by Chris Simms
Shifting Skin
by Chris Simms
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Orion
Copyright © 2007 Chris Simms
The right of Chris Simms to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
To the boglins, big and small.
I’m a different person, yeah
Turned my world around
‘Lola’s Theme’, Shapeshifters
Chapter 1
Jon Spicer looked around what used to be his weight training room and sighed. Bare plaster walls faced him, exposed surfaces still raw from where he’d scrubbed them with sandpaper. The carpet was hidden by dust sheets that stretched from skirting board to skirting board. In the corner the steam machine looked like the victim of a clumsy shave, scraps of dry wallpaper stuck all over it.
He started peeling apart last week’s local paper, separating the pages and laying them across the small table in the middle of the room. Immediately, and even as he tried to look away, his eyes were snagged by the front-page headline: butcher of belle vue strikes again.
Quickly he flipped the page over, but it was too late. The horrific details of his latest case came streaming into the last place on earth he wanted them: the nursery.
The latest victim, Carol Miller, had been a midwife at Stepping Hill hospital. She was good-looking, her strong facial features complemented by a curvy, full figure. The sort of woman his dad would refer to in his strong Lancashire accent as ‘proper breeding material’. In his own way, he would have been right. She’d given birth to a thickset baby the year before. Jon had watched as the infant drained an entire bottle of milk without pausing for breath, blissfully unaware of the tears streaming down the face of his grandmother above him. Jon had sat with his tongue frozen in his mouth, thanking God the bereavement counsellor had come with him to inform the woman that her only child was dead. The counsellor had kept up a soothing murmur, the actual words of secondary importance to the comforting tone of her voice.
‘What will become of our Davey?’ the woman had gasped.
‘His father’s not around and I’m not well. What will become of him when I’m gone?’
The wrinkles round her eyes deepened and she started sobbing again. Jon could feel her looking at him and he kept his eyes fixed on the counsellor, willing her to break the silence with an answer. Say something, he pleaded in his head, because if you don’t I’m going to fucking cry.
Pushing the memory away, he picked up the paint tray and decorating implements. He banged them down on the table, then placed the tin of paint next to the tray. Getting his blunt nails under the lid, he began to pull, increasing the force until the pain in his fingers got too much. ‘Bastard,’ he cursed, glaring at the tin like it was trying to insult him. He glanced around for a suitable tool, and spotted the scraper lying next to the steam machine. Only able to fit the corner of its blade under the lid’s rim, he cautiously increased the downward pressure. The seal broke with a pop and the blade jerked upwards, gouging into his thumb. Pain shot through his hand and he drew the scraper back, ready to slash the side of the tin in retaliation.
Get a grip, he told himself, placing it on the table and examining his thumb. The red line ran across his knuckle, merging with an old scar from where an opposition player had stamped on his hand while wearing illegal rugby studs. Jon sucked the back of his thumb, then blew a thin stream of air on to the wet skin, the coolness detracting from the pain. He peered into the open tin, frowning at the purplish red paint inside. Then he picked up the plastic spoon and scooped a dollop of viscous liquid into the tray.
Immediately an image of the pathologist dropping Carol Miller’s liver into a stainless steel tray appeared in his head. As the pathologist had stepped across to the mortuary’s scales, Jon couldn’t help staring at the corpse on the autopsy table before him.
She had been found early in the morning, naked except for her knickers, stretched out in the middle of a small park in Belle Vue. The skin from her upper thighs, stomach, chest and neck lay in a neat pile beside her, muscles, tendons, ligaments and subcutaneous fat exposed to the world. The Home Office pathologist who attended the crime scene quickly concluded that she had been moved there from another location. Lifting one of Carol’s arms, he pointed to the long grass beneath it. ‘No blood. If she’d been flayed here, this whole area would be soaked.’
Jon had stepped out of the white tent shrouding the body and looked around. He was standing in the centre circle of a badly neglected football pitch. It had rained during the night, washing valuable forensic evidence off the body and blurring the many footprints in the patches of mud around it. The area was overlooked by residential properties. Dotted in the unkempt turf was lump after lump of dogshit – apart from late at night, the animals’ owners must be using the area as a toilet for their pets almost continually. Even now a woman with a brindle Staffy was hovering beyond the perimeter tape, surreptitiously watch- ing. The ghoul. Jon walked round the white tent, putting it between him and the woman’s inquisitive glances. He looked at the modern, cheap council stock, ground-floor windows elongated and narrow to deter burglars. They had a defensive appearance, like machine-gun slits in pillboxes.
Beyond them a large church spire thrust upwards, the flat grey sky making the green copper stand out. Jon shook his head: there was little evidence of the forces of good in this grim place. He dropped his eyes back to earth, looking at the scattering of seagulls waiting at the far end of the pitch. Their hunched postures made them appear resentful of his presence on their feeding ground.
