The Tooth Tattoo Read online

  Also by Peter Lovesey

  Sergeant Cribb series

  WOBBLE TO DEATH

  THE DETECTIVE WORE SILK DRAWERS

  ABRACADAVER

  MAD HATTER’S HOLIDAY

  INVITATION TO A DYNAMITE PARTY

  A CASE OF SPIRITS

  SWING, SWING TOGETHER

  WAXWORK

  Peter Diamond series

  THE LAST DETECTIVE

  DIAMOND SOLITAIRE

  THE SUMMONS

  BLOODHOUNDS

  UPON A DARK NIGHT

  DIAMOND DUST

  THE HOUSE SITTER

  THE SECRET HANGMAN

  SKELETON HILL

  STAGESTRUCK

  COP TO CORPSE

  Hen Mallin series

  THE CIRCLE

  THE HEADHUNTERS

  Other Fiction

  THE FALSE INSPECTOR DEW

  KEYSTONE

  ROUGH CIDER

  ON THE EDGE

  THE REAPER

  Copyright © 2013 by Peter Lovesey.

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lovesey, Peter.

  The tooth tattoo / Peter Lovesey.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-61695-231-0

  1. Diamond, Peter (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Police—England—Bath—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PR6062.O86T66 2013

  823′.914—dc23

  2012043412

  v3.1_r1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  1

  SOUTHBANK, LONDON, 2005

  Eleven-thirty at night, sweaty in his evening suit and shattered after a heavy night playing Rachmaninov, Mel Farran plodded out of the artists’ exit on the south side of the Royal Festival Hall. Good thing his legs didn’t need telling the way to Waterloo station and the tube. He’d done it a thousand times. Rachmaninov was said to be the ultimate romantic – miserable old git. The six foot scowl, as Stravinsky called him, had been a pianist through and through. He worked the string section like galley slaves to show off the joanna man, and Mel Farran was a viola-player, so thank you, Sergei.

  The moon was up, spreading the shadow of Hungerford Bridge across the paved square called Beacon Market Place.

  He was forced to stop. A young woman was blocking his path, one of those situations where each takes a sideways step the same way. It happened twice and they were still face to face.

  She said, ‘Do you mind?’

  Mel took it as a statement of annoyance. He was annoyed, too, wanting to move on, but what’s to be gained from complaining?

  Then she surprised him by saying, ‘Please.’

  How dense am I, he thought, not realising she always intended to stop me. Something glossy and flimsy was being waved under his nose. The concert programme. She was holding a pen in the other hand.

  Mel forced himself out of his stupor. She wants my autograph, for God’s sake. She can’t have confused me with the pianist, else why does she think I’m carrying an instrument case?

  Quick impression: she was the typical music student, bright-eyed, intense, dark hair in a bunch tied with red velvet. It wasn’t all that long since Mel had gone through college himself, passionate about all things musical. He’d queued through the night for the proms, cut back on cigarettes to buy the latest Nigel Kennedy, busked in Covent Garden to pay for a trip to Bayreuth. But he’d never understood the point of collecting autographs, still less the autographs of mere orchestra members.

  She pleaded with her eyes. Almond eyes. Nothing remarkable in that. Every college has a large quota of students from the Far East.

  He succumbed. ‘Are you sure it’s me you want?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I’m only one of the orchestra.’

  ‘Principal viola. You were wonderful.’

  ‘Get away.’

  ‘Truly.’

  Well.

  Maybe I was, he told himself, and his self-esteem got a lift. I’m good at what I do and some people appreciate my playing, even when ninety-nine percent are there to hear the pianist. This well-informed young lady knows who I am, so I’d better sign and be on my way.

  He tucked the fiddle under his arm to free his hands. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Tokyo. Have you been there?’

  He shook his head. ‘One day, maybe. Just my signature?’

  ‘Whatever you want to write.’

  That was a facer. At the end of a long concert he couldn’t think of two words together. ‘May I make it personal and put your name?’

  Instead of the gasp of pleasure he was expecting, she curled her lip.

  He was thrown. Had he said something wrong?

  She gave a laugh – a throaty, mocking laugh, meant to hurt – and took a step back. ‘You don’t know who I am, dumbo.’

  At the same time Mel felt a sharp, strong tug from behind. He flexed his arm. Too late. His viola had been snatched.

  He swung round in time to see a young guy on a bike in baseball cap, T-shirt and jeans pedalling away across the square. He was riding one-handed with Mel’s instrument case in his free hand. It was a set-up. He must have sneaked up behind while Mel – shit-for-brains – was being soft-soaped by the girl. He’d been mugged.

  Life was unthinkable without that viola. It wasn’t a Strad. It was not particularly valuable, not even old in instrument-making terms, but it was Mel’s voice, his art, his constant companion, his living. You’d need to be a professional musician to understand how he felt.

  Hell, he decided, I won’t allow this.

