Part 10 (1/2)

Hanging Hill Mo Hayder 92110K 2022-07-22

She got one of the DCs to start warrants on the bus companies' CCTV, then spent some time in the office looking at all the routes that pa.s.sed through the stop near the ca.n.a.l. They snaked out for miles in every direction there was no knowing which she'd come from. She could have been travelling from almost any direction, she could have changed routes she could even have gone as far afield as Bristol in the time she'd been away from home. Zoe fished out the camera chip she'd found in Lorne's bedroom and balanced it thoughtfully on her finger, considering it. Twice already she'd almost taken it into Ben's office. But each time she'd stopped herself. She wasn't sure who she was protecting by not speaking up Lorne or herself. In the end she got up and pulled on her jacket. She needed to know more before she did anything.

The agency was in the centre of Bath. 'No. 1, Milsom Street', said the sign, and under it, written in tall, thin letters, 'The Zebedee Juice Agency'. It was above a boutique, and when Zoe came up the stairs she found a wide room, daylight pouring into it through a vast gla.s.s dome in the ceiling. There was no reception desk, just an array of red sofas dotted with faux faux-fur cus.h.i.+ons and piles of magazines on black lacquer tables. On the wall in an unframed LCD screen a video played silently faces, boys and girls, morphing one into another.

The manager, a girl dressed in a polo-neck, denim shorts and spiked heels with metallic shadow on her eyelids, jumped up to greet Zoe with a neurotic-sounding 'Hi, hi hi!' She was twitchy, kept rubbing her nose and swallowing, and it didn't take a genius to see she was itching to get to her next line of c.o.ke. Still, Zoe supposed, you didn't get that super-thin look without a bit of help.

She poured two long gla.s.ses of Bottlegreen lemon gra.s.s presse and took Zoe to sit near the window. In the street below shoppers and tourists bustled in and out of the shops. The manager admitted she'd half been expecting a visit from the police she added that maybe she should have called them herself, because she remembered Lorne well. She'd come in with her mother a month ago. She'd been a very nice-looking girl, if a bit short and a little on the heavy side for the catwalk. And her eyebrows had been plucked to within an inch of their lives. 'Most of our models aren't what you or I would call conventionally pretty. Some of them, if you saw them in the street, you'd almost call ugly. What's hot at the moment is a very animal look. You want to be able to see the ethnicity of a model. If someone walks in the room and I think, Yeah, he's got all the anger of his race behind him, that's when I know I'm on to a winner.'

'Lorne wasn't like that?'

'No. Glamour, maybe, but not right for the ramp. Never.'

'Did you tell her that?'

'Yes.'

'And how did she react?'

'She was upset. But it's what happens all the time, girls coming in here all hopeful, going away completely miserable, rejected.'

'What about Mrs Wood? What was her reaction?'

'Oh, relief. You'd be surprised I get that reaction more than anything else. Mothers just humouring their daughters, but they're over the moon when someone else points out what they've secretly thought all along and just can't bring themselves to say. The girls, though ...' She gave a small shake of her head. 'Even when you've said it over and over some of the girls still won't listen to you. For some of them it's like a hunger eats away at them. They won't take no for an answer. All they care about is seeing themselves staring up out of some glossy page somewhere. Those are the ones I worry about. Those are the ones that'll end up places they really don't want to be.'

'Places they don't want to be?'

The manager wrinkled her brow. 'Yes you know what I mean.'

Zoe held her eyes. For a moment she'd thought the emphasis in that sentence had been on 'you'. As in You, DI Benedict, know exactly what I'm talking about. So don't pretend you don't You, DI Benedict, know exactly what I'm talking about. So don't pretend you don't. She found herself wanting an explanation wanting to say, 'What the h.e.l.l do you mean?', but then she caught herself. This girl was twenty if she was a day. There was no way she knew anything about what had happened all those years ago.

'So,' she said levelly, 'what do you do if you get a girl like that who won't be put off?'

The agency manager picked up a little pile of business cards in a plastic holder on one of the tables. She pulled one out and pa.s.sed it to Zoe. 'We tell them they're better off doing glamour and give them one of these. Want one?'

Zoe took the card. Studied it. It was shaped like a pair of lips. It read: 'Holden's Agency. Where dreams come true'. 'Did you give one to Lorne?'

