Hanging Hill

by Mo Hayder

  It didn’t. It was locked.

  She jiggled it and tugged, but there was no mistake: it was locked. She hunted around for a key, picking up pots and vases to check under them. The utility room. She knew for sure that that door was open – it always was. But before she could get across the kitchen the front door slammed and the two men came into the hallway. She stood, frozen, her heart thumping. There wasn’t any escape from this – she couldn’t go back to the office without passing the hallway. She couldn’t get to the utility room either. She was trapped.

  Quickly she slipped into the huge glass atrium that was tacked on to the back of the house. The doors that opened from it five yards away were closed, but she couldn’t risk crossing it to check if they were locked because the men were nearly in the kitchen and they’d spot her. A chaise-longue was set against the wall, just out of sight of the kitchen – she could hide there for the time being. She sat down silently. The men came into the kitchen and at the same time a long bar of light moved across the atrium windows. A reflection. She realized she could see all the familiar things across the kitchen and into the hall: mirrored in the panes. If the men stood at the right place and glanced across they’d see her reflected back at them, but it was too late to move. She pulled her feet up tighter, her case and jacket crunched against her stomach, and kept as still and quiet as she could.

  ‘Jake.’ David stood a few steps back from the doorway, silhouetted in the sunlight, his feet planted wide, his arms folded. Sally couldn’t see Jake’s face clearly in the reflection, but she could feel the seriousness of his mood. He was wearing a leather jacket and gloves, and was carrying a large holdall. He kept his chin down slightly. She thought of him straddling the girl in the video. She couldn’t get it out of her head how thin the girl had been.

  ‘David.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to talk to you.’

  There was a long pause. Sally’s attention stayed on that holdall. It had caught David’s eye too. He nodded at it. ‘What’s in there, Jake? Brought me a present, have you?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Can I sit down?’

  ‘If you tell me what you want to talk about.’

  ‘This.’ He raised the bag. ‘I want to show you.’

  For a few seconds David didn’t move. Then he stood back and held out his hand towards the table. ‘I’ve just opened a bottle of champagne. You’ve always had a taste for champagne, Jakey boyo.’

  The two men moved to the table, their reflections a shoulder’s width apart. David pulled back a chair and Jake sat down, the holdall in his lap. David got the champagne bottle out of the cooler and unstoppered it, then poured some into a long flute. ‘Just the one, mind. Don’t want my Jakey boy driving under the influence. Would never do. Terrible waste of talent, you with your brains smeared all over the M4.’

  David got himself comfortable, raised the glass. Jake raised his in reply, drank. Even in the conservatory Sally heard the hard, metallic clink of it knocking against his teeth. He was nervous. He didn’t know she was here – her car was parked at the bottom of the grounds, out of sight. As far as he was concerned he was on his own with David.

  ‘Nice camera system you’ve got out front. Records everything, does it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Records everything.’

  ‘I’ve got a system like that. After a week the image gets recorded over. Unless you wipe it.’

  ‘Yes,’ David said reasonably. ‘But to do that you’d have to have a code.’

  ‘Yeah. A code.’

  ‘Which the owner of the system would change on a regular basis. The same way he’d change the code on the security gates. I mean, say, there was someone that person had had confidence in at one point. Such confidence that they gave him – or her – their security code. Say, then, those two people developed differences, little niggles they couldn’t iron out – well, the system owner would be a mug, wouldn’t he, not to change the codes? Otherwise what’s to stop the guy with the codes coming in and misbehaving in the house? Even, God forbid, doing something silly to the owner.’

  ‘Something silly.’

  ‘Something silly.’ There was another silence, then he said, ‘What’s in the bag, Jake?’

  Sally closed her eyes for a moment, put her head back and drew a slow, silent breath – tried to get her heart to stop throwing itself against her ribcage. When she opened her eyes Jake was opening the bag and everything in the house had a vague silvery glaze, as if it was holding its breath too. Even the big clock on the conservatory wall seemed to hesitate, hold its hand still, reluctant to click forward.

