Skin (14 page)

‘Go on.’ He didn’t open his eyes. ‘Tell me what you want.’

‘I’m police.’ Caffery reached for his card, but changed his mind. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Jack Caffery. Think back. You’ll remember me. I was the one who came in and pulled you out.’

Now Mallows opened his eyes. He swivelled them to him. ‘You were with that bird? The fit one?’

Caffery crossed his legs, pulling the right foot up and resting it on his knee. ‘The doctors wouldn’t let me see you until now. You’ve been critical this week. They thought they were going to lose you.’

‘Going to get some stick off my mates on that. Letting ourselves get rescued by a tart. It’s been in the papers too.’ Mallows rolled on to his back, and pushed himself upright on his elbows. Caffery stopped tapping his feet and stared. Mallows’s arms had come out from under the sheets. Where his hands had been removed in the squat, the bandaged arms ended in boluses the size of melons. He moved them slowly, painfully. It was like watching a giant praying mantis moving grotesquely around the bed.

He caught Caffery staring and laughed. ‘I know. Pretty fucked up, eh? Doctors reckon they’ve swollen up three times what they should’ve.’

‘You were operated on yesterday.’ He couldn’t keep his eyes off the shapes. It was like Mallows had paddles for arms. ‘That’s what they said.’

‘They wouldn’t do it before, kept snipping away at the stumps. Bits of skin were still dying and there wasn’t a thing they could do about it till they saw what muscles were going to be left behind. Necrotized, that’s what they call it. Necrotized. Dead meat.’

Caffery took his eyes off the bandages and fixed them on Mallows’s face. ‘What’s next?’

‘They’ve taken these massive flaps of skin off the back of my legs and slapped them on these.’ He studied them, turning them over and over. ‘Some time between now and midnight tonight the blood vessels’re going to be growing up into the skin. They connect and, with a bit of luck, I’ll have normal skin over the stumps.’ He dropped his head on to the pillow, stared at the ceiling. ‘Wicked, innit?’

‘You’re doing well, Ian. Really well. I’m pleased to hear it.’

Mallows made a noise in his throat. ‘Yeah, but you’re not here just to blow sunshine up my arse, are you? What do you want? I’ve given them a statement already.’

‘It wasn’t complete. You were out of it when you gave it and you left out some stuff. So now you’re on the up we’re wanting to come back at you for some more. Find out what you remember.’

‘About what?’

‘Well, Dundas, to start with. The one who died.’

‘What about him?’

‘Did you ever see him? Did they introduce you to him?’

‘What, like, nice to meet you, mate? Turned out nice again today, hasn’t it? What bit are they having off of you, then? I’ve told you all this before. I never saw him, never even knew he was in the place. It was like a warren in there. You didn’t know what was going on from one room to the next.’

‘Did you know they cut his hair?’

‘I knew his
head
got cut. I knew that part. Don’t s’pose he was too worried about the hair going as well, do you?’

‘Clement Chipeta – the one who was with you.’

‘Oh, that’s his real name, is it?’

‘When we came in and made the arrests, had he been with you for a while then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He hadn’t been out anywhere? In the last few hours, was he with you in the squat?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Just trying to establish his movements.’

Mallows shook his head. ‘Nah. See, this is where this conversation stops. I’m not a snout. I’m not giving you my little padmate. He never did me no harm.’

‘Funny. From what I remember it was him who introduced you to Uncle in the first place.’

Mallows didn’t answer.

‘You’re protecting him, Ian. There’s a word for that.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah. You’re ‘Stockholming’. Happens to people who’ve been captive long enough – start to side with their captors. That’s what you’re doing.’

‘He wasn’t my
captor
. He never wanted to be involved – he was forced into it. He’s an illegal. Didn’t have a choice from what I could see.’

‘Did you have sex with him too? Is that why you’re wanting to protect him?’

‘Oh, fuck off.’

