TT12 The Bones Beneath

by Mark Billingham

  Thorne cried out, tasting the blood filling his mouth, feeling for teeth which were no longer where they should be. Breathing heavily, he turned his head and looked back up at Nicklin, who was rubbing his knuckles, flexing the fingers. As soon as he had resumed eye contact, Thorne sucked in a deep breath and said, ‘Again…’

  Nicklin nodded and Thorne tensed, closing his eyes as the fist came down a second time. He felt his lip split when his front teeth burst through it and blood leaking from his nose. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later and blinked away the tears, Nicklin had gone.

  There were only footsteps going down the stairs and a tune being whistled it would take Thorne until the following day to place.

  ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’.

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  MARKED ON THE INSIDE

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Driving to the school after the conversation with the police officer, Sonia Batchelor did her best to keep the anger in check. She did not want Rachel to see it. Things were tough enough as it was and she did not want her daughter to think that she was not in control, not keeping on top of things.

  It was hard though.

  There had been that same exasperation in Kitson’s voice, something else that sounded like boredom.

  ‘Yes, me again,’ Sonia had said.

  ‘You weren’t joking, were you?’

  ‘Of course I wasn’t. I told you, I won’t be fobbed off.’

  ‘Nobody’s trying to fob you off, Sonia.’

  ‘Good. So, any news?’

  It had been a week since she had announced that she would be calling twice every day, morning and afternoon, and would continue doing so until someone told her when her husband’s body was going to be released. When she and Rachel could bury him. Today, Kitson had sighed, then said what she had said the day before and the day before that.

  ‘Your husband’s death is closely connected to the murders of two prison officers. It’s part of the same case. Until investigations have been satisfactorily completed, it can’t be released. I’m sorry.’

  ‘And when’s that likely to be?’

  The exasperation obvious then. ‘You must know I can’t possibly answer that.’

  ‘Jeff killed himself.’

  ‘Nothing is official though, I’m afraid. Not yet.’

  The inquest into Jeffrey Batchelor’s death had been convened and immediately adjourned, as per standard procedure. As yet, no date had been set for its resumption.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re all waiting for,’ Sonia had said. ‘What it is you still don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry —’

  ‘He left me a message.’

  ‘Look, I know it’s hard, Sonia, but it’s just the way things are done.’

  There had not been a great deal to say after that. Once again, she had asked if it was possible to talk to the detective who had been there when it had happened. Kitson had told her that Tom Thorne wasn’t in today and that, for obvious reasons, he was not directly involved in the investigation.

  Sonia had seen him on the news.

  It had been a big story, after all. Front page and first up on the TV news for almost a week. An escaped serial killer, two murdered prison officers, an attack on a pair of local fishermen – father and son – leaving one of them dead. Jeff’s death not worthy of its own headline; a sidebar at best.

  It had not been the detective’s fault, that had been made very clear from the word go. Doctors, police officers, prison governors queuing up to say that the man responsible was one of the most dangerous and manipulative psychopaths they had ever encountered.

  Right, and now he was running around somewhere.

  After fifteen minutes trying to find a parking place, she was ready to scream. She wanted to jump from the car and punch somebody. Instead, she sat, watching the kids come out, scanning each group of girls for her daughter’s face, fingers tight around the steering wheel. In truth of course, it wasn’t Kitson she was angry with, or Tom Thorne or the stupid way things were done.

  It was Jeff himself.

  He left a message…

  ‘Sonia, love, it’s me. There isn’t a lot of time and there’s not much of a signal where I am, so I’d best be quick. Doesn’t take too long to say sorry, so I should probably be all right. There’s nothing else to say that you don’t both know already… you and Rachel. So, I’m sorry. That’s it, darling. I’m so sorry…’

  She spotted Rachel walking out of the gate on her own, seeing the car and raising a hand. Sonia pressed a button on the dash to open the car’s boot, then turned her face away and reached into her bag for tissues.

  Rachel tossed her bag into the boot and climbed into the car. She automatically leaned forward to retune the radio.

  ‘You OK?’ Sonia asked.

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘Did anybody say anything?’

  ‘A couple of stupid comments, that’s all.’ Rachel shrugged. ‘Doesn’t bother me, Mum, I swear.’

  Rachel was refusing to look at her, but Sonia could see the smallest tightening of skin, the tremor in her daughter’s chin. She started the car and accelerated out into traffic, forcing a 4x4 to brake hard, ignoring the blare of a horn and refusing to raise a hand in apology.

  Thinking: Coward, coward, coward…

  Annie Nicklin had spent the evening playing gin rummy with a couple of the residents who were still awake by nine o’clock. They had all laughed a fair bit and shared a packet of custard creams, and she had won, which was gratifying, though it didn’t much matter of course.

  When the game had finished and the staff began ushering residents towards their beds, Annie collected a large glass of water from the kitchen and walked slowly back to her room. She said goodnight to her favourite care-worker. The young woman she shared a fag with sometimes, who popped out to get her a bottle of something every now and again. The one who talked to her without letting her eyes drift towards those of a nearby colleague she was hoping might come across and rescue her.

