Someone Else's Skin

by Sarah Hilary

  ‘Home being the shithole estate where they found him? I tend to doubt that.’

  ‘We have the scimitar. With Mirza’s prints on it. That’s no good?’

  ‘Not even close. The Crown Prosecution Service,’ Welland served each syllable as if it was an individually foul taste in his mouth, ‘need more evidence before they’ll make a move against Nasif. Apparently this . . . dog’s dinner isn’t enough.’

  Marnie picked up the worst of the photos for a closer look. Noah wished he had her backbone for this part of the job. He was too easily disgusted, needed to toughen up, get used to seeing things like this. Things like . . .

  Lee Hurran’s hand, half eaten. By rats, or a feral cat. The hand wasn’t found in the warehouse where the attack happened. Nasif Mirza, or someone, had tossed it over a wall, into a fly-tipped piece of scrubland.

  ‘Ayana Mirza . . .’ Marnie started to say.

  ‘CPS wants a statement from her,’ Welland said, ‘about her brother’s violent temperament. Better still, they’d like her to press charges for what was done to her.’

  ‘We can arrest Nasif without her testimony.’

  ‘For this?’ Welland pointed at the photographs. ‘Or the other thing?’

  Noah didn’t want to think about the other thing – what Nasif Mirza had done to his sister, in their family home. The pictures of Hurran’s half-eaten hand were bad enough.

  Neither he nor Marnie had met Ayana Mirza. They’d inherited the case from another department, a casualty of the recent public-sector cuts.

  ‘CPS is cagey about the chances of bringing Nasif to trial,’ Welland said. ‘Other prints on the scimitar, the chance it was stolen, blah-blah. They think Ayana’s evidence might swing it. She’s a walking testament to Nasif’s worst tendencies. No denying she’d look good in court.’

  ‘And they don’t see this as victim harassment?’

  ‘They’re cagey, Detective. You and I know what happens when the CPS gets cagey.’

  ‘I know what happened to Ayana.’ Marnie’s eyes were dark. ‘It wasn’t just Nasif, either. It was three of them – her brothers.’

  ‘The crap that happens in families . . .’ Welland winced, as if he’d said something tactless, cutting his eyes away from Marnie.

  She shrugged. ‘It’s a good living, if you’re a psychiatrist.’

  Noah felt he’d missed a beat, tuned out for a vital second. The heat was boiling his brain in his skull. How could Welland work like this?

  ‘You’ll want to tread carefully. She’s terrified of her brothers tracing her. She’s hiding . . .’ Welland consulted a notepad.

  ‘In a women’s refuge in Finchley,’ Marnie supplied. ‘I spoke with Ed Belloc.’

  ‘Finchley.’ Welland nodded. ‘What’s Ed got to say about her?’

  Ed Belloc worked in Victim Support. Noah hadn’t met him, but from what Marnie said, he was a good man doing a difficult job. He’d helped the police to trace Ayana Mirza after she escaped her family.

  ‘She won’t risk upsetting the refuge,’ Marnie said, ‘or losing her place there. She doesn’t have many options, can’t afford rent. If she gets a job or starts claiming benefits, there’s the danger her brothers can trace her through her National Insurance number. So . . . she’s trying to stay missing.’

  Welland nodded. He climbed to his feet. ‘DS Jake, you’ll want to check your emails. DI Rome, a word?’

  Marnie waited while Noah left the office, knowing what was coming. She folded her hands in her lap as a contingency against fidgeting. The ends of her fingers were sticky from touching the photos; she wanted to wash. It didn’t help that Tim Welland kept this place heated like a sauna. She’d bet Noah Jake was running a cold shower in the station’s washroom.

  When they were alone, Welland leaned back, steepling his thumbs under his chin. ‘How’re you doing?’

  Under the hot light, the dome of his head was glassy and freckled. His face, with no eyelashes or brows, looked naked. Open. Good for drawing confidences, or confessions. He’d come close to losing an eye to the cancer. Even now, in remission for two years, the shadow of the disease tugged at the skin there, keeping the eye bleakly peeled so that those who didn’t know about his operations – his battle – joked that Tim Welland slept with one eye open.

