House of Cards Read online

  Calum stared. He’d had a waiting list of his own back in Paddington, but nothing like this. “Are they waiting for a particular artist? Or just to come here?”

  “Everyone wants Brix, but he only has appointments four days a week. He does drop-ins on Fridays, but only in the off-peak season. It would be mental if he did it over the summer. For guest artists, I offer them up as a drop-in for the first few days, until word gets out and I’ve publicised them a bit. It doesn’t usually take long for their list to fill up after that. How long are you around for? I can probably have you booked for the next eight weeks if you’re up for it.”

  Calum shrugged. He hadn’t actually given it much thought, but with a minus balance on his bank account and fuck all else to his name, a month or two of solid work sounded almost too good to be true. “Let’s give it a week to start with. I might be the exception to your success.”

  “I doubt it. Do you have an online portfolio?”

  “Nope. I ain’t got nothing. Haven’t even got a phone with any pictures on.”

  Lena raised an eyebrow, looking briefly beyond Calum to where he imagined Brix was standing.

  “I did the wolf on Brix’s neck, if that helps.”

  “You did?” Lena’s expression brightened. “That’s my favourite. Brix! Come here.”

  Brix appeared from nowhere. “You rang?”

  “Shirt off.”

  “Already?” But Brix obeyed, pulling his long-sleeved T-shirt over his head to reveal his long, slender torso, almost every inch of skin covered in ink, including a large, dot-work wolf that stretched up his spine and curved around his perfect neck.

  Calum swallowed. He’d etched the wolf on Brix years ago but remembered the sensation of Brix’s warm skin and the throb of his pulse like it had been yesterday. His low chuckle as he’d no doubt realised the effect his close proximity was having on his newbie protégé. “It’s held up well.”

  “Course it has,” Brix said. “It was done by the best.”

  Calum flushed and looked away as Lena snapped a picture with an iPad. He’d once been proud of the piece, but it meant nothing to him now—not much did.

  “All done.” Lena set the tablet down and tossed Brix his shirt. “Now piss off, both of you. I’ve got work to do.”

  Lena struck Calum as a woman not to be messed with, so he trailed Brix back to Lee’s workstation and studied the ink and stencils that littered the cluttered shelves. “Scruffy one, eh?”

  “The worst,” Brix confirmed. “But when you kick out the best watercolour work I’ve ever seen, I let it slide. Have you seen these?”

  He pointed to a series of photographs on the wall, all watercolour pieces of various animals and plants. Calum traced one with his finger. He’d seen plenty of watercolour tattoos before, but none quite like these. He tried to picture the delicate art flowing out of his own gun. Failed, because they looked like they’d been drawn by a fairy rather than inked into flesh. Curious. “What’s he like?”

  “Who?”

  “Lee.”

  “She’s fucking awesome.”

  The new voice in the room startled Calum. He spun around to find another woman with neon hair—pink, this time—had joined them, this one complete with lip and septum piercings. “Erm, you’re Lee?”

  “Yup. What are you and Brix doing messing up my station?”

  Beside Calum, Brix chuckled. “Couldn’t mess that shit up with a cluster bomb. How do you find anything?”

  “Easily, ’cause it’s exactly where I left it if no other bozos have been farting around with it. Go on, piss off.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Brix said with a grin that told Calum he and Lee talked this way all the time. “I was just showing Calum your stuff.”

  Lee eyed Calum with what felt briefly like suspicion before she zeroed in on the stag on his hand. “Oooh, so you’re the one with the famous stag? Brix has told us about you.”

  “He has?”

  “About your hand,” Brix said. “I’ve got the stencil on the wall. Look.”

  Calum followed his gaze to Brix’s station and saw that Brix had indeed kept the inky stencil from so long ago, framed it, and nailed it to the wall. “Jesus, it’s been years since I last saw that.”

  “How many?”

  Calum glanced at Lee. “How many years? About ten, I reckon. Brix?”

  “I’d say so,” Brix said.

  Lee whistled. “You two are old.”

