Hendricks didn’t know if there was a name for the electronic equivalent of red tape. He did know it was a reality of British policing, and that it was easy to get caught up in. To get lost in. This had been at the back of his mind when he’d decided to do some detection on his own: to switch on a single, steam-powered PC and go looking for tattoos.
Much to his own amazement-less than twentyfour hours after his testy conversation with Tom Thorne, he got lucky. He’d accessed the site postings and e-mail from his office at Westminster Hospital. There were several dozen new responses. A couple looked like they might be worth following up, most were at least trying to be helpful, and a couple were downright weird.
And Graham Hipkiss, fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, had left a phone number.
Hendricks reached across his desk for the phone. “This is Phil Hendricks. I saw your note on the RCP message board…”
“Right. I think I’ve a tattoo that might interest you.”
Dr. Hipkiss was a consultant pathologist at a hospital in Nottingham. He described the tattoo, one of several he’d seen on a hit-and-run victim found on the outskirts of the city six months earlier. Though the man-who appeared to have been sleeping rough-had been found alive, he’d died from multiple injuries on the way to hospital. Neither the driver nor the car had been traced, and the police had fared little better in putting a name to the victim. Appeals had been made on Midlands Today and in the Nottingham Evening Post, but no one had come forward to claim the body. Six weeks after he’d been found in the road, the John Doe was given a simple, Social Services funeral.
Hendricks was certainly interested. He pushed aside a sheaf of student papers and began scribbling down the letters in his notebook, arranging them as Hipkiss read from his original postmortem notes. They chatted for a few minutes more before Hendricks requested a copy of the postmortem and thanked Hipkiss for his time.
Then he looked down at the tattoo:
B+ S.O.F.A.
The top row was different from that found on the body of the unknown man in the mortuary downstairs. Hendricks laid out the original tattoo underneath:
AB S.O.F.A.
Seeing them together, it became obvious. He flicked quickly through the Rolodex, furious with himself, until he found Russell Brigstocke’s direct line.
Thorne pressed his mouth close to the handset, spoke quietly. “Don’t let Hendricks get bigheaded about this,” he said. “It’s good news, but it only leaves us with another question. And we still don’t know what the rest of it means.”
“Maybe the bottom bit’s a club of some sort,” Holland said. “Maybe the A is for association. Something Something Football Association?”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“We need someone who does crosswords, like Inspector Morse.”
“Inspector Morse never slept in a doorway or got thrashed at table tennis by a heroin addict.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ve got to go,” Thorne said. “Listen, I wanted to wish Chloe a happy birthday. I couldn’t get her anything, obviously.”
“How the hell did you remember that?”
It was a very good question. Thorne pushed open the cubicle door and stepped out. “I’ve absolutely no idea…”
When Thorne returned from the toilet, Spike was sitting on the edge of the pool table, his legs dangling.
“I’ve not moved any of the balls, honest,” he said. Thorne didn’t think for a minute that he had. There was no more need for Spike to cheat at pool than there had been on the table-tennis table half an hour earlier: he’d already been four balls ahead when Thorne had felt the phone vibrate in his pocket and excused himself.
“My shot, right?” Thorne lined up a yellow ball. Missed it by six inches.
There were several people watching. Each duff shot was greeted with a certain amount of halfhearted jeering and a less-than-flattering commentary.
“No mercy,” Spike said. He put away the remaining red balls, then slammed in the black, acknowledging the apathy of the onlookers by raising the cue above his head and cheering himself.
“Jammy fucker,” Thorne said.
“You need to take me on later in the day, mate. When I’m a bit shakier…”
Two men who might have been anywhere between twenty and forty stepped forward to play. Spike asked if they fancied a game of doubles and was impolitely refused.
“The facilities are pretty good in here,” Thorne said.
They walked away up a short flight of whitewashed steps, heading back toward the cafeteria.
“Yeah, not bad.”
“Not bad?” They walked past the TV room, then another that had been converted into a chiropodist’s surgery. A woman stepped out, asked if either of them needed anything doing. They kept going up toward the ground floor, the walls of the winding staircase covered with AIDS-awareness and drug-counseling posters.
“Junkies don’t want a fucking chiropodist,” Spike said. “There’s nothing worth nicking in there, for a start. How much gear d’you think you can get for a box of corn plasters and some verruca ointment?”
“It doesn’t mean no one wants to use it, though, does it?”
Spike shrugged. “Nah, I suppose not. Maybe some of the old boys, like…”
The center would soon be closing for the afternoon and there were only a handful of people left in the cafeteria. Thorne and Spike stopped at a large notice board, stared at the jumble of printouts, leaflets, and handwritten messages.
“You ever hear of rough sleepers tattooing their blood groups on themselves?” Thorne asked.
“Eh?”
“Their blood groups. You know, AB negative, O positive, whatever. As a tattoo.”
Spike stuck out his bottom lip, thought for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I’ve seen most things, like, but…”
“It doesn’t matter…”
Spike pointed at the notice board. “You’re right about this place, though, about the facilities. Look at all this stuff.”
There were notices about computer-training sessions, film showings, and book groups. There were adverts for the latest performances by an opera company called Streetvoice, a homeless theater group, and a free course of DJ workshops.
“Pretty impressive,” Thorne said.
Spike pulled out a small bottle of water from his pocket, unscrewed it, and took a swig. “There’s a place in Marylebone that’s even better, but it’s a bit further out, isn’t it? They do some strange shit there, like. They were giving people free acupuncture last week, which is a bit over-the-top, if you ask me. I mean, I like needles, don’t get me wrong…” He cackled, offered Thorne the water.
Thorne took a drink then handed it back. “Don’t some people get a bit pissed off, though? Like it’s all too good.”
“Oh yeah.” Spike spread his arms. “They reckon laying all this on is encouraging the likes of me to stay on the street. Like there’s no incentive for us to get off our arses…”
These were the same people, Thorne guessed, who thought life was too cushy in prison. That it was a soft option for many of those inside. He knew that when it had come to certain prisoners, he’d been one of those people himself.
“Most places are fuck all like this, though,” Spike said. “You wait till you’ve been inside a few of the other centers. Some of them are well rough. You been in any of the wet places yet?”
“I don’t think so…”
“ Wet. Means you can take booze in with you. Good from that point of view, like, but they’re shitholes, most of them.”
Spike crushed the empty water bottle in his hand. They moved away from the notice board and walked
