Someone Else's Skin: (DI Marnie Rome)

by Hilary, Sarah

Stuke wet his lips. ‘What’d she do?’

  ‘She smashed his ribs with a kettlebell.’

  He nodded, slowly, sucking on his tongue as if he was testing the flavour of his reaction to this news. He wasn’t Leo Proctor. He wasn’t ashamed, or not just ashamed, of whatever he and Hope had done. He was damaged, dangerous. He was standing within arm’s reach of a block of knives.

  ‘What’re their names?’ Marnie asked. ‘The twins. Your babies.’

  He blinked at her, shifting on his feet, away from the shadows for a second. The overhead light shed hot white powder on his head, making his gaze filmy and unfocused. He blinked again. Slowly. ‘Gabriel and Lily. Gabe and Lil.’

  She held a breath in her chest. If he’d harmed them . . . he couldn’t have said their names so easily.

  ‘Lovely names. Unusual.’

  He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckled fist. ‘Freya chose them.’

  ‘She’s not coping well. Not like you.’

  ‘She’s got pills,’ he said, as if he was naming a disease. ‘She sleeps most of the time. They say she’s getting better.’

  ‘You could use some help. With Gabe and Lily. With Freya.’

  Concentrate on his family, keep saying their names. Remind him of what he’s got to lose.

  He shook his head. ‘I’m coping. The only bloody one who is. With them, with her. I do what needs to be done.’ He hadn’t harmed them, not yet. He wouldn’t have been so angry if he’d harmed them. Would he?

  ‘Yes, you do, but you can ask for help. That’s allowed.’

  ‘Why’re you here?’ he demanded. ‘Because of her? What’s she saying? That bitch. What’s she saying I did?’

  The anger made him bigger, lifting off him like smoke before a fire.

  ‘Nothing. She’s not admitting to any of it. That’s why I’m here. I need another witness, someone who’ll tell us what she’s really like. Her husband’s too scared. The women at the refuge are scared. But you’re not, Henry. You have Gabe and Lily to think of. They need their dad back.’ Marnie drew a short breath. ‘If you help us put her behind bars . . . you can have that. Your life back. A second chance. Not many people get that.’

  Stuke’s chest shook. ‘You think that’s what I want?’ He spat laughter at her. ‘My life. This life? You silly bitch. You silly fucking bitch.’

  Marnie wrenched a smile from her mouth. ‘All right. Okay. I get it, and you know what? I’m going to leave now.’ She put her hand on her bag. ‘I’m going to let you sleep on it, see how you feel in the morning.’

  He didn’t stop laughing, the sound of it like snarling now. ‘Go ahead and try.’

  The kitchen door was behind her. She couldn’t remember how high the handle was, or whether he’d closed the door when they came in here. She couldn’t afford to fumble; as it was, she’d have to turn her back on him.

  ‘You can’t leave them,’ Stuke said, lifting his pale eyes to the room above them. ‘You can’t leave them alone with me. It’s not safe.’

  Marnie listened to the tick of the watch at her wrist, the seconds going by. How many more before he made his move? He was vibrating with rage and lust, or worse.

  ‘What do you want?’ She stood still, hoping he’d follow her lead. ‘If you don’t want a second chance. If you’re sick of this life you’re fortunate enough to have . . . A wife and kids. What do you want?’

  ‘Fortunate. You thinking I’m fortunate?’

  ‘Plenty of people have a lot less.’

  ‘Yeah? Lucky fucking them.’ His tongue across his lips again. ‘Take your jacket off.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s hot in here. Take your jacket off.’

  It was worse. Much worse.

  ‘Mr Stuke . . . you must know I’m not going to do that.’

  He ran his pale stare over her, like torchlight. His lip curled higher. ‘Yes you are. I know what you want. I know what all you bitches want.’

  He was crazy. Furious. His lips shone with spittle. How much of it was Hope’s doing, and how much was just him – Henry?

  ‘What is it you think I want?’ Marnie asked. As long as he was talking, he wasn’t moving. When he started moving . . . that was what scared her.

  ‘Same as her,’ he said. ‘You came here, didn’t you? Knowing what I did.’

  Yes, she did. Tim Welland had told her to take DS Carling, but no, she had to do this alone. DI Marnie Rome, dragon-slayer. She had to come here alone. Except she wasn’t; she wasn’t ever alone when she was scared. Ghosts crowded in the kitchen with her. Her parents, and Stephen Keele.

  Stuke was saying, ‘You’re all the same. The only difference is she pretended to be weak. Out in the open, when she wasn’t being real, she pretended she was pretty, and clean. Just like you’re pretending to be tough, but I got good at seeing underneath, with her. And underneath you’re not tough. You’re desperate, or you wouldn’t be here, grubbing after what I’ve got. Knowing what I did.’

  ‘I don’t know what you did. Not really.’ Her pulse had slowed. She didn’t take her eyes off him, not even to look for weapons, or a way out. ‘Tell me what you did to her.’

  Stuke took a step forward, swinging his damaged fist like a mace. ‘I gave her what she wanted.’

