The man who – unbeknown to himself – had been christened ‘Adrian’ by the only other person in the house sat in the small kitchen watching television and eating toast. He slathered peanut butter over the latest piece and put two more slices of bread under the grill.
He checked his watch.
Another ten minutes and he’d go in to clear the prisoner’s dinner things away, see if he needed the bucket. That was the bit he really disliked, all the messy stuff. Making meals and dealing with piss and shit like he was just some nurse or something. Couldn’t be helped though. He had known this would be part of the job when he’d taken it on, so there was no point in complaining – even if there’d been anyone around to complain to – and the fact was he was happy enough to do the job, menial stuff included, because at the end of the day it was an honour.
The others had felt the same way, the couple he’d taken over from.
‘We’re lucky,’ the girl had said. ‘Plenty of other people would jump at the chance.’
He wasn’t sure there were
plenty
, but he knew what she was getting at. He guessed there would be a good few people keen to seize an opportunity like this one. It was as close as they were likely to get to a celebrity and, if the worst happened, they might get a taste of it themselves. In newspapers and books, maybe even movies one day. That was what you called a silver lining!
So, there was cooking and there was cleaning up, but the part he liked best of all was when he spent time in the room with the prisoner. Just sitting there reading or whatever, watching him and listening to all the desperate rubbish he came out with. Those were the times when he knew he’d done the right thing, because it was a buzz he couldn’t remember getting from anything else he’d ever done. Not from games, and that was probably what came closest. However many aliens or cops or hookers you were wasting, only the real saddos actually got off on it. Only the proper losers imagined they were doing it for real. He enjoyed playing, no mistake about it, but they were just games.
This was something altogether different. This was genuine power over another person. It was life and death, simple as that, and that was a rush you didn’t get every day. Certainly not working in telesales.
The man, whose name was actually Damien, turned his toast over and reached for the wooden knife block next to the cooker. He drew out the biggest knife and touched a finger to its edge. Not for the first time, he wondered whose place this was. It didn’t appear very lived in, that was for sure. It didn’t feel like the knife he was holding had been used for a while.
He thought about what he’d told the prisoner about the scalpel, the girl leaving it behind. It wasn’t true of course, he’d just wanted to scare him, but the fact was there were loads of other knives knocking around, if he chose to use them.
He smelled the burning a second too late and quickly pulled the blackened toast from beneath the grill. He tossed it on to a plate and finished the piece he was eating while he waited for it to cool.
It had done the trick, that stuff about the scalpel. It had scared him. He’d seen the colour go out of the cocky bastard’s face, drain away just like that and he hadn’t said a great deal since.
He sat and chewed his toast and thought about other things he could do.
If just watching him was this exciting, he wondered how it would feel to take things a step or two further…
He couldn’t be sure how it would go down with whoever was running things, him doing anything he hadn’t been specifically told to do. He would be careful, obviously. He knew that the prisoner had to be kept alive.
It would all be over soon enough anyway.
If everything went according to plan – whatever the plan was – he’d be out of the house by the end of the day. So, it couldn’t really hurt if, between now and then, he used a bit of initiative, could it? Beyond the job he’d been given – to watch the prisoner, to keep him fed and watered until the time came – he didn’t know any of the details, none of them did. But there was always a chance it might actually help, doing a tiny bit more damage.
Something creative.
He picked up a slice of the burned toast and used the knife to scrape away the charcoal.
Maybe he’d see how things were when he went into the bedroom to clear the stuff away. See if there were any more smartarse digs about who was in charge, about how he got on with girls, all that.
He scraped harder, watched the flakes and puffs of black dust drift into the sink, and imagined the knife working at a shin, or on the back of a hand.
Yeah, he’d see if the man on the bed had anything else to say to him, and decide then.
‘I can’t sleep.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘I think it’s because I’m too excited.’
‘What the hell have you got to be excited about?’
‘Well, I know this isn’t exactly the lap of luxury, but it’s still the first night I’ve spent in ten years that isn’t behind bars. The first room I’ve slept in that doesn’t have a lock on the door.’
‘Make the most of it.’
‘Oh, I intend to. Bed’s pretty nice, actually, not too soft. What about yours?’
‘Make the most of it, because it’s strictly a one-night deal.’
‘Oh I know. Stroke of luck and all that.’
‘Not for me.’
‘Any news on Huw’s father, by the way?’
‘Like you give a toss.’
