Beneath the Skin (40 page)

“Morris,” I said. “I’d love some tea.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, of course, Nadia.” He was smiling and smiling. He couldn’t stop.

He got up and walked out of the room. I looked across at the front door. There were several levers and knobs. Then fifty or sixty yards down the deserted road; no one about. I stood up and walked over to the cork notice board.

“Can I help?” I shouted.

“No,” he shouted from the kitchen.

I looked at the notice board. Below it was a writing desk with drawers. As quietly as I could I opened the first. Checkbooks, receipts. I opened the second. Postcards. The third. Catalogs. The fourth. A pile of photographs. I picked up a couple. I knew roughly what I was going to see, but still I gave a shiver of horror. Morris and someone and someone and Fred. Morris and Cath and Fred. Morris and someone and Fred. I put one of them in the back pocket of my jeans. Maybe it would be found on my body. I closed the drawer and went and sat down at the table. I looked around. It would have to do. I cleared my mind. No, that’s wrong. I didn’t clear my mind; I filled it. I made myself think of the photograph of Jenny dead. I made myself think of every detail. What would Jenny do if she were sitting where I was sitting?

Morris came in, somehow managing to hold a teapot, two mugs, a carton of milk, and a packet of digestive biscuits. He put them on the table and sat down.

“Hang on a second,” I said, before he could pour. “I want to show you something.” I stood up and walked round the table. “It’s a sort of magic trick.”

He smiled at me once again. Such a nice smile. He looked happy, excited. The excitement was like a light behind his eyes.

“I don’t know very much about magic,” I said, “but the first thing you learn is you never tell your audience in advance what you are going to do. If it goes wrong, then you can pretend you did it on purpose. Look.” I took the lid off the teapot and then lifted the pot and then very quickly threw it into his face. Some of it splashed on me as well. I didn’t even feel it. He let out a howl like an animal. In the same movement I reached for the iron. I took it in both hands. I had one chance and I had to do real damage. He was clutching his face. I lifted the iron up and then brought it down with all my weight on his right knee. There was a cracking crumbling sound and a further scream. He crumpled and slumped off the side of his chair. What else? I thought of the photograph. I felt white hot, glowing, like a poker. His left ankle was exposed. I brought the iron down again. More cracking. Another scream. I moved back but as I did so I felt a hand clutching my trousers. I raised the iron again but as I pulled back the grip fell away.

I moved back out of his reach. He was lying sprawled on the floor, twisted, whimpering. What I could see of his face was a livid blistering red.

“If you move one inch towards me,” I said, “I’ll break every fucking bone in your body. You know I’ll do it. I’ve seen the pictures. I’ve seen what you did to Jenny.”

But still I moved backward, never taking my eyes off him. I glanced around quickly and found the phone. Still with the iron in my hand, the cord trailing on the floorboards, I dialed.

I put the receiver down and stood there, as far away as it was possible to get from him in that room. He was still slumped on the floor groaning and wheezing. I wondered if he was gathering his strength, if he would raise himself to his feet and come at me. Should I go back to him and hit him again? Should I run to the front door and out? I couldn’t move my feet. There was nothing I could do. Suddenly I started to tremble in every bit of my body. I leaned back against the wall to try and steady myself.

I saw some traces of movement, tentative at first, then more purposeful. He was pulling himself up, groaning with the effort. I quickly saw that there was no prospect at all of his getting up. His legs were clearly useless. All he could do was drag himself, whimpering with the pain, so he was leaning against the bookshelf. He pushed himself up a bit farther and twisted so he could look at me. He was really badly burned on his face, blistered across his cheeks and forehead. One of his eyes was almost closed. Saliva was spilling out of his mouth, running down his chin. He coughed.

“What’ve you done?”

I didn’t speak.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t do it.”

I took a firm grip on the iron.

“One move, and I’ll smash some other bit of you.”

He shifted slightly and cried out.

“Jesus.” He panted. “It hurts so fucking much.”

“Why did you do it?” I said. “She had children. What had she done?”

