Cleanskin by Val McDermid
‘I’m always glad to hear from you, Stella.’ I wasn’t flirting and she knew it.
‘I’ve spent most of the last few days out on a limb,’ she said. ‘I know I should trust the people I work with to do the job properly, but I can’t help myself. Call me a control freak, but unless I’ve done the post mortem myself, I always think there’s more to be found.’ She looked a bit embarrassed, but I didn’t see why she should be. I’m the same myself.
‘You’re probably right,’ I said. ‘You being the best, and all.’
She gave me a little look, like she wasn’t sure if I was taking the piss. Then she smiled and shrugged. ‘Whatever. Anyway, once I’d done all I could with Ben’s body, I thought I would take a look at all the other bodies you’ve been tripping over while I was gone.’ She flipped open one of the files she’d brought with her, then looked up at me with earnest eyes. I felt a little stab of dread.
‘I want to be clear about this, Andy,’ she said. ‘Are you tying Ben’s death into the other recent murders, or are you treating it as something apart from them?’
I frowned. ‘Why would it be connected to Joey Scardino and Brian Cooper? They were killed because somebody’s trying to stake a claim to Jack Farrell’s empire.’
‘I don’t know why,’ Stella said in that gentle voice she always uses when she thinks I need to be calmed down. ‘Maybe Ben got too close to finding out who the new king of the hill is, and had to be silenced.’
I shook my head. ‘Not without telling me what he’d found. We were a team, me and Ben. He wouldn’t have kept something that big to himself. But why are you asking me this, Stella? What’s your point?’
Stella took out a sheaf of photographs and spread them over my desk. ‘The same knife killed Brian Cooper and Ben, Andy.’ She tapped the photos, showing me where the cuts and tears matched each other. ‘There, and there, and there. The same. It’s an unusual knife, that’s why there’s very little doubt. I think it’s one of those fancy cheese knives. You know the ones I mean? They’ve got a very thin, curved blade with sections cut out of it to make it go through hard cheeses more easily. They’ve got twin points.’
She pointed to a couple of details. ‘You see? Stab marks side by side. I think the killer used one of those cheese knives on Cooper and on Ben.’
It was a struggle to get my head round what Stella was saying. ‘That’s insane. I can’t think of any reason why the person who killed Brian Cooper would have any motive to kill Ben.’
Stella looked uneasy. ‘Can we come back to that, please, Andy? I’ve got something else to tell you. Something that might help to make sense of this.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’m up for anything that stops me feeling like I’m on the wrong side of the looking glass.’
‘I thought that I would go back and take another look at Jack Farrell’s body.’
‘You thinking someone murdered him and made it look like suicide?’ I asked. ‘That won’t fly, Stella. The suicide note was witnessed by his lawyer. He didn’t read the contents, but he witnessed the signature.’
Stella’s smile was wry. ‘That wasn’t what I was going to say, Andy.’
‘Sorry.’ I pulled a face. ‘Shouldn’t put words in your mouth. Go on. Tell me why you wanted to take a crack at Jack.’
‘No reason you could put your finger on. Just that it all started with him. And it’s as well I did, really.’ She opened the second file she was carrying. From where I was sitting, I could see bar charts and coloured photos of some part of the human body in cross section.
‘I checked this three times, just to make sure I was right,’ she said, looking me straight in the eye. ‘Andy, whoever you’ve got in that mortuary drawer, it’s not Jack Farrell.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I WAS LOST FOR WORDS. ‘What do you mean, not Jack Farrell?’ I said. ‘I made the ID myself.’
‘I know, I saw the paperwork. Can I ask you why you ended up doing it?’
‘The wife was tranked up to the max, there was no way we could have got her to do it. And I knew it was him.’
‘How did you know?’ Stella was giving me that wary look, the one she does when she thinks I’m not going to like where she’s taking me.
‘Because of the tattoos,’ I said.
Stella looked grim. ‘I thought so. But you were wrong, Andy.’
