Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy) (23 page)

Roisin holds a buttercup under his chin, clutched between her toes. She grins at him. She looks spectacular: leggings and a leopard-print vest, hoop earrings and a riot of gold and garnet at her throat. She’s been more affectionate than ever tonight. Still feels bad about upsetting him. Has told him half a dozen times how good he looks today. Made him a lemon meringue pie this afternoon. She hasn’t needed to do any of it but the fact that she has makes McAvoy feel a little more whole. She is his antidote. He fills himself with her so he can face the horrors of his days.

‘How did it go?’ he asks Pharaoh, when the silence stretches out. ‘Today?’

‘Peachy. I buggered off at lunchtime. Had a lead worth following.’

McAvoy waits, curious. This is not how she normally operates.

‘Anything?’

‘Nah. Well, maybe. I’ll tell you when I see you. My head’s a shed right now. You can email me Ava’s medical records if you like but I doubt I’ll get to it before morning. I have a report to write for the brass. Complete breakdown of the investigation into Hollow. Why I did what I did. Who said what. What I knew. They’re covering their arses but they’re still onside. We just have to weather it.’

McAvoy turns to his wife. Puts his hand on her bare ankle. Admires the delicate ink that winds up to the scarring around her calf.

‘Jackson-Savannah found something else,’ he says, stroking Roisin’s instep with his rough thumb. ‘He found traces of an organic material in her stomach. Something he wouldn’t expect.’

‘Yes?’

McAvoy looks again at Roisin. She told him about the properties of the substance, what it could be used for.

‘Houseleek. Sempervivum. Do you know what that is?’

McAvoy can hear the scowl in Pharaoh’s silence. ‘Go on,’ she says.

‘It’s the British aloe vera. Can be used to treat burns and skin complaints. Increases your blood pressure and is good for earache, the heart and digestive system and has been known to have a positive effect on shingles and haemorrhoids.’

There is silence. Pharaoh takes a glug of wine. ‘You’re telling me this because . . . ?’

‘A trace of it was found in Ava’s stomach. Recently ingested. It may have lots of good properties but you do not want to swallow this stuff. It causes serious stomach problems. Vomiting. People used to take it as an emetic to make themselves throw up. Can be used with large amounts of parsley to bring on a miscarriage.’

‘Parsley? You use that in fishcakes, Hector.’

‘Yes, but it’s all about the dosage and the part of the plant you use. If you have skills with herbs you can knock up a tincture that tastes of nothing which will make you throw your guts up in next to no time.’

Pharaoh breathes out her cigarette smoke. ‘Roisin told you all this, I presume.’

McAvoy looks at his wife, blithely polishing her fingernails on her Lycra-covered chest and beaming with affected pride.

‘If somebody went to the trouble of concocting this stuff then we aren’t looking for somebody who lost their temper and killed Ava in a fit of rage. They got her to ingest it. Followed her to the bathroom. Suffocated her with the toilet seat then cut her and took their trophy.’

Pharaoh stays silent for a moment. ‘Do I remember something in the Hannah Kelly disappearance about her waving to a group of ramblers and them thinking she was Mediterranean?’

McAvoy takes a breath. Wonders how the hell she stores it all in a mind so full of politics and children, wine and medication.

‘There’s a witness statement to that effect. It didn’t seem to make much difference at the time but if somebody has a fetish . . .’

‘Quite,’ says Pharaoh. ‘Ava’s body – was the rest of her unshaved?’

McAvoy doesn’t need his notes. ‘No. Shaved legs. Waxed bikini line. Forensics found some of the used strips in the bathroom pedal bin. She waxed herself only a day or two before she died.’

‘And Hannah?’

‘We obviously don’t know for certain but she had a used razor in her shower bag and one of her housemates remembered seeing her with smooth legs not long before she disappeared.’

McAvoy finds himself rolling up the ankle of Roisin’s leggings. Strokes her smooth skin.

‘You’re not a secret expert on fetishism, are you?’ asks Pharaoh. ‘You couldn’t tell me off the top of your head what sort of man likes a woman to be smooth everywhere but under the arms?’

‘I think it may have something to do with scent,’ says McAvoy, and turns away from Roisin’s quizzical expression. ‘There are some websites. I’ve requested a call from one of the registered clinical psychologists first thing. They may be able to shed some light.’

‘Does Jez Gavan strike you as the sort of person who would be able to set anything like this up?’

McAvoy considers the scabby little dealer. He doubts it.

‘This is somebody with a cool head. They either knew her or charmed their way in. Slipped something in her drink. I’ve requested that any drinking vessels or empty bottles be tested first by the lab team. They have so much to go through. The flat was a rubbish tip. Do you want to see the instructions I sent regarding how to prioritise?’

‘I’m sure it’s fine,’ says Pharaoh dismissively. She seems tired. Her voice is a little slurred.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks her again. ‘Helen Tremberg came to see me today. Has an idea she wants to run past you. I thought we could maybe bring it under our umbrella . . .’

‘Whatever you think,’ says Pharaoh with a yawn. ‘Fuck, I’m no use to you tonight. I feel rotten, to be honest. Can you run all this past me again first thing? I need to sleep. You need to read about armpit fetishes.’

McAvoy smiles. ‘Is Sophia okay?’

‘It’s all peachy, Hector. Sleep tight.’

She hangs up and McAvoy is left staring at his phone.

‘She out of sorts?’ asks Roisin, standing up and brushing herself down. She peers through the fog and calls her children. They emerge like soldiers, bursting out of the mist. Lilah bumbles along beside her brother, who is holding her hand and pulling her a little too fast. Both are giggling.

