Someone Else's Skin: (DI Marnie Rome)

by Hilary, Sarah

  Marnie left Abby with Hope, going through the hospital’s reception to the main entrance to wait for Daniel Noys.

  The sun was struggling up, shining from the roofs and windscreens of cars. It had rained at some point in the night; the tarmac held skinny pockets of shimmering water. Too early for the sun to offer any warmth, but she turned her face towards it anyway, towards the pale orange push at the horizon.

  She knotted her hair blindly, wondering if the night’s excitement had written itself all over her face, the way the stab vest had left welts in the front of her shirt.

  She listened to the sound of the hospital at her back, the buzz of bodies moving, the sound-confetti of doors shoving open, swinging shut.

  After a minute, she took out her phone and rang Paul Bruton, at Sommerville, listening to what he had to say, holding his words at a distance from her new mood.

  31

  A flat slant of light lay over Noah Jake. He was conscious of its angle and heat on his face, but he couldn’t open his eyes to identify its source. There was a pressure on his eyelids, like a blindfold. Drugs? Drugs.

  Every inch of his chest felt raw. Surgical stitches, each one a separate and distinct pain, pulled at the skin over his ribs. His temples burned. He stayed still, breathing through his nose, wary of deep breaths, knowing his ribs were broken. He’d better be awake, for DI Rome. She needed a statement.

  ‘Hey.’

  Dan? Dan.

  Noah hoped his smile made it past the drugs, on to his mouth. ‘Hey . . .’

  Dan leaned his forehead to Noah’s, staying that way until Noah could feel the beat of Dan’s heart against his shoulder. He missed the next words. Felt them as breath against the bridge of his nose, the brush of lips. ‘What? Dan. I can’t . . .’

  Dan’s kiss was bitter black coffee, tasting of sleepless nights and stress.

  ‘Sorry . . . Ruined . . . your plans. For Friday night.’

  ‘For a whole month of Fridays,’ Dan said. ‘Unless the doctor can recommend a good position for broken ribs.’

  ‘Not . . . on the NHS.’

  Dan pressed the ball of his thumb to Noah’s brow bone. ‘Damn . . . You do know you nearly killed me.’

  ‘Said . . . sorry.’ He wanted to reach up and thread his fingers through Dan’s fringe, pull him close. He settled for turning his head to kiss the inside of Dan’s wrist. They stayed like that, a long time.

  ‘Time’s up,’ Dan said, at last.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They gave me five minutes. Time’s up. You need a lot of bed rest.’

  ‘Rather do . . . tequila body-shots.’

  ‘Hold that thought.’

  ‘You too . . .’

  Noah moved his hand for Dan’s, then realised he was already holding it, weightless, the same body temperature as his own.

  32

  Hope Proctor sat behind one-way glass, her mouth lush with silence. An alibi of bruises on her body, and now these cuts, deep, on her arms.

  Victim, written right through her.

  She’d lied to Toby Graves, and to Ed Belloc. In a minute, she would begin lying to Marnie Rome. She lied fluently, with her whole body. Her heart-shaped face lied, and her blue eyes. The bloody, bandaged mess of her arms and the thin stoop of her shoulders lied. The tears she could turn on at will, as if grief was a faucet.

  Kenneth Reece would have been proud of his tough nut.

  His survivor.

  Ed was waiting up for Marnie, wearing the clothes he’d worn to the hospital, his shirt cuffs rusty with the blood from Simone’s hands. Marnie wondered if she looked as bone tired as he did. They went through to Ed’s living room, with its welcome chaos of books and CDs, the place she’d come to associate with peace and quiet.

  ‘Coffee?’ Ed offered. ‘Or I’ve got Peroni.’

  ‘Peroni sounds good.’

  Ed brought two bottles and a bottle-opener, snapping the caps and handing a beer to Marnie. She tapped its neck to his bottle. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Ed perched on the arm of the sofa, five feet from her.

  ‘Seriously?’ she said, gesturing at the distance between them. ‘Only I could use a shoulder. Not to cry on, just . . . to mark my place.’

  Ed scooched over.

  ‘Better.’ She leaned into him, gratefully.

