Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [47]
‘Please, Mum,’ Millie begged. ‘Please. Just don’t make me go to school.’
She looked at Millie for a long time. This was impossible. Either take her fifteen-year-old daughter to the house of a pornographer or let her take her chances with the drug-dealing loan shark. God, what a tangled web. Still, she had to make a decision.
‘You’ll spend four hours sitting in the back of the car.’
‘I don’t care. I’ll take a book. I won’t be in the way.’
Sally sighed. ‘Go and make a sandwich. Then get dressed – and I mean dressed. No short skirts and a proper blouse, no skimpy T-shirts. Something sensible. And you’d better bring some of that English homework too – four hours is a lot of time to kill.’
It was another fine day, the sun already high in the sky, last night’s rain just a memory, but all the way to Lightpil House Sally worried. She kept thinking about what Steve had said – about the girls in Kosovo, some of them not even women yet. And then, conversely, she started worrying that David wouldn’t let Millie stay, that they’d have to get straight back in the car and turn round, that she’d lose the extra four hundred and eighty pounds a month she’d factored into her sums.
When they pulled into the parking area Millie opened the window and leaned out, blinking in the sun and gazing up at Lightpil House as if she was driving on to a movie set. David Goldrab must have been waiting because before Sally could park he was coming down the long path to meet them. He was wearing his towelling robe and FitFlops, a glass of green tea in his hand, and a digital heart monitor on his wrist, as if he’d just come off one of the treadmills in the gym on the first floor. Sally pulled on the handbrake and watched him, wondering what he’d do when he saw Millie. Sure enough, when he caught sight of her in the front seat he frowned. ‘Who’s that?’
‘Millie,’ she said, bracing herself for an argument. ‘My daughter. She won’t get in the way.’
David bent down at the driver’s window, hands on his thighs, and gave Millie a long, appraising look. ‘You staying with us, are you?’
‘She’ll be out here in the car. She won’t bother us.’
‘Like pheasants, do you, Princess?’
Millie glanced at her mother.
‘It’s all right,’ said David. ‘It’s not a trick question. Got to learn to answer questions with honesty. If a person asks you a trick question the only person it shows up is them. So – do you like baby pheasants or not?’
‘She’s staying in the car.’
‘Sally, please. She’s not a two-year-old. She needs something to occupy herself. Won’t come to any harm – better than being cooped up in this …’ He paused and gazed at the little Ka, trying to find words to describe its lowliness. ‘Yeah. Anyway – better you run around in the sunshine, Princess. Now, answer the question. Do you like pheasants?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then I’ll show you where to go and have a look.’
‘Don’t go out of the grounds,’ Sally said. ‘And take your phone.’
Millie rolled her eyes. ‘I heard you,’ she hissed. ‘OK?’
Sally took a few deep breaths. She unbuckled her belt and got out of the car. Millie climbed out of the passenger seat and flattened her blouse with her palms, looking around, clearly impressed by everything she saw and amazed that her mother could somehow, in whatever context, be part of it.
‘See that path down there at the side of the house?’ David came round the front of the car and pointed down to the edge of the property. ‘You follow that and you’ll find a gate. There’s a padlock. Code’s 1983. My date of birth.’ He gave a laugh. Neither Sally nor Millie joined in. ‘Go through and there’s a shed. Full of the little buggers. When you’re done, come and sit on the terrace. Mum’ll make you a lemonade. Won’t you, Sally?’
Millie glanced at her mother. Sally hesitated, feeling sick. But she jerked her head to tell Millie to go. To get on with it. ‘Phone,’ she mouthed at