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.’

EIGHT

‘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.