The Grave Tattoo. Val McDermid
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?’
I told him I was willing to consider his request favourably, except that I feared there would be unpleasant consequences if I were to publish such an account. ‘You are, a wanted man & if I were to claim for my Poem the name of truth, I would be tarred with the same brush. Harbouring a known felon is an offence against His Majesty and I should be loath to deprive my wife of a husband and my children of a father even to defend the honour of an old friend such as you. Further, it would incite a manhunt against you in this place where you feel most safe.’ This was not a concern that had occurred to my friend, but he was quick to see its force. ‘It is not for myself that I care what is said, but for my family,’ he said. At length, we agreed that if I were to forge a Poem from his tale nobody should be made privy to it until we both were dead. Thus would we protect ourselves and clear his reputation in one fell swoop.
Professor Maggie Elliott looked over the rimless glasses perched on the end of her nose. ‘It seems to me, Jane, there are two discrete elements here. One is the letter from Mary Wordsworth which alludes to something that, as far as we can tell, has not been elucidated by any other scholar. The second is the discovery of a body in the Lake District which may or may not have tattoos typical of the South Sea Islands during the period of the mutiny on the Bounty. Would you agree with that analysis?’
Jane shifted slightly in her seat. ‘Well, yes.’
‘But you have it in mind that these two elements could be inextricably woven together? Based on little more than a rumour you heard as a child?’
‘A rumour that has persisted for the best part of two hundred years,’ Jane said, a cast of stubbornness settling on her face.
‘But a rumour nonetheless.’
Jane hated the way Professor Elliott assumed the pedantry of an Oxbridge don in spite of having acquired all three of her degrees at redbrick universities. Given her age, she should be a laid-back egalitarian, not some fogey acting twenty years older than her age and several gradations above her class. ‘A rumour that is backed by a significant amount of circumstantial evidence,’ she said, determined not to be worn down. ‘As I outlined to you. And there is one other detail…’
Professor Elliott raised her eyebrows interrogatively. ‘Yes?’
‘The notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge are in the British Museum and one of them contains the entry: “Adventures of Christian, the mutineer”. The same notebook he was using during the period when he composed The Ancient Mariner. And when you read the poem in that light, it’s not hard to spot links to the Bounty’s voyage.’
‘Such as?’
‘The terrible storms they endured going round the Cape. The way they were driven south towards the ice before making it through into the South Seas. And the albatross. It’s a matter of record that the Bounty’s crew shot and ate albatross during their voyage. As far as I know, there was no superstition attached to killing those particular birds at that time. But for his poem to work, Coleridge had to invent a metaphor for sin. And killing a beautiful wandering bird suited his romantic soul right down to the ground.’ Jane’s hands wove a sensuous pattern in the air as she described the bird. ‘However, what we also know from contemporaneous accounts is that it was Wordsworth who came up with the idea of the albatross on one of their walks together. I don’t think it’s reaching to suggest that the notion had already been planted in his mind by what he knew of the Bounty.’
Professor Elliott shook her head. ‘Your timing’s wrong, surely. Coleridge was working on The Ancient Mariner when he and Wordsworth were in Dorset. It’s much too early for Fletcher Christian to have been back in England. And certainly there’s no reason to suppose he was in Dorset.’
Jane nodded. ‘I’m not suggesting Wordsworth knew the story at first hand from Fletcher at that point. But I think it’s indicative of an existing interest in the mutiny. And in Edward Christian he had the perfect source to satisfy his curiosity. Edward would almost certainly have heard about the killing of the albatross from the mutineers who were brought back or from Bligh’s accounts. It’s exactly the sort of detail that would have struck Wordsworth. And if William had already shown an interest in the mutiny, all the more reason why Edward would send Fletcher to him when he finally came home.’
Professor Elliott gave a smile that was hard not to take as condescension. ‘That is even more tenuous a theory than this putative concatenation of body and letter. What leads you to the belief that there is some urgency attached to the exegesis of the letter?’
In the three hours since she had left