and clunked reassuringly; the indicators flashed. The gap from the parking area to the gate was only a few yards. As soon as she was in the car she’d be fine.

But David caught up with her on the gravel. ‘You really take the fucking biscuit, Sally.’ He ran forward a little so he was in front of her. He wanted her to look at him. ‘Never known anyone like you for bare-faced stupid cuntness.’

She dodged past him, opening the car and throwing her jacket and bag on to the passenger seat. Then she went round to the back, weaving past him, still not meeting his eye. She opened the boot and threw her kit inside. As she was straightening, he came up behind her and struck her on the back of the head with such force that her face went forward, her cheek hitting the underside of the opened boot lid. As she bounced back, her left elbow slammed the inside of the boot at speed, breaking the motion. She jerked sideways in an undignified scramble to right herself. Before she could catch her breath and twist to face him he was on her back, gripping her by the throat from behind, pinning her face down into the boot.

‘You fucking
apologize
. What do you take me for? Eh?’ He shook her forcefully. ‘
Apologize now
.’

She scrabbled at his fingers. Felt the hot, fat pressure of blood squeezed into her brain. Her arms tingled – static crackled in her ears. This was insane. It couldn’t be happening.

‘I ought to fucking take you out here and now, you bitch. Taking my fucking money and judging me at the same time?’ He shook her, his body weighing flat against her back. ‘I ought to rip your head off and shit down your neck. I thought Jake was bad.’

She couldn’t swallow. There was blood in her mouth from where she’d bitten her tongue – it dribbled out of her lips and down her chin. All the objects in the boot seemed to bulge out at her, as though behind a fish-eye lens. Then she realized what she was looking at. Something smooth and black. She recalled Steve, standing at the wall, bouncing nails into the door frame. The nail gun, a dim red light on the base. Steve had shown her how to use it before he’d put it in here, and he’d said the light only came if it was switched on. Maybe it had been switched on all this time.

‘Apologize.’

‘No.’ Her speech was slurred with the blood that webbed her mouth. She tightened her fingers around the gun. It felt smooth. Curiously warm. ‘I won’t.’

He kicked the car, making it rock. ‘
Don’t
take the fucking piss. You’re worse than Jake for not knowing when you’ve got shit all over your face. Now apologize.’

Her finger found the trigger. Found the parts that Steve had used to start it. You had to pull back the guard on it, make sure the nail strip was in place, hold the muzzle flush against the surface and depress the trigger. If she could find a place on David’s arms, or his legs. Somewhere that would hurt, but not injure him seriously. Just stop him long enough for her to get into the car.

‘You know what happens to tarts like you who take the piss?’ He gave her another shake. ‘Say it,’ he hissed in her ear. His breath was sour and hot. ‘Say it now. Cunt.’

Sally took a breath and wrenched her body sideways out of his grip. The car suspension creaked, she staggered against the bumper, waving the nail gun at David. He came at her again and she lashed out blindly – at the first and easiest place she could reach. His leg. Before he could react there was a loud
whoomp
and she had landed a nail in his thigh. He crumpled with the pain, wheeling away. Took a few staggering steps away from the car, clutching his leg. She tottered sideways, staring at him, hardly believing she’d done it.

‘Fuck. What the fuck did you do that for?’ He sank to the ground, scrabbling at his jogging trousers, pulling frantically at the nail. She dropped the nail gun and stood there, like a dummy, mouth open, knowing she’d hit something big because blood was already soaking his jeans. Thick pulses of it ran over his hands. ‘You made your point, Sally. You made your point.’

‘No,’ she said, horrified. ‘What have I done?’

‘I don’t fucking know, do I? Get the fucking thing out.’

She crouched, fumbling for his leg, trying to find where the wound was, but the blood seemed to be everywhere, mushrooming up like a spring. On Wednesday when Steve had nailed himself to the wall she’d been completely calm. Now her body was seized up in panic. She seemed to move in creaky slow motion, pushing herself upright and stumbling to the front of the car to get her jacket. She came back, threw it on to the wound and groped around helplessly, trying to tighten it.

‘Call an ambulance.’

To Sally’s horror she saw his lips had gone blue. His hands were flailing, trying to grab her wrist. They kept slipping in the blood and losing their grip.

