The Tattoo Thief

by Alison Belsham

  ‘Jesus, what happened to you? Don’t tell me you found him?’

  Francis dropped into a chair.

  ‘Could we have some coffee?’ His voice sounded a little slurred.

  ‘You’re hungover.’

  Francis slumped forward, his head in his hands.

  ‘And you’ve been in a fight.’

  The DI groaned and Rory failed to suppress a snort of laughter.

  ‘How does the other guy look? And who was it?’

  ‘Thierry Mullins.’

  There was only one reason Rory could think of for Thierry Mullins to have punched Francis on the nose. He would never have had Sullivan pegged as a ladies’ man.

  ‘I’ll get coffee.’

  By the time he got back from the canteen, it was clear Francis had taken control of himself. His suit jacket was hanging on the back of the chair, the front of his shirt was spattered with water and his hair was wet. Hollins had arrived in the meantime and was sitting at his desk staring at Francis.

  Rory put down the two coffees he was carrying and extracted a comb from his jacket pocket. He handed it to Francis.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Hollins, stop gaping and get to work.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  Rory briefed Francis on the night’s activities.

  ‘Right, first priority is close protection on Marni Mullins. She’s on the Tattoo Thief’s hit list.’ Francis pointed to the pictures of the relevant tattoos pinned up on the incident board. ‘Oh, and if you can spare anyone, Thierry Mullins is also on the list.’

  ‘I’ll get that sorted,’ said Rory. ‘Um . . . Do you want Mullins to be charged with a Section 89?’

  Of course, he was fishing to find out what had gone down between them.

  ‘No.’

  Rory raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I’m not discussing it.’

  As Sullivan turned his attention to a file, the door to the incident room opened again. This time Bradshaw was standing on the threshold.

  ‘Please tell me you at least know where Kirby is.’ He looked Francis up and down with disdain. ‘And what the hell are you doing here?’

  Rory stepped forward. ‘I’m using him on the case,’ he said. ‘We need all the manpower we can get for this one.’

  Bradshaw bristled.

  ‘In fact, sir, it was Sullivan who discovered Kirby’s identity and that he lives on Stone Acre Farm. I need him back on the case.’

  Even though he didn’t care for Sullivan personally, Rory was beginning to recognise that the boss was damn intelligent and knew what he was doing. And a bad feeling was niggling at him over the way he’d shopped Francis for holding the press conference.

  ‘So what are you saying now? That Sullivan’s doing your job better than you can do it?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Rory, looking as if he’d surprised himself, ‘but he does have something to offer.’

  Sullivan’s mouth fell open, then closed abruptly.

  Hollins, who was listening surreptitiously from his desk, knocked over a cup of coffee. Bradshaw was momentarily distracted but then turned back to Rory.

  ‘Not what I expected of you, Mackay,’ said the chief. He looked at Francis. ‘Right. This goes totally against my better judgement, but you’re back on the case.’

  ‘In what capacity?’ said Francis.

  ‘You’re the senior ranking office in this team, so obviously you’ll be in charge. Do I have to spell everything out?’

  ‘No, sir. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Don’t thank me till you’ve solved the case. How are you going to proceed?’

  ‘We’re continuing to question drivers on Ditchling Road and the team is reviewing all CCTV city-wide around the clock. We’ve already put out footage from the night Evan Armstrong was killed, of a hooded individual we’re pretty certain is the killer. We’ve also identified a couple of the target pictures we recovered from Kirby’s barn – Thierry and Marni Mullins – and we’re putting them under close protection. Burton’s doing what she can to identify the subjects in the other images.’

  ‘What about vehicles registered to him?’

  ‘Nothing in his name,’ said Rory. ‘He obviously does have a vehicle – but it’s not registered with the DVLA, and we’ve got no insurance information coming up. We’re checking tyre tracks picked up at Stone Acre, but they won’t provide much information to narrow the search down.’

  ‘Damn it! He could be miles away by now.’

  Francis didn’t say anything.

  ‘Right, Sullivan, you might be back in charge, but from now on, you run everything by me. You need some experience at the helm.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Francis. His voice was frosty. ‘Do you have anything in mind?’

  ‘We need to be proactive – we should be drawing the killer out.’

  Straight away Rory could see where this was going.

  ‘How do you suggest we do that, sir?’ said Francis.

  ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? We know the identity of some of the people he wants to kill next. We could dangle Marni Mullins under his nose as bait.’

  Francis’s eyes widened. ‘I don’t think we should do that, sir.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Bradshaw’s voice was heavy with sarcasm.

  ‘No, sir. That would be putting civilian lives in danger, Marni’s life in danger. That’s not why I became a police officer.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Sullivan. We’ll have her covered. She won’t be in any danger at all.’

  ‘Sorry, sir. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not an option.’

  Bradshaw’s face darkened. ‘I’m not giving you any choice in this. It’s my final decision.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to take me off the case again, sir. I won’t deliberately put Marni Mullins in the path of a serial killer.’

