A Soldier's Honour Box Set 1 (Sgt Major Crane Crime Thrillers Box Set)

by Wendy Cartmell

  “Good, let’s keep it that way. I want him to feel isolated. That may help us to get him to talk.”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Sir?” Billy joined the conversation.

  “Yes, Billy?”

  “Should I ask Captain Popal to attend the interview… sorry interrogation?”

  “No. We’ll rely on Dudley-Jones if Freed refuses to speak English. Remember we know he can, it’s whether he will or not that’s the problem. Is that alright with you, Lance Corporal?”

  “Yes, sir. All this translating is good for keeping my language skills up.”

  “Glad I can be of help.” Crane collected his papers, a small smile playing across his face. He then addressed the team, “Okay, dismissed. Billy and Dudley-Jones, you’re with me. Let’s go and see Freed.”

  On their way over to the guard room, Crane asked “Is the sports centre open now, Staff?”

  “Yes. The area was swept again last night after Freed gave himself up. Nothing was found, so we gave the BOA the all clear and the Paralympians were back in this morning to continue with their training. At least, the ones that weren’t involved in the hostage situation and taken to hospital.”

  “Oh God, I’d forgotten about them, are they all alright. No harm done?”

  “Pretty much, sir, no physical injuries as far as we can tell.”

  “Good, at least things are beginning to return to normal.”

  Night 35

  The voice filled the empty office. Crane stabbed at a key and shut it off. The lights were subdued in the main office and he only had an angle poise lamp throwing a narrow beam on his desk. He felt as though he was cocooned within the SIB offices, as if in a cave, safe from the shifting shadows outside, that held only menace. As he yet again pressed the play button for the media player on his computer, the shadowy threat gained form and once again invaded his space.

  The sing song voice of Captain Faran Popal emitted from the tinny speakers on Crane’s laptop. Having trouble hearing properly, Crane plugged in a set of headphones. Immediately the voice became richer and deeper. Hypnotic. Even though Crane couldn’t understand the Pashtu words, there was a deeper feeling behind them derived from the softness of tone. It was as though Popal was reaching out to the suicide bomber, using his voice like a warm blanket, wrapping itself around Freed and supporting him. Encouraging him, praising him and then reeling him in. Crane stopped the player and stared into the empty office beyond his door.

  Captain Edwards said this was entirely normal. That it was what Captain Popal had intended to do. Persuade the suicide bomber to give himself up without any loss of life, even Freed’s own. But Crane wasn’t sure. It didn’t sit right with him somehow. Pressing the play button once again, Crane listened to Dudley-Jones translating as Popal sang his Pashtu song.

  “Keep your eye on the bigger picture. Remember the higher goals.”

  Crane punched the stop key. Strange words. Why would Captain Popal encourage Freed to think about pictures and goals? What bloody bigger picture? What bloody higher goals? Was Popal sending a message to Freed, or was Crane just clutching at straws? Becoming side tracked by Dudley-Jones and what he perceived to be vital intelligence?

  Crane punched play. “Allah is great. Allah is good. Allah will look after all those who are true believers and keep a place for them.”

  Stopping the player once again, Crane mulled over the last few phrases. At least those he could understand. The usual religious rhetoric about Allah. But then again, the phrase ‘true believers’ stuck out. Struck a discordant note. As Dudley-Jones intimated, true believers who were suicide bombers, just pressed the button. The whole point was martyrdom. Crane also noted that Freed said nothing throughout the whole ordeal. He simply nodded or shook his head, depending on the question. It was the same in the interview this morning. He said nothing. Spoke not a single solitary word. Crane wondered why, but had no answer. Yet…

  Crane rewound the sound bite and started again. With the mint tea. He reached for his own cup, so caught up in the recording that he was surprised when he lifted it to his lips and found it wasn’t mint tea but coffee. Stopping the recording he wondered what the hell was the significance of the mint tea? Or was there nothing significant about it, was he just blundering about desperate to find some meaning behind the innocuous words?

