by Mo Hayder
‘I could hold the pen. I didn’t get into the school because I was stupid.’
‘Don’t talk bullshit.’
‘It’s not bullshit.’
‘Yes, it is. And you know it.’
There was a long, hard choke wanting to come up from Sally’s stomach. She struggled to keep it under control. Finally, and with an immense effort of will, she opened her eyes and turned. Zoë was standing awkwardly on the other side of the table. There were red patches on her cheeks as if she was ill.
‘I need to make amends, Sally. Everyone does. If we want to live well in the present we need to face the failings of our past.’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes. We have to. We have to make sure we … make sure we connect to other people. Be sure we never forget that we’re part of a bigger pattern.’
Sally was silent. It sounded so weird, words like that coming out of Zoë’s mouth. She’d never thought of her sister as connected to other people. She was something quite out on her own. A lone planet. She needed nothing. No people. It was what Sally envied most, maybe.
‘Yeah, well.’ Zoë cleared her throat. Raised a dismissive hand. ‘I’ve said my piece, but now I’d better go. Villains to catch. Kittens to rescue from trees. You know how it is.’
And she was gone, out of the kitchen, out of the cottage, striding across the gravel, spinning her keys on her hands. She didn’t look back as she drove out on to the lane so she didn’t see Sally watching her from inside the kitchen. Didn’t see that she didn’t move for several minutes afterwards. A passer-by, if there had been any passers-by in that remote place, would have thought she was frozen there. A fuzzy white face on the other side of the leaded panes.
15
Just as Sally’s job was finishing that afternoon, Steve called and asked her to meet him in town. There wasn’t enough time to get to his house before she picked up Millie so he suggested they met at the Moon and Sixpence, the place they’d first had dinner together. She used the bathroom she’d just cleaned to have a hurried wash, and straightened her clothes. She put on a little makeup, but in the mirror her reflection was still tired and drawn. She couldn’t stop turning over what Zoë had said that morning. About amends and patterns and the past.
She got to the café by four and found him sitting on the terrace, dressed in a suit and camel overcoat, drinking coffee. She sat down opposite him. He turned his grey eyes to her and studied her. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I think so. How was the meeting?’
He nodded in the direction of the third seat at the table. ‘In there.’ He had the weary, resigned look of a man who’d just woken up to the fact that the world was going to disappoint him for ever. ‘In there.’
She saw a rucksack on the seat. ‘Is that …?’
He nodded. ‘I got paid in Krugerrands.’
‘Krugerrands?’
He nodded. ‘Had to go and change it in Hatton Garden. I got a good deal – there’s more than thirty-two K in there.’
Sally shivered. Thirty-two thousand pounds for killing a man. Blood money, they’d call this. She should be revolted by it, but she wasn’t. She just felt numb. ‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘I’m not going to do anything with it. It’s yours.’
‘But—’
‘Really. You did the job.’
‘But you helped. We did it together. Like partners.’
‘Don’t argue. Just take it.’
She bit her lip. Looked at the rucksack. It was bulging. Ever since Thursday night she hadn’t been able to look at a bag stuffed full of anything without picturing those carrier bags lined up on the lawn at Peppercorn. The red paste pressing against the plastic. She pulled her eyes away. Fiddled with the lid of Steve’s cafetière.
‘Millie got another call today from Jake.’
‘That’s fine. We’ll sort it tonight.’
‘I don’t know if I want to.’
‘Well, we’re going to have to. We’ll do it tonight and tomorrow I’m going to America. You know that, don’t you, that I’m still going to America?’
She nodded.
‘Are you going to be OK?’
‘Yes,’ she said distantly. ‘I’ll be fine.’
But she wasn’t fine, of course. Her head was full of static and images. David Goldrab. The smells. The way the colour had crept into Zoë’s cheeks when she was standing in the kitchen this morning. The ‘pattern’. And now she thought that, whatever part of the pattern between humans she and Steve had made in the last few days, it was ugly and wrong. And that whatever happened now, it couldn’t be changed. The ugly, knobbly part would become an uneven, deviating vein in the fabric that would, with time, be woven over and built on, as the generations kept moving. On down the line.