  “He is,” Calum said. “I was always the young pretender.”

  “You weren’t pretending at anything that I recall, mate.” Brix folded his arms across his chest. “Smashed every job from the get-go.”

  Heat flooded Calum’s cheeks. He turned away from Brix’s piercing gaze and Lee’s obvious curiosity and pointed to the first watercolour piece on Lee’s slice of the wall. “How did you get the ink to drip like that on the skin? The last one I did came out too pale.”

  “You’re diluting the ink too much, I’d imagine. It took me a while to get it right, and I only do watercolours. It woulda taken me years if I was doing all that macho black-and-grey shite too.”

  “Hey,” Brix interjected.

  Lee giggled. “You know I’m taking the piss, boss. It’s just too easy to wind you up.”

  “Very funny.”

  “I think so.” Lee returned her focus to Calum. “Don’t mind us. He loves me really.”

  “Yeah, like a mallet to the nuts.”

  Lee ignored Brix’s grumble and pointed at the ink detail Calum had drawn her attention to. “I can show you a few tricks if you want? I’ve got time this morning. I only came in early to order some bits I need.”

  Calum glanced at Brix, who shrugged and pushed himself off the counter he’d been leaning against. “Fill your boots, mate. I’ll get your station set up and you can have a play around. I’m sure someone’s got some spare skin you can test the waters with.”

  “You can do my foot,” Lena called out. “I’ve got a gap needs filling.”

  It was a complaint Calum had heard often from anyone who had more ink than naked flesh, and in spite of the dark mood still plaguing him, the urge to set a needle to skin made his palms tingle. “What do you want?”

  “No fucking idea. I’ll harass you later.”

  Lena turned back to her work as Brix punched Calum’s arm. “I’m gonna leave you to it for a while. Gotta nip home, then track down my old man. Just let Lena know when you’re ready to take walk-ins. Or not. Do whatever you want. It’s all cool.”

  Brix walked away before Calum could answer, striding quickly through the studio and out of the front door. Calum watched him go, struck with a sudden desperation to follow. Being with Brix had been the only thing stopping him losing his mind, and as the studio door swished shut, anxiety clawed at his heart. What the fuck am I doing here?

  Lee’s hand on his arm startled him for the second time in ten minutes, and the empathy in her previously sharp gaze surprised him even more. “Don’t fret,” she said. “Whatever brought you to Porthkennack, you’ll be safe from it here. Brix looks after all of us.”

  It was lunchtime before Brix made it back to Blood Rush. He appeared at the station he’d assigned to Calum with a weary grin that broke Calum’s concentration.

  Calum withdrew his borrowed gun from the young woman’s skin and mopped up some stray blood. “All right?”

  Brix nodded. “Aye. You?”

  Calum ignored the infinitesimal rush that came with Brix’s gentle Cornish accent. “Am now I’ve got a gun in my hand.”

  “Figured as much. Art is cathartic, eh?”

  “That’s what Lee said.”

  “Lee’s a smart girl.”

  “Yeah? She said you taught her that.”

  Brix said nothing, adding to Calum’s inkling that Lee’s journey to Brix’s studio hadn’t been a smooth one, and ventured closer, peering over Calum’s shoulder at the simple peacock feather he was etching on the young woman’s hip. “Nice.”

 
“Will be when I’ve finished.”

  “I’ll bet.” Brix turned his gaze to the woman. “How are you doing down there? Not too painful is it?”

  The woman shook her head. “It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be.”

  “That’s ’cause Calum here’s got the gentlest touch in the business. You picked a good day to walk in here. Tell your friends.”

  He left Calum to it and drifted to his own station. Calum felt his attention drawn to Brix, but the buzz of the gun was stronger than his fast-growing attachment to Brix, and it wasn’t long before he lost himself in the task at hand, not looking up until the feather was complete.

  “All done.” He shut the gun off and pushed his stool back. “Do you want to check it out?”

