Someone Else's Skin (38 page)

‘Simone’s or Hope’s?’

‘Simone’s. I didn’t see them, but I felt them. She . . . was petrified.’

‘Hope terrorised her.’

A sudden harsh weeping from the adjoining room. It didn’t last, seguing into stagey laughter, embarrassed.

‘Is she here?’ Noah asked. ‘In the hospital? Simone. Is she here?’

‘Yes, but not on this floor.’ Marnie looked at him. ‘The surgeon said you were lucky. No serious internal bleeds.’

‘Is Hope here?’

‘No. Do you think she meant to kill you?’

Noah didn’t need to think about that. ‘Yes.’

‘You know how this goes.’ She smiled in apology. ‘Did she
tell
you that she intended to kill you?’

‘No, but she demonstrated total disregard for my well-being.’ Too many words; he had to stop to get his breath back. ‘Kettlebell. Ditto hammer.’

Marnie glanced down the bed, at his damaged leg. ‘That’s how she hurt your ankle? With the hammer.’

Noah blinked at the ceiling, then back at her. ‘That was Simone. Hope would have . . . broken my leg.’

Marnie was quiet. At last she said, ‘Simone hit you with the hammer.’

‘She was . . . terrorised. Doing as Hope told her.’

Another beat of silence.

‘Hope told her to hit you with a hammer,’ Marnie said. ‘You heard her do that.’

Noah chewed at a raw spot inside his cheek. ‘No. But it was . . . obvious that’s what was going on.’

‘Hope denies it.’

‘Denies what? Forcing Simone to do as she said?’

‘All of it. She denies all of it.’

Noah’s mind turned like a broken dynamo, bringing up nothing. ‘She . . .’

‘Denies everything. It was all Simone. Simone forced her to leave the hospital. Simone took her home, to get the kettlebell. Simone broke into the Bissells’ house. When you showed up, Simone attacked you. Simone tied you up, and proceeded to torture you.’

Noah swallowed a spike of nausea. ‘The kettlebell. She says that was Simone?’

‘Yes.’ Marnie’s voice was steady, taking no prisoners. She’d had her fingers burned, he knew, with the mistakes they’d made first time around, at the refuge. ‘I’m going to need a list from you of exactly what Hope said and did.’

‘She . . . put a knife to my chest. Punched me. In the throat. Put . . . the kettlebell on my chest and . . . hit it. With the hammer.’ He was sobbing for breath by the time he’d finished even just that much.

Marnie touched the back of his hand. ‘Not now. When you’re well enough.’

He shook his head. ‘I want . . . to do it now. She needs locking away.’

‘She’s locked away.’ Marnie kept her hand on his. ‘Get better, then we’ll talk properly.’

‘Ayana . . .’ he began.

‘No news, but we’re looking.’

‘Simone’s mum and dad . . .’

‘In Marrakesh. We’ve contacted them.’

They’d never know. Charles and Pauline Bissell. They’d never know what went on in their house while they were away. No one would, unless Simone could find a way to tell the truth. Simone was in shock, otherwise why wasn’t she telling the police what really happened in the house?

Marnie stood. ‘Dan’s waiting. I’m going to get back to the station.’

Noah didn’t want her to go, not yet. He had too many questions. ‘Hope said I was . . . pretending. Not . . . a proper detective.’

She paused in the doorway to look back at him. ‘She lied. About Leo. About Simone. About You. It’s what she does.’

‘I told Simone to get a knife,’ Noah said despairingly. ‘I called her Nasiche. I wanted her . . . to be Nasiche.’

She nodded, accepting this without surprise or censure. ‘It’s what we were all wishing. Me and Ed, and Toby Graves. Nasiche knew how to stay alive.’

Noah didn’t have the strength to put into words what he was feeling. He was one more person who’d manipulated Simone Bissell. No wonder she’d shut down. He tried to imagine how it had happened. The knife in Simone’s hands. Hope woken from her sleep on the floor, putting up her arms in self-defence . . .

Was it that simple? Hope defending herself against Simone’s attack? Because Noah had triggered a different set of memories to the ones Hope had triggered with the yellow roses. It’d saved his life, maybe even saved Simone’s, but at what cost, if Hope was denying it and she was the one with the defensive wounds?

‘One thing,’ Marnie said from the doorway. ‘We got Lowell Paton. The CPS is bringing a case of wounding with intent.’

‘Simone . . .?’

‘Not Simone, not yet. Two other girls. Dream catch: red-handed.’

Like Simone. Red-handed, with a knife, sitting in a pool of Hope Proctor’s blood.

‘Henry Stuke,’ Noah remembered. He tried to pull himself upright. ‘He had a broken hand. He blamed it on his work, but he was watching the refuge – and the hospital. We couldn’t connect him to the other women, Simone or Ayana. Ron thought he was a waste of time, but he had a broken hand. Like Leo.’

