by Denis Byrne
Sending Mr. Tattoo to that Tibetan monastery had paid handsome dividends. His six years of tutelage at the hands of the ascetic monks had been one of the shrewdest investments he’d ever made. Mr. Tattoo was now an entirely altered individual.
*
Myles first encounter with him had been an unforgettable experience. And once again, Myles’s astute knowledge of human nature had immediately spotted the raw potential awaiting to be groomed in the rough, raging diamond that was Teddy Tattoo. Myles had once been a member of a parole board, respectability being a wonderful façade for someone like himself, responsible for arriving at decisions as to whether or not a particular prisoner should be granted another chance to redeem themselves by being allowed back into society before they’d completed their sentences. Board members were supplied with files well in advance so that they could be conversant with the records of those brought before them.
Myles had been fascinated with his copy of Mr. Tattoo’s file. He read it from cover to cover and then reread it once more, his admiration growing with each sentence he perused. A gentleman after his own heart, whose contempt for law and order was truly astounding. At first he had his doubts that one individual could possibly be responsible for so much carnage and upheaval without the assistance of several companions equally as rebellious as himself, but once he laid eyes on him as he was led in before the board in leg-irons and reinforced wrist-manacles, he changed his mind. The fact that two guards armed with Uzi machine guns accompanied him was an added factor in convincing Myles that here indeed was a truly magnificent challenge to mould to his needs.
Mr Tattoo’s file documented in detail the trail of destruction he’d left in his wake from the time of his first arrest at the age of thirteen to the reason for his latest incarceration. He’d been a veritable one-man crime organisation all on his own. Except for the fact that his organisational qualities weren’t exactly in keeping with the word itself. Impulsive would have been a closer comparison. It was evident from Mr. Tattoo’s file that planning wasn’t very high up on the list of his priorities. It was as though he just thought it a good idea at the time to walk into a bank, pass a note to the teller informing him that hand grenades nestled in his pockets, that he’d be obliged if the brown paper bag he’d brought for the purpose could be filled to overflowing, or he might be tempted to check the pin of a grenade to ensure it hadn’t come loose.
There were several accounts of similar incidents to fascinate Myles further. Mr. Tattoo was fond of jewellery. Sometimes an item caught his fancy as he was passing a shop displaying sparkling trays of diamonds fashioned in one form or another. Rings, bracelets, necklaces, etc, etc. Mr. Tattoo’s method of obtaining whatever he craved was admirably direct. He simply smashed the window with a massive elbow and made his selection. It mattered nothing to him that it was broad daylight and that the street was thronged with witnesses. Mr. Tattoo never seemed to care. Alarms screeching and people screaming didn’t appear to deter him in his quest for something that had caught his eye. There were times when he strolled away with the contents of several trays, added temptation having been put in his way due to such easy accessibility.
And each time he was apprehended, quite a number of police officers were obliged to take time off from their duties to recover from their various injuries after the arrest had been completed. It seemed Mr. Tattoo revelled in these skirmishes, bellowing defiance as he blackened eyes and shattered limbs before eventually being subdued by sheer weight of numbers. And there were many, many skirmishes. For Myles had taken notes of them all. Each one to be treasured and dwelt upon and compared against what the future held for Mr. Tattoo once he’d been freed from his wrathful demons after Myles had taken him under his wing.
The other members of the parole board had all but taken to their heels the day Mr. Tattoo was brought before them. They’d also read his file. Upon seeing the colossus sitting not six feet away from where they perched nervously behind a long table, they found it difficult to conceal their concern. It seemed to them should he take it into his head, despite the armed guards, Mr. Tattoo could quite easily snap his bonds, overcome the guards, and murder them all before anyone could do anything about it. Myles smiled to himself now when he recalled the occasion. He was thinking pretty much the same thing himself at the time. And, after reading his file, he also wondered why on earth Mr. Tattoo had even bothered to apply for parole in the first place. He stood absolutely no chance of being released any time in the near future.
