His eyes flicked open at their approach and he quickly stubbed out the cigarette.
"Please wait," Jamie shouted, waving at him.
The man stepped inside the studio and Jamie ran to the open door, reaching it as he tried to force it closed. She wedged her foot into the crack.
"Please," she shouted above the music. "We only want to talk to you."
"I don't have anything here. No money, no drugs," the man pleaded, his face desperate as he tried to push Jamie out. Blake stood behind her.
"We're not here to take anything," he said. "We're looking for a friend and we heard you could help."
"I'm a private investigator on a missing persons case," Jamie added. "Please just talk with us for a second."
The man's features softened as he realized they weren't there to steal from him. Jamie could understand his anxiety in this part of town.
"Alright," he said, moving back from the door. "Let me turn the music off."
Jamie and Blake stood by the door as the music quietened and the man returned.
"Great album," Jamie said. "I always loved Trent Reznor."
"Forgive me, I don't get too many visitors in this part of town. Most are here looking to score." He took a deep breath. "I'm Corium Jones." The man's features softened and he held out a hand. The skin was red and raw with evident chemical burns but Jamie shook it without flinching, meeting his eyes as she did so.
"I'm Jamie Brooke and this is Blake Daniel."
"What can I help you with?" Corium asked.
"We were at the tattoo convention," Jamie said, "and heard that you provide an unusual service for those with body art."
Corium nodded, a wry smile on his lips.
"Yes, people pay me to preserve their tattoos after death," he said. "It's a growing industry. After all, they may have paid thousands to emblazon their skin with meaning in life and so they want to pass that on somehow. Their lifetime stories are inked into their skin, and they don't want it to rot away. They can't imagine the worms devouring it, or the fire consuming it. Skin preservation is an ancient art with few of us left. And, of course, much misunderstood."
"Can we have a look?" Jamie asked, glancing behind him into the dark of the studio.
Corium paused and Jamie felt the intensity of his gaze as he assessed her and Blake. Perhaps he sensed the death around them both, because after a moment, he stepped aside and waved them in.
The room had several workbenches with tools lined up neatly on one side. There was a vat of salt in one corner and a skin pegged out on a frame in the shade of an open window, the faint blue lines of a tattoo barely visible on the opposite side.
The smell of chemical preservative hung in the air, reminding Jamie of the studio of Rowan Day-Conti, the artist who had worked with the plastination of dead bodies. She shuddered when she remembered how the Jenna Neville case had ended for Rowan, trying to keep an open mind about what they might find here.
"How does your service actually work?" Jamie asked. "Do you cut from the bodies directly?"
Corium laughed. "I don't deal in bodies, only in skin. My clients pay for services, the skin arrives, usually rough cut in medical boxes. I prepare it, mount it as directed and then return it to the specified address. There's actually no personal contact – except with the skin, of course."
He stepped to a bench and indicated a piece of what looked like leather.
"This one is ready for mounting." He stroked the edge of it, his face showing pride in his work. "You can touch it if you like. It's very soft. Young skin, I think."
"So you don't actually know where the skin comes from?" Blake asked.
"Not at all," Corium said. "It's not my job to ask, either. I merely act as the preserver."
Jamie shook her head slowly. The man's words seemed logical in one way, and he was just a leather worker of a kind. But how could he touch these skins and not feel that they were once a thinking human?
"Can I ask what body parts you work on?" she asked.
Corium went to a row of shelves and pulled out one of the large photo albums stacked there. He laid it on the table and flicked it open.
"These are some of my favorite works," he said, a note of pride in his voice. He turned the first page. "These are the most common. Full-back tattoos which result in a rectangular finished piece, or two longer panels, depending on how close to the spine the skin was excised. There are also cross shapes where the shoulder and arm pieces have been saved."
Jamie swallowed her revulsion as she looked down at the pages, but the pictures were artistic, the skin turned into something beautiful. There was incredible skill in the ink and the colors: a waving riot of flowers that seemed to grow across the skin with blooming roses and curlicues in a feminine design.
A gigantic pair of strong angel wings, each feather inked in detail, the size of the skin indicating it came from a large man.
A tiger prowling through a verdant jungle, its eyes staring out at the viewer.
There were quotes, too. In one, calligraphic handwriting flowed across the skin: I'm the hero of this story. I don't need to be saved. It seemed terribly sad that the hero was no more.
"Then there are the full-sleeve tattoos which result in a long tapering shape," Corium continued. "Very pleasing to the eye."
He indicated a lion's head in profile, its mane rippling over what had been muscles in life. A school of hammerhead sharks swimming over a submerged ancient city.
A list of coordinates with passport pictures and snapshots of faraway places.
A kaleidoscope of galaxies and stars in hues of cobalt blue, luminous greens and pinks.
The variation was incredible and Jamie could see how preserving these works of art was as much of a skill as inking them.
"I also have a number of head tattoos, which are more or less oval in shape, although it can be hard to get the edges right on those. They're the main ones," Corium raised his eyebrows, "but now and then I get some more intimate parts. Quite unusual, I must say."
Jamie looked at the shelf of photo albums.
"How long have you been doing this?" she asked.
"Since I was a child," Corium said, and the look in his eyes spoke of the deep loneliness of the misfit. "It started with taxidermy of small animals and tanning of found hides, but then one day a dying friend asked me to help preserve a part of himself and I couldn't say no. My reputation spread in the tattoo community and here in London these days there's no shortage of preservation work. There are also people who are willing to pay a lot of money for human leather products, from unmarked and inked skin."
Corium ran a hand across his smooth head. "I want ink myself of course, but I suffer from the tyranny of choice. After all, I have all these examples of fine art and I can't decide what I want on my own canvas. We have such a small amount of space and to get it wrong would be …" He shook his head and sighed. "Well, I can't abide the thought that my own legacy would be inferior to the skins I work on all day."
While Corium spoke, Jamie could see that Blake had wandered down to the far end of the studio to a tall bookcase. He bent more closely to look at the books, and then turned to call back to them.
"Could you tell us about this particular book?"
Corium's head snapped round and his eyes narrowed. He had the look of a man who would protect his domain at any cost.
"It's an early edition of Francis Galton's Hereditary Genius. For a very private client." His voice was cold as he stalked down the studio, Jamie following close behind.