  After listening to the recording one more time, Crane was no nearer figuring anything out. So he shut down the computer, left the office and walked out to his car.

  The night was clear and Crane looked up at a sky filled with stars. It made him feel small. A tiny insignificant dot on the surface of the earth. The earth that must itself look like a tiny dot from any one of those stars. Whilst Crane felt overwhelmed with the vastness of the sky and the galaxy, what it didn’t do was make him feel inconsequential. He knew what he was doing was important. He no longer felt like a babysitter. He might be very confused about what was going on, but he trusted his intellect, instincts and his team to help him solve the mysteries. For now, the threat was over. He could go home. After visiting Tina in hospital, that was.

  Day 36

  Praise be to Allah and the Prophet Mohammed for showing me the way. The path. The right and true road to travel down. Praise be to their holy names.

  I told you I could do it. I hope you believed me. Well, even if you didn’t, if you doubted, then doubt no more. I have had nothing but congratulations from the officers of the Coldstream Guards. Obviously I had had to apologise profusely for my colleague Freed, pretend I felt bad about what had happened. Insinuate how ashamed I was that a fellow Afghan officer could do such a terrible thing. Act as if I am humiliated. That I had no indication he could do something so dreadful. I managed to show incredulity when we discussed how he must have planned the whole thing in secret, with no one any the wiser.

  So I am now a trusted member of the team as I told you I would be. I managed to keep my mask in place throughout the negotiations and the ensuing melee. With the help of Allah the great one.

  But I must not forget Freed. He played his part well. I will pass on my whispered congratulations to him when I am allowed access. For now, your Royal Military Police won’t let me anywhere near him. But I am sure they will relax that constraint in due course. At the end of the day they won’t have very much on him. Once the full facts emerge. In the meantime, he has his instructions. Say nothing. Speak to no one. Offer no explanation whatsoever. Refuse to speak English. Simply pretend you cannot understand what they say.

  The successful negotiation has been noted on my file and I am now destined for greatness. Destined to be a leader of men, in my beloved Afghanistan. But that is not enough for me. I do not crave the praise and acceptance of the British Army. I crave only the praise and acceptance of the Muslim nation that I represent. The glory I can bring to the name of Allah. This is my reason for living.

  Soon, I will walk that particular path. And no one can stop me. Not even your redoubtable Sergeant Major Crane.

  Night 36

  Crane was only able to visit Tina during the early evening visiting hours in the maternity ward. A transient place, where mothers-to-be were waiting to go into the labour ward as their time approached, or resting after giving birth. The little ones by the side of their mother’s bed in their see-through Perspex cots. As good a place as any for an enforced stay in hospital, he supposed, as there was lots of hustle and bustle to watch and new born babies to coo over.

  As Crane entered the ward Tina caught sight of him. Her smile held all the warmth and encouragement he needed. Reassurance that she understood it was difficult for him to visit at any other time. No trace of petulance marred her features. He noticed that someone must had helped her wash her hair as it was hanging long and lustrous around her shoulders and she had put on a touch of makeup. Crane tried to remember a small gift each time he came to visit and so placed a mother and baby magazine in her outstretched hands.

  “Oh thank you, Tom. Just what I wanted,” she enthuse
d. “The newspaper trolley only holds trashy celebrity magazines.”

  Crane smiled at the praise and mentally thanked Kim for her suggestion and earlier purchase of the magazine.

  Leaning in to kiss his wife, Crane then settled into a nearby chair, taking off his jacket and tie. He reached down to untie his shoe laces, before remembering where he was. He would love to remove his shoes and slip into a comfy pair of slippers. If only he was at home. He yearned for the stability it brought to his life. Home, with Tina waiting for him. An oasis of calm after the swirling molasses of work. Realising he was starting to view his domestic life through rose tinted glasses, he focused on the here and now. On his wife lying in a hospital bed.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Tom, I feel fine. I don’t really feel ill you know. But they won’t let me out. I keep asking, but…” Tina played with the edge of the sheet covering her swollen stomach.

