Someone Else's Skin

by Sarah Hilary

  Marnie had brought a torch from the car. ‘You didn’t speak to Mrs Proctor?’

  ‘They didn’t see me.’ Gill looked proud of his powers of subterfuge.

  Noah asked, ‘How did they seem to you?’

  ‘In a hurry. She had her head down, as per usual. It was the other lass in charge.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Marnie asked.

  ‘She took the suitcase for one thing, and she was holding Mrs Proctor’s elbow, steering her along. She had the whip-hand, all right.’ He glanced at the torch in Marnie’s hand. ‘You’ll want to look inside, see what’s missing.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll do that.’

  ‘Mind you, it’s her house,’ Felix Gill said. ‘She’s entitled to take what she likes. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  The Proctors’ house had the same chill as before, with no immediate clue that Hope and Simone had been inside four hours earlier. Noah and Marnie went upstairs, searching the bedroom for missing clothes. It wasn’t easy to see what Hope had taken. No gaps in the wardrobe, or the drawers. Beds smooth, shutters closed. Dust line-danced through the white slats. From the look of it, no one had been in either bedroom since Noah and Marnie’s last visit. Someone had opened the bathroom cabinet: a smudge of fingerprints on the mirrored glass. The bottle of antidepressants was missing, together with the Vaseline, antiseptic cream, plasters. The makings of a first-aid kit. Nothing to account for a heavy suitcase, assuming Felix Gill had read the situation right.

  They searched the rooms downstairs, finding everywhere the same as before. Noah wondered if his memory was letting him down, but Marnie said, ‘I can’t see that anything’s gone, can you?’ He shook his head. ‘So what was in the suitcase?’

  They stood in the kitchen, looking at the knife rack. Nothing new was missing, just the knife that was bagged in the evidence locker back at the station. ‘We should’ve conducted a proper search. Then we’d know for sure what they’d taken.’

  ‘We didn’t have a warrant,’ Noah reminded her. ‘And the show-house furniture, new beds . . . It didn’t look like the place was hiding anything.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘It looked like it was hiding everything.’

  In the hall, they stopped outside the cupboard with the latched door.

  Noah’s skin crawled. This was where the Proctors had kept at least one of their secrets, in the torturously small space under the stairs. Marnie slid the latch. It came easily, without a sound, as if Leo oiled it regularly. She shone the torch inside, the light moving muddily over the stone floor and walls. ‘Are those scratch marks?’

  Noah peered. ‘Hard to tell.’

  ‘Check it out, would you?’

  Noah glanced at her. ‘You mean . . .’

  She handed him the torch. ‘Get a proper look at what’s in there. Tell me what you think.’

  Noah stripped off his jacket and hung it over the banister. He crouched and drew in his head, moving sideways to fit his body into the small space. The slant of the stairs forced him to keep his chin drawn in against his chest. His shoulders blocked the light from the hallway. Not enough room to move his elbows properly. He ended up holding the torch under his chin as he searched the floor and walls, painstakingly, every cold, gritty inch.

  Raw stone grazed the ends of his fingers. He kept his nose closed against the ammonia stink of Hope Proctor’s fear. How long had she been in here, each time Leo locked her up? Minutes? Hours? Days? Noah didn’t think he could’ve lasted minutes, never mind any longer.

  The weight of the house was crushing. He was acutely aware of Marnie standing behind him in the hallway. Near enough to reach out and shut the door, slide the oiled latch and lock him in. He set his teeth and completed the search. Not just the floor, the walls too. Hope could’ve banged on the wall that joined this house to the neighbours. They’d have heard it, surely. These new-builds had hollow walls. She hadn’t banged on the wall, Noah was certain of it. Sitting instead with her knees hugged to her chest, and her head drawn in, making herself as small as possible so the space would feel less like a box, or a coffin.

  He ran the torch’s light over the place where Marnie had spotted scratches, touching his hand there. Scarred patches snagged at his fingers, thin grooves in the stone and plaster. Maybe Hope hadn’t sat still the whole time . . .

  ‘Anything?’ Marnie asked when he climbed out.

