Shifting Skin

by Chris Simms

  ‘I think I’ve got rabies.’

  ‘What?’ His eyes snapped open and he saw the white foam at the corners of her mouth.

  ‘Grrrrr,’ she smiled and, seeing her playful look, he felt his heart actually leap in his chest.

  He turned her round. ‘I promise, Ali, I’m going to—’

  She cut him off by pressing her lips against his. He kissed her back, using his tongue to lick the minty mess away.

  He felt one of her hands settle on his thigh and he leaned forwards, tracing his fingers hopefully towards her swollen breasts. His hand was lightly gripped and he opened his eyes to see her looking at him with her eyebrows raised. ‘Right now, I’d rather scrub the toilet than do what’s on your mind.’

  Jon sighed. ‘Not even a—’

  ‘No way,’ she replied with a grin, extricating herself from his arms and leaving the room.

  Jon leaned his hands on the sink and stared at himself in the mirror, trying to remember the last time they’d had sex.

  Chapter 23

  Dawn Poole leaned forward and gently applied a finishing touch of mascara to the patient’s eyelashes. ‘There, you look wonderful.’

  ‘Really? How bloodshot are my eyes?’

  The bedside mirror had been moved, so Dawn didn’t lie.

  ‘They’re not clear yet, but compared to a few days ago, they’re so much better.’

  The patient’s head fell to the side, face bandages rasping lightly against the pillow. The front doorbell went.

  ‘That’ll be him!’ Dawn jumped to her feet and hurried from the room.

  As soon as the bedroom door shut a whir of wings came from the window. The robin sat there, head cocked, expectantly looking in.

  The patient reached slowly for the biscuit on the bedside table, broke off a piece and crumbled it on the bedcover. With a hop and a flutter, the bird alighted centimetres from the red fingernails. It pecked a fragment, looked up and around, then pecked another.

  Apart from the occasional blink, the patient could have been a statue. Or a corpse.

  Footsteps were coming up the stairs and the bird stopped feeding to listen. As soon as the door began to open, it darted back out of the window.

  Dawn stood aside, allowing Dr Eamon O’Connor to step into the room. The patient tried to smile.

  Dr O’Connor walked slowly round the bed, brushed the crumbs off the cover and sat down. ‘OK. Let’s get these bandages off and see how your face is mending.’

  ‘Will it hurt?’ the patient said, fingers fluttering at the collar of the nightie.

  ‘Not at all,’ O’Connor said, opening his briefcase. After methodically cleaning his hands with an antiseptic wipe, he took out a pair of stainless-steel scissors. ‘Now, hold that pretty head still and I’ll just snip your bandages.’

  The blades of the scissors came together and the outer layer of gauze fell away.

  ‘Good,’ O’Connor said, laying the scissors down. He took a loose end and slowly unwound the layers obscuring the patient’s lower face.

  As he reached the final lengths watery brown liquid had stained the material. ‘You still have some discharge from the wound, but that’s to be expected. Keep taking the antibiotics I prescribed.’

  Carefully he eased away the final strip, revealing an oval face marred by a thin laceration running along the entire length of the jaw. More bandages held a couple of splints in place down each side of the patient’s nose. The wounds on the jaw were held together by a thicket of incredibly fine stitches.

  Dawn stared with affection at his face. The masculine edges had been almost totally smoothed away. She thought the feminine look suited him far better.

  O’Connor leaned forwards to survey his handiwork. ‘Excellent, if I say so myself.’

  The patient’s eyes were wide. ‘Will there be any scarring?’ O’Connor shook his head. ‘With sutures applied this well?

  Keep out of direct sunlight and use the cream I give you, and no one will be able to see a thing. Now, my dear, let’s take a look at your nose.’

  He took a pair of tweezers from his briefcase and used them to prise away the gauze. Then he slid the lower blade of the scissors beneath and carefully snipped upwards. The patient sat rigid in the bed, eyes tightly shut.

  Gently, the doctor pulled the covering away, easing out the little splints and eventually revealing a swollen nose, the skin stretched so tight it shone. Ugly bruising spread away from it, staining the skin beneath the patient’s eyes a purplish yellow.

