Someone Else's Skin

by Sarah Hilary

  He shook his head.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did she tell you?’ Marnie asked.

  ‘Where . . . where she was.’

  ‘What else, Leo?’

  He ducked his head away from the question, still unsure of her.

  She couldn’t blame him, after the verbal pasting she’d given him last time. ‘Did she tell you to bring the knife?’

  He was white-faced, his lips cracked open. His hands fisted in the blanket.

  Marnie looked down at her own hands for a moment, before returning her gaze to his face. ‘The moment I smelt the space under the stairs, I knew someone had been kept there. I thought it was Hope. But it wasn’t, was it?’

  He didn’t speak, didn’t take his eyes from hers.

  ‘I went back there, earlier today. With DS Jake. You probably don’t remember, but DS Jake saved your life at the refuge. He’s not as big as you are, but he’s tall. Six foot. I asked him to get inside the space under the stairs. I wanted to see if he’d fit. He said he found scratches, on the walls and floor. Made by fingernails.’

  She spoke very softly. ‘I saw Hope’s fingers at the hospital. Very pretty. She didn’t make those scratches, but someone did. That was obvious from the smell. DS Jake couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I can’t imagine what it’s like, being kept in a confined space for – what? Hours?’

  She took a moment. ‘How long did she keep you there?’

  Leo shook his head, sucking a shattered breath into his chest. His eyes were hot with unshed tears.

  ‘Hope,’ Marnie said. ‘How long did she keep you locked under the stairs, and how often? Because it was you, wasn’t it? Leo? You were the one kept in there. Not her.’

  PART 2

  1

  Then

  Lowell’s redecorating the bathroom. He has a hammer to break up the tiles, working to a rhythm, swinging, bringing it down.

  Simone likes the pattern, the pulse. A noise like living.

  When he goes away, she’s frantic. Pacing, snapping her fingers, counting the bricks from one end of the room to the other. The new line of tiles isn’t even. She gets into the habit of placing the level everywhere, along the door jamb, on the floor, across the tops of shelves. She stands on tiptoe and holds it on the ends of her fingers, flush to the ceiling, seeing the green spirit seesaw. Nothing in the basement flat is straight.

  She worries the food won’t last until he returns. She sets the spirit level on the lid of the chest freezer, then places it inside, where ice has formed a scummy shelf. The green eye runs away, blinking, winking from a polythene glacier of pork chops. She thinks, What if the floor isn’t the floor but the ceiling? What if I’m living on my side?

  She pushes her ear to the wall, filling her head with the hot thwapping of her blood.

  The spirit is strange, a beautiful bubble shaped like a heart being squeezed, bursting back and forth. Boiling. Smoothing flat and low in the level.

  She could watch it for hours.

  The idea of smashing it comes and goes, exciting her.

  At night she sleeps with the spirit level against her sternum, feeling her lungs inflate, deflate, chasing the spirit to and fro. She dreams she cracks the glass but the spirit keeps its shape, filling the cup of her hand: a green globe.

  In the morning – another morning; how many more – she thinks of falling on the spirit level, like a samurai. Of driving it up inside her body. She would walk stiffly, but always find her balance.

  He comes back. Always. This time, bringing the sharp stink of outside, bitumen and burning leaves. Autumn already? He’s brown and there’s sand between his toes.

  He’s been on holiday. He’s brought her a big bunch of roses, yellow.

  ‘Hey, babe,’ he says.

  She hates him for a long time, fears him for longer, but when he comes back smelling of outside, bringing the familiar beat of his feet on the basement floor, Simone reaches for him with something like love.

  2

  Now

  ‘I’ll put the suitcase here, okay?’ Simone turned to Hope, rubbing her hands on her skirt. She was sweating, her scalp crawling with the sensation of eyes watching, back at Hope’s house. ‘Are you all right?’

  Hope nodded, not looking at her. She’d been like this since the hospital. Simone was afraid she’d changed her mind, but here they were: safe. Away from Leo, and the police. Away from everyone. She looked around the familiar room, and shivered. She’d never thought she’d be back. The key had been in its old place, under the bedding for a tomato plant, wrapped in silver foil like treasure. She rubbed at her forearms where the scar tissue itched whenever she was tired, or anxious.

