The Bones Beneath (23 page)

‘I said, didn’t I?’ Brigstocke had been pulled out of a meeting and something in his tone – a disconnect, a hesitance – told Thorne that he was not getting the DCI’s full attention. ‘Six weeks ago. I told you there might need to be a certain amount of thinking on your feet.’

‘Come again?’

‘A bit of improvising.’

Thorne was walking slowly round in a wide circle at the top edge of the field, his view changing every half a minute or so. Looking back at Burnham, then down towards the crowded graveside; across at the lighthouse, then straight out to sea. ‘It’s a nightmare,’ he said.

‘Come on, it’s not that bad.’

‘I want to get him back to Long Lartin.’

‘Course you do, but one more night isn’t going to hurt.’

‘We’re pushing our luck already.’

‘Meaning…?’

‘Meaning I don’t like to improvise when you’re talking about someone like Stuart Nicklin. It’s hard enough to predict how he’s going to behave at the best of times. We need to do things the right way.’

‘Fine, so what do you suggest?’

‘What about a chopper?’

‘Seriously?’ Brigstocke laughed. ‘I know it’s a bit rough and ready over there, but do you really have to cut your own wood?’

‘I’m not joking,’ Thorne said.

‘You might as well be, Tom, because it’s not going to happen. Look, if there was any kind of danger, any threat to life and limb, then maybe. But what have you got over there? One body, another one in the process of being recovered and two prisoners being very well monitored by multiple police and prison officers. You’ve got no chance, mate.’

‘I want to get off this island.’

‘Understood, but I’m not sure what you want me to do.’

‘Some support would be nice for a kick-off,’ Thorne said. ‘Any support, come to that.’

Brigstocke sighed. ‘If it makes you happy, I’ll make a call, OK? But don’t hold your breath.’

Thorne began walking back across the field towards Holland, Howell and the others. He guessed that by now it would be obvious to most of them that there was a problem. The man who had dug that grave twenty-five years earlier, who stood watching the same piece of ground being opened for a third time, would certainly know.

‘Listen though,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Well done, all right. I know you weren’t very happy about that whole good news, bad news thing. I know we didn’t give you a lot of choice.’

‘No, and I’m really pissed off about it now.’

‘Yeah, well it’s good news for Eileen Bennett’s family, isn’t it? It’s good news for Simon Milner’s mum.’

‘Don’t do that, Russell,’ Thorne said. ‘Don’t pull that sentimental crap because it won’t work.’

‘Jesus, what’s it been, three days?’ That edge had crept into Brigstocke’s voice again, friendship giving ground to rank. ‘You could have spent that time sitting outside some scrote’s house or filling in paperwork for CCTV footage. Waiting for some jobsworth at a mobile phone company to return your call. At least you’ve achieved something.’ There were voices in the background, laughter. ‘I’ve spent the last three days in meetings, playing bullshit bingo.’

‘You want me to feel sorry for you?’ Thorne said. ‘Sleeping in your own bed every night and not getting pissed on in the arse-end of nowhere. Not having to play nursemaid to a nutter like Stuart Nicklin. Christ, it must be awful for you.’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘I want him locked up again, Russell.’

‘One more night, all right?’ Brigstocke waited, took Thorne’s silence as acceptance, grudging though it may have been. ‘Oh, and don’t pretend the sentimental thing doesn’t work with you. I’ve seen you cry at cowboy music. That one where he only stops loving her because he’s dead.’

‘Sorry, mate, I’m not really in the mood to joke about this.’

‘Listen, I’ve got to get back,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Eyes down for more bullshit bingo. Let’s talk later, OK?’

‘Remember to make that call,’ Thorne said.

‘You’re breaking up…’

‘Don’t give me that.’ Thorne took the phone from his ear and shouted at it. ‘Get me a helicopter, Russell…’

He hung up, slowed his pace a little and, once he had his breath back, he dialled Helen’s number. The connection seemed to take ages, though it was probably no more than fifteen or twenty seconds of clicks and ominous silences.

The call went straight to her voicemail, so he left a message.

He said, ‘It’s me,’ and turned his face away from the wind. ‘Everything’s gone tits up here and it looks like I’m not going to make it back tonight, so I just wanted to let you know that.’ He was trying to sound a little less miserable than he felt, but it was an effort. ‘Call me later when you get a chance… actually, I’m only getting a signal in one place, so it’s probably better if I try and call you. Not sure what time, but I’ll try not to make it too late.

