Close-up of the words Thick as Thieves in fine black script on the inner forearm near the elbow, with blurred bottles in the background.

Thick as thieves script on forearm

Lettering · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A close-up of a fine black script phrase reading Thick as Thieves, sitting on the forearm just below the elbow. The linework is thin and even with some soft shading, and the ink is a single dark grey-black tone. The blurred background of bottles adds warm and pale colour, but the tattoo itself is the clear focus of the frame.

Lettering Fine line Forearm Script Phrase Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The silver was meant to be counted by midnight, and by midnight Nell Haddow had it in a flour sack under the lychgate. Tomas held the lantern. He had never once in his life kept still while a thing was being stolen, and he did not start now, but he did keep his mouth shut, which for Tomas was a kind of miracle.

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They had met at seven years old, when Nell took his apple from the orchard wall and he took the blame for it. Every thief in the parish after that was one they shared: the pear tree, the miller's coins, the sexton's pipe. Their mothers called them two of a kind and meant it as a warning.

The wedding was the Ashby girl's, and her new husband was a tallow chandler who had once cheated them both at cards. Nell wanted the silver back for the widow who had sewn her a winter coat. Tomas wanted only to see the man's face when the sack was empty. They laid the spoons out on the altar step in the grey before dawn, one each, so the wedding party would find them counted.

At the breakfast the groom went red and then white, and then he laughed, because the bride had already decided the spoons would not be pressed into the marriage. Nell and Tomas walked home by the river with the sack folded between them, shoulder to shoulder, as they always had, each one the other's alibi. Nobody in the parish ever asked which of them had thought of it. They had made sure of that.