‘Request denied!’ the chairman of the board exclaimed in a high-pitched voice as soon as they’d gone through the formalities, then rose apprehensively to a standing position, ready to head for the door should Mr. Tattoo seek to wreak vengeance for the denial.
The rest of the board members shuffled their feet in anticipation of the need for flight. But they needn’t have worried. Mr. Tattoo didn’t seem in the least bit concerned one way or the other. When the guards told him to get to his feet, he arose obediently. As he was about to be led away, and the rest of the board members were mentally wiping the perspiration from their collective brows, Myles requested that he be allowed to shake Mr. Tattoo’s hand. One of the guards offered the opinion that he didn’t think it would be a very good idea. Myles insisted. As a member of the parole board, it was his right to show respect towards the prisoner should he choose to do so. The second guard shrugged his shoulders. Neither guard noticed the folded slip of paper Myles placed in Mr. Tattoo’s palm, nor Mr. Tattoo’s concealment of it immediately Myles had shaken his hand.
*
Two weeks later, during an exercise period in the prison yard, Mr. Tattoo was accorded unofficial parole courtesy of Moran Enterprises. The note had informed him to be prepared at a specific time and date. Myles had, as usual, prepared the groundwork for Mr. Tattoo’s release from detention with his usual efficiency. His research team had gathered the information as to prisoner exercise periods, etc. Piloting the helicopter himself had appealed to Myles’s sense of the absurd. Before the startled guards knew what was happening, the helicopter appeared overhead and hung there like a giant spinning-top, its rotor blades a blur as they held the craft aloft. A rope-ladder unfurled downwards. It had been specially fashioned to bear the considerable weight of Mr. Tattoo. Otherwise, it was possible it might have snapped like a piece of tread as he mounted its rungs. Halfway up, clinging to his bird of freedom with one muscular arm, Mr. Tattoo used the other to wave farewell to his former captors as he was borne away over the prison walls to the cheers of his fellow prisoners.
*
The transformation in Mr. Tattoo after he’d absorbed the teachings of the monks was beyond even what Myles himself had hoped for. Where before, Mr. Tattoo had been a slave to the unpredictability of his seething emotions, he was now their master. It hadn’t been an easy passage for him. Myles had had frequent reports relayed back to him as to the progress his protégé was making. Initially, Mr. Tattoo was not a willing pupil. In fact, there were times when he would have preferred had he been left languishing in a prison cell back in Ireland. Humiliation and obedience were not words he was too closely acquainted with, never having undergone their actualities in his life.
When he failed to obey yet another specific instruction the second week after he’d arrived, Mr. Tattoo found his world had suddenly been turned upside down. Literally. And he himself had been without any real knowledge of how exactly it had happened. Nor could he to this day explain how he’d come to be suspended by his ankles from the stout branches of two adjacent trees and left there overnight in subzero conditions.
He’d been requested to draw water from a well which was situated a short distance outside the monastery walls and return with the two large churns provided strapped across his shoulders. The monk who’d given him the order was a mere garden gnome in comparison to himself, a wizened little elf with a smiling face who wouldn’t have been out of place standing beside a rockery. At least that was Mr. Tattoo’s view of things. When he refused
point-blank to do as he’d been told, he was once more politely informed that water-carrying was now part of his duties. He was on his last chance. His previous high spirits had been deliberately overlooked as a sign of immaturity. Mr. Tattoo took umbrage at this, going so far as to say he’d do exactly as he liked when he liked, and if anyone thought they could stop him, they were perfectly willing to try. He’d knock their blocks off three at a time.
To his surprise, the garden gnome told him he thought that was a very good idea. His English was excellent, and he suggested Mr. Tattoo should commence with his own small block. Mr. Tattoo laughed at the very idea. He looked around to invite others to join in the joke, but found that he was alone with the gnome. They were in the courtyard at the time, not too far from the monastery garden in which all manner of exotic trees and plants grew. The gnome insisted that his block was at Mr. Tattoo’s disposal, that he’d be most interested in being shown the method Mr. Tattoo had in mind for knocking it off, though offered the opinion that he had his doubts Mr. Tattoo’s abilities had yet reached the level to accomplish his threat.
