She looked at him, trying to get the measure of him. She thought he was telling the truth. "Do you think she"d have gone somewhere else when you turned her down?"
He was silent for a moment. Then he got to his feet and opened a filing cabinet. He took out a written list and handed it to her. "Listen," he said seriously, "I don"t know you and you don"t owe me a thing. But if you tell any of them who put you in touch and it comes out it"s me well, I"m just saying."
Zoe scanned the sheet. It had about fifty names printed on it with contact details. A lot of them seemed to be agents around the West Country, but several were lap-dance clubs. "Did you give her this list?"
"I didn"t. I give you my word on that. But I"m not the only show in town. Someone else may have."
She folded the page of addresses, put it into her pocket and got to her feet. "Just one last thing," she said.
"Yes?"
"If you have any more thoughts on this don"t call the police station. None of the others are working on this lead so you need to speak to me direct." She pulled a business card out of her pocket and laid it on his desk. "And don"t leave any messages except on my personal voicemail. If you do that for me ..."
"Yes?"
"Your name won"t be mentioned to anyone on this list."
36.
Sally found herself staring at David Goldrab as she cleaned his house that day. She kept trying to catch glimpses of him as he wandered around after his visit to the stables, opening a bottle of champagne, tapping his whip on his calf as if keeping rhythm with some song he was humming. She stood at the sink opposite him, in her rubber gloves, wiping the surface over and over, not looking at it but at him his skin, his hands, his arms. The moving parts of him that made him living. Someone wanted him dead. Actually dead. Not pretend dead. Really.
She finished her cleaning ch.o.r.es and went to the office to start entering the household expenses into the database. She"d been there for about ten minutes when she heard him go upstairs to the gym, which faced out over the front of the property. Soon she heard the familiar whirr of the treadmill, then the thud-thud-thud of him running. Her eyes drifted to the bank of computers on the other desk. His "business" section. She thought about what Steve had said. p.o.r.n. But nasty p.o.r.n. Something dark and enveloping. She bit her lip and tried to concentrate on the column of figures. Earlier she"d noticed a light on the other computer. It meant it was on standby not actually switched off.
After a while she couldn"t stop her attention wandering to it. She stood up and, tongue between her teeth, leaned over and touched the mouse. The computer whirred and began to come to life. Suddenly scared, she got up and went to the open door, looking up at the ceiling. Bang-bang-bang, came the noise from the treadmill.
Quickly she went back into the office and to the computer. David hadn"t logged out of the session everything on the screen was plain to see. The wallpaper for the desktop was a scanned newspaper page. It showed a man in his forties, heavy chin, thinning hair, dressed in a suit. The photo seemed to have been taken in the street somewhere: he was holding his hand up to the camera as if he"d been caught by photographers. The headline read: "Top MoD man Mooney heads Kosovan s.e.x unit". It looked as if the article had come from the Sun Sun or the or the Mirror Mirror or another tabloid. She scanned the article something about a unit that had been set up within the United Nations to stop women being brought in as prost.i.tutes for the peace-keeping forces. Then she examined the man"s face. Mooney. Steve"s client. Did the fact it was on his computer mean David knew Mooney was watching him? or another tabloid. She scanned the article something about a unit that had been set up within the United Nations to stop women being brought in as prost.i.tutes for the peace-keeping forces. Then she examined the man"s face. Mooney. Steve"s client. Did the fact it was on his computer mean David knew Mooney was watching him?
She bit her lip and glanced up at the doorway. Overlying the photo on the screen there were ten icons on the desktop, each with the file extension "mov". Videos. Still David was pounding on the treadmill. She let the mouse trail over the icons. It was ridiculous, when she thought about it, but she was thirty-five and she didn"t remember ever having seen a p.o.r.n movie from beginning to end. She must have seen snippets, though, somewhere along the line, because if she really concentrated she had an idea of what to expect very tanned women with blonde hair and bouncy b.r.e.a.s.t.s and lips painted pillar-box red. She thought of faces contorted in ecstasy. What she didn"t expect was what she saw when she got up the courage to click on the first icon.
It was set in what looked like a large livestock pen, with whitewashed concrete walls and grid-shaped floodlights suspended overhead. At first all Sally could see were the backs of people gathered around, as if they were watching something on the floor in the centre of the pen. They were all men, dressed averagely enough from the neck down jeans, shirts, sweaters. Their faces were covered some wore scarves tied so that only their eyes showed, others had ski masks or balaclavas. A few wore rubber party masks: Osama bin Laden, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Barack Obama. It would seem bizarre and even comical if it hadn"t been for the fact that all the men had their flies undone and were openly masturbating.
The camera panned up, the picture became clearer, and Sally felt herself go numb. In the centre of the ring someone lay naked on a tattered mattress a girl, though at first it was difficult to see her s.e.x, she was so emaciated. Her tiny ankles were manacled to the floor, her legs forced apart. Her face wasn"t visible, but Sally could tell she was young. Very young. Not much older than Millie, maybe.
