Five dots, arranged like the face of a dice on the skin between his thumbs and index fingers. I have heard a dozen different interpretations of what the quincunx means but the one I always believed was that it represents one lonely human soul, surrounded by four walls. The tattoos meant that the dead man had done hard time. ‘Daddy?’ ‘Stay back, Scout.’ The dead man was lying on his back in a ditch on Hampstead Heath. My daughter Scout and I had been walking the dog on his long Sunday morning yomp across the Heath, and it had been the dog that had smelled him first. We had come out of the trees heading towards the meadow that slopes down to the open-air bathing ponds when Stan – our ruby-coloured Cavalier King Charles Spaniel – had suddenly frozen, his nose twitching with disbelief. We thought he had picked up the scent of a fox or rabbit. But what Stan smelled was dead jailbird. I turned to look at Scout. Stan was off lead but she was holding him by the collar as his eyes bulged with anticipation.
What do You think about Max Wolfe 02.5 - Fresh Blood?
