The Tattoo Thief

by Alison Belsham

  The door closed and the footsteps were muffled, on the other side of it. Panic rose in her gullet. She was afraid she would vomit up the water she’d just drunk. Whoever that person was, they were her captor, not her rescuer. Her head spun, her world spun. The floor tilted underneath her and she started to hyperventilate.

  The door opened again and the footsteps came back towards her. The man – something about the footfall made her think it was a man – heaved her up into a sitting position. Something soft and sugary was pressed against her lips. She took a small bite. A doughnut? It was stale but she attacked it ravenously, not caring as jam ran down her chin. It would take ten or fifteen minutes for the glucose to hit her bloodstream, but relief flooded through her.

  When the doughnut was finished, the man left her slumped against the wall. She could hear him moving around the room, though she couldn’t work out what he was doing. What would happen next? What were her chances of escaping from him? Should she try and form a connection with him, and beg him to release her?

  ‘Thank you for that,’ she said, still licking the sugar from around her lips.

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want from me?’

  Still no answer.

  ‘Please just let me go. I haven’t seen your face. I don’t know who you are. Please don’t do something you might regret.’ She hated the fear that crept into her voice as she spoke.

  The silence was broken by a sound she recognised. The clatter of a blade against a whetstone, rhythmic and steady. Fear clutched at her, tightening her throat, grinding her insides as sharply as the stone ground the metal.

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Marni, I have no intention of regretting a single thing I’m going to do to you.’

  A slow, lazy drawl. Familiar. Male. She’d heard this voice before, but where? It wasn’t Paul. The accent wasn’t French.

  ‘Please, you can untie me. You’ve had your fun, but now I think you’d better let me go.’

  The sound of the knife on the stone didn’t miss a beat.

  ‘What do you want with me?’

  The sharpening stopped. Marni held her breath.

  ‘What do I want with you? I would have thought that was obvious.’

  That voice.

  The footsteps came towards her.

  ‘As you won’t be leaving here alive, there’s actually no need for this.’ He yanked the blindfold from her face. Marni gasped as a few hairs were pulled away along with it.

  After hours in the dark, she was blinded. She closed her eyes tightly and waited for the white flashes to clear, then opened them slowly, head down, looking at the floor. Polished cement glinted up at her as she focused her blurred vision on her own feet and lower legs. She felt suddenly conscious of her damp and stinking jeans.

  Glancing to one side, she saw another pair of feet. New trainers, hardly worn, with chinos, too long, rippling at the ankles. Slowly, she let her eyes travel up the man’s body – he was a little knock-kneed and his trousers were too tight at the waist, pushed down at the front where his belly spilled over the top. He was wearing a black polo shirt with a company logo she’d never seen before. He had a tattoo on his arm. A tattoo that she’d finished only a couple of days ago. Steve smiled down at her as their eyes met and she felt chilled to the bone.

  Oh my God!

  ‘St-Steve?’

  Steve? The computer geek with the tiger tattoo?

  Her blood sugar spiked with a rush of adrenalin.

  ‘Beautiful Marni. All mine.’

  He turned away from her abruptly and went back to a table where she could see a knife and a whetstone lying.

  Fear made her mouth dry. Words weren’t forming in her mind. She instinctively struggled against her bindings, then stopped. All thought of escape left her as she started to look around the room and take in her surroundings. Rational thought of any kind was no longer an option. Fear had taken the driving seat.

  The room was a large rectangle, larger than she’d imagined from her limited shuffling around when she was blindfolded. There were no windows – were they underground? The black walls were lined in some sort of high-tech rubberised cladding. She’d seen it before in recording studios. Soundproofing. Ice crept through her veins. The ceiling was an industrialist nightmare of aluminium pipes and grids. Along one of the short ends of the rectangle, there was a white screen and in front of it a couple of slumping sofas upholstered in deep red velvet. A private cinema.

