Free The Bones Beneath by Mark Billingham Page B

confirm the short inventory of their possessions, the PCs stepped across to escort them to the cells. Jenks and Fletcher followed as the prisoners were led away and both police officers kept their hands on their telescopic batons. Just before disappearing from view around a corner, Nicklin shouted back over his shoulder.
    ‘You should all get an early night,’ he said. ‘And try not to eat anything iffy. You’ll need strong stomachs tomorrow.’
    Holland looked at Thorne. Said, ‘That’s a point, I need to get seasickness tablets.’
    Nicklin had already rounded the corner, but there was no mistaking the amusement in his voice. ‘I’m talking about after we get there…’
    Thorne ran through the pick-up arrangements for the following morning, quickly shutting the custody sergeant up when the man tried once again to suggest that a different station might have made his own life a little easier. He said goodbye to Duggan who promised to call him later and let him know if he would be tagging along the next day. Then, Thorne and Holland walked out into the station courtyard, Karim and Markham a few steps behind.
    ‘So, what
is
the plan for tonight?’ Holland asked.
    Markham said she didn’t think they would have a great many options and Karim laughed. He said this was probably the kind of place where they still pointed at planes.
    ‘I need a hot shower and a cold beer,’ Thorne said. ‘In that order.’

TWELVE
    Kitson looked up from the game of Candy Crush on her BlackBerry. She returned the smile of an old man who was working at a large jigsaw and figured out that by the time she got home later on, she would have driven the best part of two hundred miles for these three interviews. North London to Huntingdon, then across to Northampton and back down, finally, to Watford. Unless the woman she had left until the end had something useful to tell her, her day’s work would have generated nothing but a claim for travel expenses.
    One of the care workers stopped at the table to set down a cup of tea and a plate of digestives.
    Kitson thanked her.
    ‘She won’t be long,’ the care worker said. ‘Just doing her hair and getting some slap on. Mrs Nicklin always likes to look her best.’
    Kitson stared at her, confused. She had come to see someone who – like the teacher Kitson had spoken to that morning – had been given a brand new identity. A woman whose name was not the one she had lived with up until ten years before.
    The care worker shrugged, said, ‘No big mystery. She tells everyone…’
    When Annie Nicklin finally emerged through a door at the far end of the communal living room, she was being escorted by a second care worker. She walked slowly, but surely, what little weight she had supported on two sticks. Her eyes on Yvonne Kitson every step from the door to the chair.
    The care worker brought a cup of tea across for her. Annie leaned her sticks against the chair then turned to study Kitson with an expression that showed no hint of animosity or suspicion. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Go on, love.’ She spoke slowly, but her voice was oddly high and light. The London accent was still strong.
    Kitson reached for her bag. ‘Do you not want to see my ID?’
    Annie waved the suggestion away. ‘Well, you’re either a copper or a journalist, aren’t you? Either way, you’ve got questions of some sort.’ Her white hair was thin in places, the pink scalp visible beneath. The liver-spotted hands were clawed against the arms of the chair. Kitson knew that she was eighty-five, but she looked even older.
    ‘I don’t understand why you’re using your own name,’ Kitson said.
    ‘It’s my name.’
    ‘You were given witness protection.’
    ‘I didn’t want it,’ Annie said. ‘All that nonsense was their idea. Didn’t want to deal with the aggravation of people trying to hurt me, I suppose.’ She shrugged. ‘So I took their daft name, but I was never very good at keeping my real one a secret and I told