  They drank in silence. Until she said, ‘So, the girl who raped Stephen? Slit her wrists. She’s okay, they found her in time, but she’s on suicide watch. Bruton says Stephen hadn’t been near her since the assault.’ She drank another mouthful, the lager crisp on her tongue. ‘Bruton didn’t sound convinced.’

  ‘How about you?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Am I convinced? I don’t have enough relevant information to make an informed judgement.’ She tipped her bottle to his. ‘Spoken like a proper detective, see? I can still do it, when I have to.’

  ‘Will you go and see him?’

  ‘In a few days, perhaps.’ She’d lost the nagging edge of urgency about Stephen. ‘There’s no rush. He’s not going anywhere, and neither am I.’

  Ed propped his head on his hand. ‘Can I ask what’s going to happen to Simone?’

  ‘I don’t know, not yet. She isn’t talking, and neither is Hope.’ Marnie thumbed the neck of the Peroni. ‘We were too late, Ed. I was too late. Again.’

  ‘Not too late for Noah.’

  ‘Too late to know what happened in there. With Hope and Simone.’

  ‘Simone will get better,’ Ed said. ‘It might take a while, but she’ll get better. She’ll tell you what happened. You weren’t too late. Noah’s alive. And Simone.’

  Marnie rested her head on his shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t too late, for Stephen. Her parents had wanted to rescue him. Maybe that was what she should be trying to do – honour their memory by honouring that hope. Optimism.

  ‘Rome . . .’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘You can stay, you know. I have a bed.’

  ‘I thought we were on the bed.’

  ‘Another one,’ Ed said. ‘Cleaner. And bigger.’

  ‘In that case, yes please.’

  In the half-dark of his bedroom, she stripped and stood under the light.

  Ed’s eyes moved down her body, reading.

  ‘Wow. Rome.’

  ‘You can touch,’ she said, keeping still.

  He took her face in his hands, carefully, and kissed the skin under her eyes, then the skin at the edges of her mouth, and finally, warmly, her mouth.

  33

  ‘It was my fault,’ Noah said. ‘I told Simone to get the knife. I called her Nasiche.’

  Marnie sat by his hospital bed, knotting her hair. ‘I was going to talk to you about guilt. But I got a really good night’s sleep, so I’m shelving the lecture for another time.’

  Not just sleep, Noah guessed. She was lit up inside.

  ‘Simone was bringing the knife to cut me free,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what Hope did, to end up like that. Simone said Hope wanted her to cut her.’

  ‘Hope wanted Simone to cut her?’ Marnie frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s what she said. I told her Hope needed help. I told her to get the knife, to cut me free. I don’t know what Hope did . . . I couldn’t see what was happening.’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything?’

  ‘I heard . . . screaming . . .’

  Marnie watched his face. ‘What kind of screaming? Fear, or anger?’

  ‘Both. They were . . . both screaming. Scared and angry.’ He shifted against the pillows, wincing. ‘I couldn’t see what was happening.’

  The pain was worse this morning. He knew it meant he was mending, but it got in the way of understanding what Marnie had said. She’d told him about Leo, the yellow roses brought to the refuge because Hope knew what they’d trigger in Simone. Kenneth Reece’s careless attitude to his daughter’s psychosis, his drinking, his contempt . . .

  From the adjoining room, the low chatter of the hospital radio ratted at Noah’s concen
tration. He tried to block it out, so that he could focus on what mattered. ‘Simone attacked Hope. That’s what happened?’

  ‘That’s how it looks. Simone won’t speak to anyone, not even Ed. I don’t trust a word coming out of Hope. No independent witnesses, but Hope’s the one with the defensive wounds. Simone doesn’t have any physical injuries.’

  ‘She said . . . Hope wanted to be cut, that she wanted Simone to cut her.’ Noah fingered the bandaging at his wrists. ‘Have you seen her scars?’

  ‘Simone’s or Hope’s?’

  ‘Simone’s. I didn’t see them, but I felt them. She . . . was petrified.’

  ‘Hope terrorised her.’

  A sudden harsh weeping from the adjoining room. It didn’t last, seguing into stagey laughter, embarrassed.

  ‘Is she here?’ Noah asked. ‘In the hospital? Simone. Is she here?’

  ‘Yes, but not on this floor.’ Marnie looked at him. ‘The surgeon said you were lucky. No serious internal bleeds.’

