Skin

  She carries the drink up to her room and rests it on the bedside table. Slops some of it, so she takes off her T-shirt to blot up the mess. When she’s straightening she catches her reflection in the mirror on the big old wardrobe. She gives herself a long, hard look, unbuttons her shorts, slides them off and steps out of them. Now she’s in underwear, her bra and knickers, and her high heels. She stands straight and appraises her reflection.

  She’s got good legs. Always has had. Short, a bit muscular, but shaped well with good knees and ankles. Legs that look good in heels. Good knockers, too. She pushes her breasts together and bends towards the mirror. Makes a kissy face. A bit of help with the boobies: East European help. But a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind horse, and she’s always had a way with certain types of men. A little promise, a little excitement. It’s a two way-street. They get what they want . . . and she gets what she wants. Which, right now, is a ticket out of here. Away from the snoops and the rain and all the people who want to hurt the cats with their poisons and fast cars.

  There’s a new shopping centre going up between the hamlet and Trowbridge. It brings all sorts of lonely men down, a project like that – architects, engineers, investors. One or two of them have already started appearing at the pubs in Rode. One bought her a drink the other night, and that’s a move in the right direction. Not that she’s naïve: it’s not going to be bleeding Pierce Brosnan, for the love of God. There’ll be compromises.

  She takes a gulp of the rum and Coke. Puts it down and turns back to the mirror. She gathers up the spare flesh that pushes over the top of her knickers. Squishes it together and watches it pucker. Folds of tanned flesh all indented and lumpy. Stevie. He did that. Not that she resents it, but that’s Stevie’s belly right there. She jiggles it around, then flattens it back against her hipbones and turns half in profile. Turns to the other side. Admires the change in her shape with it pulled tight like that.

  It’s only a tiny bit of work. A tiny scar. From all the reading she’s done she’ll be able to pass it off as a hysterectomy. A movie star or a jet-setter wouldn’t think twice about it. They’d call it maintenance. They wouldn’t worry like this, or spend time thinking about it. They’d just crap or get off the pot.

  Ruth drains her drink. She goes downstairs and stands at the bar in her underwear and high heels, a little unsteady, scoops ice into the glass and fills it. She carries it over to the computer table and begins pulling things out of drawers. There are stacks and stacks of photographs, and she has to rummage through them to find the folders of bank and credit-card statements. She dumps them on the table and sits down, sorting them into piles.

  After a while she realizes there’s a problem. She lays them out in date order and starts again, making notes this time, adding things up. It’s not good. Two glasses of rum and Coke go by and she still can’t work out how it got so bad. She pours another and sits, head propped up on one finger, trying to work it out.

  She’s got an appointment for the day after tomorrow. Little Sue made it. A good girl, Sue, stays in touch despite the divorce. Weird face, though: pushed in. Like there’s a touch of the manta ray in Lindermilk genes. Basically she’s a good girl, though, and she’s spoken to the clinic about getting a staff discount for Aunty Ruth’s tummy tuck. Twenty-five per cent apparently.

  But even with the discount there isn’t going to be enough. Ruth can see that now.

  What’s she supposed to do? Get another mortgage on the house? That would take for ever, and with the way things are going in this country no one can get a mortgage, not even the doctors and lawyers. She looks up and catches sight of herself in the mirror. Thinks about the money. Thinks about her bank account. And, suddenly, it’s all wrong. Suddenly it doesn’t matter how she looks at it, everything looks awful. She looks awful. Her stomach looks awful. Her face looks awful. And there’s that chipped tooth at the front. Christ only knows how much that’ll cost to fix. Needs an implant probably.

  ‘Fuck,’ she tells the little black cat curled up at her feet. ‘Fuck.’

  She goes back to the bar. Opens the rum again and pours another couple of fingers. Spills a bit on the bar top. She looks at it. Wonders whether to lick it up. Changes her mind and puts down a paper napkin. One from the Puente Romano hotel in Marbella. They’d moored in the Cabopino marina once and had a drink in the bar. Stevie stole about a hundred napkins that night. She’s still using them. A good boy, Stevie.

