Skin (37 page)

‘Georges Gerber?’

He glanced towards the road, then back at Caffery. ‘Who wants to know?’

He held up his card. ‘Inspector Jack Caffery.’

There was a slight pause. Gerber closed his eyes. And opened them. As if he was taking a picture of Jack. Then his face cleared abruptly. ‘Where are my manners?’ He pushed his hair back from his face with a chalk-white hand. ‘
Do
come in.’ He slammed the car door and took out a key, came forward and opened the front door wide. Smiled. ‘I’ll make you some coffee.’

Caffery pocketed his card and followed. While Gerber went to the corner of his office and busied himself with a coffee-maker Caffery stood next to a winged armchair, shifting it slightly so he could keep three things in plain view: Gerber, who had pressed two sachets into the machine and was now filling the cups, and the two doors – the one he’d come through and the other, which led to the refrigerator room where the padlock lay snapped on the floor.

‘So,’ Gerber said pleasantly, as he turned with the coffee, ‘you found me easily enough. How long have you been here?’

‘I just arrived.’ Caffery gave him a cool smile. ‘Why?’

‘A polite enquiry,’ he said lightly. ‘Simply making conversation.’

He put a coaster on to a little occasional table next to the chair and set the coffee on it. When he straightened Caffery noticed he was sweating. Nothing too obvious, just a faint sheen across his forehead. ‘My father was in the force. A chief inspector – Hampshire.’

‘Really?’

Why haven’t you asked me why I’m here yet? When are you going to ask?

‘I feel I’ve got an affinity with the police.’ Gerber pulled up a small table next to the sofa and put down his own cup. He went back to the coffee-maker and stood for a moment with his back to Caffery, opening a packet of biscuits. Something with a royal crest on the box. He shook them out on to a plate. ‘Fixing things. You know. Making the world a better place. Biscuit?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Drink your coffee.’

‘When I’m ready.’

The last thing Caffery was going to do was eat or drink anything in this place. No other incapacitants had come up on the tox results because Gerber was a doctor and had access to the liquid form of temazepam. He could have slipped it to the women in a drink – they wouldn’t have noticed. Knowing it would come up on toxicology, and that using a liquid temazepam that Lucy hadn’t been prescribed might point to murder and maybe to someone in the medical profession, he’d fed them pills later to account for the tranquillizer in the blood result.

‘Is there something wrong with your coffee?’

‘You tell me, Mr Gerber. Is there something wrong with it?’

Gerber went still. He turned swiftly to Caffery. Something off centre had crept into his eyes. The spots on his smock were still dark. If they were water, Caffery thought, they’d be dry by now. ‘S-sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Is that a riddle?’

‘No. It’s a straightforward question. Is there something in my coffee? Liquid benzos, for example.’

‘What?’ Gerber put his hand to his forehead. ‘Goodness – this is confusing. You’re confusing me.’

‘I haven’t just arrived, Georges. I’ve been here for a long time. Enough time to go into your room. See what you’ve been up to.’

Gerber dropped the biscuits. They scattered on the table, some on the floor. He stood with his hands limp at his sides, making no attempt to pick the biscuits up. ‘There’s an explanation,’ he said woodenly. ‘I can explain everything you’ve seen.’

‘I can explain too. Lucy Mahoney caught you, didn’t she? She saw what you were doing. Saw what you’d taken from her. Or did she remember being photographed? Was that it?’

‘This is a fantasy you’re having. Some sort of fantasy. If you let me explain I’ll—’

‘She was blackmailing you. And then what happened? My guess is she asked for too much. She wanted to buy herself a house – her demands got too big. There was no way out for you. You’re a thief. For years, by the looks of things, you’ve been stealing skin, like a serial killer who takes a part of his victims. These women have been your victims.’

‘Victims?’ He raised his eyes to Caffery. ‘That’s a harsh word. I didn’t hurt one of them. They left my surgery better than they came in.’