‘Just wondered if it was anything serious. You didn’t say.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘There’s no point blaming yourself for any of this, you know.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘What can you do? I mean, you can’t control the weather, can you? Mind you, you can see why we Brits love to talk about the bloody weather so much, can’t you? I mean, it’s one of the few things in the world that’s still unpredictable these days, isn’t it? That keeps things interesting. See, we like to think that we can control our lives, that we’re on top of everything with all our technology, but it’s only really the trivial things we’ve got any sort of handle on or say in. No amount of flashy gadgets or apps are any good when it comes to shit like the weather. You think you’ve got it covered, don’t you? You check all the forecasts or whatever and then
bang
, it surprises you. Lets you know who’s boss. Same thing with illness or accidents or what have you. Same thing with death…’
‘You going to keep talking shit all night?’
‘Take murder for a kick-off.’
‘I’ll gag you if I have to, you know that, right?’
‘I bet you’d love to.’
‘These are special circumstances. I can do whatever I want, if I think the situation merits it.’
‘It’s the same as the weather, that’s all I’m saying, Tom. Murder is. You know it’s coming, because it always has, but you don’t know what and exactly when and basically there’s sod all you can do about it.
You
know better than most why most murders happen. People kill each other because they’ve had one glass too many or because they fancy someone they shouldn’t. Because they’re greedy or getting their own back or because someone looked at their other half the wrong way in the pub. They snap one day after too many years being bullied or belittled or passed over. Ordinary, dull, stupid reasons. So, you know why murders happen, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stop them happening, does it? Harder, if anything. I mean, yes, it might make the killers a bit easier to catch, but those same reasons for doing it in the first place are going to be there year after year, century after century. Making more work for priests and gravediggers and people like you.’
‘You’ve clearly got far too much time to think.’
‘And whose fault is that?’
‘Maybe you should be spending a bit more of it doing things. Making yourself useful.’
‘What, you think I should be getting busy in the prison workshop? You think I need a hobby?’
‘Why not?’
‘You wouldn’t let me have a spoon. You really think the Fletchers of this world want to let me loose with power tools? Now… in terms of weather, your ordinary murderers, your drunks and jealous husbands and skint smackheads… they’re just like… drizzle, or whatever. They’re everyday, much-as-we-expected. They’re bog-standard. No challenge at all for someone like you, am I right?’
‘You think it’s a game?’
‘Far from it. I’m just saying, not exactly taxing, is it? When the wife who’s been having an affair is lying on the kitchen floor with her brains bashed in and her old man’s done a runner. When the arsehole who likes to knock his girlfriend around gets a bread knife stuck in his chest while he’s asleep and there’s a blood-soaked nightie in the washing basket. Even a copper like that retard you’ve stuck in the chapel could crack cases like that, right? That’s just normal weather conditions. But then there’s the freak stuff that you can never see coming. The tsunamis and the tornados. The deadly weather.’
‘And that’s killers like you, is it? The special ones. That what you’re saying?’
‘I’m saying… not run of the mill.’
‘You’re every bit as ordinary. Every bit as stupid.’
‘You know that’s not true.’
‘You’re a bog-standard nutter who makes a splash and gets ideas above his station.’
‘A splash?’
‘A few books and TV documentaries and thinks he’s way more important than he actually is.’
‘Karim could never have caught me though, could he?’
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘Course you know. You know it’s the likes of me that get your blood jumping. Same as those idiots that get off being in the middle of hurricanes, the ones that go looking for them.’
‘I need to get some sleep…’
‘Come on, be honest, just for once. If you had a choice between solving a hundred ordinary murders… catching a hundred examples of drizzle on two legs, or one of me, what would you choose?’
‘This is stupid.’
‘Admit it, Tom, you’re a storm-chaser.’
‘Go to fucking sleep.’
‘I told you —’
‘
Try
.’
Thorne closed his eyes, but they were quickly open again. Wide and unblinking. Watching the cobwebs dance in slow motion just below the ceiling and struggling suddenly to hear the sea above the roaring of his blood.
Asking himself a question that Nicklin had already answered.
What the hell have you got to be excited about?
It might have been an hour later, or perhaps it was two, and Thorne was listening to the low rattle and wheeze of Nicklin snoring, when he heard footsteps on the landing. He sat up and swung his feet to the floor just as Fletcher appeared, putting on his jacket, in the bedroom doorway.
‘Batchelor needs the toilet.’
Thorne saw Jenks arrive at Fletcher’s shoulder, Batchelor with his handcuffs back on, pale suddenly and haggard.
‘You want to take a radio?’ Thorne asked.
