Mo Hayder - Skin

‘Yes.’

‘That was nearly twenty-four hours later. Why did you wait?’

‘I didn’t think it was appropriate. Until she didn’t turn up to get Daisy from school.’

‘Appropriate? But she was missing.’

‘I didn’t know she was. Not at that point. She just wasn’t answering my calls. If she chooses to stay out all night it’s not my business any more.’

‘How long have you been divorced?’

‘A year. Separated two.’

‘You were still close?’

‘Not at first. Daisy came with me to my mother’s, that was agreed right from the start, and at the beginning Lucy’d wait until I was at work to visit her. I didn’t see her for a year – we managed to avoid each other. Then things mellowed a bit, around the time the divorce was finalized. We settled some old arguments, started talking again, for Daisy’s sake. Lucy had changed in that time. You saw that, didn’t you, in the video?’

‘Why did you separate in the first place? What were the circumstances?’

‘I left. We’d run out of things to enjoy together. We were growing apart.’

‘Growing apart – that sounds like the sort of excuse people come up with for something else.’

Mahoney smiled nervously. ‘I don’t know, but the way you’re speaking to me here, it sounds as if I’m on trial.’

‘No. I’m just trying to get a picture. Something you tell me might have the key to all this. Even if you don’t realize it. Did Lucy have a boyfriend? She was an attractive woman.’

Mahoney folded a napkin on to his lap. The rest of the meal was already on its way, but he picked up the menu and studied it anyway.

‘Colin? I asked if Lucy had a boyfriend.’

He coughed. ‘I’m wondering if I should have chosen the roast-pork sandwich instead. Wednesdays, in the summer, they do a hog roast here on the street for people coming out of the office. Whole pig on a spit. Hand it out in napkins. Nice with Somerset apple sauce.’

Caffery sat back in his seat and watched him. He thought again about his mother, wondering what she looked like now, wondering if she was in pain, if now the pain was physical, from joints getting tired of rubbing together, from muscles aching with hard work, or if there was still pain from losing Ewan. He wondered if time had changed the pain – mutated or softened it. ‘Colin? You left her. Why’s this difficult for you?’

‘Does it matter why ?’

‘I’m trying to pull with you, mate, not against. Did she have a boyfriend?’

Mahoney rubbed his eyes and put down the menu. ‘You should know the answer to that. It’ll be in those statements her friends made.’

‘I want to hear it from you.’

‘Yes. She had a boyfriend. OK?’

‘A name?’

‘No. And her friends didn’t give you one. They don’t know either, do they?’

‘Weird… that she didn’t tell her friends her boyfriend’s name.’

‘Not that weird. She was the most private person I knew. And she was protecting him. He was married.’

‘Well, that ’s interesting.’

‘Not really. They were sort of… lukewarm together. She liked him but there was nothing serious. Oh, don’t worry, I’ve thought about it, whether or not he had something to do with her… You know.’

‘And?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Doesn’t seem right. She didn’t feel threatened by him.’

‘He’s still interesting to me.’

‘I can think of something that’s more interesting.’

Caffery raised an eyebrow.

‘The money.’

‘The money ?’ Caffery sat forward. ‘Well, you’ve got me by the goolies with that . Go on.’

Mahoney didn’t smile. ‘When we split up I gave Lucy some money, not a lot, just enough for a deposit on the house and a bit extra. She used to work for a company in Filton that made Christmas decorations. Designed bits and pieces for them, worked in the office, that sort of thing. But one day she announced she was giving it up. I didn’t give it much thought at the time but, with hindsight, her lifestyle didn’t change even when she stopped working. She still went shopping every weekend and came home loaded with things – oddments, paperweights. A proper pack rat. Well, you saw her house.’

‘A loan, maybe?’

‘Against what? Property prices didn’t go up much in that area and she had a ninety per cent mortgage anyway. But she went on four holidays last year.’

‘Did he pay for them? The boyfriend?’

‘No. He didn’t contribute, and that’s from the horse’s mouth. His wife would find out if he did. And he didn’t go abroad with Lucy. She was either on her own – I should know, I took her to the airport – or with Daisy. And then…’ Mahoney reached into his inside pocket and took out a folded piece of paper, pushed it across the table ‘… there’s this. In the post this morning.’

Caffery opened it. It was property particulars from an estate agent: a stone cottage with white-painted windows and a clematis climbing over the doorway. ‘Everything but the white picket fence.’

‘Look at the price on it,’ Mahoney said.

‘Six hundred K.’

‘The maisonette is worth almost two hundred now. But there was a hundred-and-forty-thousand-pound mortgage on it.’

Caffery turned the letter over to look at the back. Nothing.

‘Goland and Bulley.’ Mahoney nodded towards the window. ‘That’s them. Other side of the road. What do you think?’

‘I think…’ Caffery put down the letter and signalled for the waitress ‘… I think we’ll take those sandwiches to go.’

The girl in the estate agent’s was a bit like Keelie. Or, rather, a bit the way Keelie might have looked if she hadn’t, at some point in her teenage years, stumbled on the delights of crack cocaine. This girl had powerful swimmer’s shoulders and her body seemed too tanned and muscular for the navy suit she’d squeezed it into.

‘Mrs Mahoney?’ She typed in the reference number from the letter. ‘Obviously I can’t tell you very much about our correspondence. It’s confidential. But I can tell you whether she’s a client.’

Caffery put his warrant card on the table.

She peered at it. ‘Police?’

‘Police.’

A nervous laugh. And then, in the knee-jerk way honest people often did, suddenly she was spilling out facts like water. ‘Yes, well, I do remember her, of course. She was wanting something in the region of, uh, five to eight hundred. There’s a property to sell – we’re due to value it on, um…’ she searched the screen ‘… tomorrow.’

‘You may as well cancel that.’

‘I see.’

Caffery was sure she didn’t. Didn’t see at all.

‘Well, if I…’ She turned the computer screen to face him. ‘Is there anything here that could help you?’

The two men leant closer. The screen was filled with email correspondence. Nothing out of the ordinary: Lucy’s requests for information on property. The agent’s replies.

‘What’s the date on that one?’

‘Last Sunday.’

It was the day Lucy had gone missing. She’d been arranging house viewings on the day she was planning to kill herself?

‘Are we the first to visit? No other calls from the police about Ms Mahoney?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘They wouldn’t have come here,’ Mahoney’s voice was subdued, ‘because none of these were in her mailbox. I should know. I spent hours going through her emails. She must have deleted them.’

Caffery didn’t answer. He was thinking about the search history on Lucy’s computer. Hollyoaks . Pot Plants. Body Toning. Now he thought about it, those searches had never fitted with his impression of Lucy. They sounded more like the sort you’d invent for a woman you didn’t know much about. To disguise the fact that the cache had been emptied.