The Bones Beneath Read Online Free PDF Page B

had changed beyond all recognition. Everything else about her was different though. Her name, her accent, the colour and style of her hair. She had been relocated and given a new identity once the full horror of what her husband had done became clear. A man who had called himself Cookson back then, but whose real name was Stuart Nicklin.
    ‘I don’t know what to call you,’ Kitson said.
    ‘Claire Richardson. My name’s Claire Richardson.’
    The officers monitoring Caroline Cookson’s witness protection had given Kitson a name and phone number, the address of the school where ‘Claire Richardson’ worked. Beyond that though, Kitson knew nothing about her. Had she remarried? Did she have children?
    Kitson asked her.
    ‘No kids,’ Claire said. ‘I’ve had a boyfriend for a couple of years.’
    ‘That’s good.’
    ‘Yeah, well he hasn’t killed anyone yet, so you know… that’s a plus.’ She took a last drag on her cigarette, dropped the nub and ground it beneath her boot. ‘Mind you, I didn’t know any of that was happening
last
time, did I?’
    Kitson laughed, because she thought she ought to.
    Claire looked at her. She was already reaching for her cigarettes again. ‘I didn’t, you know. Some of the papers made out that I knew, but I didn’t. I still feel physically sick just thinking about what he did.’
    Kitson said she believed her, because she thought she ought to.
    Watching the woman light another cigarette, trying not to stare at what might have been the smallest of tremors in her fingers, Kitson told her what she had come to talk about. She explained about the prisoner escort operation that was currently taking place and why she had needed to wait until it was happening before having this and several other conversations. ‘Trying to minimise the risk of word getting out,’ she said.
    ‘So what do you want from me?’
    ‘Why’s he doing it?’
    Claire turned and stared, shook her head. ‘Seriously? Why the hell do you think
I’d
know?’
    ‘We thought you might have an idea, that’s all,’ Kitson said. ‘Because he writes to you. The prison told us about the letters he writes, so we wondered if he’d said something.’
    ‘I don’t see the letters,’ Claire said. ‘I’ve got an arrangement with the witness protection team and they’re intercepted. Destroyed.’ She opened the side of her mouth, allowed a wisp of smoke to escape. ‘Well, they
say
they destroy them. Maybe they’re reading them for a laugh. Maybe they’re making a few extra quid putting them on eBay. I don’t give a toss, tell you the truth. I don’t care about anything he might have to say.’
    ‘What do you think’s in them?’
    ‘I told you, I don’t care.’
    ‘You’re not even curious?’
    ‘Not remotely.’ She turned to look at Kitson again. ‘I only went to see him once. Five or six years ago. Some journalist was writing a book and I knew they were going to come looking. I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen and I knew he was the only one who could make it stop, that he’d have some… leverage or whatever. That was the only time.’ She swallowed, took a deep drag. ‘The only time.’
    ‘What did he say?’ Kitson asked.
    ‘He tried to tell me that he still loved me.’ Claire leaned slowly forward and pulled her feet beneath the bench. She looked disgusted. ‘That he
missed
me. Oh yes, and just before I left he told me how much better the sex with me had been right after he’d killed someone. How thinking about what he’d done, all those lovely details, made him harder when we’d been doing it, and how he was telling me all this now because he thought I’d like to know, because he thought it would turn me on. Because it was turning him on, right there in the visitors’ room.’ She dropped her cigarette, still only half smoked, and stood up. ‘So, no. Not curious.’ She turned and watched Kitson get to her feet. She said, ‘Sorry you wasted your time.’
    ‘Not to worry,’