Original Skin (13 page)

She scrolls through her Facebook posts. Comments on a friend’s photo. Wonders whether she can be bothered to change her relationship status again, and decides she’ll leave it for now. She and her boyfriend break up and get back together every week or so, and the frequency of the changes is becoming embarrassing.

She flicks over to Hull Ink. Stefan has appointments free tomorrow. Devon is booked up all day, but he has uploaded some pictures of his old black-and-white stuff.

Indulgently, Georgie-Lee flicks through the various galleries, comparing the images on display. She finds herself wondering, again, who would go to the trouble of having Eeyore or Winnie-the-Pooh tattooed on themselves. Questions why somebody would walk into a tattoo parlor and ask to be branded for life with the lyrics from a Coldplay tune or the picture of a dead granddad. None of it is pretty, and to Georgie-Lee, prettiness is paramount. Her own ink makes her wriggle with pleasure, and to see it on the website, paraded for the masses, still gives her a genuine thrill.

She expands the picture. Looks at her own bare back. A solid brown branch, spreading from the top of her right buttock to the nape of her neck; curving, like a stream, into slender twigs and delicate flowers; a collage of overlying blossoms, against a shimmering lake of lilies.

The design is not really her own. Legally, she supposes, she should not even have it upon her skin. But she had subtly changed the design and added her own little motifs, and Stefan had enjoyed the opportunity to perfect the image that he had inked on another girl some months before.

She looks through the various posts that accompany the image, secretly hoping that somebody will have added a compliment, but the four “like” icons and one “love this” from an old school friend, have not increased in number.

It had hurt less than she thought, and despite predictions that it would take four sittings, Stefan had managed to finish in two. She watched him in the mirror as he worked, his face locked in concentration, the pirate ships on his forearms moving up and down as he drew, as if on gentle seas.

For a time she had planned to make her first tattoo a fairy castle; all daisies and scampering imps. But then she saw the ads. The glossy half-page in the
Journal
. The boy with the peacock feathers and the girl with the blossoms. She had booked herself in almost immediately, brandishing a copy of the mag and insisting that the tattooist who had created the vision do the same for her. He had told her about copyright laws and artistic rights, and she agreed to some tweaks to the design. Added a lily pad, and a tiny hummingbird on an upper branch. Asked if they accepted credit cards, and then stripped herself to the waist.

“You coming back up?”

She looks up. A head is poking out of their second-floor window, masked by a cheap polyester Afro and a Michael Jackson
Thriller
jacket.

“Won’t be a sec,” says Georgie-Lee, and the head withdraws.

She takes a breath. Practices her smile. She is incapable of being the gloomy one in the room. Needs, always, to be jollying along and perking up.

She pulls herself up to a standing position and slips her phone into the elastic of her elbow-length black mesh gloves.

She turns away from the street, stopped before she has taken two paces by the sound of a car door slamming. It is close. Close enough to suggest that perhaps another visitor has arrived, more partygoers out to salvage the evening.

She traces the sound to the stranger emerging from the four-by-four. Gives an accepting nod, and spins away from the road.

“Suzie.”

Georgie-Lee wonders if she has misheard. On instinct, she turns in the direction of the noise.

In a moment she is crashing backward; strong, powerful limbs bearing her to the ground.

A forearm, pushing up beneath her chin, forcing her head back onto the cold, wet tiles. Another hand, tearing at her wig, rubbing away the white powder, the black eyes.

She squirms. Tries to squeal.

And now she is being flipped. Rolled onto her belly. Feels as though she is being clawed open. Hands, nails, tearing at her dress.

Sudden cool air on bare skin; fingers ripping back the flimsy threads, wrenching her bra strap upward so that the underwire digs in beneath her breasts . . .

“Help. Please . . .”

Her voice a gulp; a breath; an animal noise cut short by the sudden feeling of fists in her hair.

She reaches back. Squirms. Wriggles. Fights for her life.

Wet lips, next to her ear.

“I had to be sure. I’m sorry.”

Paving stones rushing toward her face.

Blackness.

And nothing.

