by Mo Hayder
It was the living room from her childhood – the lights on, the fire playing merrily in the grate. Sally, aged about three, was sitting on Mum’s lap, Mum smiling at her, stroking her yellow hair. And in the shadowed corner of the room – Zoë, dark-eyed and silent. Sitting on the floor in the corner, playing with building bricks, glancing up surreptitiously from time to time, wondering when Mum would look over or smile at her. Two such different children – the one a beautiful, corn-fed child from a dream, the other a broken-up fox. Spiteful and clever and obstinate.
The ‘accident’ with Sally’s hand had been, truthfully, anything but an accident. The reality was that Zoë had had a fit of temper when what had been building for years was sparked off by something trivial. Zoë had been eight, Sally seven, and from that moment on the sisters were kept apart by their parents, and Zoë had learned for sure who she was and on which side of life she had to exist. She understood now that she was capable of ‘evil’ and of ‘doing the unthinkable’. It was a lesson she’d never be allowed to unlearn.
She glanced up now through the open back door into the lighted room, to the pictures on the wall. Some showed the motorbike trip and some showed her at boarding-school – always grinning and resilient. Great at games and maths, always in trouble with the teachers. Everyone who met her, even Ben, thought that being enrolled, aged just eight, at boarding-school meant she was privileged. No one outside the Benedict family knew it was nothing to do with privilege and pony parties and everything to do with keeping her separate from Sally. Who was kind and sweet and adored by Mum and Dad. So lovely that they had to protect her from her cuel and uncontrollable sister.
Zoë hadn’t thought about any of this for years. It was Lorne who’d put it back in her thoughts – Lorne, her perfect brother, and the places she may have gone, like Zoë herself, thinking she could escape the feelings. The photos. That was what chilled Zoë most. Because it was the same way she’d escaped. Eighteen years ago. Not a soul knew about it, but when she had first left boarding-school she’d taken a job for six months in a Bristol nightclub: a teenager still, undressing in front of men twelve times a day. At the time she’d deliberately not given too much thought to what she was doing – she’d laughed about it, insisted it was a great joke, and kept herself focused on the motorbike trip she was going to pay for at the end of it. But on the occasions she heard people talking about the sex-club industry and how it cheapened a person, her brave face would slip. She’d turn away, thinking privately that they didn’t recognize that to cheapen something it had to have had worth to start with, that to devalue something it had to have had value. Which was something she, and maybe Lorne, had long lost.
Maybe it was just the natural course for the broken child to veer off into places like that nightclub. Places where their own darkness was outmatched by those around them.
Zoë fed the last of the biscuits to the cats. It had begun to rain, pattering on the bike cover, which she had thrown untidily against the garden shed. Something caught her eye. She got up and peered at the cover, at the small puddle that was developing there.
‘Well, holy shit and Jesus on a bike,’ she muttered to the cats. ‘That’s what I’ve been missing. That’s it.’
21
Sally called Steve at nine thirty, and within twenty minutes his car headlights came in through the kitchen window and travelled up the wall. On the table in front of her was a pile of papers: mortgage statements, the utilities bills, her wage slips and the estimates for the work that needed doing on the house. She’d been poring over them for the last hour, struggling to see where she could eke out an extra four thousand pounds. Now she gathered them up hurriedly and shoved them behind some books before he appeared in the doorway. He was dressed in mid-length chino shorts, sandals and a faded T-shirt with a little rain sprinkled on the shoulders. He was unshaven and looked tired.
‘Hey,’ he whispered, closing the door. ‘You all right, beautiful?’
Sally beckoned him in. ‘It’s OK – she’s asleep. She’s like the dead when she goes.’
He came in, throwing his keys on to the table. ‘So? What’s going on?’
She went to the fridge and got out the bottle of wine they’d opened the night before. ‘Sorry – but I think I need a drink.’ She poured one for him, one for herself, put them on the table and sat, looking into the wine, her shoulders drooping.
‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. I just wanted a friendly face.’
