The Grave Tattoo (9 page)

The shower had helped a little but Jane still felt raw and tender. She made them both coffee, swallowing a couple of painkillers while she waited for the kettle to boil. She wasn’t sure if what she was planning was the right thing, but she couldn’t see any alternative and she wanted to be as close to firing on all cylinders as she could manage. She took the mugs through and perched on the edge of her bed. ‘There’s someone I’ve got to go and see,’ she said. ‘I want you to wait here.’

‘Who you going to see?’ Tenille demanded. Having unburdened herself, her usual demeanour seemed to be reasserting itself.

‘Someone I think will be able to help.’ Jane hoped her tone would head off further questions.

Tenille stared into her coffee. ‘My dad,’ she said expressionlessly.

Jane tried to hide her surprise. Not long after Tenille had started hanging round with her, Jane had fallen into conversation at the bus stop with one of her neighbours, a young mother from a couple of doors down. ‘It’s none of my business,’ the woman had said, ‘but I noticed that Tenille hanging round your place. You want to watch yourself there.’

‘Why is that?’ Jane had bristled. ‘She seems like a bright kid.’

‘She’s bright, all right. But it’s her old man you want to worry about.’

Jane frowned. ‘I think you’re mixing her up with someone else. She hasn’t got a dad. She says she doesn’t know who her father is. Her mother always refused to tell her, and Sharon says she’s got no idea.’

The woman gave a contemptuous little snort. ‘If Tenille doesn’t know, she’s the only one. Everybody else round here knows the Hammer is her dad.’

Jane felt her eyes widen in shock. ‘John Hampton?’

‘That’s right. He’s always kept an eye out, but from a distance, like. Sharon doesn’t want her to know, see? I mean, you can see why, can’t you?’

Jane could certainly see why. She’d learned very early on that John ‘Hammer’ Hampton was the criminal equivalent of the mayor of Marshpool Farm. He was a serious gangsta, not some teenage wannabe. Drugs, sex and violence were his stock in trade and there was no doubting his grip on the illegal activities on the estate. Jane had heard stories of punishment beatings meted out to those who thought they could freelance on the wrong side of the law without giving the Hammer his due.

And now, here was Tenille openly acknowledging something Jane had thought was deeply buried. ‘You know about your dad?’ Jane said, stalling for time to get her head round this.

‘That he’s the Hammer?’ Jane nodded. Tenille shrugged. ‘I’ve sort of known for years. Somebody at school told me. I didn’t believe them at first. I didn’t want to, I suppose. But one day when Sharon was out, I went through her things. And stuffed right down the back of one of her drawers, I found a photo of my mum with the Hammer. He had his arm round her. They was smiling into each other’s faces, like they was in love or something. And then I knew for sure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He’s never said a word to me, like. He’s always walked straight past me without a look. I figured he don’t want to know.’

‘Or else he wants to protect you,’ Jane said, reaching for a gloss that might give Tenille a more positive image of her father. ‘He must have enemies. By not letting on to you, it’s like he’s saying, “I could give a shit”, which means you’re a less attractive target to someone who wants to get at him.’

Tenille looked sceptical. ‘Or else he just don’t want anything to do with his bastard now the baby mother’s gone. It’s not like he hasn’t had his pick of other women since my mum died. He’s probably forgotten all about her by now.’

She was probably right, Jane thought wearily. But right now, talking to the Hammer was the only thing she could imagine restoring Tenille to safety. It wasn’t a comfortable thought. Her skin crawled with apprehension and revulsion. The things she’d heard laid at the Hammer’s door were not calculated to inspire a desire to spend time in his company. ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said, half to herself.

‘You gonna talk to him about Geno?’ Tenille looked at her with incredulity.

‘Of course I am.’ Jane finished her coffee and stood up.

‘Respect,’ Tenille said, sounding surprised at herself. ‘You’re pretty spicy for a white girl.’

Or pretty stupid.
‘Stay here till I get back. Don’t let anybody else in, OK?’

‘You know where to find him?’ Tenille asked.

‘I’ve got a tongue in my head. I can ask.’

‘No need. This time of the morning, he’ll be at home. D Block, far end. Flat 87.’

Jane acknowledged the information with a nod and grabbed her coat. ‘Don’t worry, Tenille. We’ll get Geno sorted out.’

9

Jane closed the front door behind her and paused, taking a deep breath. She was probably mad to do this. Whatever the unwritten rules were, she was almost certainly breaking an unconscionable number of them by turning up unannounced on the Hammer’s doorstep to tell him it was time to take care of his unacknowledged daughter. But Tenille didn’t have anyone else to look out for her. There was so much promise there, Jane knew she couldn’t just walk away and leave the child to sink or swim.

She turned up her collar against the wind and made her way across the estate to D Block, the tallest of the eight L-shaped buildings that comprised Marshpool Farm. It stood at the north side of the estate, a couple of storeys higher than the other blocks. To her surprise, the far entrance lobby was free from rubbish and graffiti. There was even the faint smell of pine disinfectant. She thought she’d chance the lift since she was going to the eighth floor. Not only did it arrive when summoned, but its interior could not have been cleaner if it had been in one of the towering office blocks at Canary Wharf. If she needed evidence of the power of John Hampton, it was here before her eyes.

