Huber's Tattoo Page 3

  “We’re just discussing the unfortunate Professor Haysbrook,” Longstaff said, gesticulating at the body.

  Haysbrook was split open from chin to pubis, his skull wide open, with scalp peeled down over his face.

  “Interesting autopsy for a straightforward murder, I must say,” Longstaff said, surveying the body.

  “How so?” Henry said.

  “Well, cause of death is not contentious: single, close range, low velocity gunshot wound, entrance through the forehead and exit through the occiput.” Longstaff poked a gloved finger through the relevant holes in Haysbrook’s skull as he spoke. “Time of death I estimate around midnight.”

  Henry nodded; nothing new or controversial so far.

  “Anything else on the body: defensive injuries, bruises, signs of a struggle, traces under the fingernails?”

  Longstaff shook his head slowly. Then he raised his index finger.

  “No, Inspector. But that’s not to say there weren’t any unusual and even, shall we say, inexplicable findings.”

  Henry raised an eyebrow.

  “Firstly, for a man of forty-eight, his genitals are completely shaved.” Longstaff paused. “What do we make of that, Alistair?”

  Longstaff directed his question to the taller of the young men beside him. Alistair, of stocky build and imbued with a ruddy complexion, cleared his throat.

  “Well, it could simply be personal, er, taste, but it might also suggest homosexuality. In a man of his age, well, I don’t know his personal circumstances.” He coughed nervously.

  Longstaff leaned back and looked at Henry.

  “Well, Inspector?”

  “Very interesting. I don’t know his personal circumstances either, but I soon shall.” Henry smiled grimly.

  “Ah.” Longstaff returned his attention to the body.

  “Next thing, his head was most certainly, as you observed at the scene, Inspector, well above average in size.”

  Henry looked at a pallid Natasha and smiled reassuringly. “Much of the brain was destroyed by the track of the bullet, but even allowing for this, brain size was substantial and I estimate it to be around fifty per cent greater than normal.”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed.

  “What is normal brain size, or cranial capacity, Gregory?” Longstaff asked the other student.

  “Ummm, cranial capacity is usually larger than brain size and a normal human brain is about, er, 1200 grams, or so…” he said.

  “Depends on height, weight, and gender, but 1400 grams is average,” Henry said matter-of-factly, studying his feet.

  Longstaff and his two protégés turned simultaneously and stared at Henry.

  “Very impressive, Inspector.” Longstaff smiled.

  “You’re suggesting Haysbrook’s brain was in excess of two thousand grams?” Henry said.

  “Indeed. I estimate his brain weight to have been about 2250 grams. Could this be a variation of normal, gentlemen?” Longstaff asked his trainees.

  “Ninety per cent of humans,” he went on without giving them time to reply, “will have brain sizes between 1000 and 1500 grams, and even extremes of normality will still be contained within the range of 900 to 2000 grams.”

  “So, 2250 grams is… definitely abnormal?” Natasha said.

  Longstaff nodded.

  “Highly, it could even be more than I have suggested. Haybrook’s cranial capacity could accommodate a brain up to 2500 grams… I estimate.”

  “Was the brain composition normal?” Henry asked.

  “Yes, entirely.”

  “What does this mean?” Natasha asked.

  Henry shrugged. “Perhaps nothing. He was an intelligent man, a leader in his field. Could it just be an extreme, supra-normal variation?”

  “I have never seen anything like it in all my years, Inspector,” Longstaff said, clearly puzzled. “I suppose extremes of normality must be a possibility, of course, but there is one more thing, found quite by accident actually. At the back of the head, beneath the hairline and, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the world, we found a tattoo.”

  “How so?” Henry said, his curiosity piqued.

  “I have a new technician who began the scalp incision for craniectomy way too low, perhaps fortuitously, as it turns out. Have a look.”

  He invited Henry and Natasha closer as he stooped over the body and inverted the large skin flap that was folded down off the dome of the skull to cover the face.

  “I’ve shaved the hair off it now so you can see the tattoo clearly.”

  Henry leaned over the table and stared at the faded, turquoise tattoo, visible in the centre of an area of shaved scalp the size of a postage stamp.

  “G3? What does that mean?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Longstaff said.

  “Can we have a photograph of that?” Henry said, still staring at the tattoo.

  “Of course. What is also of significance is that I believe this tattoo to be very old, Inspector,” Longstaff said.

  “How old?” Natasha said, leaning forward but recoiling at the distinctive smell of dissected human remains.

  “You can see that the colour is faded, really faded. This happens as tattoo ink ages. But notice also how the lines have widened and become distorted, fuzzy almost.” Longstaff gestured with his gloved finger just above the tattoo.

  Henry peered again at the tattoo.

  “We call that feathering, or bleeding of the tattoo. This takes many years to develop, even with poor quality inks or needle techniques.”

  “So you think Haysbrook had this done as a young man, perhaps?” Natasha asked.

  Longstaff squinted his eyes as he drew breath.

  “This is not exact science, you understand, but the placement of this tattoo right up in the nuchal fold of the neck, this is a very unusual and awkward place for an adult to be tattooed.”

