TT12 The Bones Beneath Read online

  The argument continuing.

  ‘Let’s go over these “conditions” again, shall we?’ Thorne had thrown his leather jacket across a chair and sat leaning back against the wall. ‘Just to make sure I’m totally clear on all this. You know, why he’s the one making the rules.’

  Brigstocke stood, walked around his desk. ‘How many times?’

  ‘I know,’ Thorne said. ‘The MP, the grieving mother, the barrel he’s got us across.’ He shook his head. ‘Anything else he wants? A particular make and model of car? Something special on his sandwiches?’

  ‘Nothing’s changed.’

  ‘So, come on then. The stipulations…’

  ‘Well, you, obviously.’

  ‘Yeah. Me.’ Thorne puffed out his cheeks. ‘You got any thoughts on that?’ He looked up at Brigstocke, wide-eyed and mock-curious. ‘I’m just wondering.’

  ‘You’re the one who caught him,’ Brigstocke said. ‘He’s got some weird kind of respect for you or something. Maybe he trusts you.’

  ‘He wants to mess with me,’ Thorne said. ‘It’s what he does.’

  ‘You’re taking him out there, you’re finding this body then you’re bringing him back.’ Brigstocke leaned against the desk. ‘That’s all this is.’

  Thorne studied the carpet and fingered the straight scar beneath his chin for a few seconds. He said, ‘What’s his problem with the press?’

  ‘He doesn’t want any around, simple as that.’

  ‘Never seemed to bother him before,’ Thorne said. ‘Happy enough with the books and the bloody documentaries. Got a nice collection of his press cuttings pasted up in his cell by all accounts.’

  Brigstocke shrugged. ‘Look, he knows they’ve been on to this ever since the boy’s mother went to the papers. He doesn’t fancy helicopters everywhere, that’s all, like when they took Brady back to the moors.’

  Thorne grunted.

  ‘We’ve let the press know it’s on, which should keep them off our backs, but obviously they don’t know exactly when or where.’ Brigstocke began to work carefully at a torn fingernail with his teeth. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem as long as some friendly press officer gives them everything they want once it’s done and dusted.’

  ‘Tell me about his friend.’

  Brigstocke spat out the sliver of nail. ‘Well, he’s saying he’ll feel a lot safer if he can bring another prisoner with him. That he’s less likely to have any sort of “accident”. Reckons there are too many of us who won’t have forgotten Sarah McEvoy.’

  ‘That’s bollocks.’

  ‘That’s what he’s saying.’

  Thorne had certainly not forgotten the police officer who had been killed during the arrest of the man whose demands they were now discussing. He remembered blood spreading across asphalt. He remembered the look of elation on the man’s face, just before Thorne had forcibly wiped it off. ‘So, what, then? This bloke his boyfriend, maybe?’

  ‘Possible,’ Brigstocke said.

  ‘Well, whatever the reason is for bringing him along, I’ll want everything we can find on him.’

  ‘Obviously —’ Brigstocke’s phone chirruped in his pocket. He took the handset out, dropped the call then replaced it. Either the conversation could wait, or it was one he did not want Thorne to overhear. ‘Look, Tom, nothing about this is run of the mill, I know that. Normal procedures will be going out of the window to a large extent. This stupid place you’ll be taking him back to, for a kick-off. It’s already throwing up certain… logistical nightmares, so I’m just saying you might have to do a fair amount of thinking on your feet.’

  Thorne nodded slowly and reached around for his jacket. ‘I’ve got a few conditions of my own,’ he said.

  Brigstocke waited.

  ‘I get to pick the rest of the team,’ Thorne said, standing up. ‘Not you and not the chief superintendent. And the moment me or anybody else starts to think that there’s no body to be found and that he’s just getting off on taking us all for mugs, I’ll have him and his boyfriend banged up again before his feet have touched the ground. Fair enough?’ Brigstocke opened his mouth, but Thorne hadn’t finished. He was already on his way to the door. ‘And I don’t want to hear about how much grief the chief constable’s getting from the Sun or the Daily Mail. I don’t care about MPs, I don’t even care about grieving mothers and I really couldn’t give a toss about that sodding barrel…’

  ‘Jesus, it’s cold,’ Holland said, now. He slapped his gloved hands together as he trudged around to the front of the car. He hunched his shoulders and nodded towards the prison entrance. ‘I hope somebody’s got the kettle on in there.’

