Tattoos weren’t common in her home country, Switzerland – not among the people she grew up with anyway – but that just made them all the more of an attractive proposition. On this particular morning she’d found herself in Brixton, near the markets. She’d hopped off the Tube half an hour earlier and eventually, after sniffing around the butcher shops and Caribbean breakfast joints and tired laneways, she’d come across the tattoo parlour.
She’d come prepared, as well: she was carrying with her a photocopy of exactly the tattoo she wanted – it happened to be both the perfect design and a wonderful act of defiance – so the only question was whether it was indecently early. It was just after 10am. Who gets a tattoo in the morning?
Answer: Isla does.
She ended up walking out of there with a beautifully intricate Islamic design on the smooth rounded protuberance of her right buttock cheek. Her host had excelled himself. Her expectations had been exceeded.
57.
‘Tattoo me,’ the redhead said after walking in the door.
Ron was manager, business owner and sole occupant. Sole, that is, except when his friends were visiting (which was, admittedly, much of the time, although thankfully not at this precise moment). Seen better days though, big Thursday night, innit? as his friends might say. He had grizzle on his grizzle that particular day; his frizzed grey hair, tortured into a ponytail had long since lost the will to live and his mouth was drier than an African desert – he was only fifty-two but looked, and felt, like an abandoned, burnt-out, shell of a car. Still it wasn’t all calamity, it was Friday, and even though Saturday morning was still to be endured, he was in a good mood. And that was even before this glamour darkened his doorway. Tallish, pale skin, dark red hair and melt-in-your-mouth brown eyes – looked about twenty-five at a guess – he would have picked her as Scottish or Irish or something until she opened that gorgeous mouth of hers. Accent of some kind, almost Swedish or French or something. And that was why he was living in a rat-trap in London bleeding money to a nasty Jewish landlord (OK, not Jewish, but Hungarian so same thing) and not living the kind of life he’d been led to believe was his destiny: lording it up East Yorkshire fashion in a terraced house on one of the many grand boulevards of Goole. Marshfield Avenue, to be precise, three minutes walk from the banks of the mighty Ouse – once the family home, and now the wasted hovel pilfered by his pig-brained brother. He was enduring his leaking, falling-down, poxy basement flat in Slade Green – he called it “the Sinkhole” – and Slade Green by the way (and there was nothing green about it), Slade Green was so far from central London (he walked it once and it took him over eight hours, although the effects of the lager may have, admittedly, added an hour or two)… it was so far, Ron had his doubts it was even legal to call it London… but he was handling it for the very simple reason that London was Europe and Europe was the home of flowers like the one standing before him at that very moment.
Ron was unfazed by the naivety of the girl’s statement. He’d heard worse. Much, much worse. He just nodded, and said:
‘What’s it to be.’
The girl put a sheet of paper in front of him. It was a printout of a photograph of some sort of Islamic design. All rhombuses, hexagonals and jagged lines. It was a helluva tangle, but it was doable. In fact as far as Ron was concerned, anything was doable for a fee. And some things were doable for free. Such as the redhead standing in his parlour at that very moment, for example. Not that he wouldn’t be completely professional about any job. So no problem, in other words.
‘No problem.’
‘You decide on the colours,’ she said. ‘You look like a man of taste.’
Now, of course, Ron was flattered, and as doable as his current client was, he had a rule about not tattooing nutters. And this vixen from Scandinavia or wherever she was from was already begging the question. Because no girl ever left it up to a man to choose what colour her tattoo was to be, and he knew for a fact that he didn’t look like a man of taste.
‘I’m not too fond of decisions, especially in the mornings,’ he admitted wearily, but firmly. As nice as it was, her compliment. ‘You’ll have to help me with that one, luv.’
Isla, pushed her hands up through her red hair and fluffed it out like she was stretching her wings. She looked pensive for a moment. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you, but you have to help me too.’
‘Sounds fair.’
‘I want some blue,’ Isla said slowly. ‘Mid-blue, Persian blue, you know? Like… lapis lazuli.’
‘I think I know what you mean.’
‘And some green. Emerald green. How is that for a start.’
‘OK. That’s good. That’s a good start.’
‘And no additional… stuff. No grape vines or tigers or French flowers. Nothing like that. Nothing curly, nothing soft and nothing alive. Just keep to the pattern. Keep it geometric.’
‘Geometric, OK. Just the straight lines.’
‘Just the straight lines you see before you, yes. And I want it on my backside. My arse.’
The whole set-up sounded a bit strange but what the fuck. On her arse, eh? Well why not, the lass may be a bit radio rental but she was a cute one, and if she was giving him leave to be a bit creative (on her arse, too), then surely, he should live a bit, take up the challenge.
‘Well OK,’ he said. ‘Sure. But I have to warn you. I’m not cheap.’
‘Neither am I. And I never expected you to give me one for free.’ She let that last statement hang there for a moment. ‘Let’s get started before I change my mind.’ And she slapped a roll of twenty-pound notes down on the table.