‘They are victims. They didn’t consent.’

‘The skin – it’s part of my life’s work. I s-study skin. I’m trying to build synthetic skin.’

‘Building synthetic skin?’ Caffery laughed. ‘Oh, good one, Dr Frankenstein.’

‘It’s the truth. Have another look in that room. You’ll see the boxes. From other manufacturers.’

‘I’m not stupid, Mr Gerber. From the limited knowledge I have, I’d say what you’re doing is nothing about building synthetic skin or whatever bullshit you’re asking me to swallow. I’d say it’s nothing to do with that and everything to do with sex.’

Gerber’s face went blank for a moment. He blinked.

‘I’d say that, whatever it looks like on the surface, this sort of behaviour always has a sexual motivation. Where’s your problem, Georges? You can’t get it up? Or did your mother make you give her bedbaths when you were six?’

Gerber blinked again. Once, twice. Three times in succession.

‘You photographed those women naked. God only knows what else you did to them while they were still half under. And you kept trophies to remind you. I looked at those – those
specimens
– and I couldn’t help asking myself: If I tested them would I find traces of your semen on them?’

Gerber stopped blinking. His left hand opened and closed as if he wanted to touch something. He came towards the table where he’d put the cup of coffee. ‘No wonder you’re not drinking your coffee. The table’s too far away.’

‘It’s fine where it is.’

‘Here.’ He bent to pick it up. ‘Let me just move it along.’

‘I said it’s fine where it—’

A spasm hit the back of Caffery’s calf and bolted up his body. He rolled away, a shout coming out of his mouth, scrambling across the sofa, fumbling for the back of his leg. He got clumsily to his feet, knocking over a chair, and turned, panting, to see Gerber, half bent over next to the table, his head at a slight angle, watching him. There was a weapon in his hand. It looked like a small pick or an awl – the sort of thing you’d use to work leather. A piece of material clung to it, from Caffery’s trousers, and long loops of blood lay across the cushions where he’d just scrambled over the sofa.

‘Why didn’t you drink my coffee, you fucking shithead?’

‘Hey,’ Caffery panted, reaching down to hold his leg, finding ripped fabric and something else – shredded calf muscle. ‘You are so
fucked
you just don’t have a clue.’

With his free hand he grabbed the chair and took a limping step forward, swinging it at Gerber, who sidestepped, nimble as a dancer, and landed the heel of the awl across Caffery’s temple. The pain pushed something black into his head. He fell forward, grabbing at things as he went, seeing the legs of the sofa fly up to meet him.

What’s happened to the sofa?
he thought dimly, as he hit the floor.
Why is the sofa on the fucking ceiling?

61

The bank kept Flea waiting. It was almost two o’clock when she left for Ruth’s, the money stashed in a banded petty-cash envelope in the glove compartment. The weather was patchy, the sun playing tag behind the clouds, but it was warm and she opened the windows in the Clio. The dusty, new-bloom scent of the hedgerow filled the car.

One of the units from Taunton was parked at the junction with the A36, a Lexus and an old Peugeot next to it. She pulled down the sun-visor, drove past calmly, eyes ahead. She was on the sick today and not supposed to be here. Wellard was acting sergeant – he had his instructions: no matter what the inspector told them he was to keep the team to the north of the search area and leave the south until last. Until after five. By which time she’d have the photograph. And have found a way to get Ruth out of the house.

Round the next corner an oncoming motorcycle flashed his lights, jerked his thumb back down the road and sawed his hand across his neck. The sign that there was a hazard, an accident. She slowed as she came round the corner and saw it about quarter of a mile up the road. A traffic car was parked sideways blocking half of the road, a PC in a fluorescent hi-vis jacket in front of it.

Her foot came off the gas and the Clio cruised forward a bit, slowing gradually until it came to a halt. Beyond the traffic BMW she saw her own unit’s Sprinter van parked nose to tail with the coroner’s. Shit. What the hell were they doing here? Wellard had
promised
.