  Thorne hummed agreement. He might even have said something about hoping so too, but in truth he could think of little beyond the reason he had risen so early after a sleepless night and watched the sun come up driving a hundred miles to Long Lartin prison. Little beyond the man who had brought him here.

  They walked towards the first of many gates, footsteps ringing against the tarmac and breath pluming from mouths and noses.

  The man who would be patiently waiting on the other side of that wall.

  They reached for warrant cards simultaneously.

  The man who put that twist in Thorne’s gut.

  ‘Here we go then,’ Holland said.

  Stuart Nicklin was the bad news.

  TWO

  There was tea and there were also biscuits in a fancy tin, which were gratefully accepted despite being offered without too much in the way of goodwill. Holland tried smiling, then felt rather stupid and grimaced at Thorne as he turned away. He carried his tea across to the small sofa at one end of the long, thin office, leaving Thorne at the desk to deal with the red tape and the woman dispensing it.

  Thorne looked no happier about the situation than she did.

  The demeanour and attitude of Long Lartin’s deputy governor could most generously be described as businesslike, but Thorne felt sure that both prisoners and prison officers had a different word for it. On top of the fact that she was not what anyone would call ‘touchy-feely’, it quickly became apparent that Theresa Colquhoun was in no hurry. She had been tasked by the governor with completing the formalities necessary for a prisoner handover. This meant a good many forms to fill in. It meant risk assessment statements to be completed and ‘handover protocol’ guidance notes to be distributed and carefully read through. She had reservations about what had been agreed on this occasion between the Met and Her Majesty’s Prison Service and had told Thorne exactly what she thought while she’d poured the tea. Nonetheless, she was determined to carry out the job with a rigour which, to Thorne’s eye, bordered on compulsion.

  ‘This business is iffy enough as it is,’ she said. She tapped a manicured fingernail against the photograph of Stuart Nicklin clipped to the top of a file. ‘We don’t want to make a mistake before we’ve even started, do we?’

  Colquhoun was somewhere at the fag-end of her fifties. She was tall and angular and had seemingly done her best to avoid anything that might have softened her appearance. Her greying hair was fastened tightly back and her make-up was severe. Only her voice was at odds with the impression she wanted – or thought she ought – to create. There was almost no colour in it, and she spoke so quietly Thorne had twice needed to ask her to repeat herself.

  Not that the conversation was exactly sparkling.

  The completion of each set of forms – one for each of the prisoners – was celebrated with a short break for chit-chat. Specifically, one inane enquiry after another about the journey Thorne and Holland had made from London that morning. The route, the weight of traffic, the weather conditions at various stages.

  Then back to the task in hand.

  She said, ‘Even when these prisoners have been handed into your care and are off the grounds of Long Lartin, they will still be prisoners and as such will remain my legal responsibility. I don’t need to tell you I’d rather they were returned here at the end of each day, but as the geography
would seem to make that impossible, they will need to be escorted to a designated facility.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell me, but you did,’ Thorne said.

  ‘As I said, best to get things clear at the outset.’

  ‘We’ll look after them.’

  Colquhoun had just begun talking about procedures in the event of a prisoner being taken ill, when the message alert sounded on Holland’s phone. She stared at him, like an irritated librarian.

  Holland checked his message. Said, ‘Back-up car’s here.’

  ‘Tell them we shouldn’t be long,’ Thorne said, eyes on the deputy governor.

  Though he was hardly making it difficult for her, Colquhoun could sense Thorne’s growing impatience, his desire to get on his way. ‘My officers are busy getting the prisoners prepared,’ she said. She smiled, showing no teeth, and began straightening papers. ‘For obvious reasons, we only informed them that the handover was taking place today at the very last minute.’

