Original Skin (12 page)

“So all you can tell me is that you were here on Tuesday night and you’ve no idea how your fingerprint ended up on the glass bottle thrown at the van.” Pharaoh smooths down the front of her jacket. “Bit shit,” she says.

“The rain looks pretty on your tits.”

The younger man is staring at Pharaoh’s chest. She gives an incredulous little laugh. “Sorry, son?”

“Pretty,” he repeats, and raises his head to look her in the eye. “Bet they don’t look so bouncy when you take your bra off, you old bitch.”

Pharaoh opens her mouth, but before she can speak, Rourke has slammed a meaty hand into the younger man’s chest and pushed him backward. He spins to face him, grabbing him by the lapels and pulling his face close. “You can’t help it, can you?” he spits.

“Maraigh!”
shouts the younger man, his feet scrabbling on the drive.
“Maraigh!”

Neither Rourke nor the two detectives have any time to react. The command, screamed in Gaelic, means nothing to Pharaoh or Daniells, but the Rottweilers respond to it as if a bell had been rung.

Time seems to slow down.

To her right, Daniells is reaching into his pocket, trying to extricate his extendable baton from the confines of his battered coat.

Rourke is turning back to her, his eyes widening as his mouth drops open.

The young man is staggering backward. Turning. Preparing to run.

In a heartbeat, the two animals transform into snarling, ravenous killers. Barking, jaws snapping, they turn on the strangers.

Jaws open, spit drooling from finger-long teeth, they leap.

Pharaoh’s arms fly to her face but her eyes do not close in time to spare her the image.

Her vision fills with black-brown fur. Fangs. Pink tongue and yellow eyes.

As she falls, she knows with cold certainty that the word means “Kill.”

“HOPE THE DOGS
have had their shots,” says Colin Ray, leaning across the table to take a chip from Helen Tremberg’s plate and managing to drop a blob of ketchup on his mucky pin-striped suit.

“Yeah, would hate for them to get sick,” says Shaz Archer, taking a sip from her can of Diet Coke. She then gives a bark of a laugh. It sounds like the braying of an upper-class old man, and not a petite young woman in an expensive dress and patterned tights.

Neither McAvoy, Tremberg, nor Ben Neilsen join in.

“Cheer up, you fuckers,” says Ray, reaching for another chip and laughing when Tremberg pulls her plate away from him. “She’s all right.”

They are sitting in the canteen at Courtland Road Police Station. The news is flickering soundlessly on the TV in the corner of the room, and two uniformed officers are playing pool on the table near the serving hatch, where a fifty-year-old woman in a tabard and hat is red-facedly offering a choice between cottage pie, lasagna, chips, or going hungry to a couple of visiting software salesmen in gray suits and name tags.

Detective Chief Superintendent Davey has just finished stumbling his way through the emergency briefing. Ray and Archer are now entirely in charge of the investigation. The cannabis factories, Rourke, and the attack on their senior officer have all been rolled into one. Ray and Archer are on their way to interview the onetime armed robber, who is busy going mental in the cells and threatening retribution against anybody who refuses to tell him what is happening to his two dogs. The rest of the Major Incident Team are circling, here to help, and ready to take over, if asked . . .

Pharaoh is in a hospital bed with bites to her chest, throat, and hands. Daniells, fresh stitches in his palms, is painfully typing up his witness report on a borrowed desk in the MIT suite.

The teenager with the ginger hair, who gave the order to kill, has not been seen. Every patrol car in the division is out looking for him.

“New boy says she’d be dead if Rourke hadn’t called them off,” says Ray chattily. “Did the damage in about five seconds.”

“Long enough for the lad to leg it,” says Archer.

“We’ll have an ID by morning, I promise you,” says Tremberg through a mouthful of chips. She is appalled at what has happened to their boss, but has an appetite that cannot be slowed by inner turmoil.

“We promise you, too,” says Ray, blowing her a kiss. “Paddy will be singing in five minutes, I guarantee it.”

“He’s not Irish,” says McAvoy, with his eyes shut.

Ray pulls a face. “Name like Rourke?”

“Irish descent. Born in South Yorkshire. Traveler family. It’s all in his file. You should read it.”

There is silence for a moment. “Gyppo, is he?”

Tremberg shoots McAvoy a look. He is staring at the ceiling, his face nearly gray. She knows about his wife’s traveler roots and knows, too, of his sensitivity about such subjects. He had arrived at the briefing red-faced and panting for breath, clearly having run all the way from whatever he had been up to when the call came over the radio that Pharaoh had been hurt and that her team were required immediately at Courtland Road. As he heard what had happened, she saw something in his face that was at once bewilderment and despair. She has not yet seen him angry, but has no doubt the feeling is in there somewhere, and that Colin Ray would do well to stop talking.