  He was no athlete, but he started running. Later he realised he should have chased the girl, who was clearly the accomplice. She would have been easier to catch than a bloke on a bike. Instead all of Mel’s focus was on his viola and the thief himself, fast escaping along the side of the Festival Hall.

  The concert audience had long since dispersed. At that time of night people were keen to get away. The great palaces of culture along the South Bank are locked, impenetrable, but all around – for those who know – are places of refuge, arches, stairwells and underpasses. The whole area becomes a haven for dossers and derelicts.

  Mel doubted that the thief was a down-and-out. For one thing, he’d grabbed the fiddle, not his wallet. For another, he was working with the girl, who looked and sounded Royal College of Music. And he was on an expensive-looking bike.

  Spurred by a degree of anger he didn’t know he possessed, Mel kept up the chase. The thief was faster, but one thing was in Mel’s favour: they’d turned left towards the Thames and he couldn’t cycle across.

  No use shouting. There wasn’t anyone else in sight. Taking increasingly shallow gasps, Mel spri
nted the length of the building as well as he could, resolved to get the thief in sight again. He turned the corner by the main entrance, already in darkness.

  The guy was there, up ahead.

  Mel’s legs were heavier with each stride and a band of pain was tightening across his chest. He was slowing, for all his strength of will. The buildings were a blur when he started. Now he could see them clearly.

  But the thief would have a problem. The riverside walkway was at a higher level and a set of about a dozen steps formed a barrier ahead of him. He’d need to dismount. It wouldn’t be easy carrying both bike and viola up there.

  Mel urged himself into another spurt.

  He was running in the space between the front of the Festival Hall and the side of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. No one was around to help. It’s me and him, Mel thought. If I keep going I may catch up before he gets up those steps.

  The guy’s head turned, checking, Mel guessed, whether he was still in pursuit.

  Then he surprised Mel by veering to the right just before the steps, straight towards the QEH. What was he doing? Mel had been assuming the high wall was solid concrete like the rest of the building.

  He appeared to cycle straight through and vanish.

  Disbelieving, in despair, at the limit of his strength, Mel staggered along the remaining stretch and discovered how it had been done. There was a hidden ramp just before the steps, obviously meant for wheelchair access. The thief must have skimmed up there without breaking a sweat.

  Suddenly he was back in view on the walkway, pedalling across Mel’s line of vision as if to mock him. But he stopped just to the right of the gated entrance to the Festival Pier, still astride the bike, with his feet on the ground.

  He was up against the railing by the water’s edge. He swung the viola case back to get momentum. Jesus Christ, Mel thought, he’s about to throw it over.

  ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘For God’s sake, no.’

  He was powerless to stop it. The thief couldn’t hear him this far off.

  There was a freeze-frame moment as if he was having second thoughts. Then Mel’s precious fiddle was hurled over the edge.

  Water is the worst enemy. No stringed instrument will survive immersion. The canvas case wasn’t waterproof. It would fill with filthy water. Whether it floated or got dragged down was immaterial.

  To Mel, what had just happened was akin to murder. Anyone who has listened to music, who has heard a violin or a viola sing, must know it has life. It’s a unique individual with the power to speak directly to the soul, to calm, heal, inspire, uplift the spirit in ways beyond man’s capability. Mel would defy anyone not to respond to the purity of legato bowing, the eloquence of the flowing tone. Each instrument has its own voice.

  He’d stopped running. His muscles were refusing to function, his brain spinning between disbelief and panic.

  Why? What malice drives anyone to such an act?

  ‘Bastard!’

  Already the cyclist was moving off left. And now Mel saw he’d get clean away, under the bridge and past the London Eye. All day there is a queue outside the huge observation wheel. But the place closed at nine-thirty. Nobody would be there to stop him at this hour.

  In reality his attention wasn’t on the thief any longer. He could go. Mel wasn’t thinking about justice or revenge. He wanted the impossible: to put the last five minutes into reverse and undo what had happened. Real life isn’t like that.

  He’d got the shakes now. The shock was consuming him.

  He knew he should mount the steps and look over the edge. It was too late to leap over and recover the poor, damaged thing. The only reason for jumping would be suicide. He was almost of a mind to do it.

  He forced himself upwards, stiff-legged, still shaking, right up to the railing, and peered over. It was too far down and too dark to spot anything floating there. All the filth of the river spreads to the banks like scum in a sink. The black water caught some ripples of reflected light from the ornate globe lamp-stand and that was all.

  Out in the middle there were lights. A small vessel was chugging past the pier towards Waterloo Bridge. A police launch? No such luck. It was more like a powerboat moving sedately because of the conditions. Too far out to hail.

  He heard water slurping against the embankment wall below him. The boat’s backwash had reached there. He stared down and saw nothing.

  Hours later, in his flat, he drank coffee and replayed the scene in his mind. He’d recalled it already for the police, given them such descriptions as he could – the Japanese girl with the red scrunch, the guy on the bike, and his poor, benighted instrument. The constable taking the statement hadn’t understood his desolation. He hadn’t even promised to pursue the thieves. ‘Look at it from our point of view,’ he’d said. ‘Where would we start? I don’t suppose they’ll try it with anyone else.’