‘Clement Chipeta tells us he was collecting human hair.’ Caffery watched Mallows for a reaction. ‘He says it was a tradition. He was using it to make a bracelet. Did he talk to you about that?’

‘Look, I just said I ain’t in the business of doing your work for you. I ain’t a snout.’

Caffery reached under the chair, pulled out the two-hundred carton of Bensons and put it on the bedstand. Mallows stared at it. ‘How’m I supposed to smoke them? With my toes?’

‘You’d need a friend to help you. As a matter of fact, Ian, I think you’re going to need a lot of friends when you eventually come out of here.’

‘I keep my mates through not talking to pigs like you.’

‘You know what I think? I think there was something in that squat we found you in that you haven’t told us about.’

Mallows’s eyes flickered. He didn’t look at Caffery but the change was there. The smallest dilation of iris, of capillary, to show the words had hit home.

Caffery took a breath, his own pulse picking up. He leant forward and spoke in a low voice: ‘I’m right, aren’t I? There was something in that squat you couldn’t explain.’

A vein pulsed pale in Mallows’s temple.

‘Ian,’ Caffery murmured, ‘did anyone tell you how many people came out of that squat? There was you. One.’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘There was the piece of shit who masterminded the whole thing, the one you called Uncle. Two.’

‘I ain’t listening to this.’

‘There was your little friend Clement. Three. And there was a corpse. Dundas. One, two, three and you makes four . . . Ah – that surprises you, doesn’t it? You thought I was going to say five.’

‘I don’t feel well. Get me a nurse.’ Mallows lifted both arms and tried to manoeuvre the call button from the bars of the bedstead. ‘I need a bedpan.’

Caffery stood and untangled the call console. Held it just out of Mallows’s reach.

‘Give me that. I need a nurse. Need a crap.’

‘It’s just withdrawal.’

‘I know what it fucking well is. Don’t need you giving me a lecture on the agonies, do I?’

‘Haven’t they got you on something?’

‘The green.’

‘How often?’

‘Twice a day.’

‘And that isn’t enough?’

‘What? You going to hang around and watch me crap myself? Is that your thing? Funny. I never would have labelled you as someone who was into that. You know what I do for a living, don’t you? When I get out of here you and I can have a little chat, if you want. I’m reasonable.’

Caffery folded his arms and looked at him patiently. ‘You’re going to have to talk to me, Ian. Eventually you’ll talk.’

‘Fuck off.’

Caffery nodded thoughtfully. ‘I know where your hands are.’

There was a pause. A long silence. When Mallows had been brought out of the squat, all he’d done was scream about his hands. More than anything, he’d wanted his hands back. Now he turned his cold blue eyes to Caffery. ‘You what?’

‘I said I know where your hands are. The coroner can’t let them go, but I can tell you where they are.’

‘Where?’

‘When you tell me about what else was in that place.’

‘You don’t mean it.’

‘I do.’

‘Take your jacket off.’

‘What?’

‘I want to see if you’re wired.’

‘Christ.’ Caffery took off his jacket, dropped it on the bed and stood in his shirtsleeves with his hands out at his sides. ‘Happy?’

‘Open your shirt.’

He unbuttoned it, pulled it off his shoulders and turned in a circle. Mallows watched him steadily. Took in his naked stomach. His chest.

‘What? See something you like?’

‘I’m never going to repeat this.’ Mallows’s eyes were hard. ‘If it comes up in court I’m going to deny it. I’ll say you touched me up. And me all vulnerable in a hospital bed.’

‘What was this bracelet he was making?’ Caffery pulled his shirt back on and sat down. ‘What was the point of it?’

A long pause. Then, ‘Protection,’ he murmured. ‘From evil spirits. He used to brick it over them – really scared.’

‘Scared? What did
he
have to be scared of?’

