Hanging Hill (29 page)

28

It was a strange thing, to have lost all sense of who you were and of what was right or wrong. Crouched in the damp-smelling woods, surrounded by the silence of the trees, one thought kept coming back to Sally, and that was how very much she envied Millie. Millie of all people. Millie who could find herself needing money and, instead of agonizing, just borrow it from the first person who offered. Millie who could drop in and out of a person’s life and not think twice about it. She envied the simplicity of a teenager’s mind – when you knew why you were doing what you were doing and could still follow the strand of reasoning back to its start point. When your motivations, goals and morals rested neat, uncrumpled and well spaced in your head. Before they began to knot together, lose their individual colour and become just a fat woolly ball.

She scraped at the earth beneath the tree with her bare fingers, burrowing through last year’s leaves, warm and flaky, getting dirt under her nails. The court she’d summoned in her head had weighed Kelvin against Sally as David Goldrab’s killer and had found there was no contest. Kelvin Burford had a record of violence; he’d worked for David, and had severe mental problems. Of course he had killed David. Of course it couldn’t have been the politely spoken, downtrodden housekeeper, with the nice accent and the teenage daughter in private school. And any way. There was evidence to prove it.

She found what she was searching for and sat back on her heels, resting it on her lap. The tin. She lifted it and blew off the earth. The few oddments inside rattled. David’s teeth. His ring. She opened the lid and stared at them. Steve had called from the departures lounge at Sea-Tac. He’d finished the meeting, caught four hours’ sleep in the hotel, then gone back to the airport and brought his flight back to England forward. It was going to Heathrow and was leaving Seattle in four hours. It would be early tomorrow morning before he was home. She’d told him about the lipstick at Kelvin’s house, how it must have been him who’d left the message on her seat.

‘But I told you. I can deal with it on my own. You didn’t need to cut it short.’

‘I know you can, but you don’t have to. There are things you’re going to have to do that I don’t want you to do alone.’

‘Things?’

‘Sally, you and I have already done things neither of us ever thought we could. And it’s not stopping now. We have to go on to the end of the road.’

We have to go on to the end of the road
…

She knew what he meant. There were places at the gamekeeper’s cottage she could leave the teeth. She could bury them, or wait until Kelvin was out and get into the house. Hide them somewhere careful. A place he wouldn’t think to look, but a place the police would. And while she was there she could search the parts of the house she hadn’t been able to earlier – check there really were no photos of her and Steve in the parking space. It was what Zoë would do, something clever like this. Zoë would do it, she would survive.

She got to her feet, put the lid back on the tin, slid it inside her jacket, and felt for her car keys. If she didn’t do it now, she never would. She walked up the lane to the car, fast, her head down. Opened the door, threw the tin on to the passenger seat and swung inside. She started the engine and reversed up the drive, the familiar petrolly fumes coming in through the rattly back windows.

29

The boards outside creaked. Kelvin was walking leisurely along the landing, sauntering as if he was out in a park on a sunny day. He went to the front bedroom first. Zoë heard him throwing the boxes around. He was humming to himself. He had all the time in the world.

She grabbed the fleece, dragged it across the floorboards towards her and patted the pockets. Pulled out a mobile phone. Looked at it, her pulse racing. A white iPhone. It was Lorne’s. She put her head back, her heart thudding like a jack-hammer. She’d been right. Right. Those arguments she’d had with Ben and Deborah, that Lorne’s killer wasn’t a teenager,
she’d been right
. And she’d been
right
to circle Goldrab and the porn industry – Lorne had met Kelvin through either Goldrab or the nightclubs. There couldn’t be any other way a girl like her would have a connection to a man like Kelvin. God, Lorne, I’m sorry, she thought. For a while I lost sight of you. But you were there all along. I just never expected it to happen like this.

His footsteps stopped in the doorway. She tried the phone but the battery was dead, so she pushed it into the fleece pocket. She could see his blue Hunters in the doorway. Usually she’d be wearing a police radio, but she’d left it in the car. Stealthily she reached into her pocket for her own phone. The wellingtons came across the floor. Before she could even check the phone for a signal, Kelvin Burford crouched and his hands appeared, grabbing her ankles. She scrambled for the slats under the bed, dropping the phone in her haste. It skimmed across the floor, spinning, hitting the skirting-board. Kelvin braced one foot on the bed base to get leverage and pulled at her feet. She held on tight to the slats. He tugged again, and this time her grip weakened. The nail on her index finger tore away. She let go and he dragged her out, across the floor on her stomach, her T-shirt riding up.

