Tattoo

by J G Alva

  He waited for the crane arm to reappear, to reap more damage to his building…and when it did, he did not hesitate. It broke more of the wall apart, a large crack racing up the wall to the ceiling of the stairwell. He waited until the mechanical arm was retreating, and then taking a breath, he jumped from his precipice toward it.

  He caught the edge of it with both hands, but his legs swung dangerously far outward, threatening to dislodge his grip. But he held on, until he swung back in, and managed to wrap his right leg around the mounting. He crawled up on to the arm.

  He was on a yellow tracked excavator from the construction site next door. He could not see the driver in the cab, but he could make out his frantic movements. The digger began backing toward the fallen wall through which it had travelled. A sudden lurch to the left made Sutton stumble, and he almost fell…but he managed to clutch one of the large black hydraulic cables curled around the arm to keep his balance. The excavator quickly lurched in the other direction, Sutton lost his footing, and he was suddenly hanging on by only one hand, the hand around the hydraulic cable. His heart hammered in his chest. Jesus, Jesus. The noise of the excavator’s engine was loud as it reversed, but behind that he could hear a crowd of people calling out in dismay. His neighbours, he realized distractedly. Then the excavator hit the wall of the estate and lurched to a stop, and Sutton was flung forward, toward the cab. He had time to bring up his knees before he connected with the Perspex windows of the cab; the Perspex cracked. Pain bloomed in his knee, a small fire. The cab swung around, and the caterpillar tracks reversed direction, the excavator moving forward. Sutton didn’t have much time before he was dislodged for good.

  He brought his elbow up and with as much force as he could muster, busted through what remained of the Perspex. He reached in for the driver. The man shouted at him, but there was enough of a hole that Sutton was able to grab him by the lapel and bring him forward…and as soon as his head was far enough out of the cab, Sutton drew back and punched him. It was a hard face, and it hurt his hand, but the driver slumped suddenly over the jagged Perspex teeth of the window, and the motion of the digger died.

  *

  Sean surveyed the damage, and then turned to Sutton with a grim look in his eye. People were making statements to Sean’s colleagues, and the sound of a woman crying continued on and on.

  “You think Alden got to his family?” Sean asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  Sean nodded.

  “It’s personal,” Sean said.

  “Yeah.”

  “But how does he know you?”

  Sutton said, “Ellie.”

  “Of course.” Sean took a breath, looked around at the devastation again. “Jesus Christ, Sutton. You jumped on the fucking arm?”

  Sutton shrugged, a little awkward.

  Sean stared at him, and then shook his head.

  “Jesus,” he muttered again.

  “The guy, the one who was driving-“

  “Steve Ashbury,” Sean said.

  “He said he was watching.”

  Sean flapped a hand in the air.

  “I’ve got men searching the immediate area, but…he could be anywhere. He’s probably on the other side of the fucking river with a pair of binoculars. No way we’d get to him in time.”

  “Yeah. Fuck.” Sutton paused. “What about Ellie? Have you managed to find her?”

  Sean stepped away from the rubble at the base of Sutton’s building.

  “About as much luck finding her, as finding her son,” he said. “She’s gone to ground.” Or if the diary was to be believed, then she was dead. Sean looked up at the hole in the wall. A flashlight could be seen flickering inside; workmen were checking the stability of the structure. He turned to Sutton. “Is the building going to fall down?”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “No. Apparently he didn’t get any of the main supports.”

  “Maybe with a little more time…”

  “Yeah.”

  They both turned and began walking, in no particular direction, away from the destruction. For Sutton’s part, the sight of all that damage to his home made him angry, had made it personal. Fucking Alden King.

  There were raised voices, and both men looked to where two officers were interviewing Steve Ashbury. The man was distraught, almost unhinged, which was understandable. Neither of them said it, but they were both thinking the same thing: that the man’s wife and child were most probably dead already. Sutton felt ashamed of his own outrage – he had lost nothing as significant – but the outrage remained nonetheless. Alden King had attacked his home.

  “How are you doing with finding him?” Sutton asked, and prodded by the guilt of taking the diary said, “was there anything in the house?”

  “Besides bodies? No. At least, no indication of where he’s holding Andrea. Or where he held any of the others, for that matter.” Sean shook his head. “He’s a very sick man. Well. You saw the house.”

  “Yeah.”

  With his eye on him, Sean said, “it gets worse.”

  “How can it get worse?”

  “It does.”

  “Okay. Tell me.”

  Sean took a deep breath, as if about to lift a heavy weight…or carefully place one at another’s feet. “We’ve uncovered what we think is eight bodies in the back garden.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  “Well. We think it’s eight. But they’re not complete skeletons.” Sean sighed. “And we’ve found out some more about Alden King.”

  “What?”

  Sean shook his head and said, “when he was twelve, he killed his grandparents.”

  Sutton wiped at his face with a hand.

  Sean nodded, as if he had spoken aloud.