“He’s from a traveler family,” says McAvoy again deliberately.

“Gyppo, that’s what I said,” says Ray, and he and Archer share a laugh.

The two are inseparable. There was a time, when this unit was first being formed, that DCI Ray was expected to get the top job, together with his hard-faced but extraordinarily attractive protégée as number two. Pharaoh had got the gig instead, and the older man had not taken it well—and even less so when he was asked to be her deputy.

“Daniells gave us a good description,” says Ben Neilsen, piping up. “Skinny lad, shaved ginger hair, little shit . . . can’t be hard to find.”

“He says it came from nowhere,” adds Tremberg. “The attack, I mean. Rourke was answering the boss’s questions. Wasn’t exactly friendly, but nothing to worry about. The lad said something about the boss’s boobs, and Rourke gave him a clip. Then the lad shouted for the dogs to attack. Whether he wanted them to go for Rourke or the boss, Daniells couldn’t say.”

“They would never go for their master,” says McAvoy quietly. “Not in a million years.”

“So why set them on the boss?”

“Maybe he wanted to prove he had the balls.”

McAvoy rubs a hand over his face and looks at his watch. He is trying to stay in control of his emotions. He is furious not to have been asked to take over the investigation, but is also well aware that he has no right to expect it and that to even entertain such a hope is somehow to suggest he sees his boss’s injuries as an opportunity. He holds himself still.

“Where were you, anyway?” asks Ray. He is twisting in his chair to watch the two lads play pool and does not turn as he asks the question. “Thought you were pen-pushing for Everett or something. Was there a really interesting spreadsheet needed your attention somewhere?”

McAvoy finds himself coloring. “I was taking a look at an old case,” he says.

“Cold case?” asks Ray, turning back to the table and giving a hand gesture that suggests he does not think much of the standard of pool playing. “That’s Operation Fox, not us.”

“It’s more recent than their remit. Just something that deserved some proper attention.”

Archer leans forward. McAvoy notices that the lacy design of her bra is visible through the white silk of her blouse, and turns away quickly. She is well practiced in using her looks for effect and results, and seems to positively purr when she spots his discomfort.

“Picking and choosing now, are we?” she asks.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Forget it.”

Archer drains her can of drink and then stands up, pulling her coat from the back of the hard plastic chair and pulling it on. Colin Ray pulls himself upright, too, and brushes the remnants of his sausage roll from his front. His pin-striped suit was probably expensive when he bought it, but is stained on the lapels and wrinkled at the crotch.

“We’ll be off,” he says, taking one last chip and winking at Tremberg. “Call us if there’s any improvement.”

“Yeah, we’ll be worrying about those dogs all night.”

The pair are laughing as they push their way out of the swing door, so don’t hear Tremberg say, “Wankers.”

Neilsen, Tremberg, and McAvoy sit in silence. “What’s the case?” asks Neilsen eventually.

McAvoy looks at him. Tall and good-looking, he’s from a Hessle Road fishing family who don’t quite know whether to be proud or ashamed that their youngest is a policeman.

“Young lad,” he says, after a pause. “Found a few months back hanging in his kitchen. Barely any investigation. I’ve got his old phone. It’s full of messages from some sexual partner that there’s no trace of in the report. They stop suddenly. It feels wrong. There’s more to it.”

“Forensics?”

McAvoy pauses. Appears to make a decision. Reaches into his bag and pulls out the report and his notes. He pulls himself closer to the table.

“There’s no doubt he died from strangulation,” he says, reading from his pad. “Pathologist said the rope around his neck was definitely the one that cut off the blood to his brain. Fibers embedded in the skin, she said. He’d been sexually active at some point in the previous twenty-four hours. Had been anally penetrated. No DNA recovered. He was covered in baby oil, apparently. Had eaten a microwave tagliatelle and a Penguin biscuit around two hours before his death. Drank a glass of orange squash.”

“And then decided he’d had enough? Those microwave meals are awful, like . . .”

“The file went up to CID and they gave it about thirty seconds. The coroner recorded an open verdict because there was no note, but there’s been no investigation. The inventory of his flat’s contents make no mention of his mobile, even though he was on it nearly all the time.”

“But you’ve got it?” asks Ben curiously.

I don’t know. Maybe. If he kept his own number in his phone.

