Huber's Tattoo

by Quentin Smith

  Henry turned to Natasha beside him, leaning into her whispering into her ear.

  “That’s probably our only real clue to the killer. We have no idea when Barnabus was killed, nor Vera Schmidt.”

  “Presuming they were all killed by the same person,” she said.

  Henry sat up straight again.

  “Right, now for Inspector Hornby, please,” Bruce said, tapping the sheathed end of the dry marker on his chin.

  Hornby was the oldest of the CID officers, within months of retiring, a man who had seen it all and done it all.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” he began formally, adjusting the cuffs of his greenish and well-worn Harris Tweed jacket, “I have been looking into the London Mensa Club. Mensa is an international organization, founded here in London in 1946, just after the war, which now has over one hundred thousand members worldwide. It is exclusively for people who score in the top two per cent of intelligence tests, otherwise known as IQ tests. In general, membership will be confined to people with IQs above 150. Mensa has three aims: to foster and promote human intelligence for the benefit of humanity; to further research into the nature and uses of intelligence; to provide an intellectually stimulating environment for its members.”

  Hornby glanced across at Henry, whose heart sank.

  “Many people do not think highly of police officers, but we have our very own Mensa member here at Scotland Yard. Mensa is the Latin word for table, suggesting that all Mensa members sit at the same table and share equal status. In this regard, as all the victims to date were members of Mensa, it is possible that they had transgressed somehow, or brought disgrace upon something or somebody through their actions or lifestyles. This, though, is a personal view of mine and not one borne out by evidence.”

  “But one which I share,” Henry interrupted, standing up. “Forgive me for interrupting, Jim.”

  Hornby smiled and lowered his head deferentially, clasping his hands behind his back.

  “When comparing the victims, we find they all harbour a controversial predilection, a weakness or… or… a deviance,” Henry continued, searching for the word. “Haysbrook was homosexual, we think; Vera Schmidt was bisexual, we think; Barnabus was an alcoholic with a criminal record; Francois Pequignot, the French victim, was fond of prostitutes.”

  Hornby nodded. “Oh I agree, Henry, something must link these disparate victims who are otherwise connected only by such curious little threads of evidence. However, Mensa is very multicultural in its demographics. It embraces all ages, all races, all shapes and sizes. It is not an organization that stereotypes or pigeon-holes people into behavioural conformation that might make our victims stand out as abnormal,” he said.

  All the time Hornby seemed to be addressing Henry, as though they were sharing a private conversation about their common theory. Bruce was too busy making bullet points to notice.

  “What does not help us is that the Mensa membership is no secret, the information is not closely guarded and regular publications feature prominent Mensa members and also articles by members. It is possible even for non-members to access the Mensa membership, so here we draw a blank, I’m afraid. Little doubt, however, that Barnabus, Schmidt and Haysbrook had all frequented the London Mensa Club at various times. Professor Haysbrook was a regular.”

  “Thank you, Jim, good work,” Bruce said with a warm smile, straightening up and admiring his handiwork on the whiteboard.

  Hornby sat down, looking rather pleased with himself.

  Bruce spoke again. “I can tell you from my dealings with the North American authorities, where we have uncovered through the Interpol database another four post mortem results that matched aspects of our own victims’ autopsies, that one is proving promising. Though all four North American deaths were not homicidal, or suspicious, the findings of a skin tattoo at their post mortems was never understood, nor linked to an international profile such as we are building now. Similarly, all victims had above average-sized brains but this, too, in isolation, was assumed to be simply a variation of normality.” Bruce paused, consulting his notes. “Now, one victim, a twenty-nine-year-old man who committed suicide several years ago, is a possible tissue source for us to match the tattoo ink, as we have tried to do with two of our victims: Inspector Webber will elaborate on this in a minute. This will require an exhumation but, as there are no family or next of kin to object, the decision will be purely a judicial one based on evidence and justification. His girlfriend also gave testimony at the Medical Examiner’s Inquest that the deceased was convinced of a sinister secret lurking in his background, something he was ashamed of, something that haunted him and that she believes was the reason for his suicidal intent.”