  Then Jake pulled a DVD out of the bag. He placed it on the table. David looked at it in silence. After a moment or two, he held out his hand.

  ‘And the rest,’ he said. ‘Show me whatever else is in there. I ain’t scared of you.’

  ‘There’s nothing. Just more of the same.’

  David nodded. ‘Yeah. Of course. Let me see.’

  Jake held the bag out. David took it, gave it a shake, peered inside. Put his hands in and sifted around. He raised puzzled eyes to Jake, as if he still suspected him of something underhand. Jake shrugged. ‘What? What now?’

  David gave him a suspicious glare, but he handed the bag back. Sally slowly let out her breath. In her chest her heart was still bouncing around like a rubber ball.

  ‘DVDs? What are they?’

  ‘My latest venture.’ Jake inched forward on his chair, suddenly enthusiastic. ‘Jake the Peg’s done every city in the UK – I couldn’t afford to take it out of the country so I had to look for something cheap and I thought, Hey, old man, how about Jake the Peg does the alphabet?’

  ‘The alphabet?’

  ‘A girl whose name starts with every letter of the alphabet. She wears the letter on her outfit here.’ He put a hand to his stomach. ‘I got one of those basque things and had a letter A stitched on. A for Amber. B for Brittany. C for Cindi. We’ve got to F for Faith so far. Her real name was Veronica. But serious mahongas. The type they like in the States.’

  ‘Shows a touching faith in your audience, boyo, thinking they know the alphabet.’

  ‘If I put the letter on the spine they become a set – a collection. The real fans’ll want to have the whole lot – A to Z – on their shelves.’

  David turned one of the DVDs over, studied the back. ‘Very creative. But they do say that about you lot, don’t they? Good with colours, wallpaper, soft furnishings, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I need some start-up capital.’

  ‘From me? Well, I would, my old friend, but they say bukkake doesn’t sell any more. Did you know that? Apparently more women are watching porn. Apparently they don’t get off on seeing some slag getting wanked over by twenty men. God knows why, it’s a mystery to me, but you do hear the word “degrading” bandied around, these days.’

  Sally massaged her temples. So what she’d seen on the video had a name. Bukkake. Somehow it made it worse, to put a word to it, made it more real. No pretending she’d dreamed it.

  ‘Course, maybe you could flog it to the gay market – could be a new opening. I mean, it was always beyond me why any red-blooded male would want to watch a bunch of other men jacking off. Where’s the hetero in that formula, eh?’

  Jake ignored the dig. ‘I was thinking we’d go forty:sixty. You put in the copying facility, the packaging and the marketing. I put in the product.’

  David was still for a moment. ‘Forty:sixty? Who’s the forty?’

  ‘You. Let them go out at six ninety-nine. The same strategy we had with the last series.’

  David got to his feet. He went to the fridge and poured himself another glass of champagne. He closed the door and stood for a moment or two, his back to Jake, as if he was composing himself. Then he came back and sat down. ‘Look, boyo, we had a falling-out the other day when you were here. I was rude, I grant you.’

  ‘Yeah – you were pissed off.’

  ‘Pissed off. That’s rig
ht. And I told you not to come back. You chose to ignore that. So you must, I think, be asking yourself why the hell I let you back in today. Aren’t you?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe.’

  ‘Let me explain. I opened the door to you for one reason. Curiosity. I’m a curious man, see, always have been. Used to love, as a child, going to the zoo. Nice family outing to see the monkeys playing with their peckers, know what I mean? Used to be curious about that and I’m like that even now. For example, I’m intrigued by the amazing variety of things some of the Kosovan slags’ll shove up their snatches for a few euro. That, believe me, never fails to make me curious. And Jake, my old friend, that’s why I’m welcoming you in here.’

  ‘Because you’re curious?’

