Morgan Greene > Quotes

“Jamie guessed he wasn’t sure if calling it a homeless shelter when it was filled with homeless people was somehow offensive. He’d had two complaints lodged against him in the last twelve months alone for the use of ‘inappropriate’ language. Roper was a fossil, stuck in a by-gone age, struggling to stay afloat. He of course wouldn’t have this problem if he bothered to read any of the sensitivity emails HR pinged out. But he didn’t. And now he was on his final warning. Jamie left him to flounder and scanned the crowd and the room for anything amiss.  People were watching them. But not maliciously. Mostly out of a lack of anything else to do. They’d been there overnight by the look of it. Places like this popped up all over the city to let them stay inside on cold nights. The problem was finding a space that would house them. ‘No, not the owner,’ Mary said, sighing. ‘I just rent the space from the council. The ceiling is asbestos, and they can’t use it for anything, won’t get it replaced.’ She shrugged her shoulders so high that they touched the earrings. ‘But these people don’t mind. We’re not eating the stuff, so…’ She laughed a little. Jamie thought it sounded sad. It sort of was. The council wouldn’t let children play in there, wouldn’t let groups rent it, but they were happy to take payment and let the homeless in. It was safe enough for them. She pushed her teeth together and started studying the faded posters on the walls that encouraged conversations about domestic abuse, about drug addiction. From when this place was used. They looked like they were at least a decade old, maybe two. Bits of tape clung to the paint around them, scraps of coloured paper frozen in time, preserving images of long-past birthday parties. There was a meagre stage behind the coffee dispenser, and to the right, a door led into another room. ‘Do you know this boy?’ Roper asked, holding up his phone, showing Mary a photo of Oliver Hammond taken that morning. The officers who arrived on scene had taken it and attached it to the central case file. Roper was just accessing it from there. It showed Oliver’s face at an angle, greyed and bloated from the water.  ‘My God,’ Mary said, throwing a weathered hand to her mouth. It wasn’t easy for people who weren’t exposed to death regularly to stomach seeing something like that.  ‘Ms Cartwright,’ Roper said, leaning a little to his left to look in her eyes as she turned away. ‘Can you identify this person? I know it’s hard—’ ‘Oliver — Ollie, he preferred. Hammond, I think. I can check my files…’ She turned and pointed towards the back room Jamie had spotted. ‘If you want—’ Roper put the phone away.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Jamie hated being asked that question, because there wasn’t a good answer that didn’t make it sound like they were. Roper looked at her, not wanting to tackle it either. ‘We, uh,’ Jamie started, looking around the room. ‘We don’t have a list of suspects, yet. We’re just gathering information.’ Mary looked relived, nodding. ‘Okay, good. Well, if there’s anything I can do.’ Roper smiled, rocking back and forth on his heels. ‘Just let us know when Grace arrives and we’ll do the rest. You’ve been a great help already.’ He turned away and headed towards the far side of the room. Jamie followed, knowing it meant he wanted to talk. They stood side on so they had a view of both Mary and the door, and then Roper said, ‘I’ll make the call, get the uniforms out here. You think it’s worth looking around this place again?’ Jamie shook her head. ‘We’d be swinging in the dark. Let’s speak to Grace first, then go from there. If she gives us any names — the third person in the love triangle — then we can grab another file. But for now…’ She inhaled, knowing they had twenty something minutes to kill and she had two phone calls to make.  They couldn’t be put off any longer.  ‘Let’s head outside,’ Roper said. ‘It smells like piss in here.’ She thought that was rich considering that there was about a fifty-fifty chance that smell was coming from Roper himself. But she didn’t say anything. Roper had a cigarette lit before his feet hit the pavement and he circled into the street to get a look at the thirty-strong line that had now formed. The people were beginning to jostle.  They couldn’t have all been local — which meant that they were making the trek over for a plastic bowl of soup. Jamie looked away, focused her mind on the calls, and dug her phone out of her pocket.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Jamie nodded back. ‘Ms Cartwright—’ ‘It’s Mrs,’ she said automatically, the colour still drained from her cheeks. Her hand had moved from her mouth to her collarbones now as she processed it. ‘Would you mind if I took a look at those files?’  She shook her head, her eyes vacant. ‘No, no — there’s nothing much to see, but… Of course—’ She cut off, squeezing her face into a frown. ‘He’s… dead? But how? What happened? My God,’ she muttered. ‘He was… My God.’ Jamie stepped around her, leaving Roper to the interview. He was better at that sort of thing anyway. She rarely found interviewees easy to deal with. They always got emotional, blathered.  ‘Do you mind if I record this conversation?’ Roper asked behind her as she walked towards the back room. ‘No,’ Mary said quietly. ‘Great, thanks.’ He exhaled slowly, fiddling with the buttons, adding the audio file to the case. ‘What can you tell me about Ollie?’  The voices faded away as she reached the door and pushed on the handle. Inside looked to be a rehearsal room. On the left there were two steps leading up to a red door that opened onto the side of the stage, and the floor was bare concrete painted red. The paint had been chipped from years of use and the blue paint job underneath was showing through. Mary had a desk set up with two chairs in front of it, but no computer. In fact there was nothing of any value in the room.  On the right there was an old filing cabinet, and laid against it were rusted music stands as well as a mop and bucket and a couple of bottles of bargain cleaning supplies that had the word ‘Value’ written across them.  At the back of the room there was an old bookcase filled with second-hand literature — mostly children’s books and charity shop novels. Next to that an old plastic covered doctor’s examination bed was pushed against the wall. Sponge and felt were showing through the ripped brown covering.  Stood on the floor was a trifold cotton privacy screen that looked new, if not cheap. On the cracked beige walls, there was also a brand new hand-sanitiser dispenser and wide paper roll holder. She approached and checked the screws. They were still shiny. Brass. They had been put up recently. At least more recently than anything else in there.  The dispenser looked like it had come straight out of a doctor’s office, the roll holder too. Paper could be pulled out and laid over the bed so patients didn’t have to sit on the bare covering. Jamie stared at them for a second and then reached out, squirting sanitiser onto her hands.  She massaged it in before moving on.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“didn’t have time to think about it. Jamie”
