Huber's Tattoo Page 8

  “I see,” Huber said, knitting the fingers of both hands together in front of his chin. “Can you see without your glasses?”

  The boy looked up at him, hesitating.

  “Take them off!” the nurse yelled.

  Klaus removed his glasses and squinted at Huber, his entire face and nose turned upwards in a wrinkled attempt to focus the world. Huber held up three fingers.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  Klaus stared forwards and swayed back and forth.

  “Put your glasses on and look again.”

  Klaus fumbled with is glasses as he struggled to fit them around his protuberant ears.

  “Three, Obersturmführer.”

  “Good.”

  All this time Hans stood with a look of vague bemusement on his face, occasionally turning to his older brother with a quizzical expression, prodding him once and shrugging his shoulders to indicate that he did not understand what was happening.

  Huber removed his own round glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief he extracted from a tunic pocket. Without them he, too, could not easily read his handwriting on the sheets in front of him. Was this a shortcoming unworthy of tomorrow’s German peoples?

  Standartenführer Viktor Brack wore glasses and, in fact, so did Himmler himself. So the dependence on corrective spectacles for clear vision was surely not a reason enough to de-classify this boy, even if his eyesight was pretty poor without the glasses.

  “Can your brother read and write?” Huber said.

  Klaus shrugged.

  “Not well, Obersturmführer. The teachers do not have patience with him.”

  Huber nodded and waved for them to be dismissed. The nurse got them both dressed and gruffly led them away into the next room. Huber stared at the next child waiting in line, standing at an angle as he leaned on a crutch, his angulated legs supported within the harsh black frames of metal splints hinged at both knees.

  The Law was clear about deafness and young Hans obviously fulfilled the criteria for de-classification as a Mindwertig. But what about Klaus? Huber did not feel that he could reasonably hold his extreme short-sightedness against the boy, but it worried him that deafness seemed to run in the family, and what if he also possessed some silent genetic weakness that he might pass on to the next generation?

  It was his responsibility to ensure that this did not happen, that the racial purity of the future Germany was shaped in a better image. He could not risk contaminating the desired gene pool with a single careless omission.

  Huber replaced his glasses and lowered his head, scraping boldly with the fountain pen across the paper. Then he placed the two sheets on the pile on the right hand side, the largest pile of the three.

  Both boys would need to be surgically sterilized.

  Fifteen

  Grasmere was sunny, but cowering under the constant threat of an angry sky as mountainous, purplish grey cumulo-nimbus clouds towered high over the characteristic slate-grey Lakeland stone buildings. Henry, Natasha and DI O’Hara walked past the small cemetery in the centre of the village, heading in the direction of the lake, enjoying the warmth.

  Henry wore a blue and white checked summer shirt and khaki chinos, Natasha a calf length yellow cotton dress. In defiance of the heat, O’Hara was zipped up to his neck in a fluffy grey Berghaus fleece over baggy black trousers. O’Hara was of medium height and podgy build, lacking anatomical definition on every ridge of his body. Every edge of him was rounded, fleshed in, his skin pallid and constantly sweaty. A large bunch of keys, dangling from his worn leather belt, jangled with every animated step that he took.

  “Do you mind if we look in here quickly?” Henry said, peering over the mossy stone wall into the small cemetery.

  “Not at all. William Wordsworth is buried here,” O’Hara said in a soft Belfast accent, leading the trio into the grassed square beside St Oswald’s Parish Church.

  “And William Spooner,” Henry added.

  “Who?” Natasha said, placing her feet carefully on the path stones scattered amongst the spongy-looking grass.

  “You’ve heard of ‘spoonerisms’, haven’t you?” Henry said.

  Natasha and O’Hara looked blankly at him but seemed reluctant to deepen their ignorance by speaking.

  “William Spooner used to transpose the letters of words like, ‘You have hissed my mystery lecture’. That’s where the term ‘spoonerism’ comes from,” Henry explained as they picked their way through the ancient sandstone memorials amongst ambling tourists with cameras dangling from their necks.

