The Grave Tattoo Page 6

  ‘I knew I could place my trust in. You, Willy,’ he said. ‘My brother spoke of your kindness in defending me against those calumnies published against me in the public prints.’ Indeed, I had written to the Editor of the Weekly Entertainer denouncing the pack of lies that had been published under my old friend’s name, as a personal kindness to his brother Edward. ‘How came you to be here?’ I asked him. He said it was a long tale & one that he would be happy to share with me. ‘There, have, been vile lies spread about me & I would have the truth told. I can think of no man better fitted to render my story fit for the public than you, my old friend.’ I will confess I found myself astonished at the notion of becoming his amanuensis, but the more I pondered, the more it seemed to me a fitting subject for verse. The composition of my long Poem on my life has given me a taste for the epic over the lyric, & epic this tale will surely be, encompassing as it must the best and worst of man’s nature.

  6

  Jake Hartnell paused for a moment in the warm shade under the corrugated portico of Koutras’s mini-market, hefting the heavy plastic bags in one hand. It had been three weeks since he’d left England, three weeks since he’d heard a news broadcast or read anything beyond a casually glimpsed headline in a British newspaper. The sun might have darkened his olive skin to the point where he could almost pass for a southern Mediterranean native, but he knew differently. Catching sight of the familiar mastheads, he felt a sudden unexpected stab of homesickness.

  He crossed the narrow road and dumped the shopping in the back of the open 4×4, then walked back to the rack of foreign-language newspapers. He reckoned the papers would be a few days out of date, but cast adrift as far as he was, it made no odds. He pulled The Times and the Guardian out of their slots and went back into the chill air conditioning to pay the extortionate prices the overseas editions commanded, then set off on the short drive back with a curious lightening of the spirit.

  When Caroline Kerr had invited him to escape from London to her place on Crete, he’d imagined a sumptuous villa complete with terrace and olive grove, in spite of her use of the qualifier ‘little’. After all, her London home was a three-storey house five minutes’ walk from Hampstead Heath, exquisitely furnished with the sort of antiques that quietly stated their viewer was in the presence of money old enough to have taste as well. Besides, people of her class never boasted about what they had. Their ‘little’ places in the country were generally massive Georgian rectories or cottages whose sizes had been trebled over the passage of time. So his expectations had been high.

  The twenty-minute drive from the airport across the burnt red and dusty sage green of the Akrotiri peninsula had promised little, but when the turquoise sea came into view, his heart had lifted. Caroline had barrelled the 4×4 down a steep road past a tiny white chapel carved into a rock escarpment to a half-moon beach dominated by a wooden taverna with tables spread over the sand. She’d stopped abruptly behind the taverna to pick up her keys. Jake had looked around, appreciatively noting the presence of several imposing houses in the hinterland of the bay, wondering which would play host to his new life in the sun.

  To his surprise, Caroline had driven past the houses, up a track by a small concrete boat slip to a trio of cottages perched on a narrow ridge overlooking the bay and the wider sea beyond. ‘Here we are,’ she’d said with a tone of deep satisfaction. Jake could hardly hide his disappointment as he followed her across a small paved patio into the tiny interior. He hadn’t walked away from his life for this, he heard himself curse inside his head. The door opened straight into a small living room, furnished with a couple of armchairs, a plain table with four dining chairs and an expensive sound system. Along one wall was a rudimentary kitchen–sink, fridge, oven, hob, two cupboards and a work surface. The cool tiled floor was bare of rugs. On a shelf above an open fireplace a group of small Minoan figures clustered. They were the only decoration in the room. Caroline made a soft noise of satisfaction. She crossed the room in a few strides and opened one of the two doors leading off. ‘This is the bedroom,’ she said. ‘Just dump the bags in there.’

  It was another plain room, dominated by a wide, carved wooden bedstead. A mosquito net hung from the ceiling. The only other furniture was a simple wardrobe. All that lifted it above the most basic backpacker accommodation was a pair of magnificent silk Bokhara rugs, one on either side of the bed. Christ, he thought, this was a scant step above bloody peasant life. Jake had dropped their suitcases on the floor and returned to the living room. Caroline gestured to the other door. ‘The bathroom,’ she said. ‘A little better than primitive Greek, I think you’ll find.’

  Curious, he’d opened the door. He knew from Caroline’s London house that she was serious about her ablutions, but he’d experienced Greek plumbing before and had no high hopes. To his astonishment, he found himself in a smaller replica of the Highgate master bathroom. Marble floors, a deep bathtub, a two-person shower cubicle, twin washbasins; all the luxury modern design could provide. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, backing out. ‘How did you manage that?’

  Caroline tossed her dark blonde hair away from her face in a familiar gesture of indifference. ‘Contacts, darling, contacts.’ She walked into the bedroom and unfastened her suitcase. ‘Clean clothes, then a very big drink.’

  Sounded good to Jake. ‘It’s wonderfully simple,’ he said, following her lead and raking through his case for some shorts. ‘But how on earth do we work here?’