  ‘Right,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Obviously, it would be lovely if they were all prepped and ready for you in advance, but that would rather compromise security, don’t you think?’

  ‘Obviously…’

  What Thorne had actually been thinking for several weeks now was that security protocols such as this one were little more than a challenge for the likes of Stuart Nicklin. It made sense of course that prisoners should not be given the chance to pass on details of the time they would be spending outside prison to anyone else. But it was not a fool-proof system at the best of times and Nicklin was no ordinary prisoner. Over the years he had spent inside, he had demonstrated an alarming ability to gather information. To foster any number of sources on whom he could call when the moment was right.

  The last time Thorne had seen him, five years before, Nicklin had gleefully advised him to shop around for his utilities and to keep an eye on his overdraft. He’d told him that he might want to think about cutting down on takeaways.

  ‘I think I know you pretty well now,’ he had said.

  Getting some low-life to go through a rubbish bin was hardly rocket science, but Nicklin had also shown himself able to procure phone numbers, addresses, personal details; to monitor the movements of anyone he chose to take an interest in.

  With all that in mind, it was hard to have too much confidence in the advance security as far as this operation went. There would be plenty of people in the prison administration who had been aware of the details for days already and who would have known exactly when Thorne was turning up to collect Stuart Nicklin. Officers in every force whose jurisdiction they would be passing through had already been informed and issued with descriptions and up-to-date photographs of the prisoners.

  There were plenty of… sources.

  Thankfully, it only took a few minutes more to complete the paperwork and when it was done, Colquhoun called down and spoke to one of her senior officers. She told Thorne that the prisoners would be brought out to the vehicles shortly, then stood up, walked slowly round the desk and shook his hand. It felt a little odd, as though she were wishing him luck. As though she thought he would need it.

  Holland was walking back towards the desk. He thanked Colquhoun for the tea, and for the ‘special biscuits’.

  She turned and reached for the tin, proffered it. ‘Take them with you for the car,’ she said.

  Holland hesitated for a second or two, as surprised by the unexpected act of generosity as anything else, then took the tin. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘What’s it going to be, three or four hours?’

  ‘Could be closer to five,’ Thorne said. ‘Depending.’

  ‘Plenty of time for everyone to get acquainted with one another.’ She looked at Thorne. A well-practised expression of compassion that could not disguise a degree of naked curiosity. ‘Though I gather you and Nicklin…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Thorne said.

  I think I know you pretty well.

  ‘So, these just for us then?’ Smiling, Holland waved the tin of biscuits at Thorne. ‘Or do we have to share them?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure my officers aren’t going to say no.’ The deputy governor walked back around her desk and sat down. She adjusted the position of a framed photograph whose subject Thorne could not quite make out from where he was standing. ‘But the prisoners will obviously be cuffed, so it’s up to you.’ She looked up at Dave Holland with the first proper smile she’d managed all morning. ‘Do you really want to be hand-feeding Stuart Nicklin custard creams?’

  THREE

  Jeffrey Batchelor raised his forearm, buried his face in the material of the thick, brown crew-neck sweater and sniffed. Fully dressed again, he looked at himself in a small mirror on the back of the door, then across at the senior prison officer who had only finished strip-searching him five minutes before.

  ‘Just feels odd,’ he said.

  ‘Bound to,’ Alan Jenks said. ‘First time back in your own clothes since you came in, right?’

  Batchelor nodded. ‘I suppose that’s right.’

  First time in eight months. In two hundred and thirty-six days. He pointed at Jenks, managed a dry laugh.

  ‘First time I’ve seen you out of uniform.’