‘Anyway… hope your day’s not too shitty and talk to you later on.’ He looked across and saw Holland waiting, his arms outstretched, asking. ‘Give Alfie a squeeze…’

All of them except Howell and Barber who were working in and around the grave, drifted across to join Thorne as soon as he was back. As he had suspected, his agitation – in the conversation with Burnham and the phone call with Brigstocke – had been clear enough from half a field away. Everyone was understandably eager to know what was happening.

Thorne could see little point in sugaring the pill.

The weather was unlikely to change, the boatman’s father had been taken into hospital and there was no chance of hearing the
whump-whump
of helicopter blades any time soon.

He said, ‘We’re all staying here tonight.’

Several people started talking at once; asking questions, then taking an unhelpful stab at answering those of others. Thorne raised his hand and kept it there until the last person had shut up. He told them exactly what the warden had told him.

‘I don’t like it any better than you do,’ he said. Fletcher, Jenks and Holland certainly looked every bit as miserable as Thorne felt at the prospect of spending the night on the island. ‘But there’s not a fat lot we can do about the weather, is there?’ Even as he said it, he realised it was much the same thing Brigstocke had said to him and he began to wonder if he’d given the DCI too tough a time on the phone. Then he saw the look on Nicklin’s face and decided that he had not been nearly tough enough.

Standing between Fletcher and Jenks, Nicklin was shifting his weight slowly from foot to foot. For a few seconds he looked as concerned, as apprehensive as everyone else, until the temptation to smirk became too strong to resist.

‘The best laid plans of mice and men,’ he said. ‘And coppers.’

It was one of the few perks that came with knocking on a bit, with being as old as he was, at any rate. There wasn’t a great deal to celebrate, what with hearing in one ear all but gone, the need to sit down to put trousers on and a tendency to forget what he’d walked into a room for. Still, there were one or two things that came in fairly useful now and again, and being able to play the ‘doddery old git’ card when it suited him was one of them.

It was funny really, because of the two of them he was the one with the knack for it. The one who had taken to technology almost as fast as the kids did these days.

They’d been late getting it, computers and what have you, but he’d figured out the basics quickly enough. Emails, websites, all that. When it came to using it for things he didn’t fancy though, it was usually easier just to plead ignorance. To make out like it was all mumbo-jumbo, like he was far too long in the tooth to be bothering with any of that, thank you very much.

Oh no,
that
wasn’t for him…

Course, he was happy enough being a ‘silver surfer’ if and when it suited him – like sending emails on the sly to that saucy old mare who ran the newsagent’s – but not when something like a tax return came along. So, he’d happily left the boy to it all morning and had a few hours to himself.

Bloody lovely!

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone fishing for pleasure, so he’d grabbed his rod and tackle box, filled up a Thermos and walked down to a spot he hadn’t used in years. Those few hours had flown by and it hardly mattered that he hadn’t caught much. A couple of nice whiting for the freezer was more than enough, anyway. It had just been nice to do something he loved without the pressure they were under most other days, when they were out there in all weathers trying to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads. Sitting there with your line in the water for no other reason than the fun of it, with time to think and enjoy the day was not the same thing at all. God, no…

Brilliant, it was, and now, walking back to the house with those whiting heavy and swinging in a plastic bag, he almost felt bad about the subterfuge. The playing stupid. He might tell the boy tomorrow, once the tax stuff was done with. He’d shout and sulk for a bit, but they’d laugh about it later on, out on the boat where there wasn’t the time or space for stupid grudges.

They’d open a few cans of beer and maybe he’d fry them up one of those whiting for their tea, once they’d been across to the island and back.

He dropped his stuff in the hall, called the boy’s name out as he carried the fish through to the kitchen. He put the bag down on the draining board and picked out the knife he would use to gut them. He flicked the kettle on, took the milk from the fridge, then walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to the living room.

The computer was still humming. The screen still filled with columns of figures, the cursor flashing.

He stepped out into the hall and shouted up the stairs. ‘Given up, have you, you lazy bugger?’ He listened, but could hear nothing but the tick and grumble of the kettle growing louder.

He walked up the stairs, the pain in his right knee a sharp reminder of one other thing that was horrible about getting old. It was odd, he thought, how he hadn’t felt any of the usual aches and pains sitting there on the beach, listening to the gulls scream over his head and sipping tea from a flask. That was the way of it, though. He could feel like a teenager out there on the boat all day, pulling in lobster pots or scrubbing the deck. Then, he’d sit at home all evening, groaning in agony like he was barely ten minutes from popping his clogs.