  ‘I’m fine.’ She smiled across the desk at him. The heat shone on the photos scattered between them. Teeth marks on Lee Hurran’s dead hand. Had he asked to see it? she wondered. Hurran. Had he asked to see his hand, even though there was no hope of surgeons reattaching it? By the time they found it, it was long dead.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she repeated.

  Welland searched her face for another answer. Some of this, she suspected, was box-ticking. Management 101: Show concern for those under your command, especially at times of stress. He wasn’t enjoying it. ‘I may do a terrific impersonation of an insensitive shit, but I know what day it is.’

  ‘It’s Friday,’ she deflected, still smiling.

  He nodded at the wall calendar. Pictures of bridges. Welland loved bridges. March’s picture was the rolling bridge in Paddington Basin. It looked like a giant hamster wheel.

  ‘Tomorrow . . . it’ll be five years to the day. How’re you coping?’

  ‘By not counting,’ Marnie said.

  Not counting, not remembering. Not sharing.

  ‘But you’re still seeing him.’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d never made a secret of her visits, knowing Welland would find out anyway; murder detectives didn’t go into secure units without lighting flags on the system. ‘Tomorrow, in fact.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Welland repeated. ‘On the anniversary.’

  ‘It was booked ages ago. I’m not taking balloons.’ The smile hurt her face but she stuck with it. ‘If that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Of course I’m not thinking of bloody balloons. I’m thinking of what he did, five years ago . . .’

  ‘A long time, five years.’ She picked up a photo of Lee Hurran’s hand, pretending to study it again. It meant she could lose the smile, for one thing. ‘For him. Five years is a long time, for Stephen.’

  ‘Not long enough,’ Welland growled. He cleared his throat. ‘Detective Inspector . . . Marnie.’ He grimaced. First names weren’t his thing. It’d been hard on him five years ago, outside her parents’ house, calling her Marnie, holding her in his arms.

  She decided to spare him any further discomfort. ‘I’ve got a job to do.’ She stood up. ‘Clearing the way for the CPS, right?’

  Welland looked relieved, hunching back in his chair, freeing his fingers to wash at his face, where the skin was taut from repeated surgery. ‘Right.’

  2

  In Finchley, the clouds had beaten the sun into submission.

  The women’s refuge was brown concrete, built low to the ground, its flat roof swollen with too many coats of tar. Scaffolding cross-hatched the facade, red and white tape making barber’s poles of the metal struts. A shallow wall of rain-welted polythene ran around the lip of the roof. With every window blacked out, it would’ve been easy to mistake the place for a condemned building, derelict.

  ‘First impressions?’ Marnie asked, as she cut the car’s engine. ‘I can’t say I’m digging the prefab chic.’

  ‘It’s a serious contender for the most depressing place I’ve ever seen.’ Noah peered through the windscreen. ‘Maybe it’s better inside . . .’

  ‘That’s what Ed says. About the average refuge, anyway.’ Marnie climbed from the car. ‘Not sure about this one.’

  Noah followed her. Passing traffic shifted the polythene sheeting, the sound like sand under shoes. From the scaffolding, a seared metal smell. Holes pitted the path to the main entrance, where a dodgy tarmac job hadn’t taken. The place was a dump.

  ‘What’re they doing to the roof?’ Noah asked.

  ‘No idea. Maybe it’s leaking.’ Marnie stood looking at the blind windows of the refuge. ‘Imagine living like this, without trace. I don’t think I cou
ld do it. Could you?’

  Noah said, ‘If I was desperate, maybe. If there was no other choice.’

  ‘Sure, if you were desperate.’ She put a hand to the side of her neck. ‘If this is where Ayana Mirza feels safe, we need to respect that. If we can persuade her to give evidence against her brothers, that’s a bonus. But let’s tread gently.’

  Noah nodded. Above them, the clouds were gleaming, grey. ‘It’s going to rain,’ he said. ‘I hope they’ve got the roof properly sealed.’

  ‘That’s not rain.’ Marnie glanced at the sky. ‘It’s a storm. Can’t you smell it?’

  Inside, the air felt stripped dry, charged with static. Now Noah could smell the storm. The silence in the refuge was artificial. Untrustworthy. Marnie tensed, turning back to consider the door as it swung shut behind them. ‘What happened to the security?’

