The Guilty Party

by Mel McGrath

  He brings me a beer, twists off the top. For someone whose work requires delicate movements, he has huge hands. As we knock back the ice breaker he takes me on a guided tour of the skin art he’s most proud of. A wonderful full-back dragon, a wolf’s head with a bottomless maw, a gorgeous, multi-coloured ammonite.

  ‘That’s my favourite,’ he says. ‘The Golden Spiral.’

  ‘Which is . . .?’

  ‘Phi, a perfect mathematical ratio.’ He smiles. ‘Except, it’s not.’

  ‘I’m confused.’

  ‘It’s why people want those tattoos. Because they think ammonites describe the Golden Spiral. You know, something mysterious and eternal.’ He runs a finger along the image, leaving a smear of grease from his finger. ‘In fact they’re not Golden Spirals but I don’t tell customers that. If they want to think they’re getting the Golden Spiral that’s fine by me.’ He smiles. ‘I can ink you one if you like.’

  The conversation moves on inconsequentially. We finish our beers. Ink Man fetches two more. But something in the atmosphere has changed between us now and instead of chit-chat, or an opener to sex, an awkward silence falls. Until Ink Man gives a little cough.

  ‘I may have brought you here under false pretences, but I thought you were cool enough not to mind too much,’ Ink Man says, giving me the eye. ‘What I really like, I mean what gets me off, is inking women.’

  What Ink Man wants is for us to go upstairs to his flat, where it’s warm, and there, instead of sex, for Ink Man to leave his mark on me in a more permanent fashion. Ink Man wants to ink me.

  ‘Just a tiny, tiny one,’ he says, pinching tininess with his fingers. ‘Maybe on your wrist?’ There will be no funny stuff. He won’t be asking to film me. He can only promise me that the ink will be small and inoffensive and, above all, artistic.

  ‘Will it hurt?’

  ‘I’m not going to lie. I can give you a joint to smoke if you like, though. I won’t join you but only because I need to keep a clear head when I’m inking.’

  ‘I get to choose the tat?’

  By way of an answer, he passes me a folder full of images of sea creatures. Dolphins. Mermaids.

  Ammonites.

  ‘Also,’ he says, ‘I’d like both of us to be naked.’

  It would be so much easier to say no, to thank him for his time, to wish him well and to leave. To tell the others when they ask for today’s entry into the Big Black Book that my date was a no-show.

  Maybe that’s why I say I’ll do it.

  And so we go upstairs to the studio, which Ink Man called Bree-land, after the territory in Middle Earth. From the small fridge in the tiny flat he fetches a couple more beers, cracks off the tops and chinks bottlenecks with me. His kisses when they come are warm and full of connectivity. From time to time Miog slides by and goes unacknowledged. Ink Man’s mind hasn’t wandered. He is absolutely in the zone. How rare that is! Ink Man is going to take his time and be in the moment. This is turning out to be everything a casual birthday hook-up should be. I’m having a lovely time.

  That’s the thing about online dating. The haters say it’s superficial, you don’t get to know someone, everyone is just pretending. But if I’d met Ink Man at a party, I’d have run a mile. He has a Middle Earth tattoo. As it turns out, that would have been my loss.

  By the time Ink Man is ready to ink me, I’m ready for just about anything.

  ‘What position do you sleep in?’ he asks.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘I sleep with my right arm under my pillow, mostly. That’s how I wake up.’

  The hand that is stroking my right leg moves to my right arm. He takes the forearm gently in his fingers and turns it over to expose the veins on the wrist. With his index finger he makes a tiny circle on the thin skin just above the wrist.

  ‘I’m ready. Are you?’ A verbal response is unnecessary. He picks me up and carries me to a chair.

  ‘I prefer the Spektra Edge,’ he says, taking a tattoo gun from a box beside the chair. ‘I only use this one for special occasions. Trust me,’ he says, and laying my right arm along the broad arm of the chair, the thin blue skin of the underside facing upwards, tells me to hold still. And I do, because part of the peculiar thrill of all this is its potential danger.