Marnie closed the door and came back to the bed. ‘Tell me.’

Noah shook his head, wishing it didn’t feel stuffed with wire wool. ‘He’ll never admit to it. If it was Hope . . . he’s worse than Leo, much worse. A real man’s man. He’ll never admit that a woman beat him up.’

‘Maybe,’ Marnie said. She sat at his side. ‘Tell me anyway.’

34

Two floors up, the sun was sneaking in through reinforced windows, finding bronze highlights in Ed’s hair. ‘Rome . . .’ He grinned at her through his fringe. She resisted the urge to tidy his bedhead, since she was responsible for it.

‘How’s Simone?’ She nodded in the direction of the private room. A window in the closed door showed a glimpse of the girl lying in the bed, her profile a dark woodcut against white pillows.

‘Sleeping,’ Ed said.

‘Drugs?’

‘No, just sleeping.’

‘That’s something . . . We arrested Lowell Paton last night.’

Ed looked at her quickly. ‘Where?’

‘At his penthouse apartment. He was beating up a couple of call girls. The CPS is debating whether it’s ABH or wounding with intent. Lowell’s lawyer is trying to pass it off as common assault with consent, but with five witnesses and two split lips, there’s no way that will wash. He can’t plead consent to wounding.’ She sketched a smile at Ed, glad of the chance to give some good news. ‘He’s going to prison.’

‘For how long?’

‘At least five years, longer if we get lucky.’

Ed looked into the hospital room, at the sleeping girl. ‘Lucky,’ he repeated.

‘It shouldn’t come down to luck, I know. And he deserves worse, for what he did to Simone.’ Her eyes stung. She closed them for a short moment, thinking about the arrest in Paton’s apartment. The cheap bag of bondage gimmicks, the girls’ wails. They hadn’t known what they were getting into. Probably imagined there was safety in numbers, that it was just a game. A rich white boy’s game. They hadn’t known the kind of animal Paton was, or the things that turned him on.

‘Were they badly hurt?’ Ed asked. ‘You said wounding . . .’

‘He’d knocked them about a bit, but we got there before the real fun started. Lowell’s idea of fun . . .’ Marnie glanced at her watch. ‘He’s due in court at one. I should go to Talgarth Road, as the arresting officer.’

He nodded. ‘Have you got time for breakfast first?’

She smiled at him. ‘My treat.’

Her favourite café, for French toast and coffee. Too early for the lunch crowd, too late for breakfast. The proprietor led them to a table at the back, bringing a pot of coffee, another of hot milk, laying their places with care before withdrawing to the kitchen.

Marnie watched Ed take a cup in his hands, a slow curl of steam softening the angle of his cheek. Her eyes followed his fingers, to his square wrist, lightly freckled where the bone rose to the warm surface of his skin.

‘I’m in trouble,’ she said. ‘At work.’

Ed put the cup down. ‘Tell me?’

‘Hope . . .’ She traced a pattern on the tablecloth with the pad of her thumb. ‘She’s blaming everything on Simone. The escape from the hospital, what was done to Noah, everything. She has a lawyer. I haven’t met him yet. He’s threatening a case of police negligence. I failed to provide her with adequate protection against Simone.’

‘She . . . You’re kidding.’

‘Nope. It’s neat, you must admit. She should never have been left alone at the hospital, after what happened to Leo. Her lawyer wants to know why she wasn’t under arrest, or at least under proper police guard. He has a point.’

Commander Welland had described Hope’s lawyer as ‘a whoring tic, put on the face of the earth to annoy me’, which didn’t do much for Marnie’s confidence, as the target of the tic’s wrath.

‘What about Noah’s evidence?’ Ed asked.

‘Her lawyer says he’s biased. It’s a race thing. Noah Jake doesn’t want to admit that the black girl was the aggressor.’

Ed looked so serious she had to smile, reaching to thumb the frown from above his nose. ‘Cheer up. I’m not done yet.’

He took her hand and held it. ‘If she gets in front of a jury . . .’

‘I know. What’ll they see? We’re right back where we started, with another audience for her victim act. Another set of expectations to be played with.’

Ed shook his head. ‘I wish we could count on someone from the refuge to tell the truth about what happened with Leo . . . Ayana came closest to seeing it.’

‘But she’s still missing.’ Marnie nodded, resting her fingers on the pulse in his wrist. ‘At least we know she hasn’t left the country, not yet. I’m guessing Hatim hasn’t been in touch.’

