Mo Hayder - Skin

Silence. A group of bats wheeled through the overhead struts, the fragile crack crack crack of their lower-frequency chatter circling down to him.

‘Are you there?’

He thought of the mad customer, endlessly sorting her chandelier crystals. He recalled the blunt, defeated expression in her eyes. He thought of the gun, sitting in the glove compartment.

‘I said, are you there?’

A click behind him and a loud boom. He wheeled around as the huge double doors slid closed, cutting out the night, leaving him in the darkness with just the blue light of the computer and his thudding heart for company.

He pulled out the CS gas. Held it in front of him, arm rigid. Good job the gun was in the glove compartment because it could easily have been that. ‘Don’t fuck with me,’ he said. ‘I mean it. Don’t fuck with me.’

The darkness lay hard up against his eyes as he moved the spray in an arc, ready to unlatch the safety button if something came hurtling at him. Every inch of his skin crackled, and his ears yawned open to pick up the smallest sound, the tiniest shift of air.

‘I’m moving now,’ he said. ‘I’m coming towards the door.’

He took a few short steps, then stopped. His foot had connected with an object at knee height. As he pulled his leg back, he became aware that something was standing a few feet to his left. Something pale, spectral – something at head height, watching him. He didn’t turn to it. He kept facing forward, the hairs all over his face and neck standing up stiff, trying to study the shape out of the corner of his eye.

A face, a pale, oval face, stared at him steadily from the darkness. About three feet away. Tall. Tall and big.

‘I can hurt you,’ he murmured. ‘I’m trained and you’re not. I can make you very uncomfortable. So step away from me.’

The face didn’t move. Just went on looking at him.

‘Step away from me, I said.’

Still no movement. Heart hammering, Caffery went through the move in his head, thinking of reaction distances and the effect of the spray – not just on the creep staring at him but on his own respiratory system.

One, two, three , he counted to himself. One, two, three – and good to go.

‘Step back!’ He held his left hand against his face, right hand forward. Protect your own eyes first. ‘I said, step back, dickhead. Step the fuck back .’

Three seconds of spray, then he released the nozzle and dropped his hand, taking a clumsy pace back, knocking something over, the other arm across his face, squinting through the cloud of chemical. The shape hadn’t moved. He lifted his hand slightly, his eyes watering from the chemical’s kickback, his heart thrumming low and deep in his chest. It was still there. A motionless, smooth face, the gas running slowly down it, forming at the chin into a rivulet and dripping away into nothing. Eyes open and glassy, none of the coughing or vomiting he’d expected.

‘ Shit .’ He dropped his head. Spat on the ground. ‘ Shit .’

It was a fairground effigy, its brittle doll’s face impassive. He turned, breathing hard, to the doors. So where the hell was Pooley? Which avenue had he slid down? Which pile of furniture was he hiding behind? The doors, he thought. Start for the doors. He took a step forward. Felt his chest collide with something. Felt an arm lock around his neck, and a hand come up into his groin, immobilizing him and pulling him down.

Katherine Oscar stood on the back doorstep, hand raised ready to knock again.

‘For Christ’s sake.’ Flea let the sword clatter down and leant back against the wall, her hand to her forehead. ‘Christ’s sake. Don’t do that again.’

Katherine examined Flea’s worn face. The way her hair hung in a shambles all over her shoulders. ‘Good heavens. What’s the matter?’

‘I’m tired.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s been a long day.’

Katherine answered with a brief, efficient smile, as if she hadn’t heard. She seemed to enjoy catching Flea at her worst, stealing little victories from her every day: unwashed hair, out-of-date coats, no invitations to Ascot or Cheltenham. These were Katherine’s scoring points. ‘How are you, Phoebe? How is that bloody awful job treating you?’

Not waiting for an answer she stepped forward, craning her neck to peer round the front door and into the hallway. Flea took an answering step sideways to block her view. Katherine was always trying to edge her way into the house and get a glimpse of the antique hoard she’d convinced herself the Marleys had amassed during their trips. There were a few things lying around in the upstairs rooms – African masks and Russian dolls and boxes of shells her father had pulled to the surface in Palau, the sword cane. But otherwise, Katherine was wrong: there was nothing of any real value.

There was a moment’s silence. Then what Flea was doing seemed to sink in and Katherine took a step back. ‘I’m sooo sorry. So sorry – I’m so rude. My mother always said I’ve got no manners.’

‘How long have you been outside?’

‘How long? Only a minute. Why?’

‘You sure you haven’t been looking through my window?’

‘What a stupid idea. Of course I haven’t.’

‘Well, then.’ Flea put her hand on the door, indicating the end of the conversation. ‘I’ll say goodnight.’

‘The electricity-meter man was here today,’ Katherine said. ‘I showed him where yours is.’

Flea frowned. It was in the shed at the top of the driveway. ‘You went into my shed?’

‘Yes.’

‘I never said you could go in there.’

‘You weren’t here. The poor man was ringing the doorbell for ages.’

‘I could have phoned in the reading myself.’

‘I was only trying to help.’

‘Next time just leave it. I’ll deal with it.’ She inclined her head politely, and began to close the door. ‘Goodnight, Katherine.’

‘He was amazed when he read the meter. Said it was sky high.’

‘Goodnight, Katherine.’

‘He said you must have got lots of things running off the power. More things than usual.’

Flea stopped, the door half closed. Katherine’s sculpted face was made into concentric circles by the half-glazed glass door. There was a moment or two’s silence. Then she opened the door again. She knew her face had frozen. She could feel the blood stop under the skin, stop and go blue from cold. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘He says…’ Katherine glanced over her shoulder at the empty gravel drive, at the ornamental shrubs casting their shaggy shadows on the grass, as if she, too, suspected them of being watched. ‘He says something in your house is eating electricity. He says he’s never seen anything like it.’ She let her gaze wander to the garage with the brown paper in the windows. ‘He says you should have it checked out.’

Flea closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. The cold tick of fear was back. Somewhere down in her bowels. ‘What are you implying?’ she said slowly.

‘Nothing. I only came over to tell you what had happened. And to ask if you’ve thought any more about-’

‘No,’ Flea said coldly. ‘I haven’t. My mind hasn’t changed and it won’t change. Now, goodnight.’

Katherine took a breath to reply, but apparently thought better of it. She shrugged, turned on one foot and walked sweetly away, a little hand held up, the fingers wriggling.

Flea stood on the doorstep and watched until she turned the corner. Then she slammed the door, locked it and went into the garage. Everything was as she’d left it, nothing out of place. She checked the paper in the windows and that the bolts were run on the garage doors. She checked Misty’s corpse hadn’t been touched. When she was sure no one could have been in there or seen inside, she went back into the house and locked the inner door.