He stuck his head round the door of the boy’s room.

He wandered into his own, though he’d no expectation of finding him in there.

Knocked it on the head and gone down the pub, he thought. Can’t say as I blame him. Maybe they needed to pay someone to come in and do the bloody tax return for them. Sort all the paperwork out, come to that.

He was already loosening his belt as he nudged the bathroom door open and saw what was in the bath; moving closer until he saw the face below the water.

He cried out and buckled, tried to say his son’s name.

His hands were fists, tight around his belt and, try as he might, he could not unclench them. Not when the two figures moved up quickly behind him and lifted him from the floor. Not when they took his head and held it tight, their fingers clawing at his ears, in his hair.

Not when they pushed it down towards the freezing water, then under, until he was close enough to kiss his boy’s face.

The woman who answered the door at Tides House was a good deal skinnier and far less apple-cheeked than the stereotypical farmer’s wife Thorne had imagined. The smile was more nervous than welcoming as she stood aside and asked him to come in.

‘Robert told us you’d probably be coming over,’ she said.

‘On the scrounge, I’m afraid,’ Thorne said.

‘It’s fine.’ She closed the door and stuck out a small hand. ‘I’m Caroline Black. Come on through…’

Thorne followed her down a long corridor before they turned sharply left and ducked under a low lintel into a large kitchen. A tall man with hair tied back into a ponytail turned from a sink of washing-up. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts and a zip-up fleece.

‘This is my husband, Patrick,’ Caroline said.

Patrick Black held up hands swathed in yellow rubber gloves and waved them to explain his inability to greet Thorne any more formally. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Have a seat. There’s coffee in the pot, if you’d like some.’

Thorne thanked him and walked across to a crowded pine table. There were several piles of paper, children’s toys, the signs of a recently eaten meal – condiments, tablemats – that Caroline immediately proceeded to clear. When she’d finished, Thorne sat down and looked around. The warm and cluttered farmhouse kitchen came much closer to fulfilling his expectations than the farmer or his wife. The soothing tones of Radio 4 from a wind-up radio. The old-fashioned metal coffee pot sitting on top of a well-used range. Genuinely distressed flagstones and a scarred Welsh dresser. A child’s plastic tricycle next to a partially dismantled engine on a tarpaulin in one corner.

As Caroline poured him a coffee, Thorne was surprised to see a black and white collie eyeing him from a basket near the door. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘A dog.’

Caroline looked at the dog and then back at Thorne.

‘I thought they weren’t allowed on the island.’

‘Holly’s a working dog,’ she said.

‘It’s just that we weren’t allowed to bring a dog.’

‘Like I said, she’s a working dog.’

Thorne could see there was little point in taking the conversation any further in that particular direction, so he just nodded.

‘We thought you’d be gone by now,’ Caroline said.

‘So did we.’

‘Yes, well, you’re not the first to be stranded thanks to the weather and you won’t be the last.’ She poured herself a coffee, added milk from a carton on the table. ‘There were some holidaymakers here last year who had to wait a fortnight to get off.’

‘Oh, God,’ Thorne said.

‘Don’t worry.’ She carried the pot back to the stove. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad.’

‘Let’s hope not.’

She smiled, quick and thin, standing at the end of the table drinking her coffee and watching Thorne drink his. She was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a woollen waistcoat, the T-shirt underneath a perfect match for her bright-red Crocs. ‘So, what exactly is it that you’re doing anyway? In the field, I mean. It’s the second time you’ve started digging in the same place.’

Patrick turned from the sink, said, ‘You can’t ask him that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t really go into any detail.’

‘Told you,’ Patrick said.

Caroline shrugged and pouted for a few seconds, her chin resting on the rim of her coffee cup. ‘It’s not like we can’t guess what’s going on.’ She walked across to the window and nodded out. ‘We’ve got a pretty good view from here.’

Thorne stood up and walked across to join her. It had already begun to get dark, but there was a clear line of sight across to the lights in the distant field. To the illuminated tent, inside which Bethan Howell and her team were still hard at work.

‘I mean, it’s not an episode of
Time Team
, is it?’ She leaned a little closer to the window; peeling grey paint on the frame and glass that had several air bubbles captured within it. ‘It’s just a question of who you’re looking for down there and who the two men in the handcuffs are.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘We saw them the other day standing at the front gate. One of them, anyway. Just staring at the house.’

Patrick had moved on to the drying-up. ‘She was hiding behind the net curtains,’ he said, laughing. ‘Watching him watching us.’