  Jenks checked himself out in the mirror. He was wearing jeans, same as Batchelor, with a black sweater over a denim shirt. ‘Yeah, well, they don’t want what’s going on to be too obvious,’ Jenks said. ‘They want it all low-key.’ He used his fingers to put quotation marks round the last words, then nodded towards the door and another room on the far side of Reception where two of his colleagues were prepping the other prisoner. ‘He does, anyway. He’s the one calling the shots, you ask me.’ He nodded, conspiratorial. ‘Don’t you reckon?’

  Batchelor shrugged, as though any opinion he might have was hardly worth considering. He certainly had one, but he knew that where Stuart Nicklin was concerned, it was usually best to say nothing.

  He’d learned that before he’d even met the man.

  ‘I mean, you’re his mate,’ Jenks said.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Or whatever it is.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Batchelor said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter to me either way.’

  ‘It’s not like that.’

  Jenks stared at the prisoner for a couple of seconds, then smiled like he wasn’t convinced and turned away. He reached up into an open metal cupboard on the wall for the D-cuffs. Turned back and dangled them. ‘Yeah well, not easy to be too low-key when you’re walking about wearing these buggers.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Jenks stepped across, workmanlike. ‘Hardly going to look like we’re sightseeing, is it?’

  Batchelor closed his eyes and held out his arms.

  On the wing the evening before, he had looked up to see Nicklin in the doorway of his cell. A small wave like there was no need for concern, like he was just passing. He had laid down the book he was reading, got to his feet.

  ‘All set?’

  He had nodded, his mouth too dry suddenly to spit out an answer quickly.

  ‘Not having second thoughts, are we?’

  ‘Just a bit nervous,’ he had said, eventually.

  Nicklin had laughed, hoarse and high-pitched, then stepped across the threshold. ‘You should be excited, Jeffrey,’ he’d said. He had lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘We’re going on holiday…’

  Batchelor winced and sucked in a breath as the cuffs were double locked, the snap catching the skin.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jenks said.

  ‘No problem, Mr Jenks,’ Batchelor said. ‘Not your fault.’

  First time back in cuffs since he’d climbed out of that van, two hundred and thirty-six days before.

  Thorne stood by the side of the back-up vehicle – a Ford Galaxy identical to the one he and Holland were in – talking through the half-open window to DS Samir Karim, who would be driving, and to the woman in the passenger seat. Once they had reached their destination, Karim would be working as
exhibits officer, while Wendy Markham was on board as civilian crime scene manager. This was assuming that any crime scene was actually found, that there were any exhibits.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Exhibit A… bugger all,’ Karim said, grinning.

  Thorne glanced at Markham, who seemed happy enough. Maybe, like Holland, she was just looking forward to getting out of the city. Thorne could not think of anywhere much further out.

  Karim was chuckling now. ‘Actually, better make that Exhibit Sweet FA!’ With no discernible quality control when it came to his jokes, Karim was every bit as indiscriminate about gambling. He regularly took bets on time of death or length of sentence, but was equally happy to run books on the grisliest of murder case minutiae. Since being brought into the team, he had been predictably keen to discuss the odds on finding the body they were going to look for, the number of hours they might have to spend digging.

  For now, Thorne was happier talking about the route.

  While other areas of security were causing him a degree of concern, he could be confident that this part of the operation at least had stayed under wraps. Their progress would be monitored, the two vehicles tracked by satellite in real time, but only he and Karim actually knew which way they were going.

  They went over it one more time.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s sorted,’ Karim said. He tapped the side of his head to suggest that the information had been memorised. As though he had no need of the sat nav and would have happily swallowed the map Thorne had supplied were it not for the fact that it was laminated.

  Thorne looked at his watch. ‘If we ever get going.’ They had been at the prison almost an hour and a half already. He had wanted to be long gone by now. ‘Don’t know why we bothered to get up so early.’

  ‘Maybe we can make up some time on the road,’ Karim said.

  ‘Not going to happen,’ Thorne said. The cars would stay in touch by radio, but it was important that they maintained visual contact too. ‘Inside lane on the motorways wherever possible, Sam, all right? Nice and steady and don’t be playing silly buggers and trying to overtake.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘It’ll take as long as it takes.’