Ron hurriedly wheeled out the patient trolley which a friend had nicked from the hospital up the road in Denmark Hill, lowered the side rails, locked the wheels and had Isla lie down on it, arse up. He reverently raised the right-hand side of her green dress, and then delicately slid the right half of her black lace panties out of the way and into the beckoning crevasse between her buttock cheeks. Which of course, he did his best to ignore. Because he was a professional.
And then he removed his jacket and went to work. On the whole, he maintained the level of professionalism he knew his customer would expect… except, perhaps, for the one occasion when he ‘accidentally’ slid her panties too far over just for a quick peek. He thought of it as his tip which she’d probably forget to give him, and he doubted she’d noticed, so what you didn’t know could never hurt you, right?
The only misfire in an otherwise flawless procedure occurred when a shadow passed across the length of the opaque windows to the passageway outside and Isla turned her head suddenly. Ron almost – but not quite – made a mistake. A reprieve for which he thanked his lucky stars.
58.
When the local police were called in to the Sirens Tattoo Parlour about an hour later – a visiting friend had rung 999 – they were presented with a mystery. They had absolutely nothing to go on except for two things: the first was the blooming, ruby pool of blood on the floor, and the second was the body they’d found lying in the middle of it, being that of the unfortunate – and dead – manager himself, one Ronald Pond, formerly of Goole, East Yorkshire.
59.
When Jon wanted to think about something clearly, objectively, he’d do one of two things. Read or eat. After Emerald left, he did both. After all, he’d just been informed he had a new father, he had a new sister (somewhere), he was probably being pursued by an international crime syndicate, and both his ex-wife and his new father were possibly connected to the whole business. And there was some redhead out there who wanted a piece of him as well. A drink was what he really needed, but reading and eating seemed a better choice for a Friday morning. So after touring Victoria station’s fast food outlets, including Delice de France, Wasabi Sushi and Mi Casa Burritos, and a browse through the newspaper section of W.H.Smith, he sat down at the same cafe for his third coffee of the day. To take stock.
And as he sipped his cappuccino and looked around at the hurrying
commuters, an idea occurred to him. He pulled out his laptop and opened up Google Maps. He found the Streetview photo of the north-western corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. There she was again, the woman with the red hair, in that peculiar stance, looking every bit the spy. He wondered if she wasn’t actually walking though, as opposed to standing in the one spot. He knew that the Streetview photos were taken by a moving car with a camera attached to the roof and that the various images represented a chronological sequence of photographs. You just had to know in which direction the car was travelling.
He moved the viewing position further down the western side of the square and away from the corner, and sure enough, there was the woman, walking in the direction of the corner. So unless she was walking backwards, the car had to be moving in that direction as well. This was corroborated by a tiny antenna which appeared in some of the shots, indicating the rear of the vehicle.
The northern side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields was one-way for traffic, and he hoped the car had turned into it on this particular run, to continue the sequence with this woman in it. It had. And the woman, at this point, was still just ahead of it. Moving to the next image, and the woman was still walking – so clearly she’d never stopped. But what was more interesting was the figure the camera car passed, walking ahead of the woman, further along the street. It was almost certainly, despite the interference of some minimal facial blurring, Sir Martin Lemar Nevers.
Coincidence? Or maybe, on this occasion at least, the redhead hadn’t been spying on Jon at all, she’d been following Nevers. Although if so, why? Especially if Emerald’s instincts were right, and the woman and Nevers were both somehow connected with the Russians and thus, on the same side, as it were.
He had to find out more. About Nevers and about the money too, assuming there was a link. Recalling Emerald’s warning about the risks associated with approaching Nevers, he wondered whether he shouldn’t give Romy another try. He’d be a bit more forceful this time. If he didn’t allow himself to be wrong-footed again, how difficult could it be?
60.
It was just after midday at Victoria Station. Isla decided she’d get a coffee before planning her next move.
Getting the tattoo focussed her mind. She liked her new tattoo, she’d gone into public toilets just to look at it. The skin around it was still reddish but the design was, by any test, beautiful. Modestly proportioned but striking, and just as importantly, hidden away by all but the skimpiest bikini… And hidden from Irwin too. No danger of him seeing it these days.
The only sour note had been the shadow at the door. She was convinced it was the man from the life drawing class. Convinced he’d been following her. But why?
And then, in the Brixton underground an hour later. There he was. On the platform. Victoria Line, northbound. She’d done an about face and made straight for the surface. Found herself a hiding spot and waited and watched, to see if he’d followed her up the escalator. He hadn’t.
It was possible her flesh-bound artwork had inspired a new sense of determination – or perhaps it was evidence of it – but it was becoming obvious to her that she needed to find the courage to make some changes.
A boyfriend years ago had told her not to do the wrong thing, when she was breaking up from him. He hit a nerve, too, because she’d always been worried about doing the wrong thing. People who knew her a little bit – and even those who knew her well – might think that was funny, someone as impulsive as her, worried about doing the wrong thing.
The wrong thing.
After almost five years of Irwin, the possibility of doing the wrong thing no longer bothered her. Altering the equation on the other hand – doing the right thing – was a far more attractive proposition. But how? How did you alter an equation that had operated for so long? How did you dig yourself out of something that you’d unquestioningly accepted for so many years?
