Death Message by Mark Billingham Read Free Book Online Page A

back and laid aside. Hendricks said he'd seen similar designs on a body before, but nothing as impressive as these: the large outline of a snarling dog's head on one shoulder; the panther that stretched along an arm; the ornate cross and grinning skull.
    Hendricks had a point.
    Raymond Tucker had a few more tattoos than the average used-car salesman.
    Once a body had been removed from a crime scene, the atmosphere changed. Eight hours since the discovery of Raymond Tucker and, in a first-floor flat that was already starting to smell an awful lot better, the scene-of-crime officers had done most of what would be necessary on the first day. Now there were just a few stragglers working the scene, cleaning up: the video and stills cameramen; the woman working as exhibits officer; a couple of fingerprint guys. Many SOCOs - who thought it sounded a little more glamorous - insisted on being called crime scene examiners these days.
    To Thorne's mind, 'glamour' in such circumstances was a relative term.
    One day into it and, like a well-drilled unit of white-suited locusts, the team, whatever it chose to call itself, had completed the majority of the front-line forensics. Though a few were still moving around with that distinctive, all-too-evocative rustle, Thorne and Holland were at least spared the plastic bodysuits and bootees.
    'Small mercies,' Holland said.
    They were standing with their backs to the window, the dying light kept at bay by large black screens and the room illuminated by a pair of powerful arc lights. The furniture was modern: smoked glass and chrome; built-in bookshelves and halogen spots; a three-seater sofa covered in dark brown leather and light brown blood.
    Thorne dug out some chewing gum from his jacket pocket. 'Not a lot of mercy shown in here . . .'
    The body had been removed from its final position between the sofa and the fireplace, and it was clear that the dead man had not fallen at the first blow. Aside from the blood, spattered in scratches across the sofa cushions, there were patterns in the other direction, thrown against the glass front of a tropical fish tank and, lower down, finely sprayed across a large wooden bowl filled with smooth stones, black and grey.
    A passing SOCO/CSE followed Thorne's eyeline. He nodded towards the rectangle of bare boards where the carpet beneath the body had been cut away and removed. 'Central heating was cranked up, so he probably started leaking like a bastard after less than a week,' the officer said. 'Almost as much of him in the carpet as there was anywhere else. Gone right through.' He pointed, keen as mustard. 'Look, can you see?'
    Thorne and Holland did, and could. The caramelcoloured blotch on the dusty boards was like damp behind a cistern.
    'Are you sure you want this one?' Holland asked.
    'Already got it,' Thorne said. 'Brigstocke called when I was on the way over from Hornsey.' He talked Holland through the PM, focusing on the headlines, finishing on Hendricks' notions of what constituted a standard number of tattoos on an average used-car salesman.
    Holland was unconvinced. 'Hendricks has got a few more tattoos than your average pathologist.' He counted them off, pointing to the appropriate point on his body as he did so. 'That Arsenal thing on his neck. The Celtic band or whatever you call it on his wrist. That weird symbol on his shoulder. There's probably a couple more that only his very good friends have ever clapped eyes on.'
    'I wouldn't know,' Thorne said. He stared hard at a SOCO working near by, a smart-arse he'd come across before who'd glanced over with something like a smirk.
    They walked into Tucker's kitchen. There was washing-up stacked next to the sink and the sheen of Luminol across the work surfaces. On their way out through the hallway they casually stepped over a fingerprint specialist working on a stretch of flaking skirting board.
    'Maybe it means something,' Holland said. 'That he waited before sending you that picture.'
    'Maybe