The Bones Beneath (12 page)

‘Not dreadful,’ Thorne said.

Burnham produced a weak smile. ‘Look, I heard what that woman said about… dogs, so I know what it is you’re going to be digging for.’ He glanced across at Nicklin and Batchelor. ‘How serious it is, I mean. But this place has all manner of rules and what have you and, as I’m the warden, I have to take them seriously.’

‘Because it’s special,’ Thorne said. ‘I know.’

‘You’ve heard that?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Well, only because it’s true.’

Thorne bit off half the sandwich. He chewed quickly, then pushed the other half in behind it, talked with his mouth full. ‘Sadly, if things go how I’m hoping, I won’t be here long enough to find out.’

‘You should come back,’ Burnham said. ‘Another time.’

Their exchange had barely risen above a whisper, but had clearly been audible to one person at least.

‘Tell him about the king,’ Nicklin shouted.

Thorne and Burnham turned to look.

‘Tell him…’

By now, everyone else in the hall had stopped talking and the silence was only broken by the ringing of Burnham’s phone, which appeared to startle him so much that he almost dropped the handset. He answered the call. He said, ‘Thank you,’ and nodded a good deal and told the caller that he hoped he had not been too much of a bother, but that it was important to do things properly. He began to talk about some problem with the island’s herd of Welsh Black cattle, but took a moment to look across at Thorne and give him an over-the-top thumbs-up.

‘Are we on?’ Howell asked.

Thorne nodded, looking at his watch. It was just after ten o’clock and they had wasted almost an hour. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out there and dig.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Nicklin announced. ‘Be a shame to come all this way for nothing.’

He caught Thorne’s eye and smiled.

Still enjoying it.

Once the boys had eaten and done the washing-up, they were asked if they would like to gather in the communal sitting room.

‘Nice being asked to do things,’ Stuart said. ‘Instead of told.’

Simon followed him into the room. ‘What if we say no?’

‘I’m sure we’ll find out,’ Stuart said.

The woman who appeared to be in charge told them that her name was Ruth. She said that they could call her ‘Ruth’ instead of ‘miss’ and that from now on she was going to be using their first names too. It was all about respect, she said. She introduced the other members of staff who were standing behind her. She used their first names as well, but Simon forgot them all straight away. He was rubbish with names, but he thought he was a pretty good judge of character and could tell right off which ones he ought to steer clear of. The other woman who was on the staff seemed OK. The bloke with the straggly beard was nice, while a couple of the others looked like they didn’t want to be there at all and the one with the fat face and greasy hair was clearly to be avoided if at all possible.

Simon had come across plenty like him before.

Ruth definitely liked the sound of her own voice. It sounded similar to the voice of the judge Simon had been up in front of the last time he’d stolen a car. Like a newsreader or something, even though Simon thought that Ruth was trying hard
not
to sound like that. It was impossible though, to sound like you came from one sort of place when you came from another.

She made a long speech.

She told them she believed in fresh starts and second chances. That punishment alone was never going to work. She said they should count themselves lucky to have been sent to Tides House, but that she was lucky too, because she would have the privilege of seeing them change, of watching them blossom.

Stuart sat next to Simon, rolling a cigarette. He laughed when Ruth said
blossom
and handed Simon the roll-up when he’d finished it. Simon couldn’t remember anyone ever giving him a cigarette before.

Fags were like money inside.

Ruth was still blathering on. She was fifty if she was a day and skinny as a stick, but it didn’t stop some of the boys making comments, which she was close enough to hear. If the rude remarks bothered her, she didn’t show it, though a couple of the male members of staff behind her looked like they’d be more than happy to wade in and crack a few heads.

‘I’d like to make
her
blossom,’ Stuart said.

Simon laughed because it was way funnier than the things those other lads were saying. It was clever and dirty at the same time. When Simon looked at Ruth he could see that she had gone red, which was strange, because some of the things the other boys had said were far worse and she had just ignored them. Stuart saw it too and he nodded at Ruth as he licked a Rizla, making another roll-up for himself.

‘This is a very special place,’ Ruth said. ‘In lots of ways. You’ll already have noticed it’s a small island, so even though there’ll be times when you might want to run, the simple truth is there’s nowhere to go. Well, there
is
, but I don’t think any of you is
that
strong a swimmer.’ She waited for laughter, but there wasn’t any. ‘We may not call you prisoners here, but there are rules and we want you to follow them. The rules will make life better for all of us, because we’re all living here together. Now I know this is not what you’re used to…’

Simon saw one of the men behind her lean across to a colleague and whisper, ‘You’re telling me.’

‘… but please don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re a soft touch. If you refuse to follow what rules there are here, if you persistently disrupt the community on the island in any way, you’ll be on the next boat back. Simple as that. But… if you take this chance, if you embrace this opportunity, I promise that you’ll get a great deal out of it.’