‘It’s more than that.’
She took a gulp of the wine.
‘Come on. What’s on your mind?’
‘I’m sorry – I just – it’s been a bad day. With Millie, with work.’ She shook her head despairingly. How could this keep happening? How could she go on being so stupid? All the time. All the time. It just wasn’t getting any better. ‘The house is falling down around my ears, Steve. The downpipe at the back has fallen off and there’s damp everywhere. The thatch is rotting, there are rats in the ceiling and they’ve eaten through the plasterboard. I found squirrel droppings in the utility room on Monday. It’d cost me ten thousand pounds to put it all back – and me? Idiot me? I don’t even know if I’m going to pay my council tax this month. And then … then today …’
‘Today?’
She dropped her hands from her face and looked at him seriously. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
‘Funny – no one’s ever asked me to do that before.’
She gave a watery smile. ‘Seriously. It’s about Millie. I’ve promised her not to say anything, but I can’t help it. It’s all so bizarre – I can’t keep it a secret. I’ve got to talk about it.’
He pulled up a chair and sat. ‘Go on. I’m listening.’
‘She … needed some money. She knew she couldn’t come to me, so she went to someone she shouldn’t have. Someone who wants the money back. And he’s not the sort of person I know how to deal with – he’s a drug-dealer.’
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘I know. I’m just so dense.’ She knocked her knuckles against her forehead, wishing she could wake up the dumb, sleepy mass in there. ‘I just never get it. I didn’t see any of this coming, just like I didn’t see the divorce coming, and now my only chance of making a decent living is to work for a criminal, and he’s rude and you say he’s dangerous, but I haven’t got any choice because my daughter still thinks she can live like all her rich friends do and will make any stupid decisions because of it and now I’m—’
‘Hey hey hey.’ Steve reached across and caught her hand in his. ‘Hey. Take it slowly. We can work it out. I mean— Do you want me to speak to this character? Do you know how to get in touch with him?’
‘You can’t. If you do, Millie will find out. I’ve promised her not to say a word. Anyway – God knows what he’ll do to her if he thinks he’s not getting the money. I’ve thought about it. The only way is for me to pay back what she’s borrowed.’
‘Then I’ll lend you the money. The divorce wasn’t kind on me, you know that, but I can find the money. It’s not a problem.’
She bit her lip and raised her eyes to his. In his open face, his straightforward smile, she saw a sweet and welcoming slope. A slope that she could step on to with ease. Fall on to and be carried along. It would be comfortable: the fear would go away. But it would lead her nowhere. Eventually she’d come back to the same numbness she’d reached with Julian.
‘No,’ she said, with an effort. ‘No. Thank you, but no. I’ve got to work this out on my own. David will pay me an extra four hundred and eighty a month so it’ll take a while, but I’ll do it. And I borrowed a DIY book from the library – maybe I can fix some of the house myself. There are some tools in the garage that the last owners left and I can borrow some more from Isabelle.’
‘OK.’ He smiled. ‘And what you can’t get from her I’ll lend you. Whatever you need.’
She smiled back weakly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
Steve rose and went to the fridge
for the wine bottle, but she couldn’t draw the line that easily. She sat, her head on one side, turning her glass round and round on the table, watching the wet rings cross and recross.
‘Steve?’ she said, when he sat down again.
‘What?’
‘You know this morning, what you were saying about David Goldrab?’
His face darkened. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully with a knuckle. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I remember.’
‘What did you mean when you said it was just fluke he hadn’t been banged up years ago? If he had been put in prison, what would it have been for?’
‘Oh, Sally. Are you sure you want to know all this?’
‘Yes. I’ve got my first day at his tomorrow and, honestly, I’m nervous. I can’t go on any more with my head in the clouds, always missing the plain bloody obvious, always being the last to know anything. Please …’
Steve shook his head. ‘OK. Well, chiefly Goldrab’s a pornographer.’
‘A pornographer? What does that mean? He sells magazines?’
