TT12 The Bones Beneath

by Mark Billingham

  ‘It’s all right,’ Thorne shouted.

  ‘Hell of a view.’

  ‘Maybe another time.’ Thorne had never been great with heights, but the experience of six weeks before had turned a minor anxiety into a major phobia. Being made to stand on the edge of a tower-block roof, being told to jump. Being tempted to jump.

  Taking a bullet had been the softer option in the end.

  He waited five minutes for Morgan to appear. He looked around a small kitchen and storage room, listening to the sound of the boatman’s footsteps on a seemingly endless number of metal, then stone steps.

  ‘Seriously, it’s a great view.’ Morgan finally appeared and immediately flicked the kettle on. He reached into a wonky cupboard, took three mugs down. ‘You can’t see back to the mainland because of the mountain, but if it’s clear enough, looking the other way, you can see Dublin.’

  ‘I need to know when you’re heading back,’ Thorne said.

  Morgan peered out of the window and up at the sky. ‘An hour, maybe a bit more.’

  ‘No chance of staying any longer than that?’

  ‘You’re pushing your luck after dark,’ Morgan said. ‘That crossing’s tricky enough as it is.’ He could see the frustration on Thorne’s face. ‘Why don’t you stay?’

  ‘Can’t do it,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Most of the cottages are empty.’

  ‘I need to get my prisoners back behind bars. That’s the deal.’

  Morgan nodded. ‘Probably a damn sight cosier for them as well. Not exactly tempting, I can see that, staying here this time of year.’ He leaned down, took milk from a fridge and sniffed it. ‘Plenty of people the rest of the time though. All those cottages get rented out, believe it or not.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yeah, they’ll be full come May–June time.’

  ‘Takes all sorts.’ Thorne could appreciate how dramatic the landscape was, even if wide open spaces had never excited him in quite the way they clearly did a great many others. Still, with no running water or mains power, he remained unconvinced about the place as a holiday destination, except for those with masochistic tendencies.

  ‘Well, we get boatloads of twitchers for a start.’

  ‘Yeah, I saw one,’ Thorne said.

  ‘They come for the Manx shearwater colony mainly.’ Morgan looked at Thorne, smiled at the blank stare he got back. ‘Not your thing?’

  Thorne shrugged. ‘I know what a magpie looks like, a robin. Beyond that, I haven’t really got a clue. A chicken…’

  ‘Then we get the amateur astronomers coming out, because there’s no light pollution, and loads of artists too. Writers, painters, what have you, coming over here on retreats. They like the quiet, I suppose.’

  ‘So, how many on the island right now?’

  Morgan thought for a minute, counted on his fingers. ‘Well, there’s the family up at Tides House… there’s the warden and his wife. They’re not here all the time, like. I reckon he’s only come across because he knew you lot were coming… bit of a sticky-beak. There’s the young couple who help him run the observatory, do all the scientific data and that.’ He raised another finger. ‘There’s the birdwatcher in one of the small cottages… no shearwaters this time of year, but still plenty of birds if you’re mad keen. So, not that many. Put it this way, there’s more of you than there are of us.’

  Morgan made the tea. He handed Thorne a mug and shouted up to tell his father that there was one waiting for him.

  ‘Down in a minute,’ his father shouted.

  ‘You gave us a bit of a laugh earlier on,’ Morgan said.

  Thorne looked at him.

  ‘The sheep. We heard all about it. You’re using the maritime frequency, remember.’ He nodded towards a large radio receiver mounted on the wall. It looked almost steam-powered, housed in a wooden surround with twisted curly wires, but it clearly worked perfectly well.

  Thorne could hear Bernard Morgan on his way down. ‘I don’t need to tell you I’d rather you didn’t talk to anyone about any of this.’

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Morgan said. ‘No.’

  ‘Only some people have already been shouting their mouths off.’

  ‘Some people haven’t got any lives,’ Morgan said.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Thorne said.

  ‘We know who your prisoner is, by the way. Well, who one of them is, at any rate.’

