 Whole Story Quest audiobooks presents Shifting Skin by Chris Sims, narrated by Dean Williamson. CHAPTER I John Spicer looked around what used to be his weight training room and side. Bear plaster walls faced him, exposed surfaces still raw from where he'd scrubbed them with sandpaper. The carpet was hidden by dust sheets that stretched from skirting board to skirting board. In the corner the steam machine looked like the victim of a clumsy shave, scraps of dry wallpaper stuck all over it. He started peeling apart last week's local paper, separating the pages and laying them across the small table in the middle of the room. Immediately and even as he tried to look away his eyes were snagged by the front page headline, Watcher of Bellevue strikes again. Quickly he flipped the page over, but it was too late. The horrific details of his latest case came streaming into the last place on earth he wanted them. The nursery. The latest victim, Carol Miller, had been a midwife at Stepping Hill Hospital. She was good-looking, her strong facial features complimented by a curvy, full figure. The sort of woman his dad would refer to in his strong, Lancashire accent as proper breeding material. In his own way he would have been right. She'd given birth to a thick-set baby the year before. John had watched as the infant strained an entire bottle of milk without pausing for breath, blissfully unaware of the tears streaming down the face of his grandmother above him. John had sat with his tongue frozen in his mouth, thanking God that bereavement counsellor had come with him to inform the woman that her only child was dead. The counsellor had kept up a soothing murmur, the actual words of secondary importance to the comforting tone of her voice. What will become of our Davy? The woman had gasped. His father's not around, and I'm not well. What will become of him when I'm gone? The wrinkles round her eyes deepened, and she started sobbing again. John could feel her looking at him, and he kept his eyes fixed on the counsellor, willing her to break the silence with an answer. Say something, he pleaded in his head, because if you don't, I'm gonna fucking cry. Pushing the memory away, he picked up the paint tray and decorating implements. He banged them down on the table, then placed the tin of paint next to the tray.