Hanging Hill

by Mo Hayder

  ‘Her phone’s missing. Switched off. But I’m comforted to know that Telephony at the bureau has got a watch on it. Am I right?’

  The sergeant who headed the team’s intelligence cell nodded. ‘Vodafone are a nice network,’ he said, ‘the only one in the UK that do live cell site analysis. The moment that phone is switched on they’ll get a ping on it and we’ll know.’

  ‘Except,’ said the superintendent, ‘chances that’ll happen are, let’s be realistic, zero. More likely he’s slung it, so I hope it’s been added to the search-team briefings. It’s an iPhone, white.’

  He set his cup down and picked up a girl’s fleecy pink gilet. With his finger stuck through the loop at the neck he dangled it in front of the officers. ‘Mum is adamant she was wearing something like this when she left home. It wasn’t among what we recovered from the crime scene, so put an asterisk next to that for the search teams. And, last, there’s a tarpaulin, which you’ve seen in the photos – we’ve trawled around the barge owners down there and they’re all saying the same thing. It’s standard stuff for a barge, a tarp to cover the wood and coal and what-have-you – but still no one’s missing one. They get a lot of overnight moorings in that stretch of the canal, casual since you don’t pay for the first twenty-four hours, so bear that in mind. Have a word with all the boathouses and someone speak to British Waterways to find out what the water bailiff saw moored there overnight. Someone get photos of the tarp distributed – and the fleece. Either get Exhibits to have another photo of the earring done or get the PM one Photoshopped so it hasn’t got the dead ear attached. Then get it to the press office – the media can have both of these. Ben? Zoë? Can I leave it to you to decide how best to divvy that up?’

  Zoë nodded. Ben held up his thumb.

  ‘Good. Now …’ The superintendent rubbed his hands together, as if he was about to announce an unexpected treat. ‘You can see we’ve got a lot of meat to chew on, a lot of standard routes to walk up, but there’s something else I want you to put into your pipes. We’ve got a visitor today.’

  Everyone in the room automatically turned their eyes to the young woman who’d been sitting patiently in the corner throughout the meeting. With long, well-groomed dark hair, she was very neat and quiet, dressed in a white blouse and very tight bottlegreen trousers with high-heeled sandals just peeping out under the hems. Her skin was lightly tanned, her nails polished and well kept. Zoë had noticed a lot of the men looking at her.

  ‘This is Debbie Harry. Not, I am reliably informed, related to the other Debbie Harry.’

  ‘Sadly.’ Debbie shook her head ruefully. ‘In my dreams, you know.’

  One or two of the men laughed. Goodsy, standing in the back row, whispered in his neighbour’s ear. Zoë could guess what he was saying.

  ‘Now, you’re from Bristol University, it says here, and you’re a forensic psychiatrist.’

  ‘Psychologist.’

  ‘Psychologist, sorry. A bit like Cracker?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Funny.’ The superintendent put a hand up to his mouth and said, in a stage whisper, to the team, ‘Doesn’t look much like Robbie Coltrane to me.’

  This time almost everyone laughed. Not Zoë, though. She clearly recalled the superintendent saying over and over again that he’d never, ever, let a ‘fucking head doctor’ within a mile of his incident room. That they were all quacks and poofs and had their heads up their arses. Evidently he’d never met a ‘head doctor’ who looked like this. To see her, you’d think honey would ooze out of her mouth the moment it opened. She got up and came to the front, leaning back on the desk casually, as if this was her own lecture room, half crossing one leg over the other. Just enough to be flirtatious without being totally provocative. Clever girl, Zoë thought. She knew the effect it would have on a roomful of men.

  ‘Look,’ said Debbie, a bright, open expression on her face. ‘This is going to be a big leap of faith for some of you if I ask you to approach this not from an evidentiary perspective but from a psychoanalytical perspective, to ask you to think in terms of profiling the offender. Probably sounds like voodoo to a lot of you.’ She smiled. ‘But if you’re prepared to make that leap of faith then, I can assure you, I’ll be right alongside you.’

