Alex Palmer - The Tattooed Man

‘You’re the one who said I needed protection. Anyway, aren’t you armed?’

‘Not at the moment. Don’t change the subject. You didn’t get this in the last few days. Why do you need it? Why do you need to have it in your car?’

‘It’s none of your business,’ she said, her voice growing angry. ‘Give it back.’

‘Not until you tell me why you’ve got it. Have you had this all the time we’ve been together? Because you thought you needed the protection. From me? Or from someone else? Do you think I wouldn’t protect you?’

‘How could you? You don’t have enough time to do that.’

This hurt him.

‘You tell me what this is about, Grace. I’m not leaving until you do.’

‘Don’t talk to me like that. You’re so used to telling people what to do. Give that back to me. It’s got nothing to do with you. I’m going out now and I need it.’ Moving suddenly and quickly, she reached to snatch the gun out of his hand.

‘Don’t do that! I am not going to fight with you over a gun!’

He felt himself losing control at some deeper level. He spun away from her, turning his back. He broke the gun down instinctively, shaking out the bullets, then with all the strength he had, he smashed it down on the floor tiles in her small kitchen alcove. It cracked with a noise that made him think it must have accidentally fired. It couldn’t have fired, he’d broken it down. It would be unusable now, the barrel cracked or damaged in some way, making it too dangerous to fire. Ammunition lay scattered where it had fallen. Her tiles were cracked and splintered. He turned to her. She was gaping at him.

‘Why did you do that?’

‘You get shot fighting over guns. Do you think I want to see you with a bullet wound in your head? One I put there? If that did happen, I’d probably feel like putting one in my own head!’

They stared at each other in silence. Then she took her cigarettes out of her bag and lit one.

‘No,’ she said. ‘That isn’t the reason, not for you to act like that. Why did you do that? Tell me.’

He looked down at the shattered tiles and then at her.

‘When I was eighteen, my father shot my mother. It was Cassatt’s gun, I’ve got it in my cellar. He’d had a run-in with a dealer on the docks and he’d shot him. He gave my father the gun to hide. My mother did what you just tried to do, take it out of his hands. He shot her in the face. Cassatt handled the investigation, he got my father off. When we were leaving the law courts, he turned me and said “Your father loved your mother, mate. You ought to realise that.” I hit him so hard, I knocked out one of his front teeth. I saw what my mother looked like when she died. I’m not going to live with another memory like that.’

She put her cigarette in an ashtray on the table and sat down with her face in her hands. ‘That’s why you went after him. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.’

‘You don’t have to say any more than that. This is as much as we’ll ever need to say about this ever again.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘Your turn, Grace. Tell me why you’ve got that gun.’

She picked up her cigarette and smoked with her eyes closed, shaking from head to foot. He had never seen her like this. He thought it was better that he didn’t try to touch her. She opened her eyes.

‘Someone used to stalk me once. He was sort of a boyfriend for a while. We broke up over ten years ago but he kept coming back. I got that gun-’ She stopped. ‘I got that gun after I came home from a party one night and he was waiting for me in the car park. He threw petrol all over me.’

Harrigan was silent. It was one of the few occasions in his life when he could truthfully say he was shocked.

‘I heard him say, “My lighter’s not working.” Something like that. I turned and ran. I wondered later if it was a joke but I don’t think it was. I locked myself in my flat and I sat under the shower fully dressed for hours just soaking myself with water. The next day I moved out of that flat and into this one. Then I got hold of that gun. That’s why I have it, in case he comes back.’

Harrigan was drumming his fingers softly on the table top.

‘Who is this person? What’s his name?’

She shook her head.

‘No, what’s his name?’

‘Chris Newell,’ she said after a while.

He took out his notebook and wrote it down.

‘Where is he now?’

‘Silverwater. He got seven years for armed robbery about a year ago. I kept my gun just in case he got out again somehow. It’s a security blanket. I don’t feel safe without it now.’

Harrigan jotted down these small details without asking how she’d got involved with someone like that in the first place.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘Keep an eye on him. Maybe a little more. He sounds like he deserves some attention. Why didn’t you tell me? I would have warned him off for you. I would have made sure he never came back.’

She lit another cigarette from the end of the one she was smoking without answering him.

‘Is he the one who gave you your scar?’

‘It was a long time ago. I was only nineteen. It was when I was still singing with my band. He was supposed to be our manager. Then we found out he was dealing on the side. I’d already decided I didn’t want to sing any more. When I told him it was all over between us, he beat me up and told me I wasn’t going anywhere. When he wasn’t looking, I walked out. I took my car and I drove and I didn’t stop. Then I heard he was in gaol, he’d walked into a sting. He thought I’d dobbed him in but I hadn’t. When he got out, he came after me.’ She put her second cigarette in the ashtray and drew a deep breath. ‘I thought I knew everything back then. I was so green. It’s all over now. I’m a different person.’

‘You never reported him.’

‘I was drinking back then. I don’t know what kind of a witness I would have made. I didn’t want to put myself through that. I was too frightened of him. That’s the truth.’

‘If he ever comes near you again, it’ll be the last time he ever does. That’s a promise.’

He raped you, he understood, watching her ash, then scrub out her cigarette. He raped you and he left you with that scar. Because men who give women scars like you have almost always do that. Seventeen years on the job had taught him this as a fact of experience. She would never tell him that directly to his face; it would always be unspoken.

She had stopped shaking. Her face was drawn, her eye make-up smudged.

‘You matter to me,’ he said. ‘You must know that. You must know how much.’

‘Then why are you never here? It’s the work you do. It crushes everything else out of your life except Toby, and that’s only because he’s the other half of you.’

‘You want me to change.’

‘You don’t have to work the hours you work. You don’t have to be everyone’s saviour. I know an addiction when I see one. It fills a gap for you. Can’t you imagine having something else in your life as well?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I’m not going to live with things the way they are now. I don’t want to break up. I don’t want to put myself through that. But I don’t want to live like this either. You have to make a choice as to what you really want. You’re the only one who can do that. I have to wash my face.’

When she came back out of the bathroom, he was clearing away the broken gun into a plastic bag.

‘I’ll get rid of this,’ he said. ‘I’ll get your tiles fixed. I know someone who owes me a favour. He’ll do a good job.’

She smiled. ‘I’d be surprised if you didn’t.’

The phone rang. Grace let it go through to the answering machine.