Scar Tissue

by Ollie Ollerton

  ‘Where am I going?’ he said now, slipping both passports into his trousers. ‘Anywhere but Singapore, mate.’ He began stuffing the holdall. He had found a couple of door wedges that he tossed into the bag and Cuckoo seemed about to ask him about them when something else occurred to him.

  ‘You know that your arm is bleeding, right?’

  ‘Bullet graze,’ said Abbott, enjoying how Cuckoo paled a little.

  ‘And would that bullet graze have anything to do with you needing to leave Singapore all of a sudden?’

  Abbott rolled his eyes. ‘No, it’s just a coincidence.’

  He shoved his laptop into the holdall, zipped the bag shut.

  ‘Look, we need to talk,’ repeated Cuckoo.

  ‘OK, talk.’ And then Abbott stopped. Finally, the penny had dropped. ‘Is this about Nath?’

  At the same time, the door shuddered. Somebody had put their shoulder to it. It happened again, only with even more force, and this time it seemed to bow around the Yale.

  Abbott reacted first. Putting a finger to his lips, he motioned Cuckoo to stay where he was in the centre of the room. In the same instant he dived to the side of the door, flattening himself to the wall just as another kick came, and then another, before the Yale finally gave, the door flew open, and in came the two men from Hexagon: Chantrell and Tork, guns in their fists.

  They stopped at the sight of Cuckoo. Both staring at him, feeling suddenly unsure of themselves. They’d never actually met Abbott, but thanks to Foxhole they knew what he looked like, and they didn’t think he was the guy who stood in the middle of the room. But then again, maybe with a haircut, a shave, a healthy clothing allowance and a change of outlook, perhaps it was …

  ‘Abbott …’ began Chantrell. A question. A challenge. A greeting.

  ‘It’s not Abbott,’ said Tork.

  Their hesitation was all the invitation that the real Abbott needed. Coming from behind, outside of their peripheral vision, he grabbed Chantrell’s gun arm and at the same time moved across them both, spun and rammed his elbow hard into Tork’s face.

  The movement ended with Abbott holding Chantrell’s arm across his chest. It took a split-second. Chantrell’s eyes widened as he saw what Abbott was about to do, and in the next moment he was screaming as Abbott snapped his arm.

  Chantrell sunk to his knees, mewling in pain, out of the battle. Hurt, blinded and with his nose streaming blood, Tork tried to bring his gun to bear, but Abbott moved in for the kill, this time using his head on the bridge of Tork’s nose – his nose that quickly went from merely broken to permanently damaged beyond repair.

  As Tork fell, consciousness making an exit, Cuckoo came forward to grab his gun, stopping him from accidentally discharging his weapon.

  Now Tork was out of it, Chantrell groaning on the floor as Abbott and Cuckoo made their escape through the window and down the fire escape.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be any good in a fight,’ said Abbott as they rattled down the steps towards the street. As Cuckoo preened he added, ‘I still don’t think you’d be any good in a fight.’

  CHAPTER 16

  It was still chucking it down with rain as Abbott and Cuckoo jumped into Cuckoo’s hired Lexus. As they moved off, Abbott caught a glimpse of something in the wing mirror and twisted to get a better look, squinting through the rain-sluiced rear window.

  A hire car had drawn into the street. Abbott saw an outline of the driver and a mop of white hair, almost brilliant white, as though lit from within. The car stopped outside number twenty-three and White Hair got out. Heedless of the downpour, or seemingly so, at least, he looked up at the building.

  And then, almost as though he could sense the nearby presence of Abbott, he looked to his right – directly at the fleeing Lexus.

  Now they were turning out on to the street and Abbott saw the white-haired guy hurrying back to his car.

  Shit.

  ‘Could be that we have another visitor; don’t hang about,’ he told Cuckoo. ‘And while you’re doing that, how about you tell me the reason why you’re in Singapore.’

  ‘The way you were back there—’ said Cuckoo, sounding like he hadn’t heard the question.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Abbott.

  ‘Taking those two guys out.’

  ‘Yeah? What about it?’

  ‘I’ve never seen you like that before.’

  ‘Well, it’s never been take-your-love-rival-to-work-day before.’

