Mo Hayder - Skin

Caffery gazed around at the walls, the higgledy-piggledy furniture. ‘I can see how she lived, but I’ve got no idea what she looked like. No photos.’

Mahoney got up. He went to the computer, switched it on, pulled out a small stool and held out his hand. ‘Help yourself. It’s all in here.’

Caffery sat down. The computer was the newest thing in the place. It was good, fast, a 2.9-gig processor. He took a quick look through her documents. Nothing of interest. The search team would have gone through them with a fine tooth-comb. He opened her email account – two new emails. Both junk. Clicked on to Explorer and dropped down the search-history file. The terms were Pot Plants, Hollyoaks , Mascara, Body Toning, Crystals. Nothing very interesting. He opened her video folder and chose one at random.

The clip opened in a field. It was some time in the summer because the grass was green, the trees thick with leaves. A tall, heavy woman in a calf-length black dress stood in the middle distance. Her arms were stretched out, trying to catch the legs of a slight girl in pink shorts who was hopping around throwing wobbly handstands. The woman was laughing. She had very short auburn hair. Her face was ruddy, heavy-boned. It was a jump to link her to the blackened pile on the table in the mortuary.

‘I filmed that one.’ Mahoney came to stand behind him. ‘That was three summers ago. The year Daisy decided Nastia Liukin had competition.’

‘Daisy? Your daughter?’

‘She’s staying with my mum. Broken-hearted, of course.’

Daisy threw another handstand. This time Lucy caught her legs. There was a long, precarious moment while Daisy tried to hold the position. Then her arms buckled. Lucy tried to maintain it but Daisy rolled on to the ground and lay on her back, her hands on her stomach, giggling. The camera zoomed in on Lucy. She was laughing too, but when she saw she was being filmed, the smile faded. ‘Oh, no!’ She shook her head and held up a hand to block the camera’s view. ‘Don’t. Please. You’re making me blush now. Leave me alone.’

The camera swung away. There were a few frames of a lawn and the fumbling noise of the camera being switched off. The screen went blank.

‘“Don’t make me blush.”’ Mahoney went back and sat on the sofa. ‘Yes. That was Lucy all over. Everything embarrassed her.’

‘She loved Daisy.’

‘Everyone loves Daisy.’

Caffery opened another file. This one was dated just three months ago. It showed a small room, dull daylight coming through the window. A woman was standing side on to the camera, looking at an easel with a canvas on it. Lucy. Her red hair straggled down her back – it was much longer – and her clothes were different, colourful. She wore a red waistcoat over a sapphire blue shirt with a flowered bandanna tied in a knot at the front of her head. She was holding a paintbrush in one hand; the other fiddled with the shirt. She was thinner here. Much thinner. In three years she’d developed a waistline.

‘Who shot this one?’

‘I don’t know. A friend, maybe. I wasn’t there.’

The camera came in close. Lucy turned and looked steadily at the lens. She didn’t blush. She didn’t try to turn away. She smiled ironically, held up the paintbrush and spoke in a mock-French accent: ‘Welcome to my atelier, little one. This is where the magic is made.’

The video stopped and for a moment the room was silent. Caffery tapped his finger on the mouse pad. This is where the magic is made . Something was here, in this video. Something important. He played it again, looking carefully at her face, at the way her hand fiddled with the shirt, self-consciously touching her stomach. This is where the magic is made . What are you trying to tell me, Lucy? What are you trying to say?

A noise behind him made him turn. Mahoney was sitting forward, peering at the table. ‘That’s odd,’ he murmured. ‘That’s very odd.’

Caffery pushed back the chair. ‘What is?’

‘Those.’

He looked to where Mahoney pointed and saw nothing out of the ordinary: just the search forms, the paperweight and Lucy’s door keys where he’d left them earlier.

‘Her keys? I booked them out from the station at Wells.’

Mahoney leant over. Picked them up. ‘Was this how you found them?’

‘They were in her pocket. Yes.’

‘Just these two. The Chubb and the Yale?’

‘They fit the front door.’

‘But one’s missing. There should be a back-door key. Usually it’s up there, on that nail.’

Caffery turned. The nail was empty. He glanced at the front door, then the back door. For a moment he felt a small chill. As if something had just come into the room and settled down with them.

‘And…’ He gave a small cough. ‘And I take it you haven’t got it?’

Mahoney turned his eyes to him. The pupils had shrunk to pinpoints. ‘No. And if you haven’t got it,’ he said, ‘then who the hell has?’

The residential roads around Hanham were quiet at lunchtime, and as Flea came round the corner she saw Thom’s black Escort pull away from the kerb. It raced to the end of the road, indicators flashing. Hitting the T-junction, it turned right. She kept close behind it, fumbling on the front seat for her phone.

Mandy was driving, of course. She would be. Flea knew what the guys in the unit would say about Mandy. It’d be: ‘Well, there goes a girl with a nine-inch clit.’ Or words to that effect. The Escort stopped at traffic-lights, and Flea pulled in behind it, jabbing out Thom’s number with her thumb. Up ahead she saw Mandy turn her face and watch Thom rummage in his coat pockets. He said something to her as he got the phone out, but in Flea’s ear the call was bumped to answerphone and she saw him lean sideways to return it to his pocket. He rested his forehead against the side window and stared out.

Flea floored the Clio, leaning on the horn, flashing the lights. Mandy raised her chin: a glimpse of startled eyes in the rear-view mirror. Flea put her hand out of the window, gesturing for the car to pull over.

There was a moment’s hiatus while the two cars rolled along the road almost bumper to bumper, Mandy taking time to register what was happening. Then the entrance to a cemetery came up and the Escort jerked left into it and stopped just inside the gates. Flea slammed the Clio in behind, jumped out and went fast to the driver’s side, making a circular motion with her fingers telling Mandy to roll down the window.

But for a moment, her white face just stared back through the glass. On the passenger side Thom had slid down until his chin was almost on his chest. His face was canted over, resting on his splayed hand so no one could see his expression.

‘Open the window.’

Mandy did. ‘You frightened the life out of me. What’s going on?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m on my way to work.’

‘Now, Mandy. Now.’

‘Riiiiight,’ she said cautiously. ‘You’re upset.’

‘Get out of the car.’

She did as she was told: slowly, hands raised, as if Flea had a gun to her head.

Thom unbuckled and got out, too, his face appearing on the other side of the car roof. He was flustered. ‘Flea, there’s no need for this. I’m going to tell her.’

‘Going to tell me what?’

‘Mandy, don’t listen to her. Please. I swear I was just about to tell you.’

Flea held up her hand. ‘Get back in the car, Thom.’

‘Let me tell her.’

‘ Get in the car. ’

He stared at his sister, his hands on the roof, his face drained of colour now. A vein in the side of his neck pulsed blue.

‘Do what she’s telling you,’ Mandy said. ‘Go on – sit down.’