Skin (28 page)

Thom and Mandy. Still over there. Watching her like dummies from the jetty. She tapped harder.

PC Prody’s testimony would be that he’d chased her. Not Thom. It’d be that she’d sworn over and again she’d been driving the Focus. Pearce: well, Pearce she didn’t want to think about. He’d tell everyone that Sergeant Marley had been bouncing around some very confident theories about where Misty would and wouldn’t be found. Not in the lake, she’d said. We definitely won’t find her in the lake. Like she knew. Big fat mouth. She’d only said it because she didn’t think someone as groomed as Misty would commit suicide by drowning. It had been a stupid thought – off the top of her head.

She looked at the jetty.

Thom:
It’s a bit of a haze
.

Mandy:
We’ll protect you
.

She turned the music off. Got out and came back to the jetty.

‘Flea.’ Mandy’s hand went out warningly. ‘Let’s have a talk about this and—’

Too late. Flea was on Thom. Had him by the shoulders. Slammed him against the post. ‘
Tell the truth!
’ she yelled.

‘
Let go of me
.’

She dragged him forward. Slammed him back again. His arms flew out. The pint glass toppled, shattered. ‘
Say it now.
’

Winded, he slithered down the post to a sitting position. On the balcony people turned in amazement. She got him under the arms and pulled him forward, throwing him down on his face, put her feet astride his back and dropped her weight on his buttocks. Got his hair in her hands. ‘
Take some responsibility
.’

‘Stop it.’ Mandy scrabbled at her hands. ‘Stop it now.’

Flea wasn’t listening. She was seeing Dad, a million years ago, slapping Thom. The flatness in Thom’s face. The way he didn’t react. ‘
Tell the truth!
’ she screamed.

He groped blindly behind him. ‘
Leave me alone
.’ He got his fingernails into her hands and tried to pull them out of his hair.

She clenched her teeth. Leant back and hauled his head up. ‘
Tell the fucking truth
—’

He threw himself sideways, his bony hips twisting, until he was on his back, facing her. She tried to slam his head down but he stopped her, grabbing her wrists. While she struggled, he lifted his knee swiftly, twice, three times, catching her in the groin. And now Mandy was squatting next to her. Not screaming. Silent. Face screwed up in concentration, her meaty arms grappling around Flea.

‘
Get off me, you bitch
.’ Flea rammed her elbow out sideways. Missed. A muscle jarred in her shoulder. ‘
Get off
.’

She flung her weight sideways, hair flying. Back again, trying to break Mandy’s grip. But she was twice Flea’s weight and strong, and she kept her face against Flea’s shoulder, held the armlock grimly, going with the movement. They rolled on to the jetty. She felt a fragment of glass slice into her cheek, felt Thom wriggle out from under them, heard him stand as she struggled with Mandy.

‘Let go of me, Mandy,’ she spat. ‘Because I will kill you.’

‘Get her hands!’ Thom yelled suddenly. ‘Get her.’

Flea kicked blindly as his hands scrabbled for hers. She felt spiteful fingernails in her wrists. Felt herself being lifted. He was strong too. Stronger than she’d ever guessed. Blood was running down her chin. Vague ghosts of people were coming from the bar, shouting.

‘
I’ll kill you
.’

A kick. Or a punch. In her stomach. Up high, under the diaphragm. She didn’t see who it came from, but it pushed all the air out of her – finished her in one. Mandy released her and she fell forward and lay there, not moving. The cop trained to stand up in a riot was on the jetty with blood coming out of her face, thinking the only important thing was to get another breath into her body.

‘Phoebe.’ Mandy’s voice was just a whisper close to her face. Flea could smell the tang of her sweat. The sweetness of laundry detergent. ‘Phoebe, Thom and I love you very much. Very much indeed. That is why we are going to help you. We’re going to help you sort out your problems, your issues, and together –
together
– we’ll find a way of not taking you to the police.’

