The Bones Beneath by Mark Billingham Page A

said. ‘Rachel and me. Well, I mean, obviously we do. For seven years, at least.’
    Kitson nodded.
    Rachel: the younger daughter. Seven years: the minimum term.
    The woman sat down on an artfully distressed leather armchair and waved Kitson towards a matching sofa. She was forty-three, if Kitson remembered correctly; skinny, with grey roots showing through a dye-job and long, thin fingers that moved almost constantly against the arm of her chair. She had worked full-time for the local council up until just over a year before, something in social services. The job had been the most insignificant of her losses.
    ‘Only silly offers so far,’ Sonia said. ‘Just because people know we’re desperate to sell, I suppose. They know the address from the news or whatever, so they’re trying to grab a bargain.’ She looked around the room, nodded. ‘I’m not going to let anyone take advantage of us though.’
    The house was a four-bedroom semi, a mile or so from the centre of Northampton. A nice, quiet road. Neighbourhood Watch and carefully trimmed front hedges. Just over a year before there had been a family of four living here, but now there were only two. Sonia Batchelor had lived here with her college lecturer husband and two children. Today, there was only one child and Sonia Batchelor was the wife of a convicted murderer.
    ‘I’d offer you tea,’ she said. ‘Truth is though I’ve been jumpy as hell ever since you called and I’m desperate to know what this is about.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Kitson said. ‘I did tell you Jeff was all right.’
    ‘Yes, you said that —’
    ‘That it wasn’t really Jeff I wanted to talk to you about.’
    ‘Right, but whatever it is, it obviously involves him, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So…?’
    ‘It’s about your husband’s relationship with Stuart Nicklin.’
    Sonia narrowed her eyes. ‘Relationship?’
    ‘You do know who Stuart Nicklin is?’ Kitson asked.
    Sonia nodded quickly. ‘Yes, well, I bet there wasn’t any problem selling
his
house, was there? I mean, there’s always sickos and ghouls willing to splash out on properties with those kind of associations, aren’t there? Way over the asking price sometimes, if the body count’s high enough. Mind you, the council knock them down more often than not, don’t they? Or is that only if the killings actually happened at the house? You know, the “house of horror” kind of thing. Like Nilsen or whoever. Actually, I always get the Nilsens mixed up, Donald and Dennis. I know the surnames are spelled differently and that one was the Black Panther and the other one killed young men and cut them up and only got caught because his drains started to smell.’ She blinked slowly, let out a sigh. Said, ‘For Christ’s sake, Sonia, shut
up
.’ She looked at Kitson. ‘Sorry, I can’t stop talking…’
    ‘Why don’t I go and make us some tea?’ Kitson said.
    Sonia showed Kitson where the kitchen was, then stepped into the back garden and smoked, signalling through the window to let Kitson know where the teabags were, that she didn’t take sugar.
    Back in the sitting room a few minutes later, she said ‘sorry’ again. The cigarette seemed to have calmed her down. Kitson gave her another minute, drank her tea and looked around. There were family pictures in polished frames arranged on top of a large pine trunk beneath the window.
    The usual.
    Mum and dad and two smiling kids. Assorted combinations of the four. In the park with a dog, pulling stupid faces at the dinner table, on a boat somewhere.
    Jeffrey Batchelor and his elder daughter, Jodi.
    Sonia saw Kitson looking and said, ‘Sometimes… even now, it’s like it didn’t really happen. Like it was just a bad dream. If the phone goes in the evening, I’ll think it’s her ringing from the station. I’ll still be expecting Jeff to go and collect her, stomping out into the hall and moaning about being nothing but a bloody taxi service.’ She almost laughed.