Original Skin (6 page)

HOME.
The back end of the Kingswood estate, a twenty-minute drive from the center of Hull and near enough to the East Riding villages on one side to compensate for the nearness of Europe’s biggest council estate on the other.

It’s a computer simulation, this place: a sprawl of Identikit houses and lawns the size of bath towels; of used cars bought on finance; and square living rooms costumed with hand-me-down sideboards and January-sale sofas and first-day-at-school photos.

Here, on the curve of one nondescript cul-de-sac, all white paint and bare brick, a rusty blue Peugeot with two wheels on the curb, tasteful ivory curtains and the slightest scent of baking . . .

Roisin McAvoy, pressing her head to her husband’s bare chest, absentmindedly tracing the ridged outlines of one of his many scars with her dainty, red-painted fingernails.

McAvoy barely registers her touch upon his dead skin. He can still smell flames. Twenty minutes in the shower scrubbing his face and hair with Roisin’s homemade rosemary-and-mint shampoo has not removed the acrid tang of petrol and smoke that clings to his skin like damp linen.

“Another?”

Roisin removes herself from his embrace and nods at her husband’s mug, held limp and lopsided between finger and thumb. The marshmallows have melted together and formed a rather pretty roof over the inch-deep sludge of hot chocolate.

“Aector? Another?”

“Not yet,” he says, and doesn’t know why. “It was lovely.”

“It’s the cinnamon,” she says brightly. “Aphrodisiac, y’know.”

McAvoy does know. They’ve had this conversation before. Roisin knows this, too, but in the past, such chats have led to tickles and fun, so he is pleased she is trying to steer him toward that goal once again, even if he has no energy for the helping of “adult time” she has clearly been craving all day.

“You sure you didn’t bump your head, darling?”

“I was nowhere near, Roisin. Didn’t even get warm on the flames.”

Nobody was badly hurt in the blast. Ben Neilsen had tripped jumping from the van and cut his hand. One of the uniformed constables who had used too much hairspray before suiting up for the operation had found herself looking momentarily angelic when the flames took hold, but Pharaoh had had the presence of mind to push her headfirst into a puddle, and she had escaped without significant injuries.

The operation had not gone well. The four-by-four had managed to lose the patrol car somewhere in the maze of old buildings down by the docks. The helicopter, when it had finally turned up, couldn’t pick up the trail. And when Pharaoh and her remaining team had burst through the sagging wooden doorway of the ramshackle warehouse, hoping to salvage the evening by at least seizing a few tons of marijuana, the place had been deserted. The long tables that lined the cold, dark space were covered in dirt and leaf, indicators that the building had indeed been used for cultivation of drugs, but whoever had used the place was long gone. Leanne has not answered her phone, and the uniformed officers dispatched to her house said it was empty and unlit.

“She’ll be fine,” says Roisin softly. “Pharaoh. She’s a big girl.”

McAvoy looks at his wife, trying to read her expression. She has not yet met his boss. Despite being married to a policeman, she is not comfortable in the presence of the law. She knows that Pharaoh means a lot to her husband and that there is no risk of him straying, but McAvoy has lately detected an edge in his bride’s voice whenever Pharaoh comes up in conversation.

“Briefing in the morning,” says McAvoy. “Debriefing, really. See what we can salvage from tonight. I’ll go and try Leanne again first thing. I’m sure she wouldn’t be involved in any setup. She’s not a bad person. She’s just, you know . . . it’s a mess . . .”

“You’ll sort it, Aector. Don’t worry.”

They are in the kitchen, leaning against the work surfaces. Roisin has just finished the dishes. McAvoy, at her insistence, has not been allowed to help. The arrangement is in part due to her claims that men should not worry about housework, and partly because he has a habit of dropping things and making a mess.

“Oh, I got a call from an old friend today,” says Roisin suddenly. “Can get us one of those Toyotas, the four-wheel-drive ones. Two grand and only three years old . . .”