Flat 87 was opposite the lift. The door was painted a deep burgundy, in sharp contrast to the scruffy grey-blue of the other doors on the landing. Vertical blinds on the windows obscured the interior. Jane squared her shoulders and pressed the doorbell. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the door swung open, revealing a massive mixed-race man in his early twenties dressed only in a pair of jogging pants. His broad torso could have served as a living diagram in an anatomy class, the muscles large and well defined. He glared down at her. ‘Wassup?’ he demanded in a mid-Atlantic drawl.

‘I need to see John Hampton,’ she said, her voice half an octave higher than normal, her accent scarily middle-class even to her ears.

The man looked amused. ‘He’s not expecting you.’ He began to close the door.

Jane put out a hand to stop him, knowing she didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance against the power of his shoulders but making the gesture anyway. ‘I do need to see him,’ she said. ‘It’s a family matter.’

He gave her a disbelieving look. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Please, just tell him Jane Gresham needs to see him about a family matter. I’ll wait.’

‘You might be here for a long time, Jane Gresham.’ He pushed gently against the door and she dropped her hand. She was banking on the woman at the bus stop having told the truth when she said the Hammer kept an eye on Tenille. If that were true, he could not fail to know about Jane’s place in her life. It might be enough to gain her admission.

She paced to and fro between the door and the lift for what felt like a very long time but was probably only a couple of minutes. When she heard the door open, she whirled around to find the same young man beckoning her. ‘Your lucky day,’ he said. ‘Mr Hampton’s a very busy man, but he can give you five minutes.’

‘That’s all I’ll need.’ She followed him into the flat, whose interior was unlike any other she’d seen on Marshpool Farm. The thick carpet in the hall matched the burgundy of the front door, and the pale walls were decorated with framed photographs of performance cars. The man gestured to her to enter the living room, then closed the door behind her. The room smelt faintly of sandalwood. Sitting opposite her on a cream leather sofa beneath a huge gilt-framed reproduction of one of Jack Vettriano’s
film noir
paintings was a short, square black man wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt. His head was as bald as a bowling ball, his brown eyes deep-set like finger holes. Jane had never been this close to John Hampton, but she’d seen him in the distance. It didn’t prepare her for his charisma. Afterwards, she couldn’t have described the room; his presence dominated her consciousness. She understood at once how John Hampton had come to wield the power he did.

‘Dr Jane Gresham,’ he said, his voice a bass rumble. ‘What brings an English teacher to my door speaking of family?’

‘I want to talk to you about Tenille,’ she said, trying not to show how unnerved she felt. ‘May I sit down?’

He waved towards a matching armchair in the corner. ‘Be my guest. Tenille?’ he said, making a show of racking his brains. ‘One of the kids on the estate, right?’

‘People say she’s your daughter.’

‘People say a lot of things, Dr Gresham. A lot of them are bullshit.’ His face was impassive, his body still.

‘It’s true she doesn’t take after you in looks,’ Jane said. ‘But I suspect she’s inherited your ambition. And your toughness. And your intelligence.’

‘Flattery won’t get you child support, if that’s what you’re after.’

‘There’s more than one kind of child support, Mr Hampton. And right now, Tenille needs something from you.’ She couldn’t quite believe her nerve.

He sighed and rotated his head, as if loosening a stiffness in his neck. ‘You’re bold, I’ll give you that. But you’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit.’

Jane pressed on regardless. While she was still in the room, she had a fighting chance to break through his apparent indifference. ‘Her aunt has a boyfriend called Geno Marley. He’s been sniffing around Tenille. And last night he tried to rape her.’ Now she sensed she had his full attention, though she could not have said quite what had changed.

‘I don’t understand why you’re telling me this, Dr Gresham. This Marley character isn’t one of my people.’

‘Tenille is, though. And a word from you would take him out of her life.’

‘And why should I do that?’

Jane shrugged. ‘If she’s your daughter, the answer’s obvious. And if she’s not, well, it would be the right thing to do anyway, wouldn’t it?’

‘You think I’m some kind of social worker? Here to solve people’s problems?’

She sensed he was playing with her, but she didn’t know how to enter his game. She got to her feet. There was nothing to be gained by staying. ‘You must do what you think best,’ she said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll have a word, Dr Gresham. I don’t like scumbags who molest young girls any more than you do. You can tell Tenille she’ll be safe.’

‘Thank you.’ She turned to go, then paused, her hand on the door. ‘Whoever Tenille’s father is, he should be proud of her. She’s remarkable.’

‘Goodbye, Dr Gresham. I don’t expect we’ll meet again,’ he said. He sounded so much like a Bond villain that the spell broke.

Jane grinned. ‘You never know,’ she said.