  She picks up her mobile and flicks through the numbers. Stops at Stevie’s and stares at it for a long time. He’s got a good little business in Swindon, selling white goods. Built it up from nothing. He wouldn’t like to see his mum want for anything. Her thumb hovers over the call button.

  ‘No,’ she tells the cat, putting the phone down. ‘I won’t take the bread out of my baby’s mouth. I won’t do it. I’m not that sort of mother.’

  She pours in the Coke and drops in a swizzle stick for fun. There was something in a magazine the other day, talking about how a woman had gone to her doctor and said her flat chest was making her depressed. Depressed. The doctor referred her and she got a new set done on the National Health. Cost her nothing. What is the world coming to?

  She looks at the phone again. At Stevie’s number, then the clock. It’s almost five. He’ll be on his way to the pub. She dials and gets his voicemail. ‘Stevie, darling, it’s Mum. Sweetheart, give Mummy a call, will you, darling? Come and see me, will you? There’s a little something I need to discuss with you.’

  33

  Caffery hung out of the window of the MCIU offices at Kingswood and smoked a guilty roll-up. He watched the guy in the halal butcher’s close up shop. The story one of the DCs in the office liked to tell was how, a year or so ago, the dumbfucks in the Chinese supermarket two doors down had got jealous of the trade the butcher was doing. They’d decided it was all to do with that word: halal. They’d copied it down really carefully and stuck it on a sign in the window. Halal beef for sale. Halal chicken for sale. Halal pork for sale. Halal pork. The butcher had lost it at the pork insult and really dropped the hammer on the Chinese for that. For a while it was like gang warfare out there. At the window now Caffery smoked slowly, looking at the butcher’s. He was a Londoner. He didn’t see why the DC had thought it was worth mentioning. That sort of thing happened all the time in Lewisham.

  He dropped the butt out of the window and went to his desk. He had to speak to Powers but the superintendent wasn’t there. He was in Glyndebourne, of all places, with his phone switched off. He’d been working sixteen-hour days since the Misty Kitson case had come to them, but today his wife had tickets for the opening performance of La Cenerentola, and considering what she’d put up with over the years he wasn’t stupid. After the morning press conference he’d got straight into his car, driven home and got the DJ and picnic hamper out of mothballs. He’d left Caffery a little message, though: pictures of the actress who’d played Misty Kitson at the reconstruction had been carefully taped over the PM photos of Ben Jakes and Jonah Dundas.

  He unstuck the tape and carefully peeled them away. Then he put the photographs together and shovelled them into an envelope. He paused for a moment over the one of Misty’s coat. Purple – made of velvet. Something about the fabric pulled at his mind a moment. It was something about a car – something that made him think of a car and the coat. Car, coat. Car, coat. He tried to superimpose the two images one over the other, but each time they slipped and frittered away.

  Nothing had come of the reconstruction yet. No suspect caught in the bushes with his dick in his hands, like the shrinks had said would happen. It made the whole team insane to think how little they had to go on with the case: just the witness statements from the rehab clinic of the last sightings and a statement from the boyfriend. All they knew for sure was that one of the other patients had smuggled in some goodies and they’d been partying. A little after two Kitson had left the building by the front entrance. She’d called the boyfriend as she left the clinic g
rounds. It had been a tearful conversation: she’d told him she was leaving for a walk because she needed time to think, that she couldn’t stand the place one more second. She’d said she’d be back at the clinic before five. The boyfriend had already been pissed off with her – he admitted it in the interview: it was his hard pennies earned in the midfield that were paying for the clinic. There was an argument. She hung up. He didn’t call back. It was only when the clinic telephoned hours later that he realized anything was wrong.

  Caffery’s mobile rang. It was Powers. He put the photos into the top drawer and pulled the chair tight up to the desk. Time to talk.

  ‘Evening, boss. You still down in Sussex?’

  ‘Don’t. Cenerenbloodytola. Had to wait for the interval to get my phone out – she’s giving me the evils even as we speak.’

