The Bones Beneath Read Online Free Page A

had already started on the biscuits and offered the tin to Thorne.
    Thorne shook his head. He had been up for more than four hours, but despite having had no more than a cup of tea – creeping round the flat so as not to wake Helen and Alfie – he was still not hungry. Catching movement on the far side of the compound, he looked up and saw an officer walking the perimeter, doing his best to control a fearsome-looking German shepherd. He watched dog and handler walk past two more officers on their way towards the purpose-built staff coffee shop, a Portakabin that had been tarted up and pithily christened The Long Latté.
    Holland leaned forward to turn the radio down. They had been listening to news and sport on 5 Live on the drive up from London and now there was a phone-in debating whether the royal family were value for money. They brought in a lot of tourists, according to John from Ascot, so were consequently worth every penny. Frank in Halifax said they were bone-idle parasites, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, they were bone-idle
German
parasites.
    ‘We need to talk about music,’ Holland said.
    ‘Do we?’ Thorne asked.
    ‘A four-hour journey?’
    ‘Maybe five.’
    ‘Right. So the choice of music’s pretty crucial, I’d say.’
    ‘I suppose.’
    ‘Nothing about it in the operational notes.’
    ‘That was an oversight.’
    ‘Three pages on risk assessment… page and a half on “comfort break” procedure, for God’s sake, but not a single word about what we might be listening to.’
    ‘I’m not sure there’s going to be much chance. It’s not a pleasure trip.’
    ‘Surely we need to know the protocol, just in case.’
    ‘I’ll probably just connect my phone.’
    ‘What,
your
music?’
    ‘I’ve got plenty of Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson,’ Thorne said. ‘I’ve got a Hank Williams playlist that’ll get us to Wales, easy.’
    Holland sat back, shaking his head. ‘Jesus, I know we’re talking about people who’ve done some awful things, but these prisoners do have basic human rights, you know?’
    ‘You’re hilarious,’ Thorne said. He was stony-faced, but in truth he was enjoying the back and forth. What might be their last chance to laugh for a while.
    Holland helped himself to a last biscuit. He put the lid back on the tin and set it down in the footwell. He looked at Thorne.
    ‘So, why you?’ he asked.
    It was the same question Thorne had asked Brigstocke, that Helen had asked Thorne as soon as he’d told her what was happening. The same question Thorne had been asking himself for the last six weeks. Before he had the chance to tell Holland that he couldn’t think of a single reason that didn’t scare the hell out of him, the gate opened and the only man who knew the answer appeared.
    That twist in his gut.
    Jeffrey Batchelor was walking in front, a prison officer in plain clothes keeping pace alongside him. He stared at the sky, at the trees beyond the gates, as if mildly surprised to see that they were still there. Nicklin was a step or two behind, the hand of the officer with him reaching out to usher gently, almost but not quite touching the prisoner’s shoulder.
    Thorne and Holland got out of the car.
    Nicklin smiled when he saw Thorne, and nodded.
Sorry I’m a bit late, you know how it goes
. If anything, he picked up his pace as he drew closer, the smile broadening until it became a grin. Were it not for the handcuffs, it looked as though he wanted nothing in the world so much as to throw his arms wide, good and ready for a much-anticipated hug.

FOUR
    It would be more than twenty-five miles before they hit the first of several motorways. Until then they would be travelling on winding, narrow roads, their progress subject to drivers in no particular hurry. They would be at the mercy of lumbering agricultural vehicles and unable to make use of blues and twos except in the case of genuine emergency. Not that Thorne had been looking forward to
any
of it, but this