‘I can wait till you’ve finished,’ he said.
‘Steve, this is Detective Inspector Frank Sullivan. Frank, this is Steve, one of my very favourite clients.’ She would do everything she could to wind him up and she noticed with satisfaction how he grimaced at being called Frank.
‘Hi, Frank,’ said Steve, sticking out a hand.
Francis Sullivan took hold of it as if it were something the cat had dragged in.
‘You’re that policeman, aren’t you? The one investigating the tattoo murder.’
Francis gave the most imperceptible of nods.
‘I can’t believe Marni found the body,’ continued Steve. ‘Got anyone for it yet?’
‘Only the wrong people,’ snapped Marni, continuing to tidy up. When the hell were they going to find the right one?
‘The paper said it was something to do with tattoos. Is that it? Is that right?’
Francis looked pained by Steve’s babbling and gave Marni a meaningful stare.
She ignored him.
‘If you don’t mind,’ said Francis to Steve, ‘I need to talk to Ms Mullins.’
‘Got it. I’m sorry.’
‘Aftercare, Steve. Remember.’
As the main door slammed behind him, Marni stopped what she was doing and faced Francis.
‘I have nothing to say to you, Frank. What you did was outrageous.’
‘I want to talk to you about something else.’
‘Why would I talk to you?’ She turned her back to him and started screwing the caps back onto the plastic ink bottles.
‘Marni, two people were murdered in Brighton in the last week. There’s reason to suspect that the killings are somehow linked to the tattoos they had. You know that.’
‘So you believe my theory now?’ said Marni, glaring over her shoulder at him. ‘But does that give you the right to ride rough-shod over the community here? You’re arresting people for no reason at all.’
Francis sighed. ‘I haven’t arrested anyone yet. But we need information, so I have to question people who I think might be able to help me. That includes you.’
‘You want help, from me, from us, and this is the way you go about it? You’re simply alienating people. You can’t seriously think for a moment that me, or Thierry, or Iwao were involved in the murders?’
‘I’ve got to explore every possibility.’
Marni slammed a bottle of disinfectant down on her workbench. Was she angry at him or at her own suspicions? Or perhaps it was fear that was making her react in this way.
‘What you should be doing is warning people. If there’s a killer on the loose who’s targeting people with tattoos, they should at least know about it. I haven’t seen anything in the papers or on the TV telling people to cover up and be careful. Why not?’
‘My boss . . .’
‘Your boss? I thought you were the one in charge of the case.’
He winced. ‘I don’t work in a vacuum. There are certain expectations to be fulfilled in the pursuit of a case like this.’
‘Policing by numbers. I get it. I’ve seen it before.’ It had happened in France. It was happening here too. Taking the path of least resistance.
She finally stopped what she was doing and turned to face him.
He looked furious. ‘You don’t get it. You know absolutely nothing about the pressure I’m under to produce fast results. And I’ve got the press snapping at my tail, too.’
‘It’s part of your job description, being able to handle pressure. Yeah, produce some results and save another damn person from being murdered. For a start, you could put out a warning that this is happening.’
‘I can’t do that. It could start a panic.’
‘If you don’t, I’ll talk to Tom Fitz. He’ll write another story to warn people. All he’s had so far are the basic details of the bodies found. He’s looking for something more meaty to give to his readers.’
Francis sighed. ‘Stay away from him, Marni, please. Let the police decide what information goes out when. The rumour mill’s already in overdrive.’
‘Then do something soon.’
She’d made her point but he didn’t answer her. Instead, he sat down on a spindly wooden chair in the corner of the room. He rubbed his eyes with both hands, the fatigue and stress showing. But Marni’s sympathy fell short. She had seen what could happen when the police went for quick and easy results. She had experienced perhaps not a miscarriage of justice, but certainly a level of justice that was misaligned with the facts.
‘How about a coffee?’ he said.
In a small coffee bar, two doors down from the studio, they found a corner table and ordered – a black Americano for him, and a triple macchiato for her.
‘So what do you want to ask me?’ Marni let her hostility show in her voice.
‘Tell me how you know Iwao didn’t do it.’
Marni shook her head. ‘No way, Frank. You have to prove who did do it. It’s not up to me to prove who didn’t do it. There’s nothing I can say to convince you – I just know Iwao. He’s simply not capable of behaviour like that.’
‘But Thierry is, isn’t he?’
‘Fuck you.’
She stood up.
‘Marni!’ The rip of anger in his voice made her tentatively sit down again. ‘I’m not saying I think he did it. But I need to know more about him. According to our records, he’s been convicted of drug dealing and of GBH. Tell me about those.’
‘The drug dealing is self-explanatory. It was never big time, just a bit on the side, out of the studio. Money was tight when Alex was born. I couldn’t work for several months.’
Frank nodded his understanding.
‘He got caught a couple of times. End of.’
She wasn’t going to tell him that the dealing had been one of the reasons she’d divorced Thierry. One of many. Like the other women. And the drunken outbursts that reminded her a little too often of Paul. That part of her life was none of Francis Sullivan’s business.