  “His grandfather was an eminent local historian,” Sean said. “Reginald King. He lectured at the University of Bristol. Even wrote a book. About Bristol. His son, David King, was Alden’s father. We got all of this from a neighbour of Alden’s, an old woman that looked like she’d lived through both world wars, and will probably live through the next one: a right old battleaxe. They were a wealthy family, the Kings, and apparently David couldn’t handle it as well as his father: was a drunk, a junkie, you name it, he did it. He died when Alden was about eight. Drugs overdose. It was something of a scandal at the time, and was kept very hush-hush. Reg never got on with Alden’s mother, Eleanor. Apparently, she was something of a wild one herself, back in the day. Old Reginald King took one look at her and saw her for the gold digger she was. David wasn’t so wise. He married her.”

  “Hm.”

  “Anyway, supposedly the grandparents doted on Alden. Maybe a little misplaced guilt for not being able to save the boy’s father? Who knows. Anyway, the boy’s twelve years old, is staying round his grandparents because his mother’s God knows where, when he takes this old Remington rifle, this second world war relic off the wall, and goes into the kitchen and shoots his grandmother in the face with it while she’s chopping up carrots. Next, he goes upstairs to his grandfather’s study and shoots him in the back of the head. And when the police arrive – called by the neighbours, they’d heard the shooting – do you know what Alden King told them? Do you know what he said? He didn’t fight, mind you, didn’t try to stop them arresting him. Do you know what he said to them, when they were taking him away?”

  “No.”

  “He said, “I never liked my grandmother, so I made sure she knew what was coming, but I loved my grandfather, so I shot him in the back of the head.””

  “Any reason why?”

  Sean shrugged.

  “Doctors at Clegghall spent the next eight years trying to find out, with very little success, I might add. And then they released him.”

  “Released him? Why?”

  Sean shrugged, as if the world was fucked up and he certainly wasn’t wise enough to understand why. His mouth turned up in a wry smile.

  “He was cured, supposedly. We spoke to one of the doctors that treated him at the
time. He was strongly against releasing a nineteen year old Alden King into society, but he was overruled by his colleagues. Do you know what he told me? How he thought Alden King managed to pass all his psychological testing and convince his doctors to release him? This’ll make you laugh.” But Sean’s voice held no humour.

  “I’m not sure that I want to hear it.”

  “This doctor said that there were books on psychological testing on the shelf in the library at Clegghall. He believes that Alden studied them, and then gave the answers he was expected to give if he were cured. Like he was studying for a fucking math’s test.”

  “This is a little hard to take in,” Sutton said.

  There was a small raised garden surrounded by a brick stone wall and Sutton sat on the edge of it, tiredly, and after a moment Sean sat down beside him.

  “Hey, think about me. I’ve been walking around for an hour thinking my head’s going to split open. I mean, it’s ridiculous. He slipped through every net that was supposed to catch him: parents, grandparents, authorities, doctors…” Sean shook his head. “This” – and here he indicated the smashed side of Sutton’s building – “this wasn’t just likely, it was inevitable.”

  Sutton shook his head.

  “It goes on,” Sean continued. “His records were sealed. He was a juvenile at the time, but his lawyer got the courts to agree to seal them. Said that now he was cured, he couldn’t be expected to build a normal life with that hanging over his head. And they bought it. It’s only through the evidence at the house – and a sympathetic judge – that we were finally able to unseal them. Otherwise we might have known sooner. Or had an idea where to look, anyway. Fuck.”

  “And you can’t find anything in the house that might give you a clue as to where he’s holed up?”

  Sean made a face, shrugged.

  “We found everything at the house but that. The plans to his little torture machines; you probably saw them on the walls of his work room. The bodies – or body parts – in the bedroom, none of which we are yet able to identify.” Sean had a sickly look on his face when he said, “the one in the bed…”

  Sutton looked at him.

  “What?”

  Sean stared at him, and there was something terrible in his eyes.

  “He was having sex with it.”

  Sutton nodded.

  “I assumed as much.”

  “Our forensic guys found this…this thing inside it, you know, inside the vagina. It was used to…to keep the shape of the vagina. The body was degrading, breaking down, but this little plastic thing, like a thimble, he used it to keep the shape of the vagina so he could keep on having sex with it. Good God. I’ve never…” Sean swallowed. “I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. Ever.”

  Sean was silent, staring off into the distance.

  “No tattoos on that body? I didn’t get close enough to check.”

  Sean shook his head.

  “No. This one was different.”

  “This one was for fun.”

  Sean looked at him with alarm, and then after a moment, nodded.

  “Yeah. I think you’re right. But…even that isn’t the worst of it.”

  “What do you mean? How can it get any worse?”

  Sean looked at him, as if he was being challenged, and then spread his hands, staring at them as if he was holding something inexplicable in his grasp that only he could see.

  “We found DNA in the skulls. Alden’s DNA. In the mouths of the skulls. Some of it old. Some of it…fresh. Semen.”

  Sutton leaned forward and put his head in his hands.

  “Jesus, Sean.”

  “I know,” Sean said. “I know. He’s like the worst. Like Bristol has its own Ted Bundy.”