  The woman staggered to her feet like most people did when they’d been under the needle for a couple of hours. Calum steadied her, and then guided her to one of the huge gothic mirrors in the studio, bracing himself for the torturous wait to see if the woman liked what he’d done. He hadn’t had many negative reactions, but the way his luck had gone recently—

  “Oh my God. I love it.”

  Calum let out a breath. “Yeah?”

  “Fuck yeah.” The woman turned her body from side to side, viewing the tattoo from every angle. “The detail is amazing. Is the eye made of dots?”

  “Yeah, with some white ink. Dot work is my specialty, so I find it really hard not to sneak it in somewhere.”

  “I love it. Thank you so much.”

  “No worries. Come back to me when you’re ready and I’ll wrap you up for your journey home.”

  The woman nodded absently, still entranced by her ink. Calum left her to it and returned to his station to clean up.

  Lena was waiting for him. “I think I’ve got one of your clients coming in tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “I just heard you say that dot work is your specialty, and Brix told me you had a studio in Paddington.”

  “So?” Calum turned his back on Lena and started dismantling his borrowed tattoo gun for cleaning.

  “This guy was booked in for a dot-work leopard at a studio in London. Said he’d waited months to get in with the best dot-work artist in the city, only to find out that the studio had closed down overnight.”

  Calum’s stomach did an uneasy flip. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I want to know if we’ve got the best dot-work artist in London on our books, no other reason, Calum, I swear. No one here will give a shit about the rest of it. The fact that you’re Brix’s friend is enough.”

  “Cheers.”

  “Cheers? That’s all you have to say?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Are you CJ Hardy or not?”

  “No. I’m Calum Hardy.” Calum didn’t turn around, but Lena appeared on the other side of the chair, her gaze almost as piercing as Brix’s. Almost. Calum sucked in a breath. “Whatever. I worked at the studio. But I didn’t own it. Whatever’s happened since I left is nothing to do with me.”

  “Fair enough. Do you want your client back?”

  “No.”

  “All right. I’ll leave him with Brix and give you the afternoon off. That okay?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Good.” Lena started to move away, but seemed to think better of it. “You should know, though, I don’t keep secrets from Brix. So if there’s anything he doesn’t know, you should tell him today.”

  Sunday marked the fifth morning in a row Brix had woken to find Calum already up and outside with the chickens.

  “You’re going to turn Bongo into a lap hen.”

  “That a bad thing?” Calum didn’t look up from the chicken dozing in his arms. “She came to me this morning and butted my leg until I picked her up.”

  Brix’s chest warmed, and the early-morning breeze faded away. “I’ve had a few like that. Mary Killigrew was my last one.”

  “Mary what?”

  “Killigrew. Long story. Starts with ancient pirates and ends with my aunt Peg.”

  Calum shook his head slightly. “I feel like I just met you.”

  The comment seemed out of context, but Brix got it. He’d spent far too much of the past few days searching for the cheerful young man he’d used to know. Perhaps the change in Calum was all in the beard. Dark and moody, it added something that Brix had never seen in him before.

  Couldn’t deny it was fucking hot, though.

  Stop it.

  “I had a chat with Lena last night,” Brix said.

  “Yeah?” Calum set Bongo down as his shoulders tightened. “She tell you I’m a fly-by-night tea leaf or some shit?”

  “No, she said leopard man yesterday was one of your clients from London. She didn’t say much else, but I knew your place had closed down because she told me when the client booked in.”

  Brix left out the blanks the client had filled—the boarded-up doors and trashed interior. He couldn’t quite work out what Calum’s old studio had meant to him, but he didn’t fancy telling him that anything he’d left in the place had likely been half-inched or destroyed. Unless he already knows. But Lena hadn’t seemed to think he did. “He looked shocked, Brix, and pretty fucking freaked out. That bloke’s gotta story, I’m telling you.” Brix couldn’t disagree, but most folk who worked at Blood Rush had a past they didn’t want to talk about. Why would Calum be any different?

  “What do you want me to say?” Calum folded his tense arms across his chest. “I already told you—and Lena—that the shop wasn’t mine.”