  ‘So that’s it, is it? Just another day at the office for you?’

  ‘Yup. We even have a sweepstake for the Grand National.’

  ‘It was impressive.’

  Abbott rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not completely fucking useless, you know, despite what you might be hearing elsewhere.’

  ‘But you are drinking? I mean, I can smell it on you.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. How come you ended up here? Why did you leave Baghdad a year ago?’

  ‘None of your fucking business. Look, I’m not drunk in a gutter. I’m assuming I meet whatever standard of competency you have. And if I don’t, then tough shit. Tell me what you’re doing here. What does Nathan have to do with it?’

  Cuckoo’s voice was flat in reply. ‘Nathan’s missing.’

  Abbott took a deep breath and turned his head to stare at the rain-streaked city passing by. ‘Yes,’ was all he said.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s not a complete surprise. What do you know?’

  ‘OK, well, um, I don’t know if you were aware or not, but Nathan was with the Marines, stationed with the British contingent at the Turkish air base at Incirlik …’

  Fair play, Cuckoo had tried to keep his voice neutral, but still the news hit Abbott in a series of gut punches. Two years ago he’d argued with Nathan about joining the army, trying every trick in the book. Like, Nathan was really into trainers so Abbott had said, ‘There’s no point in having the best clobber if your legs have been blown off,’ which was a bit below the belt, literally and figuratively.

  ‘Do you really want to end up like me?’ he’d added, ‘Probably fucked up from PTSD? Is that what you want?’ Which was the only time he had ever invoked his own drinking as a negative, and certainly the only time he’d ever prescribed himself PTSD.

  Not that any of it helped. Nathan was dead-set. The trouble was that Abbott had long since promoted the idea that the army had been the making of him (which it had been). That it had kept him on the straight and narrow (which it had). If the army was in Nathan’s DNA, then that was because Abbott had put it there, and no amount of retro-fitting deterrents was going to put him off. Nathan saw through it all.

  What’s more, of course, he’d inherited his mother’s determination, and although she hadn’t wanted him to join up either – she and Abbott couldn’t agree on what day it was, but they’d agreed on that – it was one battle she couldn’t win.

  And so, yes, Abbott knew that Nathan had joined the North Staffordshire Regiment. He knew that Nathan had undergone thirty-two weeks of Commando training in order to become a Marine. Abbott had gone to Nathan’s pass-out at Lympstone, the Royal Marine’s Commando Training Centre. Was that the last time he’d seen Fi? Yes. Was that the last time he’d seen Nathan? Also yes.

  Which was why Abbott didn’t know that Nath had been sent to Turkey, so close to Iraq. That came as news to him.

  ‘Take a left here,’ he said distractedly. His hand was in his lap, his fingers slightly curled, and it seemed like only yesterday that Nathan had been a tiny baby, lying along his forearm, his head in Abbott’s palm. ‘Imagine being so small that your whole head can fit in someone’s hand,’ Fi had said at the time. They’d been close then. She’d put a hand out to Abbott. ‘It must be like having your own personal giant to protect you.’

  Abbott had chuckled. Don’t get used to it, kid, he’d thought. It never gets this good again.

  ‘As far as we know he took leave to B
aghdad,’ continued Cuckoo, eyes never leaving the road as he took a left, negotiating city traffic.

  ‘Baghdad?’ snorted Abbott. ‘Not exactly where I’d choose to spend my leave.’ He reached for his holdall, pulled off his shirt and set to work repairing his dressing.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Cuckoo. ‘The thing is that Fi kept him on a tight leash. You know what she’s like – a bit of a mother hen. When he went out to Turkey she made him promise to Skype her every other day minimum. Absolute minimum. So she was pissed off when he missed his slot.

  ‘Well, at first she was. And then she moved on to worried, and it’s been a bit of a sliding scale since then. Do they go upwards, sliding scales? I dunno. Anyway. He hasn’t responded to email, texts – nothing.’

  ‘You contacted the base?’

  ‘No, we didn’t think of that. Yes, of course we contacted the base.’

  ‘Leave the sarcasm to me. What did they say?’

  ‘Well, that was when we found out that he’d taken leave and gone to Baghdad.’

