Original Skin

by David Mark

  “Paula, can you bring me a towel, love?”

  Hepburn shouts this last as he throws himself down on the sofa. There is a laptop computer on the middle cushion, and a mobile phone on the floor.

  “What can I do for you?”

  McAvoy is about to speak when a woman appears in the doorway. She is around the same age as Hepburn, and almost as imposing a physical specimen as McAvoy. She is pushing six feet tall, and broad across the shoulders. Her hair is a collage of different shades of blond and is cut in a choppy, neck-length bob that looks to McAvoy’s inexpert gaze as if it was expensive. She is wearing a white blouse and cropped trousers with wedged high heels. She hands McAvoy a fluffy yellow towel, which he takes gratefully, and uses to dry his face and hair.

  When he has finished, he does his best to smooth down his curls, and is grateful that he is facing away from the mirror that dominates one wall.

  “Paula,” says Hepburn to the woman in the doorway, “this is . . .” He pulls a quizzical face. “Did you tell me?”

  “Detective Sergeant McAvoy,” he says, and is embarrassed by the squeak in his voice.

  “McAvoy,” says Hepburn thoughtfully. Snaps his fingers, as if placing the name. “Indeed. This is Paula.”

  “How do you do,” says McAvoy, extending his hand.

  Paula gives a curt nod. Raises an eyebrow at Hepburn.

  “Coffee,” she says, and it does not sound like a question. She turns her back. Leaves them to it.

  “So,” says Hepburn again, “what can I do for you?”

  McAvoy realizes he has been pressing his lips together. Takes a breath.

  “Councillor, I probably shouldn’t be here, but today I received information that suggests you are the target of some kind of journalistic investigation designed to discredit you.”

  He stops. Hepburn widens his eyes, and the playful smile on his face seems to grow.

  “Really? Do tell.”

  “I had reason to speak to a reporter from a national newspaper about another matter. He informed me they are planning a story looking into some criminal connections in your past.”

  Hepburn gives a whistle.

  “Anything else?”

  “There is some suggestion that your nightclub has been financed by drug money.”

  Hepburn is openly laughing. McAvoy feels sick.

  “Councillor Hepburn?”

  The other man pulls himself off the couch. Stands up straight and gives a wide grin. “And you’re bringing this to me because . . .”

  McAvoy allows himself to look baffled. The answer should be obvious. “Because that’s not right.”

  Hepburn pulls himself together. “But you don’t know me,” he says, looking straight at McAvoy. “People get shit written about them all the time. I got elected by people who either wanted a drink at midnight or liked the idea of pissing off Labour. Seriously, Sergeant, another story about me being a bad boy is not going to destroy me. Might even be good publicity. Come on, what’s the ulterior motive?”

  McAvoy feels his cheeks flush. He had not expected to have his integrity questioned. Is appalled to have been seen through so easily. Fears what it says about him that he could so easily be identified as a liar.

  “Come on, Sergeant,” says Hepburn.

  McAvoy meets Hepburn’s gaze. There is a fierce intelligence in his blue eyes. He remembers his TV appearances. His quick wits and sharp tongue. Realizes he was wrong to blunder in here so ill prepared and cack-handed.

  “Simon Appleyard,” he blurts, and then has to all but wrestle with himself to stop his right hand coming up to his face in a childish show of regret.

  Hepburn narrows his eyes. “And who might that be?”

  “Simon Appleyard was found hanged at his home last year. We are looking again at the circumstances surrounding his death. I’m going through the numbers in his telephone. Your number is among those that were stored.”

  Hepburn shrugs, and it is not an unfriendly gesture. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think I know the name. I’m a public figure. I run a club. I change phones quite a lot . . .”

  “This is the telephone you were given by the city council.”

  “Ah,” says Hepburn, with a grin. “Right. Had that about a fortnight, then it went missing. Probably nicked from the club. Felt a right fool reporting it missing. Been using my personal one ever since. Got two SIM cards in it. Really snazzy . . .”

  “And you don’t know the name Simon Appleyard? He was in his mid-twenties. Tall. Ran a line-dance class . . .”

  Hepburn shakes his head.

  McAvoy plows on.

  “. . . peacock feathers tattooed all over his back . . .”

  For a fraction of a second Hepburn’s smile seems to die at the eyes. Then it is back. Wide. Charming. Naughty.

  “Leave me your card, Sergeant,” he says, still being friendly. “I’ll have a think. Get in touch with you.”

  Paula reappears at the door. She is not holding coffee cups. She is not smiling.

  McAvoy looks at Hepburn, whose raised eyebrows represent a friendlier version of Paula’s hard stare. He is being invited to leave.

  “My card,” says McAvoy, handing the councillor a damp rectangle of blurred ink. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. I just thought you should know about the reporter . . .”

  Hepburn is nodding as he gets to his feet. Makes a show of shaking the officer’s hand. Is only a pace behind him as he corrals him out of the door, past the bulk of his unfriendly companion, and into the hall.

  “If I hear anything more . . .”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” says Hepburn.

  The door shuts behind him and McAvoy finds himself back in the lobby.

