But Max – Max is in his home, and Taylor is nowhere to be seen.
‘You’re not meant to be left unprotected,’ I say. It seems there’s a little bit of the bodyguard left in me after all.
‘I sent her out,’ he says. ‘On an errand.’
‘Dry cleaning?’
‘Listen, I don’t want to discuss who does what for me any more. I just want one final thing from you. That’s the only reason I agreed to let you in.’
We are standing in his living room, on the dark wooden floor. He is nervous; his hands move over the material of his jeans, stretched tight over his thighs.
‘One final thing,’ I echo.
‘The skin. The skin I paid a fortune for.’
It’s that sinking realisation that I was right. I was right about him, oh God, I was right. I didn’t realise how much I was hoping I was mistaken until I heard those words.
‘It’s my skin,’ I say, carefully.
‘I paid for it.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’
‘With what? With the money you earn in that place in the middle of nowhere, with that teenager hoping you’ll take pity on him and fuck him? You could never afford it, and you know it, so don’t bullshit me, Rosie. Have more respect for me than that.’
‘Stay calm,’ I tell him.
‘I’m calm. Give me the skin.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ He is so tense, his hands rubbing at the denim. ‘Have you burned it?’ It’s as if his world could turn on my answer.
I shake my head.
The tension seeps out of him, through his shoulders and his hands. ‘Oh thank God,’ he says. ‘Thank God. I had to know. I had to know if you could do it.’ He bends over at the waist and takes in long deep breaths.
‘If it’s so important to you, why did you let someone steal it?’ I ask him.
Slowly, he straightens. He locks his gaze on mine. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
A line.
‘I’m guessing your own skins never left this house,’ I venture. ‘Probably back in your safe room by now, locked up tight. Am I right?’
‘You’re crazy. I lost them all.’
‘Is that so? I saw your face when you heard my skin had been mutilated. That was the shock, for you. Nothing else. That was all you cared about.’
He raises an eyebrow at me, and that gesture pushes me into action. I run from the living room, down the hall, and take the steps two at a time to his safe room in the basement. The door is open, as is the wardrobe.
Hanging within are a selection of light summery dresses in many colours. And next to them, touching them, are his skins.
I hear him close the door behind me, the sliding of a bolt, and I know in that split second that I never have been, and never ever will be, a proper investigator. I am an idiot, and he knew it, right from the beginning. He knew it. I look at the door, and see his face through a slot that has been made in the wood. He was having renovations done, when I first came. He had a plan in place.
‘The pills by the bed,’ he says. ‘Take them.’
The room has been decorated, turned into a bedroom for one: a single divan, a small table on its right and an upholstered chair, green, on its left. A black and white photograph, large, framed, hangs over the bed; it’s that shot of Paris again. That dream of Paris. The bedside table holds a plastic jug of water with a matching glass, and two pink pills.
‘Let me out,’ I say. ‘This isn’t funny.’
‘Take the pills and I’ll let you out.’
And I think – why not? The pills never worked. The endless pills.
I cross to the bed, quick, and swallow them down, without water. ‘There. Let me out.’
‘Oh Rosie,’ he says. ‘There’s nobody like you.’ He closes the slot in the door.
I call out. I hammer on the door. Eventually I start shredding his skins; millions of pounds and memories, turned to strips with each touch reminding me of how good he once was. But he doesn’t come back, and I’m only halfway through destroying the third skin when the pills kick in and take the world away.
My skin is loose.
I feel it, feel it slipping from me, separating out from the layer beneath.
It’s too early. I should have years yet, but that itch, that building itch, I know it. Intense and innate. I move to scratch, and as I dig my nails into my stomach and thighs, finding the skin there already hard and white, I look around the room and place myself with it. It used to be the safe room, and now it’s my personal prison, complete with bed, sink, and pictures of trees in blossom, the Eiffel Tower rising above them, on the wall.
He’s been planning this from the start.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, close by, above me.
I’m lying on the floor. I’m naked. I’m naked, and I can see him now, sitting on the bed only a few feet away, looking not at my face but at my hands as I scratch. He is fully dressed, in a different shirt from the last time I saw him.
How long was I unconscious?
The itching has turned into pain – needles under the skin. I can’t scratch long enough, deep enough. I can’t think any more.
‘No,’ he says, over and over, and he moves to me and pins down my hands. ‘Not so hard, Rosie, not so hard.’
‘The induced moulting will make it painful,’ says a different voice, a woman. I’ve heard that voice before. ‘Sedation’s an option, but it can affect the emotional transfer.’
Max frowns. I dig my nails into his hand and he flinches, but he doesn’t let go. I’m on fire, knock me out, take me away. Everything is alight.
‘I need her to let it all go. To be clean.’
‘Restraints, then. Can you manage?’
‘Taylor,’ he calls, and another voice replies, ‘Yep.’ I don’t see her, but I think she’s at my ankles. Max grabs me under my arms and together they take me to the bed, and then hold me down as my wrists and ankles are placed in the prepared restraints.
‘How long?’ says Max.
‘At least overnight,’ says the disembodied voice.
‘Christ,’ he says. He is unhappy. I need to scratch. I twist and turn, and rub myself against the sheet upon the mattress.
What do I love? What will I lose, this time?
Nothing.
That thought reassures me. I love nobody, have loved nobody and nothing since my last moult. I have nothing important to lose.
I laugh.
I can’t stop.
‘Get out,’ says Max. Then he sits beside me as I laugh and squirm, and lose myself all over again.
I am here, and I am whole.
My latest moult is nowhere to be seen. I can’t remember the act of shedding it. I’m no longer in restraints, either. My wrists bear two red circles, like bracelets, but the marks don’t hurt. I wonder if I’ll wear them throughout this skin.
I feel—
I don’t know what I feel.
Max is not here. I get up and walk around the room, in circles, for a while. I pour myself a glass of water from the bedside table, and savour it in my throat, and then I get the feeling that I’m not alone.
The eyes are watching me through the slot in the door. My first response is to throw the glass at them, but it’s plastic, I forgot. The plastic simply bounces off, and the water splashes over the floor.
The eyes return.
They are brown, and in this letterbox form they are empty of any expression I can read. They are rimmed by thick orange glasses.
‘Sit on the bed please,’ says Anna Mallory.
‘Where’s Max?’
‘He’s gone for some rest. He was exhausted. He watched over you for days.’