Original Skin (34 page)

11:14 P.M. HULL ROYAL INFIRMARY.

PETER TRESSIDER
is sitting up, limply, in his hospital bed, wearing borrowed surgical scrubs. He appears shrunken. Diminished. Small. There is a clump of hair missing from the side of his head, and red skin glares from beneath the coarse hair at his throat.

As he enters the private room, McAvoy is put in mind of a skinned bear. The image flashes through his mind unbidden. His thoughts are filled with raw, pink flesh and bloodied fur. He sees the man in the hospital bed as a beast, hunted, wounded, mutilated inside and out.

“Councillor.”

Tressider opens his eyes. Looks at his visitors. At Aector McAvoy, soaked to the skin and expressionless in his gaze. At Trish Pharaoh behind him, makeup on her cheeks, rain on her chest.

“I won’t be hearing that again,” he says softly.

Pharaoh closes the door behind them. Sits down on a hard-backed plastic chair. McAvoy doesn’t move. Just holds Tressider’s stare.

“You followed her,” Pharaoh says at length. “Tonight.”

Tressider swallows. Looks away.

McAvoy steps to the side, putting himself back inTressider’s eye line.

“How long have you known?”

Tressider lifts himself up a little. Rubs his hands in his beard. Lets his fingers fall to his throat.

“You nearly broke my windpipe,” he says, and coughs as he does so. “When you dragged me off. You’re stronger than you look. And you look bloody strong. Scalped me, too. Pulled half my bloody hair out by the roots.”

McAvoy doesn’t speak. There is silence in the room, save the rustle of Pharaoh pushing her hair back from her face, and recrossing her legs.

“How long have you known, Councillor? We can do this properly, if you’d prefer. Take you to the station. You can call your brief. There may be photographers at the station, though . . .”

Weakly, as if he is past caring about such things, Tressider waves his hand. “You think I care about all that? You think I ever cared?”

McAvoy says nothing. Waits for the other man to fill the silence.

Tressider screws up his eyes. Talks to the image that is playing in his imagination.

“You’re asking if I knew,” he says, licking his lips. “I’m asking myself, too.”

McAvoy leans forward. Peers into the councillor’s face like a pathologist examining a corpse.

“Speak to me, sir.” He says it softly. “So we understand her. So we understand Paula. So we understand the woman you loved.”

Tressider’s eyes lock on McAvoy’s. Both see the other, reflected in their pupils.

He breathes out, and there is a sickliness to the sound. A weariness. An approach of the grave.

At length he reaches to his bedside and takes a sip of water. Savors it.

“I knew when we got married that she was full of life,” he says, staring up at the ceiling with its gray tiles and garish lights. “I knew she had fire in her. Did I know she was playing around? Not at first, no. I didn’t think that way. We were happy. Whatever we had, it worked. She seemed to love me, I know that much. Seemed to enjoy our lives . . .”

“But you began to suspect?”

Eyes still closed, Tressider nods. “She got a second mobile phone. The first one we got through the business. Claimed the tax back on her business calls, you see. All aboveboard. But when you live with somebody, you can’t hide everything, can you? I saw it in her handbag. Knew she had hidden it from me. You can’t help but think the worst, can you?”

“Did you confront her?”

Tressider swallows painfully. Shakes his head. “I don’t know if I wanted the truth. Not really. Not then.”

“What happened, Councillor?”

Tressider opens his eyes. There are no tears, but his face is pale and drawn, his lips gray. He is a pencil sketch of himself.

“I tried to stop thinking about it,” he said. “Told myself that whatever we had, it worked. Tried to be a modern man, I guess. When she got pally with Steve Hepburn, I told her to go for it. To enjoy herself. I thought having a flamboyant, gay friend like that would appeal to whatever part of her I wasn’t satisfying. They hit it off. She even suggested we put some money into one of his businesses . . .”

“The phone, Councillor. Simon Appleyard.”

Tressider smoothes down the front of his pajamas. Presses his lips tight together.

“She got a phone call. A few months ago. We were sitting at home and she answered a call on our home phone. Came back white as a sheet. Wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t tell me anything. I tried to cheer her up, but I knew something was wrong.”

“The blackmailer,” says McAvoy, turning to Pharaoh. “Connor.”