  ‘Show me,’ Hope said.

  Simone turned to look at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Your arms.’ Hope’s stare was glazed, hot.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Anxiety prodded under Simone’s ribs. Had she done the wrong thing, coming back, bringing Hope here?

  ‘Show me,’ Hope repeated.

  Obedient, Simone rolled back the sleeves of her jumper. The right arm first, where the scars were less impressive. She was right-handed, making a mess of the first few attempts before she learned to bind the ends of her fingers with Elastoplast so that the razor blade wouldn’t slip. Vaseline on the outer edges of the area to be scarred, keeping them clean. At the refuge, she’d seen Ayana Mirza use the same trick to apply nail varnish. Varnish chipped, but Simone’s scars were forever. The ones on her left arm were wonderful, like tribal markings. She’d copied the patterns from a library book. Scrolls and dots, each one symmetrical, across the inside of her elbow. Whenever she was anxious, she would read the scars on her arms, finding peace there, or anger, if what she needed was anger.

  Hope stared at the scars, coming close. She reached a finger, tracing the scrolls and dots. Her touch was precise, reverential. ‘You did this yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’ Simone stood very still, afraid to break the spell that was binding Hope to her. Her whole chest ached with love, with longing.

  Hope’s touch was the only warm thing in the room.

  Sunlight shrank from the pair of them, across the tiled floor of the kitchen, red in retreat. Simone shivered again, but she didn’t try to draw down her sleeves, standing with both arms out, like a child waiting to be dressed, or hugged.

  ‘The other scars,’ Hope said then.

  Her voice was so low that Simone doubted what she’d heard. ‘Other?’

  Hope raised her gaze at last, finding Simone’s face. ‘The other scars. The ones you didn’t do yourself.’ She waited a beat. ‘The ones your mother made.’

  Simone flinched, fear slipping up her spine as sudden as a snake.

  Hope’s blue eyes were a doll’s, fixed and intent. Fierce.

  ‘Show me,’ she said. ‘I want to see.’

  3

  Leo Proctor sobbed. A terrible, betrayed sound. His head went up and down, as if on a pulley; Marnie realised he was nodding. ‘Hope locked you under the stairs. Did she break your hand, too?’ Another nod, like an automaton. ‘What else?’

  ‘Every . . . everything. Beatings. Kick . . . kickings.’ Each word wrenched up, sounding bloody in his mouth. ‘Rope. She beat me with rope. Burnt me.’ He started to gasp. ‘Hit me with bricks, weights. Anything she could lay her hands on.’

  Marnie waited for him to start breathing more easily. ‘What about the damage on her? I saw the medical exam. She had bruises, scarring.’

  ‘She – made me. It was the only way she liked . . . sex. Contact. Anything. It was what she wanted. I didn’t like it. I just wanted . . . I hated to hurt her. Hated it. She said it was what men did. What we were like. That I should be a man. It was what she wanted, the only thing she wanted. We both had to be hurting, all the time.’ He was shaking, the bed creaking under him. ‘Not . . . not her fault. Not really. Her dad . . . her mum and dad . . . she told me . . .’

  ‘She had an excuse? There’s no ex
cuse, Leo. Not for what she did.’

  ‘She needs me,’ he sobbed. ‘She does!’

  ‘Leo.’ Marnie reached out and took his hand. ‘Okay. It’s okay. Take a minute.’

  His palm was patchy with sweat. She could smell the stress leeching from his skin, along with the fluids and painkillers. After a minute or two, he was calmer.

  ‘Why did she leave? For the refuge.’

  ‘I asked her to stop. Begged. It got so bad. I was drinking . . .’ He hid his face in his shoulder, rubbing tears on to his pyjamas. ‘I was sick all the time, from the drink mostly. I was afraid of what would happen if I wasn’t around. I didn’t know how she’d cope.’