  Brix didn’t like Calum’s defensive stance. It didn’t suit him. “I don’t want you to say anything. I’m just letting you know you can, if you want to. I ain’t gonna judge you if you’re in trouble. Lord knows, I’ve had my fair share of shit-storms coming from my clan.”

  “‘Clan’?” Calum tilted his head to one side. “I heard on the street yesterday that you come from a family of gangsters. You kept that quiet back in the city.”

  Brix snorted. “‘On the street’? In Porthkennack? Pull the other one.”

  Calum looked as convinced as Brix felt every time Calum deflected his questions. “I haven’t seen much of the place except ink and chickens.”

  “Easily fixed. I’ve got some mates coming for grub later, but I can show you around a bit this morning if you like?”

  “You mean the beach?”

  “And the rest. Get that crappy new coat of yours and I’ll show you the magic.”

  “Crappy?”

  “Aye. That bundle you picked up at the charity shop looks good on you, but it ain’t gonna keep you warm if you’re still around come winter. The wind is vicious here. My ma used to say it carried the demons ashore.”

  “Even yours?”

  “Even mine. How do you think I ended up inking up a storm in Camden in the first place?”

  “I’ve got no fucking idea. You never told me.”

  “Get your coat, then. I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Brix hauled himself up the rocks, climbing a path he knew like the back of his hand. The sea had eroded some of the ancient formations he remembered from childhood, but this route to the highest cliff in the bay never seemed to change.

  He reached the halfway ledge and glanced over his shoulder. Calum was a heartbeat behind him, his dark gaze more alive than Brix had seen so far, leading Brix to wonder why he hadn’t brought him out sooner. After all, Calum had been with him for six days now. “All right down there?”

  “Fuck yeah. Keep going. I want to see what it’s like from the top.”

  “Just a sec.” Brix veered off the steep path and rounded a crumbly verge. The opening to the small cave couldn’t be seen, but he knew where it was. Had done since he was knee-high to a grasshopper.

  He crawled inside, feeling around for any sign that Peg had moved the counterfeit DVDs here after they’d disappeared from his garden the first night Calum had stayed at the cottage. His hand hit a thick plastic sheeting. The type Peg�
��s crew used to protect their goods when contrary bastards like Brix forced them to stash their shit in the vast Lusmoore cave network hidden amongst the cliffs. What lay beneath the sheeting felt like DVDs, though the few packages he felt could only hold half the amount Peg had dumped in his backyard.

  Good. They’re moving them on. Brix never knew what drove him to check up on the family business he’d worked so hard to distance himself from, but it was something he found himself doing time and time again. Perhaps he was seeking reassurance. After all, a bunch of counterfeit DVDs was nothing, right? The caves had hidden far worse in years gone by.

  “Brix? You in there?”

  Brix withdrew his hands from the contraband like he’d been burned. He’d forgotten Calum waiting outside on the windy cliffs. He backed away from the loot and shuffled awkwardly out of the cave, barging straight into Calum, who wasn’t where he’d left him.

  Calum steadied Brix with gentle hands. His light touch burned, quickening Brix’s pulse. Or maybe it was the sea air going to his head. It had been a few weeks since he’d made this climb. Yeah. That was it. It had to be, because there was no way the surprise in Calum’s eyes was mirroring the shock in Brix’s heart.

  After a protracted moment, Brix regained his footing. Calum released him and shot him a quizzical frown. “What were you doing in there?”

  “Just checking something.”

  “‘Something’?”

  “Aye. Plenty of shit I don’t want to talk about either. Fair’s fair, ain’t it?”

  Calum scowled, though there was no anger in his gaze. “You got me there. I’ll keep my gob shut. I’m assuming you don’t want anyone to know you go crawling around the caves up here?”

  “You assume right, but I’m not worried about you running your mouth. You barely speak to anyone.”

  “I don’t know anyone.”

  “You know me.”

  Calum’s halfhearted glare mellowed to the crooked grin Brix had dreamed about in years gone by, the lopsided smile that made his eyes gleam. “I talk to you.”