Every couple of minutes, the man turns the torch on for a few seconds, scans the terrain up ahead, then turns it off again. He clearly knows where he’s going, has already worked out the quickest route to the top and the cliffs on the other side.

Batchelor watches the man stop, waiting for him to catch up.

‘Come on,’ the man says. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

He tries to move faster, but it feels as though there are weights attached to his boots and despite the water that has soaked through his trousers, his legs feel like they’re burning with the effort of lifting them.

‘This is for you, you know,’ the man says.

Batchelor knows that it is, but finds it hard to feel anything like gratitude when other, stronger feelings are crowding in, demanding space. He’d heard those noises and seen the blood. He had been made to step over the body lying in the grass.

‘Besides which, there are other things we’ve got to do tonight.’

Batchelor is well aware of that, of course. The plans made for him are no more than the start of it. A distraction.

When he gets to within a few feet of his guide, Batchelor says, ‘What about the phone?’

‘What about it?’

‘I was promised that I could make a call. I need to make a call.’

‘No signal yet,’ the man says.

‘You get one on the mountain.’ Batchelor steps closer to the man. ‘That’s what I was told.’

‘Not until we’re nearer the top.’

‘How do you know? You haven’t even looked.’

The man ignores him. He turns away and flicks the torch on. For a few seconds, Batchelor can see raindrops falling from the bushes and splashing on to black earth and glistening slabs of rock. Looking up through the drizzle, he can see a sky decorated with more stars than he even knew existed.

He decides that these are the things he’ll try and hold on to for what’s left of his climb. What’s left of everything. He resolves to push away all those other images, the memories that remain washed in innocent blood, and to try and remember the good things instead.

The things for which he counts himself blessed.

Up ahead, the man turns the torch off. He says, ‘Onwards and upwards.’

The instructions he has been given are all about where to look and what to look for. Nicklin has said nothing specific about timing, but Thorne knows very well that he needs to run. In daylight and good weather, it would be just a short walk back down to the chapel, but the track has grown more treacherous and even with a torch to light the ground ahead, it takes him five minutes to reach the ruins at the end of the graveyard.

He is out of breath by the time he gets to the bell tower, but it’s panic as much as exhaustion. He steps inside and walks towards the arrangement of large, flat stones at the far end.

‘It’s not really an altar,’ Nicklin had said. ‘Just looks like one, but whatever it is, there’s an offering waiting for you. There’s a small space underneath the stones. You just need to reach inside…’

Thorne kneels down and does what Nicklin has asked.

His fingers close around something and he pulls out a brown, A4-sized Jiffy bag wrapped in clear plastic. He stands up and uses his torch to examine it, but there’s no writing, no postmark. Nothing. Just a sealed envelope.

Thorne turns and looks across the graveyard to the chapel, huddled against the foot of the mountain, the lights burning inside. He could be there in less than a minute and briefing Sam Karim. Sending him after Holland or down to the observatory to rouse the warden and use his satellite phone to call the mainland. If Alan Jenks is not dead already, Thorne could be making an effort to save his life.

He turns the padded envelope over in his hands.

Without knowing what its contents are, Thorne knows instinctively that they leave him with no choice but to do what he’s been told. He remembers the look on Nicklin’s face and knows that doing anything else will cost him in ways he is trying hard not to think about.

Helen, Alfie …

A seal screams from the rocks down by the quay and Thorne steps out of the tower. He turns back towards the Old House and does not stop running until he is standing at the foot of the bed to which Stuart Nicklin still lies handcuffed.

‘Doesn’t matter how old you are, does it?’ Nicklin says. ‘It’s always exciting when the post arrives.’

Sweating and still breathing heavily, Thorne holds out the package, water dripping from the plastic wrapping, from his sleeve.

Nicklin lazily raises the wrist that is handcuffed to the bed-frame and waits for it to catch. ‘I think you’ll have to open it,’ he says.

Thorne looks down at the envelope and wipes away the moisture from the wrapping. He hesitates, dry-mouthed, his guts watery.

‘Any time you like,’ Nicklin says.

Thorne rips away the plastic, turns the envelope and tears at the seal. He opens it and stares inside. He says, ‘For Christ’s sake, are you joking?’ then empties four chocolate bars on to the bed.

‘Those are mine,’ Nicklin says, reaching eagerly for one and nodding at the envelope. ‘I think there’s something else in there though.’

Thorne reaches into the envelope and brings out a smaller, padded package. He quickly tears it open and removes contents which are almost weightless; something paper-thin and pressed between two sheets of kitchen towel.

Watching, Nicklin tears with his teeth at the wrapper of his chocolate bar and takes a bite.

Thorne lifts the top sheet of kitchen towel, which sticks to whatever is beneath it for a second or two and comes away stained. A few spots like old blood on a plaster. Something creamy, pus-coloured.

It takes him a moment or two to understand what he’s holding.

It’s a ragged square, pinkish-brown, maybe six inches by six and curling a little at the edges. A pattern of some sort…

‘I hope it’s in decent nick,’ Nicklin says. ‘I told them to take good care of it.’

Trying and failing to swallow, Thorne continues to stare down at the piece of human skin now lying across his palm. The bile rising into his throat is beaten only by a strangled gasp when he recognises the design. The swirling letters, the fine lines in red and blue ink.

‘Right,’ Nicklin says, still chewing. He raises his wrist again, but this time there is no trace of humour in his voice. ‘Let’s get these fucking things off, shall we?’

Immediately, Thorne reaches into his inside pocket for the key to the handcuffs, but he does not look up, does not take his eyes off the delicate slice of skin. His thumb moves gently across the edge of it, traces what there is of the familiar image, the fragment of a word.

Aren’t there other people you care about more?

He had been there when the tattoo was done.

FIFTY-SIX

Batchelor had been right, and had been unable to talk to his wife on the phone. As it was, Sonia had stopped answering the phone a long time ago anyway. There had been so many abusive phone calls. Not only because of what he had done to Nathan Wilson, but from sickos who just wanted to say something cruel about Jodi. The same sort of twisted individuals who had never met or even heard of his daughter before, but who seemed to take delight in leaving messages on her Facebook page, in the days following her death.

saddo! won’t be missed 

sorry your not hanging about any more 

obvs your boyf was right to chuck a loser like u… 

He had been enraged at first, but later the anger had given way to pity.

What on earth happened to people?

Even now, all these months later, mail was still opened carefully and calls were screened. Calling from the prison, he would wait for the beep, then say, ‘It’s me,’ knowing she would be listening if she was there, that she would pick up. Not at this time of night though. No amount of shouting was going to wake her once those pills had kicked in.