McAvoy winces. Colors instantly. Wishes she had not brought this up. He does not know how to respond to her mentions of “friends” and “contacts”—least of all since this morning’s embarrassments with the travelers. He does not believe that any such car will have been procured legitimately. Fears it may even be stolen. He is ashamed of his thoughts and what they say about his prejudices, even toward the person he loves more than any other.

“We’ll see,” says McAvoy. “The insurance could still pay out.”

Roisin barks out a derisory laugh. The McAvoys are locked in a battle with their insurers. Their minivan had been reduced to a burned-out shell a week before Christmas, driven into a brick building by a killer who perished in the resulting blast. McAvoy had escaped with only minor burns. Those wounds have been a picnic compared to the resulting insurance headache. The company claims he is not covered for a “work-related” accident. Refuses to pay up. They have passed him between a dozen different departments; all apparently peopled by twelve-year-olds who keep laughing when they read his description of what caused the accident.

A sudden, halfhearted cry from upstairs causes Roisin to close her eyes in frustration. She is looking tired. Lilah has been difficult all day, grizzling and sobbing, refusing to feed.

“I’ll go,” says McAvoy, but Roisin waves a hand at him, insisting he go sit down. He does not want to, fearing he will fall asleep as soon as he closes his eyes. She brushes past him, too tired to notice him put out an arm for a cuddle.

McAvoy stands alone in the kitchen for a while. Looks in the bread bin and the biscuit barrel. Eats a couple of peanut butter cookies and takes a swig of milk from the carton in the fridge to swill the crumbs from his teeth. He looks for some kind of chore. Spots his coat over the back of the small kitchen table, and picks it up to go and hang it in the cupboard under the stairs. As he does so, Roisin appears at the top of the staircase. Lilah is red-faced and wet-eyed in her arms.

“I’m throwing those trousers away,” she says, nodding at the laundry basket by the bathroom. “Horrible.”

She reaches down and picks up something from the floor. “Oh, this was in the pocket.”

She throws him the mobile phone.

McAvoy had almost forgotten it. He colors as he looks at it.

“Fancy model, that,” says Roisin, mid-yawn. “You going to try and get it working?”

McAvoy runs his tongue around his mouth. Opens his mouth to justify his interest, and realizes Roisin does not need him to. Just nods and enjoys her smile.

•   •   •

AN HOUR LATER.

An Irish voice, made snappy by tiredness.

“He fecking is.”

Roisin McAvoy is pronouncing that the man on the television is an arsehole.

McAvoy looks up, wondering whom his wife is talking about. He has been lost in concentration, safe in focused hard work. He takes off his reading glasses and lets his eyes focus on the giant flat-screen TV that stands in the corner of the room. He gives a shudder. It’s the Thunderbird. Mr. Popple-head. Wanchorman.
That Arsehole
, to give him his full title. A Hull institution, he has somehow been elevated to the status of a local legend without appearing to have a single fan. He is a slight, creepy, weaselly-looking chap with a head too big for his slim frame and a mustache that has been shaved bootlace-thin and skin that has been sunbed-tanned to the color of damp sand. To McAvoy he always appears to be trying to remember whether he has left the gas on. How he got the gig presenting the local news has been open to speculation for some time, but there are suggestions it involved a complicated ritual and the sacrifice of a goat.

“Oh, God, turn him over,” he says, wondering how he has managed to blank out the man’s voice until now.

“Can’t,” she says. “Help!”

Roisin is feeding Lilah, one breast flopping over the top of her nightie, poking out from the folds of her leopard-print dressing gown. “The buttons are over there,” she says in mock desperation, nodding at the remote control. It sits taunting her at the other end of the sofa. “I’m stuck.”

McAvoy takes the hint. He has a tea tray on his knees, and the mud-caked mobile phone and an assortment of screwdrivers, cotton buds, and brushes laid out on the arm of the chair. He moves them all to one side and stands, padding barefoot to Roisin’s side. He retrieves the buttons and hands them to her. She takes them gratefully, but does not yet change the channel.

“How’s it going?” she asks, nodding at his tools.

