There had been some debate about when and where to remove the handcuffs and in the end they had decided to do so in the car. To allow Nicklin to walk in and out of the service station without them. The intention was still to avoid unwanted scrutiny wherever possible and though this was one of Nicklin’s ‘conditions’, it suited Thorne well enough. He did not want media attention any more than Nicklin did.
Blurry pictures and speculation. Manufactured outrage.
All of them were probably worrying unduly. Chances were that leaving the cuffs on as Nicklin walked in would not have caused any major problems. Thorne could not see too many people open-mouthed and scrabbling for their phones to alert the red-tops. There might be some rubbernecking, why wouldn’t there be, but nobody would guess what, or more importantly
who
, they were seeing. Watching him, as he was shepherded towards the Gents, Thorne doubted that even those who had followed the case closely, back when he was on every front page in the country, would recognise Stuart Nicklin now.
Five years ago, when Thorne had last been into Long Lartin to see him, the change had been drastic enough. Now, Nicklin looked even less like the man whose face, in one endlessly reproduced photograph, had once been so familiar. The expression of contentment that had come to be seen as defiance, eyes wide but most often described as ‘blazing’. A simple holiday snap, contextualised below a thousand prurient headlines and a name that was still a convenient byword for evil.
A ‘monster’, who was finally beginning to look genuinely monstrous.
Five years ago, Thorne had been shocked at Nicklin’s appearance, flabby and jaundiced. Now, it looked as though he had gained a lot more weight, lost even more colour, so that in places his skin appeared more blue than white; almost translucent. His eyes had sunk further into his face. His nose and the corners of his mouth were dotted with whiteheads and his teeth – many of them false, thanks to Thorne – were discoloured in places and had begun to look too big for his mouth. He was wearing a black beanie hat, but Thorne knew that beneath it, his head was bald and pitted. Thorne remembered a series of irregular, purplish lesions, like wine stains on the scalp.
As they approached the entrance to the toilets, Nicklin stopped, and turned. ‘It’s only a slash, lads,’ he announced. ‘So I won’t be keeping you too long. You should be thankful it wasn’t the chicken curry for dinner last night.’
Nicklin’s physical appearance was easily explained of course. Poor diet, far too many cigarettes, a lack of exercise; a life spent without fresh air. Thorne could not shake the idea though that these changes were in some strange way deliberate. He had radically altered his appearance before when it had suited him and now it felt somehow as though he were revelling in his ability to do so again. Displaying his refusal to be the man
or
the monster that anyone expected.
Fletcher and Karim waited outside with Nicklin, while Thorne gave the toilets the once-over. He ignored the looks from those going about their business as he checked unlocked cubicles and banged on the doors of those that were occupied. Once the facilities were empty, Fletcher brought Nicklin in. Karim waited outside, flashing his warrant card to prevent anyone else entering.
Thorne and Fletcher stood and watched Nicklin at the urinal.
‘First piss in a while where I’m not worrying about getting shanked,’ he said.
‘Rubbish,’ Fletcher said. He rolled his head round on his thick neck. ‘Since when did you have to worry about anything like that?’
‘Fair point, I suppose, boss.’
‘It’s everyone else does the worrying.’
Thorne knew what Fletcher was talking about. With his reputation as the prison’s ‘top nutter’ and an unmatched capacity for instilling fear, Nicklin pretty much ran things in Long Lartin. These days there would be plenty to do the messy work for him, should it become necessary. Thorne guessed though that he was still capable of dishing it out himself, should the fancy take him. He remembered a prisoner in Belmarsh to whom Nicklin had taken a dislike while still on remand; a man left brain dead after a sharpened spoon had been calmly but forcefully inserted into his ear.
‘I was just making a general point,’ Nicklin said. He shook himself off and turned from the urinal, looking at Thorne while he zipped himself up. ‘It feels nice, that’s all I’m saying. Certainly doesn’t smell quite as bad.’ He walked towards the sink, taking in the surroundings as though it were the swankiest of hotel rooms. He chuckled and said, ‘I don’t suppose either of you feels like lending me a couple of quid for the condom machine?’
He washed and rinsed his hands twice. He took his time at the automatic dryer.
On the way out, Nicklin slowed and cast a longing glance towards the shop. ‘Chocolate would be nice.’
‘Would it?’ Thorne said.
Nicklin smiled. He and Thorne both knew that chocolate was his weakness. DNA found on a discarded chocolate wrapper had been used in evidence at his trial. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘You telling me you haven’t got a sweetie budget?’
Thorne looked to Fletcher. The shrug suggested that the officer had no opinion either way or that perhaps Nicklin was not alone in fancying a Mars bar. As it happened, Thorne was suddenly more than a little peckish himself. He gave Karim five pounds and sent him into WH Smith to grab a selection of chocolate bars, while he and Fletcher led Nicklin out.