  Obviously they had conspired to rob Mel and it wasn’t an opportunist crime. There had been planning behind it. But what was the reason? Surely not malice alone? They don’t know Mel, so why should they hate him? There was no profit in it. A good, much valued instrument was lost and his livelihood put at risk. They couldn’t know if he had other violas.

  Senseless.

  Or was it? His memory retrieved an image, the powerboat he’d noticed out in the middle of the river. Could it have come close enough for someone aboard to catch the viola as it was slung over the railing? This would provide a cruel logic to what had happened, a well organised plan to rob him.

  Now that the finality of his loss had come home to him, he was discovering dark places in his psyche that he didn’t know existed. He believed he could kill those two if he met them again.

  Would he recognise the girl? He thought so. The light hadn’t been good, but he’d seen her up close. He could remember the eyes wide in appeal when they’d first met, catching the light of the streetlamps, yet shot with scorn when she was sure he’d been suckered. He had a clear, raw memory of how her mouth had opened to mock him and most of all he could hear the cruel glissando of her laughter. Was he right in thinking she had been a music student? If so, the mugging was even harder to understand.

  Of her partner in crime he could recall only the clothes. He hadn’t seen his face.

  Did it matter any more? Did he want to hunt them down? He could search the common rooms of all the music colleges in London and maybe find them, but he wouldn’t get his viola back.

  Anger didn’t begin to describe his state of mind.

  2

  VIENNA, 2012

  ‘How much longer does it last?’ Paloma Kean asked Peter Diamond.

  ‘Aren’t you enjoying it?’

  ‘I’m trying not to breathe.’

  Diamond felt in his pocket and produced a tube of peppermints. ‘The man who thinks of everything.’

  ‘Thanks, but an oxygen mask would be better.’

  There are days when the Vienna sewer tour is more odorous than others. Wise tourists take note of the humidity before booking. Diamond and Paloma, on their weekend city break, had no choice, Saturday afternoon or nothing. It happened that this Saturday in July was warm, with a thunderstorm threatening. Even Diamond had noticed that the smell was not Chanel No. 5.

  ‘After this, you’ll appreciate the Ferris wheel,’ he told her.

  She was silent. She’d brought this on herself when reminding him that his favourite film, The Third Man, was set in Vienna. At the time, she’d congratulated herself for thinking of it. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been here.

  The adventure had begun back in April with a scratch-card she had found on the floor of his car. Diamond hadn’t bothered to check it. He’d said they were giving them away at the petrol station.

  She’d revealed three matching symbols and told him he was a winner.

  ‘Everyone is.’

  She had insisted on phoning the number on the back of the card.

  Deeply sceptical, Diamond had told her, ‘That’s how they make their money.’
r />   But it had turned out that he really had won a weekend break for two in a city of his choice: Paris, Amsterdam or Vienna. True to form, he’d dismissed Europe’s historic capitals with a dogmatic, ‘I don’t do abroad.’

  ‘Come on,’ Paloma had said. ‘Lighten up, Peter. This could be so romantic.’

  ‘I’m too busy at work.’ Work for Diamond was heading the CID section at Bath police station. There were always matters to be investigated.

  Then Paloma had remembered The Third Man and whistled the Harry Lime Theme.

  ‘What did you say those cities were?’ he’d said, looking up.

  And here they were trudging through a reeking sewer with a bunch of elderly tourists carrying flashlights. At intervals everyone stopped to be shown a clip of the film projected on to the brick wall opposite. Paloma could see Diamond’s lips move silently in sync with the soundtrack. ‘It’s the main sewer. Runs into the blue Danube.’ So obviously was he relishing the experience that it would have been churlish to complain.

  The day had started agreeably enough in the Café Mozart, another of the film locations. The coffee and Sachertorte were expensive, even for a couple used to Bath prices, but Diamond had basked in the ambience and said the experience was worth every Euro and talked about Graham Greene being a regular there in 1947 when he was researching the story. From there they’d moved on to a side street off the Naschmarkt and he’d stressed how fortunate they were to be here on a Saturday, the only day of the week the Third Man Museum opened. Displayed along with countless stills and posters was the actual zither Anton Karas had used to play the haunting theme. You could select from four hundred cover versions of the tune. Paloma had left the place with a headache that Diamond said was surely something to do with the weather. A short walk had brought them to Esperanto Park and the brick-built spiral staircase down to the oldest part of Vienna’s sewer system. Proceedings underground had begun with a film explaining how the cholera epidemic of 1830 had made a better sanitation system necessary. Then, after warnings to watch their footing, the guide had led them into the glistening brick-lined drains.

  Atmospheric? Paloma couldn’t argue with that. She just wished every film clip wasn’t punctuated with another head-numbing burst of the zither music.