“That doesn’t matter,” he says, waving his hand. “Look, I’ve spoken to his aunt today. She says there’s no reason to think he would kill himself.”

Tremberg and Neilsen turn to face each other. Something passes between them, and Tremberg is elected spokeswoman.

“Do you not think it would be better to keep our heads down?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s just after the cock-up the other night, and now this with Pharaoh, do we really want to be saying CID missed something or didn’t give a shit? Do we need to have a murder on the books when we haven’t got a suspect? What’s that going to do to the crime statistics?”

McAvoy looks at her with what looks like disappointment. He seems almost heartbroken.

“I really don’t think that matters,” he says, and leaves it at that.

They sit for another few minutes. McAvoy tells them no more about Simon. He has made up his mind. Pharaoh’s injuries are sitting in his guts like a snowball, but in her absence he cannot help but see opportunity. His line manager told him to take a look. And she’s not around to be contradicted.

They say cheerful good-byes and pull up their collars as they run across the darkening, rain-lashed car park. McAvoy throws open the door of his car and throws himself inside. Turns on the engine just in time for the seven p.m. headlines. A police officer has been hurt in a dog attack in Anlaby. Detectives have renewed their appeal for witnesses to a petrol-bombing incident which took place on St. Andrew’s Quay and which is the latest violent incident being linked to an escalation in drugs-related violence . . .

He watches Tremberg’s car pull out into traffic. Gives a wave, obscured by the pelting rain, as Neilsen’s Suzuki Swift follows. He gives it thirty seconds. Switches off the engine. Steps out of the car and runs back across the car park.

He pulls the telephone from his pocket and holds it in a warm, damp palm as he makes his way to the Technical Support Unit. As he knocks on the white double door and tells them that Trish Pharaoh insisted that they get the results asap, he hopes they put his blush down to his sprint in bad weather, rather than shame at his lies.

COLIN RAY
holds the smoke in his lungs and feels his eyes begin to water. Feels the tickle in his chest.

Hold it, Col, hold it . . .

He’s made it up the stairs without needing to breathe out.

Six, seven, eight steps down the off-green corridor.

Eyes streaming, chest thumping . . .

Turning the handle and entering into Interview Suite B.

He breathes out. Fills the cold, damp room with the smell of cigarettes.

“Thought you deserved a treat,” he says, and then gives in to a fit of hacking coughs.

Police interview rooms have been no-smoking zones since 2007. Smokers are at the mercy of their investigators when it comes to a nicotine fix. Colin Ray is not feeling merciful. Left the interview to pop outside for a cigarette, and declined Alan Rourke’s request to accompany him.

“Should give them up, lad,” says Ray, scraping the chair back from the desk and sitting down forcefully, wiping his eyes and then his nose with the heel of his hand. “They’re doing you no good. You look like shit.”

Rourke looks up. Shrugs. “Must be like holding up a mirror.”

Ray gives a smile. He’s enjoyed the past hour of verbal jousting with this hard, unshakable traveler. Rourke has given nothing away. Declined the offer of a solicitor with a wave of his hand, and launched into a variety of “No comments.” He looks thoroughly unconcerned. Has the appearance of a man who will sit there forever rather than genuinely help the police with their inquiries.

The door opens again and Shaz Archer walks in on unfeasibly high heels. She’s been to change her clothes, having failed to get Rourke’s attention in her previous outfit. She’s wearing fashionable patterned tights, an expensive mid-length skirt, and a floaty polka-dot top over a black vest. She looks stylish, sexy, and not at all like any of her colleagues. She’s the opposite of Helen Tremberg. She emphasizes her sexuality and is happy to give suspects a glimpse down her top if it means they start talking to say thank you. So far Rourke doesn’t seem to give a damn.

“Looking hot, Shaz,” says Ray, pursing his lips approvingly.

“I was freezing. You could hang your hat on my nips.”

“I don’t wear a hat.”

“Wasn’t talking to you, Col.”

Across the table, Rourke gives an appreciative, knowing smile. He doesn’t bite.

“Smells like an ashtray in here,” says Archer, lowering herself into her seat and crossing her legs with a sensual, shushing sound of nylon on silk.

“Spray your scent, love. Give us a treat.”

Archer reaches into her handbag and pulls out a bottle of perfume. Gives it a squirt. Sprays some more on her wrists and then elongates her neck to dab it beneath her ears. She does the whole performance sexily, but Rourke pays no attention. Just carries on staring at the wall. Only turns to her when the smell hits his nostrils.

“Smells like a brothel now,” he says.

“That’s Chanel,” says Archer tartly.