“She was weird for days. Told me she was just feeling under the weather. Told me to leave it to her and to concentrate on work. On council work. The authority. Getting into the good books with the party . . .”

Tressider’s bottom lip shakes. He bites it, willing himself to be strong.

“What is going to happen to her?” he asks.

McAvoy rubs his hands through his hair. Picks the damp material of his trousers from his legs.

“She’s going to be charged with murder, Councillor Tressider.”

Tressider swallows again. Says nothing for a full ten seconds.

“The pond,” he says at last. “Connor’s in the pond.”

McAvoy turns to Pharaoh. Back to the man in the bed.

“You put him there?”

He gives a shake of his head. “I found him there. Staring up at me. Eyes like headlights . . .”

McAvoy needs to move. Has held himself still too long. He crosses to the window and stares, through his own reflection, at the lights of the city. At the yellows and blues that flicker and glare in the darkness and the rain.

“You were a member of the Police Authority and didn’t think to call the police?”

He feels Tressider’s eyes upon him. Refuses to turn.

“I knew,” he says flatly. “Knew what she had done.”

Pharaoh clears her throat. “You didn’t confront her?”

“I wanted to,” says Tressider, and his voice is almost a wail. “But she seemed so happy suddenly. Gleeful. Bouncing, almost. I kept telling myself we’d just have a few days like that, and then we would talk. But days became weeks. We were happy.”

McAvoy turns from the window, face red. “There was a dead man in your pool, Councillor! You must have needed to know.”

Tressider wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I tried to forget . . .”

“And then the happiness stopped,” says McAvoy. “She started behaving strangely again.”

“It was that damn magazine,” he spits. “She was so bloody proud of us. Kept flicking through it. Loved the thought of what we were going to become. And then she changed. Became cold. Stopped talking . . .”

“The phone,” says Pharaoh. “Where did you find it?”

Tressider turns to her. Tries to scowl, but lacks the strength. “I followed her,” he says, breaking eye contact. “One Sunday, a month before Christmas. She’d come home in a taxi. Said the car had broken down and needed towing near Anlaby. She had no reason to be there. What was she doing? I couldn’t stand it. She said she needed to clear her head and went out again almost as soon as she got in.”

“Where did she go?”

“The dale,” says Tressider, lost in memory. “Top of Welton. Pretty place.”

McAvoy nods. He knows the area. Steep-sided and tree-lined, and scented with bluebells and cow parsley, fresh air and dirt.

“I saw her bury something,” Tressider says. “Pulling up clumps of dirt with her bare hands. She was crying. I wanted to hold her . . .”

“But you wanted to know what she was doing.”

Tressider falls silent.

“You dug it up,” says Pharaoh.

“Not at first,” says Tressider, as if that’s important. “I tried to stop myself. Tried to tell myself that it was all over. Waited for her to get happy again, like before. But she didn’t. She was colder than ever. Always on the computer, out at all hours.”

“You went back.”

Tressider nods. “I dug up what she had buried. Dug up the phone.”

“It was broken,” says McAvoy. “You couldn’t make it work. You couldn’t get answers.”

“I tried,” says Tressider, and his hands make fists around the bedclothes. “But I didn’t know what to do . . .”

“You asked Hepburn,” says McAvoy. “That day. The first meeting of the Police Authority. You tried to get answers. Wanted to know what he knew . . .”

“He told me they had been having an affair,” he says, and snatches away a tear. “He didn’t hide it. Said he wasn’t as gay as people thought. Said he was sorry. Said he hoped we could all move on.”

Pharaoh pulls herself out of the chair. Crosses to his bedside.

“And you decided that you could,” she says icily. “You decided you could live with the body in the pool. You could forgive her whatever she had done. And you threw the thing in the river.”

Tressider turns away from her. Stares at McAvoy.

“I saw you,” he says softly. “Had this glimpse of what I thought the police should be. I suppose I trusted in fate . . .”

McAvoy scoffs openly. Sneers with contempt. “Did you want me to find it?” he asks, making fists. “Did you leave it for me? Was I your fucking errand boy?”

Tressider looks down at himself. Gives a half laugh as he takes in the sight he presents.

“I don’t know.”

McAvoy spins back to the window. Presses his head against the cool glass.

“Tonight,” he says, and his breath fogs the pane. “You followed her to the hotel.”

In the reflection he sees Tressider nod.

