Free The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid

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