Skin

33

Caffery hung out of the window of the MCIU offices at Kingswood and smoked a guilty roll-up. He watched the guy in the halal butcher’s close up shop. The story one of the DCs in the office liked to tell was how, a year or so ago, the dumbfucks in the Chinese supermarket two doors down had got jealous of the trade the butcher was doing. They’d decided it was all to do with that word: halal. They’d copied it down really carefully and stuck it on a sign in the window. Halal beef for sale. Halal chicken for sale. Halal pork for sale. Halal pork. The butcher had lost it at the pork insult and really dropped the hammer on the Chinese for that. For a while it was like gang warfare out there. At the window now Caffery smoked slowly, looking at the butcher’s. He was a Londoner. He didn’t see why the DC had thought it was worth mentioning. That sort of thing happened all the time in Lewisham.

He dropped the butt out of the window and went to his desk. He had to speak to Powers but the superintendent wasn’t there. He was in Glyndebourne, of all places, with his phone switched off. He’d been working sixteen-hour days since the Misty Kitson case had come to them, but today his wife had tickets for the opening performance of La Cenerentola, and considering what she’d put up with over the years he wasn’t stupid. After the morning press conference he’d got straight into his car, driven home and got the DJ and picnic hamper out of mothballs. He’d left Caffery a little message, though: pictures of the actress who’d played Misty Kitson at the reconstruction had been carefully taped over the PM photos of Ben Jakes and Jonah Dundas.

He unstuck the tape and carefully peeled them away. Then he put the photographs together and shovelled them into an envelope. He paused for a moment over the one of Misty’s coat. Purple – made of velvet. Something about the fabric pulled at his mind a moment. It was something about a car – something that made him think of a car and the coat. Car, coat. Car, coat. He tried to superimpose the two images one over the other, but each time they slipped and frittered away.

Nothing had come of the reconstruction yet. No suspect caught in the bushes with his dick in his hands, like the shrinks had said would happen. It made the whole team insane to think how little they had to go on with the case: just the witness statements from the rehab clinic of the last sightings and a statement from the boyfriend. All they knew for sure was that one of the other patients had smuggled in some goodies and they’d been partying. A little after two Kitson had left the building by the front entrance. She’d called the boyfriend as she left the clinic grounds. It had been a tearful conversation: she’d told him she was leaving for a walk because she needed time to think, that she couldn’t stand the place one more second. She’d said she’d be back at the clinic before five. The boyfriend had already been pissed off with her – he admitted it in the interview: it was his hard pennies earned in the midfield that were paying for the clinic. There was an argument. She hung up. He didn’t call back. It was only when the clinic telephoned hours later that he realized anything was wrong.

Caffery’s mobile rang. It was Powers. He put the photos into the top drawer and pulled the chair tight up to the desk. Time to talk.

‘Evening, boss. You still down in Sussex?’

‘Don’t. Cenerenbloodytola. Had to wait for the interval to get my phone out – she’s giving me the evils even as we speak.’

‘How’s the weather?’

‘Place is a mudbath. She keeps saying her Jimmy Choos are ruined. I mean, who is this character? You ever heard of him? Jimmy Choo?’

Jimmy Choo, fuck-me shoes. Not what Powers would want to hear about his wife of thirty years. ‘Saw you on telly this morning,’ Caffery said. ‘The Kitson press call. You looked very empathetic. Thought you might cry.’

‘Good, wasn’t it? Spent years working on it. Did you spot the lie?’

‘That the force is confident of finding her?’

‘No. When I said I was throwing all the manpower I had at it. When I said the whole team were committed one hundred per cent?’

‘Yeah. Well. We need to talk. It’s bad news.’

There was a pause. ‘Oka-ay. Do I need my Bolly livened up before we go on?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I don’t like this.’

‘I’ve been wondering how many murders we’re filing as suicides. Makes your head ache thinking about it.’

‘You’re talking about Ben Jakes, I suppose. He wasn’t a suicide?’

‘No. That’s the sweetness to this. Jakes was a suicide that looked like a murder. But I’ve got something else: a murder that looks like a suicide. Her name’s Mahoney. Lucy Mahoney. Found up near the Strawberry Line on Friday.’

‘What does the pathologist say?’

‘Well, she’s sticking to suicide. But she’s wrong. Look, boss, something’s way out of whack here. I’ve got this woman’s ex going on at me about how the dog’s missing – the dog was with her when she went misper – and what turns up yesterday in the quarry?’

‘Don’t tell me. Her dog.’

‘It was mutilated. The CSI lads said it looked like someone was trying to make a coat out of the damned thing. Then the ex says one of her door keys is missing.’

‘And how does she fit with what you’ve been doing on Norway?’

‘She doesn’t.’

‘Then, what the hell are you doing worrying about it?’

‘The time you gave me to tidy up the Norway problem? I want to spend it on this instead. I want to speak to the coroner.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ Powers gave a deep sigh. Caffery could picture his face. He knew he’d be struggling not to climb down the phone line and chew him out for this. ‘Let me get this straight. You’re telling me you’ve dropped Norway and instead of coming back into the team on Kitson you’ve decided you’re off chasing another rabbit? I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I’m starting to think you’ve got something against the Kitson girl. It’s like you want to avoid the damned case. Like anything’s better than this. I can’t believe it.’

Caffery drummed his fingers on the table. ‘So? Is that a yes, then?’

‘Oh, brilliant. Very funny.’ He took some time, breathing carefully. Maybe he’d been to one of those alternative therapists to learn how to breathe his way through stress. ‘Look, if F District want to investigate this woman and her dog as something other than a suicide that’s their business. And if that happens, and if at the twenty-eight-day review they think it should come to us, then that’s the review team’s business. And I won’t argue with them. Because by then we’ll have found Misty Kitson and she’ll be safe and well and being photographed with her scum footie boyfriend and their horrible lapdogs in her kitchen in Chislehurst or Chingford or wherever it is these people come from. I’m sorry, Jack.’

‘Am I really that difficult?’

‘No. Just need you to pull with me. Pull with me.’

Misty’s case was so resource-heavy you could hear the cartwheels squealing. The force had thrown everything at it. Everything. Her phone records had come back in forty-eight hours. Lucy's had gone missing and no one had even noticed.

‘You know what?’ Caffery said. ‘You’re right. I’m going to get in early tomorrow and sit in with the HOLMES girls. Get up to speed with what’s going on. How about that?’

‘Yeah, well,’ Powers said gruffly.

‘I’ll help divvy up the day’s “Actions” for you, if you want. I can be there, let you have a lie-in.’

‘I’d settle for you telling me that when I get into the office in the morning my DI will be there. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.’

‘I will,’ Caffery said. ‘Have a good evening. Hope the rain stops for you.’

He hung up and stood for a minute, staring out at the butcher’s. It was starting to rain. He went to the desk and ran down the extension list, looking for Wells police station. He checked his watch. Six thirty. There was time. He was going to find out if the DI on the Lucy Mahoney case was still on duty, get all the witness statements from when she was a misper, take them home and read every one from cover to cover.

The Walking Man was right. This was his downfall. He just couldn’t let go.