  Thorne looked towards the radio.

  Morgan shook his head. ‘My dad worked it out, after what he said to me on the boat.’

  ‘Right.’ Thorne remembered Nicklin speaking to Huw Morgan just before he got off the boat. Something about seeing him again.

  Bernard Morgan appeared in the doorway. He picked up his tea from the table. ‘I can remember bringing those boys across all those years ago,’ he said. His voice was deeper than his son’s, hoarser, but the accent was the same, the intonations. ‘There was some incident later on, wasn’t there? Then two of the boys escaped. It was closed down fairly soon after that, if I remember right —’

  Thorne’s radio crackled into life. Holland saying, ‘Guv…?’

  Thorne said, ‘Yes,’ and began moving towards the doorway. He kept going, out towards the lighthouse entrance, even though he realised that the conversation was being simultaneously broadcast through the speaker of the ancient radio receiver.

  Holland told him that Howell had seen something on the GPR screen and that they were digging again. Thorne told Holland to let him know if and when anything turned up. Was turned up.

  When he walked back into the kitchen, Huw and Bernard Morgan were standing side by side, cradling their mugs of tea, watching him.

  ‘Only one boy escaped,’ Thorne said. ‘Only one boy ever got off the island.’

  Huw Morgan nodded his understanding. ‘Sounds like you might have got lucky,’ he said. ‘If not now, maybe tomorrow, eh?’

  Walking back, Thorne saw that the tide had drifted even further out, but that the masses of weeds that were plastered to the rocks still appeared to be moving. Looking again he saw that the movement was actually the rippling of blubber; that there were, in fact, hundreds of seals basking just below him on the rocks. There were a few lighter-coloured pups dotted among the groups of enormous adults, seven or eight feet long in a variety of blotchy greys, browns and speckled blacks. The creatures seemed largely unconcerned by his presence, even when he stepped down and climbed carefully across the rocks towards them. But they would only allow him to get within fifteen or twenty feet before lumbering away with surprising speed, barking and snarling, towards the water.

  Thorne stood and watched them until Holland came through on the radio again.

  ‘We’ve got a body,’ he said.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘There are bits of clothes.’

  Thorne took a step back towards the verge, the sudden movement disturbing a huge bull seal, which dragged itself in the opposite direction, hissing at him.

  ‘Training shoes,’ Holland said.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Tides House

  They had been told to stay inside, and those whose bedrooms were at the back of the house had seen the helicopter land in the field behind. Simon and Stuart had stared from their window, saying nothing. They had watched the paramedics run across the field into the house and emerge a few minutes later with Kevin Hunter’s body on a stretcher.

  Now, an hour later and with the boy believed to be responsible already in police custody, the ten ‘guests’ that still remained in Tides House were trooping into the sitting room, where Ruth was waiting to address them.

  There was plenty of chat as they took their seats, plenty of rumour.

  A few were saying that Hunter was probably dead already or that he’d been cut up so badly that he was gone well before the helicopter had even got there. Some were whispering about the boy who had done it, a softly spoken lad with a shaved head and dark eyes named Ryan Gough. Simon listened closely, but could not hear anyone
talking about why Gough had attacked Kevin Hunter.

  One of the screws asked for quiet. Then he asked again, rather more forcefully, until things got as quiet as they were likely to get, and Ruth stood up.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘This isn’t going to be easy.’ She looked pale and tired. She looked like she’d taken a good kicking. ‘Obviously, you know by now that a boy was seriously assaulted today. Kevin Hunter was attacked by another boy in the kitchen, just after breakfast.’

  ‘Is he dead, miss?’

  Simon craned his head, but could not see who had asked the question.

  Ruth sighed. She was wringing her hands. ‘We haven’t heard anything since the air ambulance left,’ she said. ‘It goes without saying that all of us are deeply shocked and saddened by what’s happened. A violent assault like this… coming out of the blue.’

  Simon could see that she looked close to tears. It was odd because some of the other screws looked anything but upset. Watching him carefully, Simon could have sworn that the fat-faced one with the greasy hair was actually smiling. He certainly looked a damn sight more relaxed than he usually did. A lot more comfortable.