  Time passes. Every so often Ink Man looks up and cranes his neck to rid it of crooks and aches and I take the opportunity to check out a few new lines, some new colour on the flesh of my arm. Then he bends his head and returns to his work and whatever he is working on is obscured once more. When it’s done, he gently pins my arm and inspects his work under a magnifying glass. He wipes over the surface with some kind of fluid and he’s done.

  On my skin, now, only three or four centimetres across, in burnished hues of terracotta and blue, sits an exquisite ammonite. Ink Man inspects my face, keeping close watch on my reaction. I inspect the spot, still raw and a little bloody, where now an ammonite sits. It’s a beautiful thing, a protective shell to keep secrets in.

  ‘Why did you ask me how I slept?’

  ‘If you put an ammonite under your pillow, you’ll dream about your future. That’s what they say.’ He motions for me to wait, then returns in his boxers and a couple of beers and a blanket to keep me warm. ‘If you’re not going home straight away, sit for a while and have another beer, let the ink settle.’

  He takes a seat beside me on the sofa and pulls on a few clothes. His arms are across his chest, the hands wedged firmly in his armpits, Middle Earth reaching beyond his boxers.

  ‘So how is it a good thing to dream about your future if your future is about to take some terrible turn?’

  ‘Forewarned is forearmed. In your case, literally.’

  I stretch out my arm, ink up, and admire it for a moment. When I next turn to him, his head is leaning up against the back of the sofa, eyes closed, mouth a little open, fast asleep, so I creep over to my jacket, take out my phone and thumb up the camera. Behold Ink Man, Big Black Book entry 342.

  33

  Cassie

  Morning, Sunday 2 October, Isle of Portland

  The early birds are arriving for their Sunday roasts and Will is back behind the bar in The Mermaid. Rachel and her friend are gone and soon I will be too.

  Bo saw Rachel on Friday night. They drank too much. He stank of booze. But I saw a foil of pills in Bo’s daypack. Rachel sensed the wrongness of what happened between them. One of these days she might realise why.

  Have I stopped being a bystander and become a witness?

  Nobody likes a tattle-tale. No one likes a snitch.

  At this table is all the love I have.

  Sometimes I get the feeling I’m standing alone in the dark behind a thick wall. There is a crack in the wall and it would be possible to put my mouth to the crack and shout, ‘Is anybody there?’ But what stops me is the fear that nobody on the other side will listen.

  Marika Lapska knew this too. She found out the hard way.

  Will comes over and slides onto the bench behind the table. ‘Sorry about that. Stacey’s taken over for a bit, but I’ll have to go back in a few minutes.’ He takes my right hand, turns over my arm and taps the tattoo. He’s got a similar ink on his bicep, only Will’s is larger. I like Will. I liked Ink Man. In another time and another place. But the moment for personal intimacies has been overtaken by more practical, more pressing concerns.

  I have come here to hunt for information.

  I have not come here to tell.

  ‘Did you see Julie this morning?’

  ‘Yup.’ Will is making some invisible drawing with his finger on the table.

  ‘Did she mention that she came to the cottage?’

  ‘I knew that, yes.’ An indirect answer. Duly noted.

  ‘She wanted to know if we’d seen that kid who escaped from the youth offender place. The dogs tracked him up close the cottage. But then she said they’d picked him up so we weren’t sure why she really came.’
r />   Silence. No eye contact. Does Will not know anything or does he just not want to get drawn in?

  Regardless, I press on, ‘I just thought you might know what’s going on.’

  He’s nervy and uncomfortable now, eyes keep blading to the bar. His knee is jigging. He won’t meet my gaze. Eventually, he says, ‘Is this why you came down here? To pump me for info?’

  ‘No.’ Yes.

  He takes a deep breath. His eyes are stormy now and his jaw is set tight. Then, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the storm passes. He says, ‘There was an attack on a woman last night. It’s not officially out there yet and I’m really not supposed to talk about it. Honestly, it’s fine, by this afternoon everyone will be talking about it anyway. Nothing stays secret here for long. Just don’t say I told you, OK? I only know because, well, you know, Julie.’

  ‘Was your friend able to ID him?’