16
Zoë spent the rest of the day in the office, following up leads and answering emails. She still hadn’t heard from Dominic Mooney so she put in one last call but was told he was still ‘in a meeting’. By the time she left the office the sun was low, the roofs and high windows of Bath gilded with the last of the light, as if they’d been dipped in gold. It would be dark by the time she got home. She could have a Jerry’s and ginger and watch the stars come out – on her own, while Ben and Debbie were doing whatever it was they did, wherever it was they did it. The welts and sores on her arms ached dully as she went into the car park.
She came to a halt. A guy dressed in red chinos and a blazer was standing in her way. He was very tall and thin and looked like an Asian version of David Bowie, with his jet-black hair gelled up in spikes. Even in her heeled boots she stood an inch or so shorter than him – not usual for her. She took a sidestep to go round him and he mirrored her movement, blocking her. She did it again, going left this time, and again he barred her way.
She laughed. ‘Very good. I like the way you do that.’
‘I wouldn’t laugh if I were you.’ He was from Scotland. Somewhere posh, Edinburgh perhaps. ‘If this was the movies it’d be the bit where I hit you on the head and throw you in the back of the Chrysler.’
She put her head on one side and scrutinized him. ‘Do I know you?’
‘Captain Zhang.’ He produced a card and held it up to her. ‘In the movie you’d wake up tied to a chair, a spotlight on your face. Never trust the Chinaman – don’t they teach you anything in your job?’
‘Give me that.’ She made a grab for his card, but he returned it neatly to his pocket. ‘Special Investigative Branch. SIB. But you can call us the Feds.’
‘The Feds? Oh, please. I thought you said this wasn’t the movies. Special Investigative B—’ She broke off. Of course – she should have known he was military from the way he was dressed: typical Sandhurst graduate get-up. ‘SIB – I know who you are. Military Police. They call you the Stab in the Backs – the squaddie rubber-heelers. Standing here making out you’re in the fucking Special Forces, but you’re just a squaddie spy. Stopping me getting to my bike? I don’t think so.’
‘Well, I do.’
She shrugged, tried to walk round him. He barred her way again.
‘Do you want a fight?’ she asked. ‘See who wins?’
‘I’d win.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
Zhang sighed, as if he was trying to keep his patience. ‘We need to speak to you, Inspector Benedict. We need a frank and meaningful talk about Dominic Mooney. I think if you’re patient you’ll find we’re all singing off the same hymn sheet – no need for any arm-wrestling.’
She looked at Zhang very carefully. Dominic Mooney. The MoD guy she’d called. ‘OK. You’ve got my attention now. You really have.’
‘Good.’ He fastened his blazer and smoothed the front, as if something in the encounter had made it go awry. ‘That’s what I was hoping for.’
‘So?’ She turned, opening her hand to indicate all the vehicles lined up in the car park. ‘Which boot are you going to lock me in?’
17
Twerton was Bath’s crippled co
usin. Its humpbacked secret brother. No one in the nice northern squares and crescents of the city could say the name without putting on a cod country-bumpkin accent and tucking their tongue in the corner of their mouth like a congenital idiot. Anything that went wrong in the city seemed to emanate from there, or have a connection. It was where Jake the Peg could be found when he wasn’t loitering outside one of the classier public schools.
‘Whatever happens, you stay in your seat.’
In the passenger seat Sally shot a sideways look at Steve. ‘Why? What’re you going to do?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve done this before, trust me.’
She clenched the envelope between her knees, her palms sweating and slick. She’d got Millie to call Jake to tell him the money was ready, then driven her over to Isabelle’s for the evening. She and Steve had directions to where Jake was waiting, but in truth, she thought, as they pulled up, you could have found him by instinct alone. He was parked at a bus stop in front of a row of shops. One or two were open, lit with pools of light – a fish-and-chip shop, an off-licence, an all-night convenience store. Otherwise the street was dark.