McAvoy pulls a face. “I don’t know. It’s almost clean. I’ve got an adaptor and I can charge it through the laptop. The battery from my old Nokia should fit it if that one’s fried. SIM’s clean, so maybe. I don’t know. Wish I’d never found it.”

Roisin laughs. “No, you don’t.”

McAvoy returns to his chair, and Roisin, careful not to dislodge Lilah, fumbles with the controls. Before she can change the channel, Wanchorman introduces a story about changes to the makeup of the Police Authority.

“How did it go?” asks Roisin, remembering.

“It went,” says McAvoy. “The new chairman has some interesting ideas. He could go far.”

“Sounds like you would like to throw him there.”

McAvoy shakes his head. “I can’t make my mind up. I guess it makes no difference what I think.”

Roisin laughs. “You don’t mean that, either.”

McAvoy pokes his tongue out at her and turns his attention back to the broken phone, tuning himself out again as his wife makes herself comfortable and settles into her soap opera. He vaguely remembers that he has a cup of tea on the go, but figures that wherever he left it while bathing Fin and telling him his story, it will be too cold to bother about retrieving.

Ten minutes later, satisfied that the phone is as clean as he can make it, he disappears through to the kitchen and out of the back door to the shed. It stands on the nine-slab patio, next to the sandbox and mini-trampoline, and its mingled scent of sawdust and poster paints, linseed oil and solder, reminds him of his father. He has to cling to such links. The two do not speak.

McAvoy’s tools are neatly arranged on the wall, each piece of kit outlined in black marker so he can know instantly when something is not in its proper place. He pulls open a plastic drawer and roots through the collection of wires and leads. He has a habit of collecting random things too interesting to be thrown away, and a testament to the hardship of his youth.

He picks up a handful of wires and carries them back to the living room, stopping on his way to retrieve his laptop from where it is charging in the kitchen. Were his hands not so full he would scoop out another handful of lemon meringue pie from the foil tray that sits next to the microwave, but before he can consider sticking his face in the dessert, Roisin’s voice cuts through from the living room.

“Leave it. You’ve had two slices.”

He comes back to the living room, his head bowed: busted.

“I wasn’t going to have any more . . .”

“Fibber.” She raises an eyebrow, catlike. “Am I not feeding you?”

McAvoy looks down at his barrel torso, his chunky thighs and calves, bulging against his cutoff denim shorts and rugby shirt as if he were halfway through a metamorphosis into the Hulk.

“It’s soooo good . . . ,” he says, a child demanding more cake.

“I’ll make another one at the weekend. You can’t have everything you want all the time.”

The way she says it is enough to make them both laugh without need for a reply.

Some time later, after some gentle cursing and a skewered thumb, McAvoy has managed to create a makeshift adaptor out of an old phone cable and is plugging the phone into his laptop.

“Here we go,” he says and holds down the
ON
switch on the keypad.

Roisin, who is yawning and trying to keep her eyes open for the final credits of her program, can barely find the strength to pretend she is interested. “Working?” she asks as she shifts Lilah into a more comfortable position on her lap.

McAvoy is too engrossed in fiddling with the laptop to reply. He has not used this software before, downloaded from a specialist site dealing in data retrieval and recommended by a colleague in the Technical Support Unit.

“Aector?” His name ends in a slur.

McAvoy looks up. Roisin is starting to doze off, sliding into a half-seated, half-lying-down position, her legs drawn up childlike beneath her. McAvoy carefully moves the computer to the side and crosses to her, taking Lilah from her unresisting grasp. His daughter wriggles and grimaces a little, letting out a tiny cry of disapproval at being disturbed, but McAvoy presses her to his chest and shushes her back to the lightest of sleeps. He slides back into the armchair and watches the screen as the phone’s memory is transferred to his desktop.

“Look what Daddy did . . .”

The flickering screen reflects on his daughter’s face, turning her apricot cheeks and smooth, almond-colored brow into a shimmering collage of images, words, numbers, names . . .