TT12 The Bones Beneath

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Probably best.’ Nicklin looked up and saw that Fletcher and Jenks were watching again. Nicklin raised his hands and gave them a clumsy, handcuffed thumbs-up. Fletcher shook his head, as though Nicklin were a persistently naughty yet charming schoolboy.

  Jenks looked rather less amused. ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘You need to tell Thorne where this body is.’

  ‘There’s bodies everywhere on this island,’ Nicklin said. ‘He could start digging almost anywhere he fancied. Nine times out of ten he’ll find some bones.’

  ‘This woman’s body,’ Jenks said.

  ‘Thorne’s not daft, is he?’ Nicklin raised his hands again. ‘I wouldn’t be sitting here wearing these things if he was. I’m sure he’ll work it out eventually.’ He turned his face towards the window, what little daylight the caked-on grime allowed through. ‘Talking of which, what’s the time?’

  Jenks glanced at his watch. ‘It’s just after eleven.’

  ‘Already?’ Nicklin shook his head, looked at Batchelor. ‘I don’t know where the day’s going, do you, Jeff?’

  THIRTY-NINE

  The descent was not quite as straightforward as Thorne had thought the day before. It took the three of them more than double the fifteen minutes Thorne had estimated it would take when he’d first looked down at the drop, but he guessed that a seventeen-year-old boy with a body to get rid of and a boat waiting to take him to freedom might have done it rather quicker than that.

  Once they had reached the shoreline, it was hard to tell if the tide was on its way in or out. Either way the water was up over their ankles as they stepped carefully around those rocks that were too large or uneven to walk across. Howell was wearing wellingtons, but if they were going to get where they were heading, Thorne and Holland had little choice but to let the seawater fill their boots and soak the bottom of their jeans. At almost every step, curses were muttered or shouted, depending on their severity. Howell laughed, assured them that there was no need to censor themselves on her account. Within a few seconds, she had slipped on a rock and grazed her wrist trying to steady herself. She let fly a torrent of invective that stopped Thorne and Holland in their tracks.

  ‘See?’ she said. She licked at her injured wrist and started swearing again.

  ‘Something about your accent though,’ Holland said, when she’d finished. ‘Makes “fuck-shit-fuckety-fuck” sound a bit more poetic than when we say it.’

  Thorne pointed. Said, ‘There you go…’

  They began moving again. The wind was stronger suddenly and it felt like there was rain coming. They took their time, stepping cautiously across jagged rocks that were thick with slime and wading slowly through puddles of weed, until they finally stood at the entrance to a cave. The opening was no more than five feet high and narrow.

  Wide enough, Thorne thought; if you were crouching, dragging something.

  ‘He mentioned there were caves down here and I just thought… I don’t know.’ He looked at Holland. ‘Brigstocke said there might be clues, so maybe he mentioned the caves for a reason.’

  ‘Does your head in,’ Holland said. ‘Even trying to think about what he might be up to.’

  Howell said, ‘It makes sense.’ She looked back along the shoreline, the way they’d come, then turned to the cave. ‘He dumps her in there, throws a few rocks over the body, then wades out to meet his mate. There’s no reason why anyone would ever have looked down here. There’s no access from the water.’

  ‘No reason they’d be looking in the first place,’ Thorne said. ‘People assumed she’d drowned, that she’d probably killed herself. So, beyond a cursory check, no reason to be looking for a body at all.’

  They had been inching closer to the cave entrance as they’d talked. Now the three of them stood at the opening, peering into the blackness. Though the sky had darkened somewhat, there was still plenty of light, but little of it seemed able to reach inside. Thorne took out his mobile and turned on the Flashlight app. Holland did the same.

  Thorne looked at Howell. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Not great with confined spaces, tell you the truth.’ She rubbed the back of a hand across her forehead, adjusted her cap. ‘Bit of a bugger bearing in mind what I do for a living.’

  ‘Yeah, must be,’ Holland said.

  ‘I tend to pass on the cellar jobs,’ she said. She shook her head. ‘Costing me a small fortune, because so many people hide bodies in cellars.’

  ‘Do you want to wait here?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine.’ She kicked a small rock out of the way. ‘If she’s in there, it’ll be my job to go in and bring her out, won’t it? So no point putting it off.’

  Holland said, ‘I’m a bit of a girl when it comes to mice. Not mad keen on spiders come to that.’

  ‘I’m fine with creepy-crawlies,’ Howell said. ‘God, I’d really be in trouble if I wasn’t.’

  Thorne considered telling Howell about his own issues with heights and water, but thought better of it with Holland listening. Holland was someone he trusted, broadly, but that wouldn’t count for much when tongues got loose after a beer or two. These things could get around an incident room faster than pubic lice in a brothel.

  He said, ‘Everybody’s got something, haven’t they?’

  Thorne led the way, with Howell sticking close behind him. Though water had gathered in small pools just outside the entrance, the cave was largely dry inside. The floor sloped upwards slightly and they crouched instinctively as they moved further away from the daylight, Thorne shining his light on to a floor of compacted sand and small rocks while Holland checked the walls in case there were any smaller hollows or fissures running off to the side. It went back no more than twenty feet before narrowing and turning sharply to the left, but it quickly became clear that the cave contained nothing beyond a small colony of crabs, dried seaweed and cracked shells.

