Skin

31

The residential roads around Hanham were quiet at lunchtime, and as Flea came round the corner she saw Thom’s black Escort pull away from the kerb. It raced to the end of the road, indicators flashing. Hitting the T-junction, it turned right. She kept close behind it, fumbling on the front seat for her phone.

Mandy was driving, of course. She would be. Flea knew what the guys in the unit would say about Mandy. It’d be: ‘Well, there goes a girl with a nine-inch clit.’ Or words to that effect. The Escort stopped at traffic-lights, and Flea pulled in behind it, jabbing out Thom’s number with her thumb. Up ahead she saw Mandy turn her face and watch Thom rummage in his coat pockets. He said something to her as he got the phone out, but in Flea’s ear the call was bumped to answerphone and she saw him lean sideways to return it to his pocket. He rested his forehead against the side window and stared out.

Flea floored the Clio, leaning on the horn, flashing the lights. Mandy raised her chin: a glimpse of startled eyes in the rear-view mirror. Flea put her hand out of the window, gesturing for the car to pull over.

There was a moment’s hiatus while the two cars rolled along the road almost bumper to bumper, Mandy taking time to register what was happening. Then the entrance to a cemetery came up and the Escort jerked left into it and stopped just inside the gates. Flea slammed the Clio in behind, jumped out and went fast to the driver’s side, making a circular motion with her fingers telling Mandy to roll down the window.

But for a moment, her white face just stared back through the glass. On the passenger side Thom had slid down until his chin was almost on his chest. His face was canted over, resting on his splayed hand so no one could see his expression.

‘Open the window.’

Mandy did. ‘You frightened the life out of me. What’s going on?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘I’m on my way to work.’

‘Now, Mandy. Now.’

‘Riiiiight,’ she said cautiously. ‘You’re upset.’

‘Get out of the car.’

She did as she was told: slowly, hands raised, as if Flea had a gun to her head.

Thom unbuckled and got out, too, his face appearing on the other side of the car roof. He was flustered. ‘Flea, there’s no need for this. I’m going to tell her.’

‘Going to tell me what?’

‘Mandy, don’t listen to her. Please. I swear I was just about to tell you.’

Flea held up her hand. ‘Get back in the car, Thom.’

‘Let me tell her.’

‘Get in the car.’

He stared at his sister, his hands on the roof, his face drained of colour now. A vein in the side of his neck pulsed blue.

‘Do what she’s telling you,’ Mandy said. ‘Go on – sit down.’

Thom might have been able to ignore his sister, but he didn’t know how to defy his girlfriend. He got into the car and sat, slouched in the seat. Mandy turned to Flea, her arms folded under her huge breasts. ‘What on earth’s going on?’

‘There’s been an accident. Thom’s had… an accident.’

Mandy bent very slowly to look across the driver’s seat at Thom. His face was in his hands again. ‘He doesn’t look as if he’s had an accident.’

‘It wasn’t him who got hurt.’

‘Then who?’

‘It was a woman.’

‘A woman?’ Mandy raised her eyebrows questioningly, as if the idea of Thom having anything to do with a woman was preposterous. Even through an accident.

‘He was driving. The other night. He was drunk and she stepped out in front of him. He didn’t have a chance to stop.’

‘What happened to her?’

Flea shook her head. No way of sugar-coating it. ‘I’m sorry.’

Mandy closed her eyes very slowly. ‘Killed?’ She opened them, looked at Flea, unblinking. ‘You mean he killed her?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘Last Monday.’

‘The night he came over to you?’

‘Yes.’

‘He can’t have had an accident. He stayed at yours all evening. The car’s fine.’

‘He didn’t stay at mine. He was lying to you. He didn’t want you to know he was going to a business meeting because he didn’t want you thinking he was getting into another cock-up deal, so he came to mine and used my car – he left his outside in case you drove by to check up on him.’

Mandy turned away and gazed distantly at the graves, at the plastic containers under the standpipe, the silk flowers made grey by the car fumes from the road. Seeing them but not absorbing them. ‘I can’t believe this. No one told me anything about it.’

‘Because no one knew. It wasn’t reported.’

‘Not reported? Then what happened to…’ This new dimension hit home with a bang. She put her elbows on the car roof and dropped her face into her hands. ‘My God. My God. My God.’

‘There’s something we can do.’

‘This will be the end of everything.’

‘Mandy, calm down. Thom and I have talked about it and there is something we can do. We’ve got to get him into hospital. We’ve got to build a case. There isn’t much time.’

‘Build a case? You mean you’re going to lie? Why? Why would you do that?’

‘Because he’s my brother. Because I’m totally fucking furious with him and I’d like to pull his eyes out right now. But he’s still my brother and I love him.’

Mandy rested her finger against her throat as if there was a small lump there. Then she pulled back her sleeve and checked her watch – as if knowing the time would somehow keep everything in place and stop the world tilting. In the distance thunder rolled. A bird – a rook, maybe – took off from the line of pencil cypresses edging the cemetery. ‘We need some time to think about this,’ she said eventually.

‘OK.’

‘Alone, I mean.’

‘I’ll go and sit in the car.’

‘No. Longer than that. We need to go home and think about it. Sleep on it. I’ll call you.’

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow morning. Maybe in the afternoon. I’ve got to work in the morning.’

‘It can’t wait that long. Things are… changing. Things with the body are changing.’

‘Things with the…? Christ.’ Mandy shook her head. ‘Oh, Christ.’

‘Call me first thing in the morning.’

‘Some time in the morning.’

‘If I haven’t heard by midday I’ll be at your front door. And if we don’t start doing something about it then, I’m going to have to-’

‘Going to have to what?’

‘Midday. I’ll see you at midday.’