Shifting Skin

by Chris Simms

  Jon shook his head. ‘Joined as a bobby over twelve years ago.’

  ‘You’ve done bloody well to make DI by now, then.’

  ‘Cheers. How do you find the accelerated promotion scheme?’

  Rick kept his hands on the table, interview-style. ‘Very challenging, to be honest. It’s all the tests – they never seem to end.’

  Jon leaned back and looked at the paperwork spread out on Rick’s desk. Statements from friends, relatives and associates of the Butcher’s second victim.

  Rick saw the direction of Jon’s gaze. ‘A bit of homework. All these tests I do, it’s a hard habit to break.’

  Jon sat down. ‘Any first impressions?’ he asked, turning his computer on.

  Rick tipped his head to one side. ‘Not really. I just wanted to familiarise myself. But this second victim, Carol Miller, she seems to have been called in on a lot of evenings and weekends to cover the maternity ward.’

  Jon shrugged. ‘That’s the nature of locum work, isn’t it? You’re on call for when the full-time staff cry off. Which is usually evenings and weekends.’

  Rick tapped a biro on the pile of documents, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. ‘Her last twenty-four hours...She left the baby with her mum just after five in the afternoon, but she wasn’t on duty in Stepping Hill until seven. You don’t leave your baby two hours earlier than you need to, surely? Yet Carol Miller’s mum was under the impression her daughter had left to go directly to work. So what was she up to?’

  Grudgingly, Jon admitted to himself that he was impressed. Of course, the discrepancy hadn’t escaped the investigating team. Many suspected Carol was hiding something. Attention had turned to her phone records. ‘That’s what a few of us are wondering. Maybe she just needed a break from the little one, but didn’t want to admit it.’ He opened his briefcase and took out a perspex folder. Inside was the card from the maternity ward’s noticeboard.

  His first thought was to keep everything back from his new partner, at least until he could be certain if he was McCloughlin’s stooge or not. He glanced across the desk. Rick’s eyes were roving back and forth across a witness statement. Skim-reading

  – something Jon couldn’t master, hard as he’d tried. Watching the younger officer absorbing information like a sponge, he suddenly felt threatened.

  He looked at the card again, knowing that teamwork was far more effective.

  ‘I had a thought yesterday, sparked by something my missus said. Carol Miller was always trying to lose weight, but never very successfully. Then she got excited about something she’d spotted at work. Last night I checked the staff noticeboard on the maternity ward at Stepping Hill hospital. One of the midwives mentioned Carol had been talking about getting a rowing machine. I found this.’ He spun the postcard across the desk.

  Rick trapped it under one hand and picked it up. ‘A rowing machine. Did you try the extension number?’

  Jon shook his head, ‘I thought it might be more interesting to catch him face to face. His shift starts later this morning.’

  By now the room was filling up with members of the investigating team. Behind their desks was McCloughlin’s private office, separated from the rest of the room by a flimsy partition wall. The phone on his desk began to ring.

  ‘Where’s the boss?’ asked Rick, the word sounding odd coming out of his mouth.

  Jon shrugged as Rick got up. He skirted eagerly round his desk, stepped into the office and picked up the receiver. Far too keen, Jon thought, knowing he would now have to take a message. Turning his head slightly to the side, he listened to his new partner.

  ‘Hello. DCI McCloughlin’s phone...No, he’s in a meeting I think...Well, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know where the meeting is. Can I take . . . Right, I see. Hang on.’ He now sounded totally flustered. ‘Jon? This guy’s insisting on talking to the SIO.’

  Jon swivelled in his seat. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘The radio operator downstairs. Can you...?’ He held the phone out as if it was a piece of equipment he no longer knew how to operate.

  ‘DI Spicer here.’

  ‘Jon, it’s Sergeant Innes,’ voice sounding strained. ‘Who’s the tool that picked up the phone?’

  ‘My new partner.’

  He heard an exasperated sigh. ‘Where’s McCloughlin?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have you tried his mobile?’

  ‘It’s switched off. A call’s come just come in from near a patch of waste ground by the Belle Vue Housing Offices. Are you near a box?’