― Morgan Greene, Old Blood

“Eyes wide, Jamie. Don’t give them an inch. Don’t even let them think they can take one. Not even for a second. That’s what her dad would have said. What he had said to her. A hundred times. He was no stranger to stepping into the wrong parts of the city. And he used to do it with the sort of attitude that scared most guys off. The kind of try it and see what happens, shit-bag stare that sent most people scampering.  She tried to carry that look. The look that conveyed that her crescent kick could crack a skull and they’d never see it coming. She didn’t know if she could pull it off as well as her dad. He was six-three with the frame of a Scandinavian bison, after all, and about as intimidating. She, on the other hand, had her mum’s frame. Though that did have its advantages. Mostly in part to the fact that if she did need to hit someone, they’d never expect it.  Roper pulled up short of the first tent and put his hands on his hips, looking around.  Narrow walkways wound around the little squats, making the thirty-by-sixty-foot space a veritable micro favela by all accounts. There must have been fifty different shelters made up in there — of all varying sizes, shapes, and constructions. ‘Jesus,’ Roper grumbled. ‘How the hell are we going to find Grace’s tent in all this?’ Jamie surveyed the exteriors. All the heads seemed to shrink back inside as they got close. ‘Reggie said that the tent was too nice to be here. So I guess we just look for the one that sticks out.’ He made a humming sound and pursed his lips, inhaling sharply. ‘Grace Melver,’ he called loudly, verging on yelling. ‘Grace Melver!’  Nothing stirred. ‘Smooth, Roper,’ Jamie mumbled, sidestepping to look around the battered old four-man in front of them. Behind it a blue tarp had been hung from the girders overhead with what looked to be electrical wire.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“A door in the corner was painted the same colour as the walls. Beige. An old padlock kept it closed. She checked the seams and saw that they’d been painted over. It didn’t look like the door had been opened in years. An old storage cupboard. She made a mental note of it and headed for the filing cabinet. The bottom two drawers were empty, but the top one had a number of hanging files. She walked her fingers over them, reading the names as she went. When she reached Hammond, she stopped and pulled it out. Pausing only when she spotted another name. Grace Melver. The person who had reported him missing. She pulled that one too and pinned them under her arm as she closed the top drawer.  She took one more look around and then headed for the desk, putting the files down. Roper would keep Mary busy for a few more minutes, which meant she could dig into the cold hard facts.  Her father was at the back of her chair, looking over her head, his big hands resting on her shoulders. Information is your friend, he’d say. Acquire it ruthlessly.  She rubbed her eyes, ignoring the sting from the alcohol-based sanitiser, and dove in.  If there was anything to find, she’d find it.  Chapter”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“respect for this, people don’t have respect for that. No manners these days.  She watched as the steam shot out of the spout and Cake lifted it gently off the heat, pouring the dark liquid into a cup that read Sweat is just your fat crying. She smiled a little and took it.  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘no pressure or anything, but there’s an open competition coming up and—’ Her phone started buzzing in her rucksack on the chair just inside the door, cutting him off. She put her coffee down, a little glad they didn’t have to have this conversation again. ‘Hold that thought,’ she said, unzipping it and fishing around under the hydration bladder. She pulled it out, held up a finger to signify that she’d just be a minute, and then took the call, stepping back into the gym. Behind her, Cake slurped on his coffee. ‘Roper,’ she said, lifting it to her ear, drawing in a lungful of stale sweat. ‘What is it?’ ‘Got a body,’ he said bluntly, the heavy night of drinking apparent in his gruff voice. No doubt he’d been woken up by a call from DCI Smith a few minutes before. He was grunting like he was trying to pull on a pair of trousers. ‘Washed up in the Lea this morning. Fresh one. Hour or two in the water at the most, supposedly.’ She pressed her lips together, rolling it over in her mind. ‘A body? Bit above our pay grade, isn’t it?’ Roper grumbled. He’d been a detective for years, but a few bad cases had him working larceny and assaults mostly. A body was usually reserved for the more senior investigators. ‘Maybe we’re moving up. Maybe it’s because Henley’s finally come to his senses and seen that we’re shining examples of what detectives should be in this goddamn city.’ ‘What’s the real reason?’ He sighed and she could almost smell the beer and whiskey on his breath. ‘It’s a homeless kid. Arms all tracked out. Drowned by the look of it.’ ‘So why’s this being kicked up to us and not being logged as accidental or—’ ‘Kid’s hands were zip-tied together and his fingernails have been ripped off.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“know”
― Morgan Greene, Angel Maker