  A profound silence settled across the officers in the room. Their investigation had just extended on to yet another continent.

  “What about the remains of the others?” Henry asked, sniffing rather loudly.

  “The other victims were cremated, so obtaining tissue samples is not possible. We should have an answer from the American authorities fairly soon. Beyond that, all the North American victims shared another common feature with ours: they had no traceable family, no parents, no siblings, no relatives. Their pasts were shadowy and not fully documented.”

  Bruce stared around the room at the intently concentrated faces.

  “DCI Webber will now bring us up to speed with the case in France,” Bruce said, glancing down at Henry.

  Henry stood up, thoughtlessly rubbing the prickly scabs on the back of his head and wincing slightly as he caught a protruding stitch.

  “Francois Pequignot was a high court judge in Sarlat, way down in the Aquitaine department of France. He was an intelligent man, a Mensa member, divorced with children, known for his antics with prostitutes that had probably begun to tarnish his reputation on the bench. He was found last year at the confluence of two great rivers, the Vezere and Dordogne, with his throat cut. He could have been killed upstream of either river, both of them popular tourist spots in the summer, teeming with visitors and canoeists, et cetera. There were clues to his presence in two places around the estimated date of his murder, one along each river: a museum ticket in Les Eyzies where CCTV shows him with another man, possibly a little like the man with the Afro hairstyle mentioned by witnesses at Greenwich; and his car was found abandoned in Cenac St Julien beside the river. This is the first I’ve heard of the Afro sighting in Greenwich, but this could be significant as it so closely resembles the man in the Les Eyzies museum CCTV that Sergeant Keeler and I watched.”

  Natasha rested a hand on Henry’s arm and whispered something to him. Every eye in the room was watching them. Henry nodded and turned back to the audience.

  “Pequignot was also an orphan with no traceable family. The earliest records of him are in Paris at a boarding school. His brain was of above average size but not as big as our victims here in the UK.” He stepped forward towards the podium.

  “May I, Superintendent?” he asked, gesticulating towards the whiteboard.

  Bruce handed the dry marker to Henry.

  “We do not understand the tattoos. Every victim has one, but the numbers differ. Haysbrook and Schmidt had G3 tattooed on their skin.” He almost added, ‘and me’. “Barnabus had G4 and Pequignot had G2. What did the young American suicide victim have on his neck?” Henry turned to Bruce, who began to rifle through his notes.

  “Er… G5.”

  Henry scribbled the numbers on the board, not nearly as neatly as Bruce’s block lettering, but legible. He took a step back and studied them, then stepped forward and added the victims’ ages and names.

  G2 63 years (Pequignot)

  G3 48 years (Haysbrook)

  G3 40 years (Schmidt)

  G4 34 years (Barnabus)

  G5 29 years (US suicide)

  Mentally he added himself on to the list of G3s, just above Haysbrook, at fifty years of age.

  “The skin tattoos from Vera Schmidt and Jeremy Haysbrook have been analysed by a
n expert at Durham University who has managed to extract the tattoo ink and compared them. The composition of the inks was compatible with those used in the 1930s and the ink in each sample was identical.” Henry paused to emphasise his point. “Identical. That means Vera Schmidt and Jeremy Haysbrook were tattooed with the same inkpot. Furthermore, from concentrations of singlet oxygen found in the skin, Professor Guinney was able to deduce, with confidence, that the tattoos were about as old as each victim, implying that the tattoos were made when Vera Schmidt and Jeremy Haysbrook were very, very young.”

  Henry could feel Natasha’s eyes on him, sharing his personal turmoil as he wrestled in silent anguish with the suppressed history behind his own tattoo, so closely mimicking the details he was presenting to the assembled force investigating these murders. He swallowed.

  “How young?” Hornby asked.

  “Most likely… in infancy,” Henry said, his voice trailing off.

  A murmur of disquiet reverberated around the Incident Room.

