02-Shifting Skin (10 page)

‘Please, call me “Miss”. You’ll find we’re feminine, not feminist, at Cheshire Consorts.’

Jon smiled; the lady was good. ‘Miss Perkins. Do you have a girl on your books called Alexia?’

‘Why?’

‘A possible missing person. We have reason to believe she worked as an escort for your company.’

A cigarette lighter flicked and breath was exhaled against the mouthpiece. He could almost feel the smoke washing over his face. ‘No surname?’

Jon shook his head. ‘Afraid not.’

‘No, I don’t.’ The answer was too abrupt.

‘Have any girls failed to check back with you since their last job?’

‘DI Spicer, I’m not their nanny. The customer gives his credit card number to me, I send the girl to him. Apart from passing a percentage of his payment to the girl, I’m out of the equation.’ That was more like it, Jon thought. Cold and selfish. He guessed her experience of customers wasn’t limited to just the management side of things. ‘And you’re sure no one of that name works for you? It sounds like an alias to me.’

‘All my girls use aliases. Go to Cheshire Consorts dot com. They’re all listed there. Now this is a business line. I really must go.’

Jon made sure he got the phone down first. Small recompense for being brushed off. A few seconds later he knocked on McCloughlin’s door, opened it and let Rick step in first. McCloughlin’s face lit up. ‘DS Saville.’ His eyes moved to Jon.

‘And DI Spicer.’ Less enthusiasm in his voice. ‘Sit down.’

‘Sir,’ Jon began, ‘we spoke to Pete Gray, the porter at Stepping Hill hospital.’

‘And?’

‘As soon as Carol Miller was mentioned, his mouth clammed shut. In fact, he got up and walked away, not prepared to talk any further.’

‘Interesting.’

Rick spoke up. ‘He was arrested for sexual harassment in

1989. His ex-wife.’

McCloughlin inclined his head. ‘And I can tell you have more.’

Jon nodded. ‘When we saw him at the hospital, Rick noticed he was wheeling a box of surgical gloves. They’re manufactured by a US company called Mediquip, but distributed in this region by a British firm called Protex Ltd.’

McCloughlin’s eyes lingered suspiciously on Jon before turning to Rick. ‘Have you called Protex yet? We could do with knowing who the area rep is, at least.’

‘Not yet,’ said Rick. ‘We—I’ve only just got the information.’

McCloughlin obviously sensed Rick wasn’t being straight. He pushed his phone across the desk. ‘Make the call.’

Rick looked down. The only thing on his lap was Pete Gray’s record. Sheepishly he looked at Jon. ‘I think you have the company’s details?’

Jon whipped the sheet out from his notebook. From the corner of his eye he saw McCloughlin’s lip beginning to curl.

Rick called the number, introduced himself and asked to speak to the sales rep for the north-west. He started jotting information down. ‘Since when?...I see...And his name’s Gordon Dean?

... Where was he staying?...OK...No, if we hear anything we’ll call back.’ He hung up, looking baffled. ‘It appears he’s vanished. He was staying in Manchester, seeing clients around town yesterday. Since then they’ve been trying to contact him. He missed a big sales meeting this morning.’

Without lifting his forearm from his desk, McCloughlin pointed a finger at the door. ‘A blood-spattered glove is dropped at a murder scene and the area rep for that company goes missing the very next morning? I don’t need to tell you which lead to pursue, gentlemen.’

As they made for the door, McCloughlin called Jon back. Without looking up, he said, ‘Next time, don’t use your partner to front up information that you’ve sourced. Understood?’

‘Sir.’ Jon closed the door quietly behind him.

Chapter 7

The body in the bed didn’t move.

Sunlight slanted in through the open window, spilling across the crumpled white sheets and creating a lunar landscape of miniature ravines. Silence dominated the room, pierced at regular intervals by a thin whistle. It came from the bandages encasing the patient’s face.

Eventually a hand slid upwards. A forefinger and thumb picked delicately at the nostril holes and shoulders flinched as pain lanced outwards. After a few moments the patient tried again, this time successfully getting the tip of a varnished nail into a nostril that still throbbed from where the blows had landed. A large flake of dried blood was prised away and a sob of self-pity was released.