“Expensive brothel,” he says in reply, and gives an outlandish yawn.

Ray nods to his colleague. She swivels in her chair and turns on the tape recorder.

“It is 8:09 p.m. Detective Chief Inspector Colin Ray and Detective Inspector Sharon Archer interviewing suspect Alan Rourke. Now, Mr. Rourke, where were we?”

Rourke rocks back on his chair. “We were here, love. Having a ball.”

“Indeed,” says Ray, sucking his cheek and scratching at something unpleasant-looking on the lapel of his dirty pin-striped suit. “We were talking about your fingerprint being found on the bottle that was thrown at a police van. We were talking about your dogs attacking two police officers. We were sitting here, all ears, waiting for you to open your mouth and treat us to some of that fucking gibberish you pikey bastards speak.”

With the tape now recording every word, Ray should really be more careful what he says, but if he is concerned about repercussions, he hides it well.

Rourke says nothing. Gives a wry smile.

“
Go n-ithe an cat thu, is go n-ithe an diabhal an cat.”

Ray and Archer look at each other. “Come again?”

“May the cat eat you, and may the devil eat the cat.”

Ray scratches his face with his dirty yellow fingernails. Pushes his greasy hair back from his face. Chuckles noiselessly.

“That the family motto?”

“We’re a dog family.”

“Yeah, we noticed. So did Pharaoh.”

Rourke nods, looks down. Sighs. “She okay?”

“Still waiting to hear more,” lies Ray. “We’re fearing the worst.”

Rourke stays silent. “I stayed with her,” he says at last. “Could have gone, couldn’t I? I locked the dogs up. Called you. Held a towel to her throat . . .”

“You’re all heart,” says Ray, pushing himself back from the table.

There is silence in the room for a time, Ray and Rourke eyeing each other up. Ray had begun the interview, presuming it would be a matter of time before Rourke gave something up. Here, now, looking across the table into the retired armed robber’s eyes, he is beginning to doubt whether he will ever give in.

“You’ve done long stretches, Alan,” he says, changing tack. “You don’t want to see another prison cell. We just need some answers. Some information. Let’s start with the boy. Our missing teen. What’s your connection?”

Rourke turns away again. “No comment.”

“It doesn’t sound convincing when you say it, Alan. You know you want to comment.”

“Honest to God, no comment.”

Archer reaches into her handbag and retrieves a piece of chewing gum, which she pops into her mouth. She holds the packet for both Ray and Rourke. Rourke accepts. “Cheers, love.”

She smiles, friendly and warm. “You understand how seriously we’re taking this,” she says, leaning forward. “Two incidents, Alan. The petrol bomb and a dog attack, both placing the lives of respected police officers in real danger. And you linked to both. You must know that this isn’t going to go away. I understand completely that you have a code. You don’t like the police. But I don’t think you’re the sort of man who would deliberately set fire to a vanload of cops. And I know it was the lad who gave the order for the dogs to attack . . .”

Anger flashes in Rourke’s face. He curses in Gaelic. Apologizes. Nods.

“They are your dogs, though, Alan. You’ll be the one crying when they’re put down.”

For the first time, Rourke’s eyes show emotion. He bites down on his lip.

“We have some sway with all this, Alan. It’s not a done deal. The dogs are being well looked after. They’re safe with our specialist dogs unit. Having a little holiday. But they want to go home, and so do you. Just give us something to think about. Tell us why your fingerprint was on that bottle. Just a story, Alan. Something we can look into and discount you from our inquiries.”

Rourke yawns. Chews his gum. Looks up at the ceiling, as if the most interesting story he had ever read is written up there.

Ray loses his temper. “You’re going to give me something, lad. You’re going to fill in the gaps for me one way or another.”

Rourke turns his attention to the senior officer. Gives a rueful shake of his head, as if considering a puppy who has once again failed to control its bladder. “Always comes to that, doesn’t it. You’re all as bad as each other. Fucking thugs, all of you. All my life I’ve had you lot looking over my shoulder. Always comes down to the same thing. I’ve done my time, sir. Moved on. I’ve not been in trouble in a long time. And still I get you on my doorstep. I told the guy last month, you can threaten me all you want, I don’t have anything to say to you . . .”

Ray sits forward suddenly. “Last month?”

“Round face. Smart suit. One of your top dogs.”

Ray turns to Archer. Tells her to stay quiet without opening his mouth. Switches his attention back to Rourke.

“You were questioned recently?”

There is nothing on the database to indicate Rourke has had any dealings with the police in a long time.