  He freed his hand from her grip and drove his thumbs into his eye sockets, making Marnie wince. ‘She never went out, not really. She spent her whole time in that place, the house, but not – not happily. She wouldn’t let me make it comfortable. Just clean. I was always cleaning, or she was. She had to have the rooms kept nice. For best, she said. She wouldn’t let me make her happy, or even just comfortable. I’d have made her a bed, any kind she wanted. She knows I’m good with my hands. But all she wanted . . . The only time I could touch her was to . . .’ He edited each sentence, as if he’d already said too much. ‘Four months ago, it got worse. I was scared of what would happen.’

  ‘You begged her to stop.’ Marnie repeated the words he’d used.

  ‘She did.’ He raised his head and wiped at his eyes, looking lost. ‘She stopped hurting me, but she wouldn’t stop the rest of it. Me hurting her.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Four, five months. After her mum’s funeral.’

  Five months for the damage on Leo to heal. Hope needed her bruises, as an alibi. From what Leo said, it went deeper than that. Satisfying some urge to be punished?

  ‘How could she force you to hurt her? I don’t understand.’

  ‘When I refused, she . . . she went out and picked up men. In bars. She let them . . . they hurt her. She came back covered in bites and bruises. I asked how she could be sure they wouldn’t kill her. She just . . . laughed. “I’ll do it again,” she said, “worse. You won’t recognise me.” That’s when I agreed to do it. To try and keep her safe.’

  ‘Do you know the names of any of these men?’

  ‘No. I didn’t want to know their names.’

  ‘Why did she need to be hurt? Did she explain that to you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I asked her. Kept asking, but she only got angry. When she gets angry . . . I learnt to shut up.’

  ‘What happened after she stopped hurting you?’

  ‘It was worse, much worse. It got – I wanted to make it stop. It was her, hurting her. That’s what I couldn’t stand. I said . . . the police. I’d go to the police.’

  ‘You were going to the police,’ Marnie said. ‘That’s when she went to the refuge?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘And she called you, to let you know where she was.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She told you to bring a knife to the refuge.’

  Leo nodded, his nose and eyes streaming. ‘And roses. Yellow roses.’

  ‘Why the roses?’

  He flung out his hands. ‘I don’t know! She hated flowers, said they made a mess. Just made a mess and then died. She hated flowers, even roses.’

  ‘Why do you think she wanted the knife?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t think. She just said she wanted it, and I didn’t think.’ His face worked, wrung by emotions, painful to watch.

  ‘Did you know what she was going to do?’ Marnie said. ‘With the knife?’

  ‘No. No . . .’

  ‘But you took it anyway.’

  He nodded, weakly. She wondered what else he would have done on Hope’s say-so. Murder? Suicide? Not suicide, or Hope wouldn’t have had to kill him, or attempt to kill him. ‘Didn’t you worry about the other women, at the refuge? Knowing what she was capable of?’

  He didn’t speak. She doubted he was able to consider the safety of others, after years of living with Hope. ‘How did you get inside the refuge?’

  ‘She . . . unlocked the door. She told me when it would be safe to come, when the woman in charge would be on a cigarette break.’

  Jeanette Conway’s slack attitude had been a gift to Hope. She couldn’t have guessed it would be so easy to breach security. ‘Hope took a suitcase from your house this morning. Do you know what might’ve been in it?’

  Leo pushed his hands at his face, messily. ‘What?’

  ‘A brown suitcase. According to your neighbour, it was heavy.’

  ‘Heavy.’ His eyes glazed over. He looked exhausted, grey-faced and ill.

  Marnie bit the inside of her cheek. The doctor had been strict about how long she could question Leo. Her common sense, and her compassion, said he’d been through enough for one session. If Hope had been alone when she ran, it would be different. As it was, Marnie had to consider Simone’s safety.

  ‘Leo. I have more questions. Because Hope is missing, and so is Simone Bissell. But if you need to rest, or if you’d like me to get a doctor in here . . .’

  ‘No.’ He looked scared. ‘No one else. No men.’

  She understood. It was bad enough that she knew his secrets.

  ‘I’m okay,’ he said, swallowing. ‘If it’s just you . . . I’m okay.’

  She refilled his glass of water, putting it into his hands, keeping her hands around his for a second. ‘You said Hope didn’t mention Simone Bissell.’

  ‘No.’ He gulped at the water. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A woman living at the refuge. She made friends with Hope.’