‘Oh, come on, Stella,’ I protested. ‘You’re not telling me there are two blokes walking around with matching tattoos like that. No way.’
‘I know it’s hard to believe, but if you saw his tattoos while Jack Farrell was alive and well, then this is not his body.’
I shook my head. ‘How can you say that?’
‘Here’s the thing about tattoos. When you have them done, the dye seeps under the skin and into your body’s defence system. It’s drawn up into the nearest lymph gland, and it stays there, preserved for the rest of your life. If I cut through the lymph glands after you’re dead, I can see staining that tells me which part of the body had the tattoo, and what colours it was. In fact, if the tattoo’s old, the colours in the lymph gland will probably be brighter than the colours on the skin.’
My mouth had fallen open. ‘You’re kidding,’ I said, remembering to shut it after I’d spoken.
‘Deadly serious,’ Stella said. ‘The first time I came across it was with a torso that washed up on the mud at the Isle of Dogs. I was able to tell you guys that the corpse had had a red and blue tattoo on his left arm and a blue and green one on his right arm. That was enough to ID him from the list of missing persons.’
‘OK, OK. But I still don’t understand how that tells you this isn’t Jack Farrell,’ I said.
‘This body has clean lymph glands,’ Stella said, pointing to some of the cross-section shots.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘The ink only gets drawn up into the lymph glands if you still have a pulse. These tattoos were done after this man died. Not before.’ Stella leaned forward, an intense look in her eyes. ‘This body cannot be Jack Farrell’s.’
I closed my eyes. This felt like a very bad dream. I took a deep breath and glared at Stella. It wasn’t her fault, but she was where my face was pointing. ‘If you’re right, then that means Jack Farrell killed this guy –’
‘Or had him killed,’ Stella chipped in.
‘Or had him killed. Then he had the body tattooed in an exact copy of his own body art, then smashed the face up and made the fingers look like the crabs had been at them.’ I ran a hand over my face. The tired sag of my skin matched my feelings pretty closely. ‘Those are very extreme steps to make us think he’s dead.’
‘From everything you’ve told me about Jack Farrell, extreme is second nature to him,’ Stella said.
‘But why? What’s the point?’ I was speaking out loud, but I was talking to myself.
‘Maybe his daughter’s death scared him? Maybe he thought he’d be next? Or maybe he’d just had enough of the life,’ Stella said.
‘Or maybe he wanted a free run at revenge,’ I said. ‘If Farrell was dead, Katie’s killer would be able to relax. And that would make him a lot easier to kill.’ I dropped my head into my hands. ‘Christ, this turns everything on its head.’ Then something struck me. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. My stomach churned and I looked up. ‘You said something about this helping to make sense of the other cases. Of Ben’s murder. What did you mean by that?’ I had a shrewd idea, but I wanted to hear it from Stella’s lips.
She shook her head. ‘You’re there already, Andy. Don’t make me spell it out for you. I don’t want you to blame me for being the one to put the idea into words.’ She picked up her files and stood up. ‘I’m sorry, Andy. Truly sorry.’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Please, sit down.’ I swallowed hard. I don’t find it easy to ask favours, not even from someone as close as Stella, and I probably sounded gruff.
Stella started to shake her head, then stopped. I guess she saw in my face that I needed something from her. She sat back
‘If Jack Farrell is still alive, then we know who killed Joey Scardino and Brian Cooper.’ I spoke slowly, as if creeping up on it would somehow make it less painful.
‘And we know why,’ Stella said.
I nodded. ‘Jack thought they had either killed Katie themselves or else they knew who did.’ I stretched out a hand and, without having to ask, Stella gave me the first file. I flipped it open. ‘And logic suggests that if the same knife killed Brian Cooper and Ben, the same person was using the knife.’
Stella nodded. ‘That would seem to make sense.’
‘Which means that Jack Farrell killed Ben,’ I said, my voice flat and dead.
‘And logic would suggest that the motive was the same,’ Stella said softly.