  Thorne turned around and pushed past Holland towards the entrance.

  ‘Next one?’

  ‘Lead on,’ Howell said.

  Fifteen minutes later, they emerged disappointed from the third cave within fifty feet of the spot where they had reached the bottom of the drop. Holland pointed ahead to where the shoreline curved out of sight. ‘Might be some more round there,’ he said.

  Thorne shook his head. ‘I can’t see him taking her that far.’ He kicked out at some weed and swore a lot less poetically than Howell. ‘I was sure she’d be in one of them.’

  Howell sat down on a large rock and reached for her cigarettes. ‘Do you mind? I just need a quick one.’

  ‘Help yourself,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Actually it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. I thought there’d be stuff… dripping on us.’

  Thorne watched her, saw the flame from her Zippo light up a sheen of sweat on her face and neck.

  ‘It’s probably a good job,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t have been very easy carting all our stuff down here, would it? The lights, the generator, what have you.’

  ‘At least your CSI won’t be complaining,’ Holland said.

  ‘It’ll make a change.’ Howell took a drag. ‘Andy Barber’s a moaning sod at the best of times. He wasn’t my first choice for this, tell you the truth. He can be a bit lazy sometimes…’ She froze, the cigarette halfway to her mouth.

  Thorne looked. ‘What?’

  ‘Jesus, you OK?’ Holland asked.

  Howell looked up at Thorne, panic-stricken and paler suddenly than she had been going into that first cave. ‘He was supposed to check,’ she said. ‘I asked him to check while I was taking the remains away. It’s routine procedure, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘Check what?’ Thorne asked. ‘Bethan?’

  Howell stood up. The wind blew the cigarette smoke into her face and she narrowed her eyes against it. ‘You were right.’ She glanced up, towards the edge of the land above their heads and the fields beyond. ‘What you said before, when we were up
there.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘He didn’t dig another grave.’

  FORTY

  He’d thought they were burglars.

  Yes, it was a stupid time to be doing it, not even halfway through the morning, for heaven’s sake, and you’d think your average self-respecting burglar might worry about there being someone in the house. No, he hadn’t heard a window breaking or anything like that, but they could just as easily have walked straight in through the back door. Nobody bothered locking all their doors and windows, certainly not during the bloody day when they were in the house. There wasn’t too much crime round there beyond a spot of perfunctory vandalism and a few kids doing a bit of blow every now and again and he had bugger all worth nicking anyway.

  Yes, they had known what his name was.

  All the same, robbery had seemed like a reasonable assumption. His best guess. After all, what else could they possibly have been doing there?

  The two of them.

  Standing in his kitchen in broad daylight, dark hair, hands in pockets of dark coats. A glimpse of pale faces, tight and fierce. He pictured a pair of perching ravens or rooks, blinked the image away before he started to shout and moved down the hall towards them.

  ‘The hell are you? What do you want…?’

  He’d been doing some paperwork in the living room. Sitting at their knackered old computer, getting stuff together for the tax return. Putting numbers into columns had been doing his head in and he wasn’t really concentrating anyway; half listening to something on the radio, which he supposed was why he hadn’t heard the back door open and close. He’d been almost done. He’d been thinking about nipping to the pub for his lunch, wondering what to do with a few free hours in the afternoon, when there was a second or two of silence on the radio and he heard someone saying his name.

  He had shouted, convinced he had been hearing things, got no response.

  So, he’d stepped out into the hall just to make sure and that was when he’d seen them.

  ‘The hell are you? What do you want…?’

  His voice sounded a bit higher than normal, and the tremor that had started in his belly when he’d heard his name being called had spread to his arms and legs. The distance between himself and the intruders was swallowed up in seconds and he raised his hands, balling his fists when he realised that they were moving every bit as quickly as he was. They were rushing towards him, grimacing or grinning, it was hard to tell which.

  Hands coming out of pockets, too fast for him to see what was in them.

  He grabbed at the bigger one, the one who was on him first; sensed straight away that he was stronger than his assailant and swung him round into the wall, sending pictures crashing. He swore and grunted as they struggled. He moaned and threatened, then he felt something pressed to his neck. He smelled burning and the snap-and-fizz blew the words from him, sucked the strength away in a second and then it was only the carpet and the broken glass rushing up to meet him.

  If he lost consciousness, it was for no more than a few seconds and he was wide awake as they lifted him. Carried him down the hall and then up. The agony that screamed in every muscle was way beyond anything he might have felt as his head cracked against the treads or when they dropped him halfway up the stairs.

  ‘Careful,’ one said.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

  The pain had eased a little by the time they laid him not very gently down on the bathroom floor. He smelled bleach and soap, piss on the mat around the toilet. The cramping in his muscles had diminished to the point where he was able to raise his head just an inch or two from the lino.

  To say, ‘I’ve got some savings. There’s money in the bank. I can get it…’

  One of them said something and the other one might have replied, but anything they said after that was drowned out once the bath taps had been turned on.

