Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [114]
She didn’t hear Jason approaching. The first she knew of it was when his feet appeared about a yard away: tanned, in a pair of battered Ripcurl sandals, their braiding bleached to shreds by sun and sand. She looked at them for a few seconds. Then she pushed herself away from the bike and rolled herself up to a sitting position, her feet in the gutter.
‘I’m sorry. Hope I’m not inconveniencing anyone. I should be out of your way in less than ten.’
‘It’s misfiring. I can tell just by the sound.’ Jason looked thinner than he did on his Facebook pictures. And the photos he’d chosen had made his lower jaw look squarer than it was in real life. But his face was open, his eyes wide-spaced and pale blue. No trace of malice or slyness in them. He was wearing a T-shirt with the logo ‘Oh Christ. You’re going to try and cheer me up. Aren’t you?’ ‘I heard you coming down the street. I closed my eyes and I thought, It’s an FXE Superglide Shovelhead, isn’t it? An ’80. I was wrong about the year, but I got the make and model.’ Jason shook his head. He looked awestruck. ‘And of all the houses you could have broken down in front of – I mean, I’m a total hog insect. You couldn’t have planned it any better. Have you looked at the plugs?’
‘It’s what I’m doing now. I could have had it sorted in a couple of seconds if I had a plug socket. Have to make do with these.’ She held up the grips.
‘Jesus. You’ve got to see my workshop. It’s got everything. Come on, come on.’
She hesitated. Looked around the avenue. ‘You sure?’
‘Of course. Come on. I swear this is pure karma at work.’
Together, they wheeled the Shovelhead into the driveway, the cast-iron gates sliding closed behind them. There was the sound of a water feature coming from somewhere at the side of the house. ‘Great place,’ Zoë said, as Jason opened the garage door. ‘Someone’s doing very nicely.’
‘My parents. They’re away. It’s just me and the tortoises. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a tortoise? Trust me, they don’t know their hogs.’
‘I don’t know many people who know their hogs. Not the way you do.’
That pleased him. He gave a broad smile and held out his hand. ‘I’m Jason.’
‘Evie.’ She shook it. ‘It’s nice to meet another hog freak. You total nerd.’
He grinned and pointed a finger at himself. ‘Remember this face. Technical genius. One day I’m going to land a probe on Mars. You see if I don’t.’
Inside the garage there was a red four-by-four and the Harley. He spent some time showing it to her, letting her run her fingers over a welding job he’d done himself to see just how ‘awesomely smooth’ it was. Then he went to his workbench at the back of the garage and scanned the tools mounted on the wall, murmuring under his breath until he came to the item he wanted. ‘A magnetic one for this, I think,’ he said, selecting a plug socket. He knelt down on the cool garage floor next to the bike. While he tinkered Zoë unzipped her jacket and made a show of wandering along the workbench, pretending to study the labels and the mountings. With her back turned to him she slipped the pipe grips from out of her T-shirt, crouched and left them on the floor. She might need to come back. Then she leaned against the bench, arms folded, head tilted back. From here she could see through the door that led into the house. It was slightly ajar. Beyond it there were glimpses of Dominic Mooney’s life – a pale-blue carpet, a polished mahogany hall table, artificial arum lilies in a vase. Jason must have turned the hip-hop off, because the place was quiet, just the sound of a grandfather clock ticking somewhere.
‘It won’t take long. The insulation’s cracked.’
‘Is it?