  ‘Is Hope here?’

  ‘No. Do you think she meant to kill you?’

  Noah didn’t need to think about that. ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know how this goes.’ She smiled in apology. ‘Did she tell you that she intended to kill you?’

  ‘No, but she demonstrated total disregard for my well-being.’ Too many words; he had to stop to get his breath back. ‘Kettlebell. Ditto hammer.’

  Marnie glanced down the bed, at his damaged leg. ‘That’s how she hurt your ankle? With the hammer.’

  Noah blinked at the ceiling, then back at her. ‘That was Simone. Hope would have . . . broken my leg.’

  Marnie was quiet. At last she said, ‘Simone hit you with the hammer.’

  ‘She was . . . terrorised. Doing as Hope told her.’

  Another beat of silence.

  ‘Hope told her to hit you with a hammer,’ Marnie said. ‘You heard her do that.’

  Noah chewed at a raw spot inside his cheek. ‘No. But it was . . . obvious that’s what was going on.’

  ‘Hope denies it.’

  ‘Denies what? Forcing Simone to do as she said?’

  ‘All of it. She denies all of it.’

  Noah’s mind turned like a broken dynamo, bringing up nothing. ‘She . . .’

  ‘Denies everything. It was all Simone. Simone forced her to leave the hospital. Simone took her home, to get the kettlebell. Simone broke into the Bissells’ house. When you showed up, Simone attacked you. Simone tied you up, and proceeded to torture you.’

  Noah swallowed a spike of nausea. ‘The kettlebell. She says that was Simone?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marnie’s voice was steady, taking no prisoners. She’d had her fingers burned, he knew, with the mistakes they’d made first time around, at the refuge. ‘I’m going to need a list from you of exactly what Hope said and did.’

  ‘She . . . put a knife to my chest. Punched me. In the throat. Put . . . the kettlebell on my chest and . . . hit it. With the hammer.’ He was sobbing for breath by the time he’d finished even just that much.

  Marnie touched the back of his hand. ‘Not now. When you’re well enough.’

  He shook his head. ‘I want . . . to do it now. She needs locking away.’

  ‘She’s locked away.’ Marnie kept her hand on his. ‘Get better, then we’ll talk properly.’

  ‘Ayana . . .’ he began.

  ‘No news, but we’re looking.’

  ‘Simone’s mum and dad . . .’

  ‘In Marrakesh. We’ve contacted them.’

  They’d never know. Charles and Pauline Bissell. They’d never know what went on in their house while they were away. No one would, unless Simone could find a way to tell the truth. Simone was in shock, otherwise why wasn’t she telling the police what really happened in the house?

  Marnie stood. ‘Dan’s waiting. I’m going to get back to the station.’

  Noah didn’t want her to go, not yet. He had too many questions. ‘Hope said I was . . . pretending. Not . . . a proper detective.’

  She paused in the doorway to look back at him. ‘She lied. About Leo. About Simone. About You. It’s what she does.’

  ‘I told Simone to get a knife,’ Noah said despairingly. ‘I called her Nasiche. I wanted her . . . to be Nasiche.’

  She nodded, accepting this without surprise or censure. ‘It’s what we were all wishing. Me and Ed, and Toby Graves. Nasiche knew how to stay alive.’

  Noah didn’t have the strength to put into words what he was feeling. He was one more person who’d manipulated Simone Bissell. No wonder she’d shut down. He tried to imagine how it had happened. The knife in Simone’s hands. Hope woken from her sleep on the floor, putting up her arms in self-defence . . .

  Was it that simple? Hope defending herself against Simone’s attack? Because Noah had triggered a different set of memories to the ones Hope had triggered with the yellow roses. It’d saved his life, maybe even saved Simone’s, but at what cost, if Hope was denying it and she was the one with the defensive wounds?

  ‘One thing,’ Marnie said from the doorway. ‘We got Lowell Paton. The CPS is bringing a case of wounding with intent.’

  ‘Simone . . .?’

  ‘Not Simone, not yet. Two other girls. Dream catch: red-handed.’

  Like Simone. Red-handed, with a knife, sitting in a pool of Hope Proctor’s blood.

