The Tattoo Thief Read online

  Dedication

  For my beamish boys,

  Rupert and Tim

  ALISON BELSHAM

  Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  i

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  ii

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  iii

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  iv

  Chapter 13

  v

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  vi

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  vii

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  viii

  Chapter 26

  ix

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  x

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  xi

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  xii

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  xiii

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  xiv

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  xv

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  xvi

  Chapter 47

  xvii

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Acknowledgements

  Reading Group Guide

  About The Author

  Copyright

  One, two, cut a tattoo,

  Three, four, flay some more

  Five, six, my bloody fix

  Seven, eight, will not wait

  i

  I peel away the blood-soaked T-shirt from the unconscious man’s back to reveal a spectacular tattoo. The photocopy I take from my pocket is crumpled but it’s good enough for me to check against the image on his skin. Thankfully, there’s just enough light from the street lamp to see that the two designs look the same. A round Polynesian tattoo in heavy black ink adorns the man’s left shoulder, an intricate tribal face scowling from its centre. Spreading out from the edges is a pair of stylised wings, one extending down the man’s shoulder blade, the other extending across the left side of his chest. All of it is speckled with blood.

  The images match. I have the right man.

  There’s still a pulse in his neck, but it’s faint enough to reassure me that he won’t cause any problems. It’s essential to do the job while his body’s still warm. If the corpse cools, the skin stiffens and the flesh becomes rigid. That makes the job harder and I can’t afford mistakes. Of course, flaying the skin off a living body means so much more blood. But I don’t mind blood.

  My backpack is lying nearby, discarded as I pulled him into the bushes. It was easy enough – the small park was deserted at this hour. It only took one blow to the back of his head and he crumpled at the knees. No noise. No commotion. No witnesses. I knew this was the route he’d take when he left the nightclub because I’d watched him take it before. People are so stupid. He suspected nothing, even as I walked towards him with a wrench in my fist. Seconds later, his blood was spreading across the ground from a wound at the temple. The first step executed most satisfactorily.

  Once he was down, I hooked my hands underneath his armpits and dragged him as quickly as I could across the stone paving. I wanted the cover of the shrubs so we wouldn’t be seen. He’s heavy but I’m strong, and I was able to pull him through a gap between two laurel bushes.

  The exertion has left me breathless. I hold out my hands, palms down. I see the ghost of a tremor. Clench fists, then open again. Both hands flutter like moths, just as my heart flutters against my ribs. I curse under my breath. A steady right hand is essential to carry out my assignment. The solution’s in a side pocket of my backpack. A packet of tablets, a small bottle of water. Propranolol – the snooker player’s beta-blocker of choice. I swallow two and close my eyes, waiting for them to take effect. At the next check, the tremor is gone. Now I’m ready to begin.

  Taking a deep breath, I reach into the bag and feel for my knife roll. Satisfaction floods through me as my fingers touch the soft leather, the steel outlined beneath. I sharpened the blades with great care last night. Intuition, you might say, that today would be the day.

  I drop the roll onto the man’s back and untie the cords. The leather unfurls with a soft clink of metal, the blades cold beneath my fingertips. I select the short-handled knife that I’ll use for the first cuts, marking the outline of the skin to be removed. After that, for the flaying itself, I’ll use a longer, backward-curving knife. I buy them from Japan and they cost a small fortune. But it’s worth it. They’re fashioned using the same techniques employed for Samurai swords. Tempered steel enables me to cut with speed and precision, as if I’m carving shapes out of butter.

  I put the rest of the knives on the ground next to his body and check his pulse again. Fainter than before but he’s still alive. Blood seeps from his head, more slowly now. Time for a quick, deep test cut into his left thigh. There’s no flinch or intake of breath. Just a steady oozing of dark, slippery blood. Good. I can’t afford for him to move while I’m cutting.

  The moment has arrived. With one hand holding the skin taut, I make the first incision. I draw the blade swiftly down from the top of his shoulder across the jutting angles of his scapula, following the outline of the design. A red ribbon appears in the wake of my blade, warm as it runs down onto my fingers. I hold my breath as the knife carves its path, savouring the shiver that rolls up my spine and the hot rush of blood to my groin.

  The man will be dead by the time I finish.

  He isn’t the first. And he won’t be the last.

  1

  Marni

  The needles punctured the skin faster than the eye could see, depositing dark ink into the dermis and leaving a bloom of bloody roses oozing on the surface. Marni Mullins wiped away the beads every couple of seconds with a fold of paper towel so she could see the outlines on her client’s arm. A slick of Vaseline, then the sharp dig of the needles into the flesh again, creating a new black line that would last forever. The alchemy of skin and ink.

  Marni sought refuge in her work, mesmerised by the hum and the soft vibration of the tattoo iron in her hand. It was a temporary escape from the memories that plagued her, the things she could never forget.

