Someone Else's Skin (6 page)

They were getting nowhere, turning in circles. Ayana was convinced of her powerlessness, seemed almost to relish it. Noah had been wrong: he didn’t understand her at all. He needed to check Hope’s room, for letters from Leo. ‘Can you tell me about what happened with Hope and Leo this morning?’

Ayana smoothed the skirt of her dress. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Was it the first time you’d seen Leo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Everyone was in the dayroom,’ Noah said. ‘Is that usual?’

‘Yes. After breakfast, we watch television. We take it in turns to make coffee or tea. It helps us to feel part of a family. We watch television together. Like normal people.’

Daytime television. Her definition of normal.

‘Leo Proctor arrived just after nine o’clock,’ Noah said. ‘Is that right?’

‘It was nine twenty.
Lorraine
was finishing.’

‘You were all in the dayroom. Hope, Simone and the others.’

Ayana counted on her fingers. ‘Hope, Simone, Mab, Shelley and Tessa, and me.’

‘Where was Jeanette?’

Again, Ayana counted on her fingers. ‘Smoking outside. Sneaking into our rooms. Eating the food in the fridge.’

‘She was in the dayroom when we arrived.’

‘She came in just before you did and started screaming as soon as she arrived. She was the only one of us making a noise.’

‘Who saw Leo first?’ Noah asked. ‘Was it Hope?’

‘Probably. The rest of us were watching television, but she isn’t very interested in it. Not just
Lorraine
. Anything.’ Ayana returned her hands to her lap. ‘She’s nervous, cannot settle to anything.’

‘Early days for her, isn’t it? I expect everyone takes a while to settle in.’

‘She’s been here three weeks. She was getting worse, not better.’ It was clear from her tone that she disapproved of Hope’s failure to settle at the refuge.

‘Worse in what way?’

‘Always moving around. Restless, as if she didn’t want to be here.’

‘How was she this morning?’

‘As usual.’ Ayana shrugged. ‘No better, no worse.’

‘Restless,’ Noah said. ‘Nervous.’

‘Yes.’

‘Where was she in the room when Leo arrived?’

Ayana thought for a second. ‘By the window. She was always by the window. Not looking out, none of us does that, but she liked standing there. Perhaps the room felt stuffy to her.’

‘How did she react to seeing Leo?’ Noah asked.

‘She turned very quickly. It made us all look to see what the trouble was. That’s when we saw him.’

The door was behind the sofas, facing the television. The window had a clear sightline to the door. It made sense that Hope would see the door open before anyone else. ‘All of you saw him at the same time?’ Noah asked. ‘When Hope turned?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did Hope say anything or make any noise?’

‘She took a big breath.’ Ayana imitated the sound, sucking air with a hiss between her teeth. ‘She didn’t speak.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘He stood in the doorway. She walked towards him.’

‘She walked towards him. Are you sure it wasn’t the other way around?’

‘Look at the stain on the carpet,’ Ayana said placidly. She was very sure of her recall. ‘If he had gone to her, the stain would be by the window.’

‘Did he say anything?’ Noah asked.

‘No. He held out the roses.’

‘How did he hold them out, can you demonstrate?’

Ayana put her hands together, at arm’s length from her chest.

‘He used both hands?’

She nodded.

‘Did Hope take the roses?’

A smile flitted across her mouth. ‘No.’

‘But she walked over to him. Got close.’

‘If she’d had a gun,’ Ayana shrugged, ‘she could have stayed by the window. She had to get close. She had a knife.’

In the silence that followed this statement, Noah heard a jingle playing on the television, for cheap car insurance.

‘What makes you think that
Hope
had the knife?’

‘It is the only thing that makes sense. He would not bring a knife in here. Why would he? If he wanted to kill her, he would have done it at home. In here? In front of all these witnesses?’ Ayana spread her hands. ‘It makes no sense.’

‘You think she meant to do it.’ Noah felt chilled. ‘It wasn’t an accident.’

‘He bled into your lap. Did it seem like an accident to you?’

‘Simone says that Hope panicked.’ He spaced out his words, speaking very softly. ‘That she was scared, and she panicked.’

‘She was scared,’ Ayana agreed. ‘But it wasn’t panic. It wasn’t an accident.’ She knitted her fingers in her lap. ‘Nothing is ever an accident, for us. No one ever
falls down the stairs
or
slips and hits her head
. We make excuses, to cover up, but these things are never accidents.’