“doubled over and an old bobble-hat was hanging down between his knees.  Jamie took another look to see if he was okay, and spotted an empty vodka bottle between his heels against the curb.  She sighed and dragged her eyes back to the man and woman sitting by the fence. They looked up at Roper and Jamie and stopped talking.  As they drew closer the pair got up and walked away quickly without another word, keen to avoid any questions that might have been directed at them. Jamie and Roper didn’t bother calling out, and neither were prepared to chase them down.  They were both in their forties, and neither of them were Grace.  Roper paused at the fence and put his foot on it, craning his neck to see under the bridge beyond.  Long green tendrils looped their way down the bank, the jagged bramble leaves twisting gently in the autumn air.  The sky overhead had turned turbulent and grey, bruised raw by the incoming winter.  Jamie shivered and stepped past Roper, who didn’t seem inclined to make his way onto the loose bank in his old slick-bottom Chelsea boots. Jamie didn’t have that trepidation. She looked back as she stepped over the stained blanket, her deeply-teased heel crunching in the loose stone.  Roper was grimacing, staring down at the bridge and the tents under it.  Jamie could see by the look on his face that he was hoping she’d not ask him to follow. Sounds of conversation were echoing up and a thin blanket of smoke was clinging to the girders above. Someone was warming themselves. Some faces had already appeared in the openings to the little makeshift huts and shelters, peering out at the two newcomers — at the two outsiders.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“No one replied from inside. ‘Shit,’ she muttered. They were calling her bluff. They knew that getting a squad of officers out there with sniffer dogs to go through and dismantle fifty squats only for the inhabitants to be arrested and back out on the streets in a day — and for the tents to pop back up right after — was a huge waste of time and resources that DCI Smith would never approve. It looked like they were on their own for this one.  Jamie set her jaw and inhaled. ‘Now what?’ Roper asked. She knelt down and double-knotted her laces.  Eyes wide, Jamie. ‘Now we do it the old-fashioned way.’ She stretched her shoulders and shook out her feet, shrugging off the tension building in her chest and stepped into the muddy passageway between two tents.  The pale November light died behind them. The low-hanging outer girders shielded the sky, the tarps strung up around them catching the rest.  It was darkness inside and the claustrophobic feel of rustling top sheets and rattling breath compounded the sense of unease coiled around Jamie’s spine.  They stepped carefully, Jamie at the vanguard and Roper behind.  She didn’t know where she was going, and moving methodically through this place wasn’t possible. Every pathway led deeper into the labyrinth and most of the time dead-ended in a cul-de-sac of shelter entrances.  There was no way she could systematically cross off the wrong turns.  Roper was muttering and swearing behind her as he stepped in brown puddles and crunched syringes under his heels.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“sexual partners, she was either lying, or she’d had it for over a year. But Oliver’s chart didn’t show any symptoms and he hadn’t been prescribed.  Jamie mulled it over in her head then acted on a hunch, pulling open the top right-hand drawer. Inside was a wholesale box of condoms. She stared at it for a second. At least they were using protection. She wondered how many Mary gave out a week. Maybe there had been a third person in their relationship. A scorned ex-boyfriend who didn’t like Oliver? He obviously didn’t know about the rash — or hadn’t noticed. Grace was keeping it from him. Had he found out, confronted Grace’s other boyfriend? Or maybe the other way around. Surprised by the guy? Taken? Tied up and threatened? She had a feeling that the person hadn’t meant to kill him. If you’re going to kill someone, you don’t take their shoes and then dump them in a river. He’d either fallen in accidentally, or he’d jumped. Either way, if there wasn’t an ex — or not ex boyfriend — he was going to be someone Jamie wanted to speak to.  She held Grace’s picture up, looking past the matted hair and sunken eyes. She was young, pretty. She’d have a lot of attention out there on the streets.  Jamie closed the drawer and looked at the file again, searching for a name. She wanted to speak to the doctor. The signature just looked like a wavy line. She’d ask Mary. The chair squeaked as she pushed back from the desk and stood up, keeping the files in hand. Her watch told her it was nearly nine-thirty. Her stomach told her it was time for breakfast. Back in the main room, some of the people had cleared out, venturing back into the city. Looking for some way to get by.  Roper was still talking to Mary, who appeared to be in the middle of a speech about how these people needed more help than anyone was prepared to give, and that Oliver wouldn’t been the last. Jamie stepped around her, piqued. ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘Oh,’ she said, seeing Jamie. ‘Because people don’t want to help them and they let them hurt themselves and each other without paying them any mind.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘Each other? Did someone have a problem with Oliver?’ ‘What?’ Mary looked sheepish all of a sudden, as if she’d dropped someone in something. ‘No, no — nothing like that. Not as far as I know, anyway,’ she added quickly. ‘Look, I just want you to find who did this — but for you to know that things are different with them. They don’t act the same — don’t believe in the same things, you know?’ She kept her voice low now. Jamie nodded. She’d worked the streets long enough to know what Mary meant. She’d seen more than she could have ever imagined. Seen people do crazy things. Things that people with something to lose would never think to do.  ‘Mrs Cartwright,’ she said after a second. ‘Grace Melver. She was friends with Oliver?’ ‘Grace?’ Mary’s eyes lit up a little and then tilted down in sadness. ‘What a sweet girl. She’ll be devastated. She’s been back every day to check whether Oliver has turned up. She’s been going out of her mind. Poor girl.’ ‘What was the nature of their relationship?’ Roper held his phone a little higher so the microphone could pick them up more easily. Mary thought for a second, aware of the recording. She chose her words carefully. ‘They were together, I suppose. As much as two people in their situation could be. They looked out for each other. Loved each other.’ ‘Did Grace have any other boyfriends?’ ‘No, no. She was sweet. She loved Oliver.’ ‘She was a heroin user, right?’ Mary looked like her face was about to droop and slip right off her head. ‘Horrible stuff. Though they”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Her”
― Morgan Greene, Angel Maker