‘Believe it or not, he stayed here once,’ Thorne said. ‘In this house.’

Caroline looked confused. ‘Really?’

‘A long time ago.’

Patrick turned from the sink. ‘Back when this was a home for wayward kids or whatever they called it.’

‘Right.’ Thorne sat down again, picked up his coffee. For a moment he thought about showing them the photograph in his pocket, then decided against it.

Here’s your gorgeous farmhouse the way it used to look. Just ignore the teenage serial killer and his mates
…
 

Caroline turned from the window, her curiosity piqued still further. ‘So, why’s he back here?’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Patrick said. He looked at Thorne and shook his head. ‘He can’t tell you.’

Footsteps sounded suddenly on the stairs, then in the corridor outside before a girl, five or six years old, came running in. She froze as soon as she saw Thorne, stared at him for a few seconds, then moved quickly to her mother, staying close to the wall. ‘When are you going to come and read?’ she asked. ‘You promised.’

‘I’ll be in soon.’ Caroline ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. ‘I’ve just got something to do first, so why don’t you go and get your pyjamas on and then I’ll be up.’

Patrick said, ‘Go on, chicken,’ and the girl turned and trudged reluctantly back to the door.

‘Can I take Holly?’ she asked.

Her mother said that she could, so the girl called the dog across and the two of them trotted out of the kitchen. Caroline watched them go, then turned to Thorne. ‘I think we’ve got a right to know what’s happening,’ she said. ‘Who we’re dealing with here.’

‘Trust me,’ Thorne said. ‘If we thought there was anything you needed to know, we would have told you.’

‘So, why don’t you tell us when our daughter can go back out to play again?’

Thorne hoped he did a better job of keeping the edge from his voice than she had. ‘There’s never been any need to keep her inside the house,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘With dangerous criminals walking about? I mean, I can only presume they
are
dangerous. The handcuffs, the number of people with them.’

‘We don’t just let them wander around,’ Thorne said. ‘They’re being guarded constantly. There’s no risk to anyone. None at all.’

Caroline did not look convinced. She walked across and dropped her mug into the hot water.

‘Having said that, obviously nobody would have wanted your little girl walking down to… you know.’ Thorne nodded to the window, the fields beyond it. ‘So you were probably right to keep her indoors.’ He finished his coffee. ‘We’ll be gone tomorrow, that’s a guarantee.’

‘But in the meantime, you need feeding.’

‘I’m really grateful for your help,’ Thorne said. ‘Anything you can spare.’

She walked across to a small door, which Thorne had not noticed until now. She opened it and flicked on a switch. Thorne saw stairs heading down, bare floorboards, a naked light bulb. ‘This food? Is it for you and the other officers, or is it for everyone?’ She glanced at her husband then looked back to Thorne. ‘For the men in handcuffs?’

Patrick dried his hands on the tea-towel and draped it across the handle of the range. ‘Come on, Caz, what do you think?’

‘We’re not allowed to starve them, I’m afraid,’ Thorne said. ‘Maybe they can just have leftovers.’

Caroline nodded, showing no appreciation at all of Thorne’s attempt at levity, then stooped quickly and disappeared down the stairs.

Patrick picked up a wine bottle and two glasses and joined Thorne at the table. He offered one of the glasses to Thorne.

‘I’d better not,’ Thorne said.

‘It’s good,’ Patrick said. He poured one for himself. ‘Home-made, but it does the trick. If you’re lucky, Caroline might bring you a bottle or two up from the cellar with the rest of the stuff.’

‘Great,’ Thorne said. ‘I’ll have some later then.’

‘
Iechyd da
, as they say in these parts.’ Patrick held out his glass and Thorne touched his empty coffee cup to it. The farmer glanced towards the cellar. ‘She’s been a bit jumpy ever since you lot arrived,’ he said. ‘It’s all about Freya, you know?’ He was English, like his wife. He had a high, light voice, a trace of a Northern accent. ‘I mean, it’s one of the reasons we took this place on, because we thought it would be different from life back there. No need to worry about… certain things. A good place for her to grow up, you know?’

‘And is it?’

‘Oh yeah. It’s great for me and Caz too, don’t get me wrong. The spiritual side of it. Oh yeah, we get a lot out of that.’ He nodded, swirled the wine around in his glass. ‘It’s bloody hard work mind you, but honestly, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.’ He downed his wine and poured himself another. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had much chance to look around.’

