The Bones Beneath by Mark Billingham Page B

crashed out on the lumpy bed for the best part of an hour and a half. When he woke, it was dark outside. He could not clearly recall what he had been dreaming about, but the thin sheets were clinging to him.
    He turned the temperature of the shower right down and climbed back in.
    He called Yvonne Kitson while he was getting dressed. She had not been back at home more than half an hour, she said, and was busy getting wine down her neck while she struggled to get her kids’ tea organised. She gave Thorne the highlights of her conversation with Sonia Batchelor.
    ‘So, you know… maybe Sonia’s right and it’s not
all
about Nicklin,’ Kitson said. ‘Sounds like Batchelor’s getting something out of being with him.’
    Thorne sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘It was Nicklin that insisted on this.’ He turned the phone’s speaker on, tossed it on to the pillow, then lay back and pulled on his jeans. ‘It was one of his conditions.’
    ‘Just doing Batchelor a favour, maybe?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Worried about leaving him on his own?’
    ‘Remember who we’re talking about here, Yvonne. It’s not like he’s the prison chaplain.’
    Kitson laughed. Thorne heard another mouthful of wine going down.
    ‘What happened at the care home?’
    She told him what Annie Nicklin had given her. At that moment the box was still sitting in the boot of her car.
    ‘I need you to have a look at them, Yvonne.’
    ‘Can I feed my kids first?’
    ‘Yeah, sorry.’ He sat up, walked across to collect the shirt he’d dragged from his overnight bag and draped across a chair. ‘Look, I know it’s a long shot, but he might have said something in one of those letters, given some hint as to what he’s up to. God knows, a letter to his mother might be the one time he’s honest with someone.’
    ‘Based on what she told me, I seriously doubt it,’ Kitson said.
    ‘Well just have a look,’ Thorne said. ‘Obviously we’re only really interested in the most recent ones. Unless you’ve got nothing better to do than sit and read all of them.’ He watched himself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door as he buttoned up the shirt. When he was done, he tucked the shirt into his jeans. He ran a hand across his gut and pulled the shirt out again.
    ‘I think I might take my wine out to the car with me,’ Kitson said. ‘Sit and read the letters in there.’
    ‘Whatever lights your candle,’ Thorne said.
    She told him what Annie Nicklin had said to the care worker, the residents having nightmares. She said, ‘I’m not really sure I want them in the house.’
    Thorne closed the wardrobe door, looked around for his shoes.
    His hair was still a little wet, so he put the shudder down to a trickle of water creeping between his shoulder blades.
     
    When Thorne, Holland, Karim and Markham wandered down from their rooms and into the lounge, Elwyn Pritchard was installed behind the bar. If anybody had been playing a piano, chances are they would have stopped as Thorne and the others walked in. While the fruit machine tweeted and buzzed in the corner, they exchanged nods with a gaggle of flinty-looking drinkers who were clearly regular customers and gave the impression of having been in the bar a good while already.
    Thorne took his wallet out and ordered the drinks.
    ‘I’m guessing you’re starving,’ Pritchard said.
    ‘I could eat a horse,’ Karim said. ‘But I’m trying to give up beef.’
    It took Pritchard a few seconds to get the joke, then he laughed as though it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard; two explosive belly-laughs followed by a series of staccato hisses. When he’d recovered – though still grinning like an idiot and shaking his head – he said, ‘Now, I’ve taken the liberty of assuming that you won’t want to risk food poisoning at either of the iffy takeaways in town.’
    ‘Won’t we?’ Thorne asked. He had clocked a Chinese place on the way into the village and had been thinking about hot