Huber's Tattoo

by Quentin Smith

  She sat up and raked the matted hair from her face as she looked around the small room, acclimatising to the bright slices of light breaking through the louvered shutters.

  “Henry?” she called out uncertainly, though she knew that he was not there.

  The bathroom was so small that the reflection in the mirror above the hand basin revealed the rest of the empty square-tiled room. Perhaps he was in the café having breakfast, she thought. Perhaps he needed time alone to come to terms with her disturbing discovery.

  In her own room she showered and changed, by which time it was past nine-thirty. There was, however, no sign of Henry down in the hotel foyer or the café. Natasha stepped out on to the pavement and looked around the small village, but all she saw was a handful of people leaving the boulangerie clutching bread in the hot and dry mid-morning air.

  She dialled Henry’s mobile, which just rang before diverting to voicemail. Natasha frowned, staring at her phone as though it had done something wrong. She glanced down at her wristwatch, conscious that they had a flight back to London at midday, and walked back into the hotel beneath the hanging tendrils of a gnarled but leafy wisteria draped around the stone entrance.

  “Bonjour Mademoiselle,” said a thin waiter in black trousers and short waistcoat as Natasha took a seat at a small round table. “Voudrez-vous un café?”

  “Er… coffee?” she replied hesitantly.

  She was not much good at French and was very dependent on Henry. Oh God, where was he? She needed him now.

  “Oui, café,” the waiter repeated with a pained smile, flexing at the waist with the pewter coffee urn poised in his grasp.

  “Yes, please… er… merci.”

  There was only one thing she could think of doing: calling Superintendent Bruce. Henry needed protecting. He was surely in danger until they knew otherwise. How would she explain how she had found the tattoo? How many people even knew about Henry’s headaches? She did not want him to become the talking point in the station: the officer with the tattoo; the officer who gets massages from his sergeant. Oh God, she would become the subject of station gossip, too.

  What the hell did that tattoo mean? Why did Henry have one and why, for that matter, did any of the victims have it? Did they all get the tattoo for the same reason? Did they all get tattooed in the same place?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the clink and the pleasing aroma of her coffee cup being placed on the table. The coffee was strong and bitter, but she needed the lift badly. She stared at the phone on the table. Should she call her superintendent? She glanced at her watch: ten o’clock. Would this situation fulfil the requirement of being ‘unusual’, she wondered. Which part, the tattoo, or the disappearance? Was this what Bruce had been alluding to?

  But a part of her, deep down, felt too close to Henry to betray him. She now knew that there was something troubling him, something that needed exploring, something that he was convinced would be solved in Steinhöring. He had implored her not to have him removed from this case. Was this just because of his dedication to duty, his desire to solve these curiously disparate murders? Or was there more to it, some personal motivation?

  Then in a moment of paranoia she wondered whether Henry knew something about Bruce’s suspicions and her agreement with him to supply ‘inside information’. She glanced at her watch, again, nervous agitation getting the better of her. She was really worried about Henry now.

  “Damn it,” she said with a deep sigh and searched for Bruce’s direct line. She pressed her shaking finger on to the screen of the phone. Bruce’s line began to ring.

  “What are you doing?” Henry asked sharply from behind her.

  Natasha spun around with the phone still clasped to her ear.

  “Oh, thank God, it’s you!” A wave of relief washed over her.

  Henry was wearing the same creased clothes from the day before and his eyes were bloodshot. He was holding a half-eaten croissant in his left hand and chewing.

  “Who are you calling?” he asked, drawing up a chair and sitting beside her.

  “I was worried sick about you, Henry! I’m calling Bruce.”

  “No!” he snapped, pulling the phone from her hand. “He cannot know about this, I told you. He’ll take me off the case.”

  Natasha stared at him wide-eyed, studying his face and his expression in silence. Henry took another bite of croissant.

  “Henry.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You never hold food in your fingers.”

  Henry stopped chewing and stared at the remains of the croissant in his left hand as though the limb did not belong to him.

  “I don’t.” He looked puzzled, almost slightly dazed.

  “Where have you been, Henry?”

  He put the croissant down hastily and began to wipe his hands feverishly on the serviette. Then, looking up into Natasha’s fearful eyes, he scratched at the skin on the nape of his neck where the cursed tattoo was.

  “I don’t know. I bought a croissant across the road… I was hungry.”

  Natasha’s eyes darted about his face, the finely freckled skin beneath them wrinkled with concern.

  “You’ve been gone for hours, Henry. Don’t you remember?”

  Henry’s face was deadpan; not a muscle moved. He glanced down at the tiny piece of croissant on the table as though it was a piece of mouldy cheese.

  “No.”

  Thirty

  “Dr Longstaff, please,” Henry said into his phone as he paced up and down outside New Scotland Yard, the iconic triangular grey and silver sign rotating tirelessly behind him.

  “It’s DCI Webber calling. Tell him it’s urgent.”

  Henry rubbed the skin on the back of his neck as he walked, his body restless, unsettled and in need of restitution. He glanced anxiously at his watch, aware that Bruce was waiting for him seven floors up in his corner office.