‘Sorry.’ Ed shook his head. ‘One thing, though. Kenneth Reece. I made some calls, about his place at Excalibur House. He’s in an advanced stage of cirrhosis. The liver’s too scarred for a transplant and he’s being treated for a hepatitis C infection. In other words . . . he’s dying.’

‘Natural justice. Do you think Hope guessed as much, the last time she saw him?’

‘Possibly. She’s sharp enough. And she knew him when he was well.’

The French toast arrived, smelling so good Marnie’s mouth watered. The cutlery was warm, wrapped in heavy linen. Soft brown sugar dusted the lips of the plates, dissolving to gold in the hot heart of the toast. The café’s owner brought freshly frothed milk, a refill of coffee.

‘Thanks.’ Marnie smiled at the man. This place was her secret, jealously guarded. She wondered if Ed knew what a big deal it was that she’d brought him here. ‘Have you got time to go over there, after this?’

‘To Finchley? Sure.’ Ed ate a mouthful of toast. ‘Oh wow. Rome? This is the best thing I’ve eaten since—’

‘Careful.’

He grinned, attacking more of the toast. ‘Okay. I may need to come here every day.’

‘As long as you pick me up en route.’

Sugar at the corners of his mouth made his smile sparkle. ‘All roads lead to you, Rome.’ His phone yelped. He wiped his hands and checked it, frowning abruptly. ‘Text from Tessa. She says she’s got something she needs to show us.’

He handed Marnie the phone. Tessa’s text was enigmatic, not urgent or anxious, just a request for Ed to come to the refuge, when he could.
Bring DIR.

‘That’s you,’ Ed said.

In Finchley, the scaffolding was empty, the roof’s plastic sheeting shifting with the breeze. The door was secure. Britt let them in, before returning to the dayroom. She sat down beside Mab, filling her lap with a purple scarf she was knitting. Mab was helping, a heap of heather wool held between her gloved hands. She beamed at Marnie and Ed, looking alert and content. ‘Hello! Look who’s here.’

Britt asked, ‘How’re things with you two? Any news for us?’

‘A little,’ Marnie said. ‘We found Simone, and Hope.’

‘Aw, that’s good! Isn’t that good, Mab?’

Mab nodded, still beaming. Britt’s arrival had transformed the refuge, and the women. Everywhere looked clean and comfortable. Fresh flowers on the table, a new shelf of books, cushions brightening the sofas, a rug doing the same on the floor.

Tessa was sitting next to Shelley. The TV was on, but Tessa wasn’t watching. She was filling in a book of crossword puzzles with a pen. When she saw Marnie and Ed, she nudged Shelley. ‘They’re here.’

‘I can see, can’t I? I ain’t blind.’ Shelley turned the gold hoop in her left ear, hunching her shoulder at Marnie, her eyes on the TV, her fists in the stretched pockets of her tracksuit. Some of the rhinestones had fallen off the black velour, leaving behind hard little glue stains.

Tessa rolled her eyes. ‘We were talking with Mab, after you left. We thought you should hear what she’s got to say.’

‘Okay.’ Marnie took a seat at Mab’s side, waiting until Ed was sitting also. ‘What was it you wanted to tell us?’

Mab beamed approval at Ed. ‘Teddy. You’re a nice boy.’

‘Thanks, lovely. Did you want to tell us something?’

‘We’re making a scarf.’

‘Yes, I can see.’

‘Tell them about the phone,’ Tessa said. ‘Go on, Mab. It’s important, remember?’ When Mab didn’t speak, Tessa said, ‘She thinks she’s in trouble, but we told her it’s not like the rings and stuff.’

‘Yeah,’ Shelley put in, ‘no one gave a shit about my rings.’

‘Shut up,’ Tessa told her. ‘Tell them about the nice phone, Mab.’ She glanced at Marnie. ‘There was a phone ad on the telly and, well, we felt bad about not listening to her before. About Ayana. So when she started up about the phone . . . We thought you’d want to know.’

Ed dug his own phone from a pocket and held it out for Mab. She smiled. ‘That’s a nice phone.’

‘It
is
nice.’ Britt hadn’t stopped knitting, the tick of her needles like a clock.

‘Not as pretty as the other one.’

Tessa nudged Shelley in the ribs, nodding at Marnie.

‘Which one’s that?’ Ed asked.

Mab said, ‘The one with the diamonds. She left it in her room.’

Ed kept his tone light, inconsequential. ‘Ayana left it?’

‘Not Ayana, she only thought I had hers. The other one. The new one. Hope.’

A fresh flood of adrenalin heated Marnie’s skin.

‘Mab.’ Ed crouched at the woman’s side, reaching for one of her gloved hands. ‘Where’s the pretty phone now?’

Mab looked flustered. She gripped at Ed’s fingers. ‘I have it safe,’ she said. ‘I’m keeping it safe for her.’