Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [100]
‘I would.’
She lowered the phone. ‘That’s fair, Jake, not to want to have your voice on record. But let me put it on my notepad. You have my guarantee it won’t have your voice on it.’
He raised his nose disdainfully. He unfurled a hand in her direction, held it open. She looked at it for a moment. Then she clicked the phone into Notes and passed it to him. He gave the phone a brief derisory scan, as if it was a bit of roadkill she’d brought in for him to inspect, then thrust it back at her. She took it and began tapping in words as he spoke.
‘He’s got enemies.’ He gave the phone a suspicious look, but began to reel off names anyway, counting them on his fingers. ‘There’s this girl from Essex called Candi. I’m telling you, she would shoot him. In the street, tomorrow, if she saw him.’
‘A girl? A woman? Making a grown man disappear? I don’t know – we don’t usually put women in the frame for something like this.’
‘Candi? I mean, fuck, man, she’d eat your eyes out, that one. She’s got a habit and she lives with some guy called Fraser, I don’t know where exactly – somewhere over that side of the world. Then there’s this ex-SAS guy. Built like that.’ He held out his arms to indicate the man’s height and size. ‘Always used to hang around the shoots – he’s got an itch about David, know what I mean? Spanner, they called him. Don’t know why. Think his real name was Anthony or something. But … nah – he’d never have the balls for it. But there’s another one. One I really think is whacked enough to do it.’
Zoë stopped tapping and looked up at him.
‘I never knew his name.’ Jake’s voice was sober and low when he said ‘his’, as if speaking the word alone could bring hellfire down into his little thirties semi. ‘But he was the type, you know. He’d get in and out and no one would’ve seen a thing.’
‘Who was he?’
‘Dunno. Only met him once when he was down for a shoot. That’s how David done his business, innit? He’s got some gamekeeper raises pheasants for him and these dudes visit when there’s a shoot organized. This guy came down and was mouthing off. He was something in the military. The – what d’ya call it? – Ministry of you know …’
‘Defence? The Ministry of Defence?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Christian name?’
‘Dunno. David just called him “mate”. They knew each other in Kosovo. And that’s all I know about him. Otherwise, swear’ – he held his hands up – ‘I’d give it to you.’
‘Any others?’
‘No.’
Zoë tapped the last few words in, saved it, then clicked the phone off and put it into her pocket. She took a moment or two to regroup, then leaned forward to him, her elbows on her knees.
‘What?’
‘I’ve still got a problem, Jake. I mean, meet my eyes and tell me I look convinced you had nothing to do with Goldrab going missing.’
‘What the fuck’re you talking about?’
‘None of those names gets you off the hook. Do they?’
‘But I’ve got an alibi for that afternoon. Which is good news.’
‘Depending on your perspective. Who is it? Angel? Because he’d convince a jury.’
Jake gave her a sly smile, the diamond in his front tooth glinting at her, as if this was the most satisfying thing he’d done in years. ‘That’s the easiest question you’ve asked, sista. I tore my jeans when David was shooting at me. When I seen what I done I go straight into town and buy a new pair. River Island. Their workers’ll remember me and for sure they’ve got a CCTV there.’
‘But as an alibi it doesn’t work because, of course, we don’t know exactly when Goldrab went missing. It was probably that afternoon some time, because his mother couldn’t reach him on the phone in the evening, but we can’t say for sure. You could have come back later and dealt with him then. Say, six or seven o’clock.’
‘That’s OK too. Straight after I got the new jeans I went to the cinema. With my mates. I used my credit card and there were six of us. And then we spent the rest of the night in the Slug on George Street. So wherever David Goldrab was going that night, whoever he met, it weren’t me. But none of that matters, does it?’