Ruth sighed. She was wringing her hands. ‘We haven’t heard anything since the air ambulance left,’ she said. ‘It goes without saying that all of us are deeply shocked and saddened by what’s happened. A violent assault like this… coming out of the blue.’

Simon could see that she looked close to tears. It was odd because some of the other screws looked anything but upset. Watching him carefully, Simon could have sworn that the fat-faced one with the greasy hair was actually smiling. He certainly looked a damn sight more relaxed than he usually did. A lot more comfortable.

Ruth carried on, saying how important it was that what had happened did not disturb anyone else, that everyone should try to carry on as normal and that the staff would do everything possible to make sure that things stayed the way they were.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘we’re more than happy to speak to any boy who’s upset and wants to talk to someone about how he’s feeling…’

She sat down then, and the fat-faced screw came forward. The smile had gone as he announced that the police were very keen to talk to any boy who had seen what had happened that morning or who had any information at all about it. The smile came back a little when he said how mysterious it was that nobody appeared to have seen anything, despite several boys having been in the kitchen at the time, helping clear up after breakfast.

Simon was aware that, next to him, Stuart was sitting eating a bar of chocolate and softly humming to himself. It might have been some kind of tune, but was probably just a hum of pleasure, because now Simon knew that Stuart loved chocolate more than anything. Knew that he would swap cigarettes for chocolate any time. Any time.

Listening to the fat-faced screw, Simon felt the smallest of trembles in his leg. He wouldn’t say anything, of course. He wasn’t sure he would know what to say even if he wanted to. The fact was, though, that without knowing how he could possibly have done it, Simon was positive that Ryan Gough had only stuck a kitchen knife into Kevin Hunter because Stuart had told him to.

Ruth was on her feet again…

‘We’re not going to let what has happened destroy what we’ve built up here,’ she said. ‘What you’ve all worked so hard to build up.’

Simon looked at Stuart.

Stuart grinned and popped the last chunk of chocolate into his mouth.

Simon grinned back at him, happier than he could remember being at any time since he had arrived on the island.

Later, after lights out, the two boys on the other side of the bedroom were talking about what had happened. About how Hunter must have said something, must have been asking for it, and how there was no way they could possibly get that much blood off the stone floor.

Stuart shushed them gently and they didn’t say anything else.

Simon waited a minute, took a deep breath, then said everything he’d been wanting to say, since they’d watched that helicopter rise into the sky and swoop away over the sea.

‘I was thinking, it would be great if you and me kept in touch, you know, when we go back. Obviously you’ve got stuff to do, same as I have. Trying to sort my mum out and that, but afterwards we could meet up and hang out or whatever.

‘I don’t know if you’re sorted for somewhere to stay after, but I was thinking there’s room at my place. There’s a spare room, I mean. Sometimes there’s a stranger in there… some junky mate of my mum’s dossing down in there, but that won’t be happening after she’s clean, so you could use it if you wanted. Not all the time or anything, but you know, if you were in the area and needed somewhere to crash.

‘Just saying. The offer’s there.

‘I’ve written the address down, so make sure you hang on to it and if you want to give me an address or a phone number or something, to keep in contact. Yeah? Or maybe we can make a definite plan… like a date when we know we’ll both be out so we can arrange to meet up in the West End or somewhere, go to a pub or an arcade or somewhere.

‘I’m just saying, it would be a laugh to meet up if you wanted to, talk about this place and everything. All the wankers! The screws and everything. I mean… I don’t even know when you’re out, so I’m probably being a bit stupid.

‘Just saying…’

Simon lay there for a while longer, staring at the back of Stuart’s head, the shape of it in the half-light, then he turned over and looked at the sliver of moon that was visible through the cheap curtains.

The milky gleam off the big stupid cross on the far wall.

He was just drifting off to sleep when he heard Stuart say something. He turned over again. ‘What?’

Stuart said, ‘Sooner than you think, maybe.’

TWENTY-SEVEN

Thorne told Jenks to stay in the school hall with Batchelor, while he and Fletcher escorted Nicklin down to the site of the latest dig. Jenks seemed happy enough, having long ago abandoned any notion of a meaningful conversation with his prisoner and found a tattered and slightly damp book of crossword puzzles in one of the cupboards. Thorne told him that they would not be long, to be ready to leave as soon as they got back. Jenks nodded without looking up from his puzzle, idly winding strands of his mullet around a finger. Batchelor looked no more or less wretched than he had since Thorne had watched him emerge into the car park at Long Lartin the previous day.

He seemed like someone who was waking up every few seconds and realising to his horror where he was.

Robert Burnham was waiting on the track outside the school, talking to a man and a woman. They were young, nerdish-looking, and Thorne assumed they were the couple Morgan had mentioned, who helped out at the Bird and Field Observatory. They stopped talking and watched as Fletcher, Nicklin and Thorne walked down the steps. Thorne had given the go-ahead for Nicklin to smoke, though he had refused to even consider taking the handcuffs off. He had watched Fletcher take the tin from Nicklin’s pocket, put the pre-rolled cigarette into Nicklin’s mouth and light it for him.

If the young couple were shocked or disturbed by the sight of the handcuffs, they didn’t show it, though they kept sneaking looks at Nicklin, as though he were a celebrity they had spotted on the other side of a restaurant.

Burnham introduced them to Thorne as Craig and Erica and confirmed that they were helping him and his wife at the observatory, collating data on nesting seabirds. They did not seem hugely keen to talk, which suited Thorne as he was keen to get down to the dig. Burnham had other ideas though.

‘I was on my way to see you.’ He held up the satellite phone. ‘Your boss called… Bristow, is it?’

‘Brigstocke,’ Thorne said. He had passed on the number when they had spoken earlier. ‘What did he want?’

‘It was nothing urgent.’

‘Sorry?’

‘He was just checking that the digging had actually started. He gave me rather a hard time, actually, when he found out I was the one who’d been holding things up to begin with.’

Thorne said, ‘Sorry,’ though he wasn’t.

‘Oh, I didn’t take offence,’ Burnham said. ‘Anyway, I told him that it had started… the digging… which I guessed you would have wanted me to do.’

‘I’d rather you’d passed the call on to me straight away. Or at least given me the message.’

‘I didn’t know where you were.’

‘I was at the lighthouse.’

‘How was I to know that?’

‘Well, next time, if you can’t find me straight away, perhaps you could pass the call on to one of my colleagues.’

‘I’ll try,’ Burnham said, looking put out. ‘I do have other things to do.’

Thorne had one hand on the gate, ready to push on into the field, when Nicklin spoke up.

‘Shame it’s the wrong time of year for the shearwater,’ he said.

Burnham looked a little wrong-footed by the comment, the fact that it had been made by the man in the handcuffs. He managed, ‘Well, yes…’