“You’re mad,” he said. “I didn’t do it, I swear, Nadia. They told you. I was a hundred miles away when Zoe was killed.”

“I know,” I said.

“What?”

“I know you didn’t kill Zoe. You were going to but you didn’t. You killed Jenny.”

“You’re wrong, I swear it,” he said. “Oh God, what have you done to my face? Why did you do that to me?”

He was crying now.

“You were going to kill me. Like you killed her.”

I was having difficulty in speaking. My breath was coming in uneven gasps, my heart beating hard.

“I swear, Nadia,” he said in little more than a whisper.

“Shut the fuck up. I’ve seen the pictures. In the drawer.”

“What?”

“Of you and Fred, the ones you took down before I arrived.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “I admit I hid the pictures. I got in a panic because it looked bad. But it doesn’t mean I killed anybody.”

“The way you panicked when we were due to meet Louise at the flat?”

“No, that was a real message. Nadia, you’re all confused here. . . .”

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe I wanted him just to admit to what he’d done and to say something, however inadequate, that would make it comprehensible. Now I realized that he would never give up, and that I would never understand. He would lie and lie and maybe even he would grow to believe all his lies in the end. I stared at him, his peeling face, his writhing body, the one eye gazing up at me.

“I ought to kill you,” I said. “I should finish you off before the police get here.”

“Maybe you should,” he said. “Because I didn’t do it, Nadia, and there’s no evidence against me. And they’ll let me go and they’ll send you to prison. But could you do it? Could you, Nadia? Could you kill me?”

“I’d like to do it, I promise you.”

“Do it then. Come on, darling. Come on.” Spittle ran down his face. He tried to smile.

“I’d like to make you suffer the way you made Zoe and Jenny suffer.”

“I’ll help you,” he said, and with much panting and groaning, he started to crawl toward me across the floor like a big fat horrible slug. His progress was very slow.

“Come any closer and I’ll smash your head,” I said, taking a firm grip on the iron.

“Do it,” Morris said. “You’re going to prison anyway. They’re going to let me go. Even if they don’t, I’ll be out soon. Wouldn’t it be better to get rid of me?”

“Stop it, stop it!” I shouted and started to cry. I felt he was wriggling around in my head as well as on the floorboards. I was about to fling the iron at him when there was a banging at the door and voices shouting my name. I looked around; there were lights outside. I ran across and opened the door. It turned out to be easy. It took no more than a couple of seconds. A blur of figures rushed past me. There were a couple of police officers in uniform and Cameron. Over his shoulder I could see two police cars, and another was arriving. Cameron looked at the scene. He was sweating, his tie flapping over his shoulder.

“What the hell have you done?”

I didn’t speak. I just bent down and placed the iron on the floor.

“Did you call an ambulance?”

I shook my head. He shouted across at one of the officers, who walked out.

“She attacked me,” Morris said. “She’s gone mad.”

Cameron looked from Morris to me and back again in obvious bafflement. “Are you hurt?” he said to Morris.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I’m so fucking hurt. Mad.”

Cameron walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You all right?” he whispered.

I nodded. I kept looking at Morris slumped on the floor and every time I looked at him he was staring back. Staring at me with an eye that never seemed to blink. The officer bent over and was saying something, but he just kept on looking at me.

“Sit down,” Cameron said to me.

I looked around. He had to lead me across the room to one of the chairs by the table. I sat so I didn’t have to see Morris. I thought I would throw up if I had to look at him for one more second.

“Now, Nadia, I have to say this before we do anything more, so listen to me. You don’t have to say anything. But if you do say anything, then in the event that charges are brought, anything you say may be used as evidence. Also, you have a right to a lawyer. If you wish, we can arrange for one to be provided for you. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“No, you have to say out loud that you understand.”

“I understand. I don’t mind talking.”

“So what happened?”

“Look in the drawer. Over there.”

He went over to the open front door and barked out something about a scene-of-crime officer. An ambulance arrived noisily. A man and a woman in green overalls rushed in and bent down over Morris. Cameron stared at me. From his pocket he took thin plastic gloves that were more like the rubbishy ones they give away in petrol stations than the kind that surgeons use. He opened the drawer and looked at the photographs.