43

Caffery broke all the rules and took alcohol into the unit meeting that evening. He got a can of Coke from on top of the filing cabinet, drank half of it, then uncapped a bottle of Bell’s and filled the can to the top. The Bell’s was there because, compared to a good malt, Glenmorangie maybe, he hated the taste. The idea was to stop himself necking the whole bottle. Sometimes the trick worked, sometimes it didn’t.

Every force he’d ever known called the daily meeting with a senior investigating officer ‘prayers’. Some SIOs held prayers once a day to collate what the team had done the previous day. Some held it twice: morning and afternoon prayers. Some held it whenever the wind changed direction. Like Powers. He was a nightmare.

Today’s prayers was mostly about Kitson’s phone records and how well Powers had come across on TV at the press conference. Caffery stood against the wall, drinking the whisky and Coke and thinking not about Kitson but about Susan Hopkins. Susan Hopkins and Lucy Mahoney, he’d worked out, probably hadn’t known each other. There was no mention of Mahoney in Hopkins’s address book or paperwork and vice versa. Nor had Hopkins’s family and friends heard the name, though the boyfriend from the rigs thought ‘Lucy Mahoney’ sounded like a porn star, if Caffery wanted the honest truth. And yet there
was
a link between the women. Somewhere, something connected them, he was sure of it. Which left a nasty truth, a truth that felt like a dark and limitless hole opening in the air close to his face: not Amos Chipeta, but someone else. Someone cold and slick, who could disguise a killing as suicide. Who had reasons for wanting to pull the skin off a dog.

‘Quiet in there, weren’t you?’ After the meeting Powers caught up with Caffery in the corridor. ‘Not seen you so quiet before.’

Caffery stopped at the door of his office. He was still holding the Coke can. He didn’t try to hide it, not with what he knew Powers kept in his filing cabinet. ‘There wasn’t much to say.’

‘You weren’t in the office this morning. Like I hoped you’d be.’

‘I was. Early. I divvied up the actions like I said I would. Then I went for lunch.’

Powers looked at him thoughtfully, then at the Coke can. ‘Jack, let me tell you how it is. I drink on duty. That’s just what I do. As long as the job gets done, and one of the traffic guys at Almondsbury doesn’t net me going the wrong way down the M4, it doesn’t make a difference. In twenty years no one has said a thing about it.’ He raised his eyes. ‘And do you know why?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I do my job and I don’t get in people’s faces. I don’t get in people’s faces and I toe the line so they don’t find ways to hurt me. But if I
did
, if I
was
the sort of person who made people angry, who didn’t pull with the team . . .’ he paused ‘. . . I’d be shit on toast. No time at all, it’d take them. Shit on toast.’

Caffery gave him a long look. He pushed open the door to his office and went inside. Put the can down, sat, unbuttoned his jacket and arranged it loosely around his torso. He beckoned to Powers. As if he was inviting a body blow. ‘Go on, then. Give me it if you have to.’

Powers eyed him carefully, then, with reluctance, came in. He closed the door behind him and sat down. ‘I heard you were out for lunch in Clifton.’

‘News travels.’

‘Turnbull’s very faithful.’

‘That’s nice. And there was I thinking he and I had something special going on.’

‘And then I heard you went to a post-mortem.’

‘Yes.’

Powers put a mild, puzzled look on his face. ‘You see, Jack, I’m having problems figuring out what a senior MCIU detective was doing at a routine PM when he’s supposed to be working on the Kitson case with the rest of us. District brought it in as a suicide.’

‘But the pathologist didn’t agree. She thinks it’s a murder. And I think it’s connected to the other “suicide” I told you about. Lucy Mahoney. I want to bring them both into the unit as linked murders.’

‘You
what
?’

‘They’re linked. Lucy Mahoney wasn’t a suicide at all, and here the pathologist is starting to agree with me. I want to bring them both in, and the first thing I want is for you to authorize a warrant. I need to open Mahoney’s bank records.’

