Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [9]
‘I heard one thing. Just one. She said, “Oh, God, I’ve had enough …”’
‘“Oh, God, I’ve had enough”?’
‘Yes.’
‘So she was upset?’
‘A bit fed up, maybe. But not crying or anything. Sad – but not scared.’
Ben wrote something down. ‘And she was definitely alone? You didn’t hear anyone else with her?’
‘No.’ Amy was clear. ‘She was alone.’
‘So she said, “Oh, God, I’ve had enough,” and then …’
‘Then she just walked on. Chink-chink-chink.’ Amy clenched the cigarette between her teeth, eyes screwed up against the smoke, and waved her hand back in the direction of the crime scene. ‘That way. Off to where it happened. I didn’t hear anything after that. Not until she turned up dead. Raped, too, I suppose. I mean, that’s what it’s usually about – men and the way they hate women.’
Raped, too, I suppose. Zoë glanced up out of the window, at the sun falling on the towpath, and wondered what was under the tarpaulin Lorne had been covered with. Truthfully, she’d like to find a way of wriggling out of the PM. She couldn’t, of course. Something like that would get around the force in no time.
They sat a bit longer and talked to Amy, but apart from the phone conversation, she didn’t have anything to add to the case. Eventually Ben got to his feet. ‘You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.’
Zoë rose and followed him. He’d already got to the deck and she was still in the galley when a loud, meaningful cough from behind stopped her. She turned and saw Amy smiling at her, a finger to her lips. ‘What?’
‘Him,’ Amy hissed, jabbing a finger at the deck. ‘There’s no point you wasting your time on him. He’s gay. You can see it from the way he wears his clothes.’
Zoë looked back to the staircase. Ben was waiting on deck in the sunlight, his shadow lying a short way down the stairs. She could see his shoes, well polished, expensive. His suit – which was probably off-the-peg M&S – he managed to wear as if it was Armani. Amy was right – he looked like something from an aftershave ad. ‘This isn’t something we should be talking about,’ she murmured. ‘Not under the circumstances.’
‘I know, but he is, isn’t he?’ Amy smiled. ‘Go on. He has to be.’
‘I really wouldn’t know. It’s not the sort of thing I’ve ever given any thought to. Now.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m on my way. Thank you, Amy. You’ve given me a lot to think about.’
5
Sally tried not to work at the weekend, but the job she had on a Sunday paid well and wasn’t as lonely as the others, because the agency had teamed her with two other cleaners. Marysieńka and Danuta – two good-natured blondes from Gdańsk, who wore lots of foundation to work and had their nails done at the new Korean parlour on Westgate Street. They had the use of the agency’s pink-painted Honda Jazz with the HomeMaids logo in purple vinyl stuck on the side of the car. Marysieńka always drove – her boyfriend had a job with the First Bus Company and had taught her to negotiate British traffic like a rally driver. ‘The first rule,’ she maintained, ‘is he who hesitates gets fucked.’ That would make Danuta shriek with laughter as the little HomeMaids car shot out into traffic, forcing the sedate drivers of north Bath to slam on their brakes. The two Poles were nice girls who took cigarette breaks and sometimes smelt vaguely of fish and chips, as if maybe they shared a flat above a takeaway. Sally always imagined they talked about her when the day was finished – made promises to each other never to get that desperate, that downtrodden.
Today they picked Sally up at the end of Isabelle’s long driveway. They were dressed in white jeans and heels under their pink cleaning tabards and they kept the window open, arms out, smoking and banging on the side of the car in time to the radio. They were in their twenties: they wouldn’t have anything to do with a schoolgirl from the nice side of town, so Sally didn’t talk about Lorne being missing. She sat in the back, chewing Airwaves gum to kill the smell of wine on her breath, watching the hedgerow race past and thinking of what else she remembered