  ‘Hold still. We’re nearly done.’ O’Connor took a pencil torch from the briefcase, bent forward and shone it up the patient’s nostrils. ‘Can you breathe through your nose?’

  ‘Just. But the left nostril feels blocked.’

  O’Connor nodded. ‘It looks like dried blood to me, not how the cartilage has settled. Dawn, can you fetch some warm water and a towel?’

  She jumped to her feet and went into the bathroom.

  ‘So I’ll be OK, Doctor?’

  He smiled at the frightened-looking figure in the bed. ‘Of course. We talked about how the process of becoming who you want to be will have its ups and downs, didn’t we? You’re doing well and I’m certainly happy with how things are going.’

  Dawn came back into the room. ‘Here you are, Doctor.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He arranged the towel like a bib over the patient’s chest, tested the water with a forefinger, then removed a cotton bud from a small pot and dipped it in the bowl. He inserted the end into his patient’s left nostril and rotated it very slowly. It came out stained dark brown with dried blood. ‘Any pain?’

  ‘No,’ the patient whispered.

  He turned the cotton bud over and repeated the action, slowly dissolving away more blood.

  ‘Very gently now, try breathing in through your nose.’ The patient did so, eyes opening wide. ‘I can.’

  ‘Well, thanks for sounding so surprised,’ O’Connor said, standing up.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The patient tried to smile.

  The doctor clicked his briefcase closed. ‘I’ll be back to remove the sutures in a few days. In the meantime, keep taking the antibiotics and don’t, whatever you do, start to pick.’

  The patient nodded meekly. ‘Doctor, what about my other pills?’

  ‘Absolutely not, I’m afraid. Not until you’ve completed the course of antibiotics. Don’t worry, no appreciable differences will manifest themselves before then. You can go back on them soon enough.’

  Chapter 24

  The call to the incident room came in at just before six in the evening.

  Barely controlled hysteria created cracks in every word the woman uttered. ‘We’ve just seen the local paper. My daughter isn’t here. She’s not here. There’s post in our hallway.’

  ‘Please slow down, madam. What’s in your hallway?’

  ‘Post. We’ve been away in Lanzarote and she’s not here.’

  ‘Can you give me your name and address?’

  ‘Debbie Young. Her name is Tyler. She has shoulder-length brown hair.’ She dissolved into sobs and a man came on the phone, voice as flat as the fens.

  ‘We live at 61 Rowfield Road, Stretford.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Was that your wife just speaking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you say you’ve just got back from holiday?’

  ‘We’ve been in Lanzarote for the past ten days. Tyler was meant to come with us, but there was an argument and she stayed at home. She’s eighteen. About five and a half feet tall.’

  ‘Does she have any distinguishing features you can tell me about?’

  ‘Piercings in her ear, her right ear. And a tattoo.’

  ‘What sort of tattoo, sir?’

  He paused, having to force the next words out. ‘It’s of Betty

  Boop. Just near her hip.’

  ‘Confit duck leg with grilled spiced fig?’ the waiter asked, tendrils of steam rising from the plate in each hand.

  ‘That’s for m
y wife.’ The man gestured across the immaculate white linen.

  ‘And slow-braised lamb with sweet pepper mash for you,’ the waiter replied, setting the other plate down with a smile. ‘Enjoy your meal.’

  He backed away, leaving the couple to examine their food, anticipation making their eyes shine.

  ‘This smells lovely,’ the woman said, picking up her fork and spearing a fig. She popped it into her mouth and bit down, eyelashes lowering in appreciation of the flavour.

  ‘Good?’ he asked, teasing a strip of meat from the cut on his plate.

  She nodded, leaning back and staring across the choppy waters of the Manchester Ship Canal to the dramatic silver angles forming the Imperial War Museum North. ‘You know, from here,’ she commented, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin, ‘you can really see the meaning of Daniel Liebeskind’s design. The Earth shard, the Air shard and the Water shard, all interlocking. The three different arenas of twentieth-century conflict.’