  David laughed expansively. He leaned over and slapped Jake on the knee. ‘Oh, I love it – I love your expression. You think I’m going to ask you to pull out your pecker like those monkeys, doncha? Or ram an onion up your jacksy? Don’t worry – I’m not going to ask you that, though I’m sure you would, you being a bum-boy and all. No – I’ve seen your legendary whanger enough times to satisfy that curiosity, eh? Like half of Britain. Sad your one-handed audience can’t applaud, isn’t it? Might make you feel better about yourself. No, Jake, I’m not curious about any of that. And yet I am still curious. Still curious …’

  ‘About what?’ Jake blurted.

  ‘About what the fuck you were thinking!’ He rammed a finger hard into his temple. Spittle flew out of his mouth. ‘Have you fucking lost it up here in old Mission Command, boyo, mincing back, trying to sell me my own fucking speciality? I’m the bukkake king, you queer piece of shit. I’m the one got you started. I made you, Jake. I. Made. You.’ He shook his head sorrowfully. Let out all his breath wearily and opened his hands as if he despaired. ‘Honestly, Jake, if you had an extra brain it’d be lonely. Now, get the fuck out of my house. And this time don’t come back.’

  Jake stared at him.

  ‘What’re you fucking looking at? You deaf or something?’ David slammed a fist on the table, making the DVDs rattle. Jake jumped to his feet and hastily swept the DVDs into the bag. Throwing it over his shoulder, he backed out towards the door, his hands up. David followed him as far as the hallway, then swung loosely around the banister and disappeared from Sally’s view up the stairs.

  Going for the crossbow. He had to be.

  She got up and went quietly to the door. Jake was outside on the gravel, patting his coat, trying to find his keys, glancing anxiously at David, who had come downstairs and was standing a few feet away in the sunshine, his back to her, the crossbow raised. She looked across the kitchen to the utility room – just ten feet to cover, then she’d be out. She was about to scamper across when there was a loud thwack and a bolt was fired. A fountain of gravel spurted into the air about ten feet away on the driveway near the jeep. Jake put his hands in the air defensively.

  ‘What’s wrong, boyo?’ David called pleasantly. ‘Still struggling with the meaning of “fuck off”?’

  In an act of defiance, Jake stooped, snatched up a handful of gravel, and threw it at him. Then, before David could react, he was in the jeep, powering up the driveway, the automatic gates swinging open to let him go. And Jake was gone, the butterfly flash of his jeep bumping along the tiny lane that wound down to the road.

  David trudged back into the house. Immediately he caught sight of Sally shrinking back into the atrium.

  ‘What’re you staring at?’ He glanced over his shoulder as if there might be someone else in the hallway who was making her gawp like that. ‘What? So I lost my temper. Don’t get all weepy on me, Princess – if you hadn’t been cunting around with my private affairs I wouldn’t’ve been so pissed off in the first place.’

  Sally gaped at him, lost for words. Her face was on fire. She was thinking about the girl in the video, strapped to the floor.

  ‘What?’ His chin jutted forward aggressively. ‘Don’t give me that fucking superior-bitch look – I’m fed up with seeing it. You stand here in my house judging me? Well, there’s a simple solution to that. You fuck off. If you don’t like it, then just fuck right off.’

  She was still for a moment longer. Then she turned on her heel and began to walk towards the utility room. ‘You bastard,’ she muttered, under her breath.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  She shook her head. Kept walking.

  ‘You’ll apologize for that,’ he yelled behind her. ‘You’ll fucking apologize.’

  She got to the door of the utility room. Mercifully it opened smoothly and she was out in the sun, her bag over her shoulder, her jacket bundled up in the cleaning kit. She was trembling but she didn’t run, just went fast and steady, her head up and straight, ferreting around with one hand in her bag for her keys. She could hear him behind her. Also not running. But keeping pace.

  ‘I said apologize. Say it. Tell you what, I’ll make it easy for you – give you the script. “I’m truly sorry, David, for calling you a bastard. I’m sorry.” Just say it and it’s over.’

  As she got to the bottom of the path and swung the little gate open, the keys in her bag suddenly seemed to leap into her hand. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she thought, hoisting them out and aiming them at the car. The locking system beeped and clunked reassuringly; the indicators flashed. The gap from the parking area to the gate was only a few yards. As soon as she was in the car she’d be fine.

