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.

NINE

Kitson glanced up at the well-weathered FOR SALE sign and, when she looked back towards the front door, she saw that it was open and that Sonia Batchelor was waving from the step. She had begun talking before Kitson had reached the front door, and continued as she showed her through to a neatly arranged sitting room.

‘We need to downsize,’ Sonia said. ‘Rachel and me. Well, I mean, obviously we do. For seven years, at least.’

Kitson nodded.

Rachel: the younger daughter. Seven years: the minimum term.

The woman sat down on an artfully distressed leather armchair and waved Kitson towards a matching sofa. She was forty-three, if Kitson remembered correctly; skinny, with grey roots showing through a dye-job and long, thin fingers that moved almost constantly against the arm of her chair. She had worked full-time for the local council up until just over a year before, something in social services. The job had been the most insignificant of her losses.

‘Only silly offers so far,’ Sonia said. ‘Just because people know we’re desperate to sell, I suppose. They know the address from the news or whatever, so they’re trying to grab a bargain.’ She looked around the room, nodded. ‘I’m not going to let anyone take advantage of us though.’

The house was a four-bedroom semi, a mile or so from the centre of Northampton. A nice, quiet road. Neighbourhood Watch and carefully trimmed front hedges. Just over a year before there had been a family of four living here, but now there were only two. Sonia Batchelor had lived here with her college lecturer husband and two children. Today, there was only one child and Sonia Batchelor was the wife of a convicted murderer.

‘I’d offer you tea,’ she said. ‘Truth is though I’ve been jumpy as hell ever since you called and I’m desperate to know what this is about.’

‘Sorry,’ Kitson said. ‘I did tell you Jeff was all right.’

‘Yes, you said that —’

‘That it wasn’t really Jeff I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Right, but whatever it is, it obviously involves him, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘So…?’