The man has ordered some of this synthetic skin from its American manufacturers. It’s been shipped to him in injection-moulded polystyrene blocks: five flabby discs about the size of his palm, suspended in an agar nutrient medium and sealed in a high-grade polythene bag. As evening falls across the farmland that surrounds his lonely house he is examining the skin. He smells it, rests it on his hand and holds it up to the light. He screws his eyes shut and presses it to his face. Clenches his teeth and waits to feel better.
He’s been caught. Again.
Again.
‘Sssssssh.’ He rocks slightly. Lets the skin settle into the shape of his jaw. The problem is taken care of. He’s sure it’s taken care of. Nothing to get upset about. ‘Sssssssh.’
He pulls the artificial skin away from his face. Stares at it angrily. It has no hair, no pigment and none of the Langerhans cells that allow real skin to fight infection. It has no blood and no sweat glands. It’s no better than rabbit or dog skin. In disgust he flicks it off his fingers into the bin, where it hits the side and clings. He watches it and then, when it shows no sign that it will drop, he gets up and uses a long tanning awl to push it into the bottom.
Nothing, nothing, is fair in this world.
35
The gastro pub was at the top of a steep city road in Clifton. It had red-brick floors, squashy sofas, a Swedish wood stove, and racks of vintage wines behind glass. Caffery and Colin Mahoney ordered J20s, ‘sharing bread’ and a sandwich each. They sat in one of the huge bay windows where they could see office workers hurrying to lunch.
‘How’s Daisy?’ Caffery asked. ‘How’s she coping?’
‘How do you think she’s coping? There just isn’t the vocabulary.’
‘Have you told her about the dog? ‘
‘Thought I’d save that one.’ Mahoney was dressed in his grey suit, a white shirt and an old-fashioned Paisley tie. He looked tired. ‘No one’s been in touch since you came over yesterday. Haven’t heard a thing. Nothing. Not even a card or a bunch of flowers from the FLO.’
‘Those liaison officers. They’re just scared of commitment.’
‘I was at least expecting someone to call to tell me it had been reclassified. You know, as a murder.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Caffery patted his pocket, felt the tobacco wallet and thought about having to go outside to smoke. He’d been into the office this morning and gone through the day’s HOLMES ‘actions’ for Powers. As he’d promised. He was entitled to do what he wanted with his lunch-hour. ‘I’m working on that. I really am. I’ve spoken to the pathologist.’
‘And?’
‘She’s having problems reversing the suicide decision. Standing pretty firm on it. The only wobbly place is the temazepam. If she’s got any knot at all, it’s that. When Lucy died she was full of benzodiazepines.’
‘Her GP used to tell her she’d get addicted, that she should have a nice G-and-T instead. But she knew how to work him. Bathroom cupboard used to rattle with them. It scared me, with Daisy around. So? Am I going to get an answer? Are you treating it as a murder?’
‘Not officially. But, for the sake of argument, say you and I work on the assumption we are?’
‘Not an assumption for me. It’s a fact.’
‘Then we move on to whodunit territory. Like suspects and motives.’
Mahoney held out his hands to show he was clueless.
‘We think someone used that missing key to come into her house. Maybe after it happened, right? To clean up. Or was there something else they wanted? You’ve checked nothing’s missing?’
‘Nothing, as far as I can tell. Only the Stanley knife and the key.’
‘Whoever’s got it could still come in and out.’
‘No, they couldn’t. I’ve changed the lock. I did it myself, this morning.’
For starters came Haloumi bread, warm and shiny with oil, lumps of cheese and caraway seeds pressing up through the crust like tiny black veins. The men ate, looking out at the suspension bridge. The sun glinted on the chocolaty river below.
‘I spent the night reading the witness statements from when she was a misper,’ Caffery said. ‘Talk to me a bit more about how it happened. She went missing at five thirty on the Sunday?’
‘That was the last time I saw her.’
‘And you called the police on the Monday?’
‘Yes.’
‘That was nearly twenty-four hours later. Why did you wait?’
‘I didn’t think it was appropriate. Until she didn’t turn up to get Daisy from school.’
‘Appropriate? But she was missing.’
‘I didn’t know she was. Not at that point. She just wasn’t answering my calls. If she chooses to stay out all night it’s not my business any more.’
‘How long have you been divorced?’
‘A year. Separated two.’
‘You were still close?’
‘Not at first. Daisy came with me to my mother’s, that was agreed right from the start, and at the beginning Lucy’d wait until I was at work to visit her. I didn’t see her for a year – we managed to avoid each other. Then things mellowed a bit, around the time the divorce was finalized. We settled some old arguments, started talking again, for Daisy’s sake. Lucy had changed in that time. You saw that, didn’t you, in the video?’
‘Why did you separate in the first place? What were the circumstances?’
‘I left. We’d run out of things to enjoy together. We were growing apart.’
‘Growing apart – that sounds like the sort of excuse people come up with for something else.’
Mahoney smiled nervously. ‘I don’t know, but the way you’re speaking to me here, it sounds as if I’m on trial.’
‘No. I’m just trying to get a picture. Something you tell me might have the key to all this. Even if you don’t realize it. Did Lucy have a boyfriend? She was an attractive woman.’
Mahoney folded a napkin on to his lap. The rest of the meal was already on its way, but he picked up the menu and studied it anyway.
‘Colin? I asked if Lucy had a boyfriend.’
He coughed. ‘I’m wondering if I should have chosen the roast-pork sandwich instead. Wednesdays, in the summer, they do a hog roast here on the street for people coming out of the office. Whole pig on a spit. Hand it out in napkins. Nice with Somerset apple sauce.’
Caffery sat back in his seat and watched him. He thought again about his mother, wondering what she looked like now, wondering if she was in pain, if now the pain was physical, from joints getting tired of rubbing together, from muscles aching with hard work, or if there was still pain from losing Ewan. He wondered if time had changed the pain – mutated or softened it. ‘Colin? You left her. Why’s this difficult for you?’
‘Does it matter why?’
‘I’m trying to pull with you, mate, not against. Did she have a boyfriend?’
Mahoney rubbed his eyes and put down the menu. ‘You should know the answer to that. It’ll be in those statements her friends made.’
‘I want to hear it from you.’
‘Yes. She had a boyfriend. OK?’
‘A name?’
‘No. And her friends didn’t give you one. They don’t know either, do they?’
‘Weird… that she didn’t tell her friends her boyfriend’s name.’
‘Not that weird. She was the most private person I knew. And she was protecting him. He was married.’
‘Well, that’s interesting.’
‘Not really. They were sort of… lukewarm together. She liked him but there was nothing serious. Oh, don’t worry, I’ve thought about it, whether or not he had something to do with her… You know.’
‘And?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Doesn’t seem right. She didn’t feel threatened by him.’