  They stopped in front of Spooner’s simple sandstone memorial, covered in greenish-grey lichen plaques.

  “I’ve never heard of him,” O’Hara said, his keys silent now as they stared at the unimpressive gravestone.

  “It’s a Mensa Club thing,” Natasha said quietly to O’Hara.

  “Can anyone else smell gingerbread?” Henry asked, sniffing the air and looking around the cemetery.

  “That’ll be Sarah Nelson’s famous gingerbread just over there,” O’Hara said, pointing to an unobtrusive white shop nestled next to the cemetery on the corner of a bend in the road. It was partially obscured by climbing ivy and its roof tiles were home to a carpet of moss.

  “I can’t stand ginger,” Natasha said, wrinkling up her nose in disgust.

  Ten minutes later they emerged from the crowded little shop, Henry carrying a small square package of wax paper containing several precious biscuits. He smelled the treacly gingerbread longingly.

  “Aren’t you going to eat it?” Natasha asked.

  Henry looked at his outstretched fingers before pocketing the packet.

  “No utensils.” He smiled thinly at Natasha. “Now, where was David Barnabus’ body found?” Henry asked O’Hara.

  “Beside the lake, near the boathouse, Inspector,” O’Hara said, pointing with outstretched arm down a narrow lane lined with dry stone walls topped with ivy.

  They began to walk and the keys on O’Hara’s belt bounced and jangled once again with every step. Natasha imagined she could see a shiny, worn patch on his trousers from the repetitive rubbing of the metal.

  “Tell me about him,” Henry said, as they walked briskly amongst dozens of tourists who were traversing the lane, both to and from the lake.

  “David Barnabus was a young man of about thirty, a nuclear scientist at Sellafield Nuclear Power Station across on the west coast,” O’Hara said, his breath coming in shorter bursts, almost rhythmically in time with his jangling keys.

  “Did he live across this way then?” Henry asked.

  “No, he lived in Cleator Moor just outside Whitehaven, about nine miles from Sellafield. We don’t know why he was in Grasmere as he had no family or known friends in this region. In fact, we’re only aware of two living relatives.”

  Henry exchanged glances with Natasha.

  “Was he married?” Natasha asked.

  “Divorced,” O’Hara said. “His ex lives in Whitehaven with their only child. They haven’t been together for at least three years.”

  The lake came into view beyond a gravelled car parking area.

  “Have you interviewed her?”

  “Of course. There is the boathouse in the distance. Can you see it?” O’Hara pointed across the calm water.

  Suddenly the sun shrank behind an intimidating storm cloud and the deep shadow cast across the landscape transferred an eerie Gothic atmosphere to what had been, moments before, a scene of tranquil pastoral idyll.

  “She was shocked by the brutality of his death, by the mere notion that anyone would wish to murder him. They had maintained contact since the divorce and she was unaware of any trouble that he might have got into, aside from the usual, that is.”

  “The usual?” Henry said, turning to the sweaty Irishman.

  O’Hara sighed. He was out of breath and all the talking wasn’t helping.

  “Barnabus had a criminal record for driving under the influence, for reckless e
ndangerment behind the wheel. Twice the DVLA banned him.”

  “Sports car?” Natasha asked.

  “No, I think it was a little Renault Clio, or something.”

  “Was he known to be a drinker?” Henry said. They had drawn closer to the edge of the lapping lake, the rundown boat house now visible in more detail.

  “Oh yes, he was a lover of the bottle all right. A strange man, according to his work colleagues, immensely intelligent and seemingly bored by the everyday routines of running a nuclear power station, he escaped into a world of alcoholic oblivion at every opportunity. He’d even been disciplined and warned at work.”

  “Was alcohol the cause of his marriage failure?” Natasha asked.

  O’Hara nodded, holding on to his bunch of keys and flicking through them one by one between his fingers. Beads of sweat ran down his temples and across his face into the thick folds of fleece around his neck. For God’s sake, take it off, Natasha thought.

  “Where was his post-mortem done?” Henry said.