‘Where did Hope get the knife?’ Noah asked.

‘I suppose . . . from the kitchen. Or she brought it with her, from home.’

‘Simone says it was self-defence, an accident. Why would she lie?’

‘To protect Hope,’ Ayana replied equitably. ‘They have become close. She is the only one Hope speaks to, I think. And because Hope had a good reason to kill him.’

She touched the corner of her blind eye. ‘A better reason than my brothers had for this. They said I looked at a boy, but I did not. I never looked at anyone but them. The joy they took in their duty. How happy they were, being my gaolers. The way it made them feel so strong. Manly.’ Her voice hardened, but she sounded bewildered, as if even now she could not believe what was done to her. ‘That is why they did it. Because I looked at
them
the wrong way. No one else.’

She lifted her chin, challenging Noah with a stare. ‘If I’d had a knife, I’d have done the same as Hope. Three times over. I would have found a way to make it stop. Just as she did. She had to make him stop. You cannot begin to guess what he had done to her, the ways he made her afraid. You should be glad of it. Of Hope. The police need all the help they can get with monsters like that.’

11

Hope Proctor was lying on a trolley parked against one of the hospital’s grazed walls. A white waffle blanket covered her, from chest to feet. Under it, she wore a hospital gown, papery against her skin. Pink spots of shame showed under each eye, as if she’d pinched the skin; she knew what the doctor had reported, no secrets left to her.

Marnie drew up a chair next to the trolley. ‘We don’t have to speak yet. It can wait until you’re stronger.’

‘I want to do it now.’ There was an undercurrent of fierceness in Hope’s voice. ‘It can’t get any worse. Unless . . . How’s Leo? They wouldn’t tell me, except that he’s still unconscious.’

‘It’s all there is to tell. He’ll pull through, that’s how it looks.’

Hope nodded. ‘Good.’ At the refuge, she’d looked terrorised at the prospect of her husband surviving the attack. Was it fear of reprisal? ‘I don’t want him to die. In case you thought . . .’ Her face convulsed. ‘I would
never
hurt him.’

‘He hurt you. Didn’t he?’

Hope’s eyes slid away. ‘That’s . . . private.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘A marriage is
private
.’

Was that how Leo had convinced her to keep the abuse to herself? What happened behind closed doors was nobody else’s business. Marnie had heard the line often enough in domestic violence cases. ‘The doctor told me about your injuries. I understand it’s hard to talk about this, but you were living at the refuge. You must have wanted it to stop.’

‘I wanted time.’ Hope plucked at the blanket, her fingers colourless with cold. ‘To think. Time for him to think, too. I thought . . . if we could just
think
about what we wanted . . .’

‘What do you want, Hope?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘Mrs Proctor’.

‘I
love
my husband,’ Hope hissed fretfully. ‘What’s wrong with that, in this day and age? I loved him when I married him and I still love him. I took my vows in good faith.’

An old-fashioned sentiment. Hope was twenty-eight. Doll-like with her fair hair and heart-shaped face, little hands with pearly fingernails. She must have been a very pretty bride, in vintage lace, a veil, orange-blossom bouquet. When did she get the pierced-heart tattoo? Surely not before the wedding.

‘You went to the refuge, three weeks ago. Why did you do that?’

‘To think. I told you. To have time to think.’

‘You’ve been married for nine years. When was the first time he hurt you?’

Hope pressed her lips together, looking away.

‘Something happened three weeks ago,’ Marnie said, ‘to make you leave. What happened?’

‘I panicked. Sometimes I get these . . . attacks. Panic. I don’t know what to do.’

‘Have you seen a doctor about them?’

Hope jerked her head in a nod. ‘Leo took me, when it was really bad. He thought there should be pills, something to help me. To calm me down.’

Chemical cosh. Leo Proctor. What a man.

‘Did the doctor give you anything?’

‘Yes, but the pills made me sick. Dopey. I couldn’t get up in the mornings. Leo needs his breakfast. He works in construction. He needs three square meals.’ She recited the words as if they were a code by which she lived, her marriage vows in practice.

‘So you stopped taking the pills. What happened then?’

