The Bones Beneath

The prayers had definitely helped and now, instead of thinking about the past, he tried to imagine what the next day was going to bring. The island was the perfect place for all this in many ways.

The history and the holiness.

It was tailor-made for him, Nicklin had said that.

‘It’s ideal, Jeff,’ he had said. Lying back on his bunk, a bar of chocolate in hand and Batchelor dry-mouthed and stiff in the doorway. ‘Now, trust me, I’m not a big believer in fate, but sometimes you just have to believe things have happened for a reason. That little so-and-so sending his text to your daughter and her stringing herself up. You winding up in here, on the same wing, the same corridor as me, for heaven’s sake. The place I was sent twenty-five years ago that – I swear to God – could not be more spot on for you. It’s all got to mean something, hasn’t it? You know me, Jeff, I think about things a lot, but I couldn’t have pla

Now, Batchelor lay in the cell at Abersoch police station, and as the heating pipes grumbled above him and a group of lads began singing tunelessly somewhere nearby, his body tensed then heaved and the first sob exploded in his throat.

It was disconcerting, a cell that was this spartan. One that so singularly failed to reflect the personality of any one of its doubtless hundreds of inhabitants. Nicklin liked to think that his cell back at Long Lartin said a good deal about the man he was. There were books and magazines. There were things on the walls. There were news stories and articles and there were pictures, some of which he had painted himself and not by numbers either, like the majority of the wa

This was just a box; blank, utilitarian. A raised sleeping platform with a blue plastic mattress and a metal toilet bowl in the corner. Yes, there was the obscenity gouged into one of the tiles by a guest who had not been searched properly, but nothing that made him feel as though any human being held within its dull white walls might ever have had a single intelligent thought.

Still, it was only for one night.

Perhaps two…

The silence was a bonus though. Were it not for the occasional sound of heavy footsteps somewhere in the custody suite above, he might almost have been able to convince himself that he was quite alone. That he had been left to his own devices. The sensation was heady, gorgeous… until a minute or two after the lights went out, when the weeping started in the cell next door.

He gave it a minute, but it quickly became apparent that this was more than just a few tears before bedtime.

‘Come on now, Jeff,’ he shouted. ‘There’s no need for this.’

Need clearly had little to do with it, though the gasps and racking sobs were certainly bordering on the self-indulgent.

‘You need to try and cheer up. Think about tomorrow. Think about the good things…’

There was no let-up from his neighbour.

Nicklin waited a little while longer, then started to sing.

‘The thigh bone’s co

He carried on for a minute or two longer, ad-libbing nonsensical co

He said, ‘You can’t afford to lose your sense of humour, Jeff. None of us can. We’re all buggered without that.’

It struck him that Tom Thorne was certainly someone who was able to see the fu

He lay back, thinking, humming.

Thorne was going to need it.

THE SECOND DAY

ISLAND OF TIDES

It has been a day and a half – perhaps two days – since he’s last seen or heard anything of the young couple who took him from his flat and he’s spent most of that time handcuffed to the bed, feverish, shirtless and splayed out flat on his belly. It’s been necessary to stay off his back of course, impossible to do anything else after what the girl had done to him. Some time the following day he had asked for the hastily applied wad of bandage to be removed, and the new bloke, the one who was now feeding him painkillers like they were Smarties, seemed happy enough to oblige.

‘Air needs to get to the wound,’ he had told him. ‘Please. It’ll heal quicker.’

His new guard, whose face he had still not seen up to that point, hadn’t bothered saying anything. He’d just sauntered across and torn the bandage away, left the room before the screaming had stopped.

The air had felt icy against his flesh, painful for those first few minutes.

He’s sitting up now, perched on the edge of the bed, one hand still cuffed to the metal bedstead. The wound is throbbing and the constant supply of painkillers means that his head feels like it could spin round, detach itself from his neck and fly off into the ceiling at any time. He eats with his free hand, lunch or di

‘What’s happened to the other two?’

The man glances up for a moment, then goes back to his Daily Mirror. He is early twenties, a little on the pudgy side with wire-rimmed glasses. Pale with long, greasy hair tied back into a ponytail, a dark T-shirt and jeans. Not quite as uber-goth as the couple had been, but someone who could probably do with spending a bit more time outdoors.

‘So, have they gone for good then?’ He waits. ‘Is it just you now?’ He finishes what’s left of his sandwich, then nudges the tray closer to the edge of the bed, until it finally falls, clattering to the floor.

The man in the chair looks up, startled for a second, then a

‘Come on, at least the other two talked to me. What harm is there in talking, for God’s sake?’

The man in the chair thinks about it, then carefully closes his paper and leans down to lay it on the floor. He sits back and laces thick fingers together across his belly. He says, ‘All right then.’

‘I’ll need antibiotics.’

‘Oh, is that right?’

‘As well as painkillers. I’m grateful for the painkillers, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll need antibiotics to stop it getting infected.’

The man in the chair shakes his head. ‘That’s not going to happen.’ The voice is light and girlish, there’s a slight lisp. There is no accent to speak of.

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s not one of the things I’m here to do, is it? Going out to the chemist’s or anything like that.’ He nods towards the door. ‘I’ve got plenty of food out there and painkillers when you need them, that’s about it.’ He reaches into the pocket of a denim jacket that is hanging on the back of the chair, pulls out the Taser. ‘And this, obviously, to make everything a bit easier.’

‘What, anything else above your pay grade, is it?’

The man in the chair shrugs, puts the Taser back. He reaches lazily down towards the newspaper.

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

The man sighs, sits up again. ‘What?’

‘You’re feeding me, right?’ He sits as far forward as he can manage, his arm at full stretch behind him. ‘You’re giving me painkillers, which suggests that you’ve got some interest in my well-being. That whatever’s going on here, whatever the hell this is all about, you want to keep me alive and well. I mean obviously I’m not counting what that mad bitch did to me with her scalpel. That’s obviously important for some reason, but beyond that, now it’s been done, you’re here to look after me, right? It’s not five-star luxury or anything and these handcuffs hurt like a bastard, but basically you’re here to look after me. Yeah? I’m right, aren’t I?’