  “Dr Longstaff, DCI Webber here… fine thank you, yourself?”

  Henry turned on his heel again, watching distractedly as a group of latter-day punks clad in denim and adorned with steel spikes and studs entered The Old Star pub on the corner opposite.

  “Yes, indeed… I’m calling about the tattoos, Doctor. You were going to try and analyse them.”

  Henry listened as he walked.

  “Yes, chromatography, I think you suggested.”

  A pause.

  “Uh-huh. Well, have you had any success?”

  “Durham?” He knitted his brow.

  “Ah, University Science Department. Who is…?”

  He turned, walking back towards the entrance of The Old Star again.

  “Professor Guinney?”

  Henry glanced again at his watch.

  “I do not doubt that he’s a world authority.” Henry paused. “I have another tattoo for analysis, Doctor.”

  He turned and walked around the rotating sign yet again, his eyes following a fume-belching red Royal Mail van that rattled by.

  “No, there hasn’t been another victim,” he said, his free hand self consciously rubbing the back of his neck again. “I, er… will need your help in procuring this specimen, Dr Longstaff. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  Henry began to climb the steps up to the Met’s entrance two at a time.

  “Thank you, Dr Longstaff, I have to go. I’ll see you at four o’clock then.”

  He slipped the phone into his beige linen jacket pocket and raced inside. He very badly needed to speak to George as well, but it would have to wait until after he had seen Superintendent Bruce.

  *

  Bruce and Natasha were sitting impatiently in the Superintendent’s office when Henry burst in.

  “My apologies. Urgent phone call,” he apologised, his palms outstretched in supplication.

  Bruce grunted.

  “Yes, sit down, Henry.”

  Bruce held a freshly sharpened pencil in his right hand, twirling it between his fingers. The soft lead point left little tracks where it touched his skin
.

  “Anything conclusive to tie the French victim to ours?” he asked.

  Henry took a deep breath. His mind was still on his conversation with Dr Longstaff; still on the moment when Natasha had uncovered his own tattoo in that stale-smelling room at the hotel in Carsac, in the middle of a massage that was brought to a premature end; still on his plea to her not to reveal any of this to Bruce, and now also on his impending phone call to George. He crossed his legs at the knee.

  “Well, sir, Pequignot is quite a bit older than our victims, also successful in his field – a high court judge – and he had been married. No other family could be traced by the French police.”

  “He wasn’t shot?” Bruce queried.

  “No, probably a blade of sorts.”

  “Did you see the post mortem report?”

  “Oh yes, similar findings to our victims, larger skull and brain, though not to the same extent as Jeremy Haysbrook or David Barnabus.”

  Bruce sat quietly, twirling the pencil as his eyes flicked from Natasha to Henry.

  “That’s it?” Bruce said with an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders.

  Henry glanced at Natasha, who seemed to have a fine perspiration on her upper lip. She appeared tense.

  “I was saying to Natasha, sir, that I wondered if another link between these victims might be their weaknesses, their vices or… er, deviances, if you like.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Haysbrook was most likely homosexual, Vera Schmidt we think was bisexual…”

  “How on earth do you know that?” Bruce said, leaning back in his black leather swivel chair with a look of astonishment on his face.

  Henry, unable to think of an answer, stared at Bruce helplessly. How could he explain his knowledge of Vera’s sexual preferences to his boss?

  “Informants, sir, anecdotal but seemingly reliable,” Natasha said quickly, shooting a subtle glance towards Henry.

  “Ah. Go on, Henry.”

  “Right, sir, Barnabus was an alcoholic with a DUI conviction and Pequignot, the French victim, had a weakness for prostitutes.”

  Bruce tapped the unsharpened end of the pencil against his pursed lips.

  “Was the Frenchman also a member of Mensa? I presume it operates there as well?”

  “Yes, sir, he was.” Henry glanced at Natasha momentarily. “Another thing, sir…”

  Natasha paled. She was making Henry nervous as her guilty body language was not conducive to keeping secrets.

  “What is it?”

  Henry fidgeted in his chair. With every step forward in this investigation he felt ever increasing anxiety about his personal circumstances becoming public knowledge. The discovery of his tattoo had really thrown him.

  “Pequignot was born in Steinhöring as well.”

  “I see.” Bruce leaned back again, pulling away from the request that he knew was coming.

  “I want to go there, sir. I’m convinced Steinhöring holds the key to connecting our victims.”

  Bruce put the pencil down on the desk, re-aligned it, then began to tap his fingers rhythmically on the desk.

  “You didn’t bring back much new information from the trip to France.” Bruce folded his arms across his chest with a smug look on his face.

  “Other than another reason to investigate in Steinhöring,” Henry countered.

  Bruce studied both Henry and Natasha, before zooming in on Natasha.

  “You’re very quiet, Sergeant. Are you all right?”

  Natasha blushed, her face changing from pale to deep crimson in the blink of an eye. It made her hair seem more golden and her freckles stand out like evening stars in a dusky sky.

  “I’m very tired, sir.” She smiled thinly.

  “What would you look for in Steinhöring, Henry?” Bruce asked, his arms still tightly folded.