  Ruth carried on, saying how important it was that what had happened did not disturb anyone else, that everyone should try to carry on as normal and that the staff would do everything possible to make sure that things stayed the way they were.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘we’re more than happy to speak to any boy who’s upset and wants to talk to someone about how he’s feeling…’

  She sat down then, and the fat-faced screw came forward. The smile had gone as he announced that the police were very keen to talk to any boy who had seen what had happened that morning or who had any information at all about it. The smile came back a little when he said how mysterious it was that nobody appeared to have seen anything, despite several boys having been in the kitchen at the time, helping clear up after breakfast.

  Simon was aware that, next to him, Stuart was sitting eating a bar of chocolate and softly humming to himself. It might have been some kind of tune, but was probably just a hum of pleasure, because now Simon knew that Stuart loved chocolate more than anything. Knew that he would swap cigarettes for chocolate any time. Any time.

  Listening to the fat-faced screw, Simon felt the smallest of trembles in his leg. He wouldn’t say anything, of course. He wasn’t sure he would know what to say even if he wanted to. The fact was, though, that without knowing how he could possibly have done it, Simon was positive that Ryan Gough had only stuck a kitchen knife into Kevin Hunter because Stuart had told him to.

  Ruth was on her feet again…

  ‘We’re not going to let what has happened destroy what we’ve built up here,’ she said. ‘What you’ve all worked so hard to build up.’

  Simon looked at Stuart.

  Stuart grinned and popped the last chunk of chocolate into his mouth.

  Simon grinned back at him, happier than he could remember being at any time since he had arrived on the island.

  Later, after lights out, the two boys on the other side of the bedroom were talking about what had happened. About how Hunter must have said something, must have been asking for it, and how there was no way they could possibly get that much blood off the stone floor.

  Stuart shushed them gently and they didn’t say anything else.

  Simon waited a minute, took a deep breath, then said everything he’d been wanting to say, since they’d watched that helicopter rise into the sky and swoop away over the sea.

  ‘I was thinking, it would be great if you and me kept in touch, you know, when we go back. Obviously you’ve got stuff to do, same as I have. Trying to sort my mum out and that, but afterwards we could meet up and hang out or whatever.

  ‘I don’t know if you’re sorted for somewhere to stay after, but I was thinking there’s room at my place. There’s a spare room, I mean. Sometimes there’s a stranger in there… some junky mate of my mum’s dossing down in there, but that won’t be happening after she’s clean, so you could use it if you wanted. Not all the time or anything, but you know, if you were in the area and needed somewhere to crash.

  ‘Just saying. The offer’s there.

  ‘I’ve written the address down, so make sure you hang on to it and if you want to give me an address or a phone number or something, to keep in contact. Yeah? Or maybe we can make a definite plan… like a date when we know we’ll both be out so we can arrange to meet up in the West End or somewhere, go to a pub or an arcade or somewhere.

  ‘I’m just saying, it would be a laugh to meet up if you wanted to, talk about this place and everything. All the wankers! The screws and everything. I mean… I don’t even know when you’re out, so I’m probably being a bit stupid.

  ‘Just saying…’

  Simon lay there for a while longer, staring at the back of Stuart’s head, the shape of it in the half-light, then he turned over and looked at the sliver of moon that was visible through the cheap curtains.

  The milky gleam off the big stupid cross on the far wall.

  He was just drifting off to sleep when he heard Stuart say something. He turned over again. ‘What?’

  Stuart said, ‘Sooner than you think, maybe.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Thorne told Jenks to stay in the school hall with Batchelor, while he and Fletcher escorted Nicklin down to the site of the latest dig. Jenks seemed happy enough, having long ago abandoned any notion of a meaningful conversation with his prisoner and found a tattered and slightly damp book of crossword puzzles in one of the cupboards. Thorne told him that they would not be long, to be ready to leave as soon as they got back. Jenks nodded without looking up from his puzzle, idly winding strands of his mullet around a finger. Batchelor looked no more or less wretched than he had since Thorne had watched him emerge into the car park at Long Lartin the previous day.