‘Just office politics,’ says McAvoy, hauling himself upright. ‘She plays the game well but this thing with Hollow . . .’

Roisin drops her eyes. Puts her hand in the small of his back and moves closer to him.

‘I don’t know how he charmed her, if that’s what he did,’ says Roisin. ‘He’s nothing special to look at. Not when you’re in the room.’

She stiffens for a moment, as if she is preparing to say something else. He knows her noises and movements. Knows them like his own.

‘You know the other night?’ she asks, quietly. ‘That business at Pharaoh’s? I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe there was more to it. Maybe I should have said something. But I thought it was just some bother with Sophia. She’s been in a state recently and I said she could talk to me. Look, I promised her I wouldn’t say anything and I know how you feel about promises, but I have to tell you this or I won’t sleep. It was nasty, Aector. They were men, not boys. And they wanted Trish. They weren’t just local thugs, babe, they were the real thing. I’m sorry, I should have said, but Sophia begged me not to. Those two need to talk.’

Aector sucks his cheek. Wonders if she is over-reacting. But he has never had any reason to doubt her.

‘A promise is a promise,’ he says, at last. ‘I understand why you played it down. But nobody would be daft enough to go after Trish. I’m sure it’s just a mix-up. You’ve told me now. Leave it to me.’

Roisin seems relieved. Reaches up and strokes his beard.

McAvoy wants to push her for more details but fears spoiling the moment. He wants to sit on the toilet seat reading a story to Lilah as Roisin baths her. Wants to drink hot chocolate and finish the lemon meringue pie, to catch Fin reading under the covers with a torch, going over the letters that his granddad has been sending him almost daily since they returned from the family croft last summer after a holiday that mended a lot of the broken bridges of McAvoy’s past. He wants to make love to his wife as the breeze plays with the curtains of the tiny bedroom. Wants her to muffle her shouts against his neck. Wants her to fall asleep covered in sweat so that when she wakes she will be scented the way he likes. He half smiles to himself. He could have told Pharaoh that yes, he does know a little about what some men want. He likes for Roisin to sometimes smell a little less of perfume and more of flesh.

‘This way, Fin,’ shouts Roisin.

The boy has run off towards the park. He stops and looks back, impish, as he tries to persuade his parents to let him have five minutes on the giant spider-web of ropes that he can scale in moments. Roisin points at her watch. Shakes her head. McAvoy walks towards his son, Lilah still in his arms.

He gets a whiff of it. That sweet, cloying odour of decay. Of rotted meat. Turned earth. It comes to him through the fog; a faint whisper of something putrid, hanging in the mist.

‘Fin. Fin, come back.’

The boy thinks it’s a game. Runs into the mist. It closes around him. He becomes a charcoal blur, covered over with pencil shading.

McAvoy sniffs. Takes a deeper breath. It’s unmistakable. He’s smelled death too many times not to be able to recognise it. Knows how the corruption of skin and tissue climbs into the mouth and throat like frost on a bitter morning. He sends Lilah trotting back to Roisin.

‘Fin!’

The boy stops short as his father raises his voice. McAvoy runs into the mist and almost collides with his son. He takes him by the arms and pain crosses Fin’s face.

‘Go to your mother,’ says McAvoy, insistent. ‘Now!’

McAvoy turns from his boy and pushes on into the fog. Feels the stench permeate deeper inside him.

He hears Roisin shouting but it is all just static. His blood rushes in his ears. The stench in his nostrils is sliding greasy fingers up and down his thorax.

McAvoy sees the shape of the farm cart. The smell may as well be painted on the grey air.

He steps forward and looks down into the cart.

Her features have sunk down. Her eyes are closed but they have dropped down into the canyons in her skull. Her cheeks cling to her jawbone. There is skin missing on her shoulders and knees. Tendons show through the putrid meat of her bare feet.

Hannah Kelly.

Hands touching at her waist, laid out on a bed of flowers, wrapped in a plain white sheet.

Hannah Kelly.

Skin like rancid ham. Dirt on her skin and worms slithering in her hair.

Hannah Kelly.

She’s been dead for months. Dead and buried.

Now exhumed, and laid out like a fairy-tale princess.

Before he turns away, McAvoy notices the staining between her arm and torso. Sees where the blood has pooled, after her killer lifted her arms and sliced off her skin.

PART THREE

Chapter 17

Yvonne Turpin has the devil horns of a red-wine drinker emerging from her pale lips. She’s dressed for comfort in a cheap polo neck and jogging pants. Wears no rings and has bitten her nails so close that her fingers look like pink and painful tentacles.

On the threshold of the flat above the bookies on Nottingham’s West Bridgford estate, Helen Tremberg has to stop herself from glancing at her notes to make sure she has the right woman. The lady before her bears little similarity to the straight-backed, dark-haired woman who stood on the court steps and railed against the injustice of releasing the man who had killed her sister.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says, as she leads Helen into a living room that she seems to have stopped redecorating halfway through. Some of the loud wallpaper has been painted over in cream and a large chunk of the dirty, paint-spattered wooden floor has been sanded clean. She seems to have simply given up on the project, content to live in a room that carries her own stamp as well as that of its previous owner.

‘Tea?’ she asks, sitting down on a chintz sofa and picking up a magazine and wine glass from the cluttered coffee table. ‘Or wine? You might have to drink the white stuff. It may be a bit vinegary but it’s okay.’

Helen considers the frail, mousy woman before her. She has rarely seen somebody in such desperate need of a good hug. She puts Helen in mind of a beaten dog, shaking and flinching at every loud noise and looking out at the world with eyes that have seen too much sorrow.