Steve pulled the car up alongside so it was partly blocking the road. He didn’t seem to mind other traffic getting stuck. He didn’t seem to mind witnesses.
‘Hello.’ Engine still running, he wound down the window and held up his mobile phone to Jake. Clicked the Record icon.
Jake jerked a hand in front of his face. He opened the window and leaned over, yelling, ‘What the fuck you think you’re doing? Turn the fucking thing off.’
‘Not if you want your money back.’
‘Jesuuuuus.’ He got out of the jeep, slamming the door, and strode over to them, his hand up in front of his face. He was wearing a gym vest and jeans that hung so low they gathered in folds around his trainers. He seemed like a different person now he was on his own territory and not on David’s. More confident, swaggering. ‘You are doing my head, man. Doing my head. Keep that thing outta my face.’
He leaned through the window to grab the phone, but Steve held it out of his reach. ‘You take the phone, you don’t get the money.’
‘Give me the fucking phone.’ He made a swipe for it. ‘Or you can double what you owe me.’
‘Do you want the money or not?’
‘Giss the fucking phone.’
He leaned in again and this time Steve pressed the electric-window button. Jake realized what was happening just in time and pulled back to avoid being squashed. ‘Shit. You wankers.’ He bounced his hands off the window in fury. Thumped the roof. ‘You wankers.’
He went around all the doors, pulling at the handles. When he couldn’t get in he went back to his jeep and opened the rear door. Rummaged inside.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘I don’t know.’ Steve didn’t turn. He handed Sally the phone, then tipped the rear-view mirror down and watched Jake. ‘When he comes back don’t stop filming, but keep the camera on his face. Don’t have it on me – OK?’
She knelt up on the seat and swivelled round, aiming the camera out of the back window. As she did, Jake emerged from the jeep. He was holding something long and metal, lit red by the car lights. It took her a couple of moments to realize it was a tyre iron.
‘Steve,’ she began, but Jake had already lifted the tyre iron and swung it down on the roof of the Audi.
‘Fuck.’ Steve slammed his hand on the horn. ‘You shithead.’
The noise was deafening. A group of kids in the stairwell of the block of flats opposite stopped what they were doing and turned to watch. Steve took his hand off the horn, opened the window and leaned out. ‘Hey! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
Jake reappeared next to him, bending down and grinning at them nastily. With one hand he dangled the tyre iron. The other he extended for the phone. Steve gave the hand a contemptuous look. ‘I really don’t think so.’
‘Well,’ Jake said, ‘I do.’
He raised the tyre iron again, ready to bring it down on the car, but this time something stopped him. It had been a quick movement, like lightning. Steve had leaned back in the car and straightened himself enough for his jacket to fall briefly back from his stomach. It happened so fast that Sally thought she’d imagined it, but she hadn’t. Jake had seen what was there too, and his face changed instantly. It was the butt of a gun, tucked in Steve’s waistband.
Jake lowered the tyre iron and stood awkwardly, uncertain what to do. For a moment he was the same fidgety person she’d seen at David’s. ‘Yeah, well.’ He glanced around, checking up and down the street who was watching, giving the kids in the stairwell a look that made them all turn away. He licked his lips and made a circling motion with his hand. ‘OK, man. Let’s just do it – just do it and put it to bed, eh?’
‘Thank you,’ Steve said. ‘Thank you very much.’ He closed the window again. ‘You can turn the camera off, Sally, and count out the money.’
‘W-what?’
‘You heard.’
Shakily she switched off the phone, reached down to the bag at her feet and began counting the stacks of twenties. She kept trying to see into Steve’s waistband, covered now by his jacket. ‘Was that what I thought it was?’ she murmured.
‘It’s decommissioned. Don’t worry, I’m not going to shoot my nuts off.’
‘I can’t believe this.’ She glanced up at Jake, who was standing a few feet away, arms folded, bouncing his head back and forth as if he was moving to music no one else could hear. ‘I can’t believe any of it.’