The hand fell back on to the sheet as a soft whirring came from the window. A robin had alighted on the metal arm holding the window open. Head cocked to one side, it surveyed the room with a keen eye.

From the bed, a pair of swollen and bloodshot eyes looked back, hungry for company of any kind. The patient tried to encourage the bird forward with a kissing sound, tears spilling over the layers of gauze.

Chapter 8

Immaculate grass borders flanked the entrance to the Europa Business Park. The spotless white gates were open and, as soon as they turned in, the car tyres seemed to start gliding over the smooth tarmac. A large sign stood at a fork in the road. Rick’s eyes moved over it. ‘Units ten to twenty. Right turn.’

Jon spun the wheel and they followed the gently curving avenue. Side roads branched off to low buildings made from a type of corrugated material that appeared to come in only three colours: blue, green and white. Protex Ltd had chosen white.

They parked in one of the spaces reserved for visitors directly in front of reception. Grey glass doors slid silently open as they approached them and they stepped into a foyer which was tidy to the point of being unwelcoming. A photo of a proudly beaming man was on their right. Directly below it a brass plaque:
Keith Bradley founded this company in
1973.

And doesn’t his tie just show it, thought Jon, making an effort not to wince at the ugly splashes of colour jumping off the man’s chest.

Photos of various gloves lined the wall, each one bathed in coloured lighting to add interest to a totally lifeless product.

A young woman with a headset cutting into her wavy brown hair nodded to them from behind the reception desk. ‘Can I help you?’

They held up their warrant cards and her smile slipped.

‘Could we speak to your head of human resources, please?’ Jon asked.

‘One moment.’ She pressed a button on the switchboard.

‘Martin, I have two policemen wishing to speak with you.’ She listened for a second, then looked up. ‘Could I ask what it’s in relation to?’

Jon leaned closer and, for the benefit of the person on the other end of the line, said loudly, ‘Gordon Dean.’

The receptionist listened again. ‘He’ll be right down. Please take a seat.’

Jon glanced at the chairs. Like everything else, they were stiff and unused. He remained standing. A minute later footsteps could be heard on the stairs. A middle-aged man in shirt and tie walked over to them. ‘Martin Appleforth, head of HR.’ He hesitated, not knowing who to shake hands with first.

Jon stepped forward. ‘DI Spicer and DS Saville.’

Appleforth’s office was slightly too warm. The blinds on the end window were lowered, but sunlight cut through the gaps, one sliver dissecting the photo of a plain-looking woman trying to smile in some crowded beauty spot.

‘I hope Gordon’s all right? Has something happened?’ He positioned his pen in the exact midpoint of a Protex notepad.

‘We’re not sure at present,’ answered Jon, unbuttoning his jacket. ‘What sort of employee is he?’

Appleforth turned one palm upwards, as if the necessary information would drop into it. ‘Hard-working, reliable. He’s been with us for around eight years.’

‘And his sales patch is the whole of the north-west?’

‘The Manchester area and south into Cheshire. Another rep takes care of the Liverpool area and up into the Lake District as far as the Scottish border.’

‘So Mr Dean has a company car?’ asked Rick.

‘Yes, a silver Passat – same as me, in fact.’

‘Do you have his registration?’

Appleforth swivelled in his seat, consulted a sheet of paper pinned to his noticeboard and read out the registration.

Jon noted it down. ‘What sort of companies do you deal with?’

‘Hospitals and GP practices mainly, as you can imagine, but any sort of business in the health sector. Private surgeries, NHS clinics, even a few tattoo parlours and beauty salons, though I class them in the cosmetics sector.’

‘Tell me, do you have a contract with Stepping Hill hospital in Stockport?’ Jon asked, thinking of Pete Gray.

‘I’d have to phone the sales department.’

‘And it would be useful if we could have the list of clients Mr Dean saw in the last three days. Is that possible?’

‘Again, I’d have to ask the sales department.’

