Thorne saw the colour come into Howell’s face. He inched into her line of vision and shook his head.

Fletcher suppressed a yawn. Said, ‘He won’t be quite this cocky when he’s back on the wing tonight.’

As bags were gathered and Howell, Markham and Karim prepared to head back down to the crime scene, Burnham pressed a blister pack into Thorne’s hand. ‘Those travel sickness pills you asked me about,’ he said. ‘I swear by these and they work fast.’

‘Thanks.’ Thorne snapped a couple out into his palm. As if on cue, a horn sounded from down by the boathouse, low and mournful. Huw Morgan letting them know that the Benlli III was ready to leave.

Halfway back and Thorne was relieved that the pills Burnham had given him seemed to be doing the trick. Not that it was particularly rough, but Thorne had become convinced that much of the problem was psychological; that just the sight of water was now enough to bring on that prickle of sweat, the first waves of sickness.

Helen had suggested going to see a hypnotherapist.

‘What, you fancy a cruise or something?’

‘I just thought if you saw someone about the heights thing, they might be able to do something about the seasickness at the same time.’

When Thorne had mentioned this to Hendricks, on the off-chance that he might be able to recommend someone, his friend had seized the opportunity to take the piss with both hands.

‘I think it’s a top idea,’ Hendricks had said. ‘Why don’t you see if you can do some kind of a special deal for a job lot? See if they can change your shit taste in music while they’re at it and maybe cure your tragic devotion to Spurs…?’

‘It’s good that Simon’s going home,’ Nicklin said.

Thorne looked up and across at Nicklin, who was sitting with Batchelor and the two prison officers on the other side of the deck. Thorne was sitting next to Holland, their bags at their feet.

Holland said, ‘What?’

‘It’s good that his mum’s finally going to get him back.’

‘You could have made that happen sooner,’ Thorne said.

‘I’m making it happen now.’

‘It hardly makes you Mother Teresa.’

They were leaning towards one another, voices raised just enough to be heard above the engines.

‘She must have cleaned herself up,’ Nicklin said, nodding. ‘Certainly sounds like she has, anyway. Simon always wanted that.’ He looked back. They had lost sight of Bardsey by now and the sun had all but slipped beneath the horizon. ‘I reckon that her being a junkie was probably why Simon got into trouble in the first place. I mean, it wasn’t like she was ever really there to stop him, was it? Off her tits while he was running around nicking cars. Funny thing is, it was probably losing him that made her snap out of it.’

‘So, you did her a favour, did you?’

‘A favour?’

‘Killing him.’

‘Just saying, it’s strange how things turn out.’

Thorne stood up, unable to look at him any more. ‘Sorry if I’ve never associated you with happy endings.’

A few minutes later the boat was chugging across Aberdaron Bay and shortly after that the landing site came into view; a ragged line of lights on the shore.

Thorne checked his phone and saw that he finally had a signal again. As the boat slowed, he called Russell Brigstocke. He told him where he was, who was with him and that, all being well, they should be on the road within half an hour. Brigstocke sounded relieved and as the boat drifted in towards the slipway, Thorne took him through the chronology of the day.

‘We found the body just after lunch,’ he said.

He was distracted by something Nicklin was mouthing at him and missed whatever Brigstocke had said. Nicklin waved to get his attention, so Thorne took a step towards him, told Brigstocke to hold on.

‘What?’ he asked.

Nicklin smiled. Said, ‘You found one of them.’

THIRTY

‘It’s rubbish,’ Thorne said. ‘He’s pissing us around, same as always. We don’t want to get hung up about this, Russell. I really don’t think we should change our plans.’

‘You need to calm down,’ Brigstocke said.

‘It’s shit.’

‘We should at least talk about it.’

Thorne was pacing up and down a short section of unlit muddy track, fifty yards from the slipway. Behind him, Huw Morgan had a hose trained on the keel of the Benlli III while between Thorne and the boat, Fletcher, Jenks, Holland and the two prisoners waited in the Galaxy. Thorne turned and saw Nicklin staring at him through the side window. He watched him shrug as though asking a question.

How are you getting on, Tom?

Thorne tried to control his breathing, to keep the anger from his voice as he told Brigstocke; passing on the story Nicklin had told him as the boat was being hauled back on to the mainland.

‘Well, I needed a shovel, obviously, to get rid of Simon, but rather than go back to Tides House for one, I tried one of the smaller cottages in the other direction. The ones they rented out. I just strolled into the back garden, pinched a shovel out of the shed and came back to start digging, piece of piss. Trouble was, the old bird who was staying there must have heard something and came marching down about ten minutes later. Waving a torch about and demanding to know what I was up to. It wasn’t like I had a lot of choice, was it?’ He’d smiled then, enjoying telling his tale, or simply enjoying the memory. ‘I knew who she was. I knew she was some kind of amateur poet, because she’d been in to read some of her poems a couple of times. Usual shit that didn’t rhyme. I think they brought her in to try and encourage some of us to write poetry ourselves. To share our feelings.’ He’d rolled his eyes at the absurdity of the suggestion. ‘Anyway, so there I am digging a grave for poor old Simon and she comes beetling along, sticking her nose in. What am I supposed to do? Not a lot I can do at the end of the day, is there? There’s a boat waiting for me. I’ve not got a lot of time to decide.’ He smiled at Thorne, rocking slightly as the boat was winched from the water on to the trailer.

‘Think of it as a bonus…’

‘A fucking bonus,’ Thorne said now. ‘I’m telling you, Russell, it’s a wind-up.’

‘That’s what you thought about Simon Milner,’ Brigstocke said. ‘You thought he was having us over about that.’

‘OK, fair enough. But this time I really think he is. Why wait until now, for God’s sake?’

‘Control —’

‘Why wait until we’re almost back?’

‘Control, Tom. You said it yourself. Back foot, remember?’

‘Yeah…’

‘We at least have to look into this.’

‘And what do we do while that’s happening?’

‘What difference is one more night going to make? I’ll clear it with the governor at Long Lartin.’

‘How exactly are we going to check this out? He doesn’t have a name for this woman. He can’t even remember what month it was, for God’s sake.’

‘How many people can have gone missing on that island?’

‘It was twenty-five years ago,’ Thorne said.

‘Even so, it’s not the Bermuda triangle, is it? Somebody will have missed her.’

‘I still don’t think it’s going to be easy.’

‘Just get him back in a cell for tonight,’ Brigstocke said. ‘I’ll make some calls, get everything arranged.’

‘What if it’s just a game?’ Thorne remembered Nicklin’s demeanour just an hour earlier in the school hall, his irritation with Batchelor in the car on the drive up. ‘What if it’s all about attention? How stupid are we going to look?’

‘Not as stupid as we’ll look if there’s another body over there that we fail to find, even when he’s offered to show us where it is.’

‘Well, he’s still being a bit vague about that.’

‘A perfect exercise in how to turn a positive result for us into a PR disaster,’ Brigstocke said. ‘If we get this wrong. And before you say anything, it’s my job to think about crap like that.’