The manager ran a finger inside her polo-neck, thinking about this. 'I don't know,' she said, after a while. 'Probably not, because her mum was here. I can't recall exactly.'

'She didn't take one anyway?'

'Maybe. I honestly couldn't say.'

Zoe tucked the card into her wallet. She sipped her drink thoughtfully, her eyes on the windows in the department store opposite. Something was niggling at her, something she'd seen, or something the manager had said in the last ten minutes. It wouldn't come to her. She put her gla.s.s on the table. 'Lorne didn't mention a boyfriend, did she? At any point when she was here did she mention any names?'

'No. Not that I can recall.'

'Do you have a catalogue? Of your models?'

'Sure.' She opened a drawer to show Zoe a stack of pink-bound notebooks and a box of pink memory sticks. All with the name 'Zebedee Juice' emblazoned in lime green. 'Hard copy or a stick?'

'One of these'll do.' She took a book. 'I want to check if you've got any models with the initials ”RH”.'

'RH?' While Zoe flicked through the catalogue the manager sat with her thumb in her mouth, her eyes to the ceiling, mentally running a tally of her clients. By the time Zoe got to the end she was shaking her head. 'No. And not even with their real names.'

'Staff?'

'No. There's only me, and Moons.h.i.+ne who comes in in the afternoon. Her real name is Sarah Brown.'

'Nothing else you can remember that sticks in your mind about Lorne? Anything that you think could be important? Anyone she spoke about?'

'No. I've been thinking about it. Ever since I saw the news and put two and two together about it being the same girl who was here, I've been going through it. And I honestly can't remember anything about the meeting that was odd.'

'OK. Can I keep this book?'

'Of course please. Be my guest.'

'One last thing, and then I'll go. What do you think about Lorne? Do you think she was one of the ones who'd end up in those those places you were were talking about? Did she have the places you were were talking about? Did she have the hunger hunger?'

The manager gave a short laugh. 'Did she have the hunger? My G.o.d. I don't think there's a girl who walked through that door in the last two years who had it any worse.'

25.

David Goldrab spoke into the intercom, released the gates and told Jake to park at the front, come in through the front door, which was open, and wait in the hall. Then he disappeared upstairs to the bedroom to get dressed. The moment he left the office Sally dialled Millie's number, her fingers shaking on the keypad. She stood at the window as the call went through and watched Millie on the lawn, frowning down at the phone. She seemed to be considering ignoring it. After a moment, though, she changed her mind and held it to her ear.

'Yeah, what?'

'He's followed us. He's here.'

'Who?'

'The guy in the jeep. Jake. That's his name. Jake.'

Millie jolted at that. She got to her feet and stood for a moment, half frozen, not knowing which way to go.

'It's OK.' Sally crept to the doorway and put her head into the gap, peering down the corridor. She could just see the hallway a huge, galleried atrium with a central staircase done in granite and marble with black and white tiles on the floor. Jake was near the front door. His ebony hair was gelled into spikes, his distressed jeans and T-s.h.i.+rt showing off his muscles and the trim line of his belly.

'He's in the house,' she whispered into the phone. 'Don't worry he's in the hall at the front. He can't see you.'

She held the phone to her chest and cautiously leaned out of the doorway again to watch him. He seemed smaller and much less confident now he wasn't in his car. He kept bending a little to crane his neck up the stairs to see where David had disappeared to.

Sally ducked back into the office. 'I'm not sure what he's up to,' she hissed. 'It's weird maybe he's here just to see David. Go and hide somewhere somewhere in the trees where he won't see you from the back of the house. I'll call you as soon as I know something.'

The noise of a door closing upstairs echoed down the stairs. Sally ended the call and jerked her head back through the door. Jake was still in the hall, tightening his belt, pulling his shoulders back, watching David come along the landing.

'Jake! Jake the Peg!' David smiled expansively from the top of the stairs. He was wearing a well-cut white s.h.i.+rt over jeans. His feet were bare as he padded down, his arms open as if greeting a long-lost friend. He stopped a few stairs from the bottom and sat so he was a little above Jake's eye level, forcing him to look up. 'It's been too long. How's things? How's the extra leg, mate?' He held his hands at his crotch to mime an enormous phallus. 'Still getting out and about, is it? Making lots of new friends?'