Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [74]
‘Sally? I’m speaking to you. Look me in the eye.’ He reached over and pulled her shoulder. Reluctantly she turned. He made a bull’s horn with his pinkie and his thumb, jabbed his hand at his eyes. ‘Look me in the eye, and tell me why you did that.’ A vein was pulsing in his forehead. ‘Eh? When I told you to keep away from that side of the room.’
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She thought she might be sick, any moment.
‘Don’t give me that patronizing look. I’m not the lowlife shit on your shoes, Sally, it’s the other way round. Has it escaped your attention that I’m the one employing you? Just cos you speak like you got coughed out of some hoity-toity fucking finishing school that teaches you how not to flash your snatch when you’re getting out of a Ferrari doesn’t make you better than I am – you still gotta pretend to like me. Because you’re desperate and you—’
He broke off. Something else had caught his attention. The TV monitor on the wall. He raised his chin, gazed at it, his mouth open. Shakily, Sally looked up and saw on screen, behind the electronic gate, the familiar metallic purple jeep. Jake was leaning out of the window, pushing the buzzer.
‘Well, that’s fucking mint.’ He slammed the post down. ‘That has really made my day.’ He snatched up a riding whip that was propped against the wall and strode into the hallway, bending every three steps to slap it furiously on the floor. The gate buzzer echoed through the hallway. David didn’t go upstairs to get the crossbow. Instead he went straight to the door and pressed the button to open the gates. Seeing her chance, Sally silently grabbed her bag and jacket and crept down the corridor. She came into the kitchen as she heard the jeep pulling into the driveway. She grabbed her cleaning kit from the work-surface, went quickly to the door that led out across the terrace, and put her hand on it, expecting it to open.
It didn’t. It was locked.
She jiggled it and tugged, but there was no mistake: it was locked. She hunted around for a key, picking up pots and vases to check under them. The utility room. She knew for sure that that door was open – it always was. But before she could get across the kitchen the front door slammed and the two men came into the hallway. She stood, frozen, her heart thumping. There wasn’t any escape from this – she couldn’t go back to the office without passing the hallway. She couldn’t get to the utility room either. She was trapped.
Quickly she slipped into the huge glass atrium that was tacked on to the back of the house. The doors that opened from it five yards away were closed, but she couldn’t risk crossing it to check if they were locked because the men were nearly in the kitchen and they’d spot her. A chaise-longue was set against the wall, just out of sight of the kitchen – she could hide there for the time being. She sat down silently. The men came into the kitchen and at the same time a long bar of light moved across the atrium windows. A reflection. She realized she could see all the familiar things across the kitchen and into the hall: mirrored in the panes. If the men stood at the right place and glanced across they’d see her reflected back at them, but it was too late to move. She pulled her feet up tighter, her case and jacket crunched against her stomach, and kept as still and quiet as she could.
‘Jake.’ David stood a few steps back from the doorway, silhouetted in the sunlight, his feet planted wide, his arms folded. Sally couldn’t see Jake’s face clearly in the reflection, but she could feel the seriousness of his mood. He was wearing a leather jacket and gloves, and was carrying a large holdall. He kept his chin down slightly. She thought of him straddling the girl in the video. She couldn’t get it out of her head how thin the girl had been.
‘David.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to talk to you.’
There was a long pause. Sally’s attention stayed on that holdall. It had caught David’s eye too. He nodded at it. ‘What’s in there, Jake? Brought me a present, have you?’
‘In a manner of speaking. Can I sit down?’
‘If you