“THEY DON’T MATCH.”

Roisin waves her hand in the general direction of McAvoy’s feet.

“What don’t?”

“Your shoes. One’s a sneaker. One’s a boot.”

He looks at his footwear. Nods. “Yeah.”

She turns back to the sink. Fills the kettle. Thirty seconds later she notices it is overflowing and manages to turn the tap off.

“What was I doing?”

“Tea, I think. Or were you sterilizing?”

“It will come to me.”

Between them they got around four hours of sleep last night. Lilah had a fever. She screamed until her face was the color of cherry tomatoes. Clenched her fists so tightly that she scored half-moon scars in her tiny palms. Brought both her parents to tears of impotence and exhaustion. Finally passed out through a mild overdose of Calpol around four a.m., lay stiff as a board on a pillow in Daddy’s lap.

“You can’t go in,” says Roisin. “Not in that state, Aector.”

She is wearing her nightie and flip-flops, and is soaking wet. She tried to put her leather jacket on a dozen times before she walked Fin to school, but couldn’t seem to find the arm holes, and ended up taking him while still dressed for bed. She received sympathetic looks from other parents, familiar with the skull-crushing dishevelment that comes with being mum to a three-month-old baby.

“I can’t call in sick for tiredness.”

“Work from home.”

“Roisin . . .”

“Nnnn.”

They are two zombies, communicating in slurred grunts, gestures, and half-finished sentences.

“You need to sleep.”

“I got some sleep.”

“You got about five minutes, and even then you were sitting up straight. Look at you.”

McAvoy pulls himself out of the hard-backed kitchen chair and lifts up the toaster. It’s silver and polished to a gleam. He examines his face in the reflection. Unshaven. Dark circles beneath his eyes. A bruise starting to form on the orbit of his eye from having spent too long resting his head on the heel of his hand. He notices his top button is undone. Fixes it. Straightens his red tie and checks the front of his black shirt and light gray suit for signs of porridge or baby spit. Finds nothing that cannot be remedied with a damp towel.

“It was like this with Fin. She’ll be better tonight.”

Roisin nods. She is too tired to argue.

“You never got me told,” she says, lifting the kettle and wondering why it is so full. “She okay? Pharaoh?”

McAvoy is engrossed in sifting through the cupboard under the stairs in search of his matching boot. After a few moments he spots it in his left hand.

“She’ll be okay. Sore, but okay.”

“That’s good.”

“Do you have any of that ointment left?”

“No.”

Roisin sounds quite final in her pronouncement. She is a gifted herbalist. There are few plants, trees, roots, berries, or leaves that she cannot mix to create a poultice or pill. She would normally volunteer to make a fresh batch, her innate need to help and heal overpowering all other concerns. This morning she is too tired. She is snappy and nauseated and wants to fall asleep on her husband’s chest and not wake up until both of her children are old enough to vote.

McAvoy does not get the opportunity to ask her if she will make something to help with the pain of Pharaoh’s injuries. His phone rings.

“McAvoy,” he says. “Something or other.”

“Sergeant?”

“Yes,” he says, wearily, running a hand through his hair. “Just about.”

“It’s Dan from Tech Support. Got something for you.”

Drowsily, McAvoy pictures the other man. Dan looks barely old enough to have left university: small, wiry, and with fashionably shaggy mid-length hair. He is usually dressed in a band T-shirt beneath his white coat and wears sneakers with suit trousers.

“Sergeant?”

McAvoy gives himself a little shake. He stands upright and screws his eyes up tightly, trying to bring himself around.

“Yes. Sorry. Terrible night with the little one. I’m listening.”

“Right. Anyway, we did it as a rush job. I’m trying to build up some comp time, so I was here overnight. Planning a Glastonbury trip but used my holidays . . .”

McAvoy bites his tongue, which is difficult mid-yawn. He resists the urge to tell Dan to hurry it along, all too aware of his own propensity for rattling on about things he presumes other people will be interested in. Eventually the technician gets around to the phone.