Stuart leaned towards Simon and said, ‘What do you reckon, Si? Should we embrace it?’

Simon nodded. He liked being called ‘Si’.

‘Right, let’s embrace it, then.’

‘Yeah,’ Simon said.

‘We’ll give it a bloody big cuddle.’

‘Yeah…’

‘We’ll squeeze the bastard nice and tight, shall we, Si?’

‘Yeah!’

Simon looked over and saw that the bloke with the fat face and the greasy hair was watching them. Simon felt uncomfortable, but Stuart just lit his cigarette and returned the bloke’s stare until the bloke looked away.

Ruth asked if anyone had any questions.

A big lad with dreadlocks who was sitting at the front put his hand up and said, ‘Is it true that posh bitches make more noise in bed?’

There were actually a dozen of them by the time the boat had finished coming and going. A dozen boys and six members of staff. ‘They’re still screws, by the way, Si,’ Stuart had said. ‘Even if they’re not wearing uniforms. And they can call us “guests” all they like, but we all know that’s bollocks.’

The boys slept four to a room, with the staff divided between five more, two of which were in a converted outbuilding. Ruth had her own room in the main house, while the other female staff member and the screw with the straggly beard turned out to be a couple, so they shared one.

The screw with the straggly beard got a lot of stick from the boys once they found out about that. Stuff about his girlfriend and what she liked. The two of them must have known that would happen, but still.

Simon had no idea how it had been decided, but he was pleased when he and Stuart ended up in the same bedroom. Once in the room, they were allowed to decide which of the four beds to make up and, without Simon having to say anything, Stuart dumped his rucksack down on the bed next to his. Simon was pleased about that too.

The lights went out at ten o’clock.

That first night, one of the boys on the other side of the room just kept laughing and saying, ‘This is mental,’ over and over again. Then, once he’d quietened down, the other one kicked off; moaning and groaning and slapping his belly, pretending he was playing with himself. After a few minutes, Stuart told him to shut up and even though the other boy argued about it briefly, he did shut up in the end, which was surprising because he was a fair bit bigger than Stuart, and that was what usually decided these things.

‘You all right, Si?’ Stuart asked.

‘Yeah.’ Simon had been thinking about his mum.

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah, I’m sure.’ He was wondering what she would make of this place, assuming she was ever straight long enough to have a proper conversation about it. He thought about what it would be like when she was, and he could tell her, and they could laugh about it. He was sure she’d find it funny and take the piss out of everything. The two soppy screws who were a couple. Ruth being a bit up herself, saying ‘blossom’ and all that. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Being on this island, I mean.’

‘You rather be banged up somewhere?’

‘No, course not.’

‘Just going to take some getting used to.’

‘I suppose.’

‘It won’t be for everybody. Nothing ever is.’

‘Like she said though, it’s an opportunity, isn’t it?’

‘Definitely.’

‘I don’t want to mess it up, that’s all.’

‘You won’t mess it up,’ Stuart said. ‘I’ll make sure.’

They lay there in the dark for a few minutes and listened to what sounded like a thousand babies crying out on the rocks. The spooky call of that special bird Ruth had mentioned going back to its burrow. A funny name that Simon had forgotten already.

‘It’s all right to be scared, you know, Si.’ The bed creaked as Stuart turned on to his side. ‘Everyone gets scared.’

Crying babies, or else like a load of Punch and Judy shows somewhere in the distance; that weird thing the Punch and Judy man puts in his mouth to make his voice go funny.

‘You don’t,’ Simon said.

It was still called Tides House.

Robert Burnham told Thorne that it was a working farm again, had been for as long as he had been warden and that the house was now occupied by a young family, who were the island’s only full-time residents. The couple had happily swapped high-pressure careers in London for long days tending hay and silage fields and watching over the island’s population of sheep and cattle. ‘They wanted a change of lifestyle,’ he said. ‘Thought it would be a good place to bring up their daughter.’

‘Did they check that with her?’ Holland asked.

‘Shame,’ Nicklin said. They were gathered at the main gateway to Tides House. A cat wandered across the yard in front of them and he tried to lure it with kissing noises. ‘Would have been nice to go in and have a look around the place. See if it’s changed much.’

‘Not sure the family would be very keen.’ Thorne stared at the farmhouse. It had been painted a different colour and there had been a couple of small additions built, but he still recognised it from the background of the photograph he had in his pocket. ‘You banging on the door in your handcuffs, telling them you used to live here.’

Nicklin turned and looked out across the low-lying western section of the island; the large number of small fields that sloped gently away towards the sea. He pointed. ‘The two of us ran down there,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think I’m going to be much help until we get near the edge and I’m looking back this way. I think I’ll be able to remember what I could see looking back at the house, if that makes sense. That’s the best way for me to work out exactly where I was.’ He looked at Thorne as if he were simply trying to explain where he might have dropped a wallet or a set of keys. ‘Where I did the digging.’

