Shifting Skin

Chapter 15

At 11:17 the next day Jon’s computer pinged. Someone had entered the registration of Gordon Dean’s car in the Police National Computer’s database of stolen or abandoned vehicles. The system had then matched it to the flag he’d left earlier and relayed the alert to his computer.

He raised a hand and clicked his fingers at Rick. ‘Bingo! There’s a silver Passat at Piccadilly train station that has outstayed its welcome in the short-term car park. Registration matches our man’s.’

The car-park attendant looked at their identities with surprise. ‘I was just going to get it towed.’

‘No need for now,’ Jon replied. ‘Where is it?’

He led them up to the third floor, Jon’s head barely clearing the low concrete ceiling.

‘Over in the corner. See it?’

‘Cheers.’

They walked over and peered in through the windows. Rick leaned across the bonnet to see on to the dashboard. ‘Ticket purchased at five past seven in the morning five days ago. Fits with him checking out of the Novotel and coming straight here.’

Jon checked the back seat. ‘Empty. What do you reckon, then?’

‘Seems a bit early to be catching a train,’ Rick replied.

‘Unless you’re catching a train to catch a plane. They’re practically round the clock to the airport.’

‘Why not just drive there?’

‘True.’ Jon put his hand in his jacket pocket and hooked his fingers under the driver’s door handle. To his surprise, it opened.

‘That’s a result.’ He leaned inside; the interior was filled with the chemical smell of a cheap air freshener.

Rick used the same trick to open the passenger door without leaving any prints. He crouched down and popped open the glove compartment with the end of a pen. A tin of mints, a pile of compliments slips and an A to Z of Manchester.

Jon pointed at the music system. A tape was poking out of the cassette deck. ‘That’s a blank tape. Something could have been recorded on it.’ He took an evidence bag out of his pocket, pulled it over his hand, removed the tape and placed it in his pocket. Then he pulled up the lever for the boot. Inside were a few crushed boxes of latex gloves, a picnic blanket and a golfing umbrella, the Protex logo just visible among its folds.

‘Something heavy squashed those boxes,’ Rick observed.

‘Yeah,’ Jon nodded. ‘And my money’s on it being some wellpacked suitcases.’

Rick put his hands on his knees to push himself upright, then stopped. His head angled to one side and he got down on one knee to lean forwards into the boot. ‘Hello, this doesn’t look like Mrs Dean’s taste in cosmetics.’

‘What?’ Jon asked, trying to look in.

Rick took out a set of keys and used the tip of one to hook the tiny object up. It stuck to the jagged edge like an exotic insect clinging on for dear life.

‘What is that?’ Jon frowned.

Rick studied it, rapt as an entomologist discovering a new species. ‘A false eyelash. And look at the size of it. That’s a real beauty.’

‘Yeah,’ Jon agreed, now able to see it. ‘Normal habitat, streetus prostitutus.’ He produced another evidence bag from his pocket.

As Rick dropped it in he said, ‘The thought of this is making me feel ill, but I wonder if its mate is in the pile of skin that used to be victim number three’s face?’

Jon nodded grimly. ‘We’d better go over the autopsy report.’

‘Maybe he’s washing their faces, stripping off all their makeup before stripping off their skin.’

Jon weighed up the comment. Try as he might, the impression he was forming of Gordon Dean didn’t fit with that of a killer. Unlike the thought of Pete Gray. Now there was a man he’d like to take somewhere private, a place where he could exert some real pressure. He stopped the thought right there, worried at how easily his mind could switch to the contemplation of violence. ‘Let’s see what’s on this tape.’

Back in their own car, he turned the ignition key until the dashboard lights came on. Then, using an evidence bag as a glove, he carefully slid the cassette into the machine.

It was a recording taken from the radio, the DJ speaking loud and fast, Manchester accent easily apparent. ‘OK, people, as I promised before the break, here’s the tune that’s setting the airwaves on fire at the moment. I heard a whisper from their record company that it’s not being released until well into next year, so until then you’ll just have to keep tuned to Galaxy FM, because we can’t get enough of playing it here.’

A faint chorus of trumpets rapidly grew in strength. Nodding in time as the drumbeat started up, Rick said, ‘It’s called “Lola’s Theme” — can’t remember who it’s by.’

By now the music was in full flow, female vocals blending with the uplifting tune. The trumpets built higher, reaching a crescendo as the triumphant chorus kicked in.

I’m a different person, yeah, Turned my world around, I’m a different person, yeah, Turned my world around.

When they walked into the incident room, the receiver waved a sheet of paper at them. ‘Gordon Dean’s most recent credit-card transactions.’