“She could hear her dad’s voice in her head. Establish a timeline, he would say. Draw your circles. What do you know? What information do you already have? ‘Who reported him missing?’  Roper took a few seconds to navigate back to the report from whatever app he was in, making an err sound as he did, exhaling whiskey breath and cigarettes all over her. She ducked out into the city air and waited for him to follow. ‘Grace Melver,’ he said, squinting at the name. ‘Melver?’ she confirmed. ‘What the report says.’ ‘Address?’ He shook his head. ‘No permanent address. No contact information. Nothing.’ ‘Homeless, too?’ ‘Looks like. There’s a local shelter listed as a contact. But that’s it.’ Jamie digested it. ‘Alright. Let’s go.’ ‘You want to park your car and I’ll drive?’ Roper asked. ‘No, you park yours. I’ll drive.’ ‘But I can’t smoke in your car.’ She was already walking. ‘That’s the point.’ Chapter 4 The shelter was on a quiet street that t-boned a residential road in a decent part of north-east London. About two kilometres north-east of where the body was dredged out of the water. Jamie pulled up outside the building and cranked the handbrake.  Roper was shivering in the seat next to her and quickly pulled back on the switch to raise the window. ‘You could have at least had the bloody heating on,’ he moaned. Jamie grew up north of Stockholm. Roper didn’t know the meaning of the word cold. ‘Not with the windows open.’ ‘Well if you’d let me wind them up—’ ‘If you wanted the windows up you should have showered and brushed your teeth.’ He blew out a long exhale of stale coffee and cigarettes and she turned her head to the open”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Mary was standing behind it, emptying minestrone out of tins into the vat.  An entire slab was resting on the stage behind her with half of the cans missing. They looked to be wholesale and cheap. But the folks outside wouldn’t complain. A stack of plastic bowls and spoons had been set on the table next to the heater. Once it was full and hot, she’d call them in. Jamie was surprised that they hadn’t flooded in already. The door was open, after all.  That said something to her about Mary, and about the respect these people had for her. ‘Detectives,’ Mary said, a little surprised. ‘Did I call you?’ She seemed to be asking herself as much as Jamie and Roper.  ‘No,’ Roper said. ‘But we wanted to be here when Grace arrived.’ Mary took it in, stirring the soup with a ladle. ‘Oh, well she’s not here yet — as far as I know. I won’t be serving lunch for another half an hour or so.’ ‘That’s fine, we’ll wait,’ Roper said, smiling. He thought he was charming at times. But he never was. Silence hung in the air while Mary popped and emptied in another tin with a dull slap.  Jamie looked at the slab and saw that the soup was best before August last year. It was out of date — probably salvaged from a food bank. Jamie thought about the phrase, beggars can't be choosers, and then immediately felt bad about it. ‘There was a guy outside this morning,’ Roper said, pushing his hands into his pockets. ‘Smartly dressed, short black hair, glasses.’ ‘Oh, um,’ Mary said, not sure where he was going with it. ‘He bumped into Jamie, said some pretty nasty things — about the good people who rely on this shelter. Didn’t seem too excited about them being there.’ Mary’s face lit up and then drooped as she realised who he meant. ‘Ah, yes — I don’t know”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“after they interviewed the owner, then she’d need the change in the cupholder in her car to loosen their lips. Giving it away now would only throw that chance away later.  Roper paused at the door and proffered it to her. ‘After you,’ he said. She knew he just didn’t want to touch the handle. She took hold of it and pulled back, wondering for a second if she should open it just enough to slip through so that Roper would have to grab it to let himself in.  She decided that was too petty for the morning of a murder investigation. Inside, the interior was cool. A short reception area led into the main hall — a double-height function room with a hard rubberised floor filled with sleeping bags and other homeless people. There were at least twenty, maybe thirty. It was difficult to tell at a glance. At the back of the room, a woman in her fifties with a long fleece vest on, the pockets heavy and sagging with keys and who knows what else, was filling cups of coffee from a big stainless steel dispenser, handing them to a line of people queuing silently, their heads bowed.  The air was humid inside and the low murmurings of the people talking around them created a soft background din that swallowed their footsteps. Roper looked around, not hiding his disdain very well.  But with the nights getting colder, these people deserved somewhere warm to hole up. The winter was vicious and it was closing in fast this year, bearing down on the city in waves of rain and frost.  The woman serving coffee leaned around the line and looked at them, squinting a little to make them out. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and her reddish hair was curled back up over her head, spilling around her ears. Big and cheap gold earrings clung to her stretched lobes and shook a little as she looked them up and down, her face a mixture of trepidation and worry. Police turning up at a homeless shelter never meant anything good. She smiled warmly at the person at the front of the line, told him to help himself to coffee, and then walked around the table towards Roper and Jamie.  She held her hands wide and then clasped them together, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. Her earlobes wobbled and her heavy earrings caught the halogen strip lights overhead, glinting. ‘Can I, uh, help you?’ she asked.  Jamie and Roper flashed their badges to get it out of the way. ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Paul Roper, and this is my associate, Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson.’ ‘Mary Cartwright,’ she answered diligently. ‘Are you the owner of this — er — establishment, Mary?’ Roper asked less than tactfully.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“shabby A-frame. There was no one inside. ‘London Metropolitan Police,’ Roper yelled again. ‘We need to find Grace Melver, and any cooperation is greatly appreciated. If you could come out, and—’ ‘It’s not going to work,’ Jamie said, coming back. ‘They know we can’t just search their tents without cause.’ ‘How do you think they know that?’ ‘They’re not stupid, Roper. They’ve been living on the streets — they know their rights when it comes to being searched, and they know that they can refuse — and they will because they don’t want whatever they’ve got to be found.’ He hummed again, putting his hands on his hips. It had been a long time since he’d been in uniform and had to deal with them on a daily basis. Things weren’t like they used to be. There were rules now. And they had to be followed. ‘None of them are going to invite us in to look around,’ Jamie added. ‘And demanding to be is only”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Sweat is just your fat crying.”