  ‘How’s the weather?’

  ‘Place is a mudbath. She keeps saying her Jimmy Choos are ruined. I mean, who is this character? You ever heard of him? Jimmy Choo?’

  Jimmy Choo, fuck-me shoes. Not what Powers would want to hear about his wife of thirty years. ‘Saw you on telly this morning,’ Caffery said. ‘The Kitson press call. You looked very empathetic. Thought you might cry.’

  ‘Good, wasn’t it? Spent years working on it. Did you spot the lie?’

  ‘That the force is confident of finding her?’

  ‘No. When I said I was throwing all the manpower I had at it. When I said the whole team were committed one hundred per cent?’

  ‘Yeah. Well. We need to talk. It’s bad news.’

  There was a pause. ‘Oka-ay. Do I need my Bolly livened up before we go on?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering how many murders we’re filing as suicides. Makes your head ache thinking about it.’

  ‘You’re talking about Ben Jakes, I suppose. He wasn’t a suicide?’

  ‘No. That’s the sweetness to this. Jakes was a suicide that looked like a murder. But I’ve got something else: a murder that looks like a suicide. Her name’s Mahoney. Lucy Mahoney. Found up near the Strawberry Line on Friday.’

  ‘What does the pathologist say?’

  ‘Well, she’s sticking to suicide. But she’s wrong. Look, boss, something’s way out of whack here. I’ve got this woman’s ex going on at me about how the dog’s missing – the dog was with her when she went misper – and what turns up yesterday in the quarry?’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Her dog.’

  ‘It was mutilated. The CSI lads said it looked like someone was trying to make a coat out of the damned thing. Then the ex says one of her door keys is missing.’

  ‘And how does she fit with what you’ve been doing on Norway?’

  ‘She doesn’t.’

  ‘Then, what the hell are you doing worrying about it?’

  ‘The time you gave me to tidy up the Norway problem? I want to spend it on this instead. I want to speak to the coroner.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Powers gave a deep sigh. Caffery could picture his face. He knew he’d be struggling not to climb down the phone line and chew him out for this. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you’ve dropped Norway and instead of coming back into the team on Kitson you’ve decided you’re off chasing another rabbit? I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m starting to think you’ve got something against the Kitson girl. It’s like you want to avoid the damned case. Like anything’s better than this. I can’t believe it.’

  Caffery drummed his fingers on the table. ‘So? Is that a yes, then?’

  ‘Oh, brilliant. Very funny.’ He took some time, breathing carefully. Maybe he’d been to one of those alternative therapists to learn how to breathe his way through stress. ‘Look, if F District want to investigate this woman and her dog as something other than a suicide that’s their business. And if that happens, and if at the twenty-eight-day review they think it should come to us, then that’s the review team’s business. And I won’t argue with them. Because by then we’ll have found Misty Kitson and she’ll be safe and well and being photographed with her scum footie boyfriend and their horrible lapdogs in her kitchen in Chislehurst or Chingford or wherever it is these people come from. I’m sorry, Jack.’

  ‘Am I really that difficult?’

  ‘No. Just need you to pull with me. Pull with me.’

  Misty’s case was so resource-heavy you could hear the cartwheels squealing. The force had thrown everything at it. Everything. Her phone records had come back in forty-eight hours. Lucy's had gone missing and no one had even noticed.

  ‘You know what?’ Caffery said. ‘You’re right. I’m going to get in early tomorrow and sit in with the HOLMES girls. Get up to speed with what’s going on. How about that?’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Powers said gruffly.

  ‘I’ll help divvy up the day’s “Actions” for you, if you want. I can be there, let you have a lie-in.’

  ‘I’d settle for you telling me that when I get into the office in the morning my DI will be there. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.’

  ‘I will,’ Caffery said. ‘Have a good evening. Hope the rain stops for you.’

  He hung up and stood for a minute, staring out at the butcher’s. It was starting to rain. He went to the desk and ran down the extension list, looking for Wells police station. He checked his watch. Six thirty. There was time. He was going to find out if the DI on the Lucy Mahoney case was still on duty, get all the witness statements from when she was a misper, take them home and read every one from cover to cover.