  But that wasn’t all. Behind the sofas, taking up the central portion of the room, stood a row of seven highly polished concrete plinths, each one about four feet high. Marni blinked and refocused, tearing her eyes from one to another. Bile rose in her gullet, burning her throat. On each plinth stood a framework of thick silver mesh, polished and gleaming in the sharp light. The frames were formed in the shape of human body parts – an arm, a leg, a torso, a head. One, standing taller than the rest, was shaped like an entire body. Four of the frames were just that, nothing else. But the other three appeared to be draped with pieces of soft, buttery leather. Tattooed leather.

  Marni fought the urge to vomit as she realised exactly what she was looking at.

  The ‘leather’ was human skin. Giselle Connelly’s arm with its detailed biomechanical tattoo. Evan Armstrong’s shoulder with its Polynesian design, and a leg she didn’t recognise with an elegant watercolour of a peacock. Human skin turned to leather, preserved and put out on display.

  The room spun and she slumped onto her side.

  ‘Ah, I can see you’re appreciating my collection. Amazing, aren’t they?’

  ‘You . . .? But these are Sam Kirby’s pieces.’

  ‘Of course. But I commissioned them. She was working for me.’

  It didn’t make sense. She didn’t understand.

  ‘And, you, Marni Mullins, you will be the most beautiful of them all.’

  He walked towards her and she shoved herself back against the wall. When he reached her, he bent down, pushing his face towards hers. As she cowered and whimpered in front of him, he kissed her gently on the lips. Then he softly pressed a folded cloth over her mouth and nose. The tang of ether hit the back of her throat. Her world returned to black.

  54

  Rory

  Rory had been on enough emergency runs through Brighton not to be a nervous passenger. But that was before he went on a blue light run with Francis Sullivan at the wheel. They’d hardly pulled out of Cannon Place when he swerved precariously to avoid a delivery driver who stepped out from behind the open doors of his van.

  Thierry hurriedly did up his seat belt in the back.

  ‘Jesus, boss, you have passed your advanced driving, haven’t you?’

  Francis frowned and squinted at the road ahead. Almost immediately they came up behind a minibus. Francis sounded the siren.

  ‘Come on,’ said Thierry. ‘Pass him!’

  Francis gave another blast of the siren and finally the minibus driver slowed down and pulled across onto the pavement.

  ‘Now go!’ urged Thierry.

  Francis put his foot down and they sped through Hove, blue light flashing, with the sea on their left and the just-stirring town to their right.

  ‘Rory, try Hollins.’

  Rory called and listened to his phone for a few moments. Hollins had seen the owner of the first car that had shown up on the CCTV footage.

  ‘Just a school-run dad,’ he reported as he hung up, ‘picking up his daughters from swimming training. Says the swimming instructor will vouch for him collecting the girls. It’s not likely to be him, in Hollins’ view.’

  ‘What about the second one?’

  ‘Hollins is en route there.’

  Francis slammed on the brakes as a BMW pulled out in front of them. Rory’s phone flew into the footwell and Thierry swore so
ftly in French. The siren went on again and then they were past it.

  ‘You’re sure we are going to the right place?’ said Thierry.

  ‘No,’ said Francis. ‘Not at all. But it’s the best lead we’ve got.’

  ‘Stands to reason,’ said Rory. ‘If you’re going to abduct someone, a van’s better than a car. And the timing seemed right.’

  ‘Merde!’

  Rory couldn’t tell if this was a comment on the boss’s driving or on the fact that they were acting on a hunch. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting to the address and finding Marni.

  They crossed the bridge over the River Adur, after which the road widened and ran dead straight. It was empty of traffic. Blue light still flashing, Francis let rip.

  ‘How much further?’ he asked Rory.

  Rory checked the map on his phone. ‘Four or five miles, but we’ve got to go right through the middle of Worthing.’

  The small coastal town was starting to come to life for the day and the road suddenly hit junction after junction. The tension in the car rose still higher as Francis skilfully wove the vehicle through a series of obstacles.