  Rory was about to add that the same went for Thierry, but he was interrupted by his phone. It was Hitchins.

  ‘We’ve had a response to this morning’s TV witness appeal . . .’

  ‘Wait. I’m putting you on speaker.’

  ‘A man’s called in. He saw a person who he thinks could be Sam Kirby – apparently looked similar to the CCTV images we put out.’

  ‘Where?’ snapped Francis.

  ‘At the marina.’

  ‘We’re on our way.’

  xiv

  My knife. My knife! The vorpal blade.

  I know where I dropped it but I can’t go back for it. I can never go back to Stone Acre. They’ll be watching for me. And even if I could go back, I won’t find it. They’ll have it by now. The SOCOs are like ants, crawling over every inch of my world, dismantling, judging my work. Judging me.

  They’ll be impressed. Damn them all.

  I have other knives. Of course I do. But that one was special, my favourite blade. The Collector brought it back for me from a trip to Japan. It’ll take a couple of months to sort out a replacement. First, however, I need a place to stay. The Collector has a small boat at the marina, just one tiny cabin, a sleeping bag. It gives me breathing space, a few days. As long as he doesn’t find out I’m using it. I don’t think he would be pleased, even though it’s so I can carry on with his assignment. He’s still very keen that I finish this part of his collection. He’s hinted that he wants to move forward with his next plan. He’s such an ambitious man – it’s one of the things I admire about him most. He told me something once, a story from his childhood. When he was at school, he collected Top Trumps cards. He had the best collection, of course, but he was missing one rare card that carried a particularly high points score. When his best friend got hold of it, he was furious. On the way home from school later that week, he hung his friend over the balustrade of a bridge, thirty or forty feet above a wide river, holding onto him by just one ankle until
he promised to give up the card. The Collector always gets what he wants. I fear him and worship him in equal measure. I’ll just have to be very careful when I speak to him not to let slip exactly where I’m staying. And I must, above all, complete my task for him.

  I’ll come and go in the shadows. And I’ll kill again, very soon. My fingers are itching for it.

  43

  Francis

  It was beginning to get dark as Francis and Rory pulled up outside the marina’s security office. A uniformed guard was standing in the doorway and he stepped up to introduce himself as they got out of the car.

  ‘Police?’ he said.

  Francis nodded.

  ‘I’m Alan Chapman. I made the call.’

  Francis came round the car to the pavement side. ‘Tell us where you saw him and what made you think it was the Tattoo Thief.’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ said Alan.

  As they walked along the promenade past rows and rows of jetties, he told them the details.

  ‘I saw your witness appeal on the TV and the CCTV footage with it. I always take notice of things like that because we have so many people coming and going at the marina. Not that I particularly thought your man would be here.’

  He took a left turn off the promenade and led them along a wide jetty that had two levels. There were narrow wooden walkways branching off the main structure on either side, all crammed with boats of varying sizes. Down the centre of the top level there were a number of two-storey buildings made from corrugated iron, painted white and yellow.

  ‘What are these?’ asked Rory.

  ‘Showers, toilets, launderette,’ Chapman answered.

  ‘What did you see and where?’ said Francis.

  ‘It was down here,’ he said, pointing along one of the narrower gangways. ‘Pretty sure it was this one, because I recall the big boat at the end. It’s moored there permanently. I was here, looking back towards shore, and I saw a figure, dark clothes, a hoody with the hood up. Just walking fast down the jetty.’

  ‘But what made you suspicious of him?’

  ‘It was something about the way he was moving. He had a slightly rolling gait that reminded me of the CCTV stuff on the news. And his clothes were similar to the description you put out. He looked around a few times as if he was worried that someone was following him, or he didn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘Did he get onto one of the boats?’ said Francis.

  Chapman shrugged. ‘I looked away. There was a boat coming into its berth on the other side and they were making rather a meal of it. When I looked back this way, the man had disappeared. He could have gone onto one of the boats or he might have made his way back to land.’

  Rory rubbed his chin. ‘I’m still not sure why you think it could be our killer. Hoodies are not uncommon.’

  ‘I’ve been in security for a lot of years. You get a sense for when someone’s uncomfortable with what they’re doing. When I got back to the office, I looked at your CCTV footage, at the shadowy figure you pointed out in New Road. Like I said, the man’s gait was similar, his clothes were similar, and he had that vibe. Look, I could be totally wrong, but it has to be worth checking.’

  They walked down the narrow jetty to the end and back, but all the boats were quiet, with no sign of any of the owners on board.

  ‘Thank you for reporting it,’ said Francis. He turned to Rory. ‘Call the team down here – let’s have them check all the boats along this jetty and the adjacent two. See if there’s anyone that matches the description.’

  They made their way back to the security office.

  ‘Could you furnish us with the names and addresses of all the boat owners that are currently moored here?’ Francis said to Chapman.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘And do you have CCTV on all the jetties?’

  ‘No, not covering every single one. We’ve got one at the entrance of the marina, a couple along the promenade, and a number covering the car parks.’