Mallows gave him a look that said police were a mystery that would never, ever be revealed. A different species. And, under that scrutiny, Caffery started to see it from a different perspective. He saw an illegal immigrant, scared of being deported back to a country that would have the skin off his bones in the blink of an eye. He got it and he was embarrassed that it had taken him until now to really get it.

‘About Clement,’ he said. ‘Do you know if he was cruel to animals?’

‘Everyone in that place was cruel to everything. That’s my understanding of the situation.’

‘Ever talk about taking a knife to a dog or anything?’

‘Not a dog. They hated dogs in Tanzania, apparently. Thought they were vermin – wouldn’t touch them.’

‘But the gang he worked for dealt with endangered species back in Tanzania.’

‘Not dogs. Dogs aren’t endangered.’

What had Beatrice said?
Little ASBO kids from the Southmead estate would be capable of something like that
. Was she right? Was the dog really not connected here?

‘Why’d they go for you, Ian? You’re white.’

‘I dunno. Clement liked white people.’

‘He thought we had more power, didn’t he? Thought our bodies made better
muti
?’

‘Maybe.’

Caffery shifted in his chair and pretended to be fastening his cuffs. ‘The reason I’m asking about who was in the squat, Ian, is that some of my witnesses from this case said they’d seen something they couldn’t understand.’

Mallows’s Adam’s apple moved, but he didn’t speak.

‘Their imaginations were working overtime, of course, but they talked about seeing a monster. Now your friend Chipeta says it was him. Dressed up.’

‘Oh, he does, does he?’

‘Yes. Is he telling the truth?’

‘Ask him.’

‘I’m asking you. Once again. Was there something in that place you couldn’t explain?’

No answer.

‘Was it there when we came in? Did it escape?’

Silence.

‘Did it see me? Was it watching me?’

Silence again.

‘Ian, you said you’d speak to me. That was the deal.’

Mallows gave him a fierce look. ‘And I’ve given you all the answers I’ve got. You want to know anything else you go down City Road. You know City Road, I take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thought you might. Try speaking to the whores down there. There’s one – blonde girl, white jacket. Have a word with her. Ask her opinion on the subject of monsters.’

Caffery stopped buttoning his shirt and stared at Mallows. He thought of his car parked in an alleyway off City Road the night something had slammed on to his bonnet. He’d been with a prostitute that night – not something he had printed on a T-shirt, but it was true. Her name was Keelie. She’d been in the car with him. ‘Did you get a name? Of the girl? The hooker?’

‘Nah. Just one of the millions. You know how it goes.’

Caffery fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper he’d been carrying for days. It was the disconnected number dialled from Ben Jakes’s phone. He’d called it once, on his work phone, not the phone where he stored his personal contacts, but he’d never tried it on his personal line. Now he thumbed the number in. The mobile paused, the screen went blank, then a small flashing icon came up with the words ‘calling Keelie City Road mobile’. Someone – the Tokoloshe? – had used Jakes’s phone to call Keelie. The prostitute. The ghost of an idea moved through him.

He stood, pulled on his jacket and fastened the buttons. ‘Thank you, Ian. I wish you luck until the next dose.’

‘Hey.’ Mallows sat up hurriedly in bed. ‘Where do you think you’re going? You made a promise. You said you’d tell me where my hands are. I need to know they’re somewhere that bastard uncle can’t get at them. Don’t want him touching them again.’

‘They’re safe.’ Caffery paused, his hand on the door. ‘The pathologist examined them, gave them their own little postmortem, and now they’re under lock and key. Waiting for the coroner to tell him what to do with them.’

‘Where?’ Mallows sat up, his eyes bulging. The soft light falling on the bed made him look as if he was in some hellish religious painting. Bosch or Goya. ‘You said you’d tell me where they are.’

Caffery opened the door and stood in the doorway for a moment. ‘They’re here. In the hospital mortuary in the basement. In fact, you know what?’ He shook his head at the irony. ‘They’ve been here all along. All this time. Just thirty feet under you.’