‘Jason?’
‘Who are you?’
‘Who am I? I told you. I’m Evie.’
‘Well, Evie, you’ll regret it if you’ve taken anything out of the house. I’ve got your number-plate. And you have no idea how tenacious my father is when it comes to things like that.’
‘I’m sure he is.’
‘You really don’t want to mess with my father.’
‘I’m not messing with anyone.’ She held up her hands. ‘I’m going.’
She walked past him, half expecting to hear the whistle of his helmet cracking down on her head, he’d changed so quickly. Respect to you, Jason. You’re not the pushover I thought. She scooped up her own helmet from the driveway, Jason shadowing her, arms folded, watching her zip her jacket, swing her leg over the Shovelhead.
‘I left the towel on the workbench.’ She revved the engine, held up a hand and flashed him a smile. ‘You might want to hang it up, keep Mum happy, eh? See you around, Jason. Nice knowing you.’
Chapter 21
In the Ladies at Bristol airport Sally stood with her back to the mirror, holding her dress out to study the lipstick. In the reflection she could make out what she thought were letters, as if she had leaned on something. A display or some graffiti. But where? Most were smudged and indecipherable, but she was sure she could make out ‘AW’. And maybe ‘G’.
She went into one of the cubicles, took off her dress and tried to clean it with a packet of wet wipes she had in her bag. But the lipstick wouldn’t come off. It just smudged further into the fabric, and in the end she had to put it back on, take off her sweater and wrap it round her waist so that it hung down and covered the lipstick. She went back to the car park, goosebumps coming up on her arms in spite of the sun. She threw her handbag on the back seat of the Ka and was about to get into the driver’s seat, when something occurred to her. Steve had driven here – she’d been in the passenger seat. She slammed the door and went round to the other side of the car, opened the door and dropped to a crouch, carefully touching the upholstery. Her finger came away red. She looked at it for a long time. Then, hurriedly, she pulled some more wipes out of the handbag and placed them so they were spread across the seat. She leaned a small amount of weight on to them with her hands, and counted in her head up to a hundred. She could hear other people, trundling their suitcases across the car park behind her. Could hear the pause in their steps as they stopped to look at her crouched in the opened door.
She turned over the wipes and studied them. For this to have been imprinted on her dress it must have been there since she’d got into the car. It had been parked overnight at Steve’s, on his driveway. She tried to recall if she’d locked it. She never did at Peppercorn, so maybe she hadn’t last night. Maybe kids had got into it.
She spread out the wipes and moved them around until they fitted together. The letters were blurred, some of them missing, and the ones she could work out were in reverse. She found a ‘Y’, then a ‘G’ and then a ‘W’. She saw ‘ITCH’, the letters in sequence, and, quite clearly, ‘EVIL’. Another ‘Y’ and ‘ITH’, then the whole thing tumbled suddenly into place.
You won’t get away with it. You evil bitch.
Trembling she shot to her feet, almost banging her head against the car roof. She spun round, as if someone might be standing behind her, watching. All she could see for hundreds of yards in every direction were cars, the heads of one or two travellers moving among them. She slammed the door and started off towards the terminal at a trot. Then, realizing Steve had already gone through into Departures, she raced back to the car and fumbled her phone out of the bag, dropping things in her haste. She dialled his number, her fingers like jelly. There was a pause, then an electronic hum, and the phone connected to his voicemail.
‘This is Steve. If you’d like to leave a message I’ll …’
She cancelled the call and stood in the glaring sunshine, her hands on the roof of the car, breathing hard, the truth coming down on her like a cloud.
Someone, somehow, knew exactly what she and Steve had done to David Goldrab.
Chapter 22
The motel was one of those places with sealed windows to stop the traffic noise, squeezy soap mounted on the walls and vending machines in the foyer. Signs everywhere guaranteed your money back if you didn’t get a good night’s sleep. It was ten miles outside London on the M4, and the moment Zoë saw it she pulled off the motorway and booked a room. She didn’t intend to sleep there – all she needed was a place to lie down for a couple of hours and think – but she dutifully carried her helmet and few belongings in, and asked the receptionist for a toothbrush in a plastic wrap.
In the room she opened the window a crack, took off her boots and lay on her back, legs crossed. She draped her bike balaclava over her eyes, crossed her hands over her chest and began shuffling her thoughts around, trying to make them sit down in a proper straight line so she could decide what to do next. Whether to keep champing at the Mooney bit or call it a day and head back to Bath. What would it mean to her if she saw Goldrab dead, and all the things he knew about her past locked away? Did she think that now she’d apologized to Sally it was going to make her clean suddenly? Clean like Debbie Harry? The sort of clean Ben would like? She had the idea that uncleanness was a state of mind, which, once installed, never went away. Like Lady Macbeth’s spot of blood.
She took long, calming breaths. Began working it all out. But the travel and the last few sleepless nights got the better of her. Within five minutes she was asleep.
She dreamed of the room again, the nursery with the snow falling outside. Except this time she was on the floor, feeling very small and very scared and, terrifyingly, Sally was standing above her. She was holding the broken hand over Zoë. It was wrecked, with bones sticking out at all angles, and the blood dripped out of it, rolling in fat plops on to Zoë’s face.
She pushed her legs out, scrambling away from Sally, flipping herself over and stumbling for the door. Sally followed close behind, her hand raised. ‘No!’ she was crying. ‘Don’t go – don’t go!’
But Zoë was out of the door, tumbling down the stairs, breaking into a run, pelting through the streets. It was Bristol, she realized. St Paul’s. Ahead she saw a doorway, a red light coming from it, a hand beckoning her. Hurry up, someone yelled. Hurry up! This is the way through. In here! And then, suddenly, she was standing on a stage, an audience looking expectantly up at her. In the front row were her parents, her first-form teacher and the superintendent. Do something, shouted the superintendant. Do something good. The lighting man frowned from the box at her, and at the back the maintenance man leaned on his broom, grinning up at her. Get on with it, someone yelled. Do something good. Someone was pushing her from behind. When she turned she saw David Goldrab, as a young man, London Tarn.
Zoë, he said. Lovely to see you again, Zoë!
She woke in the hotel room, her hands clutching the sides of the bed, her eyes wide. Her head was aching. She breathed in and out, in and out, staring at the headlights racing to and fro across the wall. After a while she rolled over. The display on the bedside table said 11:09. She groped for her phone – the signal was strong, but no one in that time had tried to call her or text. She wondered who she’d been hoping for. Ben? It was eleven o’clock. He and Debbie would be in bed, maybe sharing a nightcap or cocoa. Or something else.