  “Whitehaven. Here, this is where his body was found by a rambler.” O’Hara stopped, indicating a hollow depression in the grassy bank behind the boathouse.

  “Gunshot head?” Henry said, stepping into the small depression and looking around at the boathouse above and behind him.

  “I believe so. Made very little mess, actually, but what a head he had. No wonder he was so bright.”

  “Big, you mean?” Natasha said.

  “Oh aye, never seen anything like it. Shaved like he was, it looked like a medicine ball from a gymnasium.”

  “Did you recover a bullet?” Henry asked.

  “No, through and through, Inspector.”

  “Was he shot here?”

  “The consensus was that he was killed here, late evening, and found early the next morning,” O’Hara said, rattling his keys by hand, almost as if he needed the reassurance of that sound even when he was not walking.

  Henry ran the palm of his hand across the weathered timber planks of the boathouse as he scoured the wall. He knelt down and continued to scrutinize the knotty and dilapidated wooden construction.

  “We’ve searched for the bullet, Inspector,” O’Hara said.

  “Did you look inside?”

  “You can’t get in without going in the water.”

  Henry removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his chinos and waded into the black water amongst the reeds, feeling the soft, silty mud squeeze between his toes. Once inside the boathouse, he continued to examine the walls.

  “Have you got a knife on you?” Henry’s voice echoed from within the wooden boathouse.

  O’Hara fiddled with his bunch of keys and removed a Swiss Army knife.

  “I do, Inspector.”

  Henry re-emerged from the lake side of the boathouse and fetched the knife from O’Hara with a muted grunt before wading back into the water. After a few minutes he emerged with a triumphant grin, holding a small piece of copper aloft between thumb and index finger.

  “9mm Parabellum I’d guess,” Henry waded back to the dry bank, his calves and feet covered in watery mud.

  “Inside the house?” Natasha said, screwing up her nose as she took the bullet, dropped it into an evidence bag, then examined it. “How did Barnabus land up outside then?”

  Henry sat down to clean his feet.

  “That depression over there extends slightly beneath the rear wall of the boathouse, so I reckon when he was shot inside the boathouse he could have rolled out, or been pushed out, ending up where he was found.”

  “Well, I’ll be…” O’Hara said, jangling his keys as he re-attached the Swiss Army knife.

  “This could be our first hard forensic evidence,” Natasha said with a glint of excitement in her eyes as she turned the deformed lump of copper in the bag around between her fingers.

  *

  The drive to Whitehaven was scenic and relaxing, despite the burden of summer tourist traffic on Lakeland’s tiny network of roads. Henry let Natasha drive. It allowed him to think and he liked the way she leaned the hired Mondeo into corners.

  They passed Lake Thirlmere in sunshine, reached Keswick in a sudden downpour of rain, which spoiled the views of Derwentwater beyond the little market town, then found the sunshine again as they drove beside the elongated expanse of Lake Bassenthwaite.

  Once they reached Cockermouth, the grey smudge of urban sprawl increasingly dominated the views until they were eventually surrounded by it in Whitehaven.

  By the time Natasha shut the engine off outside the West Cumberland Infirmary mortuary, Henry was grimacing in agony, rubbing his temples to thwart a spasm of hot, sharp knives.

  “Bad one?” Natasha asked.

  Henry nodded painfully, licking two ibuprofens out of the palm of his hand. Natasha clambered around to access the back of his neck and began to massage it. Her slender fingers packed surprising power as she worked away at the muscular tension, feeling his great head and mass of curls gradually relax under her spell.

  “Better?” she said after a while.

  He nodded with a sardonic smile. “Thank you, Sergeant, you’re very good.”

  Dr Whinlatter was at least fifty, with greying temples, bifocals perched halfway up his nose, and arthritic hands deformed by Heberden’s nodes protruding from the ends of his buttoned white coat.

  “David Barnabus, yes I remember him now. Fellow was shot in Grasmere and I sent a picture of his scalp tattoo to Henry Pelton down in Romford. Damndest thing I’ve ever seen.” He spoke meticulously, as though he was reading the BBC News.

  “May I see his autopsy report, Doctor?” Henry said.