  ‘Henry Stuke,’ Noah remembered. He tried to pull himself upright. ‘He had a broken hand. He blamed it on his work, but he was watching the refuge – and the hospital. We couldn’t connect him to the other women, Simone or Ayana. Ron thought he was a waste of time, but he had a broken hand. Like Leo.’

  Marnie closed the door and came back to the bed. ‘Tell me.’

  Noah shook his head, wishing it didn’t feel stuffed with wire wool. ‘He’ll never admit to it. If it was Hope . . . he’s worse than Leo, much worse. A real man’s man. He’ll never admit that a woman beat him up.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Marnie said. She sat at his side. ‘Tell me anyway.’

  34

  Two floors up, the sun was sneaking in through reinforced windows, finding bronze highlights in Ed’s hair. ‘Rome . . .’ He grinned at her through his fringe. She resisted the urge to tidy his bedhead, since she was responsible for it.

  ‘How’s Simone?’ She nodded in the direction of the private room. A window in the closed door showed a glimpse of the girl lying in the bed, her profile a dark woodcut against white pillows.

  ‘Sleeping,’ Ed said.

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘No, just sleeping.’

  ‘That’s something . . . We arrested Lowell Paton last night.’

  Ed looked at her quickly. ‘Where?’

  ‘At his penthouse apartment. He was beating up a couple of call girls. The CPS is debating whether it’s ABH or wounding with intent. Lowell’s lawyer is trying to pass it off as common assault with consent, but with five witnesses and two split lips, there’s no way that will wash. He can’t plead consent to wounding.’ She sketched a smile at Ed, glad of the chance to give some good news. ‘He’s going to prison.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘At least five years, longer if we get lucky.’

  Ed looked into the hospital room, at the sleeping girl. ‘Lucky,’ he repeated.

  ‘It shouldn’t come down to luck, I know. And he deserves worse, for what he did to Simone.’ Her eyes stung. She closed them for a short moment, thinking about the arrest in Paton’s apartment. The cheap bag of bondage gimmicks, the girls’ wails. They hadn’t known what they were getting into. Probably imagined there was safety in numbers, that it was just a game. A rich white boy’s game. They hadn’t known the kind of animal Paton was, or the things that turned him on.

  ‘Were they badly hurt?’ Ed asked. ‘You said wounding . . .’

  ‘He’d knocked them about a bit, but we got there before the real fun started. Lowell’s idea of fun . . .’ Marnie glanced at her watch. ‘He’s due in court at one. I should go to Talgarth R
oad, as the arresting officer.’

  He nodded. ‘Have you got time for breakfast first?’

  She smiled at him. ‘My treat.’

  Her favourite café, for French toast and coffee. Too early for the lunch crowd, too late for breakfast. The proprietor led them to a table at the back, bringing a pot of coffee, another of hot milk, laying their places with care before withdrawing to the kitchen.

  Marnie watched Ed take a cup in his hands, a slow curl of steam softening the angle of his cheek. Her eyes followed his fingers, to his square wrist, lightly freckled where the bone rose to the warm surface of his skin.

  ‘I’m in trouble,’ she said. ‘At work.’

  Ed put the cup down. ‘Tell me?’

  ‘Hope . . .’ She traced a pattern on the tablecloth with the pad of her thumb. ‘She’s blaming everything on Simone. The escape from the hospital, what was done to Noah, everything. She has a lawyer. I haven’t met him yet. He’s threatening a case of police negligence. I failed to provide her with adequate protection against Simone.’

  ‘She . . . You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope. It’s neat, you must admit. She should never have been left alone at the hospital, after what happened to Leo. Her lawyer wants to know why she wasn’t under arrest, or at least under proper police guard. He has a point.’

  Commander Welland had described Hope’s lawyer as ‘a whoring tic, put on the face of the earth to annoy me’, which didn’t do much for Marnie’s confidence, as the target of the tic’s wrath.

  ‘What about Noah’s evidence?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Her lawyer says he’s biased. It’s a race thing. Noah Jake doesn’t want to admit that the black girl was the aggressor.’

  Ed looked so serious she had to smile, reaching to thumb the frown from above his nose. ‘Cheer up. I’m not done yet.’

  He took her hand and held it. ‘If she gets in front of a jury . . .’

  ‘I know. What’ll they see? We’re right back where we started, with another audience for her victim act. Another set of expectations to be played with.’