  ‘Putain!’ Thierry’s swearing became louder. ‘Where did you learn to drive?’

  The blue light in the front of the windscreen carried on flashing and Francis hit the siren intermittently to let the other road users know they were coming. Finally, they seemed to be through the worst of it, past Worthing and Goring, and the road joined a stretch of dual carriageway.

  ‘Left at the third roundabout.’

  The turn took them south, back in the direction of the sea. As Francis sped up again, Rory saw red lights flashing ahead. A bell started ringing.

  ‘Level crossing, boss.’

  ‘I know. I see it.’

  ‘It’s closing.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘We won’t make it.’

  Francis didn’t reply but continued accelerating.

  Up ahead, the barriers were already starting to come down.

  ‘Frank! Stop now!’ The panic sounded in Rory’s voice and he gripped the dashboard with white knuckles, pushing himself back in his seat.

  ‘No, no way,’ said Thierry, sounding just as terrified.

  ‘We’re not going to fucking make it!’

  The barriers were down and it seemed as if Francis was just going to smash through them.

  Acting on instinct with no thought of the consequences, Rory grabbed for the wheel and tugged it sharply towards him. With his other hand, he grappled for the handbrake. Francis tried to fight against him but was taken by surprise. With an ear-splitting screech, the car spun out of control, barrelling sideways into the low wall of the adjoining station car park. The train rushed by with its horn blaring. Rory let go of the wheel and slumped back in his seat, suddenly aware that the airbag in front of him had deployed.

  He looked at Francis, who was scrabbling to get his own airbag out of the way. When he couldn’t wrench it off the steering wheel, he attempted to start the stalled engine. It bit first time and Francis threw the car into reverse. The blue light was still flashing in the car, and the crossing’s red lights were still flashing beyond. The bell sounded louder than ever.

  Rory turned in his seat.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he said to Thierry.

  Thierry came out with a rush of expletives that meant nothing to Rory. But at least he was alive and conscious. There was blood gushing from where he’d bitten through his lip on one side of his mouth.

  Francis manoeuvred the car through a three-point turn so they were facing the right way again. The bell stopped ringing. The red lights stopped flashing. The barriers came up and Francis hit the gas.

  ‘Don’t you ever call me Frank again.’

  55

  Marni

  Marni felt two sensations – pain and cold. Sharp pains spasmed through her wrists and shoulders – they seemed to be bearing all her weight. Tight strictures were cutting into the flesh of her wrists. Her arms were high above her head, twisted unnaturally. Her hands were blocks of ice, almost numb, while the long cut in her left forearm burned. A cord of pain throbbed in the crease of her neck where her head had been lolling back unsupported. She was standing up, tied to something. And she was freezing. She could feel cold air on her skin. All of her skin. Realising she was naked, she snapped her eyes open, fear quickly dwarfing the other sensations and galvanising her to lash out against her bindings.

  She was still in Steve’s basement cinema, tied to a St Andrew’s cross, facing one of the walls. All she could see was the rubber soundproofing material, a few inches in front of her face. While she was unconscious, Steve had removed her clothes and tied her up to this contraption. She could smell an unfamiliar floral scent. It was rising off her skin and she realised she was feeling the cold so acutely because she was damp. God forbid, he’d washed her down. The stink of urine was gone but she retched at the thought of his hands on her body.

  She felt dizzy. The doughnut had prevented her from sinking into a coma, but without a shot of insulin, she wasn’t going to benefit from much of the energy it should have given her. She knew it wouldn’t be long before the black spots would rain down behind her eyelids and she’d lose consciousness again.

  Maybe that would be better.