  ‘No. They think it was probably the kid from the YOI but he’s a house burglar apparently, no record of violent crime. Plus, why would he take the risk of drawing attention to himself? So they’re still pursuing other lines of enquiry. Anyway, that’s all I’ve been told.’ His eyes are filmy. Biting his lip, he says, ‘Sorry. I know the victim, so, obviously . . .’

  Here are the questions I want answered but dare not ask. Who attacked Marika Lapska? Did she jump or was she pushed? Why did she have three grand in her purse? And what was she really doing with Dex the night she died? Why did the police want to speak with Dex?

  And now there are a few more questions to add to the list. Do police forces talk to one another? And when Rachel realises what happened to her on Friday night will she walk up to the crack in the wall and shout ‘Is anybody there?’

  ‘Was the woman seriously hurt?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Her friend said they’d been drinking in The Quarryman and left together some time after one thirty to walk home. The friend lives in that terrace by the allotments, so my friend left her at the gate and walked on to the quarrymen’s cottages up on the plateau overlooking the sea. The attacker either followed her home or he was waiting for her. She can’t remember much about the actual attack, apparently.’

  ‘So if she can’t remember . . .?’

  ‘She says all she remembers is he ran off.’

  My hands come up automatically and clamp to my mouth. There’s a little rush of breath.

  All three of us walked back together, Anna said.

  But as we all know by now, Anna is protective to a fault.

  As we all know by now: Anna lies.

  I return to Fossil Cottage to find a message in Dex’s handwriting sitting on the kitchen table.

  Back later.

  I am alone. The sun is out and ticking through the windowpanes. Somewhere a pipe is gurgling, otherwise the silence is both eloquent and a little eerie. Fossil Cottage wants us to know it is watching.

  I could go now. I could. I could wave goodbye to the Group and to the last fifteen years. I could disappear without ever getting to the bottom of anything. But then how would I forgive myself?

  The front door swings open and Bo bursts in looking sweaty and hung-over but also flustered.

  ‘Oh, Cassie, hi. Can’t stop.’ In a flash he’s bounding up the stairs. I can hear him rooting around in his bedroom, turning over clothes. I leave it for a few moments, then go on up.

  ‘Looking for something?’

  He wheels about. He wants me to go away and begins searching again then, realising I’m not going anywhere, stops what he’s doing and with one hand on his hip, says, irritably, ‘What?’

  ‘Did you and Rachel do drugs together?’

  Rubbing his hand over his hair, trying his best to excavate some memory from his addled brain. ‘Probably. Who’s Rachel?’ Screws up his eyes, casually scratches his balls.

  ‘Your date. Friday night?’

  ‘Oh yeah, her. She had some home-grown, so we smoked a bit. Why?’ He backs me out of his bedroom and very deliberately closes the door behind him. ‘Listen, Casspot, I’m in a hurry, OK? They’re showing the game down the pub.’ I wait for him to go ahead then follow him back down the stairs and into the living room. He lifts the rug, moves a few cushions, swears under his breath.

  ‘That bloke, when he emptied out my rucksack, did he take anything?’

  ‘Not that I saw. What’s missing?’

  ‘Battery pack for my phone. Can’t find the fucker.’ He quits searching and from his position by the sofa, twists round to look at me.

  ‘Why the sudden interest in Rachel?’ He’s on his phone now, frowning. ‘I overheard her talking to a friend in the Mermaid.’ His shoulders fall. ‘How would you even know what she looks like?’

  ‘The Big Black Book?’

  He slides his phone into his pocket. He’s suddenly a great deal more focused. Intrigued or maybe wary.

  ‘A woman was attacked last night.’ For a second or two he’s completely still, without breath, his Adam’s apple suspended halfway through a swallow. It’s like watching a TV screen on pause. Then he blinks and, going over to the sink, picks up a glass from the drainer and fills it with tap water.

  ‘I think we should stop.’

  Bo freezes. With his back to me he says, ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘I mean, we should stop all of this.’

  I can see him gripping the glass in one hand. For a moment I think he might break it. Then the moment passes. He makes his way back into the living room, bounces over and lands a kiss on my cheek.