“Yeah, well, like you said, it’s knackered,” he says with an almost audible shrug. “You did well to recover what you did. We’ve sent away the remaining soil for analysis . . .”

“There’s no need for that, I know where it was found . . .”

“It’s procedure,” says Dan.

“Right.”

“Took the SIM card out again and loaded it into another phone, but like you saw, it’s just this mad stream of numbers and fragments. I did have more luck with the phone itself . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, not all of the contacts were stored on the memory card. A couple were saved to the phone itself. Don’t know why people do that, but sometimes they just hit the wrong button.”

McAvoy feels himself waking up. He pictures a chill breeze blowing through his skull, scattering the drowsiness and refreshing his thoughts.

“Well?”

“I’ve e-mailed you the numbers. Only a couple, and there’s no way of working out which of the contacts they belonged to, but we’ve got some complete digits.”

McAvoy pulls on his boots as he talks. Unconsciously unfastens then refastens his tie.

“Have you checked who they belong to?”

Dan laughs. “You did say it was Pharaoh wanted this doing, yeah?”

“Why?”

“I’m very eager to please, Sergeant,” says the younger man, in a way that McAvoy would have thought of as fun and relatively charming were he not so tired.

“Did you find anything, Dan?”

“Yeah,” he says, and there is a note of petulance in his voice. “It’s on your e-mail. Let me know if you need anything else.”

Dan rings off.

“Bloody hell,” says McAvoy to himself, pulling his laptop from his bag and logging on. He opens his e-mail account and brings up the tech report.

“Interesting?” asks Roisin. She is holding a drinkable yogurt and sitting on the floor, leaning back against the fridge.

“Could be,” says McAvoy, reading the two short paragraphs of detail. “Got two full numbers in the memory. Dan’s requested user details from the service provider, but that could take some time. Ran the digits through a search engine and found them on a procurement committee report. Hull City Council.”

“That’s nice,” says Roisin.

McAvoy runs his tongue around his mouth.

“Council,” he says thoughtfully.

The number is listed as being among a batch of phones ordered by the authority’s procurement division for officers and elected representatives. McAvoy is not sure how he feels about this development. It could be utterly inconsequential. A telephone number listed as a contact in the phone of a dead man? Does it matter? He finds himself pondering how many hundreds of people have his own phone number stored. Whether he would feel angry were he contacted as a result.

Procedurally, he should not even be looking at the tech report. Dan’s work will have to be paid for out of Pharaoh’s budget. McAvoy is not officially conducting a murder investigation, and no senior officer besides Pharaoh is even aware of what he is doing. But to make his previous deceit valid, he needs to bend the rules again. He feels the realization settle within him. Feels his mouth begin to salivate, a prelude to sickness. Feels his skin prickle, as if the hairs on his body were being brushed the wrong way. Accepts this as both sacrifice and payment.

McAvoy pulls up the telephone number for Hull City Council. The Google search also brings up a page full of negative headlines. The authority has been at the bottom of just about every league table for as long as McAvoy has lived in the area. It has been slammed by every inspector to have found his way into the wood-paneled corridors of the guildhall.

He dials the number and listens to the automatic prompts.

For inquiries about rubbish collections, press three. To apply for a council tax rebate, press four . . .

“
If you want to find out why a phone number was stored in the phone of a dead lad, press six,” whispers McAvoy to Roisin. She does not reply. Her eyes are closed and she is spilling yogurt on her feet.

“Hull City Council,” comes a female voice, when he requests the “any other inquiries” option.

“Procurement, please,” he says.

A moment later he is on hold, listening to something monotonously classical. He hums along, but finds his eyes closing, so opens them wide.

“Jacquie Carrington,” comes a high, bright voice.

“Hi,” says McAvoy suddenly unsure. “My name is Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy. I’m ringing from Humberside Police . . .”

“Yes?” She doesn’t sound disinterested or particularly bothered.

“I’m trying to find out which council official was given a particular telephone.”

“The councillors’ mobile numbers are all online,” she begins.

“Yes, well, I’ve rung the number and it’s dead, but I believe it was among a batch ordered by the authority in July of last year?”

There is no reply for a moment.