‘I was . . . all right as long as I was busy. Leo was on overtime, a big job that needed finishing fast. His hours were crazy. I couldn’t keep up.’ She held her hair back from her face before dragging it forward to hide her eyes. ‘I kept getting things wrong. Burning food, buying the wrong things. I . . . broke a mirror. Seven years’ bad luck. That’s all I could think.’ Her shoulders shook. Tears wet the neck of her gown. ‘Seven years! Seven –
more years
.’

Marnie waited for her to calm down. ‘So you went to the refuge. Did you tell him you were going there?’

Ed Belloc in Victim Support called it Rule One: if you’re thinking of leaving your abuser, never tell him. Just go. Women who told their husbands they were leaving didn’t always make it out alive.

‘I didn’t tell him,’ Hope said, without conviction.

‘But he found you, this morning. Did you call him, Hope? Is that how he found out you were at the refuge?’

Hope roped her hands in her hair. She’d fretted at the bandage on her right hand, fraying it. After a long moment, she breathed, ‘Yes . . .’

‘How did he react, when you told him?’

Marnie had to wait for an answer. Finally Hope said, ‘He was worried about me. He wanted to know I was okay. He worries when I’m around other people. I’m not very good at reading people, not very smart. Sometimes that gets me into trouble.’

The doctor had admired Hope’s intellect. Yet Leo had convinced her that she wasn’t very smart. Classic isolating technique. Making everyone else into a threat. Leo as her hero, the one keeping her safe. ‘Did he ask you to come home?’

Hope’s face was crumpled like a newborn’s, with the same unseeing eyes. ‘No, he didn’t. Not then. He asked if he could see me. When I said they didn’t like visitors, he got . . . angry.’ She wiped at her nose, mucus shining her hand. ‘He wanted to see me. I’m his wife. Everyone at the refuge was a stranger. I might be in danger.’

‘Did you feel in danger?’

Hope shook her head. ‘I was safe. I
told
him I was safe. But he was worried for me.’

‘Even though you said you were okay.’

‘I told him I was making friends. Simone and Mab. Especially Simone.’

‘How did he react to that? To you making friends?’

Hope reached for the blanket. ‘I never had friends before.’

‘Never?’ Marnie helped her with the blanket. ‘Or just not since you got married?’

‘Since . . . school, I suppose. I’m not very good with people.’ She twisted her hands in the waffled cotton. Thin strips of muscle marked what Marnie could see of the backs of her hands. The kind of muscle you got in a good gym lifting weights, or from hard manual labour. The cleaning staff at the police station had the same hands, just less well manicured; Leo liked his wife to look nice, in public. ‘Leo told you that you weren’t good with people.’

Hope stiffened. ‘It’s true. Leo doesn’t lie. Not – not to me.’

‘He lies to other people?’

‘Only the usual things. Like when he’s late for work, or rugby. Not what
you
mean.’ She flushed, pulling at her hair again, searching for split ends. ‘I know what you think, what you’re trying to do, but I stabbed him.
Me
.’ She thumped at her chest. It made a hollow sound. ‘It was me.’

‘It was you. I’m trying to find out why. You said you didn’t want him to die.’

‘I didn’t. I don’t.’

‘But you stabbed him in the chest with a knife.’

‘I panicked!’ Hope’s eyes swivelled away from Marnie.

‘Why did you panic, Hope? What did you think was going to happen?’

She waited, but Hope stayed locked inside herself, one fist in her hair, the other balled against her chest. Marnie was acutely aware of the tattoo the doctor had described. Below Hope’s right breast. A heart with an arrow shot through it. Her skin itched with empathy. ‘Had he used a knife before? To threaten you? To hurt you?’

‘No.
No
.’

‘Where did the knife come from?’

‘From – home. He brought it from home.’

An ordinary kitchen knife. The kind everyone has at home. Marnie told herself to concentrate on the woman on the trolley, not to let her mind stray in the direction of memories. ‘The knife was yours. Yours and Leo’s.’

‘We bought it from Peter Jones, when – when we were first married.’

‘How was Leo able to bring it into the refuge?’

‘He – hid it in the roses.’

Somewhere in the hospital, an alarm shrilled.

‘He hid the knife,’ Marnie repeated, ‘in the roses.’

‘They’re my favourite. Yellow roses.’

The roses were an empty gesture. Why couldn’t Hope see that? Five years ago, on behalf of the Met, Tim Welland had sent a wreath. Lilies, a sickly topspin of decay, like a scented candle in a pathology lab. Marnie had hated lilies ever since.