  ‘Can we take a look at them?’

  A couple of hours examining CCTV footage and the combined efforts of Hollins and Hitchins talking to boat owners and checking boats yielded precisely nothing.

  It wasn’t that Francis doubted Chapman’s word. In fact, he felt sure Chapman had seen what he claimed to have seen. But there was no sign now of a shady figure in a hoody and no conclusion to be drawn from the sighting. Francis dropped Rory back at John Street and then looped back the way he came. He wanted to check there was a protection detail parked outside Marni’s house.

  When he got there, he was happy to see there was a car on duty. He had a quick word with the two PCs, who had nothing untoward to report. As he was going back to his own car, Marni’s front door opened.

  ‘Frank?’

  He walked over to her.

  ‘I saw you talking to them,’ said Marni, without preamble, as he stood on the bottom of the three steps that led up to her door. ‘Please call them off. Everywhere I go, they’re shadowing me. It’s not good for my mental health.’

  ‘Seriously? They’re there to save your life. I thought they’d give you some reassurance.’ He toyed with one foot on the second step, wondering if she’d invite him in.

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘I bet Evan Armstrong thought that too. He was well over six foot.’

  Marni sighed. ‘I’ve asked them to leave me alone and they won’t.’

  ‘They told me, but they follow my orders, not yours.’

  ‘And I get no say?’

  ‘No.’ He stepped backwards onto the pavement.

  Marni scowled.

  ‘You might thank me, when they intercept a killer who’s intent on taking that beautiful tattoo off your back. At the moment, we have no idea where he is. We’ve been chasing up sightings all over Brighton and along the south coast. One guy thought he saw him down at the marina, another called an hour later to say he was in Shoreham. And until I have him in a cell, you’re going to have protection.’

  ‘I have a dog and I’ve taken self-defence classes.’

  ‘Pepper will hardly be very effective against a man with a knife. And a couple of self-defence classes probably won’t help either.’

  Marni stared at him, lips pursed. She made a move to shut the door, but then thought better of it. ‘The reason I took self-defence classes was because I was in danger. It wasn’t some stupid fitness fad. I took classes from an ex-Israeli army guy. Krav maga is their self-defence system.’

  ‘I’m impressed.’

  ‘I had no choice. There was a man who posed a very real threat to me.’

  ‘The one you were charged with stabbing?’

  She nodded, her face pale and tense.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked gently.

  She shook her head. ‘Not much. Just a man who developed an obsession with me.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘He’s in prison for something totally unrelated.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘Thierry’s twin brother. He raped me. I stabbed him.’ Her gaze was unflinching and unforgiving. ‘Now please call off your dogs.’

  44

  Marni

  A faceless man carried Luke – the baby she’d lost – in the crook of his arm. In his other hand, he held a long curved blade that glinted with a blinding light. They were running. Sometimes Marni was pursuing them, at other times they were coming after her. Alex beckoned her from the distance but no matter how hard she ran, he never seemed any closer.

  She woke up drenched with sweat and went across the room to open the window. Below her, on the street, the squad car sat and she could see the driver inside, sipping coffee out of a cardboard cup.

  Coffee would fix things. She checked the time on the radio alarm on her bedside table. She was due at the studio in half an hour. Sh
e had a full day of appointments ahead and she needed to make some money. Coffee and a shower.

  Forty minutes later, she tapped on the window of the police car.

  ‘You might as well drive me to work,’ she said, when the disgruntled officer lowered his window. ‘You’ll be going there anyway and I’m running late.’

  ‘Hop in then,’ he said, without cracking a smile.

  She could hardly blame him. What sort of an existence was it, sitting in a small car for eight hours at a stretch, watching someone else live their life?

  Her first appointment was waiting for her at the door and it was non-stop for the rest of the day, despite a no-show. It felt good to be working again. The past couple of weeks had seemed disjointed and she’d had to rearrange a number of her regular clients because of her dealings with the police. Hopefully they’d catch the bastard soon and life could return to normal. Steady, quiet and uneventful. Just the way she liked it.

  Her afternoon appointment was with Steve to finish off the tiger tattoo she’d been working on at the convention. It would be a glorious piece when it was done – the orange tiger standing out from the flurry of deep magenta chrysanthemums, blood dripping from its teeth and claws.

  Steve was early and had already been waiting twenty minutes by the time she’d cleaned away and taken payment from her previous client. He climbed up onto the massage bench impatiently.

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to finish it today?’ he asked.

  ‘Possibly,’ said Marni, with a shrug. She studied the work so far. ‘Still needs four or five hours, so it depends if you’re up for it.’

  For the first hour of tattooing Marni simply switched off. Steve was explaining to her what his company did, some cutting-edge programming technology that Marni had little chance of understanding and absolutely zero interest in. He droned on, hardly pausing for breath, and it seemed to be mostly about how much better his company was than the competition. She immersed herself into her art, and the stresses of the previous days began to diminish as her mind cleared.