The photograph had been taken in, she guessed, late June. A pinkish floating haze of poppies hung over the fields. Among them, Lightpil House – a huge yellow slash on the green, its fountains and terraces reflecting the sun. To its north the almost triangular wedge of the parking space where David Goldrab had died. To its south, near the perimeter, half hidden by towering poplars, the roof of a cottage.
Whoever had left the note knew nothing about Peppercorn Cottage: they’d seen her at David’s. She’d thought they couldn’t be overlooked where the killing happened, but she hadn’t thought about the gardens of the houses at the top of Lightpil Lane. The bottom of the land attached to the cottage on the screen stretched along the northern wall of Lightpil House and came out at the bottom in a spoon shape, bordered by a low hedge. If someone had been standing there at the right time, if they had looked across the dip in the land …
The phone rang in her pocket, making her jump. She snatched it out with trembling hands.
‘Steve. Steve?’
‘Christ, Sally, what the hell’s going on?’
‘It’s all gone wrong. I told you it would go wrong and it has.’
‘OK, OK, calm down. Now, first of all, we’re speaking on an international line. You know what I mean by that – can you hear it humming?’
She took deep breaths, still staring at the cottage roof. ‘Yes,’ she said shakily, thinking of those vast domed listening stations. And Cheltenham GCHQ not far from here. Did phone calls really get monitored? Maybe in Steve’s job they did. ‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘Explain, carefully, what’s happened.’
She licked her lips. ‘I got a message when I got back into the car. The lipstick I leaned on – it was a message. It said—’ She swallowed. ‘It said I wouldn’t get away with it.’
There was a long silence at the end of the line as Steve digested this. ‘Right,’ he said, sounding as if he wasn’t just thousands of miles away but millions. In a different galaxy. ‘Right.’
‘But if anyone has … you know, witnessed anything, it wasn’t here at Pepp— at my place, so I don’t think they know where I am. It must have been at the …’ She hesitated. ‘The first place. I think they must have seen my car – and then they saw it outside your place and planted the message. I’ve looked at Google Earth and I think I know where they were standing …’
‘OK. I’m coming straight back. I’m not even going to leave the airport – I’ll just turn right around and get the first flight back. OK?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No. You can’t.’
‘I can.’
‘Yes. But I don’t want you to.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I mean it. I’m going to be OK.’
‘Well, I don’t care what you say, I’m coming back.’
‘No.’ This time her voice was so firm Steve went silent. ‘I really, really have to do this on my own. And, Steve, please don’t ask again.’
Chapter 24
The air was colder now that it was past midnight, and the roads were almost empty. Gliding into London on the overpasses to the west was like a magic-carpet ride over an enchanted city. All the buildings were lit up like palaces. The Ark on Zoë’s right, bulging out over the road, the blue-tiled onion dome of a mosque on her left. She had to get into a single-lane queue for a while to go past a traffic stop in Paddington, with two police cars pulled over, their lights flashing, but apart from that nothing delayed her and she sailed on to Finchley.
She stopped the bike, cut the engine and stood on tiptoe next to the brick wall at the end of the road. The Mooneys’ house blazed with light. Every window seemed to be open, voices and music floating out through the night. The music was so loud she imagined she could feel it in her feet. On the driveway someone was revving a motorbike engine. She was surprised the cops weren’t there because the neighbours couldn’t be putting up with this, but when she looked around at the silent houses, one or two with coach lamps on, the gates all locked, it occurred to her that people didn’t live there. It was one of those streets where the owners lived in Dubai or Hong Kong and only kept a London residence to impress business colleagues. It could be that the Mooneys’ was the only occupied house in the street. No wonder Jason was having a party.
Cautiously she got on the bike again and started it. She drove slowly down the road, keeping her face forward, her eyes left. The gates to the Mooneys’ house stood open and seven large West Coast choppers were parked on the brick driveway. Behind them in the garage, lit like a tableau in a nativity scene, two men in sleeveless T-shirts stood drinking beer from cans and examining Jason’s Harley. They didn’t stop talking as she went by but one of the men lifted his head and followed her progress until she was out of sight.
She got a hundred yards down the road and swung the Shovelhead into a U-turn, came back to the house and let it cruise into the driveway alongside all the choppers. She parked near the hosepipe, hooked up to the front wall as obvious as could be, then swung her leg off and wandered into the garage, tugging at her helmet.
‘All right?’ said the bigger of the T-shirts. ‘OK there?’
‘Guess.’ She ran her fingers wearily through her hair and walked past them. They didn’t stop her, so she continued on through the door she’d gone through earlier and into the house. Everything inside was different. Dominic Mooney’s lifestyle was being systematically trashed. Every piece of furniture was draped with bike leathers and helmets. The kitchen was full of people drinking beer; girls, with barbed-wire tats on their arms and stilettos under their skinny jeans, were perched on the counters. Someone else was using one of Mrs Mooney’s wooden spoons to beat out an imaginary drum track. Zoë wandered around, peering into rooms, counting the nose rings and the forehead studs and the number of feet in oily boots resting on the Mooneys’ nice sofas. Her parents hadn’t thrown a single party for her – not after what she’d done to Sally. Certainly they’d never have trusted her alone in the house while they were away.
Jason she found in a bathroom on the first floor, lying fully dressed in the bath with a tin of Gaymer’s in one hand and an iPhone in the other, his head lolling on his shoulder, his mouth open. He was completely wasted.
‘Hello, Jason.’
His eyes flew open. He shot forward in the bath, splashing cider everywhere. When he saw who it was he gathered himself, made a vague attempt to wipe the cider away. Pushed his hair off his face. ‘Hello,’ he said, in a wavering voice. ‘Why did you come back?’
‘I had to. I dropped the pipe grips in the garage.’
‘I know. I found them.’
‘Didn’t know if I’d be welcome.’
He looked at her as if she perplexed him. ‘What did you want? What were you doing, sneaking around our back garden?’
‘I needed a pee, Jason. That was why I was round the back. And I’m sorry.’
‘OK, OK,’ he muttered, his mouth moving as if he was testing this excuse. Too pissed, though, to realize she could have just used the loo in the house, where she’d washed her hands. He shrugged. ‘Yeah – well, that’s cool, I s’pose.’
‘But, Jason, peeing on your mum’s roses kind of pales into insignificance when you look at the people down there drinking beer in your kitchen.’
Jason stared up at her. ‘What are they doing? I told them a couple of beers and then it was goodbye.’
‘A couple of beers … Jason? Do you know how many people are down there?’
‘Five?’
‘Five? Try fifty.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Serious? Uh, ye-es. I mean serious to the point of you’d better think hard about halls of residence and getting a job to make it through your smarty-pants science degree. Because I don’t know any mummy and daddy sainted enough to ignore this mess. Have you looked downstairs? Seen the cigarette burns on the carpet?’
‘Burns? Shit.’ He scrambled out of the bath. ‘Did they get the guest towels?’