Mo Hayder - Skin

But even with the discount there isn’t going to be enough. Ruth can see that now.

What’s she supposed to do? Get another mortgage on the house? That would take for ever, and with the way things are going in this country no one can get a mortgage, not even the doctors and lawyers. She looks up and catches sight of herself in the mirror. Thinks about the money. Thinks about her bank account. And, suddenly, it’s all wrong. Suddenly it doesn’t matter how she looks at it, everything looks awful. She looks awful. Her stomach looks awful. Her face looks awful. And there’s that chipped tooth at the front. Christ only knows how much that’ll cost to fix. Needs an implant probably.

‘Fuck,’ she tells the little black cat curled up at her feet. ‘Fuck.’

She goes back to the bar. Opens the rum again and pours another couple of fingers. Spills a bit on the bar top. She looks at it. Wonders whether to lick it up. Changes her mind and puts down a paper napkin. One from the Puente Romano hotel in Marbella. They’d moored in the Cabopino marina once and had a drink in the bar. Stevie stole about a hundred napkins that night. She’s still using them. A good boy, Stevie.

She picks up her mobile and flicks through the numbers. Stops at Stevie’s and stares at it for a long time. He’s got a good little business in Swindon, selling white goods. Built it up from nothing. He wouldn’t like to see his mum want for anything. Her thumb hovers over the call button.

‘No,’ she tells the cat, putting the phone down. ‘I won’t take the bread out of my baby’s mouth. I won’t do it. I’m not that sort of mother.’

She pours in the Coke and drops in a swizzle stick for fun. There was something in a magazine the other day, talking about how a woman had gone to her doctor and said her flat chest was making her depressed. Depressed . The doctor referred her and she got a new set done on the National Health. Cost her nothing. What is the world coming to?

She looks at the phone again. At Stevie’s number, then the clock. It’s almost five. He’ll be on his way to the pub. She dials and gets his voicemail. ‘Stevie, darling, it’s Mum. Sweetheart, give Mummy a call, will you, darling? Come and see me, will you? There’s a little something I need to discuss with you.’

Caffery hung out of the window of the MCIU offices at Kingswood and smoked a guilty roll-up. He watched the guy in the halal butcher’s close up shop. The story one of the DCs in the office liked to tell was how, a year or so ago, the dumbfucks in the Chinese supermarket two doors down had got jealous of the trade the butcher was doing. They’d decided it was all to do with that word: halal. They’d copied it down really carefully and stuck it on a sign in the window. Halal beef for sale. Halal chicken for sale. Halal pork for sale. Halal pork . The butcher had lost it at the pork insult and really dropped the hammer on the Chinese for that. For a while it was like gang warfare out there. At the window now Caffery smoked slowly, looking at the butcher’s. He was a Londoner. He didn’t see why the DC had thought it was worth mentioning. That sort of thing happened all the time in Lewisham.

He dropped the butt out of the window and went to his desk. He had to speak to Powers but the superintendent wasn’t there. He was in Glyndebourne, of all places, with his phone switched off. He’d been working sixteen-hour days since the Misty Kitson case had come to them, but today his wife had tickets for the opening performance of La Cenerentola , and considering what she’d put up with over the years he wasn’t stupid. After the morning press conference he’d got straight into his car, driven home and got the DJ and picnic hamper out of mothballs. He’d left Caffery a little message, though: pictures of the actress who’d played Misty Kitson at the reconstruction had been carefully taped over the PM photos of Ben Jakes and Jonah Dundas.

He unstuck the tape and carefully peeled them away. Then he put the photographs together and shovelled them into an envelope. He paused for a moment over the one of Misty’s coat. Purple – made of velvet. Something about the fabric pulled at his mind a moment. It was something about a car – something that made him think of a car and the coat. Car, coat. Car, coat. He tried to superimpose the two images one over the other, but each time they slipped and frittered away.

Nothing had come of the reconstruction yet. No suspect caught in the bushes with his dick in his hands, like the shrinks had said would happen. It made the whole team insane to think how little they had to go on with the case: just the witness statements from the rehab clinic of the last sightings and a statement from the boyfriend. All they knew for sure was that one of the other patients had smuggled in some goodies and they’d been partying. A little after two Kitson had left the building by the front entrance. She’d called the boyfriend as she left the clinic grounds. It had been a tearful conversation: she’d told him she was leaving for a walk because she needed time to think, that she couldn’t stand the place one more second. She’d said she’d be back at the clinic before five. The boyfriend had already been pissed off with her – he admitted it in the interview: it was his hard pennies earned in the midfield that were paying for the clinic. There was an argument. She hung up. He didn’t call back. It was only when the clinic telephoned hours later that he realized anything was wrong.

Caffery’s mobile rang. It was Powers. He put the photos into the top drawer and pulled the chair tight up to the desk. Time to talk.

‘Evening, boss. You still down in Sussex?’

‘Don’t. Ceneren bloody tola . Had to wait for the interval to get my phone out – she’s giving me the evils even as we speak.’

‘How’s the weather?’

‘Place is a mudbath. She keeps saying her Jimmy Choos are ruined. I mean, who is this character? You ever heard of him? Jimmy Choo?’

Jimmy Choo, fuck-me shoes. Not what Powers would want to hear about his wife of thirty years. ‘Saw you on telly this morning,’ Caffery said. ‘The Kitson press call. You looked very empathetic. Thought you might cry.’

‘Good, wasn’t it? Spent years working on it. Did you spot the lie?’

‘That the force is confident of finding her?’

‘No. When I said I was throwing all the manpower I had at it. When I said the whole team were committed one hundred per cent?’

‘Yeah. Well. We need to talk. It’s bad news.’

There was a pause. ‘Oka-ay. Do I need my Bolly livened up before we go on?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I don’t like this.’

‘I’ve been wondering how many murders we’re filing as suicides. Makes your head ache thinking about it.’

‘You’re talking about Ben Jakes, I suppose. He wasn’t a suicide?’

‘No. That’s the sweetness to this. Jakes was a suicide that looked like a murder. But I’ve got something else: a murder that looks like a suicide. Her name’s Mahoney. Lucy Mahoney. Found up near the Strawberry Line on Friday.’

‘What does the pathologist say?’

‘Well, she’s sticking to suicide. But she’s wrong. Look, boss, something’s way out of whack here. I’ve got this woman’s ex going on at me about how the dog’s missing – the dog was with her when she went misper – and what turns up yesterday in the quarry?’

‘Don’t tell me. Her dog.’

‘It was mutilated. The CSI lads said it looked like someone was trying to make a coat out of the damned thing. Then the ex says one of her door keys is missing.’

‘And how does she fit with what you’ve been doing on Norway?’

‘She doesn’t.’