Skin Read online

  Before I could say anything, a cry went up from nearby. A girl’s scream. Seconds later, Colin came stumbling back into the courtyard. Only this time, he wasn’t alone. He was dragging someone with him. A girl.

  Amber.

  He’d found her.

  By the time I reached them, she’d stopped fighting and gone limp. Colin had her arms pinned tightly behind her back, and her head flopped forwards. She looked like a person who’d given up.

  I don’t know what I was expecting.

  That’s not true.

  I know exactly what I was expecting.

  I was expecting fireworks.

  I was expecting screaming and crying and joy and relief and anger and promises and forgiveness and redemption.

  I was expecting a new start.

  A glimmer of hope.

  A happy ending as the credits began to roll.

  But Colin only shook his head.

  ‘It’s not her,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  Somewhere behind us the policewoman was shouting at us to step away from the suspect.

  ‘It’s not her,’ he repeated.

  The policewoman was on her radio now. She was calling for back-up. For a decontamination team. For a quarantine zone to be set up.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  Colin started to say something, but Amber looked up.

  And then I did understand.

  Because Colin was right. It wasn’t Amber. It was some other teenage girl. Some other runaway. Somebody else’s daughter.

  ‘I found her curled up in the doorway of an old shop,’ Colin said. ‘I can’t believe she’s out here without a suit. She must be mentally ill or something…’

  I stopped listening then. I was numb. So that even when the girl started thrashing again, kicking so violently that the policewoman had to step in to help Colin restrain her, all I could do was stand there and stare.

  My daughter was gone.

  I’d lost her.

  I watched as the policewoman led the girl to her van, forcing her into the holding cell in the back. I thought back to Jazz and the girl in the school. Where were they now? I wondered. Hospital? Prison? Or would they just quietly disappear? Their records deleted. Another problem solved.

  I watched as the policewoman slammed the door. And then she froze. She put her glove to her helmet and began speaking into her radio.

  ‘… Yes. That’s right. Amber Allen. Okay, I’ll pass it on. Over.’

  She came to me then. Smiling behind her mask. Although as she drew closer, I saw there was a look in her eye. Something less comforting. Something almost accusatory.

  ‘Mrs Allen. We’ve had a report come in that we’ve located your daughter.’

  ‘Amber? You’ve found her?’

  ‘It’s still unconfirmed at the moment, but yes, it looks like it. Apparently she was picked up by a decontamination team on the other side of town. She was hiding in an old school building, along with another male suspect.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  AS COLIN DISAPPEARED into the bedroom, Charlie ninja rolling behind him, I turned to Amber. Even with the mask on, I could see her eyes were puffy and red, her cheeks wet, a bright bubble of snot around her nose.

  ‘Hey. Come on now. Don’t cry into your mask. You’ll drown.’

  She didn’t laugh at my joke.

  Though she was almost as tall as me, I knelt down beside her and gave her a hug. To hell with Colin. ‘I know it’s not much fun wearing the mask, but you’ll get used to it. And you heard what Dad said. It won’t be for long.’

  ‘It’s not about the stupid mask,’ she said, shaking my arms from her shoulders. ‘It’s everything. I just want things to go back to how they were. I want to go back to school. I want to see my friends.’

  ‘And you will, honey. You will.’

  Her face contorted. ‘No I won’t! Why do you keep saying that? Why do you and Dad keep telling me everything’s going to go back to normal when it’s clearly not going to? Of course I’m not going back to school. Mrs Andrews is dead. Mr Perkins is dead. The librarian, the dinner ladies. My friends. Everyone. They’re all…’

  She trailed off, her face a smear of tears and snot. She rubbed a hand across her visor, forgetting for a moment about the mask, her frustration bringing even more tears.

  I placed my hand on her back. She tried to shake me off again, but this time I kept it there, her warmth radiating through her suit. ‘Hey. Listen to me. I know things seem bad now. And I know you’re hurting. But Dad’s right. You have to try and look at the positives. We’re still alive. The four of us. Against all the odds, we made it. Can’t you see how amazing that is? And after everything we’ve been through, things can only get better. Maybe not right away, but they will. Just as long as we stay positive, we can make the most of this situation. Together we can make it work. Do you believe that?’

  Amber shrugged.

  I held her tighter, pulling her to me so that our masks bumped together. ‘I need you to believe that, honey. Really I do. Because we might still have a bit of a way to go on this journey. We might not even be halfway through it yet. All I know is that this, here.’ I tapped my mask. ‘This isn’t how it ends. Say it with me. This isn’t how it ends.’

  Amber sniffed. Pulled a face. ‘Stop, Mum. You’re so embarrassing.’

  ‘I know. It’s silly. But just say it once. Just for me.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘This isn’t how it ends,’ she mumbled.

  ‘That’s right, sweetie. It isn’t. Not by a long shot. This isn’t how it ends.’

  PART SEVEN

  THIRTY-SIX

  SO THIS IS how it ends. Back at the beginning. Stuck in this room with just you for company. Just you and me, my sweet Egg.