‘And the other?’
‘He beat a guy up in the Heart and Hand. It was a long time ago.’
‘Why?’
Marni bought time by taking a mouthful of cold coffee. ‘There’d been some stuff in the papers and this guy, we didn’t really know him, took a pop at us over it.’
‘Stuff about his dealing convictions?’
‘No. Stuff about me. The guy came up and made a few out-of-order comments so Thierry decked him.’
‘And that was all?’
‘That was all.’ Marni wanted to change the subject. Desperately. The last thing she wanted was Frank Sullivan nosing around in her past. Or Thierry’s.
Francis finished the last mouthful of his own coffee and stayed silent for a few minutes.
‘Marni, can I ask you something?’
‘Sure.’ No.
‘It’s not about Thierry.’
‘Go ahead.’ Please stop.
‘You were in prison once, weren’t you?’
The one thing Marni had wanted to avoid talking about. ‘Yes.’
‘But I can’t find any record of it in the police database.’
She visibly bristled. ‘It was when I lived in France.’
‘That explains it. What did you do?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘No, but . . .’
‘I stabbed a man.’
Her bravado crumpled as the memory flared up in front of her eyes. The dull sheen of the blade. The blood, and then so much more blood. Sirens wailing in the small hours. Policemen speaking French too quickly for her to understand. She fought for air and then found her voice again.
‘Did you hear what I said? I stabbed a man.’
The colour had drained from Francis’s face. He looked like a man who wished he could take the qu
estion back.
viii
Do you ever actually wonder what it’s like to flay the living skin off a human body? I don’t suppose you do. I think about it often. When I’m doing other things. When I lie in bed at night. In quiet moments like this one. I’m waiting in my car for the next one on my list to finish work. I’m collecting his habits so I can read his character and formulate a plan. He’s tall and goes to the gym a lot. Every day, in fact. I’m looking forward to taking the skin from his body, to peeling his tattoo away. Like peeling an apple.
In fact, it’s not quite like peeling an apple. Live human skin is more flexible and elastic than apple peel. And the technique is completely different. The hardest part is getting started once I’ve made the outline cut around the area I want to flay. I tease the edge of the skin up with the point of my blade, moving it from side to side to create a small pocket between the raised skin and the tough white muscle sheath beneath. Or, in the case of some people, the layer of subcutaneous fat. Then, when I can get a grip on the loosened flap of skin, I can start to peel it back, gently teasing with my blade to separate it from the flesh.
Depending upon where it is on the body, there may be a little blood or it might be awash with it. I do nothing to staunch the bleeding. What’s the point? My victims always die in the end and the most important thing is to release the tattoo without damaging it. Nothing beats the satisfaction of making the final cut with the knife that frees the piece of skin I’m working on. Then I can hold it in my hand, still warm and wet, steaming even if we’re out of doors on a cold night, and I can see how it will look when the skin has been cured and tanned.
Not everybody is lucky enough to love their work the way I do. I suppose one might call this my dream job. The pay’s good, but in all honesty, I would do it for free. I would do almost anything the Collector asked me to, but luckily he recognises where my special skills lie and this work satisfies both our needs. He loves the pieces I’ve given him so far – we’re building a very special collection together.
The man I’m watching emerges from his office building and starts walking towards his parked car. His tattoo isn’t on show – he wears a cheap black suit to work. I doubt whether the people in his office even know he has a tattoo. He sells insurance over the telephone and then compensates for his stultifying days by engaging in unwise activities by night. I’ve watched him in the clubs, where he shows off his tattoo and his moves. I’ve seen him buying drugs in the public toilets and disappearing down dark alleys with other men searching for oblivion. Or cheap kicks.
He’ll be an easy enough target when the time comes. A ripe fruit, ready to be split and peeled. Then I’ll strip it away from him, inch by inch, an entire body suit in two huge pieces. God, he’ll bleed. I can almost taste it in the air.
It needs to be soon.
26
Francis
Francis knew he ought to be praying, but his head was still spinning. Marni Mullins stabbed a man. She’d said little more about it and what she had said didn’t make sense. He’d assumed it had been in self-defence, but she was quite clear that wasn’t the case – and she had, after all, gone to prison for it. He desperately wanted to know more but information was proving elusive. Who? Why? Under what circumstances? He tried again to turn his mind to prayer but could only concentrate for a moment.
He gave up and pushed back from a kneeling position to sit next to Rory on the hard wooden bench. They were in the back row of pews in St Peter’s. Although it was not his own church, Francis knew it well and had been to services here before. Rory squirmed uncomfortably beside him. Clearly he wasn’t a churchgoer. However, funerals and memorial services were part of the job. The murder team needed to show their respect to the victim’s family – and take the opportunity to assess who else was present at the funeral.
St Peter’s was a huge neo-gothic concoction designed by Charles Barry, with soaring columns and a stunning stained glass window at the top end of the nave. Francis loved it and if he hadn’t felt compelled to stay at St Catherine’s out of loyalty to Father William, he might well have swapped allegiance. As it was a memorial service, there was no coffin – but a large blow-up photograph of Evan Armstrong stood on an easel on the altar steps, with extravagant floral displays on either side. People shuffled past in silence, and despite the sunshine pouring in through the windows, the atmosphere was sombre.