Thorne opened the gate and the team trooped into the pasture.

There were low drystone walls running between the fields as well as more ancient dividing lines; stone-faced earth walls that ran across raised verges. It was hard to see what these boundaries were for any more, now that none of the land was privately owned and the sheep that darted in front of them as they walked seemed happy enough scrambling over the walls from one field to the next.

‘Are sheep stupid or clever?’ Karim asked. ‘I can’t work it out.’

The grass was lush and had been kept short by grazing. The weather had clearly not been as good in recent days as it was now, with the ground heavy underfoot and muddy water rising up around Thorne’s walking boots as he went. It was only the second or third time he had ever worn the boots, though he’d actually bought them a couple of years before. Against his better judgement, he had allowed his former girlfriend, Louise, to talk him into a weekend’s hill-walking. Country pubs and sex in a four-poster bed had sounded like a nice idea, but in the end there had been only blisters and an almighty row that had lasted most of the weekend.

After they had walked for ten minutes, Nicklin stopped and looked back towards the farmhouse. ‘Yeah, we’re definitely in the vicinity,’ he said.

‘Good.’ Thorne shoved his hands into the pockets of his waterproof jacket. The temperature had dropped again and the wind was gusting, noisy against the nylon.

‘I think there could have been trees between me and the house, but they might have gone now. A landscape can change a hell of a lot in twenty-five years, can’t it? Plus, it was dark, of course.’

‘Sounds like you’re getting your excuses ready,’ Thorne said.

Nicklin shook his head. Said, ‘Not at all.’

A few hundred yards further on, Nicklin stopped again. He looked around then began pacing slowly, counting out his steps. Fletcher seemed happy enough to let him walk on unaccompanied, waiting next to Jenks who was standing with Batchelor at the back of the group.

Nicklin turned around on the spot. ‘We’re close,’ he said. He nodded towards the place where the fields fell suddenly away to the sea. ‘That’s where I went over,’ he said. ‘Went into the water near one of the big caves down there.’ He proudly described his escape twenty-five years before, the meticulous planning and the partner who had been waiting; who, as it turned out, had been made to wait somewhat longer than had been planned.

‘That was Simon’s fault,’ Nicklin said.

‘Selfish of him,’ Thorne said.

They were twenty feet or thereabouts from the edge, though the drop was nothing like as steep as it was from the cliffs on the mountainous side of the island. It would not have been an altogether easy descent, but it would probably have taken no more than fifteen minutes to clamber down to an uninviting shoreline festooned with enormous, weed-covered rocks. No decent-sized boat could have reached the shore safely, certainly not at night, but that had not been Nicklin’s plan all those years ago.

Thorne watched him now, sniffing the air like an animal, and imagined the seventeen-year-old climbing down to the sea, having just buried Simon Milner; wading into the freezing water towards the boat that was waiting in the dark, the light from an accomplice’s torch.

‘Here,’ Nicklin said.

‘Sure?’

‘This feels right.’

Thorne looked across at Bethan Howell. ‘On you go…’

With fingers firmly crossed that the job would be finished before darkness fell, they had left the portable generator back at the school and carried the rest of the equipment down between them. Now, the various cases were laid down and opened up. Thorne saw straight away that the forensic team had brought along rather more than he had first imagined: hand trowels, buckets, sieves, tape measures, positioning rods, digital cameras and video recorders. A canvas bag held all the personal protection gear – scene of crime suits, nitrile gloves, elbow and knee pads, duct tape for sealing cuffs – while a smaller aluminium case that Howell had been carrying contained the ground-penetrating radar and computer equipment.

While the gear that was needed for the search phase was assembled, Howell led Thorne to one side. She kept her eyes on Nicklin, who was watching the preparations with considerable interest. ‘How do you want to do this?’ she asked.

Thorne looked at Nicklin too. ‘As soon as you’ve identified an area where you think it’s worth digging, I’m taking our friend back up to base. I don’t want him here for that.’

Howell nodded, getting it. ‘It’s the bit he’s going to enjoy.’

‘Watching us digging in the wrong place.’

‘You think he’s going to dick us about?’

‘Every chance,’ Thorne said. ‘And I’m not pandering to him any more than we have to. If it turns out to be what we’re looking for, then we don’t need him any more anyway and I’m getting him off this island first chance I get. I want him back in a cell as soon as possible.’

‘All makes sense,’ Howell said. She looked at Batchelor. ‘Why’s the other one here? Is he connected to the victim we’re looking for?’

‘Nothing to do with any of it,’ Thorne said. ‘Just Nicklin pulling our strings again.’

Howell and Barber went to work with plastic rods and twine, dividing up an area roughly twenty-five feet in either direction from the spot Nicklin had indicated, laying out a grid. Once that had been done, Barber began putting the GPR kit together; assembling long metal handles, firing up a laptop.