“You read her phone.”

Another nod.

“You thought she was meeting another man.”

Softly: “Yes.”

McAvoy licks his lips, lets his eyelids close. He is suddenly exhausted.

“You’re done,” says Pharaoh behind him, and though she addresses her comments to the councillor, it is McAvoy who feels the sting of her words.

His thoughts turn to love. To utter, blinding devotion. To Roisin. He asks himself how much he could forgive. How much he could tolerate. How much pain he would endure to make her love him, and never leave.

He turns away from the window. Stares into Tressider’s eyes.

“She loved you best,” he says softly. “All the things she did were to protect you from people finding out that she had strayed. She wanted you to get all you ever wanted.”

Pharaoh looks at him quizzically, taken aback by the sudden gesture of compassion.

“Yeah,” she says scornfully. “She was all fucking heart.”

McAvoy holds Tressider’s gaze. Breathes out slowly and pulls open the door. Gives a nod to the uniformed constable in the corridor, and stomps, damply, down the hall. He takes the stairs, two at a time. Crashes across the reception area and bursts into the storm beyond the glass.

“McAvoy!”

He doesn’t turn, but the sound of Pharaoh’s boots on the linoleum is unmistakable, and she pulls him back by the arm.

“You don’t want the arrest?”

McAvoy twitches his mouth into a ghost of a smile.

“I don’t know what I want.”

Pharaoh opens her mouth. Her tongue flicks out and glosses her full, red lips. She puts a hand on his arm and squeezes, never taking her eyes from his.

“You did good, Aector.”

McAvoy looks away. Shrugs. Begins to walk away.

“Where are you going?”

He answers with one word.

“Roisin.”

He doesn’t hear her move. Can picture her standing there, watching him get smaller.

Wonders what she will read into his answer.

Whether she knows he is on his way to a fistfight with a gangster.

11:18 P.M. ANLABY PLAYING FIELD.

COLIN RAY
is pressed against the damp brick of the changing rooms, tucked into the blackest pocket of shadow that he can find. He is soaked to the bone. His suit is clinging to his gangly frame and every few seconds he shivers, sending a fresh mist of rain from the brim of his borrowed black baseball cap.

“Anything?”

Shaz Archer’s voice comes from between locked teeth. She is behind him, better concealed in the doorway of the outbuilding.

“Still just talking.”

The travelers are gone. The caravans and the horses, the furniture and four-by-fours disappeared sometime this afternoon. Anybody who saw them go is keeping quiet about it.

They are not why the two police officers are here. They are after the men who sit in the nearby Lexus, parked up on a patch of rutted, rain-lashed gravel a hundred yards away from where they shiver in the sodden clothes and wait.

Ray is in a foul mood. Already news has filtered through that McAvoy and Pharaoh have brought in a murderer he did not even know they were seeking. Already there is a chance that the collar he makes tonight will not be the most eye-catching of the day.

“Col, are we sure . . . ?”

Ray holds up a hand to shush her. A car is pulling up, nosing in past the wooden fence and coming to a halt around thirty yards from the Lexus.

“Bloody gangsters are on hard times these days,” muses Ray, squinting through the rain, trying to focus on the figure climbing out of the little hatchback.

He feels Archer beside him, unable to keep herself quiet.

“Is that . . . ?”

Ray nods. “McAvoy.”

They watch silently as the bulky Scotsman walks sure-footedly across the car park to the Lexus. See him tap on the blackened glass.

“Col, what’s he doing?”

McAvoy is stepping back. Taking off his coat. Folding it up and laying it on the roof of the big posh car.

“Oh, Christ, that’s what he meant . . .”

Suddenly Ray remembers Alan Rourke’s words. What he said about Noye’s need for respect. His intention to do harm to the copper who hurt his godson.

“Is he on his own?”

Ray doesn’t answer. Just watches as the doors open on the Lexus. Watches four men climb out.

“Your eyes are better than mine,” he whispers, and grabs Archer by the pocket of her soaking denim jacket. Pulls her close. “Tell me.”

“Ronan,” she says softly. “Noye.”

“Fucking hell.”

Wordlessly, they watch McAvoy back up. Watch one figure break off from the advancing quartet. Take the lead.

Ray raises the radio. “Are you getting this?”

“Sir.”

“Hold positions.”