“He knew Fred,” I said.

The scene was becoming farcical. Cameron was staring stupefied at the picture. Morris was whimpering in pain as they cut his trousers off him. Then Links arrived.

“What the hell . . . ?” he said, trying to make sense of what happened.

“She attacked Morris with an iron,” Cameron said.

“What the fuck—Why?”

“She said he did the murder.”

“But . . .”

Cameron handed Links one of the photographs. He stared at it. Then he looked at me.

“Yes, but still . . .” He turned to Cameron. “Have you cautioned her?”

“Yes. She says she’s willing to talk.”

“Good. What about Burnside?”

“I haven’t managed to talk to him.”

Links leaned down by Morris and showed him the photograph. In response he just shook his head and groaned. Then he came over and sat by me. I was feeling calm now, clear-headed.

“Did Morris attack you?”

“No,” I said. “If Morris had attacked me, I would be dead now. No, not dead. Dying. Being killed.”

“But Nadia,” Links said in a gentle tone. “You do realize that, well, for example, Morris Burnside couldn’t have killed Zoe Haratounian. He wasn’t there.”

“I know. I know who killed Zoe.”

“What? Who?”

“It suddenly came to me. You all got it into your heads that the person who sent the notes must have killed her. But what if somebody else killed her first?”

“Why would anyone else kill her?”

“I was thinking about something that Grace Schilling told me. Something about how the criminal always leaves something of himself at the scene and always takes something away. You’ve heard that?” I looked up at Cameron, who was busying himself with the contents of the drawer. “I saw the forensic report of the crime scene. Do you remember the report on the shirt she was wearing when she was found?”

“Yes, I do, but how on earth do you—”

“Do you remember what it said?”

“It shared the background traces of the flat in common with her other clothes, the carpets, the beds. Just her and her ex-boyfriend.”

“But the shirt shouldn’t have had traces of Fred. She came into the flat carrying it in a plastic bag. She had bought it the day before with her friend, Louise.” I twisted my head to look over at Morris. He was paying attention. “Fred left traces of hair on Zoe’s shirt while he was strangling her.”

I thought I almost caught the tiniest trace of a smile on Morris’s face.

“You didn’t know that, did you?” I said to him. “Your friend killed Zoe before
you
could.” I looked at Stadler and Links. “Two murderers. See? Two. Didn’t you think about why the murders were so different? There wasn’t any fucking escalation. It was because they were done by different people. Was that why it was so violent, Morris? Did you punish Jenny because you’d missed out on Zoe?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“But there was a compensation,” I said. “You suddenly found yourself with the perfect alibi. It gave you a chance to get at me from close up, to really watch me suffer.”

“But how could Fred have done it?” Links asked. “Miss Haratounian wasn’t even intending to return to her flat.”

“I don’t think he planned it,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been puzzling about, sitting here. I was thinking about that strange thing that was stolen, the crappy hanging from the wall that Fred gave her. Why would anybody take that? I don’t think it was taken. I think Fred took it
back
. I think he came to collect his stuff. Zoe came back suddenly and he grabbed the cord from her dressing gown and strangled her.

“That’s why the forensics were so difficult. The thing he took away was something that had belonged to him. What he brought to the scene was just more of what was already there. More Fred. Too much Fred. And he had the perfect alibi as well. The police knew he couldn’t have written the notes. And who else would have killed Zoe but the man who said he was going to? Funny, isn’t it, Morris? You and Fred made a great team, if you’d only known it.”

The paramedics had lifted Morris onto a stretcher and were inserting a drip.

“Are you going to look in his pockets?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I think he was going to attack me.”

Cameron glanced at Links, who nodded. Morris’s nice new trousers were now in halves. They had endless pockets, and Cameron started rummaging in them. I saw something glisten in his hands. He was holding up a wire.

“What’s this?” he said to Morris.

“I was doing some repairs,” he answered.

“What repairs were you doing that needed piano wire tied into a running noose?”