Mr. Tattoo advanced to give a demonstration. To show this manikin once and for all he wasn’t to be trifled with or sent on menial tasks as though he were some kind of messenger boy. He fully expected the gnome to take to his heels about two seconds after he’d made the first move towards him. But the suicidal fool remained where he was, his smile intact and, if Mr. Tattoo wasn’t mistaken, showing distinct signs of amusement at the whole affair.
Mr. Tattoo himself was anything but amused. In fact, this show of serene unconcern was responsible for Mr. Tattoo becoming very angry indeed. The red mist descended and he hurled himself forward, his huge grappling-hook hands seeking to encircle the gnome’s skinny neck. What occurred next had a dreamlike quality about it. Mr. Tattoo, as already stated, could never fully explain how it happened. He had a vague recollection of a small fleeting shadow being the cause of making him feel very, very dizzy as he tried to come to grips with it. A mercurial shadow which vanished and reappeared with lightening rapidity, which twirled like a dervish, confounding and confusing him until he collapsed from sheer exhaustion in his efforts to relieve it of its block as he had so confidently set out to do.
Mr. Tattoo suffered severe frostbite during the night. He was convinced he was going to die from hypothermia. His entire body became numb. The blood froze in his veins and he lapsed into unconsciousness, a state in which he remained throughout the following day. It was night again when he awoke to a warm, tingling sensation flooding his frame. When he opened his eyes, he tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. They were stiff and unyielding, rigid as steel. Mr. Tattoo was convinced he was dead. He was lying on his back, engulfed in an eerie weightlessness, as though he were somehow suspended from the star-filled sky by an invisible harness. He could hear chanting, a weird monotonous repetition which went further to make him think he had passed into another world. Which, indeed, he had. A world of mystery and intrigue, an unknown world far removed from anything he had ever experienced before.
The heat gradually infiltrated every sinew of Mr. Tattoo’s enormous body, slowly easing his helplessness and restoring his ability to move his limbs once more. His back was glowing pleasantly from some form of heat which was radiating from beneath him. And the chanting monks continued with their droning as they moved in an unbroken circle around him. Mr. Tattoo eased his head from left to right to follow their movements. Each held a lighted candle in their upraised hand, the tiny flames wavering in the darkness, giving the illusion of being surrounded by shimmering haloes.
Mr. Tattoo felt along by his sides to discover what it was he was lying on. His hands encountered nothing but empty space. He twisted his neck and looked downwards, running his hands beneath his body as he did so. Nothing held him in position. He was lying a mere foot above a bed of burning coals which glowed with an intense white heat which make him quickly close his eyes against its brilliance. Then the chanting abruptly ceased. The second it did, Mr. Tattoo descended helplessly into the fiery bed beneath him. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing emerged. He tried to roll away, but was held in position by some force beyond his reckoning. Mr. Tattoo could hear the hissing heat burn angrily beneath him. He steeled himself for the end, waiting for the searing pain to engulf him as he was sizzled to a cinder, hoping that what he was about to suffer wouldn’t last too long.
But all he felt was the same pleasant glow as previously. He couldn’t understand it, and wondered if this was really happening at all, or was he imagining everything. Then he was taken by the elbows and hoisted to his feet. He looked down. Under his bare feet, the coals still flared, white-hot. He stepped from the glowing bed on to the cold stone of the courtyard without so much as a blister to show for his experience, gazed around in wonderment at the watching monks, then went and knelt at the feet of the gnome whose instructions he’d defied, begging his forgiveness. A gentle pat on the crown of his head assured him he’d taken his first faltering step on the pathway towards humility.
