Skin by Mo Hayder
Caffery saw Lucy’s face on the video – Welcome to my atelier – remembered her hands fidgeting around her stomach. The way she wasn’t blushing. It hadn’t been something spiritual or a rise in confidence that had made the difference. It had been an operation. And somehow he’d missed it. He pulled hard on the cigarette. Everything – everything – he’d thought he knew about Lucy Mahoney before her death was wrong.
‘Why didn’t you—’
Beatrice held up a hand warningly. ‘I know what you’re going to say and you know what I’m going to say . . .’
‘That it’s all in your report? That I should’ve read it?’
‘Did you?’
‘We’ve been talking about nothing else for the last couple of days. There must have been a moment you thought to say something.’
‘I just asked, did you read my report?’
‘You could have told me. That’s all. You could have said something.’
‘I could have told you lots of things.’ She threw a tennis ball to the setter and it leapt away in the grass, its hindquarters bucking like a horse’s. ‘I could have told you she’d broken her ribs when she was, I don’t know, about twelve. Or that she had bad teeth – four crowns and five root canals. I could have told you the colour of her toenail polish and the brand of her bra. None of those seemed relevant so I put them in the report and didn’t talk to you about them. Cosmetic surgery two years ago not related to the cause of death isn’t something I’d have flagged up. It’s my job to think about cause of death, not ante-mortem behaviour, especially from two years ago.’ She whistled at the dog, beckoning it to come back. ‘That part, I’m afraid to say . . .’
Caffery sighed. ‘Yeah, yeah. I know.’ He pinched out the cigarette and put it back in his tobacco wallet.
That part was his job.
53
‘I’m going to make an incision here – I’ll go in through your Caesarean scar – then pull this part back.’
Ruth is sitting on an examination table. She’s wearing her bra and her underpants. Her high heels are still on and she’s resting her feet delicately, so as not to go through the strip of paper towel and mark the leather underneath. The room is well lit, airy and wood-panelled, with the surgeon’s degrees framed and mounted. Outside a gardener is cutting the grass. No doubt about it, the clinic is top drawer. Not the sort of place that asks for money up front.
‘We need to expose the muscles under here.’ The surgeon lifts up the flesh around her abdomen. ‘Then I’ll pull them together like this. Remove a little of this fat and skin here. When you come round there’ll be a couple of drains – one on either side. Just for the first forty-eight hours. Sometimes with an abdomectomy this muscle here, your rectus muscle,’ he drew his finger down the front of her belly, ‘can get a bit sore afterwards. It might make you feel nauseous too so I’ll inject into it while you’re under. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘You know there’ll be a bit of discomfort?’
A bit of discomfort here? In the Rothersfield clinic with its fancy landscaped gardens and bellboys in smart little hats? With satellite telly in all the rooms and champagne cocktails on the menu if you’re feeling well enough? She can deal with that. She pulls on her T-shirt and watches him squirt Spirigel on his hands, wipe them with a starched towel and go back to the big leather-topped desk. He’s not good-looking. Not really. A bit dowdy. But he’ll be loaded probably. Just the sort she needs.
He opens her notes and scribbles a few words with a scratchy Montblanc. Makes circles around the stomach of an outlined diagram. Pulls out a sheet of pink paper and starts filling in boxes.
‘Do you smoke?’
Ruth wriggles into her skirt. ‘No.’
‘Drink?’
‘Only if you’re having one.’
He gives a small, pained smile. ‘How many units do you drink each week?’
‘I don’t know. I’m a social drinker.’
‘So, ten to twenty-one drinks a week?’
‘That’ll do it.’
‘Live alone?’
‘Now it sounds like you’re asking me for a date.’
‘It’s a serious question. We need to know if you’ll have someone to care for you on your discharge from the clinic.’
‘Yes. I mean – I do. I live on my own. But I could arrange for my son to come. He’d be happy to be there.’ She buttons her skirt. This guy might be minted but he’s got no sense of humour. She gets off the table and takes the seat opposite him, crossing her legs and tensing the muscles so her calves look nice. She rests her fingernails on her knee.
‘My, uh, my niece works here. She recommended you.’
‘Did she?’ He doesn’t look up. ‘Kind of her.’
‘She and I are very close. She tells me everything. She confided in me.’
‘Confided?’
Still writing. Still not interested.
‘Said she thought you were one of the best surgeons around.’
He looks up at this. ‘Thank you. Always nice to hear.’
‘I think she spoke to you about . . .’
‘About a discount?’
She breathes out, relieved. ‘That’s right. A discount. She did speak to you.’
‘Yes, she did. Marsha will deal with it. My secretary. When you make the appointment she’ll take you through all that. I’ve got some spaces late June.’
Ruth narrows her eyes. ‘When do I pay?’
‘Marsha will invoice you.’
Her heart jumps. Invoices take days. Weeks. Time to milk Little Miss PI a bit more. ‘When?’ she says.
The surgeon looks up. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he says. ‘We’ll be in touch after the procedure.’