  ‘Tell me.’ She was stalling for time. Seeing the pattern of defensive wounds on her father’s hands, seeing Stephen’s head bowed in the courtroom, hiding from everyone.

  Get over it.

  Use it.

  Fear, pain, anger . . . Unless she could get her hands on a real weapon, the emotional arsenal was all she had.

  ‘Tell me,’ she insisted.

  ‘It won’t help you,’ Stuke sneered. ‘It was consensual. You can’t make a case out of two adults getting what they both wanted.’

  Marnie nodded at his wrecked hand. ‘Like that? Did you want that?’

  He lifted the hand and looked at it. There was a fly in the kitchen, buzzing, knocking against the window. If she ran – if she turned and ran – how far could she get? Into the hall? All the way to the front door? She saw herself tripping on one of the toys out there, breaking her nose on the floor, Stuke’s weight landing on top of her, trapping her . . .

  ‘You should’ve seen the state of her,’ Stuke expanded his shoulders, filling more of the kitchen, ‘when I was done.’

  ‘I saw her,’ Marnie said. ‘She didn’t look that bad.’

  Not what she’d planned to say. Not a safe thing to say. But it brought Stuke to a standstill, staring at her.

  ‘I don’t think you did anything. I don’t think she gave you the chance.’

  He pulled his lips back from his teeth and flexed his fists, the good one and the one that had no feeling left in it. Which would he throw first? Or would he reach for a weapon, cut this dance short? Part of her wished he would.

  Get on with it.

  They couldn’t stop him. Greg and Lisa Rome. They couldn’t stop a fourteen-year-old kid. Why not? If she knew how it happened – how he was able to kill them – maybe she could stay alive. At the corner of her eye, on its high shelf, she saw the dull glint of steel from the butcher’s block.

  She saw Stephen Keele wearing her father’s spectacles, daring her to stop hating him.

  Stay with me, she demanded of the memory. I need you.

  Two adults couldn’t stop a skinny fourteen-year-old kid they’d tried to love. Because they couldn’t see him, the real Stephen, not until he was up so close he was killing them.

  ‘I don’t think Hope gave you a chance,’ she told Stuke. ‘She waited until your back was turned and she smashed you with a kettlebell before you could do a thing to her.’

  Now he was coming, mouth snapped shut, no more words.

  Good. She was done with talking. She needed her breath for better things, like . . .

  Dodging the first grab he made for her, ducking and reaching the door, the handle jumping through her fingers as he hauled her collar and tossed her at the table, where she bounced, hard, hitting t
he fridge door as she fell, rolling away from his weight as he followed her down.

  His face thrust close, his eyes boiling over, teeth snapping, thinking he’s got her, he’s got her now.

  Fuck that.

  She twisted sideways.

  Kicked the grin from his face.

  Found her feet.

  He surged up, grabbing again. Something ripped at her neck and she kicked out; those self-defence classes paying off at last, except she kicked the wrong fist and it didn’t hurt him, not enough to make him stop. It was like kicking at wet cement.

  He wrapped his fist in the torn lining of her jacket and hauled her towards the table, shoving her face-down until she could taste disinfectant and powdered baby milk and her blood leaking between her teeth.

  He breathed into her neck, ‘Bitch,’ fumbling with his free hand, feeling her up, fingers all over the ink on her skin. ‘You want to know what we did? We fucked. We bit and scratched and shagged. She loved it. She wanted to be hurt. Loved the stink of her own blood. Got off on it. And yeah, I made a mistake, turned my back for two seconds, but that’s the way it was – we took turns. First her, then me. Only I didn’t get my turn, that last time. She did me.’ His left hand clawed at Marnie. ‘I didn’t get to do her. She left me in that stinking hotel room and fucked off back to her pretend life. But I know what’s real. I know her. Give me three minutes in a room with her and I’ll show you – I’ll show everyone. I know how to make her squirm. She knows it. That’s why she tried to stop me. Because she knows I see her. She might have the rest of the world fooled by her act, but I can name every last fucking one of her kinks. What makes her tick. What she needs.’ His breath hitched on the last word.

  His hands had stopped moving but his weight had Marnie pinned, held down.

  A flash of memory, neon-bright: the pavement outside her parents’ house, hot and gritty, Tim Welland’s hand holding her down, the glare from Dad’s car, everything like glass, breakable. Everything. She’s in a thousand pieces and can’t get up, can’t ever get up . . .

  A high-pitched noise scrabbled from her left: breathless squawking mixed with static.

  Stuke jerked upright, choking.

  Marnie went limp, letting gravity drag her free from under him, kicking properly this time, no holding back, hearing cartilage crunch in his knee, seeing him go down, sideways, and following him with her elbow between his shoulder blades and his face in the floor, no fumbling this time, plasticuffs ripped tight around his wrists.

  When she could, she stood.

  Stuke was squirming in synch with the persistent squawking from the baby monitor. The twins, awake upstairs.

  Gabe and Lily. They needed their dad, God help them.

