Someone Else's Skin Read online

  Copyright © 2014 Sarah Hilary

  The right of Sarah Hilary to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2014

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 0771 5

  Cover photograph © Rob Lambert/Arcangel Images

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

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  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Sarah Hilary

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  About Sarah Hilary

  Sarah Hilary lives in Bath with her husband and daughter, where she writes quirky copy for a well-loved travel publisher. She’s also worked as a bookseller, and with the Royal Navy. An award-winning short story writer, Sarah won the Cheshire Prize for Literature in 2012. SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN is her first novel.

  Follow Sarah on Twitter at @Sarah_Hilary

  About the Book

  Devastating, brilliant and heralding an outstanding new talent in crime fiction, SOMEONE ELSE’S SKIN is the crime debut of the year.

  Some secrets keep you safe, others will destroy you . . .

  Detective Inspector Marnie Rome. Dependable; fierce; brilliant at her job; a rising star in the ranks. Everyone knows how Marnie fought to come back from the murder of her parents, but very few know what is going on below the surface. Because Marnie has secrets she won’t share with anyone.

  But then so does everyone. Certainly those in the women’s shelter Marnie and Detective Sergeant Noah Jake visit on that fateful day. The day when they arrive to interview a resident, only to find one of the women’s husbands, who shouldn’t have been there, lying stabbed on the floor.

  As Marnie and Noah investigate the crime further, events begin to spiral and the violence escalates. Everyone is keeping secrets, some for survival and some, they suspect, to disguise who they really are under their skin.

  Now, if Marnie is going to find the truth she will have to face her own demons head on. Because the time has come for secrets to be revealed . . .

  To Anna, in defiance

  Author’s Note

  Someone Else’s Skin is a work of fiction, but some of the characters and their stories were inspired (or informed) by research. In particular, I found the following books and websites inspirational and/or informative:

  Daughters of Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera, published by Hodder & Stoughton, August 2009 (978-0-3409-6207-7)

  The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, published by HarperCollins, March 2011 (978-0-0073-1731-8)

  ‘The real CSI: what happens at a crime scene?’ by Craig Taylor, published in Guardian Weekend, 28 April 2012

  Women’s Aid, domestic abuse support network: www.womensaid.org.uk

  Karma Nirvana, honour-based abuse support network: www.karmanirvana.org.uk

  Acknowledgements

  More words? Yes, a few. Without these people, this book would have been less, or not at all.

  My agent, Jane Gregory, and her team, especially Mary who refused to let the slush pile have me. My editor, Vicki Mellor, and the team at Headline who welcomed me so well.

  My beta readers, Elaine in Texas, J in Australia, and Becca. The Max posse, in particular Anne-Elisabeth, Claudia, Lisa, Manisha and Philippa. Rhian Davies, who talked such sense when I didn’t. Linda Wilson, whose promise of a free lunch helped square it away. Alison Bruce, who has the best theories about Red John. My favourite cheerleaders, Vanessa Gebbie and Tania Hershman, and Venetia and Alan Sarll. Pita, for a terrific first edit. River, for the tequila and the avocado. Raven, for the ink.

  Anna Britten, whose friendship made all the difference at all the right moments.

  My family, who never seemed to doubt I’d get here and who always make everything better. My mother, the best in the world. My sister, Penny, who was my first fan. My brilliant brothers, Mark and Nick. My husband David and our awesome daughter, Milly. One day I’ll let you read this book.

  Five years ago

  They’ve cordoned off the house by the time she gets home. A uniformed stranger is unwinding police tape, methodically.

  Marnie watches from the safety of the car, her fingers icy on the ignition key, the engine running as if she might make a quick getaway, drive past and keep driving . . .

  She knows she won’t get through the police cordon, but she also knows she has to. Whatever else is in the house – and she’s scared, so scared her teeth ache – answers are in there. She needs to get inside.


  She cuts the engine, burying the keys in her fist, their teeth biting the hollow pocket of her palm. She’s shivering before she’s out of the car.

  An ambulance, there’s an ambulance, but it’s standing silent, no sirens or sweeping lights. The crew’s in the house, no one’s in a hurry to leave. That’s not good. It means there isn’t any hope, the worst possible thing has happened. Her face is wet and she looks for rain, but the sky’s empty, grey, as if someone has dragged a tarpaulin across it. There’s no rain, just the dull, raspy pressure that comes before a storm.

