He stuck his head round the door of the boy’s room.

He wandered into his own, though he’d no expectation of finding him in there.

Knocked it on the head and gone down the pub, he thought. Can’t say as I blame him. Maybe they needed to pay someone to come in and do the bloody tax return for them. Sort all the paperwork out, come to that.

He was already loosening his belt as he nudged the bathroom door open and saw what was in the bath; moving closer until he saw the face below the water.

He cried out and buckled, tried to say his son’s name.

His hands were fists, tight around his belt and, try as he might, he could not unclench them. Not when the two figures moved up quickly behind him and lifted him from the floor. Not when they took his head and held it tight, their fingers clawing at his ears, in his hair.

Not when they pushed it down towards the freezing water, then under, until he was close enough to kiss his boy’s face.

FORTY-FOUR

The woman who answered the door at Tides House was a good deal skinnier and far less apple-cheeked than the stereotypical farmer’s wife Thorne had imagined. The smile was more nervous than welcoming as she stood aside and asked him to come in.

‘Robert told us you’d probably be coming over,’ she said.

‘On the scrounge, I’m afraid,’ Thorne said.

‘It’s fine.’ She closed the door and stuck out a small hand. ‘I’m Caroline Black. Come on through…’

Thorne followed her down a long corridor before they turned sharply left and ducked under a low lintel into a large kitchen. A tall man with hair tied back into a ponytail turned from a sink of washing-up. He was wearing baggy cargo shorts and a zip-up fleece.

‘This is my husband, Patrick,’ Caroline said.

Patrick Black held up hands swathed in yellow rubber gloves and waved them to explain his inability to greet Thorne any more formally. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Have a seat. There’s coffee in the pot, if you’d like some.’

Thorne thanked him and walked across to a crowded pine table. There were several piles of paper, children’s toys, the signs of a recently eaten meal – condiments, tablemats – that Caroline immediately proceeded to clear. When she’d finished, Thorne sat down and looked around. The warm and cluttered farmhouse kitchen came much closer to fulfilling his expectations than the farmer or his wife. The soothing tones of Radio 4 from a wind-up radio. The old-fashioned metal coffee pot sitting on top of a well-used range. Genuinely distressed flagstones and a scarred Welsh dresser. A child’s plastic tricycle next to a partially dismantled engine on a tarpaulin in one corner.

As Caroline poured him a coffee, Thorne was surprised to see a black and white collie eyeing him from a basket near the door. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘A dog.’

Caroline looked at the dog and then back at Thorne.

‘I thought they weren’t allowed on the island.’

‘Holly’s a working dog,’ she said.

‘It’s just that we weren’t allowed to bring a dog.’

‘Like I said, she’s a working dog.’

Thorne could see there was little point in taking the conversation any further in that particular direction, so he just nodded.

‘We thought you’d be gone by now,’ Caroline said.

‘So did we.’

‘Yes, well, you’re not the first to be stranded thanks to the weather and you won’t be the last.’ She poured herself a coffee, added milk from a carton on the table. ‘There were some holidaymakers here last year who had to wait a fortnight to get off.’

‘Oh, God,’ Thorne said.

‘Don’t worry.’ She carried the pot back to the stove. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad.’

‘Let’s hope not.’

She smiled, quick and thin, standing at the end of the table drinking her coffee and watching Thorne drink his. She was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a woollen waistcoat, the T-shirt underneath a perfect match for her bright-red Crocs. ‘So, what exactly is it that you’re doing anyway? In the field, I mean. It’s the second time you’ve started digging in the same place.’

Patrick turned from the sink, said, ‘You can’t ask him that.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m afraid I can’t really go into any detail.’

‘Told you,’ Patrick said.

Caroline shrugged and pouted for a few seconds, her chin resting on the rim of her coffee cup. ‘It’s not like we can’t guess what’s going on.’ She walked across to the window and nodded out. ‘We’ve got a pretty good view from here.’

Thorne stood up and walked across to join her. It had already begun to get dark, but there was a clear line of sight across to the lights in the distant field. To the illuminated tent, inside which Bethan Howell and her team were still hard at work.

‘I mean, it’s not an episode of Time Team, is it?’ She leaned a little closer to the window; peeling grey paint on the frame and glass that had several air bubbles captured within it. ‘It’s just a question of who you’re looking for down there and who the two men in the handcuffs are.’ She looked at Thorne. ‘We saw them the other day standing at the front gate. One of them, anyway. Just staring at the house.’

Patrick had moved on to the drying-up. ‘She was hiding behind the net curtains,’ he said, laughing. ‘Watching him watching us.’

‘Believe it or not, he stayed here once,’ Thorne said. ‘In this house.’

Caroline looked confused. ‘Really?’

‘A long time ago.’

Patrick turned from the sink. ‘Back when this was a home for wayward kids or whatever they called it.’

‘Right.’ Thorne sat down again, picked up his coffee. For a moment he thought about showing them the photograph in his pocket, then decided against it.

Here’s your gorgeous farmhouse the way it used to look. Just ignore the teenage serial killer and his mates …

Caroline turned from the window, her curiosity piqued still further. ‘So, why’s he back here?’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Patrick said. He looked at Thorne and shook his head. ‘He can’t tell you.’

Footsteps sounded suddenly on the stairs, then in the corridor outside before a girl, five or six years old, came running in. She froze as soon as she saw Thorne, stared at him for a few seconds, then moved quickly to her mother, staying close to the wall. ‘When are you going to come and read?’ she asked. ‘You promised.’

‘I’ll be in soon.’ Caroline ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. ‘I’ve just got something to do first, so why don’t you go and get your pyjamas on and then I’ll be up.’

Patrick said, ‘Go on, chicken,’ and the girl turned and trudged reluctantly back to the door.

‘Can I take Holly?’ she asked.

Her mother said that she could, so the girl called the dog across and the two of them trotted out of the kitchen. Caroline watched them go, then turned to Thorne. ‘I think we’ve got a right to know what’s happening,’ she said. ‘Who we’re dealing with here.’

‘Trust me,’ Thorne said. ‘If we thought there was anything you needed to know, we would have told you.’

‘So, why don’t you tell us when our daughter can go back out to play again?’

Thorne hoped he did a better job of keeping the edge from his voice than she had. ‘There’s never been any need to keep her inside the house,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘With dangerous criminals walking about? I mean, I can only presume they are dangerous. The handcuffs, the number of people with them.’

‘We don’t just let them wander around,’ Thorne said. ‘They’re being guarded constantly. There’s no risk to anyone. None at all.’

Caroline did not look convinced. She walked across and dropped her mug into the hot water.

‘Having said that, obviously nobody would have wanted your little girl walking down to… you know.’ Thorne nodded to the window, the fields beyond it. ‘So you were probably right to keep her indoors.’ He finished his coffee. ‘We’ll be gone tomorrow, that’s a guarantee.’