  And it really is just us now. Two months have passed since Amber was picked up by the police, and she still hasn’t come home. Though technically still a minor, and as such unable to be charged as a criminal, it doesn’t look like she’ll be released anytime soon. If at all. Officially she is being held in isolation in a military hospital for ‘observation’. For security reasons, we are not allowed any contact with her, or even to know her location. As a result, I still have no idea what she was doing back at the school. Whether she went there to look for me or to see Jazz or simply to escape her room, I can only guess. Perhaps I’ll never know the truth. All I know for certain is that she’s still alive. And that’s got to be worth something.

  Hasn’t it?

  As for Jazz, I don’t know what has become of him. I presume he too is alive, though what kind of life he has ahead of him now I can’t imagine. Perhaps he will be lucky and be released back to his parents’ custody. Not that he’d consider that lucky. Or maybe he will turn out to be useful to the government after all. Maybe he will help them develop a vaccine, the secrets in his blood eventually unlocking the doors to all of our cages once and for all. Though I fear that is just wishful thinking on my part.

  Either way, I doubt I’ll ever find out. Naturally, I denied all knowledge of him and the school and everything else when we were formally interviewed by the police. As far as they are concerned, Colin and I are model parents. Even so, news of our family troubles evidently travelled fast. Within hours of the police leaving, Fatima was in touch to offer her condolences, as well as to suggest that, in light of everything that had happened, it might be best for everyone involved if I stepped down from my role with neighbourhood watch with immediate effect.

  As for Colin, he’s made it clear he doesn’t have anything to say to me. Especially not in person. He’s refused my calls, and the handful of messages we’ve exchanged since the police left have been terse to say the least. My questions answered with a single emoji. Thumb up or thumb down. Though he hasn’t spelled it out, I suspect he blames me for Amber disappearing. Not that he can prove anything.

  Although something tells me he will find out. And sooner rather than later. Especially if my darling son Charlie has anything to do
with it.

  Charlie.

  I’m still not sure what happened to him. Where I went wrong. I still remember him as a baby so clearly. If I close my eyes I can still picture him the way he was. The way he felt . The exact weight of him on my lap. The clasp of his fingers around my neck as I carried him. The butterfly flutter of his eyelashes on my cheek when I stooped to kiss him. My funny, cheeky, sweet little boy.

  But that boy has gone now. And he’s not coming back.

  The last time I spoke to Charlie was the day after we found out Amber had gone. Colin had insisted I call him to thank him for his ‘heroic’ work sounding the alarm. I thought about querying what he was doing snooping around on her computer in the first place, but in the end, I thought better of it. I was the adult, after all. Besides, there was a small chance Charlie was just as worried about his sister as we were.

  To my surprise, he answered my video call immediately. He seemed to have grown even fatter since the last time we spoke, although this might have just been because he was topless, mounds of pale, gelatinous flesh filling the screen. At the sight of me, he grinned horribly, adding several chins to the thick roll around his neck. ‘Mother. What a pleasant surprise.’

  Fighting back my repulsion, I mumbled a brief thank you, and told him I hoped he was doing okay. Before I could log off, however, he leant forwards into the webcam, so close that I could make out the remnants of breakfast smeared around his lips.

  ‘Actually, Mummy , there was one thing I wanted to ask you about before you go.’

  I froze.

  ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he continued. ‘Only when I found out my poor big sis was missing, I decided I’d better check all of the computers in the house. Just in case there was anything unusual . You know? To help track her down. Dad’s was clear, of course. Unless you count all the viruses from…’ he smirked, ‘well, whatever. When I got to yours, though, I couldn’t help noticing something strange seemed to be going on with your phone. Of course, you’re aware that it backs up automatically to your computer?’

  I swallowed hard.

  ‘Anyway, I hate to break this to you, but it looks like you’ve been hacked. I just don’t know how else to explain it.’

  ‘Explain what?’ I asked suspiciously.

  ‘Well, according to your location data, it looks like your phone travelled all the way across the city on a number of occasions. Looking at the map, it seems as if it visited a church one day. And then an old school after that. The same school that they found Amber at.’ He snorted. Sneered. ‘Isn’t that just the most bizarre coincidence? And then there are these strange audio recordings—’

  ‘Stop it, Charlie.’

  ‘It’s uncanny. They sound just like you. There’s a man speaking on them, too—’

  ‘I said stop .’

  Charlie blinked, batting his lashes, his face a picture of innocence. ‘It’s a horrible feeling, isn’t it? To know someone has violated your privacy like that. Manipulating it to make it look like you were breaking the law. You really should look at updating your security systems, Mummy. I mean, people could get the wrong idea if they didn’t know better. Just think what the authorities would say. They might even think you had something to do with poor old Amber vanishing.’ He paused. Licked his lips. ‘It’s a good job I tipped them off when I did. Otherwise you could have found yourself in real trouble.’