  Her husband sipped from his glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and nodded. ‘He doesn’t win the world’s most prestigious building projects for nothing I suppose.’

  Her eyes trailed back across the water, savouring the setting and atmosphere. Then they stopped, attention drawn to a large, pale object in the water directly below. A seagull was perched on top of it as it drifted slowly past, sharp beak tearing at the eye sockets of the corpse’s hideously puffed-out face.

  Jon stood motionless, staring at the body of Tyler Young. She’d left school at sixteen, flitting between several McJobs, bored, restless, convinced the world had to be a more exciting place. When she was younger, she’d won a beauty competition and she’d aspired ever since to be a catwalk model.

  But her height had never progressed beyond five feet seven, a world away from the Naomis, Giseles and Carmens. More recently she’d been to Tempters, hoping to get work as a topless barmaid, hungry for paid recognition of her beauty. But the management had turned her away, with the advice that she needed to go up a bra size or two if she wanted a job.

  That’s what had caused the row. Tyler said she’d prefer to spend the money her ticket to Lanzarote had cost on plastic surgery instead. They’d refused to entertain the idea and she’d stormed out of the house.

  Jon looked at her chest now, the skin of her breasts removed, pectoral muscles showing through the waxy layer of fascia. Could Pete Gray have done this? Tyler Young wasn’t the same as the first two victims. For a start, she was over twenty years younger. The only way someone like Pete Gray could get access to a girl like Tyler was if he paid for it. Had she gone on the game to fund her operation?

  He tapped a finger against his chin, arms pressed close to his chest in the cool air of the mortuary.

  Or was she the prostitute from the CCTV footage of Gordon

  Dean?

  He shut his eyes, trying to sift through his thoughts.

  A door opened somewhere and he heard metal clang as a trolley was wheeled down a corridor. Soon the plastic curtains parted and the gurney entered the room, two technicians behind it. Jon glanced at the fibreglass shell coffin as they came to a halt by a stainless-steel autopsy table.

  ‘If you’re staying in here, you might want to hold your breath.’ This from the pathologist, who entered the room in full protective clothing.

  ‘What is it? Jon asked.

  ‘He bobbed up in the Manchester Ship Canal, right outside the Lowry theatre’s terrace restaurant. Ruined a lot of preperformance dinners he did.’

  ‘A floater?’ Jon said. ‘I think I’ll head for the goldfish bowl.’

  ‘Good move. He’s been in a good week or so, I’d say.’ The pathologist nodded towards Tyler’s corpse. ‘Can we put her away?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ He stepped out of the theatre area and into the viewing room, wondering how to tell Rick that he’d been following Pete Gray.

  In the theatre, the technicians opened up the shell coffin and hefted a large plastic sheet containing the body on to the autopsy table.

  The pathologist prepared his implements on a side counter while one of his assistants cut through the adhesive tape sealing the sheet. Then she peeled away the folds to reveal a monstrously bloated corpse, the yellow skin marbled with a network of bluish lines. He was in a foetal position, ankles and wrists bound together.

  Oh Jesus, Jon thought, never failing to be shocked at how death could turn the human body into a gruesome parody of its former self. He watched with a grimace as she carefully removed the plastic evidence bag the pathologist had placed over the victim’s head. The neck was twisted round, the eyeless face a blob of marshmallow, short brown hair on top of his head looking like a skullcap.

  That was enough. Jon started to walk out, but paused, eyes drawn to a red mark on the corpse’s buttock. He pressed the intercom button and his voice came through the speaker in the theatre. ‘Excuse me. Could someone take a closer look at the mark on his arse?’

  One of the technicians stepped round and leaned over the body. ‘It’s a tattoo of a red devil, I think. A small figure holding a trident.’

  A jolt shot down the length of Jon’s spine. ‘I can’t see from this angle, but is there another one on his shoulderblade?’

  She moved to the head of the table and peered down. ‘Yes. The skin’s distorting it pretty badly, but it looks like a ladybird.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jon got his mobile out and called Rick. ‘You can let

  McCloughlin know that Gordon Dean’s just surfaced.’