  He feels his cheeks burning, but this time it is with temper instead of shame. The way she looked at him. The playful little smirk on Hepburn’s face. He had felt like a teenager caught out in an untruth. Had been made to feel a fool.

  He would have taken such feelings as penance, were it not for that moment, that flicker of recognition, that caused the councillor’s grin to lock in fleeting falsehood.

  McAvoy came here in the hope of unearthing something to vindicate his instincts. Hoped to find a whiff of something that meant he was not wasting his time. For a moment, here in the heat of tired irritation and embarrassment, he feels he may have found it.

  The rain is less furious as McAvoy lets himself out of the doors and into an ankle-deep puddle. He barely pays it any heed. He pulls his phone from his pocket. Calls Roisin.

  “Darling,” he says, when she answers on the eighth ring. “I’m on my way home. I’m so sorry.”

  They talk for five minutes. Her apologizing. Telling him she understands. Him begging forgiveness for his remoteness. His uselessness. Telling her, excitedly, about his five minutes in the home of Councillor Hepburn, and his suspicions that the man knows more than he is willing to admit. That there is a case here. A real investigation.

  He is still talking when his phone beeps, and he tells Roisin he will have to go. He will see her soon.

  “Sergeant McAvoy,” he says. “Serious and Organized.”

  “Sergeant. This is Assistant Chief Constable Everett. I want you in my office right away. There has been a complaint that you are harassing a senior member of Hull Council.”

  The color drains from McAvoy’s face. He closes his eyes.

  He can already hear the tears in Roisin’s voice.

  • • •

  THE MAN in the tan leather jacket is losing his temper. Suzie is no expert in body language, but from the shape of his shoulders and his white-knuckled grip on the counter, she senses an imminent explosion of anger.

  “Am I speaking a different language here?”

  Suzie, sweating despite her damp clothes and beginning to feel a little feverish, shares his pain
.

  She looks at her own cashier. Tries her sweetest smile. Hopes her exasperated grin will find a kindred spirit. Gets nothing in response. The lady behind the glass is younger than her, but has the sour face and unmoving expression of a lifelong doctor’s receptionist.

  “It was eighteen p,” says Suzie, again. “Eighteen p! That’s how much I was overdrawn by. You charged me for the letter you sent to tell me that, and then charged me for three days of unauthorized overdraft use. I would have cleared the eighteen p, but the charge put me fifteen pounds into the red, and then the extra charges . . .”

  She stops. It is the fourth time she has tried to persuade the cashier behind the glass that she is being treated unfairly. She can feel the back of her neck getting hot and prickly. The injustice of it is making her words catch in her throat. Misery sits in her stomach like a snowball.

  “It’s my money,” says the man in the leather jacket, and his voice has increased in volume. “You look after it for me. That’s your job.”

  The neighboring cashier is equally intractable. “Without a passport or driving license, we can only give you five thousand pounds.”

  “But it’s my money!” he shouts.

  Both debates have been going on for some time, and the lengthening queue in the bank is watching the two exchanges with a mixture of impatience and interest.

  Suzie stands in silence, shaking her head and trying to think of another collection of words that might make the cashier change her mind. She fears that her eyes are on the verge of filling with tears.

  “It’s an issue of your security,” says the adjacent cashier.

  “The charges are all explained on the website,” says Suzie’s tyrant.

  The man in the leather jacket is looking around, as if for an ally who can help explain to him the workings of this insane and alien world. He looks at Suzie. Their eyes meet. He is a handsome enough man, pushing forty, and his clothes are casual but expensive. His face softens a little as he takes in her red face and sodden hair, damp clothes, and watery eyes.

  “Can you believe this?”

  Suzie shakes her head. Turns to the cashier.

  “I’m having a bad time,” she says softly. “It was eighteen p. And now it’s pushing a hundred pounds. Just with charges. Can I give you the eighteen p? Or a token gesture, or something. I can’t get back into credit until payday . . .”

  “The charges are all explained on our website.”

  Tears come. Unbidden, Suzie realizes her eyes have overflown.

  Salt water runs down her powdered cheeks and her shoulders start to shake.

  “I’m sorry,” says the woman behind the glass, with the same expression she has worn since Suzie reached the front of the queue and asked for a little leniency.

  “I’m on my lunch,” sobs Suzie, as if this might make a difference. “I normally sit in a little garden . . .”

  She cries openly into her hand. She hates the pathetic picture she knows she must be presenting. Hates being so feeble. Wants to turn and run, to hide until somebody finds her and promises that it will all be better soon.

  She has still not had the courage to turn on her telephone. Has heard nothing more about the man she left to die.

  “We own you anyway,” says the man in the leather jacket, turning his attention from his own cashier to Suzie’s. “The taxpayers. You belong to us.”

  He looks around at the queue behind him, as if trying to drum up support for a revolution. He gives a sigh as he takes in the collection of damp shoppers and office workers, shivering in wet clothes and waiting for their turn to go and shout impotently at the staff.

  “The rules are there on the website.”

  Suzie stiffens as the man moves closer. He ducks down to place his face in her line of vision. He is looking into her eyes. It is a caring stare, devoid of malice or threat. He wants to see if she’s okay.

