Chapter 43
With Poe’s car still being in Carlisle, the three of them crammed into Bradshaw’s Honda Jazz. Poe sat in the passenger seat and pushed it back as far as it would go. Esmerée sat behind Bradshaw in the back. She had plenty of legroom; Bradshaw drove with her nose touching the windscreen.
‘You sure you have a DL, Till-meister?’ Esmerée said. ‘You don’t look as though you can see shit.’
‘Poe taught me to drive,’ Bradshaw replied. ‘And although I’m near-sighted, I play a lot of computer games. My reactions are faster than a Half-Life Headcrab.’
‘Best not to ask, Esmerée,’ Poe said. ‘She might tell you.’
‘How did you and Estelle hook up, Poe?’ Esmerée asked. ‘She’s way too cool for you. Was it drugs? I bet you drugged her bony ass and kept at it until she gave in.’
‘Estelle loves Poe because he has a stout heart,’ Bradshaw said, bristling.
‘I know what it was. She thought she owed you because you helped her beat that murder rap.’
Poe laughed. ‘Are you finished?’
‘Buddy, I’ve barely started.’ Esmerée slapped her thigh. ‘I know what happened – you dragged her back to your cave like those rapey douchebags in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. By the time the townsfolk could rescue her, she had that Stockholm syndrome thing.’
And she kept it up all the way to Carlisle …
When they’d been getting their office equipment, Bradshaw had insisted they purchase a modern interactive whiteboard.
The wall-mounted 4K screen was eighty-six inches wide.
It was a touchscreen, although Bradshaw said Poe was never to touch it.
‘Your fingers are always greasy,’ she’d said.
It had cost the company three grand, and this was the first time Poe had used it for anything other than watching the cricket.
Bradshaw displayed Toby Knight’s photographs on the screen, the ones that had caught Océane’s tattoo. There were four. She had arranged them side-by-side like a police line-up. Even blown up, the images were crystal clear. And the tattoo was just as impressive as it had been on Bradshaw’s laptop.
‘This is definitely Océane’s tattoo, Esmerée?’ Poe asked.
‘That’s her,’ she replied.
‘We can’t know for certain, though,’ he said. ‘I have a tattoo. The design is put on the skin using a stencil. It’s then traced over with the tattoo gun. The stencil acts like a roadmap. In other words, there might be more than one person with this tattoo.’
Esmerée shook her head. ‘Nuh-uh. That’s definitely her. And do you know how I know? Because that’s her goddamn face.’
‘It’s a self-portrait?’ Poe said, astonished.
Bradshaw tutted. ‘I hardly think she tattooed her own foot, Poe.’
‘You know what I mean. This is a portrait of your mother, Esmerée?’
She nodded. ‘She said she had it done just before her twenty-first birthday. And it wasn’t a stencil; the tattooist did it freehand.’
Once again Poe marvelled at the skill of the tattooist. The shades of blue that gave depth, beauty, intrigue.
He knew it was a one-dimensional drawing, but it seemed alive.
Chance Ryzcek had said she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever performed with.
If the tattoo was a true likeness, Poe could well believe it.
Someone knocked at the outer office door.
Poe tensed. The idiot who’d come back with his mates for a rematch had been sent packing, but some people couldn’t take a warning.
He’d had the shit beaten out of him by Towler, but he looked like a drinker.
And drinkers brooded. Made themselves believe they were the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice.
Poe wasn’t expecting round three, but he couldn’t rule it out.
‘Stay here,’ he told Bradshaw and Esmerée.
He left his office, crossed the small reception area and opened the outer door. It was William, the antiquarian book dealer. Indica was with him.
‘Hi, William,’ Poe said. ‘What’s up?’
Which made William go bright red, of course. He stuttered something Poe didn’t catch.
Indica rescued him. She stepped forward. Handed him a six-pack of beer. ‘I never got a chance to thank you for helping me out the other day, Poe,’ she said.
The six-pack looked like IPAs from one of the myriad microbreweries springing up in Cumbria. Poe approved of microbreweries. They were the only ones taking risks these days. Some of their beers tasted like you were drinking piss through someone else’s sock, but that was the price of progress.
‘It wasn’t a problem, Indica.’
‘My clients are usually sane and stable. It’s the scratchers at the other end of town who get the headcases.’
‘I don’t think he’ll be back. My colleague Mr Towler had a word with him.’
‘So I heard. Anyway, the offer still stands: if you ever want a tattoo, it’s on the house.’
‘Thank you. I’ll tell my wife. She’s been wanting us to get matching tattoos for a while now. Butterflies.’
‘I can do that. It’d be my pleasure.’
‘I’ll mention it when I get home tonight.’
‘And in the meantime, if there’s anything I can do to help you, please don’t hesitate to ask.’
Poe smiled. ‘It’s funny you should say that …’