Black and grey realism tattoo of a rose made from rolled banknotes with script banners above and below, on the outer thigh.

Rose of banknotes with script banners on a thigh

Realism · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

A rose formed from rolled paper banknotes, with the word ONE visible on one note, sits at the centre of the design. Two scrolled banners carry script lettering above and below it. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong highlights and soft grey gradients across the paper and petals.

Realism Lettering Thigh Rose Banknote Money Banner Script lettering Scroll

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The locker at platform four had been shut for three weeks before anyone thought to check it. Dolores from the buffet swore the smell was cheap aftershave and wet cardboard. I was the one with the bolt cutters, because I was the one who signed the lost property forms.

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Inside was a holdall, a return ticket to Carlisle dated the previous Tuesday, and a shoebox wrapped in a bin bag. The notes were rolled tight, each one twisted like a cigarette and bound with elastic bands gone brittle as biscuit. Somebody had rolled them the way you might roll a rose if you had no petals and a great deal of patience.

I should have handed it straight to the British Transport Police. Instead I sat on the bench under the big clock with the box on my knees and counted. Eleven thousand, four hundred pounds, which is a lot of money to find on a Thursday. The note on top had the word ONE printed across its middle, and that is the sort of thing you notice when you have nothing else to look at for twenty minutes.

The owner came back on Friday, a man in a camel coat who did not ask what was inside. He looked at the box, then at me, and said the root of all evil was a bloody expensive thing to keep in a locker. I gave him the holdall and kept the ticket stub he had left behind on the counter. It still sits in my purse, Carlisle, one way, paid in cash.