  “I believe Steinhöring will hold the key to linking our victims,” Henry said.

  “You have no material evidence pointing to Steinhöring, Henry,” Bruce countered, irritably.

  “No evidence? Haysbrook, Schmidt, Barnabus and Pequignot were all born there.” ‘And me,’ Henry was tempted to say. “Where was the American born?”

  Bruce checked his notes.

  “Steinhöring.”

  Henry shrugged and tipped his palms upwards. He wanted to add more but held himself back. Now was not the time; he would simply be pulled off the case and that would not help him in his search, not at all. He knew that he must get himself to Steinhöring, he had to.

  “They’re all a match to one common place of birth; so far, two of them share identical tattoo matches, almost certainly made when they were babies. What do we wait for, Steven, the American’s tattoo to come back as a match to Haysbrook and Schmidt as well? Will that be enough?”

  Henry sat down heavily. He knew that his own tattoo analysis would be available soon. What if it also matched? Would he declare this information? What if it didn’t match? Which outcome would be better for me, he wondered.

  “We just have to go to Steinhöring,” Henry said, refusing to give up. “I know that we will find the key that links these victims together there. I just can’t tell you… how I know this.”

  Bruce examined both his own bullet points and Henry’s hastily added scribbling. Then he turned around and sighed.

  “I will speak to the ACC about funding, Henry. Meanwhile, we’ll await the results of the tattoo ink comparison with the American victim.”

  *

  Henry’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He glanced at it surreptitiously. It was a message from Professor Haxton Guinney.

  Call me, Inspector. I have the results. Haxton.

  Thirty-Five

  Steinhöring

  “What happened?” Gudrun said quietly as she placed her warm hand over Huber’s.

  They were sitting on a wooden bench near the bottom of the Heim Hochland garden, near to the imposing statue of a mother nursing her infant. It was getting cooler as autumn turned the green leaves into shades of gold and yellow and sprinkled the lawns with a thick carpet of dew in the early mornings.

  Huber, in his white coat and black boots, removed his round spectacles. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy.

  “I saw a hearse leaving the facility yesterday. Did someone die?” Gudrun asked.

  Huber met her beautiful eyes, almost aquamarine in their brilliance, accentuated when her hair was tied away from her finely boned face.

  “I am not supposed to discuss anything that goes on in there with you, Gudrun.”

  She looked away and nodded.

  “Bauer?”

  Huber took her hand in his, parting her fingers and pushing his in between them.

  “I could do with your help in there. I could do with Oskar’s help, too.”

  “Oskar?”

  “Oskar Pahmeyer, Sturmbannführer Pahmeyer at the Hadamar Institute. I have known him since medical school days. He is a gynaecologist now and his talents are wasted in Hadamar: all he does there is sterilize people.”

  “Who died, Rolph?” Gudrun asked again.

  He sighed and watched a few nurses in white pushing prams down the neatly maintained pathways that snaked between flower beds and garden statues.

  “A pregnant woman.”

  “During childbirth?” she asked.

  Huber shook his head, distressed, and continued to caress her fingers.

  “Why then?”

  “I cannot tell you, Gudrun, even if I knew why, and I do not.”

  Her eyes searched his, taking in every detail, every little emotion.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  Huber stood up, tearing himself away from her warm and comforting touch. He paced up and down in front of the bench.

  “It is both exceptionally exciting and unbelievably daring, yet also deeply unsettling, even… a little frightening. I am not quite clear yet about the details, but I believe it could turn out to be either one of the finest achievements of our time, or one of the greatest disasters.”

  Gudrun’s eyes glowed with insatiable curiosity.

  “I wish I could be involved. How can I be involved, Rolph?”

  He sat down again close to her and grabbed both her hands.

  “I want you to be involved, Gudrun, but it is not my decision. Let’s wait and see how Bauer reacts to my request for Oskar to join us first. But you must promise not to speak a word about this.” Huber pressed a finger gently against her soft, full lips.

  “Of course.” She smiled.