  ‘So the pathologist reckons he’d been in the water for about ten days?’ said Rick, sipping his gin and Coke.

  Jon put his pint down on the table. ‘Yup.’

  Rick’s lips moved slightly as he counted out a sequence. ‘That still puts him in the time frame for Tyler Young’s murder. Maybe he killed her then, for some reason decided to top himself.’

  Jon shook his head. ‘You’re not having that tenner. With his wrists and ankles bound as they were, it couldn’t have been suicide.’

  Rick rubbed his temples. ‘But if he didn’t kill Young we’re no closer to catching the Butcher.’

  ‘Actually, that might not be the case.’

  ‘Why not? What do you mean?’

  Jon flipped a beer mat over, but failed to catch it. He looked Rick in the face. ‘We’ve still got the Pete Gray lead. I’ve been following it up.’

  Rick crossed his arms and sat back. ‘When have you found the time for that?’

  Jon shrugged. ‘Evenings. I’ve only caught him coming off his shift a couple of times. Followed him to a bar the other night.’

  ‘When were you planning on letting me know?’

  ‘I was about to when Gordon Dean’s body was wheeled in.’

  ‘Really?’ Rick asked sarcastically.

  Jon met his eyes. ‘I was. He went to a singles’ karaoke night dressed like Elvis. Got chatting to a woman there, looked like he was about to pull. Gave her his card, then said something to scare her off.’

  Rick was looking more and more pissed off. ‘You did all this behind my back?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested in shadowing Pete Gray after the amount of hours we’ve been putting in during the day.’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit. You didn’t even ask. We’re meant to be working this together.’ He drained his drink and stood up to go.

  ‘We are. Just hear me out, will you?’ Rick remained standing.

  ‘I rang Lucy Rowlands, the first victim’s daughter. She said a guy gave her mum his card at a singles’ night one time. It was in the same bar I followed him to the other night. Lucy said the guy was a total creep, called him The Fat Elvis.’

  ‘Did you speak to the woman he scared off ?’

  ‘No, because by the time I got back to the bar after following him home, she’d gone. But it means he could have had contact with Angela Rowlands and Carol Miller.’

  ‘Good work. I’ll let you fill in McCloughlin.’ Rick walked out without another word.
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  Jon sighed, then took a mouthful of beer. It didn’t make him feel any better.

  His mobile started buzzing in his pocket. Nikki Kingston, the crime-scene manager’s name showed on his screen.

  ‘Hi, Nikki. How are you?’

  ‘Good, thanks. Why’re you sounding depressed?’

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘Good. You can tell me over those drinks you owe me. Where are you?’

  He’d finished his pint by the time Nikki walked in to the Bull’s

  Head, a small briefcase under one arm.

  Jon waved her over. ‘So what news have you got?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She held up a finger. ‘Drinks first.’ Jon smiled and got to his feet. ‘What’ll it be?’

  ‘Gin and dry martini, thanks.’

  Jon returned with their drinks and sat down.

  Nikki was checking the ashtray for recently stubbed-out butts.

  ‘Still not smoking?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jon protested.

  She looked provocatively at him out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘What?’ he laughed, holding out his hands. ‘What do I have to do to convince you?’

  Looking at the ashtray, she said, ‘There’s only way I could really tell none of these were smoked by you. But the night’s a bit young for that.’ She moved the ashtray to another table. ‘So what’s the long story?’

  Jon’s smile disappeared. ‘That guy I’m working with, Rick

  Saville?’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Nikki took a sip, looking over the rim of her glass. Jon remembered the glance that had passed between them at Tyler Young’s crime scene. The pang of jealousy returned and he found himself saying, ‘Liked him, did you?’

  She smiled. ‘He’s not bad. Doubt I’m his cup of tea, though.’

  Her answer confused him.

  Nikki gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze. ‘I think he’s gay.’

  Jon’s mouth dropped open. ‘He is.’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock? How long did it take you to figure that out?’

  ‘A bit. How did you know?’

  ‘Call it feminine intuition.’ She paused, then looked at him.

  ‘Was that a glimpse of the little green monster I just saw?’