  Lying on the floor, he understood now what was coming, even if he still had no idea why. He was too weak suddenly to move or cry out. To stop his bladder opening. To say anything beyond a whispered, ‘please’ that was lost beneath the rush and splash of the bath filling.

  FORTY-ONE

  This time, they were able to leave the vast majority of their gear behind at the school. Now they knew exactly where to look. Though they might want the lights and generator down the line, for the time being they needed nothing more sophisticated than spades and later – if Howell was proved right – they would require only the equipment necessary for the recovery of Eileen Bennett’s remains.

  Twenty minutes after Thorne, Howell and Holland had returned to the school and begun asking awkward questions, the entire party was walking back down across the fields, moving swiftly towards the location where Howell and her team had spent the majority of the previous day. The mood among them was rather more fractious than it had been at any time since they had set foot on the island. The professional calm had been shattered beyond repair.

  Howell was still shouting at Andy Barber and he was happy to shout back.

  ‘Look, it’s not like we were working in a mass grave or anything. This isn’t Bosnia, is it?’

  ‘You didn’t do what I asked you.’

  ‘Because I didn’t see any point.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We were there to find one body and we found it.’

  ‘It’s standard practice.’

  ‘Come on, calm down, love.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down and don’t call me love.’

  ‘Sorry —’

  ‘All you had to do was your job and you didn’t, because you couldn’t be arsed. Because it was late and you wanted your bed.’

  ‘I said I’m sorry, all right?’

  ‘If I’m right about this, sorry isn’t going to be good enough.’

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Too bloody right it won’t happen again. Not with me anyway, because you won’t be part of any team I’m working with, simple as that.’

  A few feet behind them, Markham looked at Thorne and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘She’s right to be pissed off,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m pissed off, but she’s the one with the authority as far as that dickhead’s concerned, so she gets to dish out the bollocking.’

  Markham nodded, impressed. ‘Remind me not to fall out with her.’

  ‘Were you planning to?’

  ‘I don’t want to fall out with anyone,’ Markham said. ‘You included.’

  ‘Why should we fall out?’

  ‘I’m just checking we’re OK, that’s all.’ She lowered her voice a little further. ‘We never really said anything about the other night.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Just had one glass of wine too many, that’s all.’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘Sorry if I put you on the spot.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘I suppose I’m just saying you don’t have to worry about me doing my job.’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘If we’ve got another crime scene, I mean.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ Thorne said. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and stared ahead, increasing the length of his stride just enough to take him a pace or two ahead of her.

  At the rear of the group, the two prisoners and their minders moved in silence. Nicklin had not said a great deal since Thorne had returned from the caves and the accusations had begun to fly, but the look on his face once it kicked off had convinced Thorne that Howell was on the money. He also realised that Nicklin had been right in suggesting that it was not that difficult to work out where Eileen Bennett’s body might be.

  Thorne was embarrassed, angry with himself that Bethan Howell had worked it out before he had.

  Half an hour later, Barber and Holland had taken their jackets off, picked up shovels and were excavating a grave that had been carefully dug out and filled in the day before. From which the body of Simon Milner had already been exhumed. As they dug, Howell was
carefully moving the spoil from the edge of the grave, should examination prove necessary later on, while the rest of the party stood in a rough semi-circle around the gradually deepening hole.

  Nicklin was smoking again. Like the handcuffs weren’t there, like he hadn’t a care in the world.

  It had begun to rain, a soft drizzle that was gathering strength, but none of those observing seemed much inclined to head back indoors, even if Thorne had given the word to do so. They appeared content to stare as the heavy, wet earth was shifted, to stand in the rain and watch for that first glimpse of bone.

  It didn’t take very long.

  Less than an hour after starting to dig, a few inches below the level at which Simon Milner’s remains had been found, a mud-crusted femur was uncovered; a tattered grey ribbon of what might have been a skirt still attached.

  Nicklin turned to Thorne, said, ‘Ta-daaa!’ He flicked away the remains of a roll-up and nodded towards the grave, the bone dangling between Dave Holland’s finger and thumb. ‘See, it wasn’t that hard, was it?’

  Thorne said nothing, aware that Nicklin was not the only one looking at him and waiting for a reaction. He stared down at one of the discarded shovels. He thought how easy it would be to bend down and pick it up and he wondered what sound the blade would make as it bounced off Nicklin’s bald head.

  ‘Right, let’s get sorted then.’ Bethan Howell did not need to look at the bone twice. She was quickly into the grave and ordering Barber and Holland out of it. ‘We need to get the tent up,’ she said.

  Barber offered to go and get it, clearly feeling the need to score some Brownie points fast. ‘I’ll bring the rest of the stuff down as well.’

  ‘Hurry up, then.’ Howell watched Barber walk away, then carefully laid the bone down at the edge of the grave.

  With Fletcher at his shoulder, Nicklin wandered across to where Thorne and Holland were standing. Holland was putting his jacket back on. There were streaks of dirt across his cheek and forehead, plastered into place by sweat. Nicklin leaned in close. ‘So, you reckon there might be the odd bit of her rotted down in there?’