Hanging Hill by Mo Hayder Read Free Book Online Page A

everything went in steps – the floors, the roof, even the bricks were askew. Not a straight line in sight. In the last year and a half she and Millie had crammed it full of the craft they did in their spare time. The kitchen was stacked with things – the eggcups glazed and studded with paste gems, the little portraits of the pets they’d owned over the years pinned crazily to the walls, the boiled-sweet Christmas stars still hanging in the windows like stained glass, filtering the sunlight in coloured topaz dots. So unlike the house in Sion Road that they’d lived in with Julian.
    The living room was at the back, looking out over flat fields, not another building as far as the eye could see. That night Sally left the curtains open to the night and sat curled on the sofa with Steve, sipping wine and staring in disbelief at the TV. Lorne Wood’s death was on the national news and the top story on the local news.
    ‘I can’t believe it,’ Sally murmured, her lips on the rim of her glass. ‘Lorne. Look at her – she can’t be dead. She was so pretty.’
    ‘Nice-looking girl,’ Steve said. ‘It’ll get more coverage than if she wasn’t.’
    ‘All the boys were crazy about her. Crazy. And on the towpath of all places. Millie and I used to go there all the time.’
    ‘It’s still a towpath. You still can.’
    Sally shivered. She ran her hands up and down the goosebumps on her arms and inched closer to Steve, trying to steal some of his body warmth. She and Steve had been together for four months now. On nights like tonight, when Millie was at Julian’s, Sally would go to Steve’s or he would come over to the cottage, bringing armfuls of treats, cases of wine and nice cheeses from the delis in the town centre. Tonight, though, she wished Millie was with them and not down at Sion Road. After a while, when she couldn’t relax, couldn’t stop the shivering, she swung her legs off the sofa, found her phone and dialled Millie’s mobile. It was answered after just two rings. ‘Mum.’ She sounded half scared, half excited. ‘Have you seen it? On the news? They murdered her.’
    ‘That’s why I’m calling. Are you OK?’
    ‘It’s Lorne they murdered. Not me.’
    Sally paused, a little thrown off by Millie’s dismissiveness. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just I thought with the way you used to be so close to Lorne you’d—’
    ‘We weren’t close, Mum.’
    ‘She seemed to be with you all the time.’
    ‘No – you just think she was. But really she preferred her mates at Faulkener’s and, anyway, I like Sophie better.’
    ‘Even so, it must be upsetting.’
    ‘No – really, I mean I’m shocked but I’m not crying my eyes out. It was ages ago. I haven’t seen her for ages .’
    Sally looked up at the window, at the lonely moon lifting itself from the horizon. Bloated and red. Millie was a proper teenager now. To her a year really was an age. ‘OK,’ she said, after a while. ‘Just one thing – if you want to go out tonight will you speak to me first? Let me know where you’re going?’
    ‘I’m not going out. I’m staying in. With them .’ She meant Julian and his new wife, Melissa. ‘Worse luck. And it’s the Glasto meeting tonight.’
    ‘The Glasto meeting?’
    ‘I told you about this, Mum. Peter and Nial are going to pick up their camper-vans the day after tomorrow. They’re going to meet tonight to talk about it. Didn’t Isabelle tell you?’
    Sally nibbled at the side of her thumbnail. She’d forgotten it was all so close. The boys were going to Glastonbury with Peter’s older brother and his friends. Peter and Nial had passed their driving tests and had been working like slaves for months, saving up money to buy two beaten-up old VW camper-vans they’d discovered rotting on a farm in Yate. Their parents, impressed by their determination, had chipped in to make up the shortfall and the insurance premiums. Millie hadn’t stopped talking about going with them to the festival, but the