Under Your Skin Read Online Free PDF

stalked.)
    “Craigie Aitchison,” I say, moving to stand next to him. The picture is of a dog against a simple background, Play-Doh-blue sky and jelly-green grass. There is one tree, a dark tapered streak, like the head of a paintbrush. Deceptively simple, of course: there is something isolated and meditative about the dog. I think you are supposed to think about Christ. “It’s a Bedlington terrier,” I say.
    “A Bedlington terrier, not just any old terrier. And another olive tree. Obviously a bit of a theme around here.”
    “I think it’s a cypress. You know, death and all that. My husband bought it years ago, but when Aitchison died, prices rocketed. Quite a clever buy.”
    “Quite a clever buy,” he repeats, as if he has never heard anything so stupid in his life.
    The note I am hoping for next is playful. I probably just sound prickly. “There are four hanging at the Tate. Elton John has one.”
    He shrugs. He is younger than I thought he was. I had imagined him in his fifties, but he’s about my age, I think—early forties. Hismannerisms, the stoop, intended perhaps to hide his height, the droopy jowls, which he accentuates by pulling on the side of his mouth, as if removing crumbs, make him seem older. No gray in that brown hair—Philip’s temples are sprinkled with silver. There are hollows below this man’s cheekbones, an elongated chisel: more weight on him and he would almost be attractive. With his long hair, his bone structure, he is like a dandy gone wrong.
    Enough of this. “Right, tea. Builders okay, or do you fancy something more left wing?” I could shoot myself.
    “As it comes,” he says.
    He has sat down at the table at last, having shrugged off his Barbour and hung it neatly on the back of his chair. He looks out at the back garden now—at our lovely green lawn and landscaping, the raised beds, the trampoline, the clever “tree house” contraption that runs on struts along the back wall, behind the row of hornbeams. Philip decided we had to have the garden redone when we dug out the basement: the builders made such a mess.
    Something out there in the shrubs, thrashing in the March wind, seems to interest him. Maybe that’s what happens when you are a policeman: your eyes hook on every small detail because you never know what is important, what isn’t.
    “Did you touch the body?”
    I almost drop his cup of tea. I am carrying it to the table, and the hot water slops on that delicate triangle of skin between thumb and index finger.
    “Ow.”
    I run my hand under the tap, watch the water spool over my skin. For a moment my brain focuses on this, the water and my skin. And then all I can think about is the woman’s hair, the lank, stringy texture of it.
    “Her body?” I say. “No. I didn’t touch her body .”
    When I turn round, he is looking at me.
    “Did you know the woman?”
    “No.” I take a deep breath, shake my hand dry. The moment has passed. “As I told your PC, I’ve never seen her before. Have you found out who she is?”
    “Not as yet. No.”
    I sit down opposite him, on the bench that runs down one side of the table, with my back to the garden. He has launched into his interview now—small talk over. He asks me to run through what happened. He doesn’t take any notes. It is a seemingly informal chat, but as I talk, every gesture feels self-conscious, like I’m on display. It’s a generally understood social norm that the person listening looks at the person speaking, who is allowed to look away. DI Perivale doesn’t look at me at all, though—I’m the one who’s watching him—until the moment I pause, and then his eyes swivel back, skewer into mine. It’s disconcerting. I tip my head, gather my hair into a ponytail, and twist it round to make it stay like that, a habit of mine that suddenly feels unnatural, like someone pretending to be relaxed. Same sensation when I burrow my hands up the sleeves of my sweater. Best to try and stay still: it’s