― Morgan Greene, The DS Jamie Johansson Trilogy Boxset

“could always come home? He wasn’t himself, I don’t think — the uh, the…’  He couldn’t say the word. Heroin. ‘It changed him. We hadn’t heard from him for a long time. We didn’t know if he was alive, or… And now…’ He pulled the phone from his ear and started sobbing in the background, the audio muffled as he put his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘Mr Hammond?’ she asked, forcing the words over the lump in her throat. ‘Mr Hammond?’ He brought the phone back. ‘I’m here, sorry. Sorry, it’s… Sorry.’ ‘That’s alright. Can you tell me when Oliver first started using? Who with, maybe? Did he have any friends, or?’ ‘No, I don’t know. He was always independent, you know? Going to meet friends in the city, and… He had a girlfriend, but we didn’t know who. He wouldn’t tell us. Thought we wouldn’t approve, or… or… I don’t know.’ Grace came to mind. ‘How long ago was this?’ ‘August last year, maybe? Before it all started to, uh…’ ‘That’s great,’ Jamie said, her free hand clenched tightly into a fist. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you. Would it be alright if I gave you a call tomorrow? Or if you’d prefer, I could come to—’ ‘No, no, that’s fine. You can call… I’ll be in work, but… I’ll call you back when I can.’ Jesus. He was going back to work the next day? He didn’t even think about it. Like missing a few days hadn’t even entered the realm of the possible. ‘Okay. Thank you,’ she said. Apologising for it all was bad practice. Even though she wanted to.  ‘Goodbye,’ he said. She left it at that and hung up, letting him process. She had enough to start piecing together a timeline. And an idea of what had happened. At least at the start.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“He didn’t know how he got in the box.  Everything was foggy and numb like the bad end of a heavy dose.  He tried to blink himself clear, but couldn’t focus his mind.  This wasn’t heroin. He knew the difference.  His throat folded over on itself as he tried to swallow. When was the last time he drank something? When was the last time he remembered doing anything? And why the hell was he in a box? His hands were bound and he could feel the roughly cut end of a zip-tie digging into the skin on his leg where his wrists had been resting.  It felt like wood under his fingernails in the dark and he could feel the corners around him — he was hunched over, his knees to his chest. There were air holes the size of his fingers drilled through the plywood. He remembered the feeling of the layers from that time he’d been made to help his dad build that bookcase that fit in the nook under the stairs.  Mum had wanted to have one made, but dad had said it was way too expensive, and that he would build one — with Ollie’s help.  Why the hell was he in this box?  His arm was itching, the track marks enraged and fresh.  Ollie kicked out, his bare heels catching splinters as he thumped against the sides, listening to the noise ring in the room around him. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t hear anything except his own heart in his ears. He could smell fresh sawdust, damp earth, something sharp and synthetic, like bleach, and his own breath, hot against his cheeks as he pressed his eye to the hole above him. He tried to calm himself, replaying the last things he remembered over and over in his head. It was all fog. There were streets, people he knew but whose faces he couldn’t see, then there was someone he didn’t recognise, someone alien to him, and then nothing.  His fingers traced the seams, looking for a gap. There wasn’t one.  Tears burned hot on his face, his eyes stinging in the dust.  He kept searching, the rough skin under his chewed nails discovering the hard protrusion of an angled nail. The tip was sticking out through the wood on his right side — hammered through the lid at an odd angle. God, how couldn’t he remember being nailed inside a damn coffin?  He pulled at it, hands still bound, and felt his fingernails pull back.  He wept more, digging into the wood around it, focused solely on it. The only weak point in the box. His only chance. There was no one else around and he had to escape. That was all he knew.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Alina”
― Morgan Greene, The Last Light of Day

“said, ‘I don’t know what she expects to find out — we haven’t seen him in ten months.’ The word haven’t stuck out to her. As if they would again. It was always difficult to wrap your head around news like that. He’d sounded calm on the phone, as though he’d come to terms with this eventuality already, even before the news came in. Though when the reality of it all hit home the emotion couldn’t be denied.  She knew from personal experience. She’d felt indifferent when her mum told her that her dad was dead. It was only three days later that the realisation set in, when she came downstairs and the birthday decorations were still up. Her mother was slumped on the sofa, an empty bottle of red wine lying on its side next to her, the contents soaked into the fabric.  She remembered pausing at the bottom of the stairs and looking at her mother, passed out drunk. She’d always hated her father for looking like that.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Sure,’ Mary said, putting on a smile. ‘I have to get back. But please, feel free to look around as much as you’d like.’ Roper gave her a look that said, we don’t need your permission for that, but Jamie thanked her anyway and let her walk off.  He sucked on his teeth the way he did when he wanted a cigarette, and watched Mary go out of earshot. ‘Find anything?’ he asked, turning to Jamie. She let out a long breath. ‘Don’t know yet. Looks like Grace wasn’t as faithful to Ollie as she made out.’ ‘Lover’s tiff?’ ‘Could be.’ Jamie thought about it. ‘Spurned ex, maybe. Maybe it’s the drugs. Maybe something else entirely.’ She rubbed her eyes. It’d been a long morning and she needed to eat. ‘Come on. Let’s head back to HQ, get this written up. We’ll come back when Grace shows her face.’ Roper nodded without a word and headed for the door, already reaching for his cigarettes. Chapter 6 Jamie zipped up her jacket and dug her hands into her pockets, following Roper out the door. He’d sped on ahead so that he could light up before Jamie told him not to. She didn’t like that fresh stink in her car, and she definitely wouldn’t let him smoke in there anyway. And he definitely wasn’t above running out and doing it before she had time to protest. Her effort to make him quit by forcing him to stand in the cold obviously wasn’t working. He was a seasoned smoker and spent most nights standing outside pubs, come rain or shine, sucking down smoke.  That and the fact that he was far too stubborn to give in to such a weak ploy. It was like those goats that stand on the side of damns to lick the salt off. One missed step and it was guaranteed death. But they were single minded. And so was Roper. If she cared more she might have tried harder, but she knew from experience that when guys like Roper made a decision, they’d stick to it forever. As far as he was concerned, the drinking and the smoking was as much a part of him as his belly button was. It couldn’t be changed, and trying would only invite self-loathing. Guys like him had to hit rock bottom. Only then could they start coming back up. But sometimes they just stayed there, scraping the ground until they gouged a hole deep enough to die in.  She should call her mum. It had been a while. Outside, Roper was already two drags in by the time she reached the steps. A couple of the people outside had moved on and the guy in the sleeping bag had woken up and headed inside, though the urine stain that had seeped into the stone under him still remained. Jamie tried not to breathe through her nose as she hopped down the steps, her shin still throbbing from the morning’s bout with Cake.  She opened her mouth to tell Roper to hurry up when she almost got knocked over. A guy in his forties with an expensive suit and a long lambswool coat was rushing by, his head turned towards the steps. ‘Filthy fucking cretins,’ he almost yelled at the three homeless people still perched on the steps, before colliding with Jamie. He stumbled sideways, down into the roadway, shoving Jamie backwards.  ‘Get off!’ he shouted, flapping his arms. Jamie steadied herself and stared at him. Roper even stopped smoking his cigarette and came forward. ‘Hey!’ he called. ‘You’re not having any!’ the man yelled again, striding forward away from the shelter. ‘You should all be drowned. Wash this goddamn city clean!”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“having a friend in the Met was enough of a payment. That, and he kept nagging her to start competing — said she kicked like a horse, and that once she had her grapple game on point, she could probably go pro.  Jamie knew having a pro fighter coming out of a gym was a great way to bring in new business, as well as get another taste of the big time. But she wasn’t interested in that. She just needed to know how to handle herself. And she did. Though it didn’t hurt to stay sharp, and Cake was one of the few people she could stand to be around for prolonged periods. ‘We’ve still got six minutes,’ she said, looking at the clock on the wall herself. Her accent had all but gone now, but anyone with a keen ear would know she wasn’t a British native.  And the blonde hair and blue eyes, along with her second name, would be enough to tip off anyone with any sense to her Scandinavian heritage.  ‘You earned it,’ Cake said, heading for the office. ‘And plus, I don’t think my arms could take anymore.’ He chuckled, his broad shoulders bouncing as he stepped off the raised matt and onto the rubber-tiled floor.  Jamie cast a glance over at the heavy-bag in the corner, thought maybe she could get some more hits in. But her shin was starting to throb. Maybe she should ice it. Probably a good idea. She pulled the sparring gloves off and unstrapped the kick-guards, wincing a little as they came away from her ankle.  Yeah, she’d definitely need to ice it.  The smell of coffee beckoned her towards the office and she followed her nose, entering to see Cake standing over a hotplate, a stove-top coffee maker steaming away on it.  He was a simple man, easy to talk to. Everyone wanted something. Except Cake. All he wanted was for people to treat him with respect. And Jamie did. He would always go on about it. People don’t have”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“listening back to the audio-clip anyway, and put her headphones straight in. She was in even less of a mood for small-talk than normal.  As Roper’s voice spoke in her ears, asking Mary if she’d seen or heard anyone arguing with or threatening Oliver Hammond, she took a bite out a bagel she’d topped with light cream cheese. Someone had taken and eaten the two slices of smoked salmon she’d left in the fridge. She didn’t have energy to find out who.  Jamie chewed thoughtfully, glad of the noise in her ears to drown the world out. She’d become good at tuning out Roper’s east-London rasp by now. It was practically white noise. She was thinking about Oliver Hammond. His parents’ number was written down in front of her. She was working up to calling them to follow-up.  It was nearly midday and they’d already been informed of his death and told that a detective would be calling to speak to them. She’d listened to the recording of the conversation. His father had”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Jamie got back to her apartment in nineteen minutes and forty-nine seconds.  It wasn’t a personal best for a five-kilometre run, but it was still fast.  She showered and dressed, pulled on her boots, and was out the door in seventeen minutes flat. Which probably was close to a personal best.  