I felt like crying again. But this time for a very different reason.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AFTER STELLA LEFT, I SAT staring at the wall for a long time. I felt cast adrift. I had put my life in Ben’s hands more than once, and I’d covered his back as many times. For years, we’d been a team, always working with high stakes. I’d bounced my ideas off him. He’d been quick to find both the strong and the weak points in what I had to say. Together, we’d built cases against some of the worst villains this country has ever seen. Together, we’d put them behind bars for a very long time.
Of course we’d had our failures. Jack Farrell wasn’t the only cleanskin walking the streets. But I’d always thought we had failed in spite of giving it our best shot. Now it looked as if the reason some cases had gone down the pan was the one every cop dreads. It seemed they’d gone tits-up not because we’d messed up but because my trusted partner had gone bent on me.
It hurt me both as a cop and as a man. I thought I was a good judge of people. I’d always believed that I’d know in my gut if one of my team was crooked. It had never crossed my mind to doubt Ben. He was, I was sure, an honest cop. But more than that, he was my friend.
We’d been drunk together, crashed out together, sobered up together. We’d found the words and the trust to speak of the things men find it hardest to talk about – love, fear and need. I’d made excuses for him to his wife Karen. I’d eaten Sunday lunch at their table. I was godfather to his son Owen. And never once had I had any reason to wonder whether he was sincere.
And even in the face of what Stella had told me, it was a struggle to think the worst of him now. I kept trying to find another way to explain what Stella had found. The only thing I could come up with was the notion that Ben had been honest after all, and that Farrell had killed him because he knew Ben’s death would throw us into a state of chaos and make us take our eyes off the ball with the other murders.
Even to myself, that sounded thin. Farrell had no reason to suspect we doubted the truth of his death, so he had no need of a red herring. And killing a cop was a hell of a red herring. Farrell was smart. He had to know that the murder of a policeman would send us into a frenzy. Killing Ben as a way of shifting our focus was well over the top.
No. Hard though it was for me to accept it, Stella’s logic had the feel of something right on the money. It also explained why the fire had been set. It was partly to make sure the body was found without any delay. But it was also a way of linking Ben’s murder to Katie Farrell.
As that thought crossed my mind, I felt an icy chill in my guts. What if the link was even stronger? What if the fire was sending a clearer message? What if it had been Ben himself who had set the fire that had killed Katie?
My stomach turned over at the very idea. Being a good dad was so much a part of who Ben had been. Of course, the other side of that was that he’d understand very clearly how much havoc Katie’s death would wreak in Farrell. I still couldn’t work out why, though. OK, Ben had always been pushy as a cop. He wanted to climb the greasy pole and he wanted to do it fast. There was no reason why it shouldn’t be the same with him on the other side of the law. Maybe he’d thought the time was right to make his move.
But he wasn’t in a position to run a major criminal empire like Farrell’s. The only thing I could think of was that he’d been Farrell’s man on the inside. And he’d ended up pushing Farrell hard for some reason or another, and Farrell had threatened his wife and kids. It could have been something as low level as, ‘I know where you live.’ But it would have been enough to send Ben over the edge in defence of his kids.
I groaned out loud. This was the very time when I would have turned to Ben to run my ideas past him. But now there was nobody. It wasn’t that I doubted anyone else in the team, though if Ben was hooky, nobody was secure. No, it was simply that with Ben out of the picture, there was nobody who knew the way my mind worked.
Nobody apart from Stella, that is. But Stella’s not a cop. She’s the best at what she does, but she doesn’t pretend to know how my job works. No, I was on my own with this one. I had to work it out for myself.
Time would be one way of testing this crazy idea. If more villains died, then this was simply a gang war, the strong taking out the weak to make their point. But if it stopped here, then something different was going on.
But ‘wait and see’ isn’t the best way to fight crime. You can solve things by sitting on your hands, but a lot of bad things tend to happen along the way before you get to the answer. And I’d already had enough bad shit to deal with in the past few weeks.