He dropped her legs with a clatter. Instantly she slammed both hands on the floor, bunny-hopped to her feet and rounded on him, both hands out, her mouth open in a snarl. He stood against the wall, blinking at her, his hands half raised, as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not.

‘Fucker.’ She threw her hands at him, flapping them like birds. He reached up to keep them from his eyes, and she took the chance to bring her foot into his groin. She made contact, felt him begin to double over. He fell heavily against her, almost knocking her off balance, but she danced out of his way. He staggered a few steps forward, his head down as if he was going to ram the fireplace. She turned and clasped her hands together in a fist above his head, brought them down hard. She was aiming for the back of his neck but she got a point between his shoulder blades. He roared with pain, twisting and flailing with one hand to grab her leg. She wasn’t expecting that –
you broke the first rule: never wait to see the effect of the punch, just get in there with the second
. He got her behind the knee and pulled so fast that she lost her balance and went down on her back with a thud.

He dropped to his knees next to her, his expression almost bored, as if this was too tiring, too wearying to be bothered with, and punched her hard in the face. Her head was thrown sideways with the force. Something flew out of her nose. Then he got a handful of her hair and lifted her head off the floor – there was the tiny
pop-popping
noise of a hundred hair follicles being yanked out – raised his fist and hit her again.

He dropped her head to the floor again and she lay there, panting thickly, staring through bleary eyes at a place about ten inches from her face where a spatter of blood had appeared on the bottom of the door. There was a noise – a wah-wah sound, as if someone in the room was squeezing out the air. The light coming through the french windows seemed suddenly greasy and unsteady, as if it was being manipulated. She tried to lift a hand to her face, but it wouldn’t obey. It rose a short way then fell, like a piece of dead meat, and lay near her face as if it didn’t belong to her. Kelvin was moving around the room, breathing hard. His weight on the floorboards tested the joists under her – as if the floor was bending slightly wherever he went. She thought about Lorne’s face. The blood and the bruising. There was a tube of tennis balls in the next bedroom. How many gamekeepers played tennis, for Christ’s sake? How could she have been so fucking
stupid
?

Kelvin grunted. He got his hands under her armpits and lifted her on to the bed. She lay on her side, breathing rapidly, still unable to move. There was a pool of blood on the floor where her head had just been, bright red, like the ink from the luminous pens they used in the office. A clump of hair too, with something white attached to it. Her skin, she realized.

‘I’m going to tie you up now. OK?’

She tried to move her legs. They wouldn’t budge. They just hung down over the edge of the bed, no life, no feeling. She understood what was going to happen now.

‘Come over here.’

He pushed her a little further onto the bed. She was shivering, cold and hot at the same time. Where his hands touched her they felt like warm muscle meeting glass.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Now here.’

He lifted her numb legs and placed them on the sheets. She could see the veins in the whites of his eyes. An unhealthy yellowish film over the sclera. He smelt of woodsmoke and engine oil and dirty clothes. Zoë recalled the lines of blood running down Lorne’s cheeks. Her skin had split. Really
split
. ‘It’sh OK,’ she slurred.

He looked her in the eye, puzzled. ‘What?’

‘It’sh OK. You can do it to me.’

Kelvin kept his eyes on her, not expecting this. There was a white line on his lips, either from dried skin or toothpaste or spittle, she couldn’t be sure. If she died now Ben would see the marks – everyone would know she’d put up some resistance. You were supposed to fight, weren’t you? Fight for your honour. Except there were times that to win the war you had to lose the battle.

‘It’sh what I want.’

He lowered his chin and looked at her steadily.

‘I mean it.’

He sat on the bed, making the springs creak. ‘You what?’

‘I want it.’

He gave the sly grin he used to give her from the back of the audience, the one that made her sure the dirtiness in her was on the inside, deep, deep down, not something superficial she’d picked up from working in the club.

‘You want what?’

She gritted her teeth.

‘Say it. Say what you want.’

‘I want you to fuck me.’

‘Say, “
Kelvin
, I want you to fuck me.”’

‘I want you to fuck me, Kelvin.’

‘No. Get it right. Say, “Kelvin, I really want you to fuck me.” Lick your lips when you say it. Like you used to.’