Powers sighed and ran a hand over his scalp. He didn’t look happy, not happy at all. But he took the time to master himself, did the calming breathing technique again. He got his composure and when he spoke his voice was softer. ‘It’s almost a week into the Kitson case now. Nothing came out of the reconstruction, morale’s at tipping point out there.’ He nodded in the direction of the briefing room. ‘I can just smell it on them. And you, Jack, you mean something to them. They
look
at you. They might not admit it but they all know what you did in London – you’re poster-boy material to them. One of our CID trainers has got a whole power-point presentation of your Brixton paedophile case. Did you know that?’

‘Great,’ he muttered. ‘Great.’

‘But just because you worked some high-profile cases doesn’t mean you do whatever the hell you want. You go off on that Norway wild-goose chase, giving me the old maverick line, but the moment that gets dropped you’re off chasing another hare. So something,
something
, is stopping you pulling with us on the Kitson case. Come on – look me in the eye. Tell me what it is.’

Caffery did what he was asked. Looked him in the eye. He concentrated on not blinking, and said the first thing that came into his head. ‘It’s because I can’t be seen working on it publicly.’

‘
What?
’ Powers’s eyes narrowed. He searched Caffery’s face. ‘Are you saying you’ve got a snout?’

‘Yes.’ It was a lie. But it might get Powers off his back for a day or two. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘You’ve been here five minutes and already you’ve got a snout? On something like this? No. You’re sticking one on me here, aren’t you, Jack? You’re taking the piss.’

‘Look, there’s a whole stack of dealers connected with the clinic. There always is with any of these rehab places. Some local yob gagging to cater to the needs of the inmates. For Farleigh Hall they come from Bath and Trowbridge.’

‘Kitson was going to meet a dealer?’

‘That conversation with the boyfriend? What did you think when she said she wanted “time to think”?’

‘That she wanted time to think?’

‘You don’t think it sounded like whitewash? He said, “Where are you going?” and she said, “I’m just going to wander around a bit.” Does that sound right? In the highest-heeled shoes known to man and – here Jimmy Choo
would
be impressed – she’s going to have a wander around? Visit the local cowpats? And how come she was so specific about when she’d be back?’

‘She wanted to be back for something? I don’t know. Dinner?’

‘Or she knew that what she had to do would only take that long.’

Powers gave a soft whistle. ‘I
knew
you were hiding something about this case. I knew you had something up your sleeve.’

‘It’s one thing having intel. It’s another making it stand up in court, as we all know. That’s why I’m waiting. I need another piece of the puzzle. Can’t be seen to push it.’

‘You’re as closed as an arsehole, Caffery. What’m I supposed to do with you?’

‘Let me bring in both these cases as a murder.’ He drained the Coke can, crumpled it and chucked it into the bin. ‘I need to let some time go by with Kitson, let it evolve naturally. Let me just ferret away for a bit on the Hopkins and Mahoney murders. I’ll keep the Kitson thing on the back burner, low level, and the moment I get anything on it, I’ll come back to you. What d’you think? Just give me some rope and let me work on it?’

Powers held Caffery’s eyes for a long time. Then he sighed, opening his hands resignedly. ‘I want an update every day on your snout. By Thursday I want to know what’s happening. OK?’

‘Thursday?’

‘That’s right.’

‘OK. It’s a deal. Just one thing. I’m not getting Turnbull this time, am I? I’ve gone off him.’

‘You’re not getting Turnbull this time.’

‘Good. Who am I getting?’

Powers held his eyes, repeated in a monotone: ‘You’re not getting Turnbull this time.’

44

At nine thirty the next morning in the Almondsbury offices the nine members of the underwater search team sat in a horseshoe shape watching a trainer apply heart pumps to a dummy. Flea and her team were all trained in basic life support – what used to be called CPR – and had annual refresher courses because skills faded and recommendations changed. For example, the board didn’t want fifteen compressions to two breaths any more, explained the trainer, now they wanted thirty to two.