Through the veil of rain, the lead figure becomes Giuseppe Noye. Becomes a thickset, burly, middle-aged man in jacket and jeans.

He is talking to McAvoy. Leaning in. Face-to-face. Pressing a finger in the bigger man’s chest.

“Col, he’s going to get himself killed . . .”

Ray is not being malicious in his stalling. It is pragmatism that keeps him here in the dark. He sees an opportunity for an arrest. Sees a distraction better than any he could have planned.

“Sir.”

He looks down in irritation as the radio crackles in the dark. He raises his head again.

“Let them play . . .”

•   •   •

“THIS ISN’T YOUR FIGHT, NOYE.
He’s lying to you.”

McAvoy says it again. Shouts it loud enough for Ronan to hear. Sees the ginger teen flick a V sign, bookended by two leather-jacketed thugs.

“You’re going to get broken, copper. Broken.”

McAvoy tries to keep his feet as the smaller man comes forward, swinging brisk, powerful blows at his head. He absorbs them with his forearms, jabs, and moves away, fending off this bare-knuckle fighter with speed and agility. He tries to make this a boxing match. Something vaguely noble. Remembers his bouts at university; all head guards, mouth guards, vests, and padded shorts. The experience helps him little now, on this patch of rutted concrete, lit by strips of moon, and fighting a man whose hand wraps are stained almost black from the blood he has spilled in countless similar bouts.

“Close in now, lads, close in.”

McAvoy doesn’t know the referee. He’s a short, slightly built man in his middle years, who is exposing little of his face between the collar of his sheepskin coat and the peak of his flat cap. He had given them a brief rundown of what passed for the rules, and told Noye he wanted none of his usual bollocks. Had asked McAvoy whether he had anybody to stand beside him, and given a shake of his head in response to McAvoy’s.

“I’ll leave you bleeding, boy,” says Noye. “I’ll leave you crying for your ma.”

Noye’s words are whispered promises, softly snarled as McAvoy tries to gather him in and hold him, to test his strength and sap his energy.

“He’s lying to you,” says McAvoy in Noye’s ear, as a short left-handed blow thuds into his ribs. “Your godson. He’s a liar. He’s turned his back on all of you. And now you’re fighting his battles . . .”

Another blow connects with his body, and this one hurts him. He winces and Noye scents victory. He swings a hard right hand and catches McAvoy behind the ear. Follows up with a blow to his chin, thumped home with the heel of his hand.

McAvoy’s vision blurs. He hears high-pitched song, then static.

He is down to one knee. Raising a hand. Trying to block the blows that rain down upon him.

The referee pulls Noye back before he can deliver a boot to his fallen opponent. There are rules here. A code. No kicking. No punching when on the ground. No biting, unless the opponent is trying to rip your tonsils out. Everything else is fair game.

McAvoy pulls himself up, groggy, disoriented. Strong arms push him forward into another flurry of punches. He brings his hands up. Takes the impact on his forearms. Tries to grab the smaller man as if they are on the ropes of a boxing ring.

Hard, thudding right hands pound into his ribs. The air leaves his body. The fight leaves his legs . . .

•   •   •

COLIN RAY
lifts the radio. Prepares to give the order to move in.

McAvoy is still upright. Refusing to go down. Refusing to do much more than make himself a target.

“Fight, you jock bastard,” says Ray under his breath. “Take his fucking head off.”

•   •   •

NOYE BACKS AWAY,
looking at the other men, as if unable to understand. The orders he receives in their glances and nods are unmistakable.
Finish it.

He moves back in, arms by his sides, preparing to swing upward from the floor at McAvoy’s exposed jaw.

McAvoy sees it coming. Sees the scarred, cracked knuckles coming straight up to smash beneath his chin.

He lashes out. A straight right. His fist crunches into Noye’s.

It is the gypsy who yelps, a high, effeminate squeal, like a pained cat.

And now McAvoy is moving forward. He is moving as a boxer, feet balanced, hands raised.

He throws a left that snaps Noye’s head backward. Another that staggers him. Hurls a right that would have taken his head off had he not pulled it at the very last instant . . .

•   •   •

“GO ON, SON . . .”

Ray watches, openmouthed, as McAvoy hurls himself forward and bodily picks up Noye by the waist. Charges across the car park with the other man in his embrace and slams him into the side of the Lexus with enough force to buckle the doors.

