Chris Simms - Shifting Skin

His eyes dropped to his watch and he kept them there as the seconds ticked silently past.

Finally Rick said, ‘Two things. You didn’t let him die. He’d just about bled out by the time we got there. He’d gone through an artery. I doubt a team in an operating theatre could have saved him.’

Jon tried to smile. ‘But I was happy to not even try. What’s your second point?’

‘“We’re just the same underneath”. Are those his exact words?’

Jon nodded.

‘I don’t think he meant we as in you and him. He meant we as in all of us. We’re all the same underneath. Maybe that’s what he was trying to show by skinning his victims. It was a demonstration, a display. Perhaps a protest against the way his art — one that took him years to acquire — is being debased and exploited to satisfy people’s vanity.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes.’ Rick got up and came round their desks. They faced each other a little awkwardly. He held out a hand.

Jon glanced down at his bandaged fingers. Unable to shake, he raised his left hand instead and clapped it on Rick’s shoulder.

‘Good working with you, mate.’

‘Likewise.’

They embraced, each slapping the other’s back — a ploy, Jon knew, to keep up the required level of manliness.

As Rick set off for the pub, Jon called across the empty office.

‘If you change your mind about the front-line stuff, I’d be happy to work with you again.’

Jon knelt on the nursery floor, spreading the same paint-spattered sheets of newspaper out. He put the tin of red paint on them, then tried to prise off the lid with his left hand. The fingers of his right were no longer bandaged, but gripping anything was still painful.

Reaching for the spoon, he lifted it with a quiet crack from the crusty blob of paint it lay in. The viscous puddle on the floor of Dr O’Connor’s cellar appeared in his head. The file notes for Carol Miller, Angela Rowlands and Tyler Young had been found hidden in his surgery. All died trying to achieve some superficial ideal of beauty. Images flashed through his head. Melvyn’s salon. Jakes’ tattoo parlour. The Paragon Group. TV shows, magazine articles, newspaper reports. All about one thing: trying to look more attractive.

Jon put the paint-covered spoon aside and, still kneeling, rested his elbows on the windowsill. He stared through the glass, unable to stop dwelling on why Dr O’Connor had started to kill his customers. The explanation, if there ever could be one for things like that, had gone with him to the grave. What a world this is, he thought, letting out a little snort of breath.

Alice’s voice came from the doorway behind him. ‘A penny for your thoughts.’

He looked round, and without getting up held his arms out.

‘Come here.’

Slowly she crossed the room, her stomach looking like it was about to burst. She stepped carefully onto the sheets of paper, one foot covering the small ad for the Beauty Centre. It sat discreetly next to the columns of classified entries in the ‘Health and Beauty’ section. The opposite page was covered in boxed ads for Manchester’s assortment of massage parlours and escort agencies, Cheshire Consorts’ one of those at the top.

Still kneeling, Jon pressed his cheek against Alice’s belly and reached his arms round her until he could grasp his own wrist. It was a gesture that sought to protect them from everything he knew existed outside the window and an attempt to bind all three of them closer together. But it didn’t seem enough. A desire for something more tangible engulfed him and he found himself saying, ‘Alice, do you fancy getting married?’