  His shirt was sticking to his skin. ‘You’re right. Scratches on the walls and the floor. Could’ve been made by fingernails, or boxes being moved in and out. Most people would use a cupboard like this to store boxes.’ He glanced back at the space. ‘But these were made by fingernails. I’d put money on it.’

  ‘Fingernails,’ Marnie repeated.

  ‘Yes. She’s scratched right around the walls, must’ve broken most of her nails.’

  Marnie was silent, the expression on her face hard to read. She looked serious, severe even, but it was more than just that. ‘What?’ he asked quickly.

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’ She took the torch from him. ‘You’ll want to wash your hands.’ Her tone was clipped, and distant, as if she was speaking to him down a phone line.

  He waited a second or two, puzzled. Did he look that freaked out? That she regretted delegating the dirty work his way? ‘I’m okay,’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘Good. Wash your hands.’

  In the kitchen, he used the sink, drying his hands on a sheet of paper towel.

  Marnie held out his jacket. ‘You said Hope was on the phone the night before she went missing. We assumed the caller was Simone. Are we sure she called Hope, not the other way around?’ A crisp edge to her voice now, as if she was checking off the facts.

  Noah pulled on his jacket. ‘You think Hope might’ve called Simone?’

  ‘Hope had a motive to leave the hospital, knowing Leo was going to wake up. I’m not so sure of Simone’s motive.’

  ‘Welland thinks she’s crazy . . .’

  ‘Let’s hope he’s wrong.’

  ‘The hospital would know if the call was incoming or outgoing.’ Noah searched his phone for the number for the North Middlesex, dialling it and asking to speak with the duty nurse.

  The signal was poor inside the house, so they went out into the street. Marnie locked the front door and pocketed the keys she’d taken from Leo at the hospital, waiting while Noah spoke with the ward sister.

  ‘Thanks.’ He ended the call, looking at her. ‘The phone call was outgoing. Hope rang Simone, not the other way around.’

  ‘She called someone,’ Marnie corrected. ‘We don’t know it was Simone.’

  ‘Who else does Hope have?’

  ‘Good point.’ She looked up at the sky. After a beat, she turned away. Tension redrew her profile, making it forbidding.

  What was she thinking? Noah’s wrists itched.

  ‘It’s still possible Simone instigated the escape,’ Marnie said. ‘She must’ve given Hope her number, told her to call if she wanted anything.’ She frowned. ‘We should’ve had someone watching the house. If resources weren’t so tight . . .’

  ‘I wish I’d been here.’

  ‘You have to sleep sometime, and so do I.’ She glanced up the street. ‘We need to speak with Leo again.’ She shot Noah a look. ‘Not like last time. We need to find out where Hope might’ve gone. Assuming the escape plan was hers and not Simone’s.’

  She looked at the shuttered windows of the Proctors’ house. ‘She risked coming back here, for the suitcase. She knows her neighbour keeps watch. Why didn’t she and Simone come at night, when there was less chance of being seen?’

  ‘Or more.’ Noah pointed out the street lighting, positioned like a searchlight directly opposite the house. ‘Where d’you think they’ve gone?’

  ‘Ed said Simone doesn’t know many people in London. That should make it easier.’ She didn’t sound as if she believed this, eyeing the Proctors’ house unkindly.

  ‘Maybe Simone insisted they come here,’ Noah suggested. ‘Gill said
she had the whip-hand, held Hope’s arm, took charge of the suitcase . . .’

  ‘Why? What was in it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe Leo does. You’re right. We need to get back to the hospital.’

  ‘You need to get back to the station. See where Ron Carling’s up to with Henry Stuke. You’ll have to trust me to ask the questions at the hospital.’ She saw him hesitating. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t give Leo a hard time. About the suitcase or anything else. For one thing, we need his help.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Noah was frustrated, and didn’t bother to hide it. ‘What about Ayana? We can’t just—’

  ‘Ed will call as soon as there’s news. Stop beating yourself up about being followed. We don’t know for sure how they found her. Let’s concentrate on how we’re going to get her back. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear anything.’

