TT12 The Bones Beneath

by Mark Billingham

  ‘I said, it’ll be nice over on the island though.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘They reckon it’s got its own microclimate. I’ve known days when it’s snowing on the mainland and I’ve been walking around over there without a jacket on. Bloody strange, sometimes.’

  ‘Not the strangest thing I’ve heard,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Yeah, well a lot of that’s nonsense. King Arthur is not buried over there, for a kick-off.’

  ‘Plenty are though.’ Thorne was not thinking about Simon Milner. ‘What is it, twenty thousand saints supposed to be buried there?’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Morgan said. ‘Certainly that’s what all the pilgrims thought, what plenty of them still think, the number of them that come every year. Used to say that four trips to the island was the same as one visit to Rome.’ He shook his head. ‘God knows. I just think it’s a special place, that’s all. I don’t know what you’re up to over there and I’m not sure I want to, but you need to remember that.’

  ‘Are you going to wait for us?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t normally, but me and my dad need to service the lighthouse anyway, so we might as well hang around and take you back. I want to be away before dark, mind.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Gives you about seven hours, I reckon.’

  ‘Your job to do the lighthouse, then?’

  ‘Yeah, when I’m not being a boatman and when we’re not being lobster fishermen. Need to do all sorts if you want to make an honest living these days.’ He turned, flashed a smile at Thorne, showing off a chipped front tooth. ‘Well, I suppose the likes of you are doing all right. Now that there’s a lot more people trying to make a living dishonestly.’

  They fell into a silence, the boat smashing through waves which were suddenly a lot higher as they drew close to the tip of the peninsula. Thorne turned to look at Holland and saw that he was deep in conversation with Wendy Markham. He had no idea if Holland had managed to get hold of any seasickness pills, but he certainly looked all right.

  It was Thorne who was starting to feel his guts churning, the sweat prickling on his neck and forehead.

  He hadn’t said anything the day before, when Holland had been talking about trying to get tablets; hoping he would get away without showing himself up on what was, after all, only a short crossing. But he was already feeling as though he might not make it.

  He had never been good on the water. He remembered holidays to Devon when he was a kid and nightmarish outings with his dad, on small boats, fishing for mackerel. He had always gone, not wanting to miss out on the time with his father, but if by some miracle he did manage to get through the trip without throwing up, the smell of the fish later on when his dad was gutting their catch would usually do the trick.

  Now, he took deep breaths, kept his eyes fixed on the horizon through the dirty window of Morgan’s cabin.

  ‘You all right?’

  Thorne nodded, hoped it wasn’t going to be too much longer. ‘I meant to say, I met your cousin last night. Eddie, is it? He was propping up the bar in the Black Horse.’

  Morgan said nothing for ten, fifteen seconds. Then he muttered, ‘Arsehole.’

  A minute or two later, they were rounding the peninsula and Thorne got his first look at their destination.

  ‘There you go,’ Morgan said. ‘Bardsey Island. Well… that’s what the English call it.’

  ‘What do you call it?’

  ‘Ynnis Enlli in Welsh. Island of Tides. Bloody tricky ones at that…’

  Approaching as they were – from behind the mountain that dominated one side of the island – the first view was of cliffs and the snowflake specks of wheeling seabirds against the black crags. The island was shaped like a giant, humpbacked tadpole; no more than a mile from end to end and about half as wide. Thorne looked up at the cliffs, the hundred-foot drop on to the rocks, but having studied a map, he knew that where they would be coming ashore the landscape would be very different.

  Morgan turned, saw Thorne looking. ‘Special, like I said…’

  Thorne became aware of shouting, a commotion on the deck behind him, and he turned to see that Nicklin was trying in vain to stand up. Fletcher had a hand firmly on his shoulder in an effort to stop him and while Batchelor just stared out at the cliffs, Jenks was leaning across him to help. Holland was already on his feet while Howell and her team had moved back, as far away as they could get from the struggle.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Morgan shouted.

