Free Hanging Hill by Mo Hayder

of knew each other, or of each other – and people talked and gossiped so you never felt entirely disconnected from others, no matter if you hadn’t seen them for years. It was the way she got information about what Zoë was doing, for example (she didn’t dare ask Mum and Dad – for years she’d never spoken a word about Zoë to them, knowing the spectres it might raise if she did). The grapevine was also the way she’d first become aware of Steve – in the vague, amorphous way you got to know about the other parents at a school, even though his two children were much older than Millie and now at university. He and his ex had got divorced, it turned out, on the same day as Sally and Julian. Steve had heard vaguely about her separation through the grapevine and one day, months later, he’d seen her sitting in traffic in the pink HomeMaids Smart car. He’d called the number on its side and got the manager to put a call through to her. That was the thing about Bath. Really, it was just a big village. Sometimes it was a bit creepy. As if she couldn’t move without everyone knowing.
    But, looking at Steve now, she didn’t quite believe the small-village scenario explained how he knew about David.
    ‘He’s not one of your …’ She searched for the word. What would he call him? A customer? A client? She knew so little about his job. ‘He hasn’t employed you, has he?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘But you still know a lot about him?’
    Steve frowned. ‘Yeah … well,’ he said vaguely. ‘Maybe this is a bad time to talk about it. You know, first thing in the morning.’ He drew a newspaper nearer and began to read.
    But Sally persisted. ‘I don’t know anything about your job. I feel a bit in the dark sometimes.’
    He looked up at her. He had very clear grey eyes. ‘Sally, that’s the big drawback. If you know a bit about my job you know the lot.’
    ‘And then you’d have to kill me.’
    ‘And then I’d have to kill you.’ He gave an apologetic smile.
    ‘I do have to be careful. That’s all.’
    ‘But I work for him. And he is a bit … weird. Maybe you know something I should. Something important.’
    He pursed his lips and tapped the rim of his cup thoughtfully with his nail, as if he was wondering what he could risk saying. After a while he pushed the cup away. ‘OK – I can tell you this much. Goldrab’s not paying me, it’s the other way round. I ’m being paid to investigate him .’
    ‘Investigate him ? Why?’
    ‘That’s where the soul baring stops. I’m sorry. If you have to work for him, I can’t stop you. All I ask is you keep your wits about you.’
    ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling a little naïve not to have cottoned on to this before. ‘How long have you been doing it?’
    ‘A while now. Months. That’s pretty normal – a lot of my subjects sit on my books for years. But if you want the truth, the pressure on Goldrab’s been upping lately. In the last couple of weeks my clients are getting a bit pushier about him.’
    ‘Do you mean Mooney?’
    Steve put down his cup and stared at her. ‘How do you know that name?’
    ‘I think I must have heard you talking to him on the phone.’
    ‘Then forget it. Please. Forget it.’
    She gave a nervous little laugh. ‘You’re scaring me now.’
    ‘Well, maybe you should be scared. Or cautious, at least. Goldrab is a nasty man, Sally. Very nasty. And the fact he’s walking around free and not banged up on some life sentence is only a matter of fluke. Seriously, forget you ever heard that name. Please. For both our sakes.’

12
    ‘There are cats at your back door.’
    Zoë was sitting at the table looking at the post-mortem photos of Lorne, distractedly rubbing her aching jaw, when Ben came into the living room, fully dressed, doing up the cuffs on his shirt. She hadn’t heard him get up, hadn’t heard him come down the stairs. He’d had less than five hours’ sleep but he was immaculate. He put his forehead to the glass door and peered