  Black and red. The imprint she dug into the yielding skin. Her client flinched and jerked under the pressure of the needle heads, even as Marni used her wiping hand to keep his arm still. She knew all too well the pain he was experiencing. Hadn’t she endured too many hours at the sharp end of a tattoo machine? She could sympathise but it was the price that had to be paid – a moment to
be endured for something that would last a lifetime. Something that no one could ever take away from you.

  She used her forearm to push a lock of dark hair from her forehead and swore under her breath as it slipped back into her eyes. Angling her lips to blow the hair to one side, she dipped the seven-tipped needle into a small pot of water to change the ink from black to slate grey.

  ‘Marni?’

  ‘Yeah. How you doin’, Steve?’

  He was lying face down on her massage bench. He twisted his head towards her, blinking and grimacing. ‘Can we take a break?’

  Marni glanced at her watch. She’d been working on him for three hours straight and she suddenly became aware of the tension that had built up in her shoulders.

  ‘Sure, of course.’ Three hours was a long session, even for a regular like Steve. ‘You’re sitting like a champ,’ she added, putting her iron down on the equipment stand next to her stool. It was something she always said to clients, regardless of whether they were sitting like a champ or not – and Steve, with all his fidgeting and moaning, definitely wasn’t.

  But she needed a break too as she was starting to feel claustrophobic. It was always that way at conventions – artificially lit halls, stale air and noisy crowds. The lack of windows meant you couldn’t tell if it was light or dark outside, and Marni needed to see the sky wherever she was. In here, the air was thick and hot, the hall crammed with bodies being tattooed and a crush of voyeurs watching the needles. All this was underscored by blaring rock music and the continuous grind of the tattoo irons on bloodied skin.

  She took a deep breath, rolling her head across her shoulders to release the tension in her neck. The sharp smell of ink mingled with blood and disinfectant hung in the air. She peeled back the black latex gloves and thrust them into a rubbish sack. Steve was stretching and flexing his arm, clenching and opening his fist to get the circulation back. He was paler than he had been when she’d started tattooing him.

  ‘Go and get a snack. Come back in half an hour.’

  Marni quickly wrapped the bloody design in cling film to keep it clean, and pointed Steve in the direction of the cafeteria. Once he’d gone, she pushed through a knot of people on the stairs to reach ground level and burst outside through a pair of fire escape doors. Sucking in a lungful of cold air, she realised she’d escaped not a moment too soon. She leant back against the cool concrete wall and closed her eyes, concentrating on decompressing, letting the combined weight of the people and the building lift from her chest.

  She opened her eyes and blinked. The artificial glare of the hall was now replaced with bright sunlight. Gulls wheeled overhead, screeching at one another, and at the bottom of the deserted side street a slice of the sea shimmered invitingly. She tasted the salty air with relish and then arched her back until it hurt. Bones clicked and crunched as she rolled her shoulders. She had to wonder if she was getting too old for tattooing. But there was nothing else she could do – and truly, nothing else she’d damn well want to do. She’d been inking people since she was eighteen, nineteen long years, tattooing thousands of square metres of skin in that time.

  Thrusting a hand into her bag to check she had a packet of cigarettes, Marni set off through the warren of narrow streets that made up Brighton’s Lanes. It was a bank holiday weekend and tourists thronged the alleys, drawn like magpies to the vintage jewellery and antique shops, or looking in the chi-chi boutiques for the ideal wedding outfit or perfect pair of brogues. All her favourite cafés were packed, but she didn’t mind. Today she’d rather take her caffeine fix in the open air, so she emerged from the Lanes onto North Street and cut through to the outdoor café in the Pavilion Gardens.

  There was a long queue of people waiting at the serving hatch, which meant she’d probably be late getting back for Steve, but an extra few minutes out in the fresh air would make it worthwhile. She looked up at the sky. Pale blue. Not the bright azure of a summer’s day, but a soft periwinkle, diluted by wisps of dissolving cloud, fading to a hazy grey horizon that merged with the sea. Perfect for a spring bank holiday weekend.

  ‘What’ll it be, love?’

  ‘Black Americano. Two shots, please.’

  ‘Right you are.’

  ‘And a muffin,’ she added as an afterthought. Low blood sugar. It wasn’t the best choice of food for a diabetic but she could adjust her insulin dose later to compensate.

  Chattering sightseers emerged from the Pavilion, still amazed by what they’d seen inside. It was a Disney palace built in Regency times, a wedding cake concoction of onion domes, spiky towers and pale creamy stucco which always made Marni think of Scheherazade and the One Thousand and One Nights. She’d fallen in love with the place on her very first day in Brighton. She sighed, looking round for a place to sit. All the benches were taken and people sprawled on the lawns, eating and drinking, laughing or lying peacefully in the sun.