‘He’s not going to be long.’ Fletcher turned to Batchelor. ‘Are you, Jeff?’
Batchelor shook his head.
‘Take Holland with you, if you like.’
‘I think we can manage,’ Fletcher said. ‘This one’s no trouble.’
‘Long as he has no trouble doing what he needs to do.’ Jenks grimaced and hunched his shoulders, fastened the top button on his jacket. ‘Still pissing down out there.’ He ushered Batchelor away towards the top of the stairs and Fletcher followed a few seconds later.
Thorne listened to the steps as Batchelor and the prison officers descended. Their voices muffled, then barely audible at all. The dull, distant clatter as the bolt on the back door was thrown back. Becoming aware that the snoring had stopped, Thorne turned to see that Nicklin was wide awake and watching him.
Batchelor sits on a cold wooden seat and does what he was only ever supposed to be pretending to do, but which has now become something he needs more than he can ever remember. He sits and empties his bladder and bowels and listens to Fletcher and Jenks talking outside the door, the rise and fall of their exchange just audible above the clatter of the rain on the corrugated iron roof. Fletcher, who had told him ‘not to make a meal of it’. Jenks, who had always treated him decently enough, who had taken one look at the spartan facilities and shuddered and said, ‘Wouldn’t be able to go, myself. No bloody chance. Need a few more of the home comforts, mate. Proper bog paper for a kick-off and something decent to read.’
Batchelor sits and does what he has to, a long way past caring.
Now, it’s almost time and he still can’t put them together in any way that sounds acceptable. The things he wants to say to his wife. He’s presuming that it’s all going to go the way he’s been promised, that he’ll get his chance. He looks at his watch. Sonia will almost certainly be in bed by now, dead to the world on all those pills she’s been gulping down every night since Jodi died. It might end up being no more than a message in the end, a few stammered words after the beep.
Just as well, probably, he thinks.
Hearing her voice would only make it harder.
Make it impossible…
Outside the door, Jenks laughs and Fletcher says, ‘Yeah, well it’s what they do, isn’t it? The French. Basically, they just shit in a hole in the floor. Like the bog seat hasn’t been invented or they can’t afford one because they’ve spent all their money on garlic, or whatever.’
Batchelor hears Jenks say something and laugh again. Then there are footsteps and a third voice outside the door.
A London accent, a chuckle in it.
‘Bloody hell, don’t tell me you’re the queue.’
‘No, mate,’ Fletcher says. ‘You’ll have to jog on though.’
‘Sorry?’
‘We’re prison officers and we’re working. One of our prisoners is in there.’
‘So?’
‘Come on, mate, don’t be a twat about it. Just use the shitter in the next cottage along, there’s a good lad.’
Batchelor sits and sweats and pushes back tears with the heels of his hands. He knows what’s coming, so after a few seconds he moves his hands from his eyes to his ears because nobody says he has to listen to it, and then, with the noise from outside deadened by the thrum of his rushing pulse, the stench and the dread yield one glorious moment of revelation and he finally realises what he needs to say to Sonia.
That there’s only ever been one thing he’s wanted to tell her.
Nicklin says, ‘I don’t see what you’re so worried about, Tom.’
Thorne turns from the window. ‘Sorry?’
‘I think Fletcher and Jenks can handle one prisoner using the toilet.’
‘I know.’
‘So, what was all that about Holland going with them? Taking a radio.’
‘Since when do I answer to you?’
‘Just making conversation.’
‘Did I miss the bit where you became a detective chief inspector?’
Nicklin laughs and shifts back on the mattress, the bed-springs groaning beneath him, until he is sitting up. The hand that is cuffed to the frame is now twisted behind his back. ‘Actually, I think I’d make a pretty good copper,’ he says. ‘A DI at least, I reckon… Murder Squad, obviously.’ He looks at Thorne, scratches at his chest with his free hand. ‘You know, takes one to know one and all that.’
Thorne steps back across to the window. He can see a single torch beam below in the rear garden, the small circle of light fixed against the bottom of the toilet door, as though the torch is on the ground. He can just make out shapes in the rain and the rhythm of a conversation.
‘Maybe that’s why you’re so good at it,’ Nicklin says.
Batchelor is trying not to listen, but in the end he cannot help himself and he knows the sounds, because he recognises them.
He has heard them before.
He cannot be certain of the method, though the speed of what happens coupled with the fact that there is not
that
much noise means that he can hazard a guess. Surprise is an important weapon, of course, but with one man against two, something rather more tangible was always going to be required. So, not identical, these terrible sounds on the other side of the door, but close enough.