  “Don’t fret about it, love. Just try and enjoy the rest.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

  “Everyone? Who’s everyone?”

  “Oh, you know the staff, mum, hospital visitors.”

  “Hospital visitors? Who are they?” Tom feigned interest, to keep the conversation going, afraid he would fall asleep in the chair.

  “Well, the hospital chaplain for one. Although as I’m not seriously ill he didn’t really have much to say to me. My soul doesn’t need saving before my imminent death does it?” Her laughter played a merry tune.

  “No, I guess not.” Crane didn’t like the turn of the conversation, so quickly moved on. “Who else?”

  “Oh a few ladies who come onto the wards in the afternoons. To chat to those who haven’t got visitors. To stop us feeling left out I guess.” Tina’s head dropped as she played with the magazine on her lap.

  “And do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Feel left out?”

  Raising her head, Tina looked at him and smiled. “No, I don’t.” She reached for his hand. “Anyway it gives me a chance to chat about babies to my heart’s content. But enough about me - what’s the latest from the garrison?”

  Crane got to the happy ending that none of the Paralympians had suffered any lasting damage and that Captain Edwards was happy with him and Dudley-Jones’s performances, then stopped speaking, slumped in his chair, stretched out his legs and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets.

  “So why don’t you look happy?”

  Crane lifted his chin from his chest and looked at his wife. “Happy?”

  “Yes, you look very pissed off for someone that foiled an attempted suicide bomb and earned the praise of Captain Edwards.” Tina tucked her loose hair behind her ears, as if pulling back a net curtain so she could see him better.

  Crane put his elbows on the arms of his chair and pulled himself upright. Shaking his head he said, “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel finished somehow.”

  “Well it isn’t is it? The Paralympians don’t leave for another what, five days.”

  “Four.”

  “Okay four then. That’s probably all it is.”

  The shrill bell announcing the end of visiting hours also terminated their conversation. Crane clumsily embraced his wife, kissing her as though she was a piece of fine china.

  “Go on, get off home,” she gently pushed him away. “I’m tired enough to sleep now anyway. So don’t worry about me.”

  ***

  But Crane wasn’t tired enough to get off home and sleep. Recounting the events of the past few days had brought back his feelings of unease. His mind was too active. He sought sanctuary in his office, with his seven white boards for company. Listening to them, trying to hear their voices and failing. So he decided to go over them one by one.

  Crane pulled up a chair in front of the boards and firstly looked at the one documenting the death of Corporal Simms. Accident or murder, it made no difference, the young soldier was still dead. His body discovered within the bowels of the swimming pool complex. Nothing missing, nothing found. The only evidence just a single black hair on his clothes. Forgetting for a moment Captain Edwards’ theory that it was an accident, if he took it as murder, Crane mused, the only possible motive is that the soldier saw something or someone he shouldn’t have. Crane let his thoughts wander further. Someone or something that was in the wrong place. Didn’t belong.

  The second board was the murder of Corporal McInnes. He was definitely in the right place but at the wrong time. The military cemetery was on the guard duty roster. But he was alone, when he should have been accompanied by Corporal Cable. This one was clearly murder as his body was dragged behind a pill box. Forensics found blood and torn bits of clothing. Some of them were from McInnes himself, but there was no match to the samples from the unknown suspect. There was also something missing. His gun and live ammunition. Despite extensive searching of the cemetery they had never been found.

  Crane moved his chair along to sit in front of the third board. The theft of property from the Aspire Defence stores. Why had he done that board? It wasn’t a major investigation. But it was still something that had gone wrong on his watch. Something that happened whilst Team GB were on the garrison. Crane stood and took down the list of missing material. Just cleaning stuff, paper and paint brushes. Where was the list from the landscape gardening contractor? Crane couldn’t remember if it had ever come into the office and made a mental note to ask Kim tomorrow.