*
How wonderful, Myles thought, to have such a gifted employee as Mr. Tattoo under his singular control. One who was so grateful to him for all that he’d done to rid him of his demons, that when he’d returned after the long period of meditation and learning, he’d solemnly sworn to dedicate the remainder of his life in the service of his benefactor. The best part being that Mr. Tattoo was of the opinion that he had made the choice of his own free will. Myles knew better. Whilst in the monastery, Mr. Tattoo had, without his knowledge, been subjected to an incessant barrage of telepathic auto-suggestion to instil into the depths of his subconscious the fact that there was only one master he could ever serve in the future. Myles smiled to himself at the thought. The large charitable donation he’d made to the monks to ensure Mr. Tattoo’s undying loyalty had been a truly sound investment, even if he’d lied through his teeth to them as to the real reason he required the pupil to be bound to his will.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
‘Well?’ the Superintendent asked, as Danny came in to land.
‘Did you see anything?’
‘It was hard to tell from the speed we were moving at, but there’s definitely some sort of building in there under a mountain of bushes and brambles and stuff.’
‘So Ferdinand was right.’
‘It looks like it, Super.’
‘Did you see anyone?’ Harrington asked sceptically. He’d been dead set against Danny going in there in broad daylight on the winged goat in the first place. ‘Or more to the point, did anyone see you?’
Mr. Pearson chuckled at this. ‘I don’t think they’d have believed it even if they did. They’d have put it down to a trick of the light or something.’
Mr. Pearson was having the time of his life. He only wished Mrs. Pearson could somehow see him now. She’d have a fit. He was dressed in rags, his face smeared with dirt, the soles of an ancient pair of shoes flapping from the uppers to make a nice slap-slap-slapping sound when he walked. He wasn’t wearing any socks either, and his grime-encrusted toes were poking out as though striving to see in which direction they were being taken next. He carried a blackthorn stick over his right shoulder with a red and white spotted cloth bundle tied to the end of it, and an old bowler hat with half the rim missing sat on his head. The bundle contained nothing but grass and twigs, though anyone looking at him would have been of the opinion that his life’s belongings were being toted along behind him. He realised he was on a serious assignment, that it was extremely important to look the part, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that he did. Even though he was enjoying the experience immensely, Mr. Pearson knew that if their mission wasn’t successful, he’d be devastated afterwards for this selfish feeling of elation he was deriving from merely being involved in the operation.
They were making their way down the rutted track leading to the huge hedge, and Danny had just dismounted after his scouting trip. ‘It’s a chance we had to t
ake, Harrington,’ the Superintendent sighed, answering the question Harrington had put to Danny. ‘At least we know now that there’s some sort of a building in there. We hadn’t an awful lot of options open to us, had we? Eh?’
‘But what if someone did see him, sir?’ Harrington persisted anxiously. ‘It could have given the whole game away.’
‘Would you have believed it, Harrington, if you didn’t know what you do now about Charlie?’ the Superintendent asked.
Harrington bit his lip. ‘I don’t suppose so, sir. At least not if I was sober.’
‘There you go. Anyway, we’re going to make them aware of our presence soon as already planned. Everyone up to speed with their roles to try and flush them out?’
There were nods all around from the motley crew. The four of them were dressed as tramps in more or less the same manner as Mr. Pearson. The Superintendent was carrying all his worldly goods in a couple of black plastic bags. He looked a sight. The king of the tramps and no mistake, leading his merry band of gentlemen of the road further down the narrow track, ever closer to the forbidding hedge. They’d parked the squad car a safe distance away and walked the rest of the way.
Harrington had a filthy Hessian sack slung over his shoulder, containing several items which were necessary for future use. He’d sewn the pockets of his dirty falling-apart jacket with strands of strong thread. After all, it wouldn’t do to lose the handgun he’d been issued with if it slipped through the shredded lining, especially should it be needed if fireworks erupted in the course of their mission.
The Superintendent held up his hand, halting their progress. There was only about another seven hundred yards or so to their destination. He turned to Danny, giving him a questioning look and a wrinkle of his dirt-stained nose. ‘Don’t you think you should do a little something before we get any closer? If you were spotted in there, we don’t want to confirm it for them, now do we? Eh?’