‘Get me back to the house.’

‘
Keep still
,’ she panted. ‘
Keep still
.’

He lay there for a moment, breathing hard, while she wrapped the jacket around his thigh. But even before she could tie it at the back she saw it was useless – the blood had soaked through the fabric, pushing through the herringbone stitch as if it was squeezing through a grid. And then that awful pulsing fountain of red again.

‘
God God God
.’ She glanced frantically up at the house. Jake? No – he was long gone. ‘
What do I do? Tell me what to do now!
’

‘
I don’t know
.’

She leaped up and grabbed her bag, tipped out the contents and snatched up her mobile. With shaking fingers she began to dial, but before she’d got to the second nine, David let out an odd whine. He half sat up – his mouth open in a grimace as if he wanted to bite her. He froze like that for a moment then fell back, jerking and spasming, as if an electric current was going through him. His legs kicked involuntarily, making him circle like a broken Catherine wheel. Then his back arched, his head twisted painfully, as if he was trying to look over his shoulder at the wheel of the car, and he went limp, lying on his back, one arm trapped under him, the other stretched out to the side.

There was silence. She stood, the phone forgotten in her hand, staring at him. He wasn’t breathing. Or moving. A smell of urine and blood rose up off him.

‘David?’ she whispered. ‘David?’

Silence.

Shaking, she fell to her knees in the spreading pool of blood, her heart beating like thunder. His eyes were open, his mouth too, as if he was shouting. It was like seeing a machine stopped in mid-action. She sat back on her heels. Numb. No, she thought. Christ, no. Not this on top of everything else.

The evening sun shone warm on the back of her head, and a sudden gust sent a swirl of blossom dancing past her gently, as though this was just another late-spring evening. Nothing unusual about it – nothing unusual about a small woman in her thirties killing a man, quite unabashedly, out in the open air.

37

It took all of Zoë’s reserves, that day of work. It took going into the sort of places she’d hoped for years she’d never have to see again. The club she’d worked at in the nineties was closed now – it had turned into a betting shop – but driving round the streets of Bristol that day, the list Holden had given her taped to the dashboard, the sheer misery of it came back to her like a slap. Nightclub after nightclub after nightclub, all across the city. Most of them were just opening in the afternoon, and from some the cleaners were coming out, dragging their heels, knowing their lot in life was to wash floors that had had every kind of bodily fluid spilled on them. The places smelt of bleach, stale perfume and stomach acid. The majority of the girls were East European. They were generally open and pleasant, unobstructive, but none of them had ever seen Lorne Wood, except on the front page of the newspapers. When Zoë mentioned there was a chance Lorne had wandered into topless modelling, maybe into the clubs, one or two of the girls had given her a look as if to say, was she nuts? Someone like Lorne ending up in a place like this?

By nine that evening, when she’d got to the end of the list, she was starting to think the girls were right, that Holden’s agency really was where Lorne’s trail had run cold. She was coming to the end of the day – the end of her promise to Lorne. Just one more knock and she’d admit defeat. Go home and watch TV. Go to a movie. Call one of the biker friends she sometimes met up with for a beer and sit in a bar planning her week’s bike ride.

Jacqui Sereno’s was the last name. She lived in Frome and had cropped up in a conversation with a bouncer at one of the clubs. Zoë drove the old Mondeo out there, both hands on the steering-wheel, her eyes fixed doggedly on the road. The address was a private house – and for a moment she thought she’d got the wrong place. But she checked the list and it was right. Apparently Jacqui operated a webcam service, letting out rooms, computer equipment and bandwidth, from this small, ordinary house, only distinguishable from all the others on the estate by its tattiness. The door of the gas meter hung open at an angle, broken on the hinges, and a dustbin overflowed on the front path. The windows hadn’t been cleaned in years. With a deep sigh, Zoë swung her legs out of the car and walked up the path.

The woman who opened the door was in her fifties, small, thin and bitter, with a dark suntan and an old-fashioned beehive she had decorated with plastic flowers. She wore tight black leggings, a T-shirt and red high-heeled mules. She was sucking at a cigarette, as if she needed the nicotine so much she’d like to swallow the thing whole.