Drastic action was required obviously, but she wasn’t sure she had it in her anymore to do anything life-changing. Inertia was a killer. She knew that, of course, but then so does the bird that sees the advancing snake, and nevertheless fails to fly.
Was she going to fail to fly?
Something she’d have to ponder, and ponder well. Over that coffee.
61.
Just after midday and he was still at Victoria Station. Jon finished his coffee and made his move.
Following in Emerald’s footsteps he headed down to the underground. Moving bodies of every colour shot across the station hall, each on its own straight trajectory, all of them comets of desire. A flash of grey, a snippet of red. A blur of green made him think of the girl with the red hair, and he almost turned around too, just to make sure it wasn’t, but time was running out, and everything considered, it was better he kept his head down anyway.
A brisk ten minute walk from South Kensington station, through the backstreets of Chelsea, helped Jon fully clear his head.
The next ten minutes fully did not.
It was 12.28pm when he arrived in Carlyle Square. Not that he wore a watch anymore – not since the fire – but Alastair’s phone told him. Telling the time was one of the few things that Alastair’s phone actually did.
As he approached Romy’s house (their house he had to continue to remind himself), he had a strange sensation, like a warning signal, and he slowed down. It was as if his feet, without instructions, had decided to slow down of their own accord.
And then he saw a man walking out the front door. He was about Jon’s height, maybe slightly more wiry, but it was a springy, dangerous wiriness – it was hungry – and he sported a crew cut of what was probably dark hair, he was slightly unshaven, and he wore a light grey suit and black shoes that sharply clicked the surface of the pavement as he walked. A human scorpion.
But then maybe Jon was a little biased.
He would have been about thirty metres away. Jon hung back and watched the man – who he guessed, by now, was probably Romy’s boyfriend – walk down the street away from him, waiting until he was a safe enough distance away before he approached.
He pressed the doorbell for the second time in two days.
This time when the door opened, the action was more tentative. Romy peered out through the narrow opening.
‘Jon?’
‘Romy. I need to―’
‘You can’t… I can’t talk now.’
‘No, listen Romy―’
‘No Jon. Please go.’
She tried to close the door but he jammed his foot into the disappearing gap.
‘Don’t!’ she hissed. ‘You’ve got to get out of here. He’ll see you.’
‘Then let me in.’
‘No you can’t…’
He forced his way in and slammed the door behind him. Put his bag down.
She spat and snarled at him like a dog; swore like a succubus. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her towards the kitchen at the back of the house. She scratched and she swung. He shoved her against the kitchen table and put a hand over her mouth.
‘Shut up Romy. Just fucking… shut… up. You’re going to tell me what’s happening here. I was nearly killed the other day after I saw you. I had a man in a baseball cap shooting at me in the burnt-out remains of my house. Do you understand that? And I reckon it’s got something to do with you. So you fucking tell me… what… is… going… on.’
Her muscles untensed. Her face crumpled and Romy came the closest to crying Jon had ever seen. She nodded a couple of times and sat down on a chair. Jon chose to remain standing. He was moved by her obvious distress, by her wretchedness, but he was determined to stay angry.
‘I don’t know…’ she began, finally, but couldn’t finish.
‘I’ll help you. Who was that who just left? The boyfriend?’
She nodded.
‘Does he have a name?’
She hesitated. And then: ‘Irwin.’
Irwin. Emerald had told him about an Irwin.
‘Irwin… Long,’ Jon said.
&n
bsp; She looked at him sharply. He clearly wasn’t meant to know that. ‘Except it’s not Long,’ she said. ‘He just uses it sometimes.’
‘Sometimes. And he’s connected with the Russians.’
A look of great pain crossed her face and he knew that worse was to come.
‘Romy,’ he continued. ‘Don’t hold out on me. Not anymore. You know… I’ve been forced to hire a private investigator. And I’ve found out things. Unpleasant things.’
She nodded, looking like she was freefalling now, deeper into her abjectness.
‘Stop me if I’m telling you anything you already know,’ he said. ‘But two years ago I received a large sum of money, either by mistake or otherwise, from an anonymous benefactor. Or malefactor.’ He paused for a moment to check her reaction but she said nothing, kept her head down. ‘Funnily enough, I hadn’t changed my will leaving everything to you. Still haven’t either. That was an oversight.’
She was trembling or sobbing, he couldn’t tell which.
‘And what a surprise, or strange coincidence, I’m not sure what you’d call it, but suddenly someone’s trying to kill me. Do you think there might be a link, Romy? A link between… the money… and you? Think about it carefully because my life, you know… my life kind of―’
And there it was. An audible sob. Romy, toughest journalist in London, was crying. Jesus, she had a heart after all.
For good measure, he rammed the point home just a little more. ‘First I find out my father isn’t really my father and now, my ex-wife is trying to kill me―’
‘I’m not!!’ she bawled at him, glaring through red eyes. Awash, her face insisted, in oceans of regret. ‘I’m not trying to kill you Jon, I swear.’
‘Well then,’ he said quietly. ‘Who is?’
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