“Go, go, go . . .”

Ray has seen enough. Enjoyed every fucking second of it.

As Ray and Archer run across the car park, they see the three other figures fall upon McAvoy. Begin thumping elbows, fists, knees into his big broad back as the unconscious Noye slithers to the ground.

Sirens now. Flashing blue lights and Colin Ray’s shouts.

McAvoy, swinging wildly, taking hold of the nearest head and slamming it into the car. Planting a meaty right on the side of a slick, shaved skull.

Chaos.

The two figures that remain upright seem to freeze.

Then McAvoy drops to one knee. And Ronan runs.

“You all right, son?” bellows Ray, above the rain, as he approaches his fallen colleague. Around him, uniformed officers are jumping out of police cars. To his right, Shaz Archer is slipping cuffs on a black-jacketed, shaven-headed man who is lying groggily in a puddle.

McAvoy looks up at him from under a swelling eye. “Sir?”

Ray gives a relieved little burst of laughter. Turns from him and takes over from a uniformed officer who is cuffing the other, larger leather-jacketed man. Giuseppe Noye is being tended to by two officers. In the distance, two constables in fluorescent raincoats are disappearing into the darkness, sprinting after Ronan’s vanishing form.

McAvoy takes an offered hand. Hauls himself upright.

Looks around dazedly. At the reassuring sight of men in uniform and villains in cuffs.

“Sir, I’m not sure . . .”

Colin Ray returns to his side. “Noye,” he says, nodding at the man on the ground, groaning and clutching his ribs. “You were right, son. Alan Rourke gave him up. Tipped us the wink that he was coming up here on business tonight. We figured it was the Vietnamese . . .”

“Sir?”

“His godson, Ronan. He’s working for the new outfit that’s outmuscled the Chinks. He’s got his own little crew. He’s the one who’s been giving our crime statistics the battering.”

McAvoy presses a hand to his head, trying to take it all in. “The other two?” he asks, gesturing at the other two men who are being manhandled into the back of squad cars.

“Muscle for the new outfit. Ronan’s thugs. Nice little sideline in stolen cars before they started putting ladies’ hands in pans of boiling oil.”

“That was these two?”

“According to Rourke.”

“And he’ll give evidence?”

“Nope. But Noye will.”

McAvoy screws up his eyes. “What?”

“His godson. Ronan. Little shit’s gone off the rails. Noye will see the benefits of getting him away from his new friends.”

McAvoy seems about to fall to his knees. He steadies himself. Rubs the rainwater from his face and winces as he touches his bruised face.

“He won’t give evidence, sir.”

Ray smiles and puts a hand on his back. “I’ve got ways and means, son. Noye’s a proud man. He won’t like finding out what these two bruisers have been doing to his godson.”

“What?”

“He’s got quite the temper, has Pepe. And when he finds out his new business partners have been abusing his blue-eyed boy . . .”

McAvoy looks into the long, ratty face of the older man. “Have they, sir?”

“We’re not dealing with a genius here, son. We’re dealing with a very bad man.”

They regard each other for a time. Standing in the rain. Soaked to the bone. McAvoy’s blood on both their hands.

“Heard you caught a killer,” says Ray eventually.

“She’s confessed, yes.”

For a time it is just them and the rain. The sound of three men coming around from painful injuries to find themselves in cuffs.

“You really came here to fight?” asks Ray softly.

McAvoy allows himself the ghost of a smile. “I hoped I could talk him out of it.”

“Didn’t work?”

“Apparently I’m not all that persuasive.”

Ray shakes his head. Grins. Looks around him and gives a grudging nod at a fine night’s work. Runs, painfully, across to Shaz Archer, and pretends he is McAvoy. They giggle as he pretends to pick her up and slam her into the Lexus.

McAvoy stands alone. Closes his eyes and waits for the thumping dizziness to cease.

Lifts his face and lets the rain wash him clean. Sniffs hard, but the only blood he can smell is his own.

Finally, he crosses to the Lexus and retrieves his coat. It is soaked through, but he pulls it on anyway. Removes his phone from the pocket and looks at the message on the screen.

We love you so much. xx

He holds the phone in his hand for a time. Caresses it, as if it is all that keeps him upright.

Smiles to himself, as he realizes that it is.