She was wearing jeans she picked up from a supermarket. She liked them because they had a three percent lycra content woven into the denim, which stretched a little and meant that she could more easily crouch, walk, and kick someone in the side of the head if the situation called for it. It hadn’t yet, but she had a long career ahead of herself, she hoped.  She jumped into her car — a small and economical hybrid hatchback which squeezed around the city easily — and headed north towards the Lea.  It took nearly forty minutes to get there in rush hour traffic, and by the time she pulled up, Roper was leaning against the bonnet of his ten-year-old Volvo saloon, smoking a cigarette. He was tall with thinning, short hair, and a face that looked like he was always squinting into a stiff wind.  His long black coat was pinned to his right leg in the breeze and his shirt looked like it’d been pulled out of the laundry hamper rather than a clean drawer. He was perpetually single, and it showed. There was no one to hold him accountable when he decided it was okay to skip a morning shower for an extra ten minutes sleeping off his hangover. What she hated most about him, beyond the cigarette stink and the pissed-at-life attitude, was that she always had to look twice to make sure he wasn’t her father.  Her mother had dragged her away from him in Sweden, and now, she’d been thrown together with a guy who seemingly had inherited all his bad habits. Her mum said it was because all detectives were like it if they did the job long enough. They saw too much and didn’t talk about it enough. Which led inevitably to drink, and drugs, and other women. She’d spoken from experience of course. And Jamie knew she hadn’t exaggerated.  Though moving them both to Britain seemed like a bit of a dramatic reaction. But then again, her father had given her mother gonorrhoea and couldn’t say which woman he’d gotten it from. So Jamie figured it was reasonable.  He would have turned sixty-one this year. Roper pushed off the Volvo and ground out his cigarette under the heel of his battered Chelsea boot. Jamie looked at it, stopping short of his odour-radius. ‘You gonna just leave that there?’ He looked between his feet, rolling onto the outsides of them as he inspected the flattened butt. ‘It’ll wash away in the rain.’ ‘Into the ocean, yeah, where some poor fish is going to eat it,’ Jamie growled, coming to a stop in front of him.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“digging when she got back. It was estimated that there were more than eight thousand people sleeping rough on the streets of London. And last year more than six hundred deaths of homeless people were recording across the country. More than a hundred of those were in London alone. And those were just the ones who were found. She wondered how many died and never got recorded — how many slipped through the cracks and weren’t added to the statistics.  More than a quarter of a million people were reported missing every year in the UK, and these numbers were growing. Twenty-eight missing kids, though. She looked at the files. They had nothing in common other than that they were young, and someone, somewhere, was wondering where they were. How many were dead already?  ‘Johansson,’ Roper said, his voice hard. ‘Hmm?’ She looked up, still in her chair. ‘I asked what you’d been doing all morning?”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Do you feel well in yourself currently?’. He answered ‘No’. ‘Are you using any substances regularly. If so, what?’. ‘Yes’ was written, though it looked shaky. She could imagine him sitting there in front of Mary, reaching that question, and then looking up, afraid to admit it. She’d seen it before. Too many times. The word ‘Heroin’ was written quickly, as if admitting it was hard and he needed to get it over with. ‘Do you want to receive support with the aim to become a non-user?’  The word ‘Yes’ was written there. Jamie looked over the questions again. Non-permanent residence. Non-user. Those were terms that people who knew how to deal with the homeless used so that they didn’t embarrass them. It was giving the answers without saying I’ve been homeless for this long, or yes, I want help getting clean. Mary knew what she was doing.  At the bottom of the page, there was one final question. ‘Would you like to have a free health check-up by a qualified medical practitioner at this shelter?’  He had written ‘Yes’, and then signed the declaration underneath that said he understood that if he was carrying drugs or under the influence when he arrived that he would be turned away, and that if he appeared to be a danger to himself or others the proper authorities would be called and this information could be provided to them with his permission.  She wondered if he’d read that before he signed. No one ever read the terms and conditions. Jamie sat back and tried to picture Oliver sitting there, and the circumstances that led him to the shelter. She opened Grace’s file quickly and scanned down the same form to her answers for diseases and sexual partners. She’s written the same answers as Oliver.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Roper was sulking. He didn’t like this case and it was getting worse for him by the minute.  They had no solid leads and the one person they needed to speak to the most hadn’t been seen since before Oliver’s body was found. With what they knew so far, there was a good chance that someone else was involved in their relationship, and when you factored in the drugs, the azithromycin, and what Reggie had said about their supposedly new tent, things were starting to get muddy.  They needed to speak to Grace and find out exactly what was going on, and they needed to do it fast.  The longer time went on, the less likely they were to find a fresh lead. The longer there was for evidence to get destroyed or misplaced. The longer there was for people to shore up their stories. The longer there was for people to forget exactly what had happened. Time was getting thin, and their investigation was hanging on the testimony of a heroin-addicted teenager who may or may not be missing herself.  