  Abbott shook his head. ‘Taken leave of his fucking senses, if he’s gone to Baghdad,’ thinking, Baghdad of all places. Saddam had been caught and was awaiting trial, his old palace being used as a base for the coalition. The city itself was a war zone: bombed-out, plagued by water and food shortages, lawless and chaotic, a powderkeg of insurgency, revenge killings and ethnic division, a civil war waiting to happen. Earlier that month a US Army Chinook on its way to the city had been shot down over Fallujah. Plans to accelerate passing over control of the country to the Iraqis had only added to the fevered atmosphere in the region.

  Cuckoo continued. The army had said that Nathan was on leave when they voiced their worries and refused to elaborate further. When two more days had passed with still no word from Nathan, Fi insisted something be done and Cuckoo was her choice of man to do it, being nearest. There’s no worry like the worry of a mother with a kid in a war zone.

  Nor that of a father, thought Abbott, but he knew he was in no position to lay claim to feelings of parental concern, which were always going to be eclipsed by those of the mother anyway. Fi, in tears down the phone, had accused him of pressurising the boy into joining up, but nothing could have been further from the truth and that’s what Abbott had told her, even though they both knew that it wasn’t about anything Abbott did or didn’t say to Nathan. It was more about his status as father in the boy’s life, absent and yet a constant presence. Other kids had actors and rock stars on whom to fixate and project, Nathan had Abbott.

  So not because of him – not in the sense that Abbott was ever at his shoulder, urging, ‘Join the army, it’ll make a man of you, blah, blah,’ but just because Abbott was there. He was Dad. He was the protective giant.

  Around the time that Nathan joined up, things were turning shit in Abbott’s life – he’d taken up drinking as a career choice. He sent a card on Nathan’s next birthday. The birthday after that, he managed a text. Iraq had happened and he heard from Fi that Nathan wasn’t involved. But he didn’t hear it from Nathan. Gradually, the two of them had moved from ‘not speaking very much’ to ‘estranged’.

  The way Fi always told it, Abbott was some kind of monster and never a true father to his son. She was wrong in the diagnosis – he wasn’t a monster – but she was right to flag up the symptoms. And when she told him that it was better that he stayed away from Nathan for good, she was probably right about that, too.

  ‘You see, I was tempted to think of Fi’s concern as maybe being a bit misplaced,’ said Cuckoo now, drawing Abbott from his thoughts. ‘But now I’m not so sure.’

  Abbott was remembering the text message of the other night, trying to weigh up his own concerns and those of Fiona. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ he said. ‘Fi’s a bit of a mother hen, like you say, but she knows the score. She’s not one to go pressing the panic button unnecessarily.’

  Cuckoo nodded. ‘Yes. Two nights ago, she had a call from Nathan. She heard weird noises and then the line went dead.’

  Abbott liked nothing about that sentence. ‘What sort of weird noises?’

  ‘She couldn’t really say.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Like shouting? A party? Put it this way: what conclusion did Fi reach based on what she heard?’

  ‘Well, she thought it was as though someone had snatched the phone out of his hand.’

  Fiona, for all her faults, wasn’t a flaky type. She wasn’t given to flights of fancy. On the one hand, if she thought that it was the sound of Nathan having the phone snatched out of his hand, then Abbott was tempted to believe her. On the other hand, she didn’t know the sort of stupid shit that young squaddies got up to, and someone could easily have grabbed his phone and dialled ‘Mum’, before Nathan had the chance to snatch it back.

  ‘Did she tell the base about this call?’

  ‘They pretty much said that he was either drunk or playing some kind of trick. Still putting her back in her box. More important things to do, et cetera.’

  Abbott twisted to look behind them. There was nobody following. No sign of the white-haired guy. ‘And back in her box is Fi’s least-favourite place, yeah?’ he said to Cuckoo, who gave him a rueful look in return. For a moment they grinned at one another and then Abbott pulled his shirt back on, dropped the stuff back into his holdall. He turned his head to look out of the window once more, seeing the lights of the city flash by. He tried to conjure the face of his son and found he couldn’t. Where are you, Nathan? he thought, which set off an aching worry in the pit of his stomach.