  Zoë took a long, patient breath. She’d been here before, heard psychologists talking the talk. Spiels about anger excitation, power reassurance, long analyses of why the bastard had done what he did, what he was thinking when he did it, what his eye colour was, what underpants he wore, what he’d had for breakfast the day he did it. In her experience they weren’t worth much as investigative tools, and sometimes they were positively destructive. Still, some investigators swore by them and she could see from the glowy light in the superintendent’s eyes that he was a new convert. Amazing what a nice pair of legs and a smile could do.

  ‘First,’ Debbie said clearly, ‘I suppose the question that’s in the front of everyone’s minds, the biggest one, is, what’s the writing all about?’ She turned her eyes to the whiteboard where the blown-up photos of Lorne’s abdomen had been pinned. Next to them, in a round, cursive hand, the words had been written out.

  No one.

  ‘I wonder,’ Debbie said ruminatively, ‘I wonder – is that a message to us? Could be. Or to Lorne? Or a statement to the killer himself? Let’s think carefully about that wording: “no one”. Does that mean Lorne is no one to him? A nothing? Worthless? Or is it something else? Does it mean that he’s a no one? That no one cares. No one understands me. I’m inclined to think it’s something like that – which would mean we have someone here with very low self-esteem. He could be the type to form unnaturally intense relationships with people – the type to become jealous or aggrieved easily. Now that he’s killed Lorne he could enter a period of self-recrimination. There may be a suicide attempt. There may already have been a suicide attempt, so I’d suggest that would be something you could check on – suicides and admissions since the time of her death.’ Debbie turned back to the board. She was enjoying this. Like a reception teacher with a class full of bright-faced children gazing up at her raptly. ‘Let’s move on to the next sentence. He’s written something on her thigh that looks like “all like her”. Any ideas on that?’ She scratched her head, a subtle suggestion to the team that they were thinking with her, that she wasn’t just cramming her theories down their throats. ‘Any thoughts?’

  The men shrugged, waiting for her to provide the answer.

  ‘OK.’ She linked her hands round her knees and tipped her head shyly. ‘Let me be a bit bold. Let me take you by the hand and lead you out on a limb. Let me say that, in my opinion, Lorne knew her killer.’

  There was a ripple of attention. People murmuring among themselves. Zoë glanced at Ben to see his reaction. His head was lowered and he was busily scribbling notes to himself on his customary yellow legal pad, probably to stop himself laughing out loud, she thought.

  Debbie held up her hand to quieten the muttering. ‘I know – a leap of faith, but let me just work with it for a moment. What do we know about Lorne?’

  ‘That she was popular,’ said the intelligence cell sergeant. ‘Had lots of friends, lots of male admirers. So that sentence could be “they all like her”.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Debbie said triumphantly, beaming at him. ‘Exactly. This is a direct comment about Lorne. And, in case you think I’m grasping at straws to support a flimsy theory, let me say something else. I’ve analysed Lorne’s tragic injuries, and those just confirm my conclusions about who attacked her that night. He definitely approached her from the front. The pathologist said it was a single blow that incapacitated her, and caused the bleeding to the nose. There are no signs she tried to run – no screams heard. Her attacker had got really close to her, really close, and she’d allowed it. Now, would she have done that if she didn’t know him? No, is the answer. She wouldn’t. In fact …’ she did a little mime of a tightrope walker – arms out, trying to keep her balance ‘… now I�
��m out on my limb – whoa! – I may as well go all the way and say I wouldn’t rule out that the offender may have had, or at least believed he was having, a relationship with Lorne. I also think he could be quite near Lorne’s age. Maybe a year or two older – and probably the same ethnic and socio-political background. Could even be a member of her peer group.’

  The superintendent held up his hand. ‘A question.’

  Oh, please, Zoë thought, ask her why she’s talking such crap. Go on, ask her.

  ‘You say he’s about her age?’

  ‘Within a year or so, yes.’

  ‘And what makes you think he’s known to her?’

  ‘She had a blow to the face. That’s a classic sign. Depersonalization, we call it. But before I go any further …’ Debbie gave them a million-dollar smile, with the expensive dentistry on show ‘… I’m going to come back off my limb. See? I’m nice and safe in the tree now, and I want to make one thing very, very clear. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ one or two voices said.