  Nicklin tried again and was quickly pushed back down. Thorne saw something very dark flash across Nicklin’s face, but when he turned to look up at Thorne, there was no sign of it.

  ‘I just want to get a better look at it,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t want you hurting yourself, do we?’

  ‘It’s been a long time…’

  Thorne considered for a few seconds, then gave Fletcher the nod. The prison officer moved his hand from Nicklin’s shoulder, allowing him to get slowly and unsteadily to his feet. Jenks kept hold of one arm to prevent him falling.

  ‘Happy memories?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Not especially.’ Nicklin stared past him towards the island, squinting into the spray. ‘Just that last time I saw it, I was somebody else.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Tides House

  The engines were switched off and, as the boat was guided gently towards the dock, they watched what looked very like a welcoming committee walking down a steep track to meet them. Once ashore, the boatman waited at the foot of the ladder to help each of his passengers down, taking their heavy rucksacks from them, though all but a couple of them waved aside the offer of a steadying hand. Just before he took his turn to jump down into the shallow water, Simon looked back at the boy he assumed to be the son of Mr Morgan, the boatman. The boy, who was probably eleven or twelve, had been staring at Simon and some of the others all the way across. Once or twice, he had ventured shyly out of the cabin and moved to within a few feet of them on the deck, only to be called gruffly back or given a job to do or just firmly warned to keep away.

  ‘Huw. What have I told you…?’

  Simon waved, then jumped from the ladder.

  He didn’t see the boy wave back.

  One of the three staff members who had travelled with them – two men and a woman – clapped their hands together, shouted for silence and began gathering the boys into a group. When the man and woman who had walked down to meet the boat reached them, there were handshakes all round. The woman who appeared to be in charge pulled a knitted shawl tight around her shoulders and said she hoped the crossing had been a smooth one. She looked at the boys and said, ‘We’ve got something back at the house if anyone has a dodgy tummy.’

  A boy next to Simon said, ‘Tummy? For fuck’s sake…’

  The five staff members and eight boys began walking up the hill towards the line of buildings spread out at the foot of the mountain. Simon had no idea if there were only going to be eight of them. Perhaps there were more to come, or maybe others had arrived already.

  For some reason, there were no members of staff at the back of the group as the caterpillar made slow and untidy progress uphill, so things fell apart fairly rapidly. The group stretched out and broke up until some of the boys began drifting from the path. One by one, a few dropped their rucksacks and went tearing down across the fields towards the sea; yelling and laughing like lunatics as they ran and pushed one another, sending sheep scattering in all directions. A staff member shouted, hands cupped around his mouth, then went running after them. Simon heard the woman say something about the new arrivals needing to let off steam. She stood and watched them, but she was seemingly more bothered about the wind messing her hair up, and after a minute she said that the boys were too hungry to go very far. That there wasn’t very far to go, even if they wanted to. The man she was talking to looked unconvinced, but sure enough, all those who had broken ranks had fallen back i
n or been rounded up by the time they reached the farm.

  It was like a toy set Simon remembered having as a kid. Even the colours were the same as they’d been on the box. A bright red door and red tiles on the roof, the white geese and that lush sweep of green pretty much wherever you looked.

  There was a massive, old-fashioned farmhouse, with a walled area for ducks and chickens. There were barns and outbuildings and it smelled of pig-shit. Boys were already complaining about the smell, but the woman said that they’d soon get used to it. She told them that they would be eating as soon as everyone had been inside for a wash, but that it would be the last time anyone cooked for them. From now on, they would be taking turns to cook for one another. They’d be working out their own menus and then preparing meals using local livestock and fresh vegetables grown on the farm; that they would grow themselves.

  One of the boys said something about growing herbs. The woman seemed pleased, then saw that the boy and his mates were laughing. She said, ‘You can’t grow that kind of herb, I’m afraid.’

