Thorne saw Jenks arrive at Fletcher’s shoulder, Batchelor with his handcuffs back on, pale suddenly and haggard.

‘You want to take a radio?’ Thorne asked.

‘He’s not going to be long.’ Fletcher turned to Batchelor. ‘Are you, Jeff?’

Batchelor shook his head.

‘Take Holland with you, if you like.’

‘I think we can manage,’ Fletcher said. ‘This one’s no trouble.’

‘Long as he has no trouble doing what he needs to do.’ Jenks grimaced and hunched his shoulders, fastened the top button on his jacket. ‘Still pissing down out there.’ He ushered Batchelor away towards the top of the stairs and Fletcher followed a few seconds later.

Thorne listened to the steps as Batchelor and the prison officers descended. Their voices muffled, then barely audible at all. The dull, distant clatter as the bolt on the back door was thrown back. Becoming aware that the snoring had stopped, Thorne turned to see that Nicklin was wide awake and watching him.

FIFTY-FIVE

Batchelor sits on a cold wooden seat and does what he was only ever supposed to be pretending to do, but which has now become something he needs more than he can ever remember. He sits and empties his bladder and bowels and listens to Fletcher and Jenks talking outside the door, the rise and fall of their exchange just audible above the clatter of the rain on the corrugated iron roof. Fletcher, who had told him ‘not to make a meal of it’. Jenks, who had always treated him decently enough, who had taken one look at the spartan facilities and shuddered and said, ‘Wouldn’t be able to go, myself. No bloody chance. Need a few more of the home comforts, mate. Proper bog paper for a kick-off and something decent to read.’

Batchelor sits and does what he has to, a long way past caring.

Now, it’s almost time and he still can’t put them together in any way that sounds acceptable. The things he wants to say to his wife. He’s presuming that it’s all going to go the way he’s been promised, that he’ll get his chance. He looks at his watch. Sonia will almost certainly be in bed by now, dead to the world on all those pills she’s been gulping down every night since Jodi died. It might end up being no more than a message in the end, a few stammered words after the beep.

Just as well, probably, he thinks.

Hearing her voice would only make it harder.

Make it impossible…

Outside the door, Jenks laughs and Fletcher says, ‘Yeah, well it’s what they do, isn’t it? The French. Basically, they just shit in a hole in the floor. Like the bog seat hasn’t been invented or they can’t afford one because they’ve spent all their money on garlic, or whatever.’

Batchelor hears Jenks say something and laugh again. Then there are footsteps and a third voice outside the door.

A London accent, a chuckle in it.

‘Bloody hell, don’t tell me you’re the queue.’

‘No, mate,’ Fletcher says. ‘You’ll have to jog on though.’

‘Sorry?’

‘We’re prison officers and we’re working. One of our prisoners is in there.’

‘So?’

‘Come on, mate, don’t be a twat about it. Just use the shitter in the next cottage along, there’s a good lad.’

Batchelor sits and sweats and pushes back tears with the heels of his hands. He knows what’s coming, so after a few seconds he moves his hands from his eyes to his ears because nobody says he has to listen to it, and then, with the noise from outside deadened by the thrum of his rushing pulse, the stench and the dread yield one glorious moment of revelation and he finally realises what he needs to say to Sonia.

That there’s only ever been one thing he’s wanted to tell her.

Nicklin says, ‘I don’t see what you’re so worried about, Tom.’

Thorne turns from the window. ‘Sorry?’

‘I think Fletcher and Jenks can handle one prisoner using the toilet.’

‘I know.’

‘So, what was all that about Holland going with them? Taking a radio.’

‘Since when do I answer to you?’

‘Just making conversation.’

‘Did I miss the bit where you became a detective chief inspector?’

Nicklin laughs and shifts back on the mattress, the bed-springs groaning beneath him, until he is sitting up. The hand that is cuffed to the frame is now twisted behind his back. ‘Actually, I think I’d make a pretty good copper,’ he says. ‘A DI at least, I reckon… Murder Squad, obviously.’ He looks at Thorne, scratches at his chest with his free hand. ‘You know, takes one to know one and all that.’

Thorne steps back across to the window. He can see a single torch beam below in the rear garden, the small circle of light fixed against the bottom of the toilet door, as though the torch is on the ground. He can just make out shapes in the rain and the rhythm of a conversation.

‘Maybe that’s why you’re so good at it,’ Nicklin says.

Batchelor is trying not to listen, but in the end he cannot help himself and he knows the sounds, because he recognises them.

He has heard them before.

He cannot be certain of the method, though the speed of what happens coupled with the fact that there is not that much noise means that he can hazard a guess. Surprise is an important weapon, of course, but with one man against two, something rather more tangible was always going to be required. So, not identical, these terrible sounds on the other side of the door, but close enough.

Panic and terror, then realisation.

They were the sounds Nathan Wilson had made, his face a mask of blood by then and something that was not blood leaking from the back of his skull on to the pavement. The sounds of someone fighting for their life. Moans and gasps as Batchelor had smashed the boy’s head down again and again and half-spluttered pleas that went unheeded until they became drooled and fractured mumblings.

The ragged fall of that last breath.

Now, a few feet away from him, there are other noises, a little more prosaic, that tell Batchelor the situation outside has changed, is moving forward. The soft thump of a body as it hits the ground, an arm flailing through long grass, and slowing. The clatter as someone slumps against the side of the outhouse and slides down.

Then nothing. Half a minute when it’s just the rain and the wind and the gurgling in his gut, until he hears the heavy steps flattening the wet grass and sees the door give a little as someone leans against it.

Hears the voice, the mouth up close to the wood, the London accent with a chuckle in it.

The man outside the door says, ‘Time to go, Jeff.’

Thorne bangs on the window, the glass rattling in the frame, but he sees no movement below him, no reaction of any kind. He tries to open it, but it’s been painted shut and refuses to budge.

He turns and walks back to the doorway. He leans out and shouts along the corridor.

‘Dave…’

‘I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up,’ Nicklin says. ‘It’s not been that long.’

Thorne shouts again.

‘Maybe Jeff’s having a little trouble.’ Nicklin pulls a face. ‘I mean, it’s hardly surprising, is it? It’s not as if anyone’s been eating very healthily the last few days.’

Holland shouts back. ‘Everything all right?’

‘I need you.’ Thorne steps back into the room and goes back to the window.

‘Maybe you should go down there yourself,’ Nicklin says.

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘Just saying, if you’re really worried.’

Holland appears, blinking in the doorway, pulling a sweater on over a T-shirt. He yawns and says, ‘What?’

‘I need you to go downstairs and check on Laurel and Hardy,’ Thorne says. ‘They took Batchelor out to use the toilet and that was about twenty minutes ago.’

‘It was ten minutes, tops,’ Nicklin says.

‘I know how long it was.’

Nicklin looks at Holland, rolls his eyes. ‘He’s panicking.’

‘Take your radio,’ Thorne says.

‘Right.’