  But David caught up with her on the gravel. ‘You really take the fucking biscuit, Sally.’ He ran forward a little so he was in front of her. He wanted her to look at him. ‘Never known anyone like you for bare-faced stupid cuntness.’

  She dodged past him, opening the car and throwing her jacket and bag on to the passenger seat. Then she went round to the back, weaving past him, still not meeting his eye. She opened the boot and threw her kit inside. As she was straightening, he came up behind her and struck her on the back of the head with such force that her face went forward, her cheek hitting the underside of the opened boot lid. As she bounced back, her left elbow slammed the inside of the boot at speed, breaking the motion. She jerked sideways in an undignified scramble to right herself. Before she could catch her breath and twist to face him he was on her back, gripping her by the throat from behind, pinning her face down into the boot.

  ‘You fucking apologize. What do you take me for? Eh?’ He shook her forcefully. ‘Apologize now.’

  She scrabbled at his fingers. Felt the hot, fat pressure of blood squeezed into her brain. Her arms tingled – static crackled in her ears. This was insane. It couldn’t be happening.

  ‘I ought to fucking take you out here and now, you bitch. Taking my fucking money and judging me at the same time?’ He shook her, his body weighing flat against her back. ‘I ought to rip your head off and shit down your neck. I thought Jake was bad.’

  She couldn’t swallow. There was blood in her mouth from where she’d bitten her tongue – it dribbled out of her lips and down her chin. All the objects in the boot seemed to bulge out at her, as though behind a fish-eye lens. Then she realized what she was looking at. Something smooth and black. She recalled Steve, standing at the wall, bouncing nails into the door frame. The nail gun, a dim red light on the base. Steve had shown her how to use it before he’d put it in here, and he’d said the light only came if it was switched on. Maybe it had been switched on all this time.

  ‘Apologize.’

  ‘No.’ Her speech was slurred with the blood that webbed her mouth. She tightened her fingers around the gun. It felt smooth. Curiously warm. ‘I won’t.’

  He kicked the car, making it rock. ‘Don’t take the fucking piss. You’re worse than Jake for not knowing when you’ve got shit all over your face. Now apologize.’

  Her finger found the trigger. Found the parts that Steve had used to start it. You had to pull back the guard on it, make sure the nail strip was in place, hold the muzzle flush against the surface and depress the trigger. If she could find a place on David
’s arms, or his legs. Somewhere that would hurt, but not injure him seriously. Just stop him long enough for her to get into the car.

  ‘You know what happens to tarts like you who take the piss?’ He gave her another shake. ‘Say it,’ he hissed in her ear. His breath was sour and hot. ‘Say it now. Cunt.’

  Sally took a breath and wrenched her body sideways out of his grip. The car suspension creaked, she staggered against the bumper, waving the nail gun at David. He came at her again and she lashed out blindly – at the first and easiest place she could reach. His leg. Before he could react there was a loud whoomp and she had landed a nail in his thigh. He crumpled with the pain, wheeling away. Took a few staggering steps away from the car, clutching his leg. She tottered sideways, staring at him, hardly believing she’d done it.

  ‘Fuck. What the fuck did you do that for?’ He sank to the ground, scrabbling at his jogging trousers, pulling frantically at the nail. She dropped the nail gun and stood there, like a dummy, mouth open, knowing she’d hit something big because blood was already soaking his jeans. Thick pulses of it ran over his hands. ‘You made your point, Sally. You made your point.’

  ‘No,’ she said, horrified. ‘What have I done?’

  ‘I don’t fucking know, do I? Get the fucking thing out.’

  She crouched, fumbling for his leg, trying to find where the wound was, but the blood seemed to be everywhere, mushrooming up like a spring. On Wednesday when Steve had nailed himself to the wall she’d been completely calm. Now her body was seized up in panic. She seemed to move in creaky slow motion, pushing herself upright and stumbling to the front of the car to get her jacket. She came back, threw it on to the wound and groped around helplessly, trying to tighten it.