  The Cyclops lens of a CCTV camera, mounted on the wall outside, gave back their faces in miniature. Marnie had her ID in her hand, but no one was asking to see it.

  ‘The door was on the latch,’ Noah said. ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marnie stood taking stock of the silence.

  ‘Maybe they’ve evacuated the building, while the scaffolding’s put up.’

  ‘Not according to Ed. Support staff work nine to five, Monday to Friday. There should be someone in charge. Come on.’

  They started down an empty corridor that smelt of stale cigarettes, talcum powder and milk. At the far end: a fire exit, closed. The silence was thicker than ever.

  Noah rubbed his fingers, chilled. It wasn’t just the quiet; everything felt wrong about the refuge, as if they were walking into a trap or—

  A scream tore up from their right.

  Marnie Rome broke into a run.

  Noah stayed at her heels, the back of his neck spooked into goose bumps.

  3

  As they reached the room, the screaming stopped. Abruptly, as if someone had thrown a switch. An obese girl in a black tracksuit stood with her hands over her mouth, in the middle of a huddle of silent women. The room had wide windows hidden by curtains, and murals on the walls: jungle animals in tall grass. Surreal.

  A man was on the floor, a woman standing over him with a knife, bloody and wet.

  DI Rome put out a hand to her. ‘All right. It’s all right now.’

  The woman’s eyes swung at her, wildly. The knife jumped in her fist.

  Noah, who’d been reaching for his phone, stopped. Wanting his hands free in case she went for Marnie, or one of the others. His heart was pelting in his chest. On the floor, the man’s feet kicked. Noah needed to get down there and help, but he was afraid to move while the woman looked like this: frantic, capable of anything. Static had stuck her long blonde hair to her face in spikes.

  Marnie said, ‘This is DS Noah Jake.’ Her voice was rock-steady, calm. ‘I’m DI Rome. We’re here to help.’ She nodded at Noah, her eyes not leaving the woman’s fist.

  The knife stopped jumping. The woman tensed with listening, as if her whole body was an ear, watching the calm expression on Marnie’s face, hypnotised by it.

  Noah had forgotten Marnie Rome could do this. Talk people down. He’d seen it at the station, but never in an armed situation. Keeping his eyes on the knife, he took out his phone and dialled 999. ‘Ambulance, please.’ He gave the address, aware of the breach of protocol; the refuge address was a closely guarded secret, for the sake of the women’s safety.

  It was a kitchen knife, an ordinary kitchen knife. In the woman’s fist.

  Someone had thrown a big bunch of yellow roses on the floor. The man’s feet kept kicking, smearing petals into the carpet. He was wheezing, red spreading on his chest.

  ‘DS Jake,’ Marnie prompted.

  Noah pocketed his phone and crouched, checking for a pulse in the man’s neck, searching with his free hand for the source of the blood: a single stab wound at the base of the ribs on the right side. His fingers slipped in the mess of torn tissue and he pitched forward a fraction, sickened. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry . . .’ He put a fist to the floor to get his balance back, keeping his other hand tight over the wound.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Marnie said. It took Noah a second to realise she was speaking to the blonde woman behind him. ‘Put the knife down, or give it to me. I’ll take care of this. Of you.’

  The wounded man’s face was square and pitted, pasty. The air staggered in his chest, pink froth bubbling from his lips. Noah glanced up, trying to get some measure of what had happened here. The woman’s face was white, her eyes black. Her fist was red. She’d pushed the knife as far as it would go into the man’s chest, deep enough to wet her fingers with his blood. An eight-inch blade. All the way in. That meant . . .

  Noah felt the suck of the wound under his palm. Bright spittle frothed from the man’s mouth. His lung was perforated.

  Shit.

  Noah needed to stop the lung collapsing. He had to stop it, right now.

  He pressed his left palm to the sucking wound, sliding his free arm under the man’s neck so he could prop him into a sitting position. It wasn’t easy. The man was over six foot and heavily built, padded everywhere with fat and muscle.

  Blood filled Noah’s palm hotly. He had to stopper the stab wound, make it airtight.

  He knew this . . .

  Trauma training. In theory, he knew it. First time in practice.