  Simon hoped that he would not be chosen to do the cooking first. He couldn’t cook anything except pot noodles and toast maybe, but it wasn’t his fault. How were you ever supposed to learn how to cook when the person whose job it was to teach you all that stuff was nodding out on the sofa with a needle in her arm? Shooting up red wine or vinegar or whatever because she couldn’t afford proper gear. Stood to reason that you were never going to be Delia Smith while that was going on, didn’t it? When all you could do was eat beans out of a can or try and nick enough money for a bag of chips.

  He didn’t blame her for anything else.

  He’d made a mess of things all by himself.

  The whole cooking thing though, that was definitely down to her…

  In the farmyard, they were instructed to take off their boots, told that there would be special indoor footwear provided. Simon slumped down on a cold stone step to take his muddy Nikes off. He watched one of the men come out of the farmhouse with what looked like a basket of Chinese slippers or something. One of the boys said it was stupid and another aimed a kick at a passing chicken. He asked why they couldn’t wear their own trainers and some of the other boys joined in. He started to get worked up and said it was an infringement of his ‘basic human rights’.

  A boy, who Simon had been a row or two behind in the minibus, sat down next to him. He seemed a year or two older than Simon, sixteen or seventeen maybe, though Simon was a couple of inches taller. ‘They don’t get it, do they?’ the boy said.

  ‘Get what?’ Simon asked.

  They sat and watched as the argument continued.

  ‘You get to wear your own trainers in a YOI, and it’s like a status thing, isn’t it? Kids wearing the most expensive ones, having special edition ones brought in to show that they’re bad men, or whatever. This place is different though. They don’t want any of that stuff going on, because they think it’ll make us… I don’t know, calmer or something. That’s why we’ve got to cook, why we’ve got to grow our own grub. It’s all about trust and responsibility.’

  Simon watched and listened, nodded occasionally. The boy used his fingers to make speech marks around certain words, like he was taking the piss. He turned away and stared back down the hill towards the boat, the red and white striped lighthouse beyond.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Simon said. He pulled off a muddy boot. His socks were soaking wet. ‘Trust and responsibility. I get it.’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, they’re mad as a box of frogs.’ The boy turned back, grinning. ‘But it’s a damn sight nicer than Feltham, right? Smells better too…’

  Simon laughed and the boy seemed pleased and laughed right along with him. The boy stuck out a hand, saw it was muddy and wiped it on his jeans before offering it a second time.

  ‘Stuart,’ he said.

  NINETEEN

  The boat bumped gently along the thick layer of tyres that had been fixed to the wall. Showing remarkable agility for a man who must have been in his sixties, Bernard Morgan hopped from the boat on to the walkway and hurried towards a line of small metal sheds and a larger wooden boathouse on the dockside. As Huw Morgan restarted the engines and backed the boat away, Thorne watched the old man climb into a specially adapted tractor, similar to the one that Owen had driven back on the mainland, and use it to push the wheeled trailer down the slipway and into the water. Once it was safely in position on the trailer, the Benlli III was hauled out of the water, up on to Bardsey Island.

  ‘Croeso,’ Huw Morgan said.

  Thorne looked at him.

  ‘Welcome…’

  Nicklin said, ‘Thank you, but actually I’ve been here before. A long time ago.’ He smiled. ‘It’s nice to see you again, Huw.’

  Morgan stared for a few seconds, nonplussed, then walked past Nicklin to the ladder.

  By the time the passengers had disembarked and most of the equipment had been offloaded, Bernard and Huw Morgan had driven back from the lighthouse in a two-seater quad bike with a small trailer-box attached to the back. Huw hopped off the bike and moved to help unload the remainder of the gear. He nodded back at the trailer. ‘Stick it all in there,’ he said. ‘We’ll run it up.’ He looked along a narrow track twisting up towards the mountain, a quarter of a mile or so away to their right. Five or six properties of various sizes were dotted along the base, in a line leading towards the cliff tops they had passed on their way in. Thorne could just make out thin ribbons of smoke drifting from a chimney or two and what looked like an enormous cross near what he guessed to be the ruins he had read about.