  There was something singularly bizarre about this skin marking, something that would prove extremely unsettling when fully understood, Henry thought.

  “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “The irregular way in which the tattoo has stretched as the skin has grown is the final factor that makes me wonder if this tattoo might date right back… to infancy.”

  Henry felt a chill crawl over his skin.

  “Infancy?” he said incredulously.

  Longstaff nodded.

  “I cannot be sure, obviously, but I believe my reasoning is sound. Perhaps your enquiries can shed more light on this.”

  Henry stepped away, feeling a rush of adrenaline-fuelled energy surging through him. Natasha quickly followed him away from the dissecting table.

  “Thank you, Doctor, that is all most interesting. I think we have plenty of work to do. Would you please send the report and photographs of the tattoo to me as soon as you can?”

  Once outside the mortuary, Natasha leaned against their car and breathed heavily, her face turned to the sky. Henry extracted a blister pack of tablets from his jacket and popped two out before swallowing them.

  “Another headache?” Natasha said.

  Henry nodded, wincing.

  “Get in the car and I’ll give you a scalp massage,” she said. “You really ought to see a doctor about these headaches.”

  “I have,” Henry said, slumping into the passenger seat.

  “And…?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had them for years. Histamine cephalalgia, they tell me.”

  Natasha sat behind him in the car.

  “What?”

  “It’s a form of cluster headache.”

  “Is there no cure?”

  “You think I haven’t tried everything?”

  They sat in silence for a while. Henry closed his eyes as he felt the welcome, soothing pressure from Natasha’s fingers.

  “What did you make of the post mortem findings?” she said.

  “I told you there was something different about Haysbrook,” Henry replied.

  Five

  “I thought w
e were going to eat somewhere posh today,” George said. She flicked the bold red tartan picnic blanket in the air, allowing it to float down and settle on the grass.

  Henry stood by, holding a wicker basket in one hand.

  “I’m only a policeman, you know. There is a limit to the number of times I can eat posh in a month.”

  George laughed.

  “You’re not just a policeman! You are the Met’s number one detective – the most decorated and successful CID officer ever. Don’t they pay you more for that?”

  Henry blew through pursed lips and settled down on the rug beside the basket, kicking off his Docksiders as George surveyed the green swathes of Hyde Park bathed in sunshine. Cyclists pedalled by, families chased frisbees or kicked footballs, and lovers lay entwined like serpents whispering sweet nothings to each other.

  “Cava, dear?” Henry said, peeling the foil off a dewy bottle.

  George sat down on the rug facing Henry and crossed her legs. She watched him pour the fizz into two plastic tumblers.

  “How long have we been together?” she said, lifting the pink tumbler to her lips.

  Henry swallowed a gulp of Cava and felt the bubbles rise and caress his palate.

  “Together is a nonsense concept, George. We are, as you well know, never together. You are always risking your life in some or other distant war zone, leaving me to fret about hot copper bullets whizzing over your beautiful little head.”

  He ruffled her short-cropped hair. George made a face and looked away, focusing on a group of youngsters who were unsuccessfully trying to ride a monocycle.

  “But we have known each other for at least six years.” Henry paused. “Long enough to know that I would like you to be here with me more, much more than you are now.”

  George turned her head back towards Henry and gazed at him with an expressionless face.

  “Do you love me?” she said.

  “You know I do!” Henry said, exasperated.

  George bowed her head and studied the criss-crossed white, black and red fibres of the picnic rug, the pattern of Clan MacGregor tartan.

  “What I don’t understand is why I know so little about you, Henry Webber.” George spoke dolefully, as though a weight had been pressing on her for some time and was demanding to be lifted.

  She raised her eyes and scoured his face closely. She knew the physical contours and imperfections of his body well: the chicken pox scars on his nose; the knobbly rib from skiing into a pole; the stretched scar below his knee from falling out of a tree as a boy. It was what was in his head that she did not know much about.

  “What is there to know?”

  “I don’t really know who you are. You’ve never let me in, not even after all these years.”

  Henry shook his head and the great curls of hair that fell on his shoulders shook like a field of wheat wafting in the wind.

  “You’re never here long enough.”

  “It’s not my fault, Henry.”

  “So it’s mine?” Henry pointed an index finger at his chest with a look of exaggerated hurt on his face.

  George adjusted her position to bring her closer to Henry, her knees almost touching his outstretched legs, but not quite.

  “I don’t know where you come from, where you were born, who your parents are. Do you have brothers, or sisters, cousins?”

  “Stop!” Henry held up his hand like a policeman directing traffic. The sharpness of his tone startled her.

  “You know who I am, what I am, what I believe in, how I treat you, all that stuff. Does it matter what happened in my life thirty, forty, or fifty years ago? You didn’t know me then.”

  “The past defines who you are. Understanding it will help me know you better, be closer to you,” George said.

  “Will it?” Henry said. “All the way from the dunes of Khartoum?”

  George let out an exasperated sigh.

  “You always blame my work. Don’t you understand, Henry, I never hear you speak about a brother, a sister, or even the lack of one. I never hear you discuss your parents, lament their absence, or even recall a childhood memory. I can’t just know the last six years of you, I need to know… the whole of you.”

