She searched downstairs and still found no sign of him. Overlooking the back garden, an office was filled with banks of computers and DVD players – all black, red lights blinking from their shiny surfaces. A bespoke bookcase made of a reddish wood, maybe walnut, lined one wall, full of photos. There were two computers, each with a light on. When she touched the mouse of the first, the screen came to life. A spreadsheet with figures entered in three columns. The second PC also sprang to life with a quick nudge. This one showed an array of video icons. She peered at the titles: Bukkake in Gateshead; Bukkake in Mayfair. Bukkake – like Jacqui had said. Christ, she thought. Lorne, if I see your face in any of these, I promise I’ll find a way to keep it secret.
She closed the blinds, sat down in the swivel chair, and began opening files, watching them with her elbows planted on the desk, her mouth tight. Jacqui had been right about how nasty bukkake was. None of it actually broke any laws that she could think of, but it was pretty disgusting nonetheless, and Zoë had a high threshold for things like this. She truly, truly hoped she wasn’t going to see Lorne staring back at her from the floor of one of these bear-pits.
She was concentrating so hard on the faces of the girls that it wasn’t until the third video that she recognized the male star of the show. Jake the Peg. Jake the Peg! God, she thought, she could be as dumb as a bag of hammers sometimes. The whole station had been wondering how Jake had sharpened up his act lately – knowing he had to be up to something more than just dealing to the schoolkids. But a porn star? Old Peggie? No one had guessed that one. And no one would have guessed how he’d got his nickname. She gave a small, dry laugh. ‘So, Peggie,’ she murmured, looking at the screen, ‘that’s your secret.’ Christ, the world was a screwy place.
Zoë spent two hours going through the hard drives with a fine-tooth comb and by the end of it she was about 99.9 per cent sure Lorne wasn’t in the videos. The faces of one or two actresses who’d made brief appearances weren’t completely distinct. She made notes of the frames they appeared in. The girls weren’t blonde, like Lorne, but she could have been wearing a wig. When someone from HQ came over to pick up the computers Zoë’d ask for those faces to be enhanced. She pushed the keyboard away and gave the swivel chair a push with her foot, making it twirl. The bookcases sped by, then the window, with a view over the lawns, the swimming-pool and the trees outside. All the DVDs and the computers.
She brought the chair to a stop. Folded her arms and sat there, considering this situation. Half-eaten food? A computer like this left on standby with all the sensitive shit on it? Doors unlocked? Lights on and phone calls not answered? She didn’t know, just didn’t know, but if it wasn’t too good to be true, just too damned convenient for words, then the cop in Zoë would have guessed that Mr Goldrab, the only man who could link her back to that Bristol club, was no longer alive.
Chapter 8
Even though their hours at David’s had been cut, the Polish girls were in a good mood that morning. Marysieńka was going on holiday with her bus driver boyfriend next week, and Danuta had met a nice Englishman in Back to Mine, a nightclub in the centre of Bath. He was tall and he had plenty of … She rubbed her fingers together. ‘If you got that,’ she told Sally, on the back seat, ‘then you don’t gotta have that.’ She held her hands apart about nine inches, then shortened the distance to two inches. ‘It don’t matter.’ Next to her Marysieńka let out a howl of laughter and banged the steering-wheel with the palm of her hand. ‘It really don’t matter!’ She laughed. ‘Don’t matter if you got a cocktail sausage down there.’
The sun was high in the sky when they arrived at Lightpil House. They stopped the little pink Smart car in the gravel car park at the foot of the estate. Sally couldn’t take her eyes off the ground. But there was no blood left, no stain. Nothing. She got out and gazed up at the house. The place seemed much quieter than usual but, of course, that was because she knew. She followed the other women up the path. Danuta had taken off her high heels and put them in her cleaning kit so she could walk barefoot. Everywhere flowers were coming out – the fluffy purple balls of allium, and already some bleeding hearts, their white drooping flowers like little bells. You’d never guess what had happened here. It would be the last thing you’d picture.
The utility-room door stood open, as it often did. They walked in, putting down their cleaning kits. The place was exactly as Sally had left it. Maybe cobwebs were already forming, growing on the ornate wall lamps, maybe dust was settling on the surfaces, the computers and huge TVs, but it all looked exactly the way it had been. The champagne glasses were still on the table where David and Jake had sat drinking.
‘No list,’ Danuta said, lifting a couple of newspapers and checking under them. ‘Bloody fat man, you didn’t leave a list.’
‘Dum-de-dum-de-dah,’ Marysieńka hummed. She went to the doorway and shouted into the hall, ‘Mr Goldrab?’
Silence.
‘Mr Goldrab?’ She wandered to the bottom of the stairs, pulling on her rubber gloves, looking up to the landing. ‘You there?’ She waited a moment. When there was no answer she wandered back into the kitchen, shrugging. ‘Not here.’
She flicked on the coffee-maker, opened the fridge, got out some milk and filled the frother while Danuta rummaged for mugs. Sally put her kit down and made a play of pulling things out, getting ready for a job that wasn’t going to happen. She was concentrating so hard on making it look natural that it took her a moment to realize the girls had gone quiet. They had stopped what they were doing and were standing, hands frozen on milk bottles and coffee cups, their faces turned to the door.
When she turned she saw why. A woman was standing in the doorway. Very tall, dressed in jeans, her red hair loose across her shoulders, a police card thrust out at arm’s length. Sally stared at her, her heart doing a low, disorienting swoop in her chest.
There was a moment’s silence. Then the woman lowered the card with a frown. ‘Sally?’ she said. ‘Sally?’
Chapter 9
‘Sally Cassidy.’ Zoë wrote the name. She’d interviewed both the Polish girls already and let them go. Now she and Sally were in her office, the door closed. ‘I’m using your married name.’
‘I’m not married any more.’
‘No.’ Zoë raised her head and studied her. Sally sat on the other side of the desk, her hands in her lap. She had her hair tied back, no makeup on, and she was wearing a little pink tabard with ‘HomeMaids’ emblazoned on it. In front of her was a Lucozade bottle one of the Polish girls had given her for the shock because she was taking it badly, Goldrab going missing. Her face was pale under the freckles, and her lips had a bluish tinge. ‘But I’ll still use it. Because I shouldn’t be interviewing you, you being my sister.’
‘OK. I understand.’
Zoë put a line under the name. Then another. This was weird. So weird. ‘Sally,’ she said, ‘how long has it been now?’