  I stared at him. He was so pleased with himself, his eyes radiating malevolence. He was a monster. ‘What did you do, Charlie?’ I whispered.

  ‘Why, I acted like a good citizen. I sent an anonymous message telling them to check out a school on the other side of the city. I mean, whoever hacked your phone was most likely hiding there.’

  ‘An anonymous message?’ I croaked.

  ‘Well don’t thank me too much. I probably saved you from being locked up. And I certainly saved Amber. Anyway, from the looks of it, they got the culprit in the end. I can see your phone’s been safely tucked away in your room ever since. Right where it should be. Although, on the other hand, there have still been some very strange search requests popping up on your browser, so maybe your system is still vulnerable after all. Just this morning, there was a raft of strange searches on news sites for someone called Jason Freeman. Or is that Jazz Freeman? Most bizarre.’

  I was shaking now. ‘Charlie, I want you to promise that you’re going to stop looking at my computer. Do you hear me?’

  He only laughed, though. ‘Oh, Mumsie. There’s no need to be so melodramatic. I’m just keeping an eye out for you. Just to make sure you’re safe. After all, you never know who’s out there. Watching you.’

  ‘Charlie…’ I began, but his screen clicked to black before I could carry on.

  He was gone.

  In the months that have passed since then, I’ve not heard anything else from him. His school have been in touch a few times to request a meeting. Apparently, he’s stopped attending classes altogether. I never got back to them. As far as I’m concerned, he can do what he wants. He’s on his own now. We all are.

  Though I’ve thought about it almost constantly, I’ve also resisted the urge to punch Jazz’s name into my computer again. I have to accept I’ll never find out what happened to him. Sometimes I think that’s a good thing. In the absence of hard facts, I am able to make up a version where things go well for him. Where he is rewarded handsomely for cooperating with the authorities. Where they really do use his DNA to develop a vaccine. Where we are all saved. Or else, I picture him escaping from a high security detention unit in the dead of night. In this version of the story, against all reasonable probability, he rescues Amber, too. Perhaps they break back into the school together and somehow manage to tow his boat to the ocean. And then maybe, just maybe, they set sail and find the damn thing floats after all. They chart a course for the unknown. They are both finally free.

  Of course, I don’t really believe these stories. Still, as long as I don’t find out the truth, there is always hope. Perhaps I should be thankful to Charlie for that. By taking away my privacy, he has injected a little uncertainty back into my life.

  Besides, it’s not like I don’t still have secrets. Oh yes. I have things that can’t be so easily stolen. Things that aren’t on any hard drive or cloud. At least not yet. Things that are buried so deep down inside of me that even Charlie can’t drag them out into the light.

  A souvenir. Proof that I lived. If only for a little while.

  But I won’t be able to keep it a secret forever.

  In the next few weeks or so it will be time for another visit from my friendly government gynaecologist. Then the game really will be up. I might be arrested and thrown into prison myself. Or sent to a government facility for observation alongside Amber. Who knows? Maybe in this story I’ll be the hero. The one who saves the human race. Or at least, the one who dies trying.

  Either way, there will be no hiding you any more.

  Everyone will find out.

  Charlie. Colin.

  The police.

  And then my own, private little world will be flattened for good. As comprehensively destroyed as the one outside.

  And perhaps that’s a good thing. After all, isn’t that what I’ve wanted all along? A true levelling. A chance to start again, and maybe even get it right this time.

  A blank page.

  But it won’t be blank for long. Even now, I can feel a new story stirring inside of me. Dividing and multiplying. Letter by letter. Word by word.

  I don’t know what it says yet.

  But I’m praying it’s something good.

  Acknowledgements

  Though this book is dedicated to my mother, I very much have both of my parents to thank. Without their unconditional love and support, neither I, nor this book, would exist.

  Family and friends.

  Kind strangers and discreet enemies.

  Tom, Lauren, Lucy, Ditte and all at Legend Press.

  My agent Laura Macdougall and all at United Ag
ents.

  Ed Homer for his awesome illustrations.

  Jonathan Davidson and all at Writing West Midlands.

  Everyone who still believes in the power of books.

  My two beautiful boys, Elliot and Felix, both of whom are a little bit like Amber and nothing at all like Charlie.

  Simone, for making anything possible.

  A side note: I almost died writing this book. Like the punchline to some sinister cosmic joke, I was struck down with a mysterious skin infection that left me hallucinating in a hospital ward, unable to walk. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the nurses and doctors who looked after me when I was at my lowest. The NHS is a glorious old lady, an incomparable national treasure that should be nurtured and protected at all costs.

  One last thing: while writing Skin , I simultaneously wrote and recorded an album with my band, Absent Fathers. While it’s not a soundtrack exactly, I’ve come to think of it as an accompaniment of sorts. If you’d like to hear it, search for Absent Fathers on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube. The album is called ‘Swimming Lessons’.

  If you enjoyed what you read, don’t keep it

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  Review the book online and tell anyone

  who will listen.

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