‘Thanks,’ Nicklin said. They stopped just outside the main doors, sheltered from the drizzle. Nearby, a man sat looking miserable at a small concession stand selling AA membership. Nicklin looked at Thorne to check he had permission, then, having been given the nod, he removed a tin of pre-rolled cigarettes from the pocket of his anorak. ‘Nice to see you’re not going to be an arsehole about all this.’
‘What about you?’ Thorne said.
A few minutes later, while Nicklin was being cuffed and belted back into the car, Thorne called Yvonne Kitson.
‘She never gets his letters,’ Kitson told him. ‘She’s got no more idea than anyone else what all this is about.’
‘Thanks, Yvonne.’
‘It was worth a try.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m on my way to see Sonia Batchelor now. Then I’ll grab some food and cut back down to visit the mother…’
Once the call had ended, Holland got out of the car and walked across to join him.
‘Anything from Batchelor?’ Thorne asked.
‘Same story we’ve heard already,’ Holland said. ‘The stuff about what happened to McEvoy. Nicklin being worried he’s going to “fall down some stairs” or whatever.’
‘It’s all rubbish.’ Thorne checked to see he had not missed any messages then put his phone away. ‘We know that.’
‘Maybe Batchelor doesn’t know why he’s here any more than we do. Maybe he’s just doing what he’s told.’
‘We’ll see if Yvonne can find out something,’ Thorne said.
‘Mind you,’ Holland said. ‘That look on his face, when he asked me about Chloe. How old she was.’ They both turned towards the car. Nicklin was watching them through the side window, contentedly clutching the chocolate bar that Fletcher had unwrapped for him. ‘Right now, I could happily throw the fucker down a flight of stairs myself.’
‘Have you worked with Thorne before?’ Karim asked.
‘Only the once,’ Markham said. ‘For about half an hour, but I wasn’t even a CSM then.’
‘Well, you must have impressed him.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Karim nodded, knowing. ‘Hand-picked we were, all of us. We’re the bloody A-Team!’
It was an hour or so since they’d left the services. They’d skirted Shrewsbury, crossed the river Severn and now they were no more than a few miles from the Welsh border. Wendy Markham stared out of her window at the north Shropshire countryside, bleak and beautiful. The occasional small village, gone before she could take in any more than a pub sign or the steeple of a church: Knockin, Morton, Osbaston.
She’d done a fair amount of staring since they’d set off, in an effort to avoid too many meandering conversations with Samir Karim. He seemed a decent enough bloke, keen to talk about his wife and kids at any opportunity, but he wasn’t nearly as entertaining as he thought he was. She wondered why on earth Thorne had hand-picked
him
. An exhibits officer needed to be thoughtful and meticulous, well organised. Glancing at him now, humming to himself and tapping fat fingers on the steering wheel, she found it hard to believe that Karim could organise himself out of bed in the morning.
Come to think of it, why had Thorne picked
her
? She’d only been promoted to CSM a few weeks earlier.
Six months or so before that, Markham had been a SOCO at a crime scene in Hackney, the location of what turned out to be the murder by administered overdose of a young man named Peter Allen. In a desperate hurry for information, Thorne had shamelessly played Markham off against another forensic officer; a wager as to which of them could get much-needed results back to him the quickest. He had promised her a case of Merlot and dinner if she won. She had very much enjoyed the wine, but the promised meal had failed to materialise.
She’d done a spot of checking up later on and it had been a forgivable oversight, all things considered. Bearing in mind that shortly after their paths had crossed professionally Thorne had been struggling with the debacle of a siege gone very wrong, dealing with his demotion to uniform.
It was understandable that dinner had slipped his mind.
Yes, she was damn sure she
had
impressed him. He’d remembered her, hadn’t he? She couldn’t help wondering though, if it was just about the work. Of course, she hoped Thorne’s choice had been based on her qualifications for the job, on an unbiased assessment of her considerable ability. That said, an instinct told her there was something else going on and she would not have been wholly outraged to discover that some small degree of physical attraction had been a contributory factor. Or, to put it in terms that didn’t sound like she was in court giving bloody evidence:
Wouldn’t hurt if he fancied her a bit, would it?
‘What?’ Karim said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Just wondered what you were smiling about, that’s all.’
Unlike Sam Karim, Tom Thorne hadn’t talked about his domestic set-up at all…
‘Nothing,’ Markham said. ‘Just remembering something.’
‘Looks like it was something nice!’
‘So, how much longer d’you think?’
Karim glanced at the clock on the dash. ‘A couple of hours, maybe.’ He nodded, smacked his palms against the wheel. ‘Going to be an interesting one this, I reckon. Oh yes, I can feel it in my water.’
Markham doubted that Karim could piss in a straight line, never mind predict the future with it, but she could not disagree with him. Even allowing for the brief time she had been a qualified crime scene manager, she knew that this operation was out of the ordinary. The place they were going for a start. It was certainly a long way to travel without knowing if there would be any crime scene to manage at the end of it. On top of which, she would normally have been free to select her own CSIs, rather than having them foisted on her at the other end.
