‘“I am not a number!”’ Nicklin said, good and loud. He turned round and said it again for the benefit of Fletcher and the others, then turned back to look at Thorne. ‘That’s the thing though, isn’t it? For the last ten years, that’s exactly what I’ve been. Stuart Anthony Nicklin, prisoner number 5677832.’ He laughed, shook his head. ‘Between you and me, Tom, I never understood it either. That stupid white balloon bouncing along the beach…’

The sergeant glanced up from his paperwork. ‘Can you take the cuffs off now, please? The prisoners need to turn out their pockets.’

Jenks and Fletcher got up, moved to stand close to Thorne and Holland while the handcuffs were removed. Nicklin handed over his tobacco tin and wristwatch. Batchelor, just a watch.

‘Right, do we need to strip-search them?’ the sergeant asked.

Duggan stepped forward, nodding. ‘We should follow the standard procedure.’

‘They were searched at Long Lartin,’ Thorne said. He looked at Fletcher, who nodded to confirm it. ‘Neither of them has been out of our sight since we left.’

‘Comfort breaks?’ Duggan asked.

‘One each, in full view at all times.’

Duggan looked at the sergeant. The sergeant shrugged.

‘Look,’ Nicklin said. ‘It sounds like you lot really want to get your rubber gloves on and procedure’s there for a very good reason.’ He looked at Duggan, then at Batchelor. ‘We don’t want to get anyone into trouble, do we, Jeff?’

‘We can leave it,’ Thorne said.

Duggan nodded at the sergeant, who said, ‘Whatever.’

‘Shame.’ Nicklin looked across at the pair of young PCs waiting anxiously nearby. Both reddened. ‘Sorry, boys. Mind you, you’d only have made Mr Jenks and Mr Fletcher jealous.’

‘Shut it now, Stuart,’ Fletcher said.

Once Nicklin and Batchelor had signed to confirm the short inventory of their possessions, the PCs stepped across to escort them to the cells. Jenks and Fletcher followed as the prisoners were led away and both police officers kept their hands on their telescopic batons. Just before disappearing from view around a corner, Nicklin shouted back over his shoulder.

‘You should all get an early night,’ he said. ‘And try not to eat anything iffy. You’ll need strong stomachs tomorrow.’

Holland looked at Thorne. Said, ‘That’s a point, I need to get seasickness tablets.’

Nicklin had already rounded the corner, but there was no mistaking the amusement in his voice. ‘I’m talking about after we get there…’

Thorne ran through the pick-up arrangements for the following morning, quickly shutting the custody sergeant up when the man tried once again to suggest that a different station might have made his own life a little easier. He said goodbye to Duggan who promised to call him later and let him know if he would be tagging along the next day. Then, Thorne and Holland walked out into the station courtyard, Karim and Markham a few steps behind.

‘So, what is the plan for tonight?’ Holland asked.

Markham said she didn’t think they would have a great many options and Karim laughed. He said this was probably the kind of place where they still pointed at planes.

‘I need a hot shower and a cold beer,’ Thorne said. ‘In that order.’

TWELVE

Kitson looked up from the game of Candy Crush on her BlackBerry. She returned the smile of an old man who was working at a large jigsaw and figured out that by the time she got home later on, she would have driven the best part of two hundred miles for these three interviews. North London to Huntingdon, then across to Northampton and back down, finally, to Watford. Unless the woman she had left until the end had something useful to tell her, her day’s work would have generated nothing but a claim for travel expenses.

One of the care workers stopped at the table to set down a cup of tea and a plate of digestives.

Kitson thanked her.

‘She won’t be long,’ the care worker said. ‘Just doing her hair and getting some slap on. Mrs Nicklin always likes to look her best.’

Kitson stared at her, confused. She had come to see someone who – like the teacher Kitson had spoken to that morning – had been given a brand new identity. A woman whose name was not the one she had lived with up until ten years before.

The care worker shrugged, said, ‘No big mystery. She tells everyone…’

When Annie Nicklin finally emerged through a door at the far end of the communal living room, she was being escorted by a second care worker. She walked slowly, but surely, what little weight she had supported on two sticks. Her eyes on Yvonne Kitson every step from the door to the chair.

The care worker brought a cup of tea across for her. Annie leaned her sticks against the chair then turned to study Kitson with an expression that showed no hint of animosity or suspicion. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Go on, love.’ She spoke slowly, but her voice was oddly high and light. The London accent was still strong.

Kitson reached for her bag. ‘Do you not want to see my ID?’

Annie waved the suggestion away. ‘Well, you’re either a copper or a journalist, aren’t you? Either way, you’ve got questions of some sort.’ Her white hair was thin in places, the pink scalp visible beneath. The liver-spotted hands were clawed against the arms of the chair. Kitson knew that she was eighty-five, but she looked even older.

‘I don’t understand why you’re using your own name,’ Kitson said.

‘It’s my name.’

‘You were given witness protection.’

‘I didn’t want it,’ Annie said. ‘All that nonsense was their idea. Didn’t want to deal with the aggravation of people trying to hurt me, I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘So I took their daft name, but I was never very good at keeping my real one a secret and I told them I wouldn’t move far from home.’ She glanced up at an old woman shuffling past the table and lowered her voice. ‘So, you know… there were a few broken windows, dog mess through the letterbox.’

‘That’s why you’re supposed to keep it secret.’

Annie smiled, girlish suddenly, as though she’d been gently scolded for doing something foolish and completely trivial. ‘Well, it didn’t really matter where I was living in the end, because I couldn’t go out. I already had bad diabetes, arthritis and all the rest of it. I was falling to pieces basically, had to have one of those warden-controlled flats, so they could keep an eye on me. Then suddenly I got scared to open the front door, agoraphobia or whatever it is. By that time I hadn’t got any friends left anyway.’ She leaned towards Kitson. ‘Funny that… how they all drift away once your son turns out to be a serial killer.’

Kitson laughed, reached for a biscuit.

‘So, in the end I hadn’t got a lot of choice and moved in here.’ Annie looked around. ‘These are my friends now. Most of them are too bloody gaga to know or care about Stuart.’

Kitson could see the slightest of tremors now, the woman’s head shaking though her eyes stayed fixed on the same point. Thorne had told Kitson about talking to Annie Nicklin ten years earlier, back when he was still hunting for her son. She had been thoroughly cantankerous, he had said. Uncooperative and stubbornly protective of her son, even though Thorne was sure she had known perfectly well what he had done. Ten years on, she seemed a very different woman to the one Thorne had described.

One who had come to terms with the past, perhaps. Her own and her son’s. One more at peace with everything.

‘You mentioned journalists,’ Kitson said. ‘Have they been to see you?’

‘One or two.’

‘Recently?’

‘I lose track of time, love.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘They always have the same questions,’ Annie said. ‘That’s the funny thing. Did Stuart start fires when he was little? No. Did he used to hurt animals? Not as far as I know. Do you still love him?’ She looked away for a few moments. ‘Bloody stupid question, that is.’