Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [120]
Sally let out all her breath and lowered the torch. There was nothing – no building, no concealed layby or bird hide or tree-house or farm building. Nowhere someone could have hidden to watch what they’d done. And then something occurred to her. Something that should have been clear all along if she’d only been thinking straight. The car. Whoever had sent the message had chosen to put it in the car when it was parked at Steve’s. What did that mean? Why hadn’t they come to Peppercorn? Why go to the trouble of following her to Steve’s if …
Of course. She switched off the torch, went fast across the lawn to the cottage. Unlocked the front door and, without taking off her wellingtons or switching on the lights, went into the kitchen and opened the laptop. The screen came to life – all the thick midsummer fields green and vibrant with light. She zoomed out, clawed the image to the left, moving north, pausing when she came to the faint, blurred line of the Caterpillar opposite Hanging Hill.
‘There,’ she breathed, sinking into her chair. ‘There.’
The photograph had been taken in, she guessed, late June. A pinkish floating haze of poppies hung over the fields. Among them, Lightpil House – a huge yellow slash on the green, its fountains and terraces reflecting the sun. To its north the almost triangular wedge of the parking space where David Goldrab had died. To its south, near the perimeter, half hidden by towering poplars, the roof of a cottage.
Whoever had left the note knew nothing about Peppercorn Cottage: they’d seen her at David’s. She’d thought they couldn’t be overlooked where the killing happened, but she hadn’t thought about the gardens of the houses at the top of Lightpil Lane. The bottom of the land attached to the cottage on the screen stretched along the northern wall of Lightpil House and came out at the bottom in a spoon shape, bordered by a low hedge. If someone had been standing there at the right time, if they had looked across the dip in the land …
The phone rang in her pocket, making her jump. She snatched it out with trembling hands.
‘Steve. Steve?’
‘Christ, Sally, what the hell’s going on?’
‘It’s all gone wrong. I told you it would go wrong and it has.’
‘OK, OK, calm down. Now, first of all, we’re speaking on an international line. You know what I mean by that – can you hear it humming?’
She took deep breaths, still staring at the cottage roof. ‘Yes,’ she said shakily, thinking of those vast domed listening stations. And Cheltenham GCHQ not far from here. Did phone calls really get monitored? Maybe in Steve’s job they did. ‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘Explain, carefully, what’s happened.’
She licked her lips. ‘I got a message when I got back into the car. The lipstick I leaned on – it was a message. It said—’ She swallowed. ‘It said I wouldn’t get away with it.’
There was a long silence at the end of the line as Steve digested this. ‘Right,’ he said, sounding as if he wasn’t just thousands of miles away but millions. In a different galaxy. ‘Right.’
‘But if anyone has … you know, witnessed anything, it wasn’t here at Pepp— at my place, so I don’t think they know where I am. It must have been at the …’ She hesitated. ‘The first place. I think they must have seen my car – and then they saw it outside your place and planted the message. I’ve looked at Google Earth and I think I know where they were standing …’
‘OK. I’m coming straight back. I’m not even going to leave the airport – I’ll just turn right around and get the first flight back. OK?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No. You can’t.’
‘I can.’
‘Yes. But I don’t want you to.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I mean it. I’m going to be OK.’
‘Well, I don’t care what you say, I’m coming back.’
‘No.’ This time her voice was so firm Steve went silent. ‘I really, really have to do this on my own. And, Steve, please don’t ask again.