‘Neither can I. Just count the money.’
She did, and passed it hurriedly to him.
‘OK. Start filming again. When we leave, get a good shot of the jeep. The licence plate especially.’
She turned on the phone and scrunched back in the seat, holding it in front of her like a shield. Steve wound down the window. Jake came forward, glowering at him. He snatched the money and sauntered back to the jeep. He slammed his door and sat for a moment, lit by the interior light, bent over as he counted the blocks of cash. When he had finished, he didn’t look at them, just reached up to switch off the light, started the jeep and roared away, narrowly missing taking their front bumper with him.
‘Did you get his number?’
Sally nodded. She stopped the video and sank back in the seat, breathing hard. ‘God,’ she muttered. ‘Is this the end of it now? Is this really the end?’
‘Shit. I hope so.’ Steve readjusted the mirror and started the engine. ‘I really, really hope so.’
18
Captain Charlie Zhang was based temporarily in an old Victorian red-brick villa, set, incongruously, in a garrison to the east of Salisbury Plain. It might have been a military base, but when Zhang led her along the cool, carpeted corridors, Zoë decided the Military Police definitely had it better than the common-or-garden cops. There were fitted carpets and panelled walls, and the doors all closed with a reassuring shush as if they were on the Starship Enterprise.
Zhang’s commanding officer was a cool-looking woman in late middle age, Lieutenant Colonel Teresa Watling – the army equivalent of a chief superintendent and fairly heavy hitting in the grand scheme of things. With her blow-dried grey hair, the gold pendant over her black turtle-neck and her black reptile-skin heels, she looked like a Manhattan businesswoman. In fact, she explained to Zoë, as they went along the passageways, it was far more pedestrian than that. She had been born and brought up in the home counties.
‘Cool.’ Zoë swung the ID they’d issued her at the control gate. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Anything.’
‘When I get tied to the chair, are you going to be the bad cop or the good cop?’
Lieutenant Colonel Watling ignored that. She stopped at a door and pushed it open. The room inside resembled a boardroom at an oil company, with a polished walnut table and twelve hand-carved teak chairs. There were water glasses and leather notepads at each place setting, so clearly the cutbac
ks that were axing thousands of backroom staff in the civilian police hadn’t reached here yet. The three of them filed in. Zoë chose the seat at the head of the table, furthest from the door, and Captain Zhang sat next to her, his long, delicate hands folded one on top of the other. Six large files were placed down the centre of the table. It would have taken a long time to amass that lot, Zoë thought. A long time.
Lieutenant Colonel Watling opened a sleek black box and offered it to Zoë. At first she thought it was a humidor – it seemed somehow appropriate to light up a stogie in a place like this, kick back a little and watch the sky out of the window go indigo. She wasn’t going to say no if that was the way the evening was going to work. Maybe a little snifter of Talisker on the side. But it wasn’t cigars in the box: it was coffee capsules, in rainbow colours. She looked at the key and chose the strongest.
‘Black, please. Two sugars.’
Watling began to make the coffee. Zoë watched her, wondering how she’d got this job. It would be cool to wear Jimmy Choos to work, she thought. Maybe swap them now and again for combats and a quick, safe investigation at one of the bases in Iraq or Afghanistan. She’d heard they had a Piacetto café in Camp Bastion that did the best cakes. ‘I know your boss,’ Watling said. ‘I worked with him on a couple of operations in Wiltshire.’
‘Was he into psychological profiling in those days?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Nothing. He’s a nice guy. What do you want to talk about?’
‘Oh, just this and that.’
‘This and that?’
Watling gave Zoë her coffee and lined up her own cup next to the leather writing pad. She sat down and clasped her elegant hands on the pad. ‘Zoë,’ she said. ‘Do you remember those good old days when the Crime Squad and the Intelligence Service combined forces and SOCA came on line? How we were told it was going to revolutionize our lives? The right hand was at last going to know what the left hand was doing?’