‘Cheers, Graham.’ Jon made his way to his desk and laid the paper on it. He and Rick both went straight to the transactions on the night when Dean disappeared.

‘Jesus Christ!’ whistled Rick.

Jon made a quick mental calculation. ‘That’s over a grand and a half in one night.’

Rick sat down to study the transactions more carefully. ‘Don

Antonio’s, like Doctor O’Connor said. And Crimson — surprise, surprise. Between those, a few drinks in Taurus and a stop in Natterjacks. He was certainly hitting the pubs and clubs around Canal Street.’

‘Are these all places you know?’ Jon realised he’d lowered his voice slightly.

Rick nodded. ‘Gay ones, on the whole — Natterjacks gets quite a mixed crowd. But look at those last three transactions.

£150 from a cashpoint, £9.99 from what looks to be a garage and then another £1,100 from another cashpoint.’

Jon pointed at the date. ‘The final one is from the next morning at six forty-three. That one must have maxed his card out, then, twenty minutes later, he’s buying a ticket for the car park at Piccadilly station.’

‘So he deliberately cleared his bank account,’ Rick murmured.

Jon dropped a ten-pound note on the table. ‘That says he’s holed up in a cottage somewhere, probably in the sack right now.’

Rick matched his money. ‘You’re on.’

‘OK, I’ll ring Visa for the exact locations of those two last cashpoints. Shall we drop by Don Antonio’s?’

In the dull light of day the Hurlington Health Club looked almost innocent, only the blacked out windows jarring as odd.

Relieved that the place was so much less imposing than the first time she’d tried to visit, Fiona went up the pathway. The door opened into a room dimly lit by a variety of flame-effect lamps. An aquarium bubbled in the left-hand corner, the water glowing with crystalline light that spilled out across darkly coloured sofas.

A young woman wearing a towelling dressing gown was sprinkling fish food in. She turned round, a look of surprise across her face.

‘Cindy, someone’s here!’ Heavy accent, Russian perhaps. Fiona looked at the counter to her right, empty except for a swipe machine and a pot crammed with cheap biros, cellophane from the stationery shop still clinging to its lower half. A vacuum cleaner came on and an overweight woman with hair coiled on top of her head straightened up behind the counter. The girl by the aquarium slumped on a sofa and perched her bare feet against the rim of the glass coffee table.

‘Hello, I’m hoping you can help me.’ Fiona stepped off the doormat, almost shouting to make herself heard above the vacuum’s aggravating whine.

‘You what?’ The fat woman’s lips remained slightly apart as if the weight of her chins was pulling her lower jaw down.

‘I’m trying to find a young woman,’ Fiona replied selfconsciously as the woman registered the cut to her eyebrow.

She carried on hoovering and Fiona wanted to rip the machine’s plug from the wall. ‘I think she works here. Or did recently.’

Still the woman said nothing and Fiona felt her words were being absorbed without impression by her bulk. ‘Her name is Alexia.’

‘She’s not working here any more,’ the woman snapped without looking up.

‘Why? What happened?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Me? Just someone who knew her once.’ The woman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Clearly, the answer wasn’t good enough. Fiona resorted to a lie. ‘I’m a friend of her mother’s. We’re very worried about her.’

‘A friend? Who do you work for, social services?’

‘No, I’m a beauty therapist.’

Fiona saw the woman look at her hands. She’d given herself a manicure the day before. Since her face was a mess, something needed to look good.

‘She did herself no favours by tapping up regulars with her phone number.’ She stopped pushing the vacuum in order to jut a thumb towards the door. ‘I told her to sling her hook.’

‘Where might she have gone?’

The woman swivelled a paw of a hand so her thumb pointed to the floor. ‘Only one place she was heading for. Back to the streets.’ She shuffled towards Fiona, thrusting the machine back and forth before her.

Fiona retreated a step. ‘Which ones?’

‘Which ones?’ The woman repeated. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Which streets?’ Fiona asked.

‘I don’t know. Try Minshull, for starters.’

‘Minshull Street. Thanks.’

Fiona opened the door and was bathed in dull grey daylight.

‘What did this girl look like?’

‘I thought you knew her,’ the fat woman said.

Fiona retreated on to the front step. ‘Shoulder-length hair? Chestnut brown? My height? Thin?’

The woman was looking at the doormat, running the vacuum over it. ‘That’s her,’ she said dismissively, moving the machine back on to the carpet and letting the door swing shut.

Copies of the autopsy report on the Butcher’s third victim were doing the rounds of the incident room, several detectives chewing sandwiches as they digested its details.