  Misunderstanding, Caroline laughed. ‘I know. It’s so tempting. The sea, the beach, the taverna. It’s hard, but I have to remind myself that the only way I can justify spending two months a year here is to keep the wheels turning.’

  ‘No, I meant practically. You don’t have a computer, a fax, a phone line as far as I can see.’

  Caroline straightened up, shorts and T-shirt in her hand. ‘Honestly, Jake, you’re so twentieth century sometimes. Laptop, Blackberry, wireless internet connection–that’s all I need. I get the auction catalogues online, and if there’s anything I want to bid for, I do it by phone. And I have good contacts locally who keep an eye out for anything they think might interest me. Believe me, there’s some extraordinary stuff to be had over here. Wonderful illuminated texts from the monasteries, beautiful sheet music from the Middle Ages that is so lovely one wants to weep. I promise you won’t be disappointed with what we find on this trip. It never fails to astonish me. Reminds me of the sheer joy of having this wonderful stuff passing through my hands. You’ll see.’

  ‘I thought they were pretty strict about antiquities not leaving the country?’ Jake asked idly as he stripped off jeans sticky from the plane and the drive.

  ‘They are. But there are always ways,’ she said, her tone repressing further questions.

  He’d realised by now what she meant by that. For someone whose principal business lay in the buying and selling of bits of paper–holograph letters, manuscripts ancient and modern, illuminated sheet music–it was easy to send irregularly acquired material back to the UK. As long as the envelope looked like an innocuous piece of business post–a brochure for a villa, say, or a prospectus for a new commercial development–nobody in the Greek or British post office was going to look twice at it. ‘In a dozen years of doing this, I’ve only lost one item in the mail,’ Caroline had told him matter-of-factly the first time they’d visited the main post office in Chania. ‘And it wasn’t especially valuable. People only take an interest if you start dressing it up as recorded delivery and insuring it. Otherwise, it gets taken for granted.’

  Their days had quickly assumed a pattern. They’d sleep late then Jake would drive up to Horafakia for fresh bread, fruit and yoghurt. Breakfast on the terrace, then down to the beach for a swim. Sometimes they’d go into Chania so Caroline could meet one of her Greek contacts who would occasionally produce some piece of work that would take his breath away; otherwise, Caroline would write emails and make phone calls while Jake read auction catalogues or lounged in the sun with a book. Fr
om time to time, they would immerse themselves in a manuscript, discussing the hand of the scribe, the likely origins and, finally, its potential value. He was pleasantly surprised by how much he was learning from Caroline. Lunch at the taverna was followed by sex and sleep then drinks and backgammon. In the evenings, they’d drive out for dinner. The day would end with another bout of sexual activity. Jake was gradually beginning to understand why Caroline preferred younger lovers; men of her own age, he’d been led to believe, generally didn’t have the stamina to meet her demands. Not that he minded. He enjoyed sex and she was an enthusiastic and imaginative partner.

  What he did mind was the worm of boredom that was working its way to the surface of his mind more and more frequently. Like most men in their late twenties, he’d fantasised about a life like this. Sun, sea, sex and a sugar momma to pay for it all. Caroline was a sardonically amusing companion, never clingy, seldom anything other than equable in temper and open-handed with her knowledge. But still dissatisfaction niggled at Jake.

  It wasn’t that he felt guilty. He’d convinced himself he was right not to tell Jane the whole truth about Caroline. It would only hurt her. Instead, he’d explained that there were good practical reasons why he and Jane should loosen the bonds of their relationship–he’d have to travel for work, he’d be away in Greece for a couple of months, it wouldn’t be fair on Jane to hang around waiting for him. He’d said that Caroline was in her early forties, but had omitted to mention her lean, lithe frame, her shapely legs, her swatch of dark blonde hair or her dancing green eyes. Or that sex with Caroline had been a breathtaking adventure, right from the first cocaine-fuelled fuck at Tom D’Arblay’s party. The party Jane had had to miss because she was giving a paper at some stupid bloody symposium in Cardiff.

  He’d thought it was a one-shag stand. Nobody had been more surprised than he when Caroline had texted him the next day to suggest they meet for a drink. Over cocktails in a chic Soho bar, Caroline had been bright and brilliant, showing him an autograph letter from John Keats that she’d bought only that afternoon. Then she’d put a proposition to him. She was tired of being a one-woman band. She wanted an associate in her business buying and selling rare documents. He was, she said, the one she wanted. He knew enough of the technical aspect of what they would be buying and selling to avoid the pitfalls of obvious forgeries and faked provenances. He was clearly smart and ambitious. ‘And you’re a pretty good fuck too,’ she’d added, smiling wickedly over the rim of her glass.

  She’d given him a week to think it over. He’d made his decision by the next morning. His boss had been furious, Jane had been appalled at his abandoning the supposed purity of museum life for the cut-throat world of collectors and high rollers, and his father had warned him about what happens when beautiful women get bored. None of it had mattered. For the first time in a long time, Jake was having fun. Crete had merely seemed the icing on the cake.

  Until reality had replaced the fantasy and he found himself bored for the first time since the age of thirteen.