  It’s been raining all month. Like the rest of London, she’s got used to it; there’s an umbrella in her glove compartment, another in her desk back at the station, and in the bag at her shoulder. She’s not going to get wet queuing for coffee or coming out of the tube station, or standing around at crime scenes. Be prepared isn’t a motto, it’s common sense. When you can pull it off. When it’s not something so huge and horrible you’re afraid to get close.

  She looks for the PCSO.

  There, wearing a fluorescent vest over his uniform by the side of Dad’s car, the brown Vauxhall, his pride and joy. The car manages to shine even without the sun, like the windows to the house, dazzling her. As if everything behind the tape is made of glass, breakable. Even the hanging basket of petunias over the door. Breakable.

  Marnie stands on the pavement, her teeth knocking together with cold, knowing she has to get into the house, knowing she can’t.

  She’s fourteen again, home late, hoping to sneak in under her parents’ radar. Her eyes are itchy with mascara, her tongue dry and patchy with tequila. It feels like a snake’s crawled inside her left boot and strangled her toes to sleep. She’s limping, heroic and guilt-stricken. She’ll never make it in there alive . . .

  She shakes herself back into the present. She’s not fourteen. She’s twenty-eight, petrified of what she’s going to find the other side of the police cordon. Silence, and that dark zoo stink that’ll be in her clothes for hours and on her skin for longer.

  She forces herself to think of something else. A different crime scene, one she’s survived, worse than whatever’s waiting in the house. Albie Crane . . .

  She thinks of Albie Crane. A homeless old man, no next of kin. Burned alive in a doorway down by the docks, by kids high on pocket-money-priced pills. Back before the rain started, while it was still dry enough for an old coat and six flattened cardboard boxes to burn all night so that what’s left is a sticky mess of flayed ribs, a blackly lacquered skull. Old Albie Crane with no one to cry for him, and she made herself repeat the lie, ‘He was sleeping when it happened,’ as if you could sleep through a thing like that. The worst she’d seen, or smelt, until the next thing: a couple in a house fire, melted together by the flames.

  The PCSO is young enough to have acne, but it doesn’t make any difference. He’s in charge here. He could stop the Chief Constable crossing that line.

  Something – a breeze, traffic – makes the police tape stiffen and turn. The sound it makes is snick-snick-snick.

  The edge of her eye catches Mrs Poole, her parents’ neighbour, huddled in the porch of number 12. Her face is spotty with shock and there’s a foil blanket around her shoulders, but no one is with her. All the action is next door. No one else is hurt, or the cordon would be wider.

  Normally, that would be a comfort, the fact that the damage is contained. Private.

  Seeing Marnie, Mrs Poole moans, a hand coming up to hide her mouth.

  Marnie ducks to pass under the tape.

  ‘Miss. You can’t go in there.’ Up close, the acne is lurid, red and yellow. The PCSO squares up to her, authority lending him an inch in all directions.

  She shows her badge, remembering too late that after the DS, it gives her surname. Rome, like the couple in the house. DS Marnie Rome. Greg and Lisa’s little girl.

  A big hand on her shoulder makes her jump.

  Tim Welland, her boss.

  Now she knows it’s as bad as it gets.

  ‘DS Rome,’ he says quietly. ‘Marnie.’

  Using her first name. It’s worse, much worse.

  ‘Please.’ She just wants to get inside the house. She’s shaking with cold out here. ‘Sir, please . . .’

  He steers her with his hand on her shoulder, back towards the tape. She feels it tap the waist of her shirt. ‘Sir . . .’

  Welland has a scab above his left eyebrow, too high to be a shaving scar. It’s crusty, ringed like a bull’s eye. Red veins spoil the whites of his eyes. He looks ill. Old.

  ‘Let me go in,’ she says. ‘Please. Let me go in to them.’

  ‘Not yet. Not – yet.’

  He holds her in place with his bear’s paw, but he can’t stop her seeing past his shoulder to where a SOCO is coming out, bloody knees to his white overalls and a polybag held in front of him, at arm’s length.

  A knife. Mum’s bread knife, its steel teeth full of tattered red skin.

  There’s a low noise of protest, like an animal in chronic pain, before a dry barking sob. Marnie can’t stand it, wants to block her ears, but it’s her mouth she needs to block; the sound’s coming out of her.