  For a while the only sound in the car was the metronomic swish of the windscreen wipers, until Abbott said, ‘So you’ve been dispatched by home ops. OK. So why come to me? Why Singapore and not straight to Baghdad?’

  ‘Because you’d never forgive me if I didn’t come to you; because she asked me to; because you’re still his father; and because you know Iraq.’

  ‘Again, you could have called.’

  ‘She wanted me to see you, Abbott. She needed to check on you.’

  ‘To see if I’m up to the task of tracking down my own son?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So it was an interview. And if I hadn’t passed your test?’

  ‘Who says you have? But if you hadn’t, well, then she picks up the phone to someone else.’

  ‘Like who – who the fuck does Fi know who can …?’ He stopped, realising that he already knew the answer: one of his old team: Burton, Stone or Mowles. And if it had come to that? Would they have been prepared to help? He wasn’t sure of the answer.

  Abbott sat back. ‘It would be Iraq,’ he sighed, closing his eyes against the sudden invasion of unwelcome images: the bodies. Dismembered bodies. Thinking of Nathan’s text message, feeling the worry gnawing away and knowing he must return there. ‘I’m leaving right away, you realise,’ he said.

  ‘We leave, Abbott.’

  ‘No. I go alone.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Cuckoo shook his head.

  ‘OK, then. Fair enough. You tag along and then I’ll give you the slip when we reach Baghdad. How do you fancy your chances in Iraq by yourself, eh? Think about your answer but remember that playing Medal of Honour doesn’t count.’

  ‘I can handle myself.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, sure you can. Look, there’s no such thing as “defence diplomacy” in Baghdad, Cuckoo. You might as well try to stick daisies down the barrels of their AKs. Sorry, but you either do this the easy way and wave me goodbye at the airport or you can do it the hard way and find yourself ankle-deep in a shallow grave.’

  ‘I made a promise to Fiona,’ replied Cuckoo, resolutely. ‘I’m coming.’

  They passed a huge billboard advertising Lucky Strikes. Beneath it a road sign for the airport.

  ‘I know where we’re going, you know,’ said Cuckoo. ‘I’ve known since we left your apartment. My stuff’s in the boot, passport in my pocket …’

  CHAPTER 17

  Abbott che
cked behind once again, and again saw nothing.

  He turned back quickly. ‘OK, we’ve got a tail,’ he said. ‘Here, take this road,’ and then reached across to wrench the wheel of the Lexus.

  As the car swerved with a small screech of tyres on the warm road, Abbott was thrown into Cuckoo, almost making the situation worse.

  ‘Christ, be careful,’ protested Cuckoo, shouldering his passenger away. ‘Jesus, man, you nearly took us off the road. Are you sure you’re in any fit state?’

  They missed the turn. Abbott had twisted to look behind again. ‘Ah, no,’ he said, ‘my mistake. They’ve turned off. They weren’t following.’

  They made it to the airport and left the car parked illegally outside the terminal as they hurried inside. At the airline counter Abbott went first, buying tickets for the ten-hour flight from Singapore to Jordan, which was due to leave in an hour’s time. He moved away and slung his holdall over his shoulder, as though to wait for Cuckoo who stepped up to the counter and asked for the same again, relaying his details to the customer services guy.

  ‘Passport, sir?’ asked the assistant.

  Cuckoo nodded, reached through the buttons of his mac to the inside pocket. Felt nothing.

  He tapped his coat, then unbuttoned it. No passport and suddenly, it hit him. Realisation dawned. In the car, when Abbott had reached across to wrench the wheel from him, it wasn’t a drunken lurch at all, it was—

  Christ. He wheeled around.

  Sure enough, there was no sign of Abbott.

  He grabbed his phone, flipped it open and dialled Abbott, who answered on the second ring.

  ‘Abbott—’ started Cuckoo.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ said Abbott, sounding as though he was on the move, no doubt towards departures.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Cuckoo.

  ‘Oh, come on. Whatever Fi says, you and I both know you’re better off out of it. You’d only slow me down in Baghdad. No offence, but you’d be a deadweight. Look, I appreciate that you stepped up back there in the flat. You showed proper bollocks. But that shit is nothing compared to what is going down in Iraq.’