Skin

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 cop’s hands before he knew what was happening. Screaming assault – and who was going to deny it when the DNA popped up from the swabs? Cops were taught to travel in pairs these days. But this girl looked like she hadn’t the resources left to go to the toilet on her own, let alone accuse him of assault.

‘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.’