  Welland lowers her to the kerb. She fights him. She’s not this person. She won’t be this person – the one who collapses and weeps at the roadside, who can’t take the knock on the door, who falls and never gets back up again.

  The victim. She won’t be the victim.

  ‘Take a minute, Detective.’ Welland’s hand is heavy on the back of her neck. She has no choice but to put her forehead on her knees. ‘Just . . . take a minute.’

  PART 1

  1

  Now

  From the road, DI Marnie Rome’s flat was stucco-fronted, very neat and narrow. Noah Jake imagined she’d furnished it plainly, with an eye for functional style. Wooden shutters at the windows, a stone-coloured vase filled with upright orange flowers. A hall-floor flat, two bedrooms, Noah guessed. He was curious to see inside, but not enough to make a nuisance of himself, resting his hands on the steering wheel instead and waiting, seeing the light lift from the stucco as the sun broke through London’s cloud cover.

  Some days it was easy to remember the city was built on plague pits. Nothing stood still, not even the road, throbbing with traffic from the main drag into the West End. He’d read somewhere – probably in one of Dan’s exhibition guides – that Primrose Hill had narrowly missed being a mass graveyard; nineteenth-century plans were drawn up for a multi-storey pyramid taller than St Paul’s, to house five million of the city’s dead. This was back when the town planners were obsessed with Egyptology, hurling hieroglyphs at everything, on the advice of returning tomb-raiders. Now it was the all-seeing London Eye that dominated the city’s skyline, its spindle like a church spire, turning.

  Noah checked his watch, and then the flat.

  DI Rome’s front door was dark blue, glossy. Like her eyes. The kind of door with deadlocks. In another minute, she’d be running late. He’d never known her run late. Should he knock on the door? No, that’d be intrusive. He hadn’t learned much about Marnie Rome in the five months he’d been working with her, but he’d learned that she was an intensely private person.

  The blue door opened in any case, before her minute was up. She came down the steps to the car, wearing a dark trouser suit over a white shirt, a tooled leather bag at one shoulder. Everything about her was neat, from her short red curls to her low heels.

  Noah checked the passenger seat of the car, even though he knew it was clean, dusting the sleeves of his suit in the hope it would pass muster. He reached across to push open the door for her. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Good morning.’ She slipped into the car, dropping her bag on the floor. ‘You were lucky with the parking.’

  ‘I got here early, thought we’d better not be late.’

  ‘You thought right.’

  Noah started the engine, waiting for Marnie to put on her seat belt.

  She saw him waiting and s
miled, fastening the belt with extravagant care. ‘Safety first, Detective.’

  Safe was the last thing Noah Jake felt, half an hour later, looking at the photographs on OCU Commander Tim Welland’s desk.

  ‘Nasif Mirza.’ Welland tossed down the photos, one after another, as if he was dealing a pack of cards. ‘A person of interest in a serious assault. Involving a scimitar, in case that wasn’t clear yet.’ The photos made his desk look like the storyboard for a horror film. A glossy 18-certificate horror film with DVD-extra deleted scenes.

  Marnie Rome picked up a photo and studied it before putting it back down. Noah kept his hands out of sight, under the lip of the desk.

  Welland said, ‘You’re looking at what’s left of Lee Hurran’s right arm.’

  What was left was yellow, knuckled by fat, frilled by torn flesh. The scimitar had severed Hurran’s hand at the wrist. Not a clean amputation; it had taken two or three blows to get the hand off, the raw stump of wrist bone splintered by the impact.

  Noah’s palms prickled with sweat. It was stiflingly hot in this office; Tim Welland was in remission from skin cancer and kept the heating turned up all year round. Immune to the heat, Welland never broke a sweat. Nor did Marnie Rome. Noah glanced in her direction, seeing the crisp edge of her shirt, the cool skin of her neck. A bead of perspiration inched its way between his shoulder blades, itching.

  ‘Hurran won’t give evidence. Popular theory is that he’s scared of losing his other hand, or possibly his balls.’ Welland nodded at the photos. ‘Nasif isn’t fussy when it comes to butchery.’

  ‘Hurran’s still in hospital.’ Marnie’s eyes flicked across the litter of photos. ‘They’re monitoring for infection. There was a lot of dirt in the wound . . . Maybe he’ll feel safer when he’s back home.’