  She nodded at him. ‘Go. Let me know how you get on with Stuke.’

  48

  Six months ago

  It’s the first time he’s seen her in the street, and it’s a shock. She looks so . . . clean, and she’s done her hair like a doll’s, straight to her shoulders. She’s wearing black, a neat little knee-length dress under a coat. Sensible shoes, expensive, like a solicitor would wear. At the nightclub, at the hotel, she always wears the same tight clothes. Cheap, stretchy stuff that tears if he pulls at it too hard, and spiked heels, ripped-up fishnets. Her hair’s full of this gel with sharp bits in it; he has to scrub it off with a loofah in case Freya spots the glitter on his skin.

  The bruises are different. Freya actually looks at him, makes the little noise of sympathy she usually reserves for the twins, smears on a dab of the ointment she saves for their sore arses. He’s grateful, pathetically grateful, to be touched at all. She thinks he’s helping a workmate during his lunch hour, that the cuts and bruises are from hefting boxes, screwing shelves. He attempts a joke – the only thing I am screwing – but it falls flat. It takes a miracle to make her laugh these days.

  As for her, she laughed when she was giving him the bruises. Told him he’d need better excuses when she really got to work on him. He still doesn’t know her name. A dozen ways to make her squirm – he knows that. But not her name.

  In the street, without the heels, she’s four inches shorter. Doesn’t look like she could hurt a fly, let alone a man. Nothing about her is the same. He wouldn’t know it was her, except his skin contracts and heats everywhere, recognising something – her slim wrist maybe, even though it’s empty of the cheap bangles she usually wears, the rattle of them like a baby’s toy. His body knows it’s her.

  Now he knows where she lives. By accident, because he’s on his way across town, on an errand for the boss. He hasn’t seen her in daylight before, let alone in the driveway to a house, looking like every other house in the street.

  She locks her front door, slips the key into a posh bag at her shoulder. The kind of bag Freya calls an investment buy. She’s coming his way. He fumbles for his phone, ducking his head and pretending to check his messages.

  She’s dressed for a funeral, or a law court. Her face is small, her mouth set. She looks like a little girl, someone neat and spoiled, well cared for. She doesn’t look like she knows what the inside of a nightclub smells like, let alone the rest of it.

  Anger makes his stomach ache.

  She’s been lying to him. Every time they screwed, every time she let him twist her wrists, pin her down . . . Until it was his turn and she was back on top, sweat sticking the glitter to her face, blood at the edge of her mouth . . .

  She’s been lying to him. The whole time. Pretending to be someone who doesn’t fit, someone who’s hiding, like him. Better than him, because she didn’t wear a disguise during the day, didn’t have a home to go back to. He realises he’s made up a whole life for her – dirty, different, brave – and none of it is true. It’s all lies.

  She’s coming up the street towards him, but she isn’t looking his way. Busy concentrating on her lies, on being a neat little black-clad doll on her way to work in her expensive suit.

  ‘Hey,’ he says when she’s close enough for it to be a whisper.

  Her head jerks up. No make-up, soap-and-water skin, but he smells her, underneath the disguise she’s put on. She can’t hide from him.

  ‘Hey,’ he repeats. ‘You want to go somewhere?’

  She shakes her head, like a kid refusing a gobstopper from a pervert. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and even her voice is a lie, but he hears the sing-song in it, and something else – a warning? ‘I’m in a hurry.’

  Like he’s selling insurance, or he’s a street beggar and she’s stepping past him with her skirts held up in one dainty hand.

  He knows every inch of her. The bruises behind her knees, the blue under her right breast. ‘Come on,’ he says, and it’s his dick talking, of course, but that’s her fault, that’s how she’s trained him to be, ‘I’ve got an hour before I need to be anywhere.’

  She looks right at him, cold-eyed. ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Later, then.’ She won’t want a scene, he thinks. Not right here on her doorstep. You don’t shit where you sleep.

  To get rid of him, she says, ‘Maybe. Yes. Later.’ She smells expensive, of scent, but he knows that underneath, she’s coppery, rusted.

