Mo Hayder - Skin

‘They’re all the same colour,’ he said levelly.

‘She loved it.’ Mahoney still hadn’t made eye-contact. He was looking at his feet. ‘Mixed it herself. Said it was her signature.’

Caffery was still for a moment. He stood among the paintings and studied Mahoney’s grey suit.

‘Colin, I never asked. What do you do? For a living?’

‘Me? I’m a certified financial planner.’

‘What? Like an insurance salesman?’

‘I advise on indemnities.’

‘You’re an insurance salesman, then?’

‘These days, we’re more likely to call it a liabilities consultant. Or a risk-management agent.’

‘But you’re an insurance salesman.’

Mahoney raised his eyes and looked at him. Then he pulled out a canvas and held it up. It was only about two feet square and it showed a girl’s face, very close. She wore a ribbon in her blonde hair. The same blue again. ‘This was the first painting she did of Daisy.’

‘Nice.’ Caffery pulled out the photo of Susan Hopkins, held it up to Mahoney’s face. ‘Do you know who that is?’

Mahoney turned his head away from the photo as if it had a bad smell. ‘There’s no need to hold it so close.’

‘I said, do you know who she is?’

‘No, I’ve never seen her.’

‘Know the name Susan Hopkins?’

‘You already asked me on the phone, remember? I said no.’

‘This is serious now. Really serious. Look at it.’

Mahoney put down the canvas, took the photo and peered at it. He shook his head and handed it back. ‘No. Seriously. What’s this about?’

Caffery put the photo in his jacket pocket. ‘The case has been reclassified. I’ve been back to Lucy’s friends. I know what they say about her past. About you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What on earth have they been saying?’

‘That you’ve got a stick up your arse so high it’ll choke you. That you left her. But not because you didn’t love her any more. Because you couldn’t handle what she was doing. Collecting all that stuff in there. Doing those paintings. Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

‘I didn’t think it was appropriate.’

‘Not appropriate – not appropriate ? Stop using that expression, you pompous git. Don’t you know how important something like this could be?’

‘How could it be important? It was just her hobby. Just another of the things she collected. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.’

‘She could have been a prostitute. Don’t you know how often hookers get killed?

Mahoney’s face went a hard red. ‘She wasn’t a prostitute. She wasn’t like that. This is just a hobby.’

Caffery put his hands on the windowsill and stood for a moment, getting his temper back. Out of the window the clouds and mists swirled around the base of Glastonbury Tor, a lonely island on the drained Somerset levels, like an upturned pudding on the horizon. ‘You’re right. She wasn’t a hooker. But that’s not the point. You should have told me. She could have got involved with someone and they might be the one she was blackmailing.’ He gestured to the other side of the screen. ‘Is that why you got custody of Daisy? Did you use all that against her? See, I look at you and I can just picture the words “gross moral turpitude, your honour” coming out of your mouth. You’re the type.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. There was never any argument about where Daisy would go. None whatsoever.’

‘Seems strange for the mother not to get custody.’

‘It’s not strange at all. I’m her father. I let Lucy see her, but she had no legal rights. She’d never adopted Daisy. Lucy was completely reasonable about it.’

Caffery glanced sharply at Mahoney. ‘What did you say?’

‘Lucy was completely reasonable about it.’

‘No – before that. That she didn’t adopt her.’

‘Well, she didn’t. Not officially.’

‘She wasn’t her real mother?’

‘She was her stepmother. Daisy’s real mother’s dead.’

Caffery stared at him hard. ‘No one mentioned she was her stepdaughter.’

‘We didn’t advertise it. For Daisy more than anything. She always thought of Lucy as her mum.’

‘So what happened to…’ He hesitated. He was thinking about the Caesarean scar – the botched one. Something was missing here. ‘What about Lucy’s other child?’

‘Lucy’s other child? There wasn’t one.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Perfectly sure. She never had children. Never wanted them.’

‘And never lost a child?’

‘No. I just said, there were no children. Only Daisy.’

Caffery opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He could see from Mahoney’s face that he really didn’t know there had been a child. He returned to the window and stood for a while, pinching his nose, his eyes on the tor, letting his thoughts settle in the right places. If Lucy’s Caesarean hadn’t been for Daisy, it must have been after they’d separated. There was a child. But Mahoney didn’t know anything about it.

‘When you separated…’ he said, eventually, ‘Lucy wasn’t pregnant, was she?’

‘ Pregnant? Good God, what are you saying?’

‘I’m not “saying”, I’m wondering . Just wondering. That’s all. Did you tell me you didn’t see her for a long time after the separation? Almost a year?’

Mahoney put his thumb to his right eye and pressed in the corner. He did the same with the left. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’

Caffery didn’t answer. He looked out of the window at the tor, his mind floating away. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure it was the right way through this, but it was something. Something big. Lucy had had a child that no one knew about – none of the friends, and not even her ex-husband. She’d had a child. It had disappeared. And maybe, just maybe, that was why she was blackmailing someone.

Now all he had to do was find out who she was seeing after she’d left Mahoney.

The bank had carved itself offices out of a listed Georgian building in the centre of Bath. Frosted glass and fibreboard cubicles were crammed against the walls, a gap of almost eight feet between their tops and the corniced ceilings. At eleven a.m. the bank assistant found Flea a cubicle and they sat at opposite sides of a modern laminate desk, a computer screen between them, trading inconsequentials for a while and filling in forms.

‘So you’re police?’ He looked at the badge on her polo shirt. ‘Underwater search? What’s that? Like the coastguard?’

‘Not really.’ She’d learnt a long time ago there were only two responses to what she did for a living. Either a fascination that bordered on weird, or disgust. And usually the first thing anyone did was look at her hands and her clothing. In some countries jobs that connected you with death – undertaker, slaughterhouse worker – made you untouchable. As if death could rub off on you. ‘What’s that thing for?’ she said.

‘Hmmm? Oh, that. Panic button.’

‘In case what?’

‘You know.’ He moved his tie knot. ‘Sometimes customers get upset.’

‘About?’

‘Whether we’ll give them a loan or not.’

‘Do you think that’s going to happen to me?’

He coughed and tapped a few more keys, studying the screen. Then he got to his feet and held up the folder he’d started. ‘Will you excuse me? I’m going to have a word with my line manager.’

When he was gone Flea got up and went to his side of the desk to look at the computer screen. He’d logged out. The words ‘Just 8% APR’ flashed in blue on the screensaver and when she shook the mouse a log-on box came up. She wandered around the room, looking at the leaflets, the lifestyles you could buy for just eight per cent APR. Her head still ached. The polymer Elastoplast itched where it held together the edges of the wound on her cheek. She went to the frosted-glass doors and peered out at the people coming and going. At the door he’d gone through. He was taking a long time. She went to sit down again and tried not to fidget. Put her fingers to her temples and pressed hard to hold the headache in.