Close view of a small black lettering tattoo of capital letters and numerals on the back of a hand, resting on an open Bible.

Small letter block tattoo on the back of a hand

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close photograph of a small tattoo on the back of a hand, made up of three lines of capital letters and numerals in a plain, uniform typeface. The linework is crisp and solid black with no shading, and the letters sit neatly and evenly spaced. The hand rests on an open printed Bible and a notebook, with a fine ring on one finger and a pale pink nail, and the warm, neutral tones keep the focus on the ink.

Lettering Hand Letter Numeral Text Hand Ring

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The telegram came in at ten past eleven, the way they always did, and I had the grey code book open before Mr Fenwick had finished his tea. Three lines, capitals only, hardly a space between the groups. Whoever sent it had been careful, and that frightened me more than anything, because careless men are easy to read.

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Fenwick wanted it within the hour. Rain ran down the window of the back office above Dock Street, and the lamp over the table hummed like something caught in a jar. I wrote the letters out on squared paper and shifted them against the key, then shifted again. Nothing agreed with anything. So I stopped trying to read the message and started reading its shape. The last line held a number, and numbers are where people give themselves away.

The number was a reference, chapter and verse, the way a man marks a page he means to find again. I fetched the dusty Bible from the locked drawer, the one nobody had opened since the old rector's funeral, and found the psalm. Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. I read it twice and laughed out loud, because it was a clerk's joke after all, a promise between two men who had never once trusted each other.

I took the verse as a key and ran the letters against it, word by word, until the first group gave way to a street name and the second to an hour. The third line I left alone. Fenwick read my pencil marks over my shoulder, said nothing, folded the paper into his waistcoat and went out into the rain. I sat with the lamp humming and wondered which of us had been the cipher all along.