It’s what Jamie’s father would have called a shit-clap. The image was explanatory enough.  They kept a good pace through the streets, opting to walk rather than drive, retracing the route that Ollie and Grace would have taken every day to get to the shelter.  They caught up with and passed several nomads trekking back from lunch towards their nests, but none of them were Grace, or prepared to tell them whether Grace was there.  Maybe they didn’t know, or maybe they just didn’t want to help. The homeless and the police had a frosty relationship to put it mildly. Putting it more succinctly, neither liked the other.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“Yeah.’ Roper sighed again. ‘We’d better get over there. Don’t think this is going to be a pretty one, but Smith wants us on it. Take what we can get, I suppose.’ The phone crackled as he put it down, the hiss of deodorant being sprayed in the background humming in her ear. He picked it up again, breathing into the mouthpiece. ‘I’m heading out now. I’ll send you the case link and meet you there? Or do you want me to pick you up?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m good.’ She didn’t like him being behind the wheel after a night like he’d had. At least not with her in the car. Though she never said it. ‘I’ll see you there.’ ‘Probably take me an hour,’ he grumbled. ‘Traffic’ll be a bitch at this time.’ ‘I’ll see you when I see you.’ He didn’t say anything else before he hung up.  She exhaled slowly and rubbed her head. Henley Smith was the DCI and the unit he ran had a couple of cases going on just then. A homeless heroin addict turning up in a river wasn’t at the top of the priorities list. Roper may have seen it as a win — a way to get back in good with Smith and claw his way back into the meat of things. But all she could think about was some poor homeless kid getting his fingernails ripped off.  She didn’t know why it had happened, but she knew that this city could be brutal. And that it rarely gave an inch. In fact, if you let it, it would eat you alive.  She turned back to the office, ready to tell Cake that she couldn’t stick around, and found him holding out her coffee cup. ‘I put milk in — skimmed, don’t worry — should be cool enough to drink.’ ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking it. ‘Sorry, I’ve gotta go.’ He nodded. ‘I get it. Same time tomorrow?’ She slugged the coffee. ‘Can I let you know?’ ‘Of course.’ Jamie tapped a button on her watch to start tracking her run, and turned for the door. She still needed to get her daily quota in. ‘I can give you a lift if you want?’ Cake offered. ‘No, it’s fine. Probably be faster if I run.’ ‘Probably.’ She nodded to him and then dipped through the door, shaking out her legs as she walked, the sweat on her neck and collarbones already cool in the early-morning air.  Outside the sun was barely up, but the city was churning to life.  Smog was already hanging in the air and the echo of a thousand engines buzzed in the streets like a wasp nest.  She took a few breaths, oxygenating her muscles, and then took off, clenching her fists against the cold.”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin

“The crescent kick is one of the most difficult kicks to master in Tae Kwon Do, but when executed properly, it is one of the most dangerous.  Detective Sergeant Jamie Johansson had been practising it for nearly six years, and despite being only five-foot-six, she could comfortably slam her heel into the ear of someone that was over six feet. And now she had it down to a science. She knew she couldn’t do enough damage with a punch to put someone down if she had to, but a well-executed crescent kick would do the job. Especially from her lightweight trail boots. Her partner made fun of her for wearing them — said that detectives shouldn’t be wearing hiking boots, especially not in the city, but they were tough and she was as fast in them as she was in her trainers. Which she thought made them a lot more suited to tracking down scumbags than Roper’s black leather Chelsea boots.  He disagreed. She didn’t really care.  Smoking thirty a day meant that he wasn’t going to be doing much running anyway. ‘Come on,’ Cake said, jerking the pad. ‘Again. Like you mean it.’ She flicked her head, throwing sweat onto the matt, wound up, lifted her leg, snapped her knee back, and then lashed out. Her shin smashed into the training pad with a dull thwap and she sank into her knees, panting.  Cake clapped them together and grinned with wide, crooked teeth. ‘Good job,’ he said. ‘You’re really getting some power into those, now. But make sure to ice that foot, yeah?’ She caught her breath quickly and stood up, nodding, strands of ash-blonde hair sticking to her forehead, the thick plait running between her lithe shoulders coming loose. ‘Sure,’ she said, measuring her trainer. Cake was six-two and twice her weight. He was Windrush, in his fifties, and ran a mixed martial arts gym just near Duckett’s Green. He was a retired boxer turned trainer that scored his nickname after winning a fight in the late nineties on his birthday. When the commentator asked what he was going to do to celebrate, he said that he was going to eat a birthday cake. Everyone thought that was funny, and it stuck. He had a pretty bad concussion at the time, which probably contributed to the answer. But there was no getting away from it now.  He pulled the pads off his forearms and rubbed his eyes. ‘Coffee?’ he asked, looking over at the clock on the wall. It was just before seven.  He yawned and stretched, cracking his spine. The gym wouldn’t open until midday to the public, but he lived upstairs in a tiny studio, and he and Jamie had an arrangement. It kept him fit and active, and she could train one-on-one. Just how she liked it. She paid her dues of course, slid him extra on top of the monthly for his time. But he said that”
― Morgan Greene, Bare Skin