Chris Simms - Shifting Skin

‘Oh, sorry, please.’ She perched nervously on the edge of a matching armchair and her fingers started teasing the corners of the duster. As Jon sat down he realised the room had the same feeling of sterility as her husband’s office at Protex.

Jon took out his notebook. ‘When did you last speak to your husband, Mrs Dean?’

‘Yesterday morning, when he set off for Manchester. But he should have rung this morning. He always rings me between eight and nine if he’s staying in a hotel.’

‘And how often is that?’

‘Three or four times a month. Usually he stays in Manchester. Most of his big clients are around there, so he saves hours of driving by booking into a hotel.’

‘Does he stay in a particular one?’

‘Yes. They built a Novotel for the Commonwealth Games last summer. That’s his usual one nowadays.’

‘I see. Mrs Dean, this may sound silly, but have you looked in your husband’s wardrobe?’

‘Why?’ Voice defensive.

‘To see if any of his clothes are missing.’

‘Yes, I have,’ she replied with a stiff nod. ‘The hangers aren’t jangling.’

Jon wondered what she was holding back. ‘And you’ve been trying his mobile?’

‘Yes. It just rings through to answerphone.’

Thinking of the precise incisions that had been employed to remove the third victim’s face, Jon leaned forwards. ‘Mrs Dean, how did your husband come to work for a medical company? Does he have an interest in that area himself?’

‘Sorry, I don’t quite understand you.’

‘Did he read medicine or have ambitions to practise it?’

‘Oh no. He worked for a paper merchant’s before this job, a manufacturer of franking machines before that. According to Gordon, it’s all just sales at the end of the day.’

Jon glanced around. ‘Does your husband have an office here?’

She pointed through the archway into the adjoining dining room. ‘He plugs his laptop in there.’

Jon looked. On the table in the far corner of the room was a small printer. Two box files stood on a shelf unit beside it. ‘May we?’

Mrs Dean nodded.

As Jon crossed into the other room, he was aware of her trailing along behind. He said, ‘Could I be cheeky and ask for a cup of tea?’

‘Of course. I do apologise, I should have offered.’

Once she was out of the room Jon and Rick each took a file. They put them on the dining table, sat down, opened the lids and started flicking through. Jon’s contained plastic folders with information on Gordon Dean’s clients. Rick’s was used for receipts and literature about Protex products. Both men were so absorbed in their task, they didn’t hear Mrs Dean come back into the living room.

‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ She was standing by the coffee table, carrying a tray with a teapot, milk jug and three cups.

Jon shook his head. ‘Not really. We’re just trying to get an idea of his typical movements.’

She put the tray down and approached them. Rick was flicking through the receipts for that month. Mrs Dean watched him, fingers of one hand massaging the thumb of the other. Jon waited for her to come out with whatever it was she wanted to say.

Eventually she spoke. ‘I had a look through his suits earlier on. I found some statements there.’

Jon raised his chin. ‘What sort of statements?’

‘Credit card ones. The bills go direct to his office, but it’s not a company credit card. They’re old statements from the last two months.’

‘Do you still have them?’

She dropped her hands to her sides. ‘I’d never go through his pockets normally…’

Jon stood up. ‘I understand, Mrs Dean, but these are special circumstances.’

She nodded in agreement. ‘They’re here.’ She opened the drawer beneath the dining table but, rather than get them out, walked back into the living room. ‘Do you take milk and sugar?’

‘One, please.’ Jon’s eyes were on the sheets of paper as Rick shook his head politely at Mrs Dean. Jon put the statements on the table and sat down. The card had taken quite a hammering. ‘Piccolino’s. That’s the new Italian near the town hall,’ he murmured.

‘Twenty-six quid. Probably a meal for one,’ Rick whispered back.

‘Via Venice, Stock, Don Antonio’s. He likes his Italian food.’ Jon pointed at an item on the list. ‘Is that a restaurant?’

‘You’ve never heard of Crimson?’ Rick’s voice was barely audible.

Jon checked that Mrs Dean was still out of earshot and whispered, ‘No. But he was there three times last month. What is it?’

‘It’s in the Gay Village, on a side road behind Canal Street. A wine-bar upstairs, cabaret and dance floor downstairs. Very trendy.’

‘With who?’

‘It started as a gay venue. There’s a drag queen called Miss

Tonguelash. All sorts go nowadays to hear her bitching.’

Jon glanced at Rick, ready to ask how he knew so much about a place in Manchester’s Gay Village. But his partner’s eyes were frozen on the statement, a red flush creeping up his neck. The words died in Jon’s throat.

Mrs Dean walked back through the archway. As she held the china cups out, they began to rattle in their saucers. Tea started to spill. ‘He’s not coming back. The bastard.’

The word seemed so foreign coming from her lips. She started to cry. Jon quickly stood up and took the drinks from her quivering hands. Rick pulled a chair out and she collapsed into it, raising a hand to her face.

Awkwardly, Jon stood to the side. Rick fetched her cup of tea and sat down next to her. Taking her hand in his, he said quietly, ‘Why do you say that, Mrs Dean?’

She looked up, tears brimming. ‘Those.’ She pointed accusingly at the credit card statements. ‘He’s been hiding something for a long time now. There’s always been something distant about him, but recently there’s been a change. He’s found someone else, I know it.’

‘How has he changed recently?’ Rick asked.

She extracted her hand from his and pulled a hanky out of her cardigan cuff. ‘His behaviour. Like he’s having a midlife crisis. He was talking about getting a motorbike, for God’s sake. And he got a tattoo. Of all things.’

Jon sat down. ‘What sort of tattoo?’

‘A ladybird, on his shoulder. What came over him? He’s thirty-nine.’

Jon looked at the framed photo on the wall: Mrs Dean standing stiffly next to a thin man with a sweeping side parting and feeble moustache, the Eiffel Tower rising into the sky behind them. They were in the city of romance but a good ten inches separated them.

Jon searched the walls for photos of children. There were none. ‘Mrs Dean, is there anyone Gordon may have gone to? A close friend, a son, a daughter?’

‘We don’t have children,’ she replied, the corner of her left eye beginning to tick. ‘I’ve already called all the people I could think of. No one’s heard from him.’

Jon’s eyes went back to the snap of them in Paris. ‘Mrs Dean, it would be a great help if we could have a recent photo of your husband.’

They drove back up the M6 in the last light of day. Jon’s mind switching between Gordon Dean’s disappearance and Rick’s intimate knowledge of a bar in the Gay Village. Was the bloke a homosexual? Something odd was definitely going on.

As they approached the Knutsford services the sky darkened and, minutes later, drops of rain started hitting their windscreen.

‘Welcome to Manchester,’ Jon commented with ironic cheer.

The manager at the Novotel was a woman of around forty, with wiry ginger hair fighting to break free from a cluster of hairclips. ‘How may I help you?’ An Eastern European accent added a brusqueness to her greeting.