I forced myself to sit up and start making notes. My first thought was to drag Fancy Riley and Danny Chu off the streets and sweat them. I dumped the idea almost as soon as I had it. If they were in touch with the living Jack, I didn’t want to tip him off that we knew he was alive and kicking. I could bring them in and question them about the murders, but I knew they wouldn’t crack and there didn’t seem much point.
I got up and pulled open my office door. ‘Kirsty,’ I shouted. Detective Constable Blythe looked up from her computer, startled.
‘Sir?’ she said, scrambling to her feet.
‘Find out who did Jack Farrell’s tattoos and bring him in,’ I said.
Taking a single step made me feel better. The tattoo artist might be a dead end. But at least I was moving.
The next step was staring me in the face. A baby cop in his first day on the job would have worked it out. But I didn’t want to take it. I didn’t want to walk in on the grieving widow and start tearing her house apart.
But somebody was going to have to do it. And, like they say, better the devil you know.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KAREN STILL LOOKED LIKE someone had ripped her heart out and handed it to her on a plate. Like it was a mistake she was still walking around, because how could she be doing anything at all when she was dead inside? I’ve seen that look before on the faces of the ones left behind after violent death. But this touched me like never before, because I cared for Karen and I had cared for the person she was mourning.
When Karen opened the door, there was a tragic flash of hope in her eyes, as if my being there might mean there had been some awful mistake and her Ben was really all right. But one look at my face and she knew there was no getting off this hook.
She fell into my arms and shivered, as if I’d brought cold air in with me. I held her close. ‘I still feel gutted too,’ I said, patting her back. But my eyes were looking around me with fresh wisdom. In the past, when I had said anything nice about the house or its contents, Ben had always made a big deal out of what a great bargain hunter Karen was. I’d taken it at face value. I had never stopped to wonder how they could afford to live with quite so much style on a sergeant’s pay.
But looking at it coldly, not through the eyes of trust, it did seem like more than good taste and good shopping sense could provide. Not to mention the fact that no amount of skilled money-juggling could stretch his salary to a four-bedroomed house in the comfy end of Ealing. At the time he’d bought it, I’d accepted his story about a bequest from his mother’s sister. As if! People like us don’t have wealthy relations. But he said
‘I still can’t take it in, Andy,’ she said. Her voice was hoarse, like she’d been shouting too loud too long. ‘Married to a cop, it’s what you always fear. But the years go by and it never happens and you start to believe maybe it won’t.’
‘I know. It still seems unreal.’ I steered her into the living room and sat her down. ‘Where are the kids?’ I sat down beside her.
‘They’ve been at my mum’s. They don’t need to see me like this.’ She sniffed. ‘What actually happened to him, Andy? Nobody will tell me and that makes me think the worst.’
I didn’t know what to say. The truth wasn’t even an option. ‘He was stabbed, Karen. We’re not even sure what he was doing down Paddington Basin. He must have been following a lead or meeting a snout. Something last-minute, because he hadn’t told me about it.’
‘Did he suffer?’
They always want to know that. Me, I’ve never thought that was the important thing. Being dead, that’s the only bit that counts. ‘Not for long, love.’ I turned so I was facing her. ‘Karen, I know Ben will have told you that the most important source of info in a murder case is the victim. So please don’t think I’m being a heartless bastard when I say I’ve got to go through Ben’s things.’
Karen frowned. ‘What do you mean, his things? What’s that got to do with him being dead?’
‘Probably nothing. But we’re not making as much progress as I’d like. And as I said, we don’t know why he was there or who he was meeting. There’s nothing in his desk to give us a clue. So I need to take a look in his study, see if there’s anything there.’
Karen folded her arms across her chest, drawing away from me. ‘Why would he have it at home? He kept his work at the office.’
I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. ‘You know what he was like. He wanted to get on. I wouldn’t put it past him to be working on something he’d kept up his sleeve, so he could surprise me with it. It wouldn’t be the first time.’ It was the truth, though now I saw it through different eyes.