“I think I may have to speak to my line manager about that,” she says, and it sounds as though she is reading from a script.

“There are obviously ways we can request this information formally,” says McAvoy quickly. “I just thought perhaps you could save us some time. Did you say it was Miss Carrington?”

The lady repeats herself. Tells McAvoy she will speak to her line manager and call him back. Takes his name, number, and thanks him for his time. Promises she will not be long.

McAvoy hangs up and puffs out his cheeks. He turns and looks at Roisin and feels his heart swell at how adorable she looks, snoring softly on the floor with her damp clothes clinging to her goose-pimpled skin. Smiling to himself, he crosses to her and scoops her up with the ease he carries their children.

He carries her to the living room and sits her down. She is flopping like a rag doll and makes no protest as he peels off her wet clothes. He lays her down and returns to the kitchen to retrieve a blanket from the tumble dryer. Comes back and covers her up. Presses his lips to her cheek, and whispers, “Love you,” in her ear. Fancies he sees the faintest of smiles.

His phone rings again. Roisin opens her eyes at the sudden noise and he frantically shushes her, answering the call as he dashes out of the living room and closes the door behind him.

“McAvoy.”

“Detective Sergeant McAvoy?” The voice is nasal. Young.

“Yes. Is that Procurement . . . ?”

“Sergeant McAvoy, my name is Ed Cocker. I wondered if you would be free to talk about one or two matters of a politically sensitive nature.”

McAvoy colors. “How did you . . . ?”

“Sergeant, I’m led to believe you are looking into the activities of Councillor Stephen/Steve Hepburn. Can I ask you the nature of the investigation?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure . . .”

“A source at the guildhall has informed me that his telephone number has come up in connection with an investigation into an ongoing case. I also have some interest in the councillor. Perhaps we could share some information.”

McAvoy is silent for a moment. Wonders just what he is doing and, more important, what he will do next, if not this.

“Perhaps we could.”

•   •   •

THEY ARE IN THE GREEN BRICKS,
a pub named after the emerald tiles that adorn the building’s frontage. It offers a decent view of the bobbing pleasure craft that moor at Hull Marina, and the city center is only beyond the traffic-clogged main road. It should be a bustling area even in the face of today’s harsh gales. Instead, it is an open grave. McAvoy has seen old black-and-white photos of the area in its prime. The fruit market, with its hurly-burly of trade and activity, its carriages and wagons, its chain-smoking men in their dirty jeans and overalls, treading clementines and too-ripe bananas beneath tires and rain boots. Profitable chaos. Trade. Life.

He has seen, too, images of the nearby waterfront. Has read of how the waters, now calmed and framed by the walls of the marina, once rushed haphazardly into the open estuary and provided a living for the captains of many small vessels who would take passengers and produce to New Holland on the opposite bank. Two minutes away is Victoria Pier; the main terminal for ferries to Lincolnshire. McAvoy has heard the stories. Enjoyed the tales of passengers and livestock sharing space on cramped vessels, spending uncomfortable nights stuck on a sandbank midway into the crossing, claimed by the treacherous tides.

He stares out through the glass. Tries to picture it. Tries to give the area new potential. Fresh life. Today most of the units carry
TO LET
signs, or are home to hairdressing salons where bored stylists read magazines and paint their nails.

To his right, just visible through the dusty, rain-lashed windows, is the stern of the Spurn Lightship, a smudge of black against the gray sky. It is one of Hull’s most distinctive landmarks and seems to embody the city and its fortunes. For almost fifty years it sat five miles off the East Yorkshire coast, a floating lighthouse that served as a navigation marker for the thousands of vessels that steamed in and out of the Humber each year, its towering acetylene light visible for more than ten miles against the ink-black waters and skies. It was retired in the mid-seventies, around the same time the city’s trawlermen were being told to fuck off home, and has since been turned into a floating museum. Today day-trippers and bored locals are the only ones to clamber inside and try to imagine how it must have felt to live and work in its claustrophobic embrace. It sits at the edge of the marina, black and joyless. As uninviting as its reality.