Beneath the Skin (17 page)

‘Then the door opened. It was him – Uncle Coby. He was a strange guy. He used to wear a big old army coat, summer and winter, but he always had a cold. You'd hear him sniffing. He ate boiled onions to boost his immune system, so if you couldn't see him, you always knew where he was by the smell. It would linger behind him, so you knew where he'd been and where he was heading. That was a good thing, I always thought. That you knew where he was. Anyway, this time, he walked into my room and I could smell the onions on his breath.'

Walt remained silent, trying to slow his breathing. The smell of onions. The overcoat button.

‘I tried to make myself small under the tartan rug, tried to make myself as small as the hummingbird. My heart was beating a thousand times a minute.'

His heart was beating like that too, knocking so hard he thought she'd feel it.

‘What happened?' His fingers stilled on her hair. He didn't want to hear what she was going to say next.

‘My dad wandered past and he made up some lie and that was that. Maybe he went off to find Alys. And then he left for good, when we were still quite young. My mother said he went abroad. I was so relieved, but now, I think, what if he'd done other things, to other kids, and he went on the run? That's why I had the argument with Dad. I wanted to talk to him, adult to adult, but he still wouldn't listen. That's why we fell out. Part of me wants to talk to Alys about it but she won't. She won't talk to me about anything. Sometimes I think I'm just like . . . wallpaper.'

William came out of the bathroom, still wiping his mouth on a towel. ‘I don't want to go to bed,' he whined.

Mouse got up. Walt's thigh felt suddenly cold. ‘We'll stay here,' he said. ‘We'll sit on the stairs until you fall asleep.'

Mouse smiled. ‘Yes, we will. You don't have to worry, sweetie.' William, evidently satisfied, ran up to his room. Mouse glanced once at Walt, shyly, as if she had given too much away. He held out his hand, and she took it. His mind wouldn't quiet.

‘Seriously, what if William's right? How could I not have seen it? That makes me as bad as my parents. Mothers, we've got to be on top of everything, every minute of every day – guarding, protecting, making it all okay and if you fail . . . You know, the hummingbird is always just twenty minutes from starvation.'

He thought of her endless cycle of cleaning, of covering up. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen, lass. It's okay. Go up to bed. Sleep. I'll stay here and make sure nothing bad happens.'

She touched him lightly on the shoulder, and left him sitting on the top step.

About an hour later, Mouse came out with a cushion. His hips had gone to sleep, and he was thinking he'd have to move, rub some life into his limbs, and there she was. Standing awkwardly in vest top and pants, hugging the cushion to her as if to ward off the sudden flare in his eyes.

‘I thought . . . You're not going to be very comfortable out here.' She whispered it, although the kid must surely have been out for the count. His face was level with her bare thigh. She put the cushion down behind him and then, exposed, retreated a few steps with her arms crossed under her breasts. Getting up involved grabbing the flimsy banister (they didn't give a shit if it caved under the servants) and hauling; his right thigh was numb, and she rushed to support him. It was undignified but he allowed himself to play on it, teetering on his good leg and clutching at her waist until his hand found a strip of warm skin.

‘You can't stay there all night. Come on.' Her breath brushed his cheek as she manhandled him around and led him into her room.

The place was dark, except for the soft peachy glow of the bedside light. She had fairy lights strung up around the bed, which he hadn't noticed last time. The duvet was unruffled, and he guessed she'd been tidying up, putting things to rights, using up her nervous energy. She was chewing her bottom lip.

‘I, I just don't want to be on my own.'

‘No. No, you shouldn't be.' They drew together, magnetised. The chapped skin on her bottom lip tasted of mint, and as they kissed, everything smoothed out, peeling down their bodies like hot candle wax. The bed was cold. She got into it, shivering, as he stripped off his clothes. He flung the prosthetic limb on top of his jeans. There was no awkwardness this time. No fumbling as he climbed into bed and reached for her. They fitted together as if it had always been that way. He held her gaze, and there in her eyes lay all the things she usually hid from the world. He felt it too, this loosening, this opening up to unimaginable hope. He thought the phrase ‘coming home' was such a cliché, but right then, as Mouse gathered him to her, moved under him, they were the only words he could think of.