  ‘Hang on.’ He transferred the call to the phone on his desk and turned to his computer screen. ‘I am now. Go ahead.’

  ‘Have a look at this FWIN.’

  Jon typed the Force-Wide Incident Number in and the operations room report filled the screen. ‘Oh, shit, another body.’

  ‘Yes. Minus her outer layer – and I don’t mean clothes. I’ve told the nearest uniformed units to get over there and secure the scene. The major-incident wagon’s also on its way.’

  Jon scanned through for the exact location of the incident.

  ‘Off Mount Road? I don’t believe it.’

  Anger surged through him. The bodies were being dumped right on their doorstep, and Jon felt as if the killer was deliberately goading him. He felt his grip tightening on the telephone receiver. ‘OK, we’ll get over there. Leave a message on McCloughlin’s voicemail will you?’

  Before he’d hung up, Rick was in his face. ‘Mount Road? Where’s that?’

  ‘Put it this way. With the traffic at the moment, it would probably be faster to walk there.’

  Despite that, they drove, Jon anxiously listening to the police radio for any sign of McCloughlin’s whereabouts as they fought through the commuters clogging the A6, siren only slightly speeding their progress.

  Finally they turned off the main road on to Kirkmanshulme Lane, only to join the end of a stationary queue of cars. The oncoming lane was just as choked, and Jon realised there was no way of cutting through. ‘Bollocks,’ he said, his fingers drumming angrily on the steering wheel.

  Rick looked out of the side window. ‘Belle Vue. Strange name for such a grim-looking area.’

  Jon glanced at his passenger, then at the surroundings beyond their windscreen. ‘Belle Vue? In its day this was the biggest leisure park in Britain. There was a zoo, complete with mangy lions and miserable bears, a huge roller coaster, boating lakes, dodgems, miniature steam railway. Even a speed-racing track.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Rick, twisting in his seat, trying to find evidence of what Jon had just described.

  ‘This whole area. The speedway track was over there, where that car auction site is. One of my earliest memories is of coming out here with my dad, getting sprayed with the red grit that the bikes used to kick up as they roared past. I used to wear a pair of old flying goggles to protect my eyes. They still race, but at the greyhound track nowadays. Of course, you’re not allowed to perch on the barriers at the bends any more.’

  ‘I bet there was hardly any trouble, either.’

  Hearing the wistful note in his voice, Jon let out a short cough.

  ‘Don’t you believe it. There’s no harking back to a lost golden era with Manchester. The housing around this area was shocking – still is, in fact.’ He nodded at the road in front. ‘There are houses just up the road in Gorton on the market for five grand. Negative equity is alive and well around here. When the leisure park was first built it was surrounded by back-to-back terraces crammed in around the cotton factories and chemical works. Smoking chimneys, open drains, the stench from the knacker’s yards.’

  ‘You make it sound like a Lowry painting,’ Rick laughed, a note of disbelief in his voice.

  Jon’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘That’s because it was, man. Lowry painted life as he saw it, no gloss. When my family first moved over here from Galway they lived in an area called Little Ireland in Ancoats. You’ve never heard of it?’

  Looking a little bored, Rick shook his head.<
br />
  ‘Engels described it in his Condition of the Working Classes in England,’ Jon replied, resisting the temptation to make a comment about his partner’s university education. ‘It was the worst slum he’d ever seen. Hundreds of Irish families shared cellars as their homes, slept on straw. You’re from Chester. Did you never learn about the region’s history at school?’

  Rick reddened. ‘I went to boarding school down in Surrey.’ Jon clenched his teeth. Should have bloody guessed.

  Rick broke the awkward silence. ‘So it wasn’t all polite promenading, then?’

  Jon sighed. ‘People needed an escape. Working in a factory all week was tough back then. That’s what led to the music halls and drinking dens. I’ve read about what used to go on and it was pretty much the same as today, including the drunks, the prostitutes, the gangs.’

  ‘Gangs?’

