Original Skin by David Mark

Author:David Mark
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780399158650
Publisher: Blue Rider Press
Published: 2013-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

MIDNIGHT. DEAD ON.

MCAVOY RUNS across the wet grass, mud splashing his trousers and lapping at his boots, acid belching into his throat.

He can hear dogs barking. Raised voices. The crackle of throaty laughter.

He squints ahead at the semicircle of caravans. There are black figures etched against the darkness, the lights spilling from the curtained windows and the melee of parked cars making the picture dance and flicker.

Tremberg filled him in on the way here, shouting into the phone he held guiltily to his ear as the little car whined its way to seventy miles per hour on the divided highway.

It was pure luck that Colin Ray had made the connection between Alan Rourke and the makeshift traveler camp that had caused McAvoy so much embarrassment on the first day the rains came. Ray had been taking a break from the endless “No comment” interview and had used it to go through the report of Rourke’s known associates that one of the civilian workers had left on his desk. He had been looking at a printout of an armed robber by the name of Daragh Fitzroyce when Helen Tremberg came back to the office and recognized the mug shot as that of the leader of the gypsy camp causing chaos up at Anlaby. “Buttercup’s owner,” she had told the confused DCI, smiling, only to find out that the tall, gray-haired, scowling detective inspector had not heard about the incident or, as far as she could tell, the invention of the Internet. She had filled him in on McAvoy’s horse wrangling of a couple of days before.

Ray didn’t believe in coincidence. Reread Rourke’s own file.

Suddenly convinced of some gypsy conspiracy, he retrieved Shaz Archer from the interview room, told her where he was headed, and went off to the playing fields. That was some time ago, and he has not yet checked in.

“McAvoy!”

He spins his head. Helen Tremberg is running toward him out of the darkness, having parked on a nearby side street and waited for his arrival. He recognizes her shape and instantly feels bad for it, while noting that she, too, must have identified him from his mass.

“Nice timing,” she says as she gets close enough for him to make her out. The front of her pin-striped suit is covered in mud and her face is flushed, though she is not out of breath.

“Have you called for uniform backup?” he asks.

Tremberg shakes her head. “What if he’s fine? He’ll go bloody spare. He’s our superior, not the other way around. He can go in guns blazing if he wants.”

McAvoy can see her point, but knows that procedurally they are in serious trouble. “What if he’s not fine?”

“That would be a mixed blessing,” she says, meeting his eye. “I’m sorry for calling you out. I just thought . . .”

“I know. It’s okay.”

They stand in silence. “They wouldn’t hurt a policeman . . . ,” he begins.

“Let’s see,” Tremberg says, and nods in the direction of the caravans.

Sighing, unsure, hating himself, McAvoy nods, and together they walk briskly toward the lights.

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