Mo Hayder - Skin

‘What rules?’

‘All the geographical profiling rules, everything. To start off, look how far away her car is – she had to walk half a mile to get here. Why didn’t she park nearer?’

‘She was wandering? Distressed?’

‘Nah. Suicides generally know where they’re going to do it before they set out. And, anyway, I spoke to the ex-husband and he said she doesn’t know this area. She never walked her dog here or anything like that. There was nothing connecting her to this place. I mean, most suicides are less than half a mile from a road, and she must be topping that, surely? And they go somewhere high, suicides. They go and sit somewhere – somewhere they can see lights, buildings, so they can see what they’re saying goodbye to. But not her. You can’t see a thing from that embankment. I’ve been over there. Had a look.’

Flea’d had enough. She stepped forward. Hand up. Big smile on her face. ‘Hi.’ Her best, brightest voice. Waved the hand for good measure. ‘Remember me? Sergeant Marley? The one who did most of your searching?’

He gave her a cool look. ‘Yes.’

‘We dived the quarry yesterday. You missed it.’

‘I was looking at other possible sites.’

He turned back to Caffery, but she’d started now and she wouldn’t stop until she’d got in his face. ‘Yeah, well. Don’t worry about it. I didn’t think she’d be in there anyway.’

‘Of course not,’ he said quietly, his eyes still on Caffery, ‘because you’re psychic.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You knew she wouldn’t be in the quarry. So you must be psychic.’

She started to laugh, but stopped when she saw the look on his face. ‘What did you say?’

‘I’ve had to come in on my rest day for this. And it doesn’t help when whatever blood, sweat and tears you throw at it, whatever profiles, Blue 8 mapping you generate, some people still won’t believe you. This is the second time you’ve undermined my authority.’

She knew what he was talking about, of course: earlier this week she and Pearce had got into what Wellard called ‘a full and frank discussion’ about whether the team should be searching for Misty Kitson in a lake near the rehab clinic. Flea hadn’t thought Kitson would be found in the lake and she’d told Pearce so. She probably hadn’t done it in the sweetest way imaginable either. ‘Misty Kitson again?’

‘You decided she wasn’t going to be in the lake either. Didn’t you? A bit dispiriting, that – being told I was wrong before you’d even finished the search.’

‘I was right, though, wasn’t I? She wasn’t there. You get an instinct after a while. She was never going to be in the lake. She was never going to drown herself, a girl like that.’

‘You’re going to tell me the lottery numbers next.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I can’t reason with you so I think I’m finished here.’ She put her arm out, gesturing for Pearce to stand back so she could pass, but he didn’t move, didn’t meet her eyes. She tried to go round him the other way but he shifted his boxy body a little, hemming her in. He held Caffery’s eyes while he did it, a half-smile on his face.

She stopped and raised her eyes to his. ‘You know what?’ She was calm. ‘It’s been years since I got my hair off over a case like Kitson just because the victim was a celeb. You know why?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’d be just a little bit afraid someone would turn around and call me an effing media monkey. Now,’ she paused, breathing hard, ‘are you going to step out of my way, you combed-over old twonk? Or do I have to push you?’

Pearce’s nostrils widened a tiny amount. There was a moment when she thought he might just take his life into his hands and stand his ground. But in the end he hadn’t the balls. He rubbed his nose and stepped out of her way.

She made a small, victorious noise in her throat, slung the towel over her back, turned and trudged back to the unit van. Bloody Newbs. Probably moved up from the Specials, that one. She just didn’t have the patience.

‘Marley,’ Caffery called. But she raised her hand, goodbye, and continued to where the team were throwing the last few pieces into the van. She got into the Focus, started the engine and pulled out on to the road. The sun was beating down on the windscreen, making patterns in the dust. As the car park disappeared in her rear-view mirror she allowed herself to smile.

Do I have to push you, you combed-over old twonk?

Good one, girl. She jacked up the volume on the end of that Arctic Monkeys CD. She liked the way Caffery had looked at her breasts. As if the T-shirt wasn’t even there. As if he could see right through it, and as if her breasts were round and big and something to be respected. It was an age since someone had looked at her like that. An age. She’d like it to happen again.

She laughed and opened the window. Combed-over old twonk. Yeah. She was proud of that one. Really proud.

Back at base everyone was hot and tired. And they still couldn’t get rid of the smell. Even after they’d showered and showered, decontaminated the suits over and over again, shoved their underclothing into airtight sacks, even after all that, somehow, it seemed to linger. Flea wasn’t even sure she couldn’t smell it on her clothing when she got into the car to go home. She sat at red traffic lights and wafted the neck of her T-shirt. Bent her face down for a sniff test.

It was hard and cold and lonely to think of a woman’s life reduced to this: a smell other people struggled to wash away. There had been days, especially when she’d first started in the unit, when every dead body she handled took something vital out of her. But she’d grown more pragmatic over the years and today she put the thought of Lucy Mahoney away easily and drove with the window open, the countryside flying past. The phone sat in the central console. Caffery’s mobile number was in its contacts list. She could call him any time. She could just pick up the phone and call.

By the time she got home to the house she’d grown up in, high on a hill overlooking the distant city of Bath, she was hungry. A long time had rolled past since breakfast. She parked on the gravel and climbed out, automatically going to the back to put her kit holdall in the boot for the next morning. But as she aimed the key at the lock she remembered: the boot was stuck. It had been like this for four days, ever since Thom had borrowed the car the night he had come home drunk. The lock made an odd little electronic bleep and seemed to click open, but when she tried to lift it, it jammed. She put the key in and turned it. Again it clicked. And again she couldn’t open it.

Swearing now, she dropped the holdall in the gravel, squatted at eye level to the lock and saw what was jamming it. A piece of material was trapped in the latch. She gave it a tug, thinking somehow she’d shut her overalls in it, but the fabric was wrong: it was soft, velvety, not slick. She tipped back on her haunches, puzzled. Running her fingers over it, she tried to remember what she’d put in here. And then she noticed something that made everything go into slow motion.

The smell.

She stared at the lock. Sniffed the air. Now she thought about it, the car had smelt this morning on her way to work. Yesterday too. Maybe the stench in the offices hadn’t been the team’s fault at all. Maybe they’d cleaned the equipment properly. Her car had been parked near the air-conditioning unit. This smell could have been sucked into the building from the boot.

Four nights ago Thom had taken the car to a meeting.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thought. Thom? You were upset that night. Too upset. Was it really just the drinking and the police car you trailed in with you?