Каарон Уоррен - The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

“Mr. Marcus Skelton? Of-” The balding man gave Skelton’s full address, which made Skelton—particularly in front of the woman—feel unaccountably vulnerable.

“Yes,” he said again.

“Mr. Skelton, my name is Detective Inspector Parr. Might I have a word with you?”

“What about?”

DI Parr glanced at Skelton’s partner. “A private word, if you wouldn’t mind?” And then, to the woman, he said less officiously, “I’m sorry to intrude.”

The woman waved away the apology. “We were merely passing the time of day.” She startled Skelton by placing a hand on his arm. “Perhaps I’ll see you later? At dinner?”

Skelton nodded and she left—though her touch on his arm, light and warm despite the chill of the day and the thick jacket he was wearing, lingered.

On tenterhooks, his stomach crawling with apprehension, Skelton followed DI Parr back to the promenade’s entrance. Shouting into the wind and rain he asked again what it was about, but Parr only muttered something about finding somewhere warmer.

“Is it Janice?” Skelton asked.

“Who?”

“Janice. My wife. Has something happened to her?”

“Not as far as I know.” Parr forged ahead, either to prevent further conversation or because he was eager to get out of the rain.

Reaching the pier entrance, Skelton was surprised when Parr, instead of requesting that Skelton get into the car, swivelled like a radar dish to face a fish and chip restaurant across the road and suggested that the two of them speak over lunch. Although Skelton was not hungry, he was too intimidated to say no, and so found himself following Parr across a road that gleamed like polished steel in the rain.

“You’re not squeamish, are you?” Parr said when the two of them were seated on opposite sides of a sea green Formica tabletop. As he asked the question he rocked forward on his elbows so that Skelton could hear his low voice above the big front window beside them, which shuddered at every gust of wind.

“Why?” Skelton asked, staring at Parr through the steam rising from their plates. “Is the food here that bad?”

He was too nervous to make the joke sound like one, which was perhaps why Parr failed to smile. Instead, as he subjected his Friday Feast—extra large haddock, chips, mushy peas, bread and butter, pot of tea—to a barrage of salt, vinegar and ketchup, the DI shook his head.

“It’s an odd one, that’s all. Early this morning a dog walker made a discovery on the west beach.” He stuffed a forkful of chips into his mouth, as if by way of a dramatic pause. As Parr chewed, Skelton helped himself to a chip from his own small portion, nibbling at it while he waited for the bulge in Parr’s cheeks to transfer itself to his throat.

When it had, Parr said, “It was body parts, Mr. Skelton.”

At first Skelton thought the DI was referring to the crispy end of the fish he was sawing into.

“What was?”

“The discovery. The dog walker. She found a freezer bag with a seal to keep it watertight. It contained human body parts. A hand and an eye.”

“How horrible.”

Parr nodded. He crunched on fried batter and washed it down with a swill of tea. “We ran DNA tests.” A row of chips, speared on the tines of his fork and smothered with mushy peas, dripped greenly onto his plate. “They’re yours.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Parr popped the food into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. His face adopted an expression of compromise.

“At least,” he continued, “that’s what the results told us. We made enquiries, and when we found out you were staying at Derry’s Hotel…” he shrugged “… well, naturally we feared the worst.” His cutlery still clutched in his hands, he threw up his arms, causing ketchup to fly off his knife blade and fleck the window like blood. “But here you are! Larger than life! Which leaves us with something of a puzzle.”

Skelton stared at the DI. “What do you mean they’re mine?”

“DNA match,” Skelton said around a mouthful of fish.

Skelton continued to stare, unable to shake off the impression that the passersby on the other side of the window were covertly awaiting his reaction.

“Everyone’s DNA profile is unique,” Parr explained. “And according to our results, those body parts belong to you.”

“Then there must be some mistake,” Skelton spluttered.

“Well, obviously . Bit of an odd one, though, eh? I mean, especially with you staying here as well. Are you a frequent visitor to our little enclave, Mr. Skelton?”

“No. The last time I was here I was fourteen. Over thirty years ago.”

DI Parr tilted his head to one side. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Skelton sat back. He could no longer even maintain a pretense of wanting his chips. “Why are you telling me this, Detective Inspector?”

Again, Parr fixed his eyes on him. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Skelton’s mind was whirling, but the DI’s scrutiny suddenly focused his thoughts. “You think I’m an imposter?”

Parr shrugged as though in apology. “It’s a natural assumption, you must admit.”

“But I’m not!” Skelton said. “I’m me. I can show you ID.”

“Which you could have stolen from the real Marcus Skelton.”

“But I am me!” Skelton was aware his voice had risen to a bleat that was causing heads to turn. He controlled himself with an effort. “How can I prove it to you?”

Suddenly Parr was all business-like. Although his meal was less than half-eaten he picked up his napkin and dabbed at his greasy lips. “If you’ll come down to the station with me, Mr. Skelton, we can take a DNA sample, run tests.” He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m sure this is nothing but a computer glitch. Records getting mixed up or some such. We may live in an age of technology, but that doesn’t mean our systems are not still prone to human error.”

He put his napkin down, took a final swig of tea and stood up.

“Shall we go?”

Skelton might have foregone dinner that evening if he hadn’t already told Mrs. Derry how much he was looking forward to it. Despite having not had any lunch, the afternoon’s ordeal had unsettled him so much that he was still struggling to muster an appetite by 7 p.m.

He was ready for a drink, though, and ordered a bottle of Merlot from the admittedly limited wine list. He sipped his first glass as his gaze shifted between the slithering greyness of rain on the long windows of the hexagonal dining room and the murky oils depicting various boats on stormy seas, which adorned the walls. It was almost certainly the proliferation of water, both real and artificially rendered, which made him think of the room’s floor space as a sea of crisp white tablecloths and gleaming silver cutlery. Even the sound that filled it seemed to swell and dip like the waves, an almost ambient murmur of low-key conversation interspersed with the chink and scrape of china and metal.

Preoccupied by the efforts of the melting grey landscape outside the window to maintain a sense of itself, he sensed a presence beside him. He turned, expecting to see the spotty, painfully shy girl with braces on her teeth, who Mrs. Derry employed as a waitress, leaning forward with his chosen starter of leek and potato soup.

But it wasn’t the waitress, it was the woman from the pier. From his seated position she looked impressively statuesque, her black hair, tumbling in waves over her shoulders, framing the creamy swell of cleavage above her low-cut, off-the-shoulder burgundy dress.

“Are you dining alone?” she asked.

In less than a second, Skelton’s gaze ricocheted from her cleavage, to her plump lips, to the unoccupied place setting opposite him. “Er… yes.”