“Don’t know if it was questioned,” he muses thoughtfully. “Given a talking to, more like.”

“In connection with . . .”

Rourke shuts up again. “No comment.”

Ray slams his hand down on the desk. “Which officer?”

Rourke appears to consider the implications of not giving away this snippet of information. “Russell,” he says at last.

Archer’s body language gives away the fact that this is significant, and Rourke’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Did he not put that on your little machine? Hardly a surprise. Would take some balls, that. Though I tell you what, sir, it takes some balls to threaten a man when his Rottweilers are by his side. He turned as green as these bloody walls. Don’t think he really made his point the way he wanted to.”

Ray slumps back in his chair. Presses his lips together. Wonders whether the traveler is telling the truth. Adrian Russell is head of the Drugs Squad: the last surviving member of the corrupt team that had morphed into the Serious and Organized a year ago. He’s also Colin Ray’s friend.

“Did he talk to you about drugs?”

“No comment.”

“Robbery?”

“Ask him.”

“You will fucking talk to me . . .”

Rourke smiles, all teeth and eyes.

“No I fucking won’t.”

•   •   •

11:41 P.M., MORPETH STREET, HULL.

Flickering streetlights and pouring rain. A terrace of student bedsits and low-income flats, where every second window shows a poster for a club night, and where the small front yards are home to mountains of ripped garbage bags, pizza boxes, and broken furniture. Where different styles of music hum and blare from open windows, and the shimmering color of giant flat-screen TVs flicker from curtainless front rooms.

Nineteen-year-old Georgie-Lee Suthers sits on the front step of one of the better-looking houses on the street. She is smoking a cigarette and playing with her phone.

She is dressed as a dead bride: her charity-shop dress powdered with talc. There is a livid slash of color at her throat. Panda eyes look out through a ghoulish white face, and her legs in ripped fishnets are a canvas for an advancing army of ink spiders.

The rain is ruining her makeup, but the Mateus Rosé and shots of rum have pitched her past caring. She looks at her phone. Hopes there will be a message. An apology. Advance warning of a busload of guests.

Georgie-Lee bites down on the filter tip of her cigarette and pouts. “Thanks a lot.”

It was supposed to be a party, but nobody could, in good conscience, call it anything other than a gathering.

Georgie-Lee has tried for the past three hours to make her housemate’s birthday something special, but not even the cramped confines of their two-bedroom flat can make the paltry dozen guests seem anything other than a disappointment.

She had worked hard at making the night a success. Arranged for friends to take Jen shopping while she set to work blowing up balloons and arranging chocolate crispy cakes and half-frozen sausage rolls on the coffee table. Even made a playlist for the iPod from their shared party tunes. Had a nice glass of wine and danced around as she covered the flat in fake cobwebs and skeleton silhouettes. Threw a bag of fake spiders around and drew pupils on Ping-Pong balls to drop in the “witches’ brew.”

With only half an hour to go before Jen was due back, Georgie-Lee realized that she should have made people confirm their attendance. The thirty or so university friends who said they would definitely try to be there have let her down. Jen has made all the right noises, of course, but even when she went and changed into the skimpy vampire costume that Georgie-Lee had picked out for her, it was clear she was neither in the mood for this nor pleased that nobody else was, either.

Georgie-Lee plays with her phone. Wonders whether she should update her Facebook status to read “Thinking of getting friends who actually give a shit!”

She won’t, of course. Georgie-Lee cannot bring herself to be mean to people. She doesn’t like conflict or an atmosphere. Instead, she logs on to the site and tells anybody who cares to read it that she is having “the BEST time ever!!”

She rubs out her cigarette on the wall and thinks about going back upstairs. When she came down for some air, a mad professor and a werewolf were going through her DVD collection and demanding she apologize for the absence of any samurai movies. She does not particularly want to go and jolly everybody along and pretend the party is something it is not. She wants them all to go, now. Wants to give Jen her present, then watch a horror film with the lights off.

Georgie-Lee looks up. Tries to catch some rain on her face, but the awning of the doorway means she is relatively dry, even if the cold air makes her shiver. She looks down her street, wondering if she should knock on doors and ask anybody who looks even vaguely interesting if they would like to attend. She wonders whether the two lads who live at number 57 are home, sitting watching DVDs in their downstairs flat, but her view is blocked by the presence of a large four-by-four, parked directly in front of the low wall that marks the border of her own property. It’s an expensive-looking vehicle, but it has been in the wars. The front bumper is crumpled and the headlight cracked. She wonders whom it belongs to. It seems out of place.