54
Rothersfield clinic wasn’t dissimilar from the Farleigh Park Hall clinic to look at, Caffery thought, with its oak-panelled waiting rooms, marble staircase and rooms with sliding glass doors that led out on to sweeping lawns. But there the similarities ended. Here, there was a porter service, five-course meals chosen from handwritten menus, and no one expected you to clean the toilets as part of your treatment. Chauffeurs waited in the driveway in their Mercedes and Bentleys for their rich employers to recover from their facelifts.
In a little office at the back of the building overlooking a knot garden, where one or two patients were wandering in their towelling robes, the nurse, Darcy Lytton, was waiting for him. Not yet changed for work, she looked the part of the girl rumpled from a night with a boyfriend: she wore scruffy Atticus skinny jeans, a studded belt and a black T-shirt with the words ‘Don’t make me kill you’ slashed across the chest. Her eye makeup was last night’s too: it was smudged into the folds under her brown eyes. She sat with her hands jammed between her knees, biting her lip. She’d been crying.
‘What’s happening?’ She’d got up as he came in. ‘Did she kill herself? Did she leave a note?’
‘Darcy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m Jack. Jack Caffery.’
She shook the hand he held out. Her palm was damp, cold. ‘Did she say why? In the note?’
‘Sit down.’
She did so and he sat next to her, his feet set slightly apart, his knee not far from hers, his head bent down a little so he could look up into her face.
‘It’s hit you hard, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s not exactly what I was, y’know, expecting when I came into work this morning.’
‘You up to talking?’
‘I’ve said a lot of it already – I’ve told them how I . . .’ She turned smudgy eyes to Caffery. ‘I keep thinking there was something I should’ve done.’
He put a hand on her shoulder. Stupid thing to do, maybe, because strictly speaking he shouldn’t even be here on his own with her. You never knew what accusations people were capable of. The East European girls in the Dover pens had developed a habit of waiting until they were on their own with a cop, shoving their hands inside their panties, then wiping their fingers on the c
‘I’m police too,’ he said. ‘But the questions I’ve got might be different from the ones they asked you on the phone. Is that OK?’
‘What was in the note?’ Darcy pressed a balled-up handkerchief to her nose. ‘The suicide note?’
‘She was unhappy. Said she felt abandoned.’
‘Not abandoned. I just can’t believe it. She had loads of friends. Her parents are great, really cool – for parents, y’know. And Paul was coming off the rigs. It was all she could talk about. She’d spent most of the week getting ready.’
‘You knew her well?’
‘Years ago, we used to do everything together. We had a bit of a – I don’t know – a bust-up about six months ago and since then we’ve kind of avoided each other, but not seriously, you know. We kept it light after that so we didn’t have to talk about the argument. But we’d still socialize at work – laugh and gossip and that.’
‘Control tells me you last saw her yesterday lunchtime.’
‘In the locker room. I was getting changed, ready to meet my date. She was going to the loo. I’m standing there looking in the mirror and I’ve seen her come out and wash her hands and . . . and that’s why I’m sort of . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘That’s why I’m sort of screwed up by it all because I think she wanted to tell me something and I was in a hurry so I didn’t listen. I thought about calling her later, but when I did her phone was switched off. I didn’t leave a message.’
‘Her phone was off when she was found and the log was wiped. Was she in the habit of wiping the log?’
‘I don’t think so. One thing I do know is she would never switch her mobile off. Never.’
‘So tell me again – what happened in the changing room?’
‘It was her face. She . . .’ Darcy paused, clearly trying to think how to explain it. ‘You know if someone has just seen something but they can’t believe what they’ve seen? They get this sort of look on their face, like they think someone’s having a laugh or something, but they’re not sure.’ She wiped her eyes again. ‘I was in a hurry so I looked in the mirror and I go, “What’s up, Suse?” and she shakes her head and she’s like, “Do you know any of the recovery nurses?” And I go, “No, why?” And she’s like, “I think they’re all a bit thick – not to see what’s going on under their noses.”’
Caffery raised his eyebrows. Darcy nodded. ‘I know. But I’m the thick one cos I was only half listening, thinking she’s getting into some bitching session about the other nurses, and then she goes: “I’m going a bit mad. I think I’ve just seen one of the surgeons stealing something.”’
‘Stealing what?’
‘She didn’t say. I don’t think it was money or valuables. It was the way she used the word “stealing”. Like it wasn’t quite the right word. Like it was the nearest she could come to it. And later, when I’m thinking about it, I’m convinced whatever she wanted to tell me was well weird. It was written all over her face, like she’d seen something really horrible.’
‘Where had she come from?’
‘The operating theatre.’
‘Did she say which surgeon it was?’
‘No. She’d have worked with a few yesterday, I think.’
There was a moment’s silence. She looked back at Caffery, not understanding the impact of what she had said. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not much help, am I?’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ Caffery said. He had to avoid the instinct to pat her shoulder again. ‘Don’t be sorry at all. You’ve been very helpful.’