  They stood and watched the lights flashing on the artificial Christmas tree in the corner.

  ‘You been fleecing Betty and Frank again?’ the woman asked.

  ‘It was only rummy,’ Annie said. ‘And I had to keep telling them the rules.’

  The woman laughed and said, ‘Sleep well, Annie.’

  ‘You too,’ Annie said.

  As soon as she’d closed the door to her room, she switched on the radio, the volume nice and low. Just a voice to keep her company, same as always. She liked the phone-in programmes best, especially when there were arguments. She wanted to know what was happening in the outside world. In here, it was all about soap operas and quiz shows on the television, and how long it was until the next meal.

  Nothing that mattered.

  She got undressed, pulled on her nightdress then dug out the postcard from the back of her underwear drawer. It had arrived nearly three weeks before. A sea view, a Pwllheli postmark. She had guessed there was no point handing it over to the police, knew very well that he would be long gone by now. A couple of coppers had called at the home, right after that business on the island, neither of them as friendly as that woman who’d been to see her just before it happened. They obviously thought there was a chance he might turn up to pay his old mum a visit. She’d set them straight, told them there was no chance, that they were wasting their time.

  Not such a stupid idea, as it turned out.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, turned the card over and read it again.

  see you soon

  s X

  She put the card back and took out the ball of cling-film in which she’d hidden the tablets. It had been easy enough to get them: wandering into some of the other rooms at mealtimes or when there were visitors; opening bottles or slipping a blister pack into the pocket of her dressing gown. Taking the odd few here and there until she had more than enough.

  She plumped up her pillows and climbed into bed.


  She unwrapped the cling-film and laid out the contents on the duvet.

  All sorts of shapes and colours.

  On the radio, someone was saying something about the government. She didn’t really care, but his voice was nice enough and that was the main thing.

  She listened for another minute or two, then said, ‘Not if I see you first,’ and reached for the glass of water.

  FIFTY-NINE

  While Thorne had made wholly reasonable assumptions about his means of escape, Nicklin had actually still been on Bardsey Island many hours after the last police officer and paramedic had left.

  He met up with the ‘birdwatcher’ when the man came down the mountain to the pre-arranged rendezvous point. Only then did Nicklin reveal that he himself would not be going with them. That the boat was to come back for him much later on and that the birdwatcher would be the one to make the all-important phone call once they had reached the mainland.

  Nicklin knew that Thorne would do as he was told, but he was less certain about Holland, or that other one they had left in the chapel. He could not afford to take the risk that the boat might be intercepted. Besides which, he would enjoy being right under their noses the whole time they were running around the island like headless chickens.

  He watched the boat disappear into the darkness, then clambered back up to the plain and walked towards the abbey ruins, heading for the huge Celtic cross that marked the tomb of Lord Newborough. He climbed over the low, walled enclosure and lifted the small grating all but obscured by the long grass. The entrance to a hiding place he had discovered twenty-five years before. Over preceding decades, local children had loosened the grating and though the family had sealed off the vault itself, there was still space enough at the bottom of the steps where someone unconcerned about comfort could stay hidden.

  He had spent long hours back then, sitting in the cold, stone box. Snug and quiet, eight or ten feet below the gravestones, the space not quite big enough to stand upright in.

  There had been several occasions, all those years ago, when Ruth and her cohorts had convinced themselves that he had somehow managed to get off the island. They had alerted the police, only for Nicklin to stroll casually back in the following day. He could not be certain, but he liked to imagine that when he did finally escape – the same night he had killed Simon Milner and the old woman – they had thought he was just playing silly buggers again and had not bothered telling the police until it was far too late.

  Until it had become clear that they were the silly buggers.

  The night he left Thorne cuffed to the bed, Nicklin did exactly as he had done so often back then, when he had been a ‘guest’ at Tides House. He lifted the grating, squeezed into the entrance and pulled the grille back into place. Once he had descended the half-dozen steps to the level of the vault, he settled happily into the hole.

  He worked his way very slowly through his remaining bars of chocolate.

  He listened to the activity above him.

  He heard the helicopters come and go, ferrying in police officers, taking away the bodies of Fletcher and Jenks. He heard the swoop and buzz of aircraft on the far side of the mountain and presumed they were searching for Batchelor’s body. It was not until he was back on the mainland that he knew for certain they had found it.

  He waited the best part of three days, before emerging from his hiding place in the early hours of the morning, scrambling down to the water and meeting the boat. By that time, a scrap of crime scene tape fluttering from a fence post was the only hint that anything out of the ordinary had ever taken place on the island.

  Three weeks on, Stuart Nicklin looked very different from the man who had climbed from the earth beneath a Celtic cross, stretching as though he’d had no more than an iffy night’s sleep.

  He very much doubted that even his own mother would recognise him.

  Not that she would get the chance, of course. He had only sent that card to make her think that it was a possibility, but he had no intention of going to see her, of spending so much as a moment in a place that stank of piss and death and broken biscuits.

  Now, it was time to get out and enjoy himself a little.