  “For now, the only way to get inside there is to be a highly selected, pregnant, Aryan woman,” Huber said sardonically before adding with a touch of amusement, “Do you know what your IQ is, Gudrun?”

  Gudrun frowned and the skin around her eyes wrinkled.

  “I have blue eyes and German great-grandparents,” she offered with a shrug.

  Behind them a nurse in a starched white uniform and bonnet approached rapidly. As she drew near her eyes dropped to the ground to avoid embarrassing contact and she almost curtsied subserviently.

  “Yes, Madalina?” Gudrun said, looking up and pulling her hands formally into her lap as Huber simultaneously withdrew his.

  “I am sorry to disturb, Matron, but the SS officers are here for the girls.”

  “Thank you, I’ll be right up, Madalina.”

  The nurse hurried off.

  “Girls?” Huber said as he stood up and smoothed the creases out of his trousers.

  “You know, our cohort of selected teenage girls. They’re very popular with the local SS officers.”

  Huber nodded. He understood, though he did not altogether approve nor think it was a proper demonstration of German values.

  “Entertainment, right?” he said as they walked up to the main house, each with their hands clasped primly behind their backs.

  Gudrun glanced at Huber with a small dismissive shake of her head.

  “You know it’s all about fertility, Rolph, and the girls are perfect.”

  Huber nodded, though inwardly he was deeply troubled.

  “So, is it either a high IQ or a pregnancy that gets me into your secret facility?” Gudrun said suddenly.

  Huber placed an arm around her shoulders briefly and squeezed her warmly.

  “Both, I’m afraid.”

  Thirty-Six

  Henry needed to get out of Scotland Yard to make the call to Professor Guinney in Durham, to discover, away from the turmoil of the bustling headquarters, another clue to his enigmatic and indistinct past.

  “Where are you going?” Natasha asked.

  “Outside.”

  She frowned.

  “Give me five minutes, then how about we meet in the pub across the road for a drink?”

  Henry stood on the paving beside the rotating triangular sign. He dialled Guinney’s numbe
r, anxiety rising within him as the moment of truth neared. In those fragile seconds, as he listened to the ringing in his ear, he recalled George’s words to him in the park: Why don’t you ever speak about your parents? Are you an orphan? It’s as if you landed here one day from Mars.

  How could she have known how deeply her words had hurt him? Perhaps he should have confided to her just how close to the very essence of his uncharted past, dancing on exposed nerves, she actually had been. If only he knew the answer.

  “Haxton Guinney.”

  “Haxton, it’s Henry Webber here. I’m calling about that skin specimen I left with you.”

  “Ah, yes, Henry. I have the result for you.”

  Henry tried to smile.

  “All three tattoos were made using exactly the same ink.”

  Henry’s heart missed a beat, then another. He felt slightly light-headed. He couldn’t speak.

  “Is that what you expected?” Guinney said, when he didn’t reply.

  “Do you know the age of the tattoo on the third specimen?” Henry asked. Struggling with a dry mouth, he sat down on the steps.

  “I performed the singlet oxygen analysis, as before, and the tattoo ink has been in the skin for forty-five to fifty years.”

  My God, Henry thought, my entire life! I’ve had this tattoo all my life and never known about it.

  “Are you certain?” he asked.

  “Absolutely. That ink is very old and very distinctive. Matching it up with the others is highly significant.”

  Henry closed his eyes and massaged his temples with his free hand. His mind raced, wondering what this meant for him. Was he possibly vulnerable, a target as Natasha suggested; was he more closely connected to the victims than he realized; would he be able to find out where he came from, at last?

  “Shall I send this to Dr Longstaff now?” Guinney asked.

  “No,” Henry said sharply. “I’ll pass it on. Thank you, Haxton, you have been a great help to this investigation.”

  They said their goodbyes and Henry sat on the steps, arms resting on his knees, phone gripped loosely between his fingers. The pain began to throb behind his eyes, rapidly growing in severity this time. His dug his fingers into his temples, almost wishing they might break through the bone into his wretched brain and tear out everything that was not right.