‘Same as the other two,’ Jon commented. ‘Evidence of being strangled. Blood in the surrounding tissues and fascia suggests he began to remove her skin within minutes of her death.’

Rick was hunched over his photocopied sheets. ‘Well, at least she wasn’t alive for it. Substantially more flesh taken off, too. And her missing teeth had been removed shortly after her death. Not wrenched out, removed professionally.’

‘So along with surgical skills he’s got some knowledge of dentistry. Fuck, what are we dealing with here?’ Jon asked, an ominous shadow passing over him.

Rick looked up, face slightly pale. ‘Why would he take out a selection of her teeth?’

‘I reckon he’s covering his tracks,’ Jon said. ‘He’s making it as hard as possible to identify her. No face, only a few teeth to compare against dental records — he doesn’t want to get caught.’ Rick looked down again. ‘Because he wants to carry on. Jesus.’ He turned to the photos of the skin itself. The first image was of it piled up next to the corpse on the waste ground. Jon glanced across the table then turned away as memories of having to eat tripe at his grandma’s flashed up in his mind. ‘No mention of false eyelashes.’

Rick flipped the photo over. The next one was the same pile of skin in the morgue. The pathologist had then taken the pieces of flesh and fitted them together like a grotesque jigsaw.

He turned to the section titled, ‘Distinguishing Features’.

‘Row of four piercing holes in the upper right ear. Tattoo on the lower left abdomen.’

Jon looked up. ‘What of?’

‘Betty Boop. Three inches high.’

‘Betty Boop? That cartoon character? Oversized head, little kiss-curl, miniskirt and heels?’

‘Yeah, I think that’s her.’

‘Is the cartoon on TV at the moment or something? I’ve seen that character recently. God, where was it?’

Rick was frowning. ‘If he’s covering his tracks, why leave her tattoo? Especially when virtually all the skin from the rest of her torso had been removed.’

‘He leaves their knickers on. I don’t think he saw it. We didn’t at the crime scene, remember?’

‘You’re right,’ Rick answered. ‘It was under her knickers. He fucked up.’

Jon clicked his fingers. ‘It was in the book in Jake’s tattoo parlour. That Betty Boop character.’

Rick’s eyebrows were raised. ‘Gordon Dean and victim three could have got their tattoos done in the same place?’

Jon shrugged. ‘Might be worth checking how often that Jake character is asked to do Betty Boop.’

‘Back again, gents? I can see you’re tempted. You know it’s two for one on all body piercings? You could go halves, one nipple each.’

Jon leaned over the desk, his frame filling Jake’s vision. He knew his size was intimidating. But when the person was as annoying as this little twat, who gave a shit? Remaining silent, he stared until the provocative smirk began to wilt. Then he raised a hand and swept it towards Jake’s head. Jake’s shoulders came up, his eyes screwing shut in readiness for the cuff. But Jon’s hand carried on over his head and came to rest on the book of tattoos on the shelf by his side. ‘Ease up man, I’m only fooling around,’ Jon mocked, taking a seat.

Jake’s eyes opened again. ‘Oh, you’re after a tattoo?’ But the riposte was delivered weakly.

Jon ignored the comment and flicked through the plastic sheets until he found the right page. ‘Betty Boop. How often have you done tattoos of her?’

Jake curled the corners of his mouth downwards. ‘Dunno. Not that often. Why?’

‘Do you keep a record of tattoos as you do them?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What about paperwork? Receipts, sales dockets, that kind of stuff?’

He nodded. ‘Of course. I keep accounts and pay my tax. Anything to help cover the wages of servants of the state such as yourselves.’

‘Good man,’ Jon smiled. ‘Here’s what we need to know. Not counting his latest delivery, when was the last time you bought gloves from Gordon Dean?’

Jake slid a file off the shelf and started working backwards.

‘Here, fifteenth of January.’

‘Great. Was that also the date you gave him his ladybird tattoo?’

Jake thought. ‘Could have been. Yeah, in fact I think it was.’

‘Can you tell us which other tattoos you did that day?’

He took a ledger down. Each page covered a month, with names of tattoos and their prices listed. His finger stopped halfway down the entries for January. ‘Yeah, there’s the ladybird. Twenty-five quid.’

Jon looked at the page. Immediately below it was an entry for Betty Boop, with sixty pounds written in the next column. ‘I know it was a few weeks ago, but do you remember who had the Betty Boop tattoo?’

Jake closed his eyes and raised a hand to his face. His forefinger and thumb twiddled the silver bar in the top of his nose as if it was a dial that turned on memories. ‘A young girl. I asked her for ID to check she was eighteen.’

Jon raised his eyebrows. ‘And?’