  ‘No,’ Leo said mechanically. ‘Hope doesn’t make friends. Not with women. Especially not women in places like that. Weak. Victims.’

  ‘She got close to Simone. Everyone at the refuge remarked on it.’

  Leo just shook his head, looking foggy.

  ‘Is she dangerous? To someone like Simone? To other people. Obviously she was dangerous to you.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen her with anyone else.’

  ‘What about her parents? She told me they were dead.’

  He shook his head. ‘Her mum died. In October. But her dad’s still alive.’

  Another lie Hope had told Marnie. ‘You said she had trouble with her mum and dad. What happened to her?’

  Leo drew a breath, holding it in his chest before letting it out, slowly. ‘Nothing happened to Hope. It was her mum. It was what she saw happen to her mum, Gayle. Her dad beat Gayle, but he never touched Hope. I thought she’d hate him, but it was her mum – she hated Gayle, for not standing up to him. For losing control, that’s how Hope put it. It was her mum who lost control, not her dad.’

  ‘What’s her dad’s name?’

  ‘Kenneth Reece.’ Leo took another gulp of water, washing it around his mouth before swallowing, as if the name had left a nasty taste.

  ‘He never touched Hope?’

  ‘Never. She learnt how to manage him, that’s what she said. From when she was tiny. He loved his little girl, so that’s what she was, for him. A good little girl. She couldn’t understand why her mum didn’t manage him the same way. Take control of the situation. He wasn’t clever, her dad. She was always saying that. He was a typical man, an animal. She was clever. She told me she knew she was clever by the time she was six, but she learned not to show it, because it wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t think girls should be clever. He just wanted a pretty, well-behaved kid. A doll. So that’s what she gave him.’ His face twisted as he said it.

  ‘When she first told me about him, I called him a monster, rotten. It made her – angry. I was no different, she said. No man was any different and he was her dad. I wanted her to have nothing to do with him. I said I was glad I got her away from all that, but she said she didn’t need rescuing, that I needn’t think I was a hero. I was the same as him, the same as all men. She was the one who was different, because she kne
w how to handle us. Men, she meant.’

  ‘But she married you. She must have wanted to get married. What did she expect?’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t know how else to get away from that place, from her dad . . .’

  Or maybe she wanted to prove she could succeed where her mother had failed. Was her marriage an exercise in control – power? Plenty of marriages were.

  ‘What about her mum? Wasn’t she worried what would happen to her if she left?’

  ‘She thought her mum let it happen. She couldn’t understand why she allowed herself to be hurt. “I was just a kid and I could manage him,” that’s what she said. She blamed her mum for being clumsy. Gayle broke a mirror once. Seven years’ bad luck. “She brings it on herself”; Hope learned to say that. I suppose her dad used to say it.’

  It wasn’t Hope who broke a mirror. It was her mother, Gayle. How much more of the act from the hospital had Hope borrowed from her mother, for Marnie’s benefit? Perhaps it was more than an act. Perhaps it was an involuntary impulse. Empathy, however twisted or repressed, for what her mother suffered.

  ‘She thought Gayle could’ve stopped it,’ Leo said, ‘if she’d wanted to. “Maybe she liked it.” That’s what Hope always said.’

  ‘You said Hope liked it. Being hurt.’

  ‘It’s what she wanted. Needed.’ He gulped again at the glass she’d put into his hands. ‘The tattoos . . . She made us get tattoos.’

  ‘Hearts, with arrows through them.’

  Leo searched her face. ‘Yes. I . . . thought it was a love thing, but it wasn’t. Her dad had the exact same tattoo.’ He held the glass to his chest. ‘It hurts, getting inked over your ribcage.’

  ‘It really does,’ Marnie agreed.

  He didn’t notice. ‘She needed that. The hurt. It’s what she wanted.’

  ‘But she preferred hurting you.’

  ‘I was an animal.’ He dropped his voice into the pit of his throat. ‘She wanted me to behave like what I was. An animal. Then she punished me for it.’ His face contorted, as if this was too much truth for him to stand. ‘But she could be sweet, gentle, and I understood, after what she went through at home, what she saw happening to her mum. She thought it hadn’t affected her, but it must’ve done. It must.’