  Jake drew up outside the cottage. He ran his hands through his thick dark hair, wondering whether Caroline would read the meaning in the newspapers. He grabbed the shopping and added the contents of his bags to the food already arranged on the patio table. Caroline emerged with a jug of freshly squeezed juice just as he slumped into a chair, clutching the papers like a shield in front of his chest.

  A smile quirked one corner of her mouth. ‘Well done, Jake,’ she said, filling the tumblers.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You held out longer than anybody else I’ve ever brought here. Three weeks and two days. That’s a record.’ She leaned over and kissed him, rumpling his hair with one hand and running the other over the front of his shorts.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ Jake said, wrong-footed.

  ‘Why would I mind? I’m not an ostrich. I’m not here to escape.’ She slid elegantly into her chair and tipped her sunglasses from her hair to cover her eyes. ‘I’m here because I love it and it’s possible for me to be here without fucking up my life or my business. The only reason I don’t have you buy a paper every morning from Koutras is that I read the bloody things online, sweetie.’

  They settled into their papers, Jake smarting at Caroline’s condescension. He was beginning to wonder how seriously she took his expertise; too often, he was left feeling like a gigolo, appreciated only for his bedroom skills and not for the quality of his mind. He was only half taking in what he was reading, but when his eyes stumbled over a familiar name he stopped short and returned to the beginning of the story. ‘Fuck me,’ he breathed softly.

  Caroline glanced up. ‘I rather thought I had,’ she teased. ‘What is it, darling?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘Nothing, really.’ He passed the paper across the table, pointing to the story. ‘It’s just that I know the place where it happened.’

  Caroline skimmed the story. ‘Fellhead,’ she said, her voice clipped and her face unreadable. ‘Would that be where the lovely Jane hails from?’

  Neither of them had spoken much of their past by tacit agreement, but Jake had mentioned spending time in the Lakes with Jane when Caroline had been thinking of buying a bundle of Robert Southey’s letters. ‘That’s right,’ he said. Then he grinned. ‘I hope she’s seen that story.’

  ‘Why? Because Fellhead doesn’t hit the headlines often?’

  ‘No…’ He leaned across and pointed to the penultimate paragraph. ‘Because she’ll be convinced this is evidence of one of her hare-brained theories.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Caroline said in a tone that indicated this was seldom her chosen state.

  ‘The black tattoos. They’re the sort that sailors used to get in the South Seas back in the old days when sailing ships put in at the islands to take on stores and trade with the natives,’ Jake explained. ‘For example, most of the sailors on the Bounty had tattoos done while they were in Tahiti collecting the breadfruit they were supposed to be bringing home.’

  ‘What an arcane piece of knowledge.’

  ‘Jane lectured me so often on her pet theory that it stuck.’ Jake leaned back in his chair, pleased to be in the driving seat for once. ‘She believes that Fletcher Christian didn’t die on Pitcairn. That he came back to the Lakes where he was sheltered by his family. It’s a rumour that’s been going the rounds up there for the best part of two hundred years.’

  ‘Amusing,’ said Caroline. ‘And amazing how urban legends sprang up even before the urban sprawl itself.’

  He grinned, sharing her enjoyment. ‘But Jane has taken it one step further. That’s the hare-brained part. She’s convinced that, if Christian came home, he would have been burning to tell his story, to set the record straight.’

  ‘She’s probably right,’ Caroline said, languidly reaching for her cigarettes and lighting up. ‘In his shoes, who wouldn’t want to get their side of the story out there?’

  ‘Well, Jane believes that he looked up his old schoolfriend William Wordsworth and told him his version of events. And that William wrote it all down as a long narrative poem, which of course he could never publish without dire consequences for himself and for the entire Christian family.’

  Caroline was sitting up straight now, yanking her sunglasses off and fixing him with a hard stare. ‘Fletcher Christian was at school with Wordsworth?’ she demanded.

  ‘Apparently. Jane says that part of the story is incontrovertible fact. But the rest of it is rumour, gossip and Jane’s fantasy.’

  ‘Jake, do you have any idea what such a poem would be worth, supposing it really existed?’ Suddenly, the cloak of Crete had fallen back to reveal the sharp London dealer that he had first met.

  He frowned, uneasy and wrong-footed. ‘I’d never given it any thought. A hundred thousand?’

  Caroline shook her head in disbelief. ‘At least ten times that. Probably more. I’d estimate between one and two million, depending on how long the poem is.’

  Jake whistled. ‘Pity it�
��s not for real,’ he said firmly.

  Caroline stared at him with an unreadable expression. ‘How do you know it’s not for real?’

  Jake spluttered. ‘There’s no evidence that it exists. That it ever existed. Just Jane’s crazy idea.’

  ‘That would be the same Jane who is a Wordsworth scholar?’ Caroline said, acid behind the sweetness.

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘So she presumably knows what she’s talking about.’

  ‘You can’t be taking this seriously,’ Jake protested, anger simmering below the surface as he felt himself being dismissed yet again.

  ‘You’re at the start of your career in this business, Jake. Can you afford not to take it seriously?’