  ‘Come here and hold out your hand and close your eyes.’

  He takes me by the wrist and opening my fingers as if they were petals drops something cold and hard into my hand. ‘I’m off to the pub. See you later.’

  The front door slams. I can hear his footsteps across the gravel. When I open my eyes there’s an ammonite sitting in my palm between the heart and the fate lines. I watch Bo strolling down the driveway between the trees, his hands jammed in his pockets, so sure of himself, so certain in the lie. We are coming undone.

  You’ve been rumbled, Bo.

  If Bo and Rachel had smoked weed, he would have brought the smell back with him, and I remember exactly how he smelled that night: like booze, and fresh air.

  34

  Cassie

  Afternoon, Sunday 2 October, Isle of Portland

  A human bark sends me to the window. The raggedy autumn trees give way to a partial view of Anna, standing on the path leading from the cottage to the village, flapping her right hand as if to relieve it of some itch or pain. Standing a couple of feet from her, with his body angled away, clutching his cheek, his head bowed, is Bo.

  In all the years we’ve known each other I’ve never witnessed anything like this. Since we stopped being two couples and became the Group, our collective disagreements have always been over small matters of style or effort. Why will Bo never wear his seatbelt when he’s driving but always whenever one of us is at the wheel? Should the washing up be done after the meal or left till the morning? Do we go camping in France or get tickets to Glastonbury? These questions were resolved without bitterness by allowing the person who cared the most (usually Anna) to have their way. I see now that this was a kind of moral cowardice, an unwillingness or inability perhaps to confront deeper discontents. We gave way to each other because the Group had become more important to us than the individual members in it. Maybe that’s how all groups of people operate. Maybe that’s OK. Evidently, it’s not OK now. So what’s happening now, Anna hitting Bo and Bo taking it, is fascinating and a little scary, a sign that we are at our end or the path to some new beginning?

  Anna storms up the path into the driveway and heads for the front door. In the time it takes for her to reach it, I have already scurried upstairs to my room. The front door opens and slams shut. There are footsteps on the staircase. Not long after that, the front door opens again and Dex comes tumbling in, half-singing, half-rapping a tune whose provenance I’m in no state to remember. There are f
ootsteps, heavier this time, and continuing up to the second floor. A quick knock, the bedroom door opening and Dex peering round the door.

  ‘Oh, you’re here. Are you feeling OK? Where is everyone?’ He comes over to where I’m sitting on the bed and plonks himself beside me.

  ‘Bo came back briefly then left again to watch the game at the pub. I thought you’d all gone somewhere together.’

  ‘We did. We went for a walk but Anna stomped off on her own. Look . . .’ He comes over to the bed carrying a small brown object on his palm, waving it under my nose and inviting me to take it from him, then takes a seat on the bed beside me.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Ichthyosaurus vertebra, apparently. Dino bone.’

  Holding Dex’s eye I turn the thing over in my hand. ‘What was Anna so upset with Bo about? I saw them having a row outside.’

  ‘You know what those two are like. So bloody touchy.’

  Dex removes the fossil from my hand.

  ‘Heavy, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s because it’s not a bone any more. It looks like a bone, it started life as a bone, but it’s now become something else.’ I hand it back to Dex, who checks it out, bewildered.

  ‘A fossil, you mean?’

  I’ve flustered him. He rises to his feet and the fossil, which only a minute ago seemed so precious, drops to the floor. ‘Is this about that woman who got attacked last night?’ He’d heard then. Or perhaps he already knew.

  ‘I don’t know, is it?’ He takes a step back and twists his neck round to check the door, then goes over and gently closes it.

  ‘Gav shouldn’t have said anything, Cass. That was our thing. But it doesn’t make any difference that you know, really. So the cops came round, so what? It was nothing. I got talking to her and some have-a-go hero decided to play the big man and it got caught on CCTV. I didn’t even know her name.’

  ‘Why are you lying to me, Dex?’

  His palm goes to his chest in a gesture of surprise. ‘What?’

  ‘You knew Marika Lapska, didn’t you? She stole your money so she must have been at your house. Did you tell that to Gav? Did you tell it to the police?’