  The fourth board wasn’t anything to do with theft or murder. In fact, Captain Edwards had argued that it was nothing to do with anything. Apart from Crane’s paranoia with the Afghan officers that was. Still, it was Crane’s office so he had a board with pictures of the four officers on; their self-elected leader Fahran Popal; the quiet one Dehqan Khan; the one who turned out to be a would be suicide bomber Behnam Freed and the one that supposedly lost his way on Ash Ranges, Azar Niaz.

  After standing and stretching and discounting the idea of going out for a cigarette, Crane moved his chair along again and sat in front of the fifth board. The Afghan officer who went missing on Ash Ranges. Who was presently in the guard room, saying nothing. Offering no explanation whatsoever for having been found holed up with food and water. A forensic examination of his clothes had proved fruitless. The man was filthy, bringing a large part of the ranges back with him on his clothes.

  Crane reluctantly turned his attention to the sixth board, the one he didn’t want to face. The murder of Padam Gurung. He wasn’t entirely sure why this death had affected him so badly. Considering it, he felt empathy with the old soldier’s plight. The difficulties and prejudice he must have encountered whist trying to build a new life in England. What on earth possessed him to come here, Crane wondered? He was angry at the way life in England was being misrepresented to the Gurkhas back in Nepal. Angry with the so-called officials, who were no better than thieves, taking money from the old soldiers for visas. He had done some research and found that unscrupulous firms were charging the old men hundreds of pounds for visas that were actually free. How could someone defraud old and vulnerable people like that? Crane shook his head in disgust. Still, turning back to the case, he found once again there was no forensic evidence of any value. It looked like the environment Padam was found in had beaten the science. Rolling around on the ground in a wooded environment had obviously dislodged any evidence. If there was any in the first place.

  The final board Crane turned to was the one detailing the attempted suicide bomber. Looking closely, Crane found nothing from Bomb Disposal on the explosives used. He wondered what it was and where Freed got it. He made another mental note to talk to Kim about it in the morning.

  Crane finally succumbed to both tiredness and the need for nicotine, so pushed the chair back under the table and left the office, clicking off the lights as he went. Leaving his boards to sit in the darkness, still waiting for someone to hear their voices.

  Night 37

  My brothers and I continue with our mi
ssion. To take the one true path that Allah has decreed all Muslims should travel down. Niaz and Freed have played their parts well and continue to do so and will be rewarded by Allah when their time comes to stand in judgement before him.

  As for Dehqan Kahn and myself, we continue with the struggle. Continue with our mission to strike against those who invade our country and force them to leave. For we Muslims must once again acquire power over the state in our country, so we can establish religious order. This religious order will then stabilise social, economic and political order. Every one of our people shall know that Allah is great. Allah is good.

  As I speak, Kahn is working hard on our mission. The blood, sweat and tears he sheds will be illuminated by the brightness of our attack, which will shine around the world. Leaving you infidels in no doubt that you must leave our country immediately, or risk invoking the wrath of Allah again.

  And so my brothers and I will enter paradise when we die, as a reward for our actions. How do I know that? How can I be so sure? Why it is written in our holy book. Here is the verse, let me read it to you.

  Verily, Allah has purchased of the believers

  Their lives and their wealth

  For the price of Paradise,

  To fight in the way of Allah,

  To kill and get killed.

  It is a promise binding on the truth in the Torah,

  The Gospel and the Qur’an.

  Qur’an 9:11

  I say to you again, we shall fight in the way of Allah, kill and be killed and our reward will be entry into Paradise when the time comes. The fight continues. You will see. It’s not over yet.

  Day 38

  Mired in paperwork, Crane was slowly going through his in-tray. The plethora of reports, memos and notices were beginning to merge into each other and he decided he needed more coffee before he could finish the job. As he stood and stretched, a single piece of paper slid from the rickety pile on his desk and fell to the floor. Stooping to pick it up, Crane saw it was a report from Aspire Defence. Intrigued, he carried it with him through to the main office, where he found Kim in front of the white boards.