‘Mostly videos. Downloads on the Internet.’
‘A pornographer? Are you sure?’
‘I’m afraid so. A hundred per cent sure.’
She was surprised to find she wasn’t more shocked. ‘Gosh – all day I’ve been thinking you meant he was a real criminal.’
Steve gave a dry laugh. ‘He is a real criminal, a real, live criminal. One of the richest pornographers in the country – and that’s saying something because we’re one of the few nations in the world that doesn’t have a thriving porn production industry. He makes his living from persuading young women – not even women some of them, girls, more like – to do things they’ll regret for ever. Before the Internet took off he spent a long time in Kosovo making illegal porn that he smuggled into the country. And I mean nasty stuff – animals, bondage. You name it. People have suffered, I can guarantee that. I’m not going to get all Mr Morals on you, for God’s sake – I’m a red-blooded man and and I’m not saying I haven’t watched a bit of porn in my time – but, trust me, a lot of the women he’s used didn’t have a choice in the matter. They didn’t have the freedom. Especially the ones in the Balkans.’
Sally sat in silence, digesting this. She could see the reality and all the subtle equations that came out of it – if she was working for someone like that, it kind of made her equal to him, complicit, even. But after all her consideration she knew she wouldn’t back out. She needed the money. ‘I suppose that makes me pretty desperate, if I’m working for him.’
Steve reached over and pushed her hair behind her ear. ‘Sweetheart, we’re all desperate. We all have to do things we’re not proud of. That’s just the way the world goes round.’
22
It was raining so Zoë took the Mondeo. She parked near the locked gates to Sydney Gardens and prised her way through the bushes. The park was officially closed, but unofficially it was open to business. Everywhere she looked she saw young men loitering, standing casually, hands in pockets, or leaning against trees. One or two were actually sitting on the ground, lounging as if it was midday in August and not a rainy night. As she passed most of them melted away into the bushes.
The gate in the wall was set to open out on to the canal but not to allow anyone in at night. A police sign had been placed next to it, warning people that the towpath to the east was blocked due to an incident and advising them to find a different route. Zoë flicked out her torch and shone it at the ground. The rain had eased but earlier it had been heavy enough to fill to the brim the holes left by footsteps in the mud. The little pools glinted back at her in the light. She negotiated round the mud, squeezing through the bushes along the edge, and opened the gate. On the other side of the wall a single Victorian-style streetlamp threw down a yellow glow in a circle on the gravel and the canal water. Zoë ran the torch along the ground and found what she’d expected to find about ten feet away.
A slight depression spanned the path. Maybe some pipe-laying underneath had caused a dip, or a fault in the material. Whatever the cause, it had only taken the smallest amount of rain to join the scattering of puddles into one large lake. There was no way round it. You’d either have to splosh through it or take a running jump. And, she thought, looking back at the gate, if you’d just come through that gate and you were wearing shoes that had got muddy, you would probably use the opportunity to rinse off the mud.
If Lorne had come on to the towpath here she could have cleaned her shoes, and yet there’d still been mud on them when she died. Maybe there was another entrance to the canal, another place she’d stepped in the mud nearer the crime scene. Zoë set off down the path, her hood pulled up, keeping the beam on the ground, sweeping it from side to side. The temperature had dropped and smoke was coming from one or two of the barges, which had shut their doors and lit their wood-burning stoves. The chatter of TVs and the flickering blue light came through the windows.
She’d gone about three hundred yards when a small break in the trees to her left made her stop. It was a tiny space, no more than a badger run. It rose up, away from the path, then fell into darkness on the other side. Pushing aside the brambles and trees that crowded into the opening, she shone the light down. She smiled. Mud. And in it there were two clear shoe prints. They looked at a glance to be an almost exact match to Lorne’s muddied ballet pumps.
‘Oh, Lorne,’ she murmured. ‘You weren’t shopping on Saturday at all. You’ve been lying to us.’