  ‘I want it clear that my thoughts are only for guidance. Only for guidance and only my opinion. You’re all adults, and I don’t want to be patronizing, but you should always keep an open mind. Please.’ She sighed as if this was the one drawback in her job – the way everyone took her word as gospel. ‘I reiterate: you must keep an open mind.’

  ‘Christ Christ Christ.’ After the meeting Zoë swung into Ben’s office without knocking. She was the only one in the building allowed to do that. She dropped into a chair and folded her arms, her legs pushed out, heels dug into the carpet. ‘Can you fucking believe it? The superintendent is being led by his dick. Known to her killer? The same age? All this from her injuries? “This blow to her face is a classic sign of depersonalization”? I mean, shit, Ben, it’s the same injury you see in about eighty per cent of the muggings we go to and most of those victims had never met their attacker before. Don’t you remember those photos of depersonalization they showed us on that course – that was de-bloody-personalization. Eyeballs out. Things carved into the forehead. Noses cut off. Twenty-seven wounds to the face. But Debbie “not the Debbie” Harry is saying a single blow to the …’ She trailed off. Ben wasn’t shaking his head ruefully, regretting the appalling situation. Instead he was sitting in silence. Watching her without expression.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘What’s that look for? You don’t agree with her, do you?’

  ‘Of course not – she treated us like two-year-olds.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘What she said about the wording wasn’t totally off piste. Some of it kind of had merit.’

  ‘Kind of had merit?’ Zoë stared at him open-mouthed. She couldn’t believe this, just couldn’t believe it. ‘No. You’re just getting your own back because of whatever I said last night that you didn’t like.’

  ‘I’m saying it because it sounds feasible.’

  ‘Feasible? Try irresponsible. Have you thought how dangerous it is, screwing down our target to someone in his teens? All those Neanderthals in the incident room with their tongues on the floor at the sight of a girl in tight trousers who can use big words are going to set off with such narrow parameters that the killer could walk straight past them, and if he’s not the white middle-class public-school boy Debbie said he should be they’ll let him go. It’s wrong on so many different levels. And it doesn’t even feel right. It doesn’t feel like someone that young would have the confidence to do what Lorne’s killer did.’

  ‘I disagree.’

  ‘It’s a free world, Ben. And it’s good we disagree. As long as you remember to keep an open mind. Even Tracey Sunshine said that.’

  ‘Of course. Of course I will.’ He pushed back his immaculate cuff and checked his watch. ‘So, nine o’clock now. What’re you going to take?’

  ‘Well, I’m not going to be interviewing schoolboys, I can promise you that. I might do something really radical – like try to establish an investigation based on the evidence. You know – like we were trained? I might try to find out which barge that tarp came from.’ She pushed her chair back, got to her feet. ‘Or, even better, I’ll meet up with the liaison officer. Go and speak to the Wood family. You?’

  ‘Alice Morecombe, the friend on the phone. I’ve got to find out about that last conversation. And then …’

  She raised her eyebrows at him. ‘And then?’

  ‘I’ll take some of MCIU up to Faulkener’s. Speak to all the boys in Lorne’s year – and everyone in the year above her too.’

  She shook her head resignedly. ‘Does this mean we’re at war?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. We’re grown-ups. Aren’t we?’

  She held his eyes. ‘I hope so, Ben. I really do.’ She looked at him for a bit longer, then checked her watch. ‘A drink tonight? Depending on how the day pans out?’

  ‘Sure.’ He gave a brief smile, then swivelled his computer screen round and began entering his password.

  ‘I’ll see you later, then?’ She watched his fingers on the keys. ‘About seven?’

  ‘Seven.’ He didn’t take his eyes off the computer. ‘Sounds perfect.’

  14

  Zoë would have driven the Harley anywhere – but the superintendent just hated the thought of her rolling up to interviews in her leathers, so for police business she used the car: the ancient Mondeo she’d got cheaply when the force had offloaded some of its fleet. The Woods lived out near Batheaston and to get there she had to drive past the exclusive Faulkener’s School where Ben had sent his team to interview the schoolkids. She slowed the Mondeo, peered up the rhododendron-lined driveway and saw all the marked and unmarked cars parked up. Ranks of them. Already she knew where this case was going: the superintendent was going to throw all the resources after Debbie Harry’s theories. Zoë could see all the swimming-against-the-tide that lay in her future.