‘Yeah, she was. Well, she had one of those proof-of-age cards for pubs.’

‘Can you remember the name on the card?’

Jake frowned, silent for a couple of seconds. ‘No, sorry.’

‘On which part of her body did you do the tattoo?’

He tapped the left-hand pocket of his trousers. ‘Here, just below her knicker line.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘I don’t know. About five and a half feet tall. Slim, pretty. Little button nose, brown eyes and short brown hair.’

‘How short?’

Jake held a hand to just below his ears.

‘Any distinguishing features? Scars, birthmarks, piercings, that sort of thing?’

‘Could have had a few piercings at the top of her right ear.’ Jon and Rick exchanged a glance.

‘Do you take customers’ addresses? Perhaps for a mailing list?’ Rick asked.

Jake snorted. ‘I’m not that hi-tech. Keeping this thing up to date is about my limit,’ he said, hand on the ledger.

Jon glanced at the payment column. ‘How did she pay?’

‘Cash. That’s all I accept.’

‘Do you remember if Gordon Dean was in here at the same time as the girl?’

‘Yeah, he was. It was busy.’ He gestured to the curtain at the back of the tiny room. ‘I was doing another one.’ He looked at the book. ‘There you go, a Maori arm ring, seventy-five quid. They waited out here together while I was doing it.’

‘Were they chatting?’ Rick asked, leaning forward eagerly.

‘I don’t know. When the machine’s buzzing I can’t hear much out here.’

‘But they were here for a while, sitting next to each other?’ He nodded. ‘Easily for half an hour.’

Jon stood. ‘Thanks a lot. You’ve been a massive help.’

As they trooped back down the stairs, Rick started humming

‘I’m in the Money’.

‘Don’t get cocky,’ Jon said, wagging a cautionary finger. ‘There’s nothing to link him with Angela Rowlands or Carol Miller.’

‘True. But Angela Rowlands was in the dating game and Carol Miller disappeared while on some mysterious errand. The sooner more information’s entered into HOLMES, the sooner a link to Gordon Dean will emerge. You wait.’

‘I am, and I’m not holding my breath.’

Except for a few waiters laying tables, Don Antonio’s was deserted. The manager sat down at a table by the door and tilted Gordon Dean’s photo to the window. His accent had the necessary elongated vowels for Italian authenticity. ‘Ah yes, Mr Dean, he dines here regularly. But this photo is from before his new haircut.’

‘And he was most recently in when?’ Rick asked.

The manager waved a hand. ‘Four or five nights ago?’

‘Five,’ answered Rick.

The manager looked surprised. ‘You know already.’ Rick nodded. ‘Where did he sit?’

A finger was pointed across the room. ‘The corner table, for two people. But he was alone.’

‘And he left at what time?’

‘Early — he always eats early. We cleared his table well before eight, I’m sure.’

‘Do you remember what he was wearing?’

‘Chinos, maybe, a black shirt. Smart casual, as they say.’

‘And how did he seem to you? You mentioned he had a new haircut.’

‘Yes. Very short and sticking up. His moustache had gone also. He looked like a new man, much younger.’

‘Did he seem happy?’

‘Of course.’ The manager spread his hands. ‘Always happy. But yes, he ordered a glass of champagne, even though he had no one to toast it with.’

Back at the station they started typing. A couple of hours later their reports were ready for handing to the receiver, who would read them for any vital information before passing them on to the indexer for entering into HOLMES.

Leaning back in his seat, Rick stretched his arms above his head. ‘So, next stop, Gordon’s choice of late-night venues?’

Gay Village here I come, Jon thought uneasily. ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’

Rick glanced outside at the darkening sky. ‘There’s no point in going now — far too early. A swift one instead?’

Jon rubbed the back of his hand across his lips, thinking of Pete Gray’s duty roster. His shift at Stepping Hill finished at eight o’clock. Under an hour’s time. He wondered whether to suggest they follow him, see what he got up to after work.

But then he imagined Rick’s response: their orders were to investigate Gordon Dean’s disappearance, and that’s what they should stick to until instructed otherwise.

Jon clicked his tongue. ‘Actually, I’d better show my face at home. My other half will be forgetting who I am.’

‘No problem, I’ve got some stuff to sort out.’ Rick’s smile was overdone and Jon suddenly wondered if he had someone waiting for him wherever he lived. Rick looked at his watch.

‘Shall we meet at around nine?’

Jon was putting his jacket on. ‘Sounds fine. Whereabouts?’

‘Will you get the train in?’ Jon nodded.

‘The Yates’s in Piccadilly station, then?’

‘OK. See you there.’