‘Jacqui?’

‘Yeah? What?’

‘Police.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Have you got a few moments?’

‘S’pose.’

Jacqui kicked aside a fluffy pink draught-excluder and opened the door. Zoë stepped inside. It was hot – the central heating was on high although it was spring. She followed the woman into the kitchen at the back of the house. It was neater inside than out – there were lace curtains in the windows, with a mug tree, matching tea-towels, and biscuit tins piled in a pyramid on top of the fridge. The only thing out of place was a yellow and black sharps bin on the work-surface.

‘Insulin,’ Jacqui said. ‘I’m a diabetic.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Now, make yourself comfortable, pet, and I’ll put on the kettle because you’ll be here a while.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You’re going to sit here and threaten me, pet, and I’m going to come back at you over and again, explaining how I’m not running a brothel. How what I’m doing here is not illegal. How you have to define what the girls are doing as lewd or likely to cause offence. You’re police but you’re out of your depth.’ She smiled and plugged the kettle in. Threw a couple of teabags into mugs. ‘I mean no personal offence, pet, but since they’ve got rid of the specialized cops – the street-offences crew – I’ve been able to run rings around you CID muppets. Shame, I had a lot of friends in that team.’

Zoë didn’t want to get into the small print of the Sexual Offences Act. From her own experiences, she knew the earlier legislation – a lot of it was written in stone on her heart – but over the years her knowledge had slipped. A lot of the stuff relating to lap-dancing clubs was governed by local bylaws, and a huge Act had been passed in 2003 that overturned a lot of what she’d learned. The only part of the new Act she could quote for sure was the bit about assault by penetration with an object – and she only knew that from the discussions in the incident room over what Act they might charge Lorne’s killer under. She’d be no match for the hard-bitten Jacqui.

‘I’ve been over and over this. The point is that no sexual gratification actually takes place on the premises.’ She dug a wrinkled finger at the table. ‘I can promise you that. If there is any sexual gratification occurring it ain’t here. It’s happening in New York or Peru or bleeding Dunstable, for all I know.’

Zoë raised her chin and looked at the ceiling, imagining a warren of rooms up there. ‘How does it work?’

‘They’re “chat hostesses”. That’s all. Sitting in front of a web cam and “chatting” – or whatever they have a mind to do, if you get my drift. Catering to the more discerning gentleman who’s had his fill of the Asian girls. A little pricey, but you get what you pay for. Two dollars a minute. Not that I see a penny of it. Because this ain’t a brothel. My only comeback is the rental of the equipment and bandwidth with it. What they do ain’t my affair.’ She put a mug on the table. ‘There you are, pet. Drink up. You look like you need it.’

‘Are they up there now?’

‘Just one. Our big clients are South America and Japan.’ She looked at her watch. ‘South America’s in the office now, and doesn’t like to get caught with his trousers round his ankles by the boss, and Japan? Well, he’s only just waking up. We won’t catch him at his randiest for another twelve hours. So?’ She gave Zoë a friendly smile. There was a smudge of red lipstick on her front teeth. ‘What section of the law do you want to argue about? You see, me,’ she held the hand with the smouldering cigarette against her chest, ‘I love a good debate. I should have been on
Question Time
, me. One day they’ll ask me.’

‘They will. They surely will.’ Zoë cleared her throat and reached, for the hundredth time, into her satchel. Pulled out the photos of Lorne. ‘Jacqui. Look, I’d love to have a debate. But I’m not here about the setup you’re operating.’

‘Operating? Be careful the vocabulary you use.’

‘The equipment you’re renting.’ She rubbed her forehead. She was hot and sticky in this shirt, and Jacqui’s tea tasted awful. She so, so wanted to go home – forget all this. ‘What I really want to know is if this girl ever passed across your radar screen.’

She spread the photos out. Jacqui took a long puff of the cigarette, pushed the smoke out of her mouth in a thin, straight stream, and squinted down at the photos, taking in every detail. She’d done this before, Zoë thought. Probably, if she’d been in the business a while, she’d done it a lot of times – speaking to the police about the victims of rape, abuse, domestic violence. Prostitution, lap-dancing, pole-dancing. Lying naked on a bed in front of a tiny video camera and a mic. All these things lived in a hinterland just on the other side of the law – sharing boundaries with the dangerous and the violent.