  The room was silent. Fear made her feel faint but pain kept her mind sharp. She raised herself onto her tiptoes to take the pressure off her arms, reassured by the burning pain as some blood managed to get through. She thought about what she knew of Steve, if that was even his real name. She’d spent more than twenty hours tattooing his arm and she tried to remember what they’d talked about. He’d certainly been very interested in tattoos and the process of tattooing, but there was nothing unusual in that with people who sat for her. He hadn’t been great with pain, though by no means the worst. He’d talked a fair bit about himself, though when she thought back on it, she couldn’t remember much in the way of concrete facts. He worked in computers – boring – and the rest had all been opinions – what he thought of this, what he thought of that, why his opinion was necessarily more valid than others’. She remembered with a shudder how he’d asked her about Evan Armstrong’s body, knowing all along exactly what had happened to him.

  There had been no empathy for anyone else in any of the conversations she’d had with him. Not that she’d particularly noticed it then. It was only now, thinking back, that she realised how self-centred he’d sounded. At the time, she’d only given half an ear, at best, to what he was saying, concentrating most of her attention on what she was doing.

  But how could she turn this knowledge to her advantage? How could she use it to prompt him to let her go?

  She heard the door opening and her stomach lurched. Footsteps came towards her and then he appeared in her peripheral vision. He was smiling, but it wasn’t a smile. It was a leer.

  ‘You’re so beautiful, Marni, it’s almost a shame to desecrate that perfect body. But your tattoo will be the jewel of my collection.’

  Marni’s blood ran cold and she involuntarily thrashed against her restraints.

  He stepped towards her and ran a hand down her spine.

  ‘Shhhhhh.’ His voice was so close to her ear that she shuddered.

  ‘Please, Steve . . .’

  ‘Please what?’

  ‘Please let me go. I can carry on tattooing you. I could give you an amazing back piece. You don’t need to do this.’

  ‘Ah, but I do. I need to complete my collection because that idiotic woman fucked up.’

  There was a sudden flash of anger in his tone that made Marni even more scared.

  ‘S-Sam Kirby?’ She needed to keep the tremor out of her voice.

  ‘She was supposed to collect all the tattoos, then disappear. I paid her well enough.’

  ‘She’s been arrested
.’

  ‘I know. I’m paying for her lawyer.’

  Marni had to keep him talking. He would find it harder to kill her if he related to her at a human level. But she couldn’t expect empathy with the position she was in. It would have to be about him. She wondered, for the briefest second, if anyone was coming for her. Thierry was expecting to pick her up – surely he would have told the police.

  She pushed those thoughts out of her head. She had to act for herself. Time was running out, her blood sugar was plummeting again.

  ‘And now I have to finish the job without her.’

  ‘You don’t have to. The pieces you have are enough.’

  ‘It’s not the entire collection. The police have some of them, taken from Stone Acre Farm, and besides, I particularly want your tattoo. And also Thierry’s.’

  Marni’s blood ran cold. If she didn’t get out of this, if she couldn’t put an end to this here and now, this madman would go after Thierry. She thought about Alex and her heart broke.

  ‘Do you know how to do it? How to cut the skin from my body, how to cure it? Don’t you need the Tattoo Thief to do it for you?’

  She guessed this would make him bristle and she was right.

  ‘Of course I can do it myself. I’ve watched her flaying skin. I’ve watched her tanning it. It’s hardly rocket science.’

  ‘Only, if you’re going to take my tattoo, I don’t want you to ruin it.’

  He took a step closer to her and she shivered. Fear had made her forget the pain of being suspended by her wrists, but each time that fear was ratcheted up, her mental agony became greater. He ran both his hands slowly over her back. She pressed herself against the wooden cross, but there was nothing she could do to escape his touch.

  ‘Marni, perhaps I should explain. The human body is a work of art in itself. Yours especially. But when a tattoo is added, it takes it to another level. Living works of art, warm to the touch. No other art form is as dynamic as a tattoo.’

  ‘But you kill them. Surely that goes against what you’ve just said.’

  ‘When people die, their tattoos die with them. They rot like any other piece of flesh. By doing this, I’m saving great works of art. It’s what they do in Japan, with the Yakuza tattoos. The preserved skin thus becomes superior to the living skin.’