  Enjoying the fact he was giving a history lesson to a graduate in the subject, Jon nodded. ‘Scuttlers, they were called. Peaked caps, bell-bottom trousers. They’d form a group and steam into people – knock them down and rob them. Manchester’s always had gangs. Three lads from one were arrested for breaking into the zoo. They got into the bird enclosure and kicked a load of penguins and pelicans to death.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘No, late fifties. My granddad told me about it. They all got packed off to borstal.’ He paused, then couldn’t resist adding,

  ‘Their grandkids are probably the ones mugging clueless southerners who come to study at Manchester University today.’

  Rick started to pick nervously at a thumbnail. The last comment had definitely hit home.

  Eventually they started inching past the huge expanse of a multiplex cinema’s car park. It was empty except for a group of lads racing radio-controlled cars across the smooth asphalt.

  A pang of guilt played in Jon’s head. Trying to make up for his cutting remark, he said, ‘The lake was right there, massive thing with an island in the middle. The roller coaster was called The Bobs, one of those old, creaking wooden things. The cars rattled round it, looking like they were about to fall off at any moment. There’s not much my old man admits to being scared of, but he happily let me know that The Bobs terrified him half to death. I was too small to be allowed on – probably saved me from a lifetime of nightmares.’

  ‘So it was all here when you were growing up?’ Rick asked, sounding chastened.

  ‘Yeah, just, though it was well past its heyday by the time I was old enough to visit.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘It closed down during the seventies, bit by bit. Bigger and better attractions elsewhere: Chester Zoo, Alton Towers, Blackpool. Plus tastes change – there used to be a huge ballroom where they held the national brass band contest. Not much demand for stuff like that any more.’

  Rick was staring at the cinema. ‘How long’s that been here?’

  ‘The Showcase? Early nineties, maybe. After the last parts of the park were demolished this place was waste ground for over a decade. The facelift started with that. Burger King and Pizza Hut sprang up on the back of it, and so did the bingo hall. But I hear they’re all struggling again. The Printworks in the city centre is dragging huge numbers of cinema customers away. If the Showcase folds, it’ll revert to wasteland again, I suppose.’ Jon thought about the processes of decay and regeneration that seemed to wash regularly across the city like a tide lapping at a beach.

  At last they turned on to Mount Road and a couple of minutes later they pulled up by the Belle Vue Housing Office. Council workers were crowded in the car park, staring through the metal struts of the fence. The mist had burned away, and across the grass several uniformed officers were attempting to keep a small gathering of locals at bay. Jon and Rick started across the grass, warrant cards ready.

  ‘Has someone been killed?’ A council worker in a shiny grey suit called through the fence. The eager note in his voice riled Jon. ‘It looks like a corpse.’

  Jon paused and stared at the man, took in his pallid skin and fish-like eyes. ‘So do you.’ He carried on, leaving gasps of shock behind him.

  Without turning his head, Rick murmured, ‘Please, don’t mince your words.’

  He smiled to indicate sarcasm but Jon’s face remained stormy.

  ‘One thing I hate is members of the public getting a thrill from this sort of thing.’

  As they reached the rendezvous point in the outer ring of tape Jon noticed a young man nearby lining up the crime scene in the viewfinder of his camera phone. ‘If I hear that click, I’ll impound your phone as evidence.’

  The man lowered the phone, an uncertain expression on his face. A uniform stepped over and, as he noted down their names, Jon nodded towards the man with the phone. ‘Take his name and address.’ Then, louder, ‘The perpetrator of a crime often returns to where he committed it.’ The man looked as if he wished he’d stayed at home.

  Jon and Rick proceeded to the inner cordon. The pathologist and crime-scene manager had yet to arrive, so no one was entering the circle of tape. Beyond it was the body. Like the first two victims, she was naked except for a pair of knickers. Unlike the first two victims, her face had been removed.

  Jon felt his throat contract. Shit, we’ve got an evil bastard on our hands.

  Rick looked away first. ‘That’s grotesque. It’s like something from that exhibition.’

  Jon turned his head. ‘What exhibition?’