23
The next morning Millie refused point blank to go to school. She said it was going to be crazy, anyway, with everyone talking about Lorne, and all the speculation, but Sally knew it was more to do with the guy in the purple jeep sitting outside Kingsmead. She wasn’t going to force her, but she wasn’t going to leave her at Peppercorn alone, not after last night. She called Isabelle, but she was going to be in meetings all day, so, in spite of herself, she called Julian. He too was working all day.
‘Please, Mum,’ Millie begged. ‘Please. Just don’t make me go to school.’
She looked at Millie for a long time. This was impossible. Either take her fifteen-year-old daughter to the house of a pornographer or let her take her chances with the drug-dealing loan shark. God, what a tangled web. Still, she had to make a decision.
‘You’ll spend four hours sitting in the back of the car.’
‘I don’t care. I’ll take a book. I won’t be in the way.’
Sally sighed. ‘Go and make a sandwich. Then get dressed – and I mean dressed. No short skirts and a proper blouse, no skimpy T-shirts. Something sensible. And you’d better bring some of that English homework too – four hours is a lot of time to kill.’
It was another fine day, the sun already high in the sky, last night’s rain just a memory, but all the way to Lightpil House Sally worried. She kept thinking about what Steve had said – about the girls in Kosovo, some of them not even women yet. And then, conversely, she started worrying that David wouldn’t let Millie stay, that they’d have to get straight back in the car and turn round, that she’d lose the extra four hundred and eighty pounds a month she’d factored into her sums.
When they pulled into the parking area Millie opened the window and leaned out, blinking in the sun and gazing up at Lightpil House as if she was driving on to a movie set. David Goldrab must have been waiting because before Sally could park he was coming down the long path to meet them. He was wearing his towelling robe and FitFlops, a glass of green tea in his hand, and a digital heart monitor on his wrist, as if he’d just come off one of the treadmills in the gym on the first floor. Sally pulled on the handbrake and watched him, wondering what he’d do when he saw Millie. Sure enough, when he caught sight of her in the front seat he frowned. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Millie,’ she said, bracing herself for an argument. ‘My daughter. She won’t get in the way.’
David bent down at the driver’s window, hands on his thighs, and gave Millie a long, appraising look. ‘You stayi
ng with us, are you?’
‘She’ll be out here in the car. She won’t bother us.’
‘Like pheasants, do you, Princess?’
Millie glanced at her mother.
‘It’s all right,’ said David. ‘It’s not a trick question. Got to learn to answer questions with honesty. If a person asks you a trick question the only person it shows up is them. So – do you like baby pheasants or not?’
‘She’s staying in the car.’
‘Sally, please. She’s not a two-year-old. She needs something to occupy herself. Won’t come to any harm – better than being cooped up in this …’ He paused and gazed at the little Ka, trying to find words to describe its lowliness. ‘Yeah. Anyway – better you run around in the sunshine, Princess. Now, answer the question. Do you like pheasants?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then I’ll show you where to go and have a look.’
‘Don’t go out of the grounds,’ Sally said. ‘And take your phone.’
Millie rolled her eyes. ‘I heard you,’ she hissed. ‘OK?’
Sally took a few deep breaths. She unbuckled her belt and got out of the car. Millie climbed out of the passenger seat and flattened her blouse with her palms, looking around, clearly impressed by everything she saw and amazed that her mother could somehow, in whatever context, be part of it.
‘See that path down there at the side of the house?’ David came round the front of the car and pointed down to the edge of the property. ‘You follow that and you’ll find a gate. There’s a padlock. Code’s 1983. My date of birth.’ He gave a laugh. Neither Sally nor Millie joined in. ‘Go through and there’s a shed. Full of the little buggers. When you’re done, come and sit on the terrace. Mum’ll make you a lemonade. Won’t you, Sally?’
Millie glanced at her mother. Sally hesitated, feeling sick. But she jerked her head to tell Millie to go. To get on with it. ‘Phone,’ she mouthed at her. ‘Keep your phone switched on.’