‘No.’ She sat back, closed her eyes and took another puff. ‘Never seen her.’

‘OK.’ Zoë put the wallet into the satchel and began to get up. She’d done what she could.

‘But …’ Jacqui said. ‘But wait …’

‘But?’

‘But I know who would like her. For his videos. He’s cornered the young totty market, hasn’t he? He likes them to look like teenagers.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘I don’t know his name. Not his real name. London Tarn they always called him. London Tarn.’

Zoë sank slowly back into her seat. ‘London Tarn?’

‘It’s London Town,’ Jacqui explained. ‘Just “Tarn” because of the accent. You know – like in
EastEnders
, but he—’ She broke off, squinting at Zoë suspiciously. ‘What? You look like someone just sucked the blood out of you. You’ve heard of him, have you?’

‘No.’ She clutched the satchel to her chest. Drew her knees together. ‘No. I’ve never heard of him.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘It’s just that for a minute there, when I said his name, you looked like—’

‘I’m
sure
.’ She started tapping her foot, suddenly irritable. She was awake now. Wide awake. ‘Tell me about him. London Tarn. He makes videos?’

Jacqui took another slug of smoke and eyed her. ‘Yeah – he’s been around years now, must be pushing sixty. When he started, he used to be just soft porn. Hi Eight. He used to run a club too – out in Bristol, one of your old-fashioned strip clubs – and when that closed down he put everything into the videos. He didn’t have any proper production equipment – the only time I went to his place it was just him in a flat in Fishponds, with one VHS here,’ she put a hand out, ‘and another here, and a bit of wire between them, and that’s how he’d copy them. Then he’d sell them in the markets. You know, the stalls at St Nicholas.’

‘And after that?’

‘After that he was a gonzo.’

‘A
gonzo
?’

‘Yeah. He’d make vids of himself. This was in the nineties, mind.’ She tapped her ash into the ashtray and crossed her legs – getting comfortable for this reminiscence. ‘I never knew him then, that was after my time, but I seen the movies. He’d be there in his glory with some poor girl he’d talked into doing whatever. Never bothered with lighting or anything, which I always thought wasn’t professional. A bit slack, if you want my way of looking at it. But they do say, don’t they, some people like it – the, you know, warts-’n’-all look. Either way up, it was a seller. And on the back of that he picked up pretty swift on the Internet deal. Give him his due, he was in there. And after that came the bukkake stuff.’

‘Bukkake?’

Jacqui laughed. ‘Doncha know what that is?’

‘No.’

‘It’s all about humiliating the woman. They say it was an old Japanese custom – what they’d to do to the womenfolk if they got caught putting it around. The men of the village would take them out and bury them up to their necks. Except instead of stoning …’ She broke off. Gave a nasty smile. ‘Nah, you’re the detective. You go and find out. But, anyway, it’s what he built his empire on. Bukkake, the nastier the better. I’ve seen some of it – looked like some sort of snuff movie, really dirty. Gritty. You’d think looking at it the girl was going to be butchered. Still, it sold by the shedload – just stacks of the stuff. Makes you wonder about human nature, don’t it?’

‘OK,’ Zoë said, very slowly, ‘what’s he doing now? Where is he?’

‘Oh, he’s mega. Mega-mega.’ She waved a hand in the air as if they were talking about a different universe. ‘Private jet, probably, servants. The works. He’s up there, now, sweetie, and there’s no taking him down.’

‘Which country?’

‘Here. In the UK.’

In the UK. Zoë cleared her throat. She’d just changed her mind about having a week off. ‘You mean, in this area?’

‘I think so, yes. And, believe me, if he set his eyes on a girl like that one on your photos he’d get dollar signs lighting up in his eyes. Why? What’s happened to her? Is she hurt?’

‘You don’t know his real name? Do you? London Tarn?’

Jacqui gave a low, guttural laugh. ‘No. If I knew his real name I’d be after him. For that tenner he borrowed off me in the nineties.’ She tapped another column of ash off her cigarette. ‘I mean, fifteen years. The interest he owes me, I could fly round the world. Go and say hi to my customers in South America, eh?’