Panic and terror, then realisation.
They were the sounds Nathan Wilson had made, his face a mask of blood by then and something that was not blood leaking from the back of his skull on to the pavement. The sounds of someone fighting for their life. Moans and gasps as Batchelor had smashed the boy’s head down again and again and half-spluttered pleas that went unheeded until they became drooled and fractured mumblings.
The ragged fall of that last breath.
Now, a few feet away from him, there are other noises, a little more prosaic, that tell Batchelor the situation outside has changed, is moving forward. The soft thump of a body as it hits the ground, an arm flailing through long grass, and slowing. The clatter as someone slumps against the side of the outhouse and slides down.
Then nothing. Half a minute when it’s just the rain and the wind and the gurgling in his gut, until he hears the heavy steps flattening the wet grass and sees the door give a little as someone leans against it.
Hears the voice, the mouth up close to the wood, the London accent with a chuckle in it.
The man outside the door says, ‘Time to go, Jeff.’
Thorne bangs on the window, the glass rattling in the frame, but he sees no movement below him, no reaction of any kind. He tries to open it, but it’s been painted shut and refuses to budge.
He turns and walks back to the doorway. He leans out and shouts along the corridor.
‘Dave…’
‘I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up,’ Nicklin says. ‘It’s not been that long.’
Thorne shouts again.
‘Maybe Jeff’s having a little trouble.’ Nicklin pulls a face. ‘I mean, it’s hardly surprising, is it? It’s not as if anyone’s been eating very healthily the last few days.’
Holland shouts back. ‘Everything all right?’
‘I need you.’ Thorne steps back into the room and goes back to the window.
‘Maybe you should go down there yourself,’ Nicklin says.
‘Thanks for the advice.’
‘Just saying, if you’re really worried.’
Holland appears, blinking in the doorway, pulling a sweater on over a T-shirt. He yawns and says, ‘What?’
‘I need you to go downstairs and check on Laurel and Hardy,’ Thorne says. ‘They took Batchelor out to use the toilet and that was about twenty minutes ago.’
‘It was ten minutes, tops,’ Nicklin says.
‘I know how long it was.’
Nicklin looks at Holland, rolls his eyes. ‘He’s panicking.’
‘Take your radio,’ Thorne says.
‘Right.’
‘Where is it?’
‘It’s in the bedroom.’
‘Well go back and get it and get down there.’
Thorne and Nicklin watch Holland turn and walk quickly back towards his bedroom. Thorne moves back into the room and resumes his position at the window.
‘You can go with him if you want,’ Nicklin says. He rattles his cuffs against the bedstead. ‘It’s not like I’m going anywhere, is it? Well, not yet anyway.’
Thorne turns from the window and looks at him. He feels a flicker of something in his gut, there for a second, then gone.
The cuffs are rattled again. ‘Something tells me you’ll be taking these off in a minute.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Thorne says.
Nicklin leans back and closes his eyes. Says, ‘We’ll see.’
Holland sees the two bodies as soon as he pushes open the back door and sweeps the torch beam across the garden. Jenks is lying on his belly in the grass. Fletcher is sitting with his back against the toilet wall, as though it’s a balmy summer’s evening and he’s catching forty winks. There is blood pooled between his legs and the rain has begun to take it, running in stringy rivulets and dripping off the edge of the concrete platform on which the toilet has been built.
Holland keys his radio. He squeezes hard to control the tremor in his fingers. He says, ‘Fletcher and Jenks are down. Stabbed, looks like. They’re both down.’
He waits, stepping towards the toilet door, which is closed.
Thorne’s voice crackles back at him. ‘Say again, Dave.’
‘Shit… there’s so much fucking blood.’
‘Whose blood, Dave? Where’s Batchelor?’
Holland yells out as he kicks the door open. It clatters against the wall and swings back again, but Holland can see that the stall is empty. ‘Batchelor’s gone,’ he says. ‘Fletcher and Jenks are down and Batchelor’s gone.’ He turns on the spot and swings his torch around wildly, in case Batchelor is still somewhere nearby, but there’s only rain and the dark wall at the end of the garden. The mountain rising up on the other side.
‘What about signs of life, Dave?’ Thorne is not shouting, but his voice is raised and he is speaking slowly. ‘Have you checked for signs of life?’
Holland is panting by now. He wipes the rain from his eyes, lays his torch on the grass and kneels down next to Fletcher. He grabs a wrist and presses his ear to the officer’s chest. It comes away wet, and the radio is slick with blood when he brings it to his mouth.