  The convoy moved slowly.

  The quad bike bumped up the track, the trailer bouncing and rattling behind it across rough ground thick with mud and stones. Howell moved alongside, keen to point out that there was delicate equipment on board and, after she had politely requested that they take things a little easier, Morgan slowed down still further to a notch above walking pace. Behind them, Thorne and Holland led the way, with Nicklin, Batchelor and the two prison officers a pace or two behind and Markham, Karim and Barber the grim-faced CSI bringing up the rear.

  Morgan had been spot on about the weather; the difference in temperature between the island and the mainland. They had been walking for no more than a few minutes and Thorne was already sweating. He tugged off his waterproof jacket, unzipped the fleece beneath.

  ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ Howell said, taking off a sweater and tying it around her waist. ‘Should make our job a bit easier though.’

  Five minutes later, Thorne watched the bike come to a halt fifty yards or so ahead of them, and a middle-aged man emerge from one of the buildings to meet them. The man exchanged a few words with Huw Morgan and his father, then strode down the track towards Thorne and the others. He was tall and distinguished-looking, with silver hair that poked from the sides of a flat cap and a walking stick that appeared to be for show as much as anything. He proffered a hand and, with no more than a trace of a Welsh accent, introduced himself as Robert Burnham.

  ‘I’m the island warden.’ He raised his stick and pointed back towards one of the cottages. ‘And I also look after the Bird and Field Observatory up there.’ He smiled. ‘Jack of all trades, like most people around here.’ He spread his arms out. ‘Welcome to Bardsey.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Thorne said. To his ears, the man sounded more English than anything. Posh English.

  ‘Right, we’ve got a base organised for you up there,’ Burnham said. ‘So it’s just a question of sorting out the admin.’

  Thorne blinked. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, looking at what’s in that trailer, it’s fairly obvious you’re planning on doing a bit of digging.’

  ‘A lot of digging,’ Howell said.

  ‘Well, OK, but I wasn’t told about any digging and as of now I haven’t seen any paperwork to that effect.’ He looked from Thorne to Howell and back again. ‘I mean, I’m sure you’ve got the necessary permissions.’

  Thorne
said, ‘I don’t understand.’ He was trying to sound cheerful, to appear mildly bemused at what was happening, but a heaviness was already starting to gather around his shoulders.

  ‘Look, I’m sure it won’t be a problem.’ Burnham’s eyes were flicking nervously towards Batchelor and Nicklin, towards their handcuffs. ‘Why don’t we get everyone inside, get some refreshments organised and we can sort everything out.’ He turned and walked back up the track, leaving Thorne and those behind him with little choice but to follow.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Holland asked.

  Thorne shook his head. The heaviness was growing, the irritation becoming something far stronger. The nausea on the boat had quickly put paid to the good mood he’d been in after reading the extracts from Nicklin’s letters, and now there seemed little chance of it coming back.

  They walked up the track, then up a short flight of weathered steps to a small stone building. The sign on the door, white letters etched on to black slate, read YSGOL.

  ‘The school,’ Burnham said.

  ‘So how many kids are there here?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘Oh no, it’s not used any more.’ Burnham pushed the heavy wooden door open. ‘Not been a school for sixty-odd years, but we still call it that. You should all be comfortable in here. It’s as good a place as any to use as a base, I would have thought.’

  One by one they walked through the outer door, turned sharply right and trooped through another into a damp-smelling hall which, even when the school had been fully functional, could not have seated more than a dozen children. The dark parquet flooring was worn and had come away in several places. There were cupboards lining a whitewashed wall, while the grimy windows in the other allowed no more than the suggestion of light in from the outside. At one end of the room, beneath a small stage area, was a piano covered in a filthy dust sheet, directly opposite a trestle table which had been set up near the door and laid with a shiny plastic tablecloth. A hotplate was connected to a gas bottle. Pump Thermos flasks of tea and coffee sat next to a large bottle of milk and a bag of sugar. There was a tray of sandwiches covered in cling-film.