44

William's face is gaunt, waxy, like old fruit. It doesn't look like William. The mouth is misshapen, as if the teeth behind it are overlarge; his earlobes are elongated, the way they are when you're old. William has old-man ears, cauliflower ears, and that alone is enough to make Walt want to scream and yell. William was so perfect, a golden child. When Walt looks closer . . . He doesn't want to. Oh no, he doesn't want to . . . The blond hair isn't hair any more but straw: crisp, yellow straw sprouting out of the top of his head, and his eyes are staring, like doll eyes.

She got you! She got you!
Walt grabs the child's arm but it comes away in his hand. Chaff falls out of the gaping wound, chaff and sand and sprigs of lavender, piling onto the floor at his feet. The floor shifts, like the deck of a ship, and Walt is slipping down, down, and William's corpse falls on top of him. He is drowning in straw. Straw smells like sand. It smells like the desert, earthy and rank.

Walt woke to thin, grey light. Had he slept? It was more like his brain had slipped into involuntary defrag mode. Images bleak as burned-out cars fused with sounds too ghoulish to remember. Dream words were lodged in his throat and he was scared he'd forced them out in his sleep:
Help! Look what she's done! Mouse!

But Mouse was breathing softly, so he hadn't woken her. She was some distance away, but, amazingly, she was still holding his hand. It made him smile. Carefully he wriggled his fingers free. They were damp with her sweat. He smelled of her, and his whole body soared, delicious waves beginning at the base of his belly and radiating outwards. He didn't want to leave the nestlike warmth of her bed –
their
bed – but he needed to pee, and he would check on William, make sure he was still asleep.

As he strapped on his foot, he shook away the dream residue with a determination he hadn't felt for a long time. He pulled on boxers and a T-shirt. This was a time for moving forward. He felt hopeful, for the first time in . . . He tried to calculate as he slipped silently down the attic stairs.

He'd felt vaguely glad at times, as he'd stayed one step ahead of the past. Glad of a train, a room, a lift. Of pizza when he was hungry; beer when he wanted to forget. Hopeful was a new feeling in this foreign afterlife.

He pulled at the bathroom light switch and shoved up the toilet seat. The room was surprisingly warm. Humid. He glanced around. Above the sink there was a white melamine cabinet with mirrored doors. They were misted over. He flushed the toilet and turned to wipe the mirror with the heel of his hand, as if not quite convinced by what he was seeing. Beside him, the shower curtain was drawn across the bath. His belly contracted and he whipped the curtain back; it was warm, clingy, damp beneath his hand. The great iron tub was empty, a puddle of recent water coating the bottom. The back of his neck tingled. He scanned the tiled walls. Vapour trickled down in little rivulets, pooling around the lotions and potions that stood in a line at the tap end: shower gel, shampoo, conditioner.

He stepped back. Had Alys been showering in the middle of the night? It didn't fit. Cursing, he scoured the bathroom for signs of alien occupation. He dumped the toilet rolls from their wicker basket and flipped the laundry hamper. Slightly disgusted with himself, he raked through pink knickers and socks and bloodstained shirts belonging to Alys before stuffing them back in and securing the lid. Next he opened the cabinet doors above the sink. The inside smelled of Germolene. Mouthwash, antacid, women's aloe vera shaving gel. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a sigh. What the fuck was he looking for? There were little white pharmacy boxes on the top shelf, the type you get with proper meds in, blood pressure tablets and so on. He raked them out and two fell into the sink. He looked at the labels:
Farmacia Antoja, La Rambla, Barcelona
. The name hit him like a truck.
Señor Coburn Morrison.

He staggered back, leaving the boxes in the sink and the cabinet doors wide open. His only thought was William. If Coby was keeping his medication in the bathroom cabinet was he actually
living
here?

Hiding in plain sight.

He needed to get back upstairs and tell Mouse. They had to confront Alys, find out what was going on. Swinging round to grab the door handle, he came face to face with an old army coat. It was hanging on a hook at the back of the door, but its sinister, empty shape made him want to wrestle it to the ground. Adrenaline burst through his system. He touched the coat with the tips of his shaking fingers. It was a dull grey-blue and the last time he'd seen it was when Mrs Petrauska draped it around the fragile shoulders of Mouse's father.

