Mo Hayder - Skin

‘You were operated on yesterday.’ He couldn’t keep his eyes off the shapes. It was like Mallows had paddles for arms. ‘That’s what they said.’

‘They wouldn’t do it before, kept snipping away at the stumps. Bits of skin were still dying and there wasn’t a thing they could do about it till they saw what muscles were going to be left behind. Necrotized, that’s what they call it. Necrotized. Dead meat.’

Caffery took his eyes off the bandages and fixed them on Mallows’s face. ‘What’s next?’

‘They’ve taken these massive flaps of skin off the back of my legs and slapped them on these.’ He studied them, turning them over and over. ‘Some time between now and midnight tonight the blood vessels’re going to be growing up into the skin. They connect and, with a bit of luck, I’ll have normal skin over the stumps.’ He dropped his head on to the pillow, stared at the ceiling. ‘Wicked, innit?’

‘You’re doing well, Ian. Really well. I’m pleased to hear it.’

Mallows made a noise in his throat. ‘Yeah, but you’re not here just to blow sunshine up my arse, are you? What do you want? I’ve given them a statement already.’

‘It wasn’t complete. You were out of it when you gave it and you left out some stuff. So now you’re on the up we’re wanting to come back at you for some more. Find out what you remember.’

‘About what?’

‘Well, Dundas, to start with. The one who died.’

‘What about him?’

‘Did you ever see him? Did they introduce you to him?’

‘What, like, nice to meet you, mate? Turned out nice again today, hasn’t it? What bit are they having off of you, then? I’ve told you all this before. I never saw him, never even knew he was in the place. It was like a warren in there. You didn’t know what was going on from one room to the next.’

‘Did you know they cut his hair?’

‘I knew his head got cut. I knew that part. Don’t s’pose he was too worried about the hair going as well, do you?’

‘Clement Chipeta – the one who was with you.’

‘Oh, that’s his real name, is it?’

‘When we came in and made the arrests, had he been with you for a while then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He hadn’t been out anywhere? In the last few hours, was he with you in the squat?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Just trying to establish his movements.’

Mallows shook his head. ‘Nah. See, this is where this conversation stops. I’m not a snout. I’m not giving you my little padmate. He never did me no harm.’

‘Funny. From what I remember it was him who introduced you to Uncle in the first place.’

Mallows didn’t answer.

‘You’re protecting him, Ian. There’s a word for that.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah. You’re ‘Stockholming’. Happens to people who’ve been captive long enough – start to side with their captors. That’s what you’re doing.’

‘He wasn’t my captor . He never wanted to be involved – he was forced into it. He’s an illegal. Didn’t have a choice from what I could see.’

‘Did you have sex with him too? Is that why you’re wanting to protect him?’

‘Oh, fuck off.’

‘Clement Chipeta tells us he was collecting human hair.’ Caffery watched Mallows for a reaction. ‘He says it was a tradition. He was using it to make a bracelet. Did he talk to you about that?’

‘Look, I just said I ain’t in the business of doing your work for you. I ain’t a snout.’

Caffery reached under the chair, pulled out the two-hundred carton of Bensons and put it on the bedstand. Mallows stared at it. ‘How’m I supposed to smoke them? With my toes?’

‘You’d need a friend to help you. As a matter of fact, Ian, I think you’re going to need a lot of friends when you eventually come out of here.’

‘I keep my mates through not talking to pigs like you.’

‘You know what I think? I think there was something in that squat we found you in that you haven’t told us about.’

Mallows’s eyes flickered. He didn’t look at Caffery but the change was there. The smallest dilation of iris, of capillary, to show the words had hit home.

Caffery took a breath, his own pulse picking up. He leant forward and spoke in a low voice: ‘I’m right, aren’t I? There was something in that squat you couldn’t explain.’

A vein pulsed pale in Mallows’s temple.

‘Ian,’ Caffery murmured, ‘did anyone tell you how many people came out of that squat? There was you. One.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘There was the piece of shit who masterminded the whole thing, the one you called Uncle. Two.’

‘I ain’t listening to this.’

‘There was your little friend Clement. Three. And there was a corpse. Dundas. One, two, three and you makes four… Ah – that surprises you, doesn’t it? You thought I was going to say five.’

‘I don’t feel well. Get me a nurse.’ Mallows lifted both arms and tried to manoeuvre the call button from the bars of the bedstead. ‘I need a bedpan.’

Caffery stood and untangled the call console. Held it just out of Mallows’s reach.

‘Give me that. I need a nurse. Need a crap.’

‘It’s just withdrawal.’

‘I know what it fucking well is. Don’t need you giving me a lecture on the agonies, do I?’

‘Haven’t they got you on something?’

‘The green.’

‘How often?’

‘Twice a day.’

‘And that isn’t enough?’

‘What? You going to hang around and watch me crap myself? Is that your thing? Funny. I never would have labelled you as someone who was into that. You know what I do for a living, don’t you? When I get out of here you and I can have a little chat, if you want. I’m reasonable.’

Caffery folded his arms and looked at him patiently. ‘You’re going to have to talk to me, Ian. Eventually you’ll talk.’

‘Fuck off.’

Caffery nodded thoughtfully. ‘I know where your hands are.’

There was a pause. A long silence. When Mallows had been brought out of the squat, all he’d done was scream about his hands. More than anything, he’d wanted his hands back. Now he turned his cold blue eyes to Caffery. ‘You what?’

‘I said I know where your hands are. The coroner can’t let them go, but I can tell you where they are.’

‘Where?’

‘When you tell me about what else was in that place.’

‘You don’t mean it.’

‘I do.’

‘Take your jacket off.’

‘What?’

‘I want to see if you’re wired.’

‘Christ.’ Caffery took off his jacket, dropped it on the bed and stood in his shirtsleeves with his hands out at his sides. ‘Happy?’

‘Open your shirt.’

He unbuttoned it, pulled it off his shoulders and turned in a circle. Mallows watched him steadily. Took in his naked stomach. His chest.

‘What? See something you like?’

‘I’m never going to repeat this.’ Mallows’s eyes were hard. ‘If it comes up in court I’m going to deny it. I’ll say you touched me up. And me all vulnerable in a hospital bed.’

‘What was this bracelet he was making?’ Caffery pulled his shirt back on and sat down. ‘What was the point of it?’

A long pause. Then, ‘Protection,’ he murmured. ‘From evil spirits. He used to brick it over them – really scared.’

‘Scared? What did he have to be scared of?’

Mallows gave him a look that said police were a mystery that would never, ever be revealed. A different species. And, under that scrutiny, Caffery started to see it from a different perspective. He saw an illegal immigrant, scared of being deported back to a country that would have the skin off his bones in the blink of an eye. He got it and he was embarrassed that it had taken him until now to really get it.