55
The manager of the clinic couldn’t think what Susan Hopkins had meant by ‘stealing’. The patients shouldn’t have anything of value in the recovery room: everything would have been placed in the clinic’s central safe upon admission. Signed for. She showed Caffery the register as proof. Her day wasn’t exactly working out as she’d planned it, and Caffery could sympathize with that, but he didn’t think it excused her rudeness. She was as tight-lipped as a camel’s backside in a sandstorm. And when he asked for the details of all the surgeons Susan Hopkins had been working with yesterday, that really tore the lid off for her. The clinic rented the space and facilities to the surgeons, she insisted, that was all. She’d happily give him the names of the three surgeons Susan Hopkins had been rostered with, but absolutely no details of the operations performed and under no circumstances details of the patients. He was welcome to takes his chances with the surgeons’ secretaries, but medical secretaries were notoriously hidebound about things like this, and, she explained, looking down her nose at him, she didn’t fancy his odds without a warrant.
But she was wrong, as it turned out. The secretary who managed the books for two of the surgeons, Davidson and Hunt, was sweet-faced. She knew Susan Hopkins and had heard what had happened. The whole clinic was talking about it.
‘I want to look into their records.’
‘I’m not supposed to tell you anything.’ She stood at the door of her office anxiously, her back to it as if she was guarding a treasure. ‘You know that, don’t you? I’m supposed to wait for a warrant.’
‘Susan didn’t commit suicide. Has that part of the news reached you?’
‘That’s what some of them have been saying.’
‘There might be other cases we’re linking her death to. Can you see what I mean?’
She didn’t answer. She was so pale even her mouth had lost its colour.
‘A serial killer.’ He leant in to hiss the words. The silver bullet. The most frightening words a woman could hear. ‘I’m saying we might be talking about a serial killer.’
The secretary bit her lip. Looked down the corridor to check they weren’t being watched. ‘Oh, Christ.’ She stood back to let him in. ‘I could get the sack for this. Quickly. Close the door.’
She went to the other side of the desk and leant over the computer, shook the mouse and the screen came to life.
‘We’ve been having trouble with the server. The men are due this morning, but it’s still . . . Ah – there. Now, what am I looking for?’
‘Both surgeons’ lists for the beginning of May two years ago.’ Caffery came to stand next to her and watched her scrolling through. ‘Specifically a tummy tuck and a sympathectomy in the same op.’
‘We keep records going back five years. You never know what claims people are going to cook up. I’m pretty meticulous about it. There.’ She stopped scrolling. ‘Mr Davidson did an abdomectomy on the fifth – that’s about it. After that it was mostly rhinoplasties. Mr Hunt did three corrective operations on the fourth – that’s one of his specialities, scar revision. You know, they come in with some other surgeon’s botches. He’s good, Mr Hunt. Really good. No sympathectomies.’
‘Who did you say did the abdomectomy?’
‘Mr Davidson. Paul.’
‘Patient’s name?’
‘Karen Cooper.’
‘Nothing under the name Mahoney?’
‘No.’ She tapped her pen. Looked at the screen. ‘That’s all. The names might be fake – people get embarrassed: we can’t control that – but the ops in the system aren’t. That was the only abdomectomy in those three days. And nothing on the sympathetic nerve. Not for Mr Hunt or Mr Davidson. I don’t think I’ve ever known either of them do that operation anyway. I’m sorry.’
Caffery got up and put his business card on the desk. ‘Where’s Mr Gerber’s secretary?’
‘At the end of the corridor. There are three secretaries in there. You need Marsha. If you get lost just follow the cold air.’
‘The cold air?’
‘That’s me being bitchy. I’m just saying, good luck walking into Marsha’s domain without a warrant and asking for a peep at her sur
‘Not very amenable?’
‘The words “blood” and “stone” come to mind. Or “Cruella”.’
‘Thanks,’ Caffery said. ‘Thanks for the tip.’
56
There were three work stations in the office but it was coffee break and only one was occupied. By Marsha. The indomitable Marsha. She was tall and stately with perfectly black hair cut in a blunt line at her shoulders, rather orange skin and oval, black-lined eyes. If she knew about the Cruella tag she was playing up to it. She was dressed in a long pencil skirt, killer stilettos and a bat-winged purple blouse. Her lips were done in dark, heart-attack magenta. Not one to be messed with.
‘Hi.’ Caffery looked round the office, found a chair and sat, his hand in his pocket, fingers on the mobile-phone number pad. ‘Are you Mr Gerber’s secretary?’
‘Who wants to know?’
Good start, Cruella. With his free hand he fished out another of his business cards and put it on the desk. ‘Is Mr Gerber here?’
‘No.’
Marsha studied the card. The computer screen was turned away from everything – from the window, from the door. She’d made sure no one would be sidling up behind her and looking at the screen.
‘Is he due in today?’
‘No. He’s already been in. Not coming back until Friday. What’s this about, please?’
In his pocket he hit the phone keypad. The ring-tone sang out.
‘’Scuse me.’ He stood, went to the door, pulled out the phone, his finger still on the ring-tone button, looked at the display then took his finger off. The noise stopped.
‘Hello?’
Marsha watched him stonily from the desk.
‘Gotta take this call,’ he mouthed. ‘I’ll be right back.’
He slid away, pretending to talk, stopping at the bottom of the corridor, out of earshot from the offices. He dialled Reception.