Jesus. Walt seized the lapels, already knowing what he would find, muttering under his breath.
The buttons. Let me see the fucking buttons!
Two rows of imperial eagles. And the last one missing.

Fighting down nausea, Walt drooped his head for a second. The smell hit him hard, triggering a host of memories he'd put down to cooking smells or bad ventilation. All those times his door had popped open and, half asleep, he had smelled the scent of onions . . .

He used to wear a big old army coat, summer and winter, but he always had a cold . . . He ate boiled onions to boost his immune system, so if you couldn't see him, you always knew where he was by the smell.

He backed away, ice-cold sweat breaking out on his lower back. Slamming out of the bathroom, he came to an uncertain halt on the landing. Should he wake Mouse? Did he need more evidence? What more evidence did he need, for God's sake? First William's suspicions and now this . . .

Down below, he heard the front door close softly.

Walt pressed himself against the banister, scanning the empty air, every one of his senses prickling. No noise. Nothing. Had he imagined it? Silently he negotiated the stairs, edging past the great bear, rearing like a phantom out of the gloom. The hall swam with a pre-dawn unfamiliarity; concrete things wavered and reformed, ghosts at the edges of his vision. The loudest thing, the sound of his own breathing. Somewhere a clock ticked in time with his heart. Up ahead, the kitchen door was firmly closed.

It could have been any back alley in deepest Lashkar Gah: you never knew what you were going to find behind the door.

He pressed his ear against it. A faint lapping sound could be heard from inside the kitchen. Every fibre of his system was wired, his body gearing up for battle. For the first time in a long time he itched to have a rifle in his hands. The door, when he pushed it, swung open with the high-pitched squeak of a trapped animal. The room beyond was in darkness.

He flipped on the light.

On the floor beside the cooker, a hunched cat was lapping something from a dish. Walt let out his breath with a curse. Steam was rising from a pot on the hob, misting the room with the unmistakeable smell of onions. He propelled himself across the room. The cat arched and hissed, retreating to a safer vantage point. The pot was full of onion halves. Whoever had been here had turned off the gas as if they'd left in a hurry. The water was still hot, though, and the smell so pungent that Walt had to clap a hand across his nose and mouth. There was a mug of black coffee beside the kettle. Still warm.

As all the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, revealing the full, horrible implication of what was unfolding, Walt stood for a moment in the centre of the kitchen. His hand dropped away from his face. This guy, Coby, was living here. While they slept, this monster had the run of the house, and Alys . . . Alys must know. Why else would she confiscate William's photos and threaten him like that? It was in case he went snooping and found something, or someone, she didn't want to explain.

Alys had invited the monster in.

How could he tell Mouse? Who wants to discover their sister is having thoughts about taxidermied humans and hiding a paedophile in the house?

Words crowded his head, none of them adequate. There was William's Lego train on the table, half built, lying forlornly on its side as if it had been derailed. Fresh horror hit him square in the belly. Had William been up early? Had he been down here with . . . One last glance at the steaming onions and Walt was running back up the stairs.

The curtains were drawn in William's room but Walt didn't need light to know that the boy wasn't there. There was the same absence he felt in Alys's basement; the air undisturbed by breath. He slammed the light switch, his whole body shaking from the inside out. Yellow light fanned across the bed, showing an indent in the spaceman pillow, the duvet thrown back. Walt forced himself into the room, laid his hand on the sheet. It was cold. His foot kicked something soft. William's pyjamas, one leg turned inside out, as if they'd been taken off in haste and dropped on the floor.

Shit
. He searched under the bed, looking for clues that would tell him if the kid was dressed or not. No shoes were visible. Had he got dressed and gone out? Or . . . But his analytical brain had kicked in and it refused to dwell on the alternative. It was a school day. He swivelled round, eyes scanning the sparse furniture. It was a school day; there was his blue school bag, slumped against the wardrobe. What did he wear to school? He couldn't remember, and a quick search through the wardrobe gave up no information either. He'd never noticed the boy's kit, and had no idea what he might be wearing, supposing he was wearing anything.