  Henry leaned forward and stabbed his index finger on the desk, once for each word.

  “I’d go straight to the registry office.”

  Bruce regarded him steadily.

  “Do you know anything about Steinhöring?” he asked.

  Henry shook his head.

  “No,” he lied, avoiding Natasha’s eyes.

  Bruce looked out of his window at a large grey pigeon settling on the sill outside.

  “Other than travelling around Europe, what is your next step?”

  Natasha was looking paler than ever, a sallow colour. She was perspiring excessively. Suddenly she stood up, covering her mouth.

  “Excuse me, I’m not feeling…”

  She rushed from the room. Henry stood up quickly and moved to follow her.

  “Leave her, Henry, I’ll get one of the WPCs to check on her. Sit down and tell me what is going on.”

  Henry felt his heart jump. Was that a loaded question from Bruce? What had he and Natasha discussed before he arrived in the office? Had Natasha, perhaps in an unguarded moment, revealed too much to Bruce?

  “I need to go to Durham, sir.”

  “Now it’s Durham as well?” Bruce sighed loudly.

  “Yes, sir. I have to go and see a Professor Haxton Guinney, one of the leading analytical scientists in the country. He has been analysing the skin tattoos from our victims, well from Haysbrook and Schmidt, anyway.”

  “Can’t you phone him?”

  “I want to see him.”

  Bruce picked the pencil up again, holding it horizontally in front of his face in both hands as he twirled it and studied each of its sides in turn.

  “The Met’s budget is not endless, Henry, and I’ve already had heat from above about the number of trips you and Sergeant Keeler have taken on this investigation.”

  Henry stood up, buttoning his jacket.

  “Then, sir, I’d like a day’s leave tomorrow, please.”

  He turned to leave and began to open the door.

  “Henry,” Bruce said softly, without looking up.

  “Sir?”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Thirty-One

  Henry sat in his car outside the blue door of the mortuary entrance. A shiny black Jaguar hearse was parked in reverse in front of a large roller door through which two undertakers were wheeling a coffin on a gurney. With the phone clasped to his ear, he studied the two undertakers in matching black suits: one bald and filled out, the other thinner with short jet black hair; both with the same hook nose. Perhaps father and son, he thought.

  “Hello, Henry,” George said indistinctly over a very bad connection with a noticeable delay.

  “George, how are you? It’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “Where are you?”

  “London.”

  “Ah.”

  “What’s Cairo like?”

  “Hot. It’s been a little quieter the last few days, but there are still huge crowds drawn to Tahir Square. With the army patrolling, the tension remains high.”

  “You okay, safe?”

  “Yeah. Mubarak has all but cut off the internet here which is frustrating us somewhat, but we’ve coped with worse.”

  Henry listened to the ghostly waxing and waning echo on the line. Outside he watched the undertakers slide the coffin into the hearse and shut the rear door.

  “When will you be back, George?”

  “What is this about, Henry? She sounded impatient.

  “I need to talk to you. Something has happened.”

  Silence.

  “I’ve got a tattoo on my neck… just like Vera’s.”

  “What?”

  “You know she had G3 tattooed on her neck?”

  “Yes, you told me.”

  “I have, too.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know, yet. Did you never see it, George?”

  “You have so much hair, Henry.”

  “Superintendent Bruce made me cut it short.”

  Silence again.

  “George, you there?”

  “Who found the tattoo, Henry?”

 
Oh shit, Henry thought. The black Jaguar pulled away slowly.

  “Was it the barber?”

  He didn’t reply, waiting for the inevitable.

  “Was it her?”

  Henry’s brain ached as he tried to create a tactful answer.

  “Don’t draw any conclusions from it, George…”

  The phone clicked – call disconnected.

  “Shit!” Henry cursed, shaking his head. He should have seen that coming. Perhaps phoning her had been naive, but then if he was not able to phone George to share with her this unthinkable development in his life, then… then what, he wondered.

  What had he and Natasha been on the verge of in that dingy hotel in Carsac? What if she had not found the tattoo which had interrupted the massage? Henry felt a sudden wave of nausea. No wonder Natasha had felt so ill during their meeting earlier.

  What was happening?

  Thirty-Two

  Henry was surprised by the memories that flooded back as the northbound train pulled into Durham. He had not returned to this little northern city since his childhood days at primary school. The familiarity of its striking skyline, visible above a crown of verdant green beech trees on the elliptical peninsula of land, reached into his subconscious memories and evoked smells and sensations long forgotten.

  Stepping on to the station platform, he looked across at the dominant landmarks that had always seemed so incredibly imposing to him as a boy: the Norman cathedral and the castle perched high on the fortress-like riverbanks. More than thirty years later, seeing them as an adult, they seemed even more impressive.

  He climbed into a waiting taxi.

  “University Science Department please,” he said, pulling out a square of paper from his jacket pocket and squinting at it. The taxi smelled of something sour that had been partially obscured by cloying air freshener. “It’s on Stockton Road.”

  “Aye, I know,” replied the swarthy, unshaven taxi driver in a strong accent as he chewed on the end of a lollipop stick.