  They’d stopped this, shocked Stuke back to reality. Gabriel and Lily. He was scared of them. Scared of the weight of responsibility, the power they had over him. Hope’s power was nothing, by comparison.

  Marnie’s jacket was hanging in two pieces at the back. She smoothed her shirt back into her waistband, and knotted her hair away from her face. By the time she’d done this, she’d stopped shaking.

  ‘You’re going to give me what I need to convict Hope Proctor. That happens, and I won’t press charges. I’ll get you help to sort out this mess and be a dad to your kids. Your family. Because you’re lucky enough to have one.’

  Stuke wasn’t snarling now. He was sobbing. Pushing his forehead at the floor and sobbing.

  Marnie stepped away. She took out her phone and speed-dialled the station. ‘I’m at Henry Stuke’s place. I need a squad car and a Family Liaison Unit, as soon as you can get them here. Sooner, in fact. Treat it as an emergency.’

  The baby monitor was silent. Either the twins had gone back to sleep or their mother had woken and gone to them.

  The house was quiet again, and now she remembered how, from the outside, it had looked like every other house in the street.

  39

  Noah Jake had given up the fight against the hospital radio. Its soundtrack was a constant chirruping from the adjacent ward. Dan had left his smartphone, tuned to LBC. Noah put in earphones and listened half-heartedly, in a bid to distract himself from the whingeing in his ribs.

  He’d fallen asleep after Marnie left, dreaming of Hope in the dock, extracting sympathy from the jury as easily as water from a sponge.

  Simone wasn’t in the dream, but Noah woke thinking about her. Where she was, who was taking care of her. Whether she was talking yet, to Ed Belloc maybe. He remembered the way she’d snapped to attention when he called her Nasiche, and felt again the pang of guilt, about which Marnie had promised him a lecture. He flexed his ankle, experimentally. He wanted to be up and out of here.

  LBC Radio was hosting a phone-in. He’d tuned out when he was testing his ankle, tuning back in when the DJ introduced a caller from Whitechapel.

  ‘We’ve got a young woman on the line who wants to tell us about her experiences of growing up in north London. Is it Anna?’

  ‘Ayana.’ Her voice was very clear, as if she was in the recording studio with the DJ.

  Ayana.

  Noah put his fingers over the earphones, pressing them in place. His ribs stabbed sharply, but he ignored them. He looked around for a piece of paper, or another phone. He didn’t want to disconnect from the radio station.

  ‘Ayana. You’re calling from Whitechapel?’

  ‘From Fieldgate Mansions in Myrdle Street. Block Ten, Flat G.’

  Yes! Good. Stay on the line.

  The DJ laughed. ‘That’s . . . very specific! Thanks, Ayana. What was the point you wanted to make?’

  ‘I need the police. I’m being held against my will by my brothers, Nasif and Turhan Mirza.’ Her voice was steady, urgent but not hysterical. She’d practised this speech before she called the phone-in. ‘Nasif is wanted by the police for an assault in which a man lost his hand. He is very dangerous and I am very scared. My name is Ayana Mirza. I am in Flat G, Block Ten of Fieldgate Mansions in Myrdle Street.’

  Brave, brave Ayana.

  Noah was cheering, his finger poised to speed-dial Marnie Rome as soon as Ayana rang off.

  The DJ was asking something about the police, why didn’t she call the police?

  ‘I couldn’t be sure of getting through to the right person. Not everyone in the police is the right person.’

  The DJ said, ‘Well, you – you’re certainly getting through to – to the right people now, Ayana.’ From the stammer in his voice, it was clear that the average phone-in hadn’t prepared him for this type of revelation. ‘I’m sure plenty of our listeners are dialling the police, and I know my editor is doing the same. Sit tight and someone will be with you very soon.’

  Don’t be an idiot – she needs to stay on the line. We need to know she’s safe. We need to hear her voice . . . People need to hear this . . .

  The DJ’s editor must’ve said the same thing, because he added, ‘Keep talking, Ayana, please. Let us know what’s happening there.’

  ‘I’m in the bedroom at the back of the flat. They’ve locked the door. My brothers are in the front room. My mother has gone out, to the shops. That’s how I am able to make this call. I hid – I hid the phone. They searched me, but they didn’t find it. I’m good at hiding things, but I am scared of what happens when she returns.’ Her voice wavered for the first time. ‘Very scared.’

  ‘Stay with us, Ayana. Stay on the line. London’s listening. You have over two million supporters out there, lots of them very close to you. You’re going to be safe very soon.’

  He was right: too many people knew where she was now.

  Smart, smart Ayana.

  She’d learned the power of the phone-in when she was at the refuge, watching TV for the first time in her life. She was a fast learner. Her brothers couldn’t keep this quiet, not now. Not with over two million witnesses to her call. And she was ready to give evidence against her brothers; Noah could hear it in her voice.

  ‘London, we’re talking with Ayana Mi
rza, a young woman being held against her will in Whitechapel. The police have been informed, and are on their way . . .’

  Noah pressed call, and the radio went quiet as the phone rang for Marnie Rome.