  Henry lifted his tumbler only to realize it was empty. He began to refill it and George held out her cup as well.

  “You know that I was born and raised in London; that I have a sister whom I do not understand; that I have never got over the death of my dear father; that I loathe my given name of Georgina; that my mother still thinks I’m too much of a tomboy and disapproves of me co-habiting with a policeman. All these things define me as a person,” George said, tilting her head.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Henry began. “I have never wilfully withheld anything from you. I am what you see. Perhaps I don’t have a memorable and warm cuddly past. Perhaps I don’t even know who my parents were, or where I was born. Would you love me less for it, or perhaps not at all?”

  George placed a delicate hand on his knee, just beyond his khaki Bermuda shorts.

  “I would love you more, but I need to know what’s in here,” she said, pressing an outstretched palm against his chest.

  Henry shifted uncomfortably. In the distance a cheer erupted as someone managed to stay upright on the unicycle.

  “What was that letter from the genealogy service all about?” George asked, swirling her drink in the cup.

  Henry shook his head. He wished he had an answer that would satisfy not just George, but his own yearning as well.

  “Nothing important.”

  George raised her arms animatedly, spilling a little Cava on to the picnic blanket.

  “See what I mean? You never even talk about anything personal, as though you landed here on earth as a… as a… Martian… without any past.”

  A smile crept across his face and he began to laugh.

  “So that’s why you run away from me to these godforsaken desert wars, because you’re afraid I’m an alien!” He made scary noises and waved his hands about wildly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “If you spent more time with me I could love you more.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking, and what you’re feeling? I don’t just want to hear about Pythagoras, and Einstein and the bloody Mensa Club.”

  Henry laughed but said nothing. It was not just an emptiness that George perceived, it was an emptiness that he himself felt and was struggling to live with.

  “Are you an orphan?” George plucked up the courage to ask.

  He could not hide a flicker of reaction: a crease of the skin beneath his eyes, a slight shrug of the shoulder. His reaction was always the same, the only way he could avoid confronting the haunting questions.

  “I tell you what, Georgie darling, come back to my apartment and I’ll show you what I’m thinking…”

  George threw the rest of her Cava in his face.

  “Who the hell have I fallen in love with? Who are you, Henry Webber?”

  Six

  Witness Statement 1

  Toby Jones (neighbour of Jeremy Haysbrook)

  31 Crescent Drive

  I only moved here three years ago so I didn’t know Professor Haysbrook very well. He was a quiet man, kept to himself, lived alone and I do not recall any family ever coming to visit at Christmas, or any other time.

  I think he was quite eccentric, always wearing strange clothes like velvet and old Harris Tweed jackets. He loved bow ties, wild colours, always wore them, even when he mowed the lawn.

  Rumour here is that he was an adviser to the government on economic policy, so he must have been quite an important guy.

  I always wondered if he was gay and I have to admit that when I think about that, the only visitors who came and went, very rarely, were men.

  Once my computer crashed and I asked him for help. He came around, very friendly and helpful and, well, I’ve never seen anyone work on a computer like that before. It was like he stripped it apart from t
he inside, with his fingers racing across the keyboard like a concert pianist. The speed and certainty with which he worked was astonishing. Anyway, he fixed the problem.

  I think he was very intelligent. I can’t imagine who would have wanted to harm him. He was quiet and retiring and never said a bad thing about anyone.

  Witness Statement 2

  Christine Forbes (neighbour of Jeremy Haysbrook)

  27 Crescent Drive

  I’ve known Jeremy for many years and always liked him. He was an articulate and very bright man, but painfully shy. His life was probably very lonely and all he seemed to do was work. I’m sure he was homosexual but did not want the world to know. But I could sense it. He had a few male friends who would call occasionally, not often though.

  I don’t think he had any steady relationship with anyone, though of course we never discussed the subject. I am not aware that he ever married, or had children, or seemed to have any family whatsoever, for that matter. He was not from London, I don’t think.

  He had dinner with us, my husband and I, a few times and he could elaborate on just about any subject imaginable with incredible depth and insight. I’m sure he was a member of Mensa, you know the society for people with very high IQs.

  I will miss Jeremy very much. He was a warm and friendly neighbour, even if he was a very private person.

  Witness Statement 3

  Jack Pearson (neighbour of Jeremy Haysbrook)

  30 Crescent Drive

  I thought he was a weirdo, dressing so strangely in clothes that made him stand out like some kind of eccentric. He was too private, almost reclusive and withdrawn from the world; that’s not normal, if you know what I mean.

  Almost nobody ever visited and he only ever used to come out to cut the grass or visit Christine next door.

  Toby, my other neighbour, said he thought Haysbrook was gay and I reckon he was, too, though I never saw anything, you know. I’ve never seen him in female company, except for Christine, and they were definitely just neighbourly friends.

  He had a kind of weird look about him, you know, this enormous pumpkin of a head. I’m sure he was very clever, but you know what they say about people with high IQs, that they sail close to the wind of insanity, or something to that effect. Well, I think he did.