  They were both silent a moment. People had started drifting indoors, not to the damaged building, as that was off limits until it was checked out, but in to the houses and flats of neighbours. Anything to get out of the chill wind. Sutton couldn’t feel the cold however. Maybe because the horror of Alden King’s life was making him numb.

  “How’s Robin holding up?” He asked Sean eventually.

  “She’s wound tighter than a banjo string,” he said. “If she didn’t have it all wrapped up so tightly, I’d get someone to sedate her.” Sean shook his head. “But she’s good at keeping all her shit stuffed way down. Way, way down. Right in the cellar, where no one can see it. You hide it away long enough, don’t take it out and look at it for long enough, you can almost convince yourself it’s not there.” Sean shook his head again, this time in gentle dismay. “You’d think, being a psychiatrist, that she’d know better.”

  “Psychotherapist,” Sutton corrected.

  “What?”

  “She’s not a Psychiatrist, she’s a Psychotherapist. There’s a difference.”

  “Yeah. Right. Well…”

  There was another moment of silence, and then suddenly Sean stood up.

  “I better get going, Sutton. It’s all hands on deck at the moment. We did get one break. But not from the house.”

  Sutton stood as well.

  “What was that?”

  Sean had a small smile on his lips.

  “You know the body he was dumping in the moat? The one you interrupted?”

  Sutton nodded.

  “His name was Marcus Firth. Worked in an office in Recliffe. Owned a house in Mangotsfield. Don’t ask me what Alden King did to him before he died. You don’t want to know.”

  “Just tell me what you found.”

  “In one of the folds of the plastic sheeting he used to transport the body in, we found traces of sandstone. With you interrupting him, we think he didn’t have time to clean the body like he usually does.”

  Sutton frowned.

  “But at how many places can you find sandstone? It’s used everywhere. In bricks, paving-“

  “On construction sites,” Sean said, nodding. He flicked a hand toward the tracked excavator. “And with him knowing Steve Ashbury, a construction worker-“

  “You think he’s on a building site somewhere.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Anyway, it’s something. We’re running down every construction site now, checking them out. Including that one.”

  He pointed to the wasteland beyond the broken wall that bracketed the Baltic Wharf Estate.

  Sean smiled, but it wavered uncertainly on his face.

  “Fuck, we need something. A bit of luck. Just the tiniest bit of luck, and we’ll have him. I mean, it’s only a matter of time, we’ll get him, but…”

  Sutton nodded.

  “I know. Andrea.”

  Sean swallowed thickly, nodded, looked worried.

  “Oh, by the way,” Sean said, and then dug in his back pocket. He produced a folded sheet of paper and passed it to Sutton.

  “What is it?” He asked, as he began unfolding it.

  “The tattoo from the last victim. Not that we’re going to need it now, but…”

  Sutton stared at it.

  After a moment, Sutton looked at Sean and said, “I hope this is the last of these I ever have to see.”

  “So do I,” Sean said, philosophically. “So do I.”

  *

  CHAPTER 18

  Two hours later, the building was deemed safe, and the residents were allowed back inside their homes.

  Inside his flat, Sutton was touched with a sense of unreality. Knocking around his Kitchen, he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to return to the banal pleasures of his mundane existence after all that had happened. This was his home, his sanctuary. He supposed that there was a lesson in that; Alden King had never been just a dry fact on a piece of paper. He had stepped out of the canvas into the world, into Sutton’s world…and now he could not be put back.

  Sutton made himself a tea, went out on the balcony to drink it, came back inside, washed up the cup and left it on the draining board, wandered into the second bedroom, intent on working out, but changed his mind – he was too sore and tired to be able to do a
nything anyway – wandered out of the second bedroom and into the Lounge, looked at his drawing board, thought he might like to do some sketching, but changed his mind again. It was useless, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to wring any pleasure from anything, none of it seemed quite real, and so in the end all he did was sit in an armchair in the Lounge and watch everything go around and around in his head.

  Maybe Alden King’s madness had been catching.

  In that moment, a thin electronic whistle punctuated the silence.

  The alarm on the landing.

  Then there was a knock at the door.

  Who…?

  His nerves on edge, he padded softly to the front door and looked through the peep hole.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was Robin.

  Quickly, he hid the diary, burying it in one of the drawers next to his drawing board.

  He went back and opened the door.

  If he felt exhausted, then she was almost done in; her features looked shrunken, her skin had an unhealthy sheen to it, her hair was lank and lackluster, and her eyes looked like fruit passed its sell by date, old and dry, as if they must hurt.

  He felt sorry for the girl whose only crime was to be the sister of one of Alden King’s abductees.

  At the sight of him, she seemed to find new energy, forcing herself upright from her slumped position, pushing her shoulders back, lifting her delicate head above herself, in so many different ways telling him that he must remain apart from her, that she would never deign to call on him if it wasn’t for this unfortunate situation…and even her expression, usually so controlled, could not help but convey the same thing: that she was a civilized woman, but modern medicine could not cure her malady, so she had sought the attentions of a witch doctor. Shaman Mills.