A man wearing sungla.s.ses and a baseball cap pulled low over his face pushed his way through the crowd. He wore jeans and a tight T-shirt and, although his face was half covered, she immediately recognized him as Jake. It was the tan and the muscular arms that did it. He approached the girl and straddled her, one foot on either side of each shoulder, so he was looking down at her head. He began to unzip his flies and as he did Sally realized the noise of the treadmill had stopped.
She clicked off the video and hurriedly went to the shut-down b.u.t.ton. And as she did she remembered it had been on standby, not shut down. Quickly she changed her mind. Chose Sleep Sleep. She jumped up from the seat and went to sit at the other desk, her back to the computer, willing it to close down faster wishing she"d just unplugged it. But then David appeared in the office doorway, dressed in his jogging pants and trainers. The postman must have been because he had a gla.s.s of pink champagne in one hand and a stack of letters in the other. More letters still were wedged under his chin. He was shuffling through the envelopes, murmuring under his breath, "Bill, begging letter, sell sell sell, f.u.c.king credit-card company s.h.i.te."
Then he saw that the computer was alive and that Sally was sitting, stony and still, eyes locked on the database, her face flushed.
Slowly, he lowered the handful of letters. "Uh, "scuse me for pointing this out, but someone"s been t.i.tting with my computer." He stood in front of it, frowning, watching the screen whirr itself into darkness. There was a long silence, in which all Sally could think about was her heart thudding. Then David turned.
"Sally?"
She was silent.
"Sally? I"m speaking to you. Look me in the eye." He reached over and pulled her shoulder. Reluctantly she turned. He made a bull"s horn with his pinkie and his thumb, jabbed his hand at his eyes. "Look me in the eye, and tell me why you did that." A vein was pulsing in his forehead. "Eh? When I told you to keep away from that side of the room."
She didn"t answer. She couldn"t. She thought she might be sick, any moment.
"Don"t give me that patronizing look. I"m not the lowlife s.h.i.t on your shoes, Sally, it"s the other way round. Has it escaped your attention that I I"m the one employing you you? Just cos you speak like you got coughed out of some hoity-toity f.u.c.king finishing school that teaches you how not to flash your s.n.a.t.c.h when you"re getting out of a Ferrari doesn"t make you better than I am you still gotta pretend to like me. Because you"re desperate and you-"
He broke off. Something else had caught his attention. The TV monitor on the wall. He raised his chin, gazed at it, his mouth open. Shakily, Sally looked up and saw on screen, behind the electronic gate, the familiar metallic purple jeep. Jake was leaning out of the window, pushing the buzzer.
"Well, that"s f.u.c.king mint." He slammed the post down. "That has really made my day." He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a riding whip that was propped against the wall and strode into the hallway, bending every three steps to slap it furiously on the floor. The gate buzzer echoed through the hallway. David didn"t go upstairs to get the crossbow. Instead he went straight to the door and pressed the b.u.t.ton to open the gates. Seeing her chance, Sally silently grabbed her bag and jacket and crept down the corridor. She came into the kitchen as she heard the jeep pulling into the driveway. She grabbed her cleaning kit from the work-surface, went quickly to the door that led out across the terrace, and put her hand on it, expecting it to open.
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 pa.s.sing the hallway. She couldn"t get to the utility room either. She was trapped.
Quickly she slipped into the huge gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s. 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, G.o.d 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 st.i.tched 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 p.o.r.n. Apparently they don"t get off on seeing some slag getting w.a.n.ked over by twenty men. G.o.d knows why, it"s a mystery to me, but you do hear the word "degrading" bandied around, these days."
Sally ma.s.saged 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 gla.s.s 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 p.i.s.sed off."
"p.i.s.sed off. That"s right. And I told you not to come back. You chose to ignore that. So you must, I think, be asking yourself why the h.e.l.l 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 p.e.c.k.e.rs, 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 s.n.a.t.c.hes 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 p.e.c.k.e.r 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 b.u.m-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 f.u.c.k f.u.c.k you were you were thinking thinking!" He rammed a finger hard into his temple. Spittle flew out of his mouth. "Have you f.u.c.king lost lost it up here in old Mission Command, boyo, mincing back, trying to sell me my own f.u.c.king speciality? it up here in old Mission Command, boyo, mincing back, trying to sell me my own f.u.c.king speciality? I I"m the bukkake king, you queer piece of s.h.i.t. I I"m the one got you started. I made made you, Jake. you, Jake. I. Made I. Made. You 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 f.u.c.k out of my house. And this time don"t come back."
Jake stared at him.
"What"re you f.u.c.king 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 "f.u.c.k off"?"
In an act of defiance, Jake stooped, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 b.u.t.terfly flash of his jeep b.u.mping 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 c.u.n.ting around with my private affairs I wouldn"t"ve been so p.i.s.sed 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 f.u.c.king superior-b.i.t.c.h look I"m fed up with seeing it. You stand here in my my house judging me? Well, there"s a simple solution to that. You f.u.c.k off. If you don"t like it, then just f.u.c.k right off." house judging me? Well, there"s a simple solution to that. You f.u.c.k off. If you don"t like it, then just f.u.c.k right off."
She was still for a moment longer. Then she turned on her heel and began to walk towards the utility room. "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," 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 f.u.c.king 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 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d. 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 rea.s.suringly; 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.