Behind him came the low rumble of traffic, a steady stream of it passing along the A57. He moved away from it, stepping between the team preparing to go over the immediate area on their hands and knees, and walked over to the park’s perimeter fence. Rubbish was piled against its base, deposited there by the unrelenting wind that blew across the bleak expanse of grass. At the top of the park was a basketball court, the cracked concrete furred with patches of moss. Fragments of glass crunched under his foot as he paced across it. On his left he counted another gate into the park. That was the fifth. By the time he’d circled the perimeter he’d counted seven more. Twelve possible entry points for the killer. The whole place would need sealing off. He halted under a wiry tree, noticed the beginnings of leaf buds on the bare twigs above him. He took a little comfort in the thought that spring would soon be here to transform the desolate place.
Why take the risk of leaving the body here, in a park overlooked by so many houses? Perhaps the victim was being made an example of. Some sort of warning?
Jon had to agree with the pathologist. There was no way this was where the killer had carried out his...what? Surgical procedure? He walked back to the tent and stepped inside. ‘There was a bit of disagreement about the first victim – whether her killer had any surgical knowledge. Assuming the same person is responsible for this one, what’s your opinion?’
The pathologist was about to take a glove off. He stopped, allowing the rubber to snap back over his wrist. ‘As I understand it, the first victim only had the skin from her chest and upper arms removed?’
Jon nodded.
‘And here we see he’s removed the skin from her throat, chest, stomach and upper thighs. In both cases it’s not a particularly difficult procedure to perform. Anyone with the most basic knowledge of surgery, probably even a butcher, could manage it.’
‘Really?’ Jon was surprised.
The pathologist smiled. ‘Ever peeled the skin off a raw chicken breast?
Not much more to it than that. You just use the tip of a very fine scalpel to help divide it from the layer beneath – something to think about next time you’re making a casserole.’
Jon felt a wave of revulsion at the pathologist’s reply. He’d sat in on a lot of post mortems over the years. But he never could get used to the macabre comments that bounced between the mortuary staff with the same ease as the pre-match banter in his rugby club’s changing room.
‘So he may not have medical training?’ he asked, suddenly aware of the muscles moving beneath his flesh.
The pathologist stood up and removed his gloves. ‘He’s got some skill, but it could have been gained from practising on dead pigs, for all I know.’
*
‘Jon! Have you seen the local paper from last week?’ Alice’s voice, calling up from the bottom of the stairs.
He blinked once or twice, waiting for the images to fade. Then he looked at the sheets of newspaper covering the table in front of him. ‘Yeah, it’s up here.’
‘You’re not using it to cover that table are you?’
‘Well, it’s last week’s, babe. This week’s is by the sofa, I think.’
She began puffing up the stairs, slow footsteps eventually reaching the top. ‘There was something in the classified section I wanted,’ she announced, slightly out of breath.
Jon turned to the doorway. His girlfriend stood there, strands of blond hair haphazard on her shoulders, football-shaped stomach forcing its way between her T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms.
Jon’s eyes moved from the strange blue line that had appeared beneath the tightly stretched skin. ‘What was it?’
‘One of those abdominal crunchers.’
‘I thought you were buying Chloe’s off her?’
‘Someone else beat me to it. She forgot to mention she’d also put an ad up on the noticeboard at her hospital.’
‘That was good of her.’ Jon lifted the tray off the table and put it on the floor. He peeled the paint-covered spoon off a sheet of newspaper, leaving a thick daub of red behind. ‘Are you sure this shade isn’t too bright?’ Carol Miller’s blood was still in his mind.
‘Jon, it’s going to be a nursery. We want it bright and cheerful.’
‘Yeah, but red? Isn’t it meant to close a room in? That’s why they paint the ceilings of boozers with it.’
‘Ah,’ she countered, ‘but we’re only using it for the skirting boards and doorframe. The rest of the room will be in that bumblebee yellow.’
Jon started shuffling through the pages, scanning the columns of advertisements.
‘There you go.’ She stepped over and slid a page towards her.
‘Health and Beauty section.’ She traced a finger down the ‘A’ column. ‘I thought so: ab cruncher, ten pounds. Bargain.’ She tore the corner of the page off.
Jon looked at her enormous bump. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea at this time?’
Alice giggled. ‘It’s for afterwards, stupid. God, if I can hardly do my own shoelaces up, how will I use one of these? But once the little one’s arrived, I can start working my abdominals and pelvic floor, get my stomach back in shape.’
Jon stepped behind her and spread his fingers across her swollen belly. ‘I quite like you with a bit of a pot.’
She laid her hands over his, leaned back against his chest and turned her head to look up at him. ‘Will you still like it when it’s just a saggy fold of flesh?’
Jon made an effort to smile. ‘Of course. It will be a part of you.’
She squeezed his hands. ‘And what about the pelvic floor stuff? Pissing in my knickers every time I run up the stairs?’
She had plunged him into something he had no knowledge of and he tried to drop his hands away. She clutched them tight, laughter rippling through her. ‘It’s all part of the process. You’d better get used to this sort of stuff. Just be thankful it won’t be you in a few week’s time, legs up in stirrups, squeezing out a great big bundle of joy.’
Jon grinned. ‘You know I’d share the pain with you if I could.’
