It was like a toy set Simon remembered having as a kid. Even the colours were the same as they’d been on the box. A bright red door and red tiles on the roof, the white geese and that lush sweep of green pretty much wherever you looked.
There was a massive, old-fashioned farmhouse, with a walled area for ducks and chickens. There were barns and outbuildings and it smelled of pig-shit. Boys were already complaining about the smell, but the woman said that they’d soon get used to it. She told them that they would be eating as soon as everyone had been inside for a wash, but that it would be the last time anyone cooked for them. From now on, they would be taking turns to cook for one another. They’d be working out their own menus and then preparing meals using local livestock and fresh vegetables grown on the farm; that they would grow themselves.
One of the boys said something about growing herbs. The woman seemed pleased, then saw that the boy and his mates were laughing. She said, ‘You can’t grow that kind of herb, I’m afraid.’
Simon hoped that he would not be chosen to do the cooking first. He couldn’t cook anything except pot noodles and toast maybe, but it wasn’t his fault. How were you ever supposed to learn how to cook when the person whose job it was to teach you all that stuff was nodding out on the sofa with a needle in her arm? Shooting up red wine or vinegar or whatever because she couldn’t afford proper gear. Stood to reason that you were never going to be Delia Smith while that was going on, didn’t it? When all you could do was eat beans out of a can or try and nick enough money for a bag of chips.
He didn’t blame her for anything else.
He’d made a mess of things all by himself.
The whole cooking thing though, that was definitely down to her…
In the farmyard, they were instructed to take off their boots, told that there would be special indoor footwear provided. Simon slumped down on a cold stone step to take his muddy Nikes off. He watched one of the men come out of the farmhouse with what looked like a basket of Chinese slippers or something. One of the boys said it was stupid and another aimed a kick at a passing chicken. He asked why they couldn’t wear their own trainers and some of the other boys joined in. He started to get worked up and said it was an infringement of his ‘basic human rights’.
A boy, who Simon had been a row or two behind in the minibus, sat down next to him. He seemed a year or two older than Simon, sixteen or seventeen maybe, though Simon was a couple of inches taller. ‘They don’t get it, do they?’ the boy said.
‘Get what?’ Simon asked.
They sat and watched as the argument continued.
‘You get to wear your own trainers in a YOI, and it’s like a status thing, isn’t it? Kids wearing the most expensive ones, having special edition ones brought in to show that they’re bad men, or whatever. This place is different though. They don’t want any of that stuff going on, because they think it’ll make us… I don’t know, calmer or something. That’s why we’ve got to cook, why we’ve got to grow our own grub. It’s all about trust and responsibility.’
Simon watched and listened, nodded occasionally. The boy used his fingers to make speech marks around certain words, like he was taking the piss. He turned away and stared back down the hill towards the boat, the red and white striped lighthouse beyond.
‘Yeah, right,’ Simon said. He pulled off a muddy boot. His socks were soaking wet. ‘Trust and responsibility. I get it.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, they’re mad as a box of frogs.’ The boy turned back, grinning. ‘But it’s a damn sight nicer than Feltham, right? Smells better too…’
Simon laughed and the boy seemed pleased and laughed right along with him. The boy stuck out a hand, saw it was muddy and wiped it on his jeans before offering it a second time.
‘Stuart,’ he said.
NINETEEN
The boat bumped gently along the thick layer of tyres that had been fixed to the wall. Showing remarkable agility for a man who must have been in his sixties, Bernard Morgan hopped from the boat on to the walkway and hurried towards a line of small metal sheds and a larger wooden boathouse on the dockside. As Huw Morgan restarted the engines and backed the boat away, Thorne watched the old man climb into a specially adapted tractor, similar to the one that Owen had driven back on the mainland, and use it to push the wheeled trailer down the slipway and into the water. Once it was safely in position on the trailer, the Benlli III was hauled out of the water, up on to Bardsey Island.
‘Croeso,’ Huw Morgan said.
Thorne looked at him.
‘Welcome…’
Nicklin said, ‘Thank you, but actually I’ve been here before. A long time ago.’ He smiled. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Huw.’
Morgan stared for a few seconds, nonplussed, then walked past Nicklin to the ladder.
By the time the passengers had disembarked and most of the equipment had been offloaded, Bernard and Huw Morgan had driven back from the lighthouse in a two-seater quad bike with a small trailer-box attached to the back. Huw hopped off the bike and moved to help unload the remainder of the gear. He nodded back at the trailer. ‘Stick it all in there,’ he said. ‘We’ll run it up.’ He looked along a narrow track twisting up towards the mountain, a quarter of a mile or so away to their right. Five or six properties of various sizes were dotted along the base, in a line leading towards the cliff tops they had passed on their way in. Thorne could just make out thin ribbons of smoke drifting from a chimney or two and what looked like an enormous cross near what he guessed to be the ruins he had read about.
The convoy moved slowly.
The quad bike bumped up the track, the trailer bouncing and rattling behind it across rough ground thick with mud and stones. Howell moved alongside, keen to point out that there was delicate equipment on board and, after she had politely requested that they take things a little easier, Morgan slowed down still further to a notch above walking pace. Behind them, Thorne and Holland led the way, with Nicklin, Batchelor and the two prison officers a pace or two behind and Markham, Karim and Barber the grim-faced CSI bringing up the rear.
Morgan had been spot on about the weather; the difference in temperature between the island and the mainland. They had been walking for no more than a few minutes and Thorne was already sweating. He tugged off his waterproof jacket, unzipped the fleece beneath.
‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ Howell said, taking off a sweater and tying it around her waist. ‘Should make our job a bit easier though.’
Five minutes later, Thorne watched the bike come to a halt fifty yards or so ahead of them, and a middle-aged man emerge from one of the buildings to meet them. The man exchanged a few words with Huw Morgan and his father, then strode down the track towards Thorne and the others. He was tall and distinguished-looking, with silver hair that poked from the sides of a flat cap and a walking stick that appeared to be for show as much as anything. He proffered a hand and, with no more than a trace of a Welsh accent, introduced himself as Robert Burnham.
‘I’m the island warden.’ He raised his stick and pointed back towards one of the cottages. ‘And I also look after the Bird and Field Observatory up there.’ He smiled. ‘Jack of all trades, like most people around here.’ He spread his arms out. ‘Welcome to Bardsey.’
‘Thank you,’ Thorne said. To his ears, the man sounded more English than anything. Posh English.
‘Right, we’ve got a base organised for you up there,’ Burnham said. ‘So it’s just a question of sorting out the admin.’
Thorne blinked. ‘Sorry?’
‘Well, looking at what’s in that trailer, it’s fairly obvious you’re planning on doing a bit of digging.’