  The mortuary was, as they always were, cold, and both Natasha and Henrik shivered slightly from the contrast to the warm weather outside. The room also smelled different, more floral, as though Cumbrian hospitals used a different disinfectant to those in the London boroughs that Henry was more accustomed to visiting. He rubbed his palms up and down his exposed forearms.

  “Here it is, Inspector,” Whinlatter said, handing over a brown card folder.

  “I’m interested in the tattoo and his head,” Henry said, flicking through the pages.

  “Ah yes, it was an unusual head. Quite large, if memory serves me.”

  “I need specifics, Doctor.”

  “Let me see,” he said, peering through the notes as Henry held them. “Here we are. Yes, now I remember: his brain was enormous, over 2000 grams!”

  Natasha stared at Henry, expressionless.

  “Was the brain normal in other respects, Doctor?” Henry asked.

  “As far as I could tell it was normal structure, no tumours, just a great deal more of everything. I have never seen anything like it before.”

  “I have. I’m afraid,” Henry said dryly.

  “How so, Inspector?”

  Henry instantly regretted his unchecked comment.

  “Nothing, Doctor. Do you have more photographs of his tattoo?”

  “Yes, yes, we took quite a few, now let me see…”

  Whinlatter flicked through the autopsy file and found a sleeve containing photographs. The images were clear and unambiguous. Tattooed high up on Barnabus’ neck, in the nuchal fold where the neck and skull met, was ‘G4’ in faded and blurry blue ink.

  “It looks old, like the others,” Natasha said, running her finger across the image and along the feathery edges.

  “Others?” Whinlatter said, straightening.

  “My sergeant is a tattoo expert, Doctor,” Henry lied, elbowing Natasha discreetly. “I don’t suppose you still have this piece of skin, do you?”

  Whinlatter guffawed and removed his bifocals.

  “Goodness, no, Inspector, those days are gone. Not allowed, I’m afraid.”

  “Do you know where his remains are?” Henry glanced up from the report.

  Whinlatter replaced his bifocals.

  “I believe his ex-wife has them.”

  *

  There was just enough time to visit Mrs B
arnabus at the end of the day. She lived on a small estate beside Moss Wood in a modest 1970s semi-detached house, impeccably maintained inside. She was cordial, though emotionally blunted, as though she was still in shock and perhaps even mourning for her dead ex-husband. There wasn’t much to ascertain during a quick cup of tea in her small, floral lounge, perfumed by a large glass vase of white St Joseph lilies and watched over by an urn containing David Barnabus’ ashes on the mantelpiece. Beside the urn was a framed picture of David, a wide smiling face on his undoubtedly large shaven head.

  She confirmed that David was an only child. She had never met his parents and she had never been to his home town in Germany.

  “He was born in Germany?” Henry said, almost spilling tea into the Wedgewood saucer.

  “Yes, a place called Stenhorn, or something like that.”

  “Steinhöring, perhaps?” Henry suggested.

  “Yes, that’s it. He never went back. He was raised here in England by a family down in London.”

  “How did he come to leave Germany and be in England?” Henry said.

  She paused, perhaps feeling pain at the many things about her ex-husband that she had never known.

  “I don’t know.”

  Henry sipped his tea. Mrs Barnabus sat with her hands tightly clasped in her aproned lap, pursing her lips, the picture of a homemaker, a devastated homemaker.

  “Mrs Barnabus, did your husband ever speak about the tattoo on his neck?”

  She frowned.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Did he ever tell you what ‘G4’ meant?”

  She pondered silently for a moment.

  “Do you think it has something to do with his death?” she asked.

  “I honestly don’t know, Mrs Barnabus, I’m still trying to find out what it means, if anything.” Henry placed the cup and saucer carefully on the table beside the lilies.

  “I don’t think David knew what it was. When I first met him he had hair on his head and it wasn’t visible,” she said thoughtfully. “But when he shaved his head years later I think he was as surprised as I was.” She lifted her eyes to meet Henry’s, a look of anguish just visible behind her steely facade.