  He seemed like someone who was waking up every few seconds and realising to his horror where he was.

  Robert Burnham was waiting on the track outside the school, talking to a man and a woman. They were young, nerdish-looking, and Thorne assumed they were the couple Morgan had mentioned, who helped out at the Bird and Field Observatory. They stopped talking and watched as Fletcher, Nicklin and Thorne walked down the steps. Thorne had given the go-ahead for Nicklin to smoke, though he had refused to even consider taking the handcuffs off. He had watched Fletcher take the tin from Nicklin’s pocket, put the pre-rolled cigarette into Nicklin’s mouth and light it for him.

  If the young couple were shocked or disturbed by the sight of the handcuffs, they didn’t show it, though they kept sneaking looks at Nicklin, as though he were a celebrity they had spotted on the other side of a restaurant.

  Burnham introduced them to Thorne as Craig and Erica and confirmed that they were helping him and his wife at the observatory, collating data on nesting seabirds. They did not seem hugely keen to talk, which suited Thorne as he was keen to get down to the dig. Burnham had other ideas though.

  ‘I was on my way to see you.’ He held up the satellite phone. ‘Your boss called… Bristow, is it?’

  ‘Brigstocke,’ Thorne said. He had passed on the number when they had spoken earlier. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘It was nothing urgent.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He was just checking that the digging had actually started. He gave me rather a hard time, actually, when he found out I was the one who’d been holding things up to begin with.’

  Thorne said, ‘Sorry,’ though he wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t take offence,’ Burnham said. ‘Anyway, I told him that it had started… the digging… which I guessed you would have wanted me to do.’

  ‘I’d rather you’d passed the call on to me straight away. Or at least given me the message.’

  ‘I didn’t know where you were.’

  ‘I was at the lighthouse.’

  ‘How was I to know that?’

  ‘Well, next time, if you can’t f
ind me straight away, perhaps you could pass the call on to one of my colleagues.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Burnham said, looking put out. ‘I do have other things to do.’

  Thorne had one hand on the gate, ready to push on into the field, when Nicklin spoke up.

  ‘Shame it’s the wrong time of year for the shearwater,’ he said.

  Burnham looked a little wrong-footed by the comment, the fact that it had been made by the man in the handcuffs. He managed, ‘Well, yes…’

  ‘I can still remember the sound of them at night, when they come back to their burrows. Spooky as hell.’ He looked at Thorne. ‘Something you should hear.’

  ‘We’ve still got an amazing variety of species though.’ Burnham looked at Craig and Erica. ‘Haven’t we? Firecrests, snipe, the little owls, obviously. A flock of waxwings arrived the day before yesterday.’

  ‘We need to get on,’ Thorne said.

  Nicklin nodded at Craig and Erica. ‘I don’t think he’s very interested.’

  ‘Well, obviously, you’ve got more important things to think about,’ Burnham said. He nodded towards the field. ‘It all seems to be happening down there.’

  Pushing through the gate, Thorne noticed the binoculars hanging around Burnham’s neck. He guessed the warden had been looking at rather more than little owls and waxwings.

  Within a few minutes of leaving the track, they were leaning into the wind again, a stiff sea breeze harsh against their faces. With Fletcher a pace or two behind them, Thorne asked Nicklin the question that had been nagging at him for weeks. Since Brigstocke had sat on that hospital bed, eating Thorne’s biscuits, passing on the good news and the bad.

  ‘Why now?’ he asked.

  Nicklin raised his hands and rubbed awkwardly at his nose, scratching an itch. ‘Because Simon’s mother asked me.’

  ‘She’s been asking you for a long time.’

  They walked on, sheep trundling out of their way.

  ‘Maybe I thought I might sleep better.’

  ‘You sleep fine,’ Thorne said. ‘And if you don’t, it’s more likely to be indigestion than remorse.’