  She speeded up, passing the school, then almost as quickly slowed again. About a hundred yards ahead, pulled on to the kerb, there was a purple Mitsubishi Shogun jeep. It was a real number, tricked out like a pimp-mobile with clamped-on running-boards, angel-eye headlights and a bush snorkel. Sitting in it was a notorious piece of local pond life – Jake Drago, otherwise known as Jake the Peg, for some reason that eluded her. Skinny and always fidgeting, Jake the Peg had spent almost half his adult life inside, mostly for stupid brawls and drug-dealing. But for the last two years, people said, he’d got his act together, had found some way of staying on the straight. Zoë doubted it. She pulled the car over and got out, tucking her shirt into her jeans as she walked back along the pavement to him.

  ‘Hey.’ Jake got out of the car as she approached. He slammed the door, leaned back against it, folded his arms and gave her a long look up and down, taking in the high-heeled cowboy boots and the black shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  ‘Hey, Jake.’ She stopped a pace away, smiled nicely. It was true what they said: he looked different. He’d cleaned up, had put on weight and muscle. He wore a tight white vest that his pumped-up pecs pushed against. His dark hair was cut short at the sides with the top gelled up. He was very tanned and oiled and, frankly, to her eyes, looked like he was on his way to a disco. ‘I see you haven’t learned much over the years. In the States you get out of a car like that when a cop comes along and you’re liable to get yourself shot. Here, you’re just liable to make me wonder if you’re hiding something in there. And then I’d have to search the car, or breathalyse you, and at that point it all gets really tedious.’

  ‘How do I know you’re a cop?’

  ‘Oh, please.’ She gave a laugh – a low, forced laugh – and looked around herself as if there might be someone to share the joke with. ‘Please. Don’t even go there. Let’s not demean ourselves.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘What do I want? I want to look at your muscle car.’ She put a hand on the bonnet. ‘It’s totally mint, Peg. Suits you.’

  ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘I saw. Sitting there in the morning sun.
Saw you were in a hurry.’

  He scowled. ‘This is starting to piss me off.’

  She looked across at the entrance to the school with its big ornate gates and the unmarked police cars. You wouldn’t know what they were unless you were police yourself. ‘What’re you doing outside the school? Why’d you pick here to sit?’

  He gave her a tight, twitchy look. Then he smiled, showing the glint of a diamond set in his front tooth. ‘I’m a perv. Didn’t you know? Watching all the girls in their little short skirts?’ He rubbed his thighs. ‘Fuck, but they make me hot. Make me think about things my probation officer says I didn’t ought to think about.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah – still taking me for an idiot after all these years. You’re not a nonce, Peggers. You’re a lowlife piece of turd that one day, God willing, the good citizens of Bath will scrape off the bottom of their shoes for ever – but you’re not a nonce. So what is it? You dealing to the spoiled little girls and boys in there?’

  ‘I told you – I was resting. Closing my eyes.’

  ‘You heard about the murder? That’s the sort of thing that gets around.’

  ‘Course I heard.’

  ‘You know when it happened?’

  ‘Yes. The night before last.’

  ‘And you know where?’

  ‘Over there.’ He nodded in the direction of the canal. ‘They found her down there, didn’t they?’

  ‘And you didn’t see anything?’

  ‘Me? Me? Nothing. Never saw a thing.’

  ‘You sure? I mean, I could have a rummage around in that disgusting pimped-up heap of shit you’re driving, you sad bastard, and take you in. Now, are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ He tucked his hands into his armpits and fixed his eyes on her chin. ‘A hundred per cent.’

  ‘It’s just, you know, I’m a woman so I’ve got a memory like an elephant, can never wipe that slate clean. Know what I’m saying? And the thing I will never forget about you, Peggie, is you lying to the police. Every time you get your arse hauled in you tell lies. Now – tell me. Did you see anything?’