Chris Simms: Shifting Skin

Rick reddened. ‘I went to boarding school down in Surrey.’ Jon clenched his teeth. Should have bloody guessed.

Rick broke the awkward silence. ‘So it wasn’t all polite promenading, then?’

Jon sighed. ‘People needed an escape. Working in a factory all week was tough back then. That’s what led to the music halls and drinking dens. I’ve read about what used to go on and it was pretty much the same as today, including the drunks, the prostitutes, the gangs.’

‘Gangs?’

Enjoying the fact he was giving a history lesson to a graduate in the subject, Jon nodded. ‘Scuttlers, they were called. Peaked caps, bell-bottom trousers. They’d form a group and steam into people — knock them down and rob them. Manchester’s always had gangs. Three lads from one were arrested for breaking into the zoo. They got into the bird enclosure and kicked a load of penguins and pelicans to death.’

‘Recently?’

‘No, late fifties. My granddad told me about it. They all got packed off to borstal.’ He paused, then couldn’t resist adding,

‘Their grandkids are probably the ones mugging clueless southerners who come to study at Manchester University today.’

Rick started to pick nervously at a thumbnail. The last comment had definitely hit home.

Eventually they started inching past the huge expanse of a multiplex cinema’s car park. It was empty except for a group of lads racing radio-controlled cars across the smooth asphalt.

A pang of guilt played in Jon’s head. Trying to make up for his cutting remark, he said, ‘The lake was right there, massive thing with an island in the middle. The roller coaster was called The Bobs, one of those old, creaking wooden things. The cars rattled round it, looking like they were about to fall off at any moment. There’s not much my old man admits to being scared of, but he happily let me know that The Bobs terrified him half to death. I was too small to be allowed on — probably saved me from a lifetime of nightmares.’

‘So it was all here when you were growing up?’ Rick asked, sounding chastened.

‘Yeah, just, though it was well past its heyday by the time I was old enough to visit.’

‘What happened to it?’

‘It closed down during the seventies, bit by bit. Bigger and better attractions elsewhere: Chester Zoo, Alton Towers, Blackpool. Plus tastes change — there used to be a huge ballroom where they held the national brass band contest. Not much demand for stuff like that any more.’

Rick was staring at the cinema. ‘How long’s that been here?’

‘The Showcase? Early nineties, maybe. After the last parts of the park were demolished this place was waste ground for over a decade. The facelift started with that. Burger King and Pizza Hut sprang up on the back of it, and so did the bingo hall. But I hear they’re all struggling again. The Printworks in the city centre is dragging huge numbers of cinema customers away. If the Showcase folds, it’ll revert to wasteland again, I suppose.’ Jon thought about the processes of decay and regeneration that seemed to wash regularly across the city like a tide lapping at a beach.

At last they turned on to Mount Road and a couple of minutes later they pulled up by the Belle Vue Housing Office. Council workers were crowded in the car park, staring through the metal struts of the fence. The mist had burned away, and across the grass several uniformed officers were attempting to keep a small gathering of locals at bay. Jon and Rick started across the grass, warrant cards ready.

‘Has someone been killed?’ A council worker in a shiny grey suit called through the fence. The eager note in his voice riled Jon. ‘It looks like a corpse.’

Jon paused and stared at the man, took in his pallid skin and fish-like eyes. ‘So do you.’ He carried on, leaving gasps of shock behind him.

Without turning his head, Rick murmured, ‘Please, don’t mince your words.’

He smiled to indicate sarcasm but Jon’s face remained stormy.

‘One thing I hate is members of the public getting a thrill from this sort of thing.’

As they reached the rendezvous point in the outer ring of tape Jon noticed a young man nearby lining up the crime scene in the viewfinder of his camera phone. ‘If I hear that click, I’ll impound your phone as evidence.’

The man lowered the phone, an uncertain expression on his face. A uniform stepped over and, as he noted down their names, Jon nodded towards the man with the phone. ‘Take his name and address.’ Then, louder, ‘The perpetrator of a crime often returns to where he committed it.’ The man looked as if he wished he’d stayed at home.

Jon and Rick proceeded to the inner cordon. The pathologist and crime-scene manager had yet to arrive, so no one was entering the circle of tape. Beyond it was the body. Like the first two victims, she was naked except for a pair of knickers. Unlike the first two victims, her face had been removed.

Jon felt his throat contract. Shit, we’ve got an evil bastard on our hands.

Rick looked away first. ‘That’s grotesque. It’s like something from that exhibition.’

Jon turned his head. ‘What exhibition?’

Rick looked up at the sky. ‘What’s his name? Von Hagen, that’s it. He removes the skin from corpses, preserves them, then puts them in various poses. The exhibition was down in London not long ago.’

They turned back to the dead woman and regarded her for a little longer before Rick added, ‘She seems too young to have lost that many teeth.’

Jon nodded. The smooth and supple skin that remained on the corpse’s limbs was that of a young woman, yet half of her teeth were missing. Keeping his eyes on the body, Jon began walking round the perimeter. With each step the sense that he was viewing some sort of display increased. ‘You should investigate that.’

Rick looked at him enquiringly.

‘That Von Hagen thing. It occurred to me when looking at Carol Miller’s body — why risk dumping it in the middle of a public park? He must be trying to make some sort of a point. I thought it was a warning, but maybe it’s a display.’

He looked around. Once again houses bordered the grass: a council terrace down one side, more-expensive-looking properties with large rear gardens on the other. Several worried owners stood behind their fences, exchanging comments. Above the roofs he could just make out the tops of the floodlights that ringed the greyhound track. A solitary phone mast towered over the scene, topped by ugly panels of grey metal. ‘If only there was a camera on that.’

About five minutes later the Home Office pathologist arrived.

‘Fast mover,’ observed Jon as the pathologist folded his long limbs into a white suit.

‘The call came through when I was on my way to work. It was easier to come straight here.’ He slipped on white overshoes and, laying down footplates before him, approached the body.

While Jon waited for him to complete his initial examination, the major-incident wagon pulled up in the Housing Offices car park. Several officers approached the crime scene, carrying poles and a white plastic canopy. As soon as the pathologist had properly surveyed the body Jon said, ‘What do you reckon?’

‘Well’ — the pathologist stood up, one knee popping loudly

– ‘she’s been here most of the night. There was a heavy dew and some mist this morning. I don’t know when the dew point occurred — I noticed my car had a light covering when I took the dog out for a walk at about eleven o’clock last night.’ He looked at the sun, still low in the sky. ‘The side of the body still hidden from the sun is soaking, as is her hair.’

‘Any idea on time of death?’

‘Rigor mortis is pretty well established. The facial muscles are stiff, though whether the fact that they’ve lost their layer of skin is relevant I’d have to find out. Despite that, the limbs are also going. Her being out here all night would have delayed its onset, but I’d say she was killed a good twelve hours ago, maybe more.’