  Then she saw him and her stomach contracted. She turned straight back to the serving hatch, hoping that he hadn’t seen her. She wasn’t in the mood for an encounter with her husband this morning. Her ex-husband, to be precise – unpredictable at the best of times and always challenging in terms of the mixed emotions he stirred up. Together since they married when she was eighteen, apart for the last twelve years, but there was never a day when he wasn’t in her thoughts. Co-parenting complicated a relationship that the term love-hate could have been invented for.

  She risked a quick glance, and watched Thierry Mullins striding across the grass with a thunderous expression clouding his features. He looked shifty, glancing from side to side and over his shoulder. What was he doing out here? He was supposed to be at the convention hall – he was a member of the organising team.

  ‘Two pounds forty, please.’

  Marni paid for her coffee, grabbed the cardboard cup and sidled around to the far side of the café to avoid being seen by Thierry. Her hands shook with adrenalin as she lit a cigarette. How did he still have that effect on her? They’d been divorced for longer than they’d been married, but he still looked the same as when she’d first met him. Tall and lean with a handsome face, his black skin darkened by the tattoos that had kick-started her life-long fascination with this living art. Just as often as she tried to avoid him, she felt drawn to him. They’d nearly got back together on a score of occasions, until her instinct for self-protection had slammed on the brakes. But moving on from the relationship? She’d given up hope. She took a deep drag of her cigarette. Caffeine, nicotine, deep breaths. She closed her eyes, waiting for the chemicals to make themselves felt.

  She dropped the stub of her cigarette in the dregs of her coffee and looked around for a bin, spotting a green plastic dumpster at the back corner of the café. She raised the lid with the foot pedal and, as she dropped the cup inside, a rush of putrid air overwhelmed her. It was a stench far worse than the usual smell of a park bin on a balmy day. Bile rose in her throat as she peered into the dark interior. And immediately wished she hadn’t.

  Amid the crushed Coke cans, discarded newspapers and fast food wrappers she could see something. Pallid and glistening shapes that swiftly materialised into an arm, a leg, a torso. A human body, unmistakeably dead. She saw a flurry of movement – a rat, gnawing at the edge of a dark wound. Disturbed by the onslaught of daylight, it disappeared back into the rubbish with a squeal.

  Marni stepped back, letting the lid come crashing down.

  She fled.

  2

  Francis

  Francis Sullivan closed his eyes as he allowed the communion wafer to glue itself to the roof of his mouth. He tried to focus on the murmurs of the celebrants and the congregation around him, but his mind was elsewhere.

  Detective Inspector Francis Sullivan.

  He let the words roll silently over his tongue. That would be him, tomorrow, first day on the job. The shock promotion had made him, at twenty-nine, the youngest DI on the Sussex for
ce. He was more nervous about it than he had been on his first day at secondary school. It was a good thing, but terrifying. It showed a huge leap of faith by his superiors. Sure, he’d passed the exams he needed to with flying colours. He’d performed well for the interview board. But why promote him so soon, given his relative inexperience on the job? Because his father had been a celebrated QC? He hated the thought.

  His new boss, DCI Martin Bradshaw, had looked less than thrilled when he’d told Francis of the promotion. He hadn’t congratulated him, either. It made Francis wonder if Bradshaw had been totally behind the decision, or whether he’d simply been railroaded by the other members of the interview board.

  His stomach lurched as his thoughts turned to Rory Mackay. Detective Sergeant Rory Mackay. Passed over for the job and now assigned to be his number two. He’d met Mackay last week. A formal introduction in the boss’s office, during which the infinitely more experienced DS had made it clear that he wasn’t impressed. He’d worn the expression of a man who’d found the remaining half of a maggot in the apple he’d just bitten. Francis had kept his cool with polite detachment – he was aware of the risks of trying to become too chummy with your team – but he could sense theirs was going to be a prickly relationship.

  The man was willing him to fail. And Francis knew that he wasn’t the only one.

  ‘The blood of Christ.’

  Francis snapped open his eyes and raised his head to receive the scant sip of wine from the chalice.

  ‘Amen,’ he murmured.

  So be it.

  But was it too soon? Throughout the selection process, he’d felt calm and confident. Exams had never been a problem for him. But had his success on paper created expectations that he’d find difficult to live up to on the job? The dangers of early promotion were mythical in the force. He’d heard stories in the cafeteria, apocryphal or not. Running before you could walk. Failing to get results. It wouldn’t need to be a catastrophic mistake for him to end up sidelined at this point, just a couple of tough cases that went cold.

  Anxiety dulled the pleasure of his achievement. Detective Inspector Francis Sullivan. He hadn’t been sleeping since he’d heard the news. And the mental focus he’d need to rely on had evaporated. Damn it. He might be wet behind the ears but he wasn’t stupid. The team he was taking charge of didn’t think he could do the job. Didn’t think he was ready for it. He needed to get them on side from the very first day, on the very first case. Otherwise, they’d be proved right – he’d fail. They could see to that. Bradshaw and Mackay would be watching and waiting. They’d find ways of tripping him up.