‘Nothing,’ he says.
‘Are you sure?’
He crawls across to where Jenks is lying and turns him over, grunting with the effort. The man’s chest is sodden, the stain on his jacket black in the half-light from the open doorway behind them.
‘Dave?’
He checks for a pulse. He leans close to the man’s face and waits for a breath, holding his own while he listens.
‘Shit.’
‘Talk to me, Dave.’
‘Shit… there’s nothing,’ Holland says. ‘Just blood…’
Thorne is still at the bedroom window, the radio pressed to his ear, listening to Holland gasp and curse, when he spots the torch beam moving on the mountainside. The light skitters, perhaps five hundred yards away and fifty feet up, briefly illuminating rocky outcrops and grey clumps of heather and gorse as it climbs upwards.
He keys the transmit button.
‘Batchelor’s on the mountain,’ he says. ‘Him and whoever killed Fletcher and Jenks. You need to get after him, Dave.’
‘You don’t think Batchelor killed them?’
‘No chance,’ Thorne says. ‘Somebody came for him.’ He looks again, but he can’t see the torchlight any longer. ‘Quick as you can, Dave. I’ll radio Karim and get him to follow you.’
Holland tells Thorne that he’s on his way.
It’s still dark on the mountainside and Thorne guesses that whoever is using the torch knows very well that there’s a chance he will be seen and is choosing to use it only when necessary. He looks down into the garden and sees the beam of light swing as Holland picks his own torch up.
He turns to Nicklin. ‘This was never about you, was it? It was always about Batchelor escaping.’
‘Well, it’s an escape of a sort, I suppose,’ Nicklin says.
Thorne sees Nicklin smile, waiting for the penny to drop and when it does Thorne understands what Batchelor is doing, what he’s being led away to do.
‘This is the perfect place for him to do it,’ Nicklin says. ‘Very peaceful very… spiritual. Besides, you’d be amazed how hard it is to get it done in prison. They’ve been watching him anyway, you know, since he had his wobble when he got that boy’s letter. But even if they weren’t, it’s never very easy. Trust me, if it was, people inside would be topping themselves every day of the week.’
Suddenly Holland’s voice cuts in, hoarse, urgent. ‘I was wrong. Jenks is still breathing. Jesus…’
‘You sure?’
‘He’s alive, but only just.’ Holland sounds close to tears. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’
‘I’ll sort it, Dave.’
‘We need to get him to hospital… get a helicopter or something.’
‘I said, I’ll sort it. I can get a phone signal at the abbey ruins.’ Thorne is already moving across to the bed. He drops down on to the edge and reaches for his boots. ‘You get after Batchelor, all right?’
‘Shouldn’t I wait with Jenks?’
‘Listen, if you don’t get to Batchelor before he reaches the top of that mountain, there’s going to be another body to worry about.’
‘OK…’
‘Be careful, all right, Dave? Whoever’s up there with him is obviously dangerous. As soon as I’ve made the call I’ll join you.’
Holland tells Thorne that he’s on the move. He says, ‘Don’t forget to call Karim.’
Thorne ends the transmission, punches the button again and says, ‘Sam, are you awake? We’ve got an emergency up here. Sam…?’ He struggles to pull his boots on, cursing as he waits for a response.
‘I don’t want you to tell Karim what’s happening,’ Nicklin says.
Thorne looks up. ‘What?’
‘Tell him to relax. Tell him there’s nothing to worry about.’
Thorne freezes, fingers tight around his bootlaces.
‘Yes,’ Nicklin says, ‘you
are
going to the abbey ruins, but I’d prefer it if you left your phone here, along with your radio.’
Thorne gets slowly to his feet. That lurching in his belly is back suddenly and it stays there, like speeding across an endless series of humpbacked bridges. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Remember the letters?’ Nicklin asks. ‘The ones I wrote to my mother?’
Suddenly, Thorne cannot think straight. He shakes his head, struggling to understand. ‘Yes… what?’
Nicklin’s expression makes it perfectly clear that he’s enjoying Thorne’s confusion, the delay before he puts him out of his misery. ‘Look, I know what you think you’re supposed to do, what the procedure is, and so on. The thing is, I’m not really sure you can save Alan Jenks anyway and, more to the point, aren’t there other people you care about more?’ Nicklin waits, cocks his head. ‘People that need you?’
Thorne stares at his prisoner for no more than a second or two, but he sees a confidence borne out of craft and careful planning; of complete certainty that Nicklin is going to get what he wants, because he knows Thorne too well.