Her car dawdled for a moment, the PC’s eyes on her face. Before she could gather herself and do a U-turn away, a face appeared from behind the Sprinter, looking at her in mild curiosity. It was Wellard. Eyebrows raised to see her there.

She was had. No getting away. She pulled the car to the side of the road.

‘Hi.’ Wellard put his elbow on the roof and smiled through the window at her. ‘Job-pissed, are we, Sarge? Coming in even though you’re on the sick?’

She turned off the engine and kept her eyes on the steering-wheel. ‘I thought I told you not to come over here until the end of the day.’

‘This job came up. The officer in charge wanted someone quickly. The inspector was cool about it – I didn’t think you’d—’

‘OK. OK.’ She looked past him. Behind the screens a car was parked in the secret little alcove she’d once parked in to walk up to Ruth’s. She could just see its roof. ‘The CSI’s here. What is it?’

‘Suicide.’

‘Past its sell-by? That’s why they’ve got you, is it?’

‘No, it’s recent. Still warm. Like I said, we only took it cos we were in the area.’

The roof of the car was sun-bleached and covered with bird droppings. Seeing it now made something cold walk across her heart. ‘That’s the car I can see, is it?’

‘That’s the car.’

‘A VW?’

Wellard blinked. ‘A VW? Yeah – I mean, yeah, it is. You can tell from here?’

She pressed her fingers into her temples.

‘Sarge – you OK?’

‘I’m . . . fine.’

She got out of the car, leaving her keys in the ignition, and began to walk, back straight, legs stiff. Flashing her card automatically at the loggist on the cordon, she ducked under it and passed the van. The two coroner’s men stood in their grey suits outside the inner cordon, just as they always did, smoking and chatting in low voices. She went past, not speaking.

The first thing she saw was the body-bag on the road, the orange stretcher next to it in the sunshine. Then she saw her own men gathered around the opened car door, bending to look inside. They glanced up when she approached. Smiled. Called something in greeting. A joke, maybe. She didn’t hear it. She was looking at the place between their legs where she could see a woman’s calf. The foot crammed into a green stiletto. A graze on the ankle. She could see the hem of the short black dress above it. To the right she could see the offside window, moss growing in the seals.

She turned away and stood with her hands pressed into the small of her back. Lifted her face to the sky and breathed in. Out. The sun had broken through the clouds for one last try at warming the world, but she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see the way it was picking out the different greens of the newly budded trees in the distance, the way it was lighting the distant hills.

What she could see, on that pretty May morning, was the way the sky could suffocate her. The way the sky and the world and all the people in it could push her down so low that eventually they simply stopped her breathing.

62

Must’ve let it slip a bit on the Scotch last night, Caffery thought. His head was banging like a bastard and any movement sent pressure waves galloping from one ear to the other. He passed a hand across his face, thinking something must be draped over it because the light was so dim. But there was nothing. He reached out in front of him, expecting to feel sheets. Instead he hit something hard and rough. He pushed his hands backwards and behind him met the same hard, immovable barrier.

He lay there, breathing fast. He wasn’t in bed. This was an enclosed space, a vault or a box, about eight foot by eight. Somewhere echoey with a stale, foul smell. About ten feet above him there was a single hazy blob of light.

Think now. Push it.

Vague images came back: a tanner’s awl, blood draped across fabric. He fingered his face. Blood was crusted over his top lip, his nose was tender and a lump had swollen on his gum. He ran his hands over his body. He was dressed, in his suit, but it was crusted and hard on the legs. Behind his knee the flesh was tender, swollen and hot to the touch. He reached a little further down and found a ripped, pulpy area, meat and fabric mixed.

Shit shit shit.
He pulled his hands away and dropped his head back, panting hard. The awl. Gerber looking at him calmly. The plate of biscuits. The crack of the handle to his temple. Blood on the sofa.