  ‘Here.’ A slim dark girl knelt next to him, holding out a Pay As You Go phone card and a cotton scarf, orange and pink. ‘Use these.’

  A flood of relief pushed adrenalin into the right places. ‘Thanks.’ Noah could use the phone card, but not the scarf. ‘Is there cling film? In the kitchen?’

  She gave a sharp nod and straightened, disappearing from his line of vision. Noah took the man’s weight, saying, ‘Spit, if you can.’ The less froth in his mouth, the better.

  Behind them, DI Rome was holding the blonde woman. Noah couldn’t see the knife now, but he could hear the woman sobbing, her teeth snapping with shock. One of the others said, ‘How did he get in here?’ It was a girl’s voice, rising to a scream as she repeated it: ‘How the fuck did he get in here?’

  Marnie murmured something and the screaming stopped. The dark girl returned to Noah’s side, with a roll of cling film. He covered the stab wound with the phone card in the hope it would stop more air escaping from the punctured lung, before reaching for the film, struggling with it until the girl knelt, the two of them passing the roll between them, the girl helping to support the injured man’s weight. She was strong, despite her small frame. She tore the cling film with her teeth when Noah had enough to bind the man’s chest three times, making the wound airtight.

  ‘Thanks.’ He looked at her for the first time, seeing a straight sheet of black hair, an oval face, almond eyes, the left one a milky ruin, burned at the lid and brow. ‘Ayana?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was Nasif Mirza’s sister, the woman they’d come to question. She was nineteen years old, but looked younger.

  DI Rome crouched on her heels by their side. ‘How’s he doing?’

  ‘His lung’s collapsing. We’ve done what we can, but he needs to get to a hospital.’

  Marnie shoved a stray curl from her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘His name’s Leo. Leo Proctor.’ She nodded at Noah. ‘Good job, Detective.’

  ‘I had help.’

  Marnie nodded at Ayana. ‘Good job.’

  Ayana wiped blood from her hand on to her skirt. ‘I don’t understand how he got in. It is safe. They always lock the doors. I’ve checked.’ She stopped, aware that her voice was the loudest sound in the room; the wounded man had stopped kicking, his breath clicking wetly in his chest. ‘They always lock the doors,’ Ayana repeated.

  Someone sobbed; the blonde woman with the bloodstained hand. An African girl with braided hair was holding her. Both women wore the same shapeless clothes: grey sweatpants and shirts.

  ‘She’s in shock.’ Marnie looked down at the injured man. ‘She’s Hope Procto
r. This is her husband. I’ll make sure the ambulance knows where we are.’

  4

  Fuck. Two police cars. Three, if he counted the unmarked Mondeo.

  Bitch had backup.

  He sat very low in the car, pulling at the cap he’d bought at the tourist stall: I ♥ London. Its peak hid his eyes and mouth. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be in a car, let alone within a hundred yards of the women’s refuge. The sudden wail of a siren had him fumbling at the car key, snagging its teeth in the ignition. Clumsy bastard.

  She did that to you . . .

  He dropped his hand into his lap, checking the mirrors. The rain kept coming, as if someone had unplugged the sky, sheets of the stuff, thick and chilly, making the car steam. He ran the wipers, clearing the inside of the windows with the cuff of his overalls, so he could keep watch.

  Fucked if he was running.

  It’d taken him weeks to track her down to this dump. The refuge stank, even from a distance. Damp. Yeasty. She’d smelt that way. It’d turned him on, once.

  An ambulance shaved the pavement as it parked up, the gutter throwing a wave of rain as the vehicle’s back doors banged open.

  Shit.

  He slunk lower in the seat. Watching to see what came out of the refuge, whether it’d be a man or a woman, alive or dead.

  Better not be her . . .

  It’d better fucking not be her.

  He wanted to do her with his bare hands. Just the two of them, the way it’d been before. Except this time, he wouldn’t turn his back.

  That’d been stupid.

  He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  5

  The paramedics – one male, two female – arrived shiny with wet. At some point in the last hour, the rain had started. Monsoon-force now, slapping up from the roof of the ambulance, stuttering in the potholed driveway.

  ‘We’ve got him, thanks.’ A paramedic nodded at Noah.

  He moved out of the man’s way before climbing to his feet, stiff-kneed and shaking.