But what about Sally? And all that had happened in their pasts? What would make that poisonous thorn go away? An apology? she thought, rubbing her knuckles. How the hell did you go about apologizing for something like that?
Another message popped up – this time from the high-tech unit who, in less than two hours, had cracked through the administrator password page on the CCTV and analysed the footage from the front of Lightpil House. She read the email quickly: the team had found no record of Goldrab leaving the house on the Thursday. He’d been out to the stables in the morning, had come back at ten and hadn’t been picked up by the CCTV camera since. Which must mean he’d exited through the side entrance not covered by the camera. What the team had found, however, was five-minute footage of a serious altercation that had taken place outside the house at about three p.m. that same day. She closed the office blinds again, and watched the segments of video they’d attached to the email. A suntanned young man next to a jeep, dodging crossbow bolts. Jake the Peg jumping like a monkey on hot coals.
Jake, she thought, tapping the screen. Jake the Peg. Sally was right, you naughty boy.
Chapter 11
Jake the Peg’s home was on the road from Bath to Bristol and didn’t look as if it belonged to a porn star. Apart from the small security camera trained on the jeep that stood outside, it was an ordinary thirties house with metal lattice windows and deco-inspired stained-glass porches – the type of building that had survived the bombing during the war because it was part of the suburban sprawl and too remote from the vital organs of the city to have interested the Germans. Zoë pulled up at just after four o’clock to find the curtains still closed. She sat for a while, considering the house. It was a bit like her parents’ place had been. People who lived in a place like that shouldn’t have been able to afford to send two children to boarding-school. Not unless they had very good reason to separate them. Very good reason. Earlier today in the office Sally had looked broken. Really broken. Julian had left her. Not the other way round. That didn’t fit at all.
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?’ She nodded to the door through which Angel had huffed off. ‘Jake the Peg and his boyfriend. I admit it wasn’t what I’d expected. And even more spectacular, in the revelations stakes, Jake the Peg the porn star? You slipped that one by us, no pun intended. But you’re a celebrity! I’ve been watching some of your appearances recently. At the office. They all have. Funny, thinking about it now, but you always seemed so much smaller in the flesh.’
Jake looked steadily at her. He sat down. ‘I know why you’re here.’
‘Do you? Go on, then. Tell me.’
‘Jake does barely legals, innit? Because there was them school-girls in it? But see that vid with the yellow spine over there? On the shelf? Get it out. Go on. It’s a vid of each of them girls, with their passports held up to the camera. Proof they was all eighteen.’
‘Barely legals? Funny – that’s not why I’m here.’
Jake frowned. ‘I’m telling you – I do my homework, man, learn the law. This is proper business now and I’m clean. Easy.’
‘I’m sure you are, Jake, I’m sure you are. I’ve always had absolute faith in you. But that’s not why I’m here. I want to talk to you about Lorne Wood.’
He sucked his teeth, rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah. You asked me about her already. What do you want to know now?’
‘I want you to revisit your memory. Have a double-check in the grey matter. Sometimes things slip our minds.’
‘We talked about this.’
‘Yes, but I asked you whether you saw her outside the school. What I didn’t ask you was whether she ever turned up on one of your sets.’
‘Her?’ Jake gave a short sarcastic laugh. ‘No fucking way. Too classy.’
‘You sure? You sure David Goldrab never introduced you two?’
Jake’s face changed. It went flat. ‘Goldrab? What’s he got to do with anything?’