  He got up and walked across the lounge. A week into December and there was tinsel wherever he looked and a plastic Santa on the wall above the bar area. He mixed himself a strong Bloody Mary and helped himself to a couple of bags of crisps.

  He was genuinely pleased to see that Tom Thorne seemed to be doing all right. Last thing he would have wanted was for Thorne to lose his job, anything like that. From what Nicklin had seen, the detective inspector seemed pretty much back to his old self.

  It looked like there was not even going to be a scar on his lip…

  It was fine, because he knew very well that what happened on Bardsey had marked Thorne on the inside, which was far more important. That, and the enduring image of Thorne handcuffed and helpless had got Nicklin off a time or two, his hands busy beneath nice clean hotel sheets.

  He checked the departures board and saw that he was being told to go to the gate. He knew there was plenty of time yet, so he settled back down with his drink. He smiled at one of his fellow travellers gathering up carry-on luggage and bags of duty-free. The man smiled right back. Everyone looked excited about escaping the pre-Christmas chaos for some much-needed winter sunshine.

  He sat back and flicked through a travel magazine.

  Two weeks on an almost deserted island.

  The irony was not lost on him, of course, though he was hoping for rather better weather.

  SIXTY

  It had been late morning on the day after Stuart Nicklin’s escape, and Thorne was in the A&E department of Bryn Beryl Hospital in Pwllheli, having his wounds treated by a red-headed nurse named Olga, when the call finally came through to him. This was several hours after they had traced the signal from Phil Hendricks’ mobile phone, which had been turned back on an hour or so before that. Forty-five minutes since armed officers had raided a basement flat in Catford, south-east London.

  ‘Tom?’

  There had been tears from both of them and words choked back. Thorne, struggling to speak anyway, his lip badly swollen and only partially stitched back together.

  ‘Phil…’

  ‘You sound funny.’

  Later, Thorne would not be able to recall clearly what else had been said. They had spoken one another’s name, something about Thorne’s voice, and after that it was all a bit of a blur.

  ‘Probably the painkillers,’ Helen had said.

  ‘I suppose.’

  Now there were more tears, from Helen on this occasion, as the three of them sat and ate together for the first time since it had happened.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ Hendricks said.

  ‘Shut your face.’ Helen got up and began gathering the remains of the takeaway from the Bengal Lancer. Hendricks had said that while he was being held captive this was the thing he had been looking forward to the most.

  ‘I was exaggerating, obviously,’ he said later. ‘Just thinking that, you know, if it made the papers, we might start getting a few free poppadoms thrown in.’

  Though Thorne was still spending most of his time at Helen’s place in Tulse Hill, they had decided to get together at Thorne’s in Kentish Town. It was around the corner from the restaurant but, more importantly, Hendricks did not yet feel too comfortable venturing far from his own flat, which was only five minutes away, on the edge of Camden.

  This was the first time he had left home other than for hospital appointments, of which there had been many.

  ‘I spend most of the time just standing in the kitchen,’ he had said, while they were still eating. ‘Going over what happened that night they snatched me. Re-imagining it, you know? This time, I manage to get to the knives and I stab the pair of them. I stab them lots.’

  Helen returned from the kitchen with cans of beer. They were opened and slowly drunk from to cover a sudden, awkward silence.

  �
��No more from Dawson then?’ Hendricks asked.

  Thorne shook his head. ‘Yvonne Kitson called earlier. I’m not sure there’s any more to get.’

  Hendricks emptied his can. ‘Give me five minutes with him.’

  The man Hendricks had known as ‘Adrian’ was actually Damien Dawson, a twenty-seven-year-old telesales operative from Essex. His fingerprints had been all over the flat in which Hendricks had been held and were on record, following a caution eighteen months earlier for stalking an actress who had spoken one line in an episode of Doctor Who. Since his arrest, he had told officers from the Kidnap Unit that he had been recruited via an internet chatroom by the female half of the couple he had met later on. He remained adamant that he did not know anybody else’s name or how any of them had come to be involved.

  Thorne guessed that this was the same couple who had been spotted in and around Aberdaron. Casually walking the streets hand in hand, in the hours leading up to the murder of Huw Morgan and the assault on his father, who was discovered trussed up, battered and bleeding, a few feet away from his son’s body. The pair who had later taken the boat across to collect Nicklin and the mysterious ‘birdwatcher’ from Bardsey.

  Mysterious, until Thorne had remembered why the face of the man in the red woolly hat had been so familiar. A face that, unlike his mentor’s, had not changed a great deal in twenty-five years.

  A creased and faded photograph. The figure standing on the other side of Stuart Nicklin from Simon Milner.

  A boy with shaved head and dark eyes.

  Having done some digging, Thorne discovered that Ryan Gough had never been charged with the attempted murder of Kevin Hunter at Tides House. With no witnesses willing to make any sort of statement, the case against the boy had never quite stacked up. Thorne had no idea what Gough had been doing with himself in the intervening years, but he had the horrible suspicion that Fletcher and Jenks were not the first people he had killed on Stuart Nicklin’s say-so.