‘How old is Mr Dean?’

‘Late thirties, I’d have thought.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes.’ Appleforth looked down at his desk and rubbed a forefinger against his temple. ‘Angela, if I remember.’ Jon guessed he’d just been looking at Gordon Dean’s file.

‘Have you spoken to his wife today?’ Rick asked.

‘Yes.’ Appleforth admitted. ‘She rang earlier, very worried. When I said he hadn’t shown up for the meeting here, she said she was going to report him as missing.’ He looked at them as if they should already know this.

Rick nodded ambiguously. ‘Which station did she go to?’

‘Her local one in Stoke.’

‘I see. Mr Appleforth, we could do with speaking to her ourselves. Could you give us her phone number?’

He reached for the mouse, but his hand stayed hovering above it. ‘I’m not sure if I should give his personal details out. . .’ His eyes were calculating. ‘She said the police told her that, although he’s missing, they couldn’t treat it as anything but low priority for a few more days. How come you’re here now?’

‘Mr Appleforth.’ Jon hunched forward in his seat, shoulders suddenly tight against his jacket. The desire to move the investigation forward was nagging away at him and there was no way an officious little prick like this was going to slow things down.

‘We’re investigating a serious crime here, one the press are also very interested in. There’s reason to believe that Mr Dean, in his capacity as a sales rep for Protex, could help us. Now, I don’t want this turning into a matter for your PR department.’

Appleforth hesitated a moment longer before clicking his mouse. Sure enough, Gordon Dean’s details, including his address in Stoke, were already up on his desktop. ‘We’d appreciate being kept up to date with Mr Dean’s whereabouts.’

Jon sat back. ‘Of course.’

They were heading back out of Appleforth’s office when Jon paused in the doorway. ‘Does Mr Dean have a workstation in the building?’

‘Yes, office number five at the end of the corridor.’

‘May we take a quick look inside?’

Appleforth hesitated but, unable to think of a decent reason why not, nodded and got up. He led Jon and Rick along the silent corridor, past smoked-glass windows and shiny wooden doors. They stood back at number five, allowing him to open the door for them.

To Jon’s annoyance Appleforth used the opportunity to step in ahead of them and position himself in the corner by the window. ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked.

Jon shrugged. ‘Nothing specifically.’

The room was small, too small for three men. Jon tried to look around, but his view was obscured by Rick and Appleforth. Picking up on his look of annoyance, Rick stepped back and watched from the doorway. Immediately in front of Jon was a small desk with a computer monitor and keyboard taking up one half. A phone with a notepad occupied the opposite corner and between them sat a desk tidy. Jon looked at the three cylindrical tubes, noting each one held a different colour of biro, blue, red and black. The shallower tray at the front was filled with paperclips. Jon looked again; they were actually stacked in neat little piles of decreasing size.

He examined the rest of the room. A filing cabinet was next to Appleforth, each drawer clearly marked: A – F, G – L, M

– R, S – Z. Next to the cabinet was a bin. Jon craned forwards, it was spotlessly clean inside. His eyes wandered over the bare walls. No pictures, prints or photographs. He reached round the desk and tried the uppermost drawer. Locked. ‘Does he ever actually work here?’

Appleforth looked confused. ‘Yes. He’s on the road most of the time, but here about three times a week I’d say.’

‘And is he as neat in his personal appearance as his office suggests?’

Appleforth frowned briefly. ‘I suppose so. And we’d expect him to be, too. Protex is a medical supplies company. We need to be neat, organised, efficient.’

‘Clinical,’ Rick added from the doorway.

‘I’m sorry?’ Appleforth asked.

‘Nothing,’ Jon replied, glaring at Rick.

At that time of day the drive down to Stoke took just over an hour. Rush hour, and you could double that, Jon thought. Gordon Dean’s house was in a private development bordering agricultural land, cows dotting the fields alongside. The cluster of houses was large, all of them detached and with separate garages. They pulled to a halt outside Ravenscroft. Fake wooden timbers criss-crossed the front of the house, lattice windows adding another feeble period touch.