When she emerged from the flat, she felt elated. In spite of the Hammer’s feigned indifference, she was certain that she had achieved what she’d set out to. She could leave for Fellhead with a clear conscience, secure in the knowledge that nothing bad was going to happen to Tenille.

One of the best things about living and working in Carlisle was the stunning scenery on her doorstep, River thought. She’d discovered it was hard to drive for long in any direction without finding herself in a landscape of breathtaking beauty, whether it was the bleak rolling uplands of Northumberland, with Hadrian’s Wall the crossbeam to the Pennine spine, or the grandeur of the Lake District National Park with its fells, forests and moody waters. She’d grown up near Cambridge in a landscape of unrelenting flatness that exhibited a limited range of variety. Up here in the north, the changing seasons were somehow nearer the surface, with every day bringing some subtle alteration to the world around her. It was, she thought, a landscape as susceptible to analysis for its history as the human body itself. Recently, she’d joined a group of university staff who went hill-walking every Sunday, and only the previous week she’d been brought up short by a casual comment from one of her fellow walkers. As they’d made their way up the eastern side of Great Gable, he’d remarked that if Wordsworth were to return to England now, he’d find more changes in his native Lakes than he would in the quadrangles of his Cambridge college.

‘We think of the landscape as unchanging, but we’re wrong,’ he’d said. ‘Here, everywhere we look we see the hand–or rather, the foot of man. Look at the erosion on these paths. Look at the roads,’ he added, waving his hand in the general direction of Buttermere and Derwent Water where the sun could be seen glinting on the metal roofs of cars. ‘Choked with traffic every decent summer’s day. In Wordsworth’s time, there were meandering drover’s tracks, not roads carved out of hillsides like chunks cut off a cheese. And they were mostly empty. This landscape tells the history of the last two hundred years more clearly than any urban sprawl.’

‘Not to mention the history of the tearoom,’ another colleague had commented darkly. ‘I’m surprised there isn’t one waiting for us on the top of Great Gable.’

River had tucked the initial idea away for further consideration and this morning, as she drove out of Carlisle on the old Roman road towards Bothel, she reflected on it again. Nearly two thousand years had passed since this road had been built by legionaries miles from their home, forced to eat unfamiliar food and accustom themselves to the often hellish winters of the northernmost part of the empire. She wondered how much of what she was seeing now would have awakened memories in their ghosts. Perhaps the skyline, perhaps the colours. But not much else.

She loved the place names too, with their echoes of another wave of invaders. The Vikings had left their mark on the places they occupied with suffixes–Ireby, Branthwaite, Whitrigg. And there were other wonderful names whose origins she knew nothing of–Blennerhasset, Dubwath and Bewaldeth. Driving from Carlisle to Keswick wasn’t just pretty, it was poetry in motion.

She turned left on to the winding road that led between the forested massif of Skiddaw and the long finger of Bassenthwaite. All around her, the trees were changing colour. On the hills, the bracken was turning brown against rough upland grass that the summer rains had left a more vivid green than usual. The lake spangled dark sapphire in the autumn sun and River felt lucky not only to be alive but to be moving through nature at her most glamorous.

She wondered how it had been for Pirate Peat on his last journey on the hill above Coniston Water. With luck, the palaeobotanists might be able to tell her what time of year he had died. But what none of them would ever know was whether he had made that final trip by day or night, in sunlight, rain or mist. Had he been alive to the beauty that surrounded him, or was he one of those who seem unmoved by their surroundings? Was this his home, or was he merely passing through? That at least was something she would probably be able to answer eventually. And once they had established how old the body was, she would be able to track down contemporary drawings and paintings that might reveal something of what her cadaver had seen when he had walked these hills. All of this would only enrich the TV programme, as well as satisfying her own urge for knowledge.

Her speculations dissipated into the ether once she hit the outskirts of Keswick and had to concentrate on getting where she was going. She pulled into the visitors’ slot in the police station car park and hurried inside, composing herself in her professional demeanour for her meeting with DCI Rigston. She was almost sorry that they wouldn’t be working together; she’d liked him when he’d first briefed her, something which hadn’t happened too often in her encounters with police officers.

The civilian on the front desk directed her to the canteen, where she found Rigston tucking into a bacon roll. He got to his feet immediately and shook hands, wiping his fingers with a paper napkin first. ‘Can I get you something to eat? Early call-out, I missed breakfast,’ he said, gesturing apologetically at his plate.

‘Don’t mind me, I’m fine,’ River said, sliding into the seat opposite him. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your meal, but this won’t take long. I thought you’d like to know that my preliminary investigations lead me to believe this body is well outside your remit.’

Rigston grinned, showing a row of even white teeth. ‘Thought as much,’ he said. ‘But I’m glad to have it formally confirmed all the same. Do you know how long he’s been in there?’

‘Hard to be precise at this stage. But, ballpark, I’d say somewhere between 1785 and 1815. That’s a very rough guesstimate,’ she added hastily. ‘Don’t hold me to it. I’ll have a better answer once we’ve completed the work-up.’