Howell laid a large geological map of the island on the grass and weighed down the corners with stones. This was the flattest, most exposed part of the island and the wind was really starting to bite. ‘We’ll do what we can,’ she said. ‘But this isn’t going to be quick.’ She clocked Thorne’s reaction, pulled a face of her own. ‘Listen, we’re doing it on the hurry-up as it is. If I had the time to do things properly I’d want to test core soil samples, but we don’t have the equipment here and sending it back to the mainland is going to take forty-eight hours minimum.’

‘I was hoping we could just pick a place to look,’ Thorne said. ‘Then dig until we find a body. I know that might sound like a bit of a simplistic approach…’

‘Simplistic is the only approach we’ve got,’ Howell said. ‘So far, this is all about what we can’t do.’

‘What can’t we do?’

‘We can’t use dogs and there’s no point using penetrometers.’ Thorne’s attempt at a confident nod of understanding was clearly less than convincing, but Howell seemed happy enough to reel off a paragraph or two of
Forensic Archaeology for Idiots
. ‘OK, we need to identify the areas where soil has been disturbed, right?’

Thorne nodded again, with it so far.

‘We could normally do that by measuring penetration resistance, because obviously soil is weakened when it’s already been dug up for a grave. All a waste of time when you’re talking about farmland.’

Thorne looked at her.

‘How many times do you think this field’s been ploughed in the last twenty-five years?’

‘Right, yeah.’

‘There’s also no point using the naked eye to look for anomalies… patches of richer vegetation, whatever. A decomposing body can release nutrients which work like fertiliser basically, so you’re just keeping an eye out for grass that’s lusher, darker. Again, no good to us, because this is animal pasture.’ She nodded towards a muddy ewe that was eyeing them nervously. ‘Because sheep-shit will do much the same thing.’ She raised a hand to acknowledge the wave from Barber, who was letting her know that they were ready to go. ‘So, as things stand, the GPR is probably our only option…’

It looked like a high-tech hand trolley; a metal box at the end of twin handles, fixed onto rubber wheels. Cables ran from the main GPR unit to a small laptop mounted at the end of the handle. Thorne looked at the picture on the small screen; a series of jagged lines against a grey background.

Howell pointed to the image. ‘That’s the plough layer, see?’

Thorne shrugged, seeing only squiggles.

‘So then there’s a smoother layer beneath that and we’re looking for evidence of disturbance that falls outside the expected parameters.’ She smiled at him. ‘Basically, we’re looking for something grave-shaped.’

It was already eleven thirty by the time Howell began a systematic analysis of each quadrant using the GPR. It was painstaking and frustrating to watch, the process not made any more enjoyable for anybody by Nicklin’s running commentary.

‘Not exactly a spectacle this, is it?

‘If you find buried treasure, do we all get to share it?

‘Shame about the
cadaver
dogs.’ He spoke the word with considerable relish. ‘Can they actually still smell a body after all this time? Amazing creatures, dogs… even if they
do
spend most of their time licking other dogs’ arses.’

He talked almost non-stop, his incessant jabber only highlighting the fact that Batchelor had been as good as mute since they’d boarded the boat almost four hours before. Each time a quadrant was ruled out and Howell and Barber moved into the adjacent section, Nicklin was quick to loudly express his disappointment.

‘I really thought this was the one.

‘I know it’s ages ago, but I was sure that was it.

‘I definitely remember looking back from somewhere round here, looking back at the lights in the farmhouse, just before I heaved him into the hole…’

They broke for sandwiches after an hour, a tray brought down to them by Robert Burnham’s wife. A few minutes into the first quadrant after lunch, Howell beckoned Thorne across. He stepped carefully over the lines of twine and, as soon as he had reached her, Howell pointed to the screen. The zig-zags made no more sense than they had the first time he had looked, but Thorne could see that Howell was excited.

‘Worth digging, you reckon?’

‘I reckon.’

‘Right…’

‘This is exciting,’ Nicklin said. He looked at Thorne. ‘Are you excited, Tom? You don’t look very excited.’

Thorne told Holland that he would be escorting the prisoners back up to the school and to stay in touch. Holland agreed to radio in every fifteen minutes and walked across to join Sam Karim and Wendy Markham, who had turned away from the wind, trying to stay warm. Markham had been carefully watching the forensic team at work, not least because – though it was far from riveting – focusing on the job had allowed her to short-circuit several unpromising conversations with Karim. Now, the exhibits officer shouted across at Thorne as he and the party from Long Lartin began trudging uphill towards the track.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Karim raised his arms. ‘I’m not a lot of use until they actually find something, am I?’

Howell beat Thorne to it. ‘If you’re looking for something to do,’ she said, ‘you can grab a bloody shovel.’