Hanging Hill - Mo Hayder [98]
Zoë locked the car, went up the path, rang the bell and stood on the doorstep, listening for movement inside. After three or four minutes had elapsed she rang the bell again. This time there was a muffled thump, then someone called out, ‘Coming, coming.’
The boy who answered the door couldn’t have been much more than seventeen. But what he lacked in maturity he made up for in sass. Dusky brown – maybe from Vietnam or the Philippines – his hair was shaved at the sides and neck, with an area on top that had been teased into a small pompadour. He wore a gold chain and an iPhone holder velcroed to his upper arm. Aside from that, he was naked except for a pair of tight pink boxers, with ‘Wow’ printed across the crotch. When he saw Zoë’s warrant card he laid a hand on his chest as if to say this just wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to him every day – did anyone mind if he fainted?
‘Is Mr Drago here?’
‘No! Him asleep.’ He eyed the card warily. ‘You police?’
‘That’s right. What’s your name?’
‘Angel. Why?’
‘OK, Angel. I think I’ll come in, if you don’t mind.’
He tutted, but swivelled haughtily on his heels and disappeared into the house. She followed. The underpants, she saw, had ‘Kitty’ emblazoned on the buttocks.
If the place was a typical thirties house on the outside, inside it was anything but. The front room – where most families would have had a gas fire, a TV, a sofa – had been turned into a gym with lots of black and chrome equipment. One wall was painted lime green, with a blown-up black-and-white image of a young man looking coquettishly over his shoulder. The back room, which led out to the kitchen, was the living area, with sixties geometric wallpaper, suede furniture and different-coloured neon tubes suspended from the ceiling. It was very cold, but Angel didn’t seem to notice. He yelled up at the ceiling, ‘JAAAAKE. JAAAKE. Important you come now.’ Then he went into the little kitchenette and began making tea, breaking off every now and again to execute a demi-plié, holding the fridge handle to balance himself.
There was the sound of someone falling out of bed overhead. Zoë found a seat and sat with her back to the wall, in the corner, where there was a precious pocket of warmth. No wonder it was cold – the windows were open. Original thirties leaded panes, propped open on metal latches. When they were kids, at Christmas Sally would paint each pane of glass in their bedroom windows. Every one a different colour. Silver, green, red.
‘’S bloody freezing in here.’ Jake came in, swaddled in a duvet, his teeth chattering. He scowled at Zoë, but he wasn’t awake enough for a fight. He seemed more worried about the heating. ‘What’ve you got against a bit of warmth?’ he yelled at Angel. ‘You fucking freak of nature.’
‘Listen her,’ Angel said sarcastically. ‘She Wicked White Witch on the sleigh. Ice Queen.’
‘Shut up,’ Jake said. ‘Shut up.’
‘Ooh – crooooooel. Yours is a problem in the blood.’ He pronounced it blod. ‘Not enough to go round your whole body. Problem starts in the little fingers and we all know where it ends.’
‘Shut up.’
Angel made a small disgusted click in the back of his throat, put his chin up and flicked back a hand, as if it was no surprise to him, none at all, that a person as ignorant and crude as Jake would have brought the police to his house – as if that was to be expected of people like him. He turned on a heel, his nose in the air, and disappeared upstairs, slamming the door.
‘Ignore him.’ Jake closed the window bad-temperedly and put his hand on the radiator to check it for warmth. He found none. He bent and turned the valve on full. ‘Tried to teach him some manners, didn’t I? But with his lot, what do you expect?’
Zoë examined the mug she’d been given. It had pictures of Billie Holiday hand-painted in pinks and greens. ‘How did you keep this secret from us all these years?