Mo Hayder - Skin

‘Then we’ll start in the afternoon. Say, two o’clock.’

‘Two o’clock?’

‘Is there a problem with that?’

‘No. Why should there be?’

‘You sound odd.’

‘I’m fine, thank you. Absolutely fine. Tomorrow, then.’

She hung up and dropped into the chair, her head in her hands, staring at the desk – at the knot patterns in the cheap laminate. This was clever – so clever. The way the world had got her face down in a trap. Thom, her own brother, dancing around on the jetty yelling, ‘ Get her .’

Get her . Fucking incredible.

She picked up the work phone and fiddled with the panel. Unlike her mobile, the number was automatically hidden on outgoing calls – so Thom might just pick up instead of dropping her into mailbox. And this phone had a conversation record feature. She hit the record button and plugged in her number.

He answered after four rings. ‘Hello?’

‘Thom. Please don’t hang up.’

There was a pause, then vague shuffling at the end of the phone. Silence.

‘Are you there?’

Again that shuffling, as if he was moving the phone, breaking up the signal a bit.

‘Are you there, Thom? Can you hear me?’

‘Yes, I can hear you.’ Mandy. Not Thom. ‘I can hear what you’re saying, Phoebe.’

‘Put Thom back on. I was talking to Thom.’

‘Well, you’re talking to me now.’

‘But I don’t like you, Mandy.’

‘And I don’t like you.’

‘Put my brother on the phone.’

‘He’s very upset, Phoebe, and he doesn’t want to talk to you for a while. I don’t think you can keep up this harassment. Why are you calling?’

You know why I’m calling. You fucking bitch.

‘I want to get things straight.’

‘Well, Phoebe, I know you’ve got some serious issues.’ Mandy’s voice was soothing. ‘And you know how much we care about you. Both of us. Thom and I both care desperately about you and we’ll do anything we can to help you with whatever problems you’ve got. But for now I think a little distance might be a good idea.’

Flea looked at the red LED blinking on the phone. ‘I want to get this thing with Misty’s body sorted.’

‘Phoebe, I-’ There was a pause. The line hissed. The light blinked. On, off, on, off.

Say it, you bitch. Go on – say it.

But when Mandy spoke again it was in a stage-whisper as if she was artificially enunciating the words. ‘This thing with what ? With whom ? Do you mean the girl who’s missing? What’s she got to do with you?’

Flea sat back and rubbed her face wearily.

‘Are you still talking about the night you had that problem, Phoebe? Are you still going on about that?’

‘The night you had the problem. Do you remember? Your phone records will show it all. You called me over and over from the house that night.’

‘You know what? You’re right. I did. I did call – I remember now. I remember speaking to Thom. I remember how terrified he was something had happened to you. You were out, driving all over the place.’

‘Mandy, you’d better believe me when I say there is a photo. And it does show that Thom hit her. Thom hit Misty Kitson in my car.’

Mandy sighed. ‘I wish you’d go and see someone, Phoebe.’

‘It’s true.’

‘Bring it to us then. We’re at home. You could be here in half an hour. Tell you what, I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘This conversation’s going nowhere.’

‘Then let me put you out of your misery and tell you how we’re going to finish it. Not only are you going to drop this thing – stop these hurtful fantasies about your younger brother – you’re also going to come up with a plan to cover up whatever it is you’ve done-’

‘What Thom’s done-’

‘Whatever you’ve done. Your deadline is midnight tomorrow.’

‘Deadline? What planet are you on, Mandy?’

‘You can live with a fucking deadline, can’t you, Sergeant ? Isn’t that all you do in your job? Stick to deadlines? Midnight tomorrow night. Our house.’ Mandy’s breathing was harsh. ‘I want you to turn up and tell me that you ’ve dealt with your problem. I want to hear that you’ve put it all to bed or I’m going to have to push the button on this and go to the police.’

‘Stop right there. I am not having this conversation.’

‘Fair enough.’

There was another shuffling sound, then silence. It took her a moment or two to realize that Mandy’d hung up. She pressed play and leant in to the speaker, listening to their voices. ‘ I want this thing with Misty’s body sorted .’

‘ This thing with what? With whom?’

Mandy was clever. One clever bitch.

A knock at the door. Wellard was there. Worried.

‘You OK?’

She quickly hit erase on the phone and swivelled the chair to face him. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

He shrugged. ‘Just your – you know.’

She touched her face gingerly. ‘This?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘It’s nothing. Cut myself shaving.’

He tried to smile. Failed. ‘No banana bread? Thought maybe we’d upset you?’

She looked at him for a long time. Dear, dear Wellard. The dear men who worked for her and never questioned what she said. Decent, decent people.

She got up and found her sunglasses and keys in the top drawer. ‘Hold the fort for me, will you? Just hold it for a couple of hours?’

‘Where you going?’

‘I’m going to the bank, Wellard. I’ve got to see a man about a dog.’

Mahoney had agreed to bring the studio key to Lucy’s home. He said it would take him two hours to get there and not to come any earlier. Caffery wasn’t surprised to find him already at the maisonette when he arrived ten minutes early.

He met Caffery at the front door. They didn’t waste time with greetings.

‘Is the studio open?’

‘Yes.’

He led Caffery inside and went up the stairs, his footsteps heavy. He stopped at the studio door. ‘I’ve left it just as it was. Haven’t touched a thing.’

‘I’m sure you haven’t.’

‘Anything in here is Lucy’s choice. Things she chose. You see?’

Mahoney unlocked the door and held it open. He didn’t make eye-contact as Caffery passed but followed him in and stood in the corner, arms folded, not speaking.

The room was large – it must have been intended as the master bedroom. Caffery recognized it as the place Lucy had been filmed in on the second video. The walls were painted in metallics and canvases hung everywhere. She’d divided the area into two with a painted Oriental screen. The half of the room nearest the door was full: almost twenty canvases leant against the wall, four more on easels facing the window. He went to the other side of the screen, away from the window, and stood for a while with his hands in his pockets, looking at what was there.

Pooley had been right. Lucy’d had unusual tastes. Dominating the room was a three-quarter life-sized bronze of a naked woman. She was bending over, buttocks in the air, showing every inch and fold of flesh between her legs. Beyond her, a row of smaller wooden sculptures were probably modelled from the Kama Sutra or something like it. On the wall there were several paintings of nudes, men and women, some alone, some together. Those looked amateur so Lucy had probably done them. On a small table in the corner there was a box like the one at the Emporium. A velvet-lined display case with crystal penises and pewter nipple clamps. It was just as Pooley had said.

He didn’t say a word. He walked calmly back to the other side of the screen. Went into the area where the other paintings were lined up. He didn’t look at Mahoney, but peered into a stack of paintbrushes nose down in a jar of turps. Idly he pushed them around with his fingertips as if there was nothing much on his mind, then wandered around the canvases. They were mostly sky-scapes: clouds, birds, a kite. All were painted in a shade of blue that reminded him of something. One of his exes in London had been an artist and she used to talk in terms of colours being saturated or clean, and of hues being at the blue or red end of the spectrum. Caffery had never fully understood, and he didn’t have the words to describe this blue. Or to explain why it felt familiar to him.