‘What percentage of murderers do you think go to their victims’ funerals?’ whispered Rory from behind his hand.
Given that most killers were intimately acquainted with their victims, the percentage was probably high. Francis pressed a finger to his lips and concentrated on studying Evan Armstrong’s family and friends. Dave and Sharon Armstrong were in the front row, with a young woman who Francis guessed was Evan’s sister. None of them were dressed in black. Dave was in a navy suit, which was at least sombre enough for the occasion, but Sharon wore a bright magenta coat. Her face, in contrast, looked wan and pinched, the lines scored deeper than Francis remembered from when he’d first met her just a week ago. She’d leaned heavily on Dave’s arm as they’d walked up the short aisle, and he’d lowered her gently to a sitting position as if her legs were about to give under her. The daughter, weeping soundlessly into a ball of tissues, was in a melange of brown and green layering, with muddy brown boots peeping out from under a rust-coloured ankle-length skirt. She looked as if she’d been interrupted doing the gardening. Francis held firmly to the opinion that one should wear black to a funeral – after all, black clothes were hardly a stretch for anybody’s wardrobe these days – but he got the feeling that the Armstrongs weren’t a religious family anyway.
There was an obvious gulf between Evan’s wider family and his friends. The former were cut from the same mould as Sharon and Dave, everyday people whose lives had been cruelly disrupted by the loss of one of their own. A lot of them went up to the front to embrace Sharon and shake Dave’s hand, then found a place to sit down in respectful silence.
Evan’s friends, on the other hand, formed a gathering just beyond the doors of the church, as if unwilling to go in and confront the death of someone they knew. A lot of them, Francis noted, as he stared round to assess them, could have been from the crowds he saw at the tattoo convention – black clothes, shaven heads or brightly dyed hair, excessive piercings and, despite the solemnity of the occasion, tattoos on display. They were more vocal, too, with the girls crying loudly – possibly a little competitively, Francis thought – and the men talking urgently in low undertones.
Gradually, once the organ started playing, they made their way into the church and sat down. Francis noticed Marni and Thierry Mullins arriving together, with two heavily tattooed men who were speaking in French with Thierry. Rory jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow, signifying that he’d seen them too. Once they were seated, Marni turned to glare at Francis. He gave her the smallest of nods, but she’d already turned her back on him. Iwao came into the church in a discreet black suit and joined the end of Marni’s bench. Had he known Evan? The tattooist looked at Francis with vitriol and then whispered something to Marni.
The stragglers filled up the final pews at the back, and Francis and Rory were obliged to slide along their bench to accommodate a well-built woman dressed in head-to-toe black, including gloves and a small hat with a black net veil. Even sitting down, she was nearly a head taller than Francis. He pegged her as a maiden aunt who’d lost her way or hadn’t been able to work out where to park. She mouthed her thanks to them just as the vicar stepped forward and started talking. A few more latecomers tiptoed in, standing at the back as the short service got underway.
Francis listened to the vicar dispensing words of comfort to the bereaved and wondered how soon he would be at another memorial or funeral. It would be different, though, when it was for his mother – she had already planned the service with him, several years ago, and it would take place in the tiny country church w
here she’d worshipped every Sunday of her married life, and where Francis had discovered his own faith as a child. Did that mean it would be any easier for him and his sister to say their farewells? It was where his parents had got married, but he doubted his father would even bother to show up. Distracted by these thoughts, Evan’s service was over before Francis realised it, and he was woken from his reverie by the procession of the vicar down the aisle.
Outside afterwards, the two tribes kept their distance from each other, although there was some overlap as a few of Evan’s friends went to have words with the family. Francis and Rory stood to one side, watching quietly. Francis had Hollins parked just across the road from the church, filming the proceedings on a zoom lens. Rory’s point about the likelihood of the killer attending the service was something Francis took seriously, and he would have the resulting film analysed until he knew who every single person was and their relationship with Evan Armstrong. Tom Fitz presumably shared this ambition, as he wandered among the mourners taking picture after picture.
‘Still searching for your killer?’ Ishikawa Iwao materialised at Francis’s side. ‘How will you know him when you see him?’
He melted away before Francis could answer.
Francis found his eyes drawn back time and again to Marni Mullins. She was talking to a short man with a bright, fresh tiger tattoo on his right arm, the man he’d met in her studio the previous evening. But all he could think about were the words echoing through his head. Did you hear what I said? I stabbed a man. As if she could hear what Francis was thinking, she paused in her conversation and looked him straight in the eye. The look she gave him wasn’t a friendly one. He turned away and walked across the road to have a word with Hollins, who was filming, not particularly surreptitiously, through the driver’s open window.
‘Make sure you get everybody on camera, Kyle.’
‘Boss.’ He didn’t look up from the viewfinder.
‘Especially the tattooing fraternity.’
The Tattoo Thief Page 14