  The way she’s looking at him . . .

  She could freeze a lit firework with that stare.

  The ache’s at the base of his balls.

  He thinks, this is going to be the best yet.

  49

  Now

  Leo Proctor cringed in the hospital bed when he saw Marnie.

  ‘Mr Proctor.’ She pulled up a chair and sat at his side. ‘Hello.’

  He wore hospital pyjamas, a shade of blue washed so many times it resembled water. He clutched at the Aertex blanket, the way his wife had clutched, the night that Marnie questioned her about the stabbing, the abuse.

  Leo’s room smelt of sickness. A fretful, sour smell. ‘Tell me about your broken hand,’ she said.

  Leo looked wary, not trusting the gentle tone of her voice. A contrast to the last time she was here, asking awkward questions. Accusing him. ‘What . . . what d’you mean?’

  ‘The hospital said they treated you for two broken bones in your right hand, eight months ago.’

  He looked at the hand in question. With an effort, he relaxed its grip on the blanket. ‘An accident, at work.’ His voice was dried-up, small for such a big man. The pads of his fingers were raw, his nails ragged and split.

  Marnie poured a glass of water from the plastic jug on the bedside cabinet, holding it out. He took the glass. ‘Thanks.’ He sipped at it, avoiding her eyes.

  ‘I know it didn’t happen at work. There would be a record. It’s a legal requirement.’

  His face twitched. ‘They kept it quiet, didn’t want their safety record looking bad. There’d been other things, accidents on site . . .’

  ‘Mr Proctor. Leo . . . I know it didn’t happen at work.’

  ‘You don’t. How could you?’

  ‘A marriage is private.’

  His mouth worked, sweat on his upper lip.

  ‘That’s what Hope told me. A marriage is private. What goes on behind closed doors is nobody else’s business. Is that what you believe, too?’

  His hands moved. She heard the rasp of his split nails on the blanket, and saw Hope’s pearly fingernails, that first night at the hospital. She saw the scratches on Stephen’s face, the wound where a girl held a knife to his throat.

  That was it, she realised, the moment when she glimpsed the truth of what had happened in Finchley. It’d taken her too long to get from there to here. Much too long.

  ‘Do you believe a marriage is private?’

  He didn’t speak, clenching his jaw. Marnie glanced at the monitor, checking his vital stats. He’d had time, since her last visit, to dream up a whole raft of excuses for the broken bones, and the rest of it. Time, too, to get defensive. Angry.

  Ho
pe had resented Marnie’s questions, a fugitive coldness in her stare. Marnie had put it down to intrusion, loss of dignity. She hadn’t known she needed to look deeper.

  Leo Proctor wasn’t angry. His body language was defeated. Shoulders slumped. Head down. Like a beaten bull.

  ‘The space under the stairs,’ Marnie said gently. ‘What happened there?’

  He shrank in the bed, muscles shortening all over his body. She needed to be careful, alert for signs of his blood pressure increasing, or his heart rate. Too many ways this could end badly, the way it nearly did at the refuge when Hope stuck a knife in his lung. ‘Leo?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I was at your house.’ She folded her hands in her lap. ‘It’s very nice. Very smart. Did you decorate it together? You and Hope.’

  He shook his head, then nodded. ‘Yes.’ He risked a look at her, sideways. He thought she was baiting him, getting ready for another attack.

  She smiled at him. ‘It’s okay. I’m sorry.’

  ‘For . . . what?’

  ‘Last time. I was out of order. It’s not like that now.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ He looked fearful. ‘Has Hope . . .?’

  ‘She’s gone. With a woman from the refuge. They left the hospital yesterday. We don’t know where they are, but we’re looking. I could really use your help.’

  He pulled himself up against the pillows, wincing. ‘What woman?’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Marnie warned. ‘I’ll be sent out of here if the doctors decide you’re distressed. Then we’ll never get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘What woman?’ he repeated.

  ‘Simone Bissell.’

  The name meant nothing to him. He looked blank. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Hope didn’t tell you about Simone, when she called you from the refuge?’