  “They won’t listen,” he says to her quietly. “Charges, is it?”

  Suzie tries to smile. She feels wretchedly miserable.

  “How much to get back in credit?” he asks, leaning in close enough for his words to tickle her wet earlobe and neck.

  “Nearly ninety pounds.”

  The man gives a nod. He puts a hand in his pocket and takes out a roll of notes. “Take it,” he says, handing her five twenty-pound notes.

  “What? No . . . !”

  Suzie’s chest constricts. She begins to protest. To tell him that it’s not his problem. That he has problems of his own.

  The notes have found their way into her hand. A damp smile has made its way to her face.

  “Please,” says the man softly. “Let me.”

  “I don’t—”

  “I don’t want these bastards taking another penny off anyone. Please.”

  Suzie, flustered and unsure, turns to the cashier, who is struggling to keep the grimace off her face.

  “Here,” she says, through a face of tears and snot. “I’d like to make a deposit.”

  The man does not return to his own cashier. He leans against the counter, and looks at Suzie with amused affection.

  He looks her up and down. Likes the view.

  “Does that buy your phone number?” he asks.

  Suzie freezes. Gives a girlish, embarrassed smile that Simon would have mocked her for.

  “I know,” says the man, raising his hands. “It spoils the selfless gesture.”

  “I’m not sure . . . ,” she begins.

  “Take mine,” he says, and writes a scrawl of digits on the back of a deposit slip. “No pressure.”

  Suzie looks up again and finds herself blushing.

  “I don’t know if I’ll call,” she says, picking up the number.

  “I’ll be hoping,” he says, and turns away.

  “Bye,” she says, shocked and embarrassed.

  “Bye, Susan,” he says, and is gone.

  Suzie stays at the counter for a few seconds, wishing she had somebody to share this odd moment with. She wonders whom she will tell about the handsome man who came to her rescue. Whether she will log on to Facebook and tell her friends. Thinks of pulling out her phone.

  Freezes, as paranoia strikes.

  Her name. He knew her name!

  She turns from the counter and pushes through the crowd, down the half-dozen steps and through the double doors onto Whitefriargate. She looks this way and that, squinting in the rain, trying to make out the shape of the leather-jacketed man.

  Cautiously, taking care in her flip-flops on the cobbles, she splashes through a puddle and runs up the street.

  “Hey,” she shouts, and finds herself giving a peculiar little laugh at the indignity of the scene. “Hey!”

  Up ahead, outside the store where she and Simon had bought the Twilight box set and then argued over custody, she spots him. She half falls into his back, clumsily grabbing his shoulder.

  He turns. Surprised at first, then pleased.

  “How did you know my name?” she asks, breathlessly. “You said, ‘Susan.’”

  The man rubs a hand over his face and screws up his eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “My name. You knew my name.”

  He looks around him, almost as if searching for a hidden camera crew. When he finds none, he looks at her and closes one eye as he speaks, as if wincing at the words.

  “It’s on your bank card,” he says, gently but confused. “What’s wrong?”

  Suzie breathes out, hard. Fresh tears prick her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, looking down at the ground.

  The man stands there for a moment.

  Suzie is a statue. Looking down at wet cobbles and her own soaking, dirty toes.

  Then she feels his arms around her.

  Her shoulders shake and she weeps against his chest, cli
nging to a stranger in the pouring rain.

  IT IS PUSHING eleven p.m. when McAvoy opens his front door.

  Home, he thinks gratefully. Thank you.

  He is so tired he can barely lift his feet. Too drained to notice that the rain has stopped or to comment on the brightness of the near-full moon, which hangs like a disk of crumpled parchment in a blue-black, cloudless sky.

  Too exhausted to remark upon Roisin’s absence. She is normally here, smiling in the doorway, waiting for him. Waiting to kiss him home and slide herself into his embrace.

  “Roisin?”

  He finds her in the darkened living room, curled up on the sofa. Finlay is wrapped around her, face-to-face, snoring softly into her open mouth. He is wearing a woolen hat, pulled down over his ears. McAvoy takes it as a sign that his eldest child has grown tired of his sister’s cries.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and hopes that it will cover his multitude of sins.

  Quietly he heads upstairs, avoiding the creaking steps.

  Lilah is lying spread-eagled in his bed, prisoner in a rectangle of pillows. She is healthily pink-faced and her sleep looks a lovely and peaceful thing. He wants to kiss her. To smell her head. To say sorry for not being what she needs. He persuades himself not to wake her. Tiptoes back downstairs.

  Roisin is disentangling herself from Fin. She looks up as he appears at the door.

  “Hi.” She smiles drowsily. “What time is it?”

  “Too late,” says McAvoy, crossing to her. “I’m so sorry.”

  He bends down and crushes her in an embrace.

  “Aector, easy . . .”

  He is holding her too tightly. Lets go. Tips her face upward with his index finger and stares into her eyes. Again. “I’m so sorry.”

  Her smile, though tired, is warm and genuine. She kisses him.

  He tastes the sleep in her mouth. Tastes the black currant juice she and Fin have shared. The tang of hand-rolled cigarettes.

  The last few hours have been torture, made worse by the cold agony of separation.