  The Walking Man was right. This was his downfall. He just couldn’t let go.

  34

  All around the world scientists are growing skin. They’re using skin removed during cosmetic surgery, harvesting the cells and feeding them in a petri dish with agarose, glutamine, hydrocortisone and insulin. They add melanocytes to give pigment, dry off the top layer, and expose it to UV light to age it. Then they use it to test cosmetics, or sell it to order over the Internet to patch up burns and wounds.

  The man has ordered some of this synthetic skin from its American manufacturers. It’s been shipped to him in injection-moulded polystyrene blocks: five flabby discs about the size of his palm, suspended in an agar nutrient medium and sealed in a high-grade polythene bag. As evening falls across the farmland that surrounds his lonely house he is examining the skin. He smells it, rests it on his hand and holds it up to the light. He screws his eyes shut and presses it to his face. Clenches his teeth and waits to feel better.

  He’s been caught. Again.

  Again.

  ‘Sssssssh.’ He rocks slightly. Lets the skin settle into the shape of his jaw. The problem is taken care of. He’s sure it’s taken care of. Nothing to get upset about. ‘Sssssssh.’

  He pulls the artificial skin away from his face. Stares at it angrily. It has no hair, no pigment and none of the Langerhans cells that allow real skin to fight infection. It has no blood and no sweat glands. It’s no better than rabbit or dog skin. In disgust he flicks it off his fingers into the bin, where it hits the side and clings. He watches it and then, when it shows no sign that it will drop, he gets up and uses a long tanning awl to push it into the bottom.

  Nothing, nothing, is fair in this world.

  35

  The gastro pub was at the top of a steep city road in Clifton. It had red-brick floors, squashy sofas, a Swedish wood stove, and racks of vintage wines behind glass. Caffery and Colin Mahoney ordered J20s, ‘sharing bread’ and a sandwich each. They sat in one of the huge bay windows where they could see office workers hurrying to lunch.

  ‘How’s Daisy?’ Caffery asked. ‘How’s she coping?’

  ‘How do you think she’s coping? There just isn’t the vocabulary.’

  ‘Have you told her about the dog? ‘

  ‘Thought I’d save that one.’ Mahoney was dressed in his grey suit, a white shirt and an old-fashioned Paisley tie. He looked tired. ‘No one’s been in touch
since you came over yesterday. Haven’t heard a thing. Nothing. Not even a card or a bunch of flowers from the FLO.’

  ‘Those liaison officers. They’re just scared of commitment.’

  ‘I was at least expecting someone to call to tell me it had been reclassified. You know, as a murder.’

  ‘Yeah, well.’ Caffery patted his pocket, felt the tobacco wallet and thought about having to go outside to smoke. He’d been into the office this morning and gone through the day’s HOLMES ‘actions’ for Powers. As he’d promised. He was entitled to do what he wanted with his lunch-hour. ‘I’m working on that. I really am. I’ve spoken to the pathologist.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s having problems reversing the suicide decision. Standing pretty firm on it. The only wobbly place is the temazepam. If she’s got any knot at all, it’s that. When Lucy died she was full of benzodiazepines.’

  ‘Her GP used to tell her she’d get addicted, that she should have a nice G-and-T instead. But she knew how to work him. Bathroom cupboard used to rattle with them. It scared me, with Daisy around. So? Am I going to get an answer? Are you treating it as a murder?’

  ‘Not officially. But, for the sake of argument, say you and I work on the assumption we are?’

  ‘Not an assumption for me. It’s a fact.’

  ‘Then we move on to whodunit territory. Like suspects and motives.’

  Mahoney held out his hands to show he was clueless.

  ‘We think someone used that missing key to come into her house. Maybe after it happened, right? To clean up. Or was there something else they wanted? You’ve checked nothing’s missing?’

  ‘Nothing, as far as I can tell. Only the Stanley knife and the key.’

  ‘Whoever’s got it could still come in and out.’