  Rick looked up at the sky. ‘What’s his name? Von Hagen, that’s it. He removes the skin from corpses, preserves them, then puts them in various poses. The exhibition was down in London not long ago.’

  They turned back to the dead woman and regarded her for a little longer before Rick added, ‘She seems too young to have lost that many teeth.’

  Jon nodded. The smooth and supple skin that remained on the corpse’s limbs was that of a young woman, yet half of her teeth were missing. Keeping his eyes on the body, Jon began walking round the perimeter. With each step the sense that he was viewing some sort of display increased. ‘You should investigate that.’

  Rick looked at him enquiringly.

  ‘That Von Hagen thing. It occurred to me when looking at Carol Miller’s body – why risk dumping it in the middle of a public park? He must be trying to make some sort of a point. I thought it was a warning, but maybe it’s a display.’

  He looked around. Once again houses bordered the grass: a council terrace down one side, more-expensive-looking properties with large rear gardens on the other. Several worried owners stood behind their fences, exchanging comments. Above the roofs he could just make out the tops of the floodlights that ringed the greyhound track. A solitary phone mast towered over the scene, topped by ugly panels of grey metal. ‘If only there was a camera on that.’

  About five minutes later the Home Office pathologist arrived.

  ‘Fast mover,’ observed Jon as the pathologist folded his long limbs into a white suit.

  ‘The call came through when I was on my way to work. It was easier to come straight here.’ He slipped on white overshoes and, laying down footplates before him, approached the body.

  While Jon waited for him to complete his initial examination, the major-incident wagon pulled up in the Housing Offices car park. Several officers approached the crime scene, carrying poles and a white plastic canopy. As soon as the pathologist had properly surveyed the body Jon said, ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Well’ – the pathologist stood up, one knee popping loudly

  – ‘she’s been here most of the night. There was a heavy dew and some mist this morning. I don’t know when the dew point occurred – I noticed my car had a light covering when I took the dog out for a walk at about eleven o’clock last night.’ He looked at the sun, still low in the sky. ‘The side of the body still hidden from the sun is soaking, as is her hair.’

  ‘Any idea on time of death?’

  ‘Rigor mortis is pretty well established. The facial muscles are stiff, thoug
h whether the fact that they’ve lost their layer of skin is relevant I’d have to find out. Despite that, the limbs are also going. Her being out here all night would have delayed its onset, but I’d say she was killed a good twelve hours ago, maybe more.’

  ‘And the lack of blood around the body. She was moved here?’

  ‘Just like last time. One thing I’m not sure about is the damage to her abdomen. The wounds are very rough.’

  ‘Dog bites,’ said Jon.

  The pathologist looked dismayed and Jon was pleased to have broken through his professional detachment.

  ‘What’s your opinion now on this guy’s medical skills?’ Jon asked, hands in his pockets.

  The doctor looked at him, regret tugging at the corners of his eyes. ‘To remove a face in its entirety like this takes a lot of time and skill.’ He crouched, extending a finger to the victim’s hairline. ‘He’s created a coronal flap by cutting from one ear, across the top of the forehead to the other ear. Then he’s peeled the skin away – not particularly hard where the forehead is con- cerned, since the peri-cranial flesh is quite loose and you only have the frontalis muscle to worry about.’ He pointed to his own forehead and raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s the one that lets you do that. Next, I imagine he made incisions down the sides of the face and right along the jawline. This is where it would have got complicated. The muscles in your body are attached to your bones by tendons. Your facial muscles differ from all your other muscles in that they attach directly to other muscles or to the skin, which is why the human face is capable of such an amazing array of expressions. The movement of one muscle has an effect on its neighbour – a kind of ripple effect, if you like.

  ‘Whoever did this has divided the skin from the ocular muscles – which surround the eye – almost perfectly.’ He pointed to an exposed eyeball. ‘Just a tiny nick here, then he’s carried on down the face, leaving all the muscles around the nose perfectly intact – I forget their names, levator and Compressor naris or something. Next, he reached the mouth. He’s removed her lips, with the result she now looks like she’s grinning for kingdom come. Perhaps that’s what he wanted.’