Chapter 80

‘I am now convinced each of Cornelius Green's tattoos match one of the courses he ran,' Bradshaw said. ‘We suspected as much, obviously, but until you brought that information back from All Saints Church there was still one thing that didn't make sense. And in breaking codes like this, if one thing doesn't work, none of it works.'

Poe was perched on the edge of the bed. Linus was standing next to the desk. He was peering over Bradshaw's shoulder.

‘What do you mean, they match?' Poe said.

‘There were six self-penned alphanumerical tattoos on the thighs and torso of Cornelius Green.'

‘There were.'

‘And we think there were six courses that hadn't been recorded anywhere.'

Poe nodded. ‘We do.'

‘This is where things get slightly more complex,' Bradshaw continued. ‘When we discovered that Nathan Rose, one of the course attendees, had CSM.12.R2.CL tattooed on his foot, we suspected there was a link between the courses and Cornelius Green's tattoos.'

‘That was the logical leap.'

‘And it was the correct one. However, we were mistaken when we thought the tattoos were some sort of obscure course code or a type of one-time-pad.'

‘What are they then?'

‘They're locations, Poe,' Bradshaw said.

‘Locations? Like a grid reference?' Poe's brow furrowed. He had been taught to read maps in the army and he still preferred using Ordnance Survey to GPS. Maps could be trusted; GPS relied on batteries – which could run out – and hackable satellites. Not that he'd ever tell Bradshaw that, of course. If Cornelius Green's tattoos were grid references, he'd been using a system with which Poe was unfamiliar. Admittedly, grid references varied, but they all tended to work on intersecting lines, and they all had an even number of digits – half denoted the vertical axis and half denoted the horizontal. Ordnance Survey divided the UK into 100-kilometre squares and assigned a two-letter code to each one. Within each square, the standard numerical grid reference was used.

‘They're sort of like grid references, Poe,' Bradshaw said. ‘But only in the sense that each tattoo denotes something specific on the ground.'

‘Maybe it was where each course took place?'

‘No, that's not it.'

‘What then?'

‘They're graves, Poe.'