‘A bit,’ Thorne said. ‘I went over to the lighthouse. Saw the seals.’ Saying it, Thorne realised that he’d actually covered a good deal of the island in the last two days, even if most of the time had been spent in the distinctly
un
-spiritual pursuit of long-dead murder victims. ‘Yeah, seen a fair bit.’

‘You wait,’ Patrick said. ‘Now you’re spending the night, you’ll get a look at the most incredible sky you’ve ever seen. Well, you will if this bloody rain eases off. We’ve got special “dark sky” status, did you know that?’ Thorne said that he didn’t. ‘Because there’s no light pollution. Well, no pollution of any sort, come to that.’

‘Right.’

‘It’s a one-off, this place.’

Thorne said nothing. He wondered how much longer Caroline was going to be in the cellar. He could hear her moving around beneath them.

Patrick must have caught Thorne glancing at the cellar door. He said, ‘We keep all the dried goods down there. Rice, pasta, what have you. Loads and loads of tinned stuff. Fuel for the generator.’ He held up the bottle. ‘Plenty of this too, like I said. I tell you what, if there’s ever a nuclear attack or the world gets overrun by zombies, we’re quids in.’

‘How often do you get back to the mainland?’

‘I haven’t been back for six months,’ Patrick said. ‘Caroline goes over every couple of weeks, does a bit of shopping or whatever if she’s feeling a bit low. Buys herself some clothes. A treat, you know? Obviously, once Freya’s going to school she’ll be going across every day.’

‘You think you’ll still be here then?’

‘God, I hope so.’ Patrick leaned across the table. ‘Not sure I’d be able to cope in a city now.’ He drank half a glass, thought for a few moments. ‘Whoever you are, whatever problems you might have had before, somewhere like this forces you to make peace with yourself. Do you know what I mean?’

Thorne hadn’t got a clue, but nodded anyway.

‘Not that it worked for your friend in the handcuffs. The one who was here when he was a boy, I mean. I suppose some people are just more attuned to that side of things than others.’ Patrick nodded, seemingly pleased with his own insight. ‘The spiritual side.’

‘He’s definitely not one of them,’ Thorne said.

‘Come on then, how dangerous is he?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, it’s pretty clear he’s not a fraudster, anything like that.’ Patrick tapped a fingernail against his glass. ‘What do they call them, white-collar criminals? I mean, like Caz said, you’re not down there digging for gold coins, are you?’

Thorne wasn’t sure why the farmer was asking, when he had already seen similar enquiries from his wife go unanswered. Perhaps he thought that, man to man, with a bottle of wine on the table, he might be more successful than she had been. Or that information which Thorne might consider too frightening for her ears might be suitable for his. Whatever, his reasons for wanting to know seemed anything but voyeuristic. There was none of the excitement Thorne had heard in the voices of those lads in the Black Horse; that desire for a cheap thrill that Nicklin had accused Burnham of harbouring.

All Thorne saw and heard was sadness. Resignation…

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’

Patrick raised his hands. ‘No,
I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.’

‘It’s understandable,’ Thorne said. ‘I’d want to know, if I was sitting where you are.’ He watched the man reach for the wine bottle and tried to imagine exactly that. He asked himself how he would cope if he were doing what Patrick Black did.

He doubted seriously that he would last a week.

The work was clearly strenuous and the hours ridiculous, but he told himself that he could handle that. The spartan nature of the domestic arrangements was unpleasant, but he thought that he would probably get used to them.

The problem would be his own company.

He looked across the table and wondered just how well the man sitting opposite got on with himself, day in, day out. Why, however attuned he was to all things spiritual, he was drinking a third glass of wine in less than ten minutes.

Thorne stood up when he saw Caroline Black emerge from the cellar with a couple of what looked like well-stocked plastic bags.

‘This is going to have to do,’ she said.

Thorne took one of the bags from her, very happy to hear bottles clinking inside. ‘This is great, thank you.’

‘Should be enough to get you through the night.’ She passed the second bag across. ‘And breakfast in the morning.’

‘It’s really kind of you.’

‘We help each other out on Bardsey,’ Patrick said. His voice was a touch deeper now, a little less precise.

Thorne said, ‘Right,’ and turned towards the kitchen door. ‘Listen, it was really nice to meet you.’

Caroline Black was standing at her husband’s shoulder. She said, ‘Just a shame about the circumstances, that’s all. I hope you understand when I say we’ll be glad to see the back of you.’

Somewhere upstairs, Thorne heard the dog bark, the little girl telling it to be quiet. A childish impression of the tone she had clearly heard her mother use.