‘Yeah, right.’ She released his hands and headed out of the room, trailing the scrap of newspaper behind her.
Jon put the paint tray back on the table, eyes drawn once again to the clot of congealing paint. A conversation with Carol Miller’s mum began playing in his head. He’d asked what her daughter’s state of mind had been like. How happy she was. The old lady had replied that her daughter had been unhappy with her weight ever since giving birth to Davey. She’d tried all sorts of diets but never succeeded in removing the two stone her pregnancy had left her with. At the time Jon had begun to screen out the answer, letting the mother ramble to a conclusion, his next question already lined up. But now he scrutinised her words more carefully.
The old lady had said Carol had tried Weight Watchers and a soup diet, but recently she’d returned from work having spotted something that had given her fresh hope.
‘Ali?’ he called. ‘Your mate Chloe’s ab cruncher. You said she’d sold it on the noticeboard at her hospital.’
‘Yeah.’ Her voice floated up from the front room.
Jon stared down at the classified section of the newspaper. Buffered up against the last column of the ‘Health and Beauty’ entries was the start of the ‘Personal Services’ section: ad after ad of massage parlours, adult saunas and escort services. He looked back at ‘Health and Beauty’, seeing the unwanted mountain bikes, exercise bikes, mini-steppers, rowing machines, power sliders and flexi steps. He smiled cynically at the two sections’ proximity: if attempts at making yourself look good failed, you only had to travel across the page and buy yourself a shag.
In the front room he crouched down to stroke his boxer dog’s ears. ‘This noticeboard, is it in the hospital reception or something?’
Alice put the torn-off corner of newspaper on the table. ‘No, it’s in the staff room of A and E, I think. I know all sorts of stuff gets pinned up there. It’s how she found her flat. One of the consultants was advertising.’
‘Do you reckon every hospital department has one?’
‘I’d have thought most would. Why, what’s on your mind?’ He made his voice sound casual, ‘Nothing much. It just started off a train of thought.’
‘About this case you’re on?’ Her voice had dropped a notch. The previous year, Jon’s hunt for the Chewing Gum Killer had placed his family in extreme danger. The nature of his work was an area they both still skirted round nervously.
Jon nodded and stood up. ‘I just need to pop out. I won’t be long.’
Alice’s eyes slid to the clock on the video. ‘Half past eight at night? Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
But the thought was an itch he couldn’t ignore. ‘I’ll be back in no time.’
She let out a long sigh and Punch glanced up, sensing her frustration as it billowed across the room. ‘Well, at least wash the paint off your hands.’
He stood at the kitchen sink, one hand under the stream of water, watching the curls of red snaking down the plug hole. So far his delving into Carol Miller’s life had revealed very little. She hadn’t been seeing anyone since her husband had disappeared two months after the baby was born. The grandmother had found herself looking after Davey a lot more than she had planned – Carol’s income had plummeted and she’d been forced back into midwifery as a locum, filling in last-minute staff shortages at Stepping Hill hospital’s maternity ward. Usually that meant weekends and evenings.
Although she still had the terraced house in Bredbury, the rent was getting harder and harder to meet. The grandmother had been expecting Carol to ask about moving back in very soon. Until, that is, she turned up in a Belle Vue park with large portions of her skin cut off.
He dried his hands on the tea towel, pulled a jacket on over his old rugby shirt, then tucked his warrant card into the breast pocket. On his way to the front door he paused at the door into the front room. Punch’s big brown eyes watched him dolefully. Alice kept staring at th
e magazine on her lap.
‘Want anything from the shop at the garage?’ he asked.
‘No thanks.’
‘OK, I won’t be long.’ He bent over the arm of the sofa and dropped an awkward kiss on the top of her head.
He pulled up in the car park of Stepping Hill hospital twenty minutes later, then followed the signs directing him to the maternity suite.
The front doors were locked; a notice instructed him to buzz the intercom if the time was outside normal office hours. A camera stared down at him from its wire cage above the door. Jon got his warrant card out, held it towards the lens and pressed the button.
His arm was beginning to ache by the time a crackly voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘DI Spicer, Greater Manchester Police.’ He pushed the door but it remained locked.
‘Yes?’ the voice said.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Jon muttered under his breath before looking up and saying, ‘I’m investigating the murder of Carol Miller.’
‘Oh.’ The lock buzzed open.
The foyer smelled fresh, the painted walls almost pristine. He wondered if the maternity ward they would be going to for their baby’s birth at Withington hospital would be so recently decorated.
A sign by the lifts told him that reception was on the third floor. As he waited for the lift to arrive blue light began to flicker across the walls around him. He turned to see an ambulance pulling up in the emergency bay outside. The driver jumped out and jogged round to the rear of the vehicle. Seconds later the back doors were thrown open and a gurney was wheeled out. The mouth of the woman lying on it was drawn tight and Jon could hear her moans, low and guttural, through the glass. Two male paramedics started pushing her towards the doors, the woman’s partner flapping along behind, a large bag hanging from his arm.
As they wheeled her into the foyer the lift arrived. ‘Hold the doors!’ one of the paramedics called. Then he looked down,