It wasn’t a major problem. She would show Thorne that she could work with whatever, whoever was thrown at her. If she could handle four hours in the car with Sam Karim…
‘So, your wife’s OK with you being away for a few days?’ she asked.
Karim laughed. ‘Are you kidding? She can’t wait to get rid of me. She’ll have her feet up by now, dirty great box of Black Magic on the go.’ He laughed again.
Markham laughed right along with him, then said, ‘What about Thorne’s wife?’
In the rear-view, Thorne could see that Nicklin was asleep, his head lolling to one side, jaw slack. Aside from issues of self-preservation or personal pleasure, Thorne knew that there was not too much that would keep a man like Nicklin awake at night. All the same, it was disconcerting to see just how easily he drifted away. How untroubled he appeared by the stuff inside his own head.
Thorne adjusted the mirror slightly and saw that Jeffrey Batchelor was very much awake. The side of his head was pressed against the window, eyes wide and fixed forward.
He was the one who looked troubled.
A murderer, yes, but not one like Stuart Nicklin. Not a man whose crime itself would obviously have drawn Nicklin to him. Not someone Thorne could easily imagine Nicklin being attracted to sexually either, even if – as Phil Hendricks never tired of telling him – he was hardly an expert.
So, what was he doing here?
Perhaps Holland had been right and even Batchelor himself did not fully understand why he was in that car with the rest of them. It made a degree of sense. Over the years, Nicklin had not only proved himself extremely adept at persuading people to do what he wanted, but also at keeping the reasons for it to himself, until he was good and ready.
What had he threatened Batchelor with? What had he promised?
Thorne could only hope that, in an effort to get explanations, Yvonne Kitson would be luckier with Batchelor’s wife than she had been with Nicklin’s ex.
He glanced across at Holland and felt the warm, familiar blush of guilt.
Holland and Kitson…
Just two months before, in uniformed banishment south of the river, Thorne had asked for their help in investigating a series of suicides he believed to be connected. They had gone out on a limb for him, worked under the radar on his behalf, placed their own careers in jeopardy. Thorne felt that blush heat up a little more. He knew there was little point in not being honest with himself.
He
had put their careers in jeopardy and for all he knew they still were.
Nicklin’s insistence about who should escort him in the search for Simon Milner’s body had seemingly allowed Thorne to wriggle off the latest hook he had hung himself on. Picking Holland and Kitson to be part of his team had granted them a reprieve too, but Thorne had a horrible suspicion that it might only be temporary. Any disciplinary investigation that had been put on hold might well swing right back into action once the bones had been found and Nicklin was returned to prison. Worst of all, as far as Thorne was aware, Holland and Kitson had no idea about any of this. They presumably believed that, like Thorne, they had got away with it.
It was not mentioned, save for the very occasional loaded comment.
A fortnight before, Thorne had asked Kitson if she could take care of some interviews while he and Holland were on the road with Nicklin.
Kitson had smiled, the picture of innocence. Said, ‘This one on the books then, is it?’
‘Sophie used to come up here as a kid,’ Holland said, now. ‘To Wales, I mean.’
Thorne turned to look at him. ‘Really?’
Holland nodded. ‘Yeah. Youth hostelling trips and all that, with her school. Llangollen, the Brecon Beacons.’
Sophie. Holland’s long-term girlfriend, his daughter’s mother. A woman who was not exactly Tom Thorne’s biggest fan.
‘She thinks we should come here with Chloe…’
Holland turned round. He relaxed a little when he saw that Nicklin was asleep, but still kept his voice low. ‘You know, a few days where the world isn’t on some screen or other.’
‘Sounds like a good idea,’ Thorne said. He knew exactly what Holland meant. Alfie was a good deal younger than Chloe, but already the TV or Helen’s laptop or even the screen on a mobile phone seemed to exert an almost hypnotic influence over him.
A mile or two further on, Thorne said, ‘Just a tip, Dave.’ He nodded at the rear-view. ‘Don’t let him wind you up, OK? It’s exactly what he wants. He’s always looking for cracks…’
Nicklin was not asleep.
It wasn’t as though he was pretending to be. He wasn’t smacking his lips or letting out fake snores, nothing like that. He had just closed his eyes against the sunshine strobing through the trees, that was all. He’d let his face relax. He wasn’t expecting to hear anything eye-opening or top secret.
He’d started doing it in his cell. It was probably just basic meditation, which was ironic, considering that was the kind of thing they’d encouraged the kids to do all those years ago at Tides House. He didn’t think about it in those terms. It was just a question of relaxing, of lying there on his bunk and listening. He’d discovered that just by doing that, he could somehow get in sync with the rhythm of the prison. Tap into it, use it…
So, not eavesdropping, but he’d enjoyed what Thorne had said anyway.
It was spot on too, no question about it. Not that he was surprised. Thorne knew him almost as well as he knew Thorne.
There were cracks already and plenty more to come. Hairlines now, but they would soon be good and ready to gape. Cracks he was very much looking forward to opening up, when the time was right.
With a word, with a look, with a finger.