“All this snow and I can’t build a snowman-what else is it good for, anyway?”
“I’m hungry,” said Ryan. “How much longer are we going to be here?”
“It won’t be long now.” The van and its engine were frozen into a single solid, but their combined body heat, together with the warmth from an extra blanket they had discovered under the rear passenger seat, had guaranteed their survival. There were patches of brilliant blue in the sky, and although the wind still seemed high it felt milder than the previous day. She could hear trees creaking and dripping. Perhaps Johann had decided to leave them alone, and had struck out in the direction of the nearest town. Perhaps the worst was over.
The envelope with the passport and the photographs lay on the floor of the van, behind her legs. This time, she knew, she would do the right thing, and have him stopped before he could hurt anyone else. She laid her head back against the seat rest and closed her eyes, just for a moment, not meaning to fall asleep.
Johann’s leg still hurt, and the icy wind bit deeply into his chest and thighs, numbing them further. He had slept the night in an abandoned carpenter’s van which had, at least, supplied him with some useful tools, but he needed to find weatherproof clothes. This, he felt, was to be his greatest test, a battle fought with the demons that had pursued him all his life, the same demons that pursue all lonely men.
He could see drivers hunched across their seats, vague organic shapes huddled down in positions of protection, barely recognisable as human beings. They had been reduced to rudimentary life-forms with the most basic requirements: shelter, food, warmth. The adverse conditions could work in his favour, he decided. He was free to rise above them, to prove his fitness and strength, against them all.
He knew that Madeline would never come back to him; that was no longer the issue. Part of her had retreated too far to be reached. He had behaved stupidly, impulsively, and saw nothing but uncomprehending hatred and the madness of maternal protection in her eyes. He would make her understand, then take back the packet and go on his way, lose himself in the empty coastal towns, never returning to the fierce light of Southern France, where he would be forced to exist as a failure beneath God’s ever-watchful gaze.
He seated the carpenter’s tools more firmly in his back pocket and trudged on, searching each of the vehicles in turn. He felt he was close; the corridor of snow had locked them in at either end of the stretch of road. He could escape across the moor, hoping that the break in the weather held. In the mountains of his childhood, storms could arrive within seconds, trapping unwary climbers. He had watched clouds roll over the cliffs like the fallout from some great explosion. Was it the same here, in these deceptive woodlands? And the people; he had always considered the residents of the Alpes-Maritimes to be a suspicious, private people, but they were nothing compared to these faceless shapes sealed in their cars. What would it take to prise Madeline from her hiding place?
31
The roads surrounding Camden Market had been severed by its network of sepia railway lines and canals, but also by the bombs that had removed so many Edwardian yellow brick houses, allowing them to be replaced by sixties buildings distinguished only by their paucity of imagination. In the high street, the area’s boom-and-bust arc was most pronounced. Ground floors had been converted into shops selling household items, then art deco antiques, then shoes and thrash metal T-shirts and finally magic mushrooms, drug paraphernalia and tattoos. It was into this last parlour that Banbury and Kershaw now stepped.
The store was called Tribe, and had proven popular with the gentle, literate Goth set. With a Chelsea haircut, cable-knit sweater and corduroy trousers marking him as a member of the upper middle classes, the medical examiner looked hopelessly out of place, but with their superiors still stranded in the West Country and all leave cancelled at the unit, he had little choice but to help out wherever he was needed.
“I can’t believe anyone in England would allow themselves to be tattooed with that,” he told Banbury, pointing to a design of a flaming skeleton riding a Harley. “Don’t they consider how bad it will look when they’re sixty?”
“No-one looks their best at sixty,” said Banbury absently. “Check these out.” He pointed to a series of photographs tacked on the wall. A fat bare back adorned with a gigantic red spider, wide chrome studs pinning a spine from neck to sternum, a horned devil with hands like crab legs spread across a woman’s back. A centipede wrapped around a man’s pale chest, its claw-feet ending in hooks that actually pierced the skin. Beyond the examples of the tattooist’s work were photographs of more extreme scarification, multiple bolts through cheeks, steel horns inserted into foreheads, rivets through scrotal sacs… Banbury looked like he’d accidentally stepped on a three-pin plug in his socks.
“Anyone home?”
A scrawny, sallow man who resembled an old-time carnival barker stepped out from behind curtains adorned with tarot symbols. Above his shaved eyebrows the word SATAN was spelled out in naked women. “Help you?”
“Police officers,” said Banbury. “Do you know this girl?” He showed the tattooist the image he had taken on his mobile. “She would have asked for a tattoo on her left arm about eight months ago.”
“I’m registered,” said the tattooist. “Everyone’s kept on file with proof of their age and details of what they want done. I don’t work on anyone underage. I can’t tell from this picture.” He handed back the phone.
“She would have come back to you more recently to try and get the thing removed, but she was refused.”
“That narrows it down. Give me a minute.” He checked the ancient Dell computer on his counter, refining his search. “I remember this one. She wanted it taken off, had a real go at me because I wouldn’t do it. I’m not licenced for laser removal.”
“Recall anything else about the day she came back?”
“Let me think. I’ve a pretty good memory for the difficult ones.” He scratched absently at a demon in a flaming hot rod. “We did the original tattoo in two sessions, and both times she was alone. When she returned for its removal she was with a little black dude, the new boyfriend I guess. They were holding hands. Don’t often see that these days.”
“After she left you, she went ahead and carved the tattoo from her arm with a penknife.”
“That’s not my responsibility. Be easier to find more details if you had an ID.”
“Lilith Starr, but that’s unlikely to be her real name. Try Bronwin.”
“No, she’s here under Starr, and it was a real traditional job, red-and-blue heart with an unfurled name panel.”
“Do you have a picture of the design?”
“Sure. I always take a picture once it’s complete. Sometimes they get the design altered somewhere else, then come back to me for a repair job, so I have to keep the original as reference.” He turned the screen around. Lilith had pulled up her slash-neck T-shirt sleeve to reveal the tattoo. Her round face and snub nose were instantly recognisable, but her beautiful red hair had been raggedly cropped. Her small, freckled breasts appeared barely more than pubescent. She appeared ill at ease before the camera, frowning into the flash with discomfort.
Beneath her photograph was a copy of the design: a plump red heart with a banner wrapped around it, upon which was written a single word. The tattoo was almost as wide as her arm.
“ ”Samuel,“ ‘ said Banbury. ”She must have been pretty serious about him to get that done, yet she wanted to erase his memory very soon after meeting Owen Mills.“
“Happens a lot,” said the tattooist. “They fall for someone else and try to get the name changed, but she just wanted it taken off.”
“Maybe Owen told her to get rid of it,” replied Kershaw, raising an eyebrow.
“You think that’s why he came with her to get the thing removed? To make sure she did it? He doesn’t look the dangerous type.”
“Difficult to know,” said Kershaw. “Women see something in men that we hardly see in ourselves. We don’t find