She held his eyes. The trembling was starting under her ribs. ‘Kelvin.’ She put her tongue between her lips. Shakily moved it across them. ‘I really want you to fuck me.’

He unlaced his boots and set them to one side. He stood and unsnapped the waterproof leggings, throwing them on to the floor. He unzipped his jeans and stepped out of them. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. No underwear. She could see his red testicles and penis dangling under the plaid shirt. He went to the dressing-table and sorted idly through the items on there.
Please not a tennis ball. Please not that
…

He found instead a condom and split open the packet. She followed it with her eyes as he came back and sat on the bed. He wasn’t stupid: he wouldn’t leave a trace. It was what he’d done with Lorne.

He sat down on the bed and began fumbling with her trousers. She didn’t move – she couldn’t. He got the zip undone and slid the jeans off, dragging her knickers with them. She kept her teeth clenched tight. Tried to shrink all her thoughts into a tight, hard knot in the centre of her mind. He pulled her sweater off over her head and dragged her bottom to the edge of the bed. Her feet clunked dully back on the floor. He knelt in front of her and put on the condom. ‘Open your legs.’

The trembling under her ribs grew into a body-length spasm.

‘Open your legs.’

She managed to get them a small way apart and he used his knees to move them further, then pulled her closer and pushed himself inside her. He watched her closely while he worked at her, eyes on her face. She clamped her teeth together, and kept her eyes locked hard on a button on his breast pocket, holding them there, concentrating all the time on the tight place in her head. The feeling was coming back into her body now. She wished it wouldn’t, she wished she could feel nothing. The blood from her nose ran down the back of her throat. The blood in Lorne’s nose had congealed, blocked her nose. It had been what had killed her. What had Amy said in the barge? It seemed like an eternity ago. That rape was all about men and the way they secretly hated women?

Then, suddenly, it was over. He was finished. He pulled away from her and removed the condom. Tied it in a knot and dropped it on the floor. Then he sat on the bed next to her, almost companionably, reaching over, pushing a hand up inside her T-shirt to massage her breast. ‘You liked that. Didn’t you?’

She licked her lips. She could taste the blood. Salty, like sweat.

‘I said – did you enjoy that?’

She closed her eyes and nodded.

‘Your nose is bleeding.’

She raised a shaky hand, still weak, and wiped it. Kelvin stood and went out. She opened her eyes and blinked at the empty room.
The tennis ball
, she thought.
Now he’s going to get the tennis ball
. But when he reappeared next to the bed he was holding a towel. He handed it to her. She tried to sit up but failed. He pulled her upright and she sat there with the towel pressed on her nose. The feeling was coming back to her legs now, pricking like pins and needles.

‘I’d like to come back another time.’

‘What? What did you say?’

Once, years ago, Zoë had interviewed a rape victim. The girl had said the same thing to her attacker – she’d said afterwards,
I really like you – can we do this again?
He’d believed her and instead of hurting her, had let her go. Zoë swallowed more blood. Repeated it, louder this time: ‘I’d like to come back another time. For more.’

He frowned, genuinely perplexed. ‘You don’t think I’m going to let you go – not now – do you?’

30

It was Zoë’s face that stopped Sally. She’d got halfway up Hanging Hill, gripping the steering-wheel so hard her hands were white, leaning forward and staring out of the windscreen. The turning to Lightpil House and Kelvin’s cottage was up ahead but, as she indicated to turn, out of nowhere Zoë’s expression popped into her head. It was when she’d been standing at the table in the kitchen the day before yesterday, talking about patterns and the way we all connected to each other.

Sally faltered. Her foot twitched on the accelerator. She tried to picture Zoë with a tin full of a dead man’s teeth, driving into the countryside with them. To do what? Point the finger at someone innocent. She couldn’t conjure up the image. Just couldn’t. Clever as Zoë was, it wasn’t how she’d deal with this. And then Sally had a memory of Kelvin Burford at nursery school all those years ago – a fierce and sturdy little boy with the snot dried in crusts where he’d wiped it across his face, the feral sense of determination that stuck right out of his eyes whenever he looked at you.

As the turning to the gamekeeper’s cottage came up to meet her, she flicked the indicator off